If you ask me
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news report 
Thursday May 09, 2002 20:40
by Malcolm Little
A report of todays protest and march coupled with some of my own general observations.
Today’s march passed of without incident, it was an impressive turnout, but I won’t hazard a guess at figures, and now I feel it is important to reflect upon the day’s march and several issues that it raises. Firstly, I feel that Globalise Resistance have been vindicated in calling for today’s protest, I for one felt all along that the only adequate responses the fascist tactics of the gardai was to immediately mount a demonstration so as to show them that freedom is not easily subdued.
As to today’s speakers, on the whole they were fairly mild in their remarks with Daithi Doolan and Ciaran Cuff engaging in some hollow phrase mongering for the upcoming election. I feel Joe Higgins deserve a special mention for making clear that the attack on Monday was not an isolated incident but in fact represented what is an inherent part of the strategy for building a corporate run Europe subservient to the market and its major beneficiaries.
However, I feel the protest raises some serious questions, chief among which is ‘what now?’. Anyone with a grain of sense and a pinch of experience knows that today’s protest will have no major effect on the gardai’s internal investigation. Also the government already has a draft bill for the appointment of a garda ombudsman and if they proceed to bring it into force after the elections well it will only be s superficial change, then what will today’s protest have achieved.
What is the objective of RTS, it is for at least a while to demonstrate that another world and way of life is possible. Which is both admirable and essential, but it is also futile so long as some sections of the movement insist that it is ‘non-political’. It is anything but non-political it is a challenge to the entire social system that we now live under which is why it needs to be better organised.
I too am of the firm belief that a better world is possible, but being the dinosaur that I am I believe that in order to realise this new world we need organisation and the old world will have to be removed by force. I also believe that ultimately it will be the working class who bring about this change, which is why I was extremely happy to see a lot of lads just of the building sites on the march today.
All in all I commend everyone who turned up today, I think we did make a point and we showed the gardai up for what they really are. But it’s not enough; if we want to change the world what do we do next? I most certainly don’t know, but I do know his much that united comrades we can face any challenge before is.
The old world is dying, the future is ours unite and fight!
Comments (9 of 9)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9'lads off the building sites...'..!!..? Wishful thinking in excelcius or a mirage or an illusion. The attendance was overwhelmingly middle class. What's the point of insinuating the working class into participation..?
Shut up. the protest was a sucess, dont bicker about it.
Prehaps othe people seen this but walking in the demo I saw at least 1 police office with no ID and walking up pearse st I seen 3 cops with No ID.
First 3 where the motorbike officers and there wasn't ID on their jackets. Is this allowed?
And the other one was standing by one of the undergover vans with No ID again on there jacket,
While the other cops had their ID's on the jackets.
After monday surely they should have coped on by now.
to jack,
THERE IS NO IRISH WORKING CLASS LEFT!
the true, decent and politicised workers of connolly's era are gone. all that is left are..
1) the lumpenproletariat, the collaborators, dole spongers and scumbags
2) the lower middle class, working students outside the bourgeois trade unions, alienated individuals, vigilantes, and non-carrerist activists.these are the people that have minds, have a political conscience and will lead themselves, not in the name of a non-existent working class, but under the banner of an intelligent, radical and violent collective committed to forcing OUR type of freedom on the fascistic church-state-capital axis.
The audience was not overwhelmingly middle class.
Did you even walk up to Wood Quay?
It sounds to me like you weren't even there.
Jack you are a fool and a tool.
On the other hand what a waste of time.
Rabbiting on about free buses/ socialism.
"We agreed to leave at eight."
we could have done whatever we wanted.
why did we do nothing?
I thought the protest was much more mixed, Malcolm's "lads of the building sites" is a colourful way of putting it, but I think he was right. Most of the people there were middle class and students (the students and banners hanging out the windows of trinity for instance) but it was a much more mixed crowd than Monday was.
I don't think anything will really change from it though. And that guy with the megaphone walking up dame street should have just shut up and let us make out own noise. when it's one guy hogging the megaphone, there's no incentive for anyone to start a chant of their own. yesterday felt much less empowering than monday.
we didn't need leaders on monday...
I agree the megaphone really got on my nerves.
Balvinder, why the bile? I was there from begining to end. I made a counter observation. that's all. Are you working class? How is it defined these days anyway? I lament the fact that the real working classes, the ones that are ghettoised in the 'flats' are not agitated and not motivated to participate. Instead, they are passively nourished on an insidious tabloid diet imported from Britain where it is heavily complicit in maintaining the establishment and xenophobic divisiveness. Slow down man,don't rush to judgement based on a couple of possibly ambiguous lines.
In your second comment you make some vary valid points jack, however your first comment was completely mistaken. I suppose the working class is defined as anyone who survives by selling their labour power addmitadley this is quite formulaic.
So instead I shall use anecdotal evidence, there were at least 15 lads at the front of the march wearing 'snickers' clothing, which as you may know is what sparks(electricians) have to wear. On top of that, and unusually for sparks, they were covered in dirt which leads me to the conclusion that they had just come of site.
As well as that, my self being working class, I had a number of friends from home on the march not to mention other people I knew from Finglas and Ballyfermot. Just to set the record straight.
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