Research seminar: Robert Allen

dublin | sci-tech | event notice Tuesday March 23, 2004 17:19 by Laurence Cox - community-research group laurence.cox at may dot ie

A Sense of Place: Irish Community Resistance to the Globalisation of Hazard

Wed., April 21st, 11 am - 1 pm

Crolly Room, St Patrick's building, S. Campus, NUI Maynooth

Talk, powerpoint presentation and discussion

All welcome
Admission free

A Sense of Place: Irish Community Resistance to the Globalisation of Hazard by Robert Allen (first delivered at UCC, March 4, 2004, published in Blue http://www.bluegreenearth.com)

Abstract:

Irish community opposition to the globalisation of hazard – industries that pollute and poison – has gone through radical change since its first battles against state and industry in the early 1970s. After two decades of conflict, which did not prevent the globalisation of Irish society, the atavistic nature of the protest has begun to employ new techniques and different strategies. Communities are locally committed but globally oriented and wise; the issues are no longer environmental or social, they are now about injustice – and communities are beginning to realise that their sense of place is more important than anything else, if only because there is no place left to go.

Robert Allen is the author of No Global: The People of Ireland versus the Multinationals, Pluto Press, London/Sterling/Dublin, published in April 2004.

Biography


Robert Allen is an author, journalist, researcher, publisher and media- activist. His books include Billy, Penguin, 1986; Guests of the Nation, Earthscan, 1990; Waste Not Want Not, Earthscan, 1992; No Global, Pluto, 2004; The Dioxin War, Pluto, 2004; (and forthcoming), Ricochet (short fiction), 2004; Rendezvous with Rousseau (novel), 2005; Ireland Unbound [with Éanna Dowling], 2005 and From Byzantium to Beal Atha na Sluaighe, 2005. He has also written several specialist reports, including Water Pollution and Sea Dump Operations in Cork Harbour: a preliminary report, Greenpeace, 1988; Air Pollution in Ireland, An Talamh Glas, 1992; Stop Legal Pollution, Greenpeace, 1993; Air Pollution: An Overview, ATG 1996; Untitled report on the environmental and social consequences of a chemical factory explosion in England, TC Publications, 1996; and Respiratory Illness and Air Pollution, ATG, 1997. He was the co-publisher and co-editor of Pobal an Dulra, a weekly newsletter specialising in eco-social empowerment, in the mid- 1990s. He works as a sub-editor with the Sunday Times in London; as a co-editor of Bluegreenearth; as a media activist with An Talamh Glas, an autonomous collective based in several countries; and as a director with Seanchai Media, an information resource, publisher and agency for authors specialising in radical eco-social and social paradigms.

Historians proclaim that the hidden history of Ireland contains the lamentable stories of community revolts, people seeking to prevent civilisation's insidious progress, while trying to retain a sense of community, a sense of place, and a way of life that allows them to make their own decisions about economic and social development.

Some, like Sean O'Faolain, put this down to the kind of people that we are. Writing about pagan celtic society, he described the celtic Irish mind as 'atavistically indestructible, [with] an ineradicable love of individual liberty'. If one word describes the history of the community opposition to the globalisation of Ireland it is 'atavistic'. And the poor man would probably turn in his grave if he knew that those with a sense of place lost the big match to the big hitters of globalisation.

Yet, there's the possibility of a re-match. The atavistic
among us are doing a little bit of lateral thinking while
acknowledging the words of Arthur Schopenhauer: 'Truth
passes through three stages,' he said. 'First it is
ridiculed; second it is opposed; and third it is accepted
as self-evident.' And the truth about globalisation is
starting to make Irish communities think a little
differently from the generations that have come and gone.

Tom Collins sees the nature of the society that is now emerging amongst the atavistic as, he said, 'one which has a renewed interest in traditional Irish society, but has rejected its caricature; it equates personal growth with social commitment; it espouses spirituality but discards religiosity; it is committed to democracy but distrusts politicians; it has fundamental commitment to work but is likely to be unemployed; it is locally committed but globally oriented; it is coming from the outside in rather from the inside out'.

This is a far cry from the days when a whole different set of factors determined our society – like the perpetuation of the civil war divide; the tribal nature of political allegiances; clientelism; the influence of religion and the church on the Irish political model; the nature of Irish liberalism; the hypocritical notion of family; the discrediting for ideological reasons of previous philosophical and political models (De Valera's vision of a self sufficient Ireland, for example); the failure to provide radical alternatives within the mainstream political process; the impact of the western capitalist model on Irish society and the baleful influence of centralised structures, thinking and agenda setting. The history of alternative forms of political expression was thus diluted, dispersed and kept apart from mainstream politics in Ireland, no matter who ruled.

It was Liam Mellows who said that 'Ireland, to be free, must be as free from the domination of alien thought as from alien armies of occupation'. Yet these affirmations have echoed through generations, have scorched the fervent hearts and hurt the tortured minds of successive Irish thinkers. As the dusk fell on the 19th century Douglas Hyde, advocating the de-anglicisation of Ireland, said 'we must teach ourselves not to be ashamed of ourselves'. More than a century later 'the crushing force of capitalism', as James Connolly described it, is still with us. We are ashamed of ourselves because we could not free ourselves from capitalist colonialism or what we would now call globalisation and everything it stands for. Such freedom however will be impossible until we question what we mean when we say we are Irish, what we mean when we say we are European and what Irishness means to the rest of the world at the dawn of the 21st century – if indeed it means anything at all.

Does it mean we are condemned to remain a people with the language, culture and values of foreign cultures or does it mean we are, as Michel Peillon put it, a 'mutation', poisoned by the materialism and opportunism of the capitalist system with no hope of cleansing ourselves, no hope of becoming what we instinctively know we are – a celtic nation? Discovering our roots, reviving our language, harvesting our culture and rejecting alien influences may no longer be possible in an Irish society dominated by forces that use multi-media technology and practice globalisation.

Thomas Kenneth Whitaker and Sean Lemass promised us economic and social prosperity back in 1958. What we got instead was massive injections of US multinational direct investment, which has made us the most dependent of all nations on the flows of global capital. The Republic of Ireland, barely 60 years old, became, in the early 1980s, the most globalised economy in the developed world. As the anti- globalisation movement gathered worldwide, many people in Ireland were concerned about the vulnerability of their nation to the whims of international investors. By the end of the 1990s Ireland had enjoyed annual growth rates of up to 11%, unemployment under 5% and the paramilitaries in the north were on ceasefire. For all of these short-term positives, people lamented the disintegration of community.

Homelessness soared, habitats were plundered for development and Irish families suffered from the pressures of sudden affluence. Banks lent freely to those who joined in, the Irish people ran up the highest levels of personal debt in the world, 'relative poverty' increased and one in four of the adult population could not read or write properly. As Ireland embraced the joys of the modern world – motorways, mobiles, and porn in the corner shop, the fabric of the environment and society was threatened.

There is a myth that we are born political or become political animals through some personal process. If we are apolitical it is because nothing has made us think or concern ourselves with politics. Our politics are defined not by our own lives but how hierarchical elites perceive them to be – for their interests. The African forest tribes were intensely political because the decisions which affected their lives were taken by themselves. Now we leave the political decisions to strangers, while our single issue campaigns are like flaming meteorites falling to earth in wondrous martyrdom. The 1970s, 80s and early 90s saw a plethora of groups emerge in Irish urban and rural life, operating either on the national stage or at community level. These groups spanned the social spectrum and focused on green, personal, political and social activity, yet they were all doomed to failure.

The problem facing community groups remains the same in the 2000s as it had been in the 1970s, 80s and 90s – the paradoxical journey they must undertake to make their voices heard. According to Tony Varley 'community action in Ireland owes its marginal position to the stance politicians and the state have adopted towards it'. Despite the seemingly formidable collective force that these self-empowerment groups have become there is, argues Varley, 'no concerted will' by the state to involve them in mainstream politics. Varley is not alone in his political analysis of community groups and neither is he expressing an extreme view when he notes that 'many present-day politicians fear the disparate community movement, even the tendency based on inclusive/integrationist assumptions, as a potentially alternative non- party power base in Irish society'.

Yet this fear tells us more about the paranoia of Irish politicians because the disparity is paradigmatic itself; these groups represent communities on their last legs. And like battle weary combatants, bloodied, bruised and broken, many of these communities have no fight left.

Self-empowerment alone is not enough to break the pattern. Paradoxically many observers believe that community action gives the larger community the impression that something is being done when in fact all it is doing is diluting the positive and negative attitudes to State policy.

For Michael 'Mitey' McNally, in his roles with the Allihies Resource Development Group and the Irish Rural Link, the question in the early 1990s before the Celtic Tiger expansion was a simple one. 'The vibrancy,' he said, 'that keeps us people alive is one of our major strengths. Are we going to allow the government to enforce developments that destroy our way of life?'

Paddy Lowney and Kevin O'Sullivan, farmers working small holdings in the Allihies area, agreed. 'Ireland,' they said, 'is a nation of small fields and small farmers, a people who love the land and landscape. We insist that we must keep this aspect of ourselves, because in the long-term future it will be our greatest asset. As it is, the system of government and EC policy seems to be more against us than for us.'

Mary Robinson acknowledged this when she visited Allihies in June 1990 on the first leg of her Presidential election campaign. 'We haven't seen,' she said, 'the development of policies which are sufficiently in tune with the community that they are impacting on or affecting.'

John Waters, whose perception during the presidential election allowed him to see what was actually happening in Ireland, argued that these communities are, he said, 'in reality part of a pervasive energy which represents the beginning of a reseeding of the democratic process'. McNally was both right and wrong. The vibrancy is still there and it has begun to emerge again in the past few years, two decades after the first battles against the forces of globalisation. These battles would define the opposition to the hazards of globalisation in particular; as Hilary Tovey put it, one was an 'official' urban-based movement that relied on expert knowledge to resolve problems – as An Taisce once did, the other was a 'populist' rural movement that used whatever means possible to achieve their aims.

This is an important distinction to make because communities by themselves have been no match for industry and state. Despite more open government and a greater understanding among communities about the crucial issues, nothing has changed in fin de siècle Ireland. Communities are still having developments and hazards, such as incinerators, imposed on them. The only difference now is their response.

Anthropologist Adrian Peace has described the community opposition to hazardous and undesirable development as 'local level developments' that are 'brief, volcanic eruptions'. They have, he said, 'exhibited extensive oratorical elaboration but little organisational structure'.

The same argument can be applied to the green movement, who have not covered themselves in glory during the battles against hazard. Peace's analysis of the intercourse between communities and their green allies is based on his anthropological studies – and so represents a credible rather than a sensational history. 'Those involved,' he said, 'have had no need for the scripts of "movement intellectuals", since they are relatively at ease in constructing their own discourses. They have failed to develop major political programmes since this is rarely, if ever, a part of what they have proposed to do.'

The reason for this is obvious. Opposition movements are generated, according to Peace, 'to defend ways of life, community identities, economic interests, people's rights, a sense of integrity and pride, and much else besides'. The issue is about the web of diverse issues. 'To reduce,' he said, 'these concerns to mere elements of an Irish environmental movement would be to identify only the lowest common denominator.'

The green movement's inability to understand this aspect of opposition to globalisation has meant that any political analysis of the state's economic and industrial policies has been left, in Ireland, to parliamentary parties such as Sinn Fein and the Socialist Party – and their mandates have never allowed them to do more than make token gestures. It should be argued that a movement, such as that of the greens that claims to oppose industrialisation because of its impact on both the biodiversity of the planet and the health of all its species, would be capable of mounting a successful strategy against polluting industry coupled with alternatives to the economic and social policies of the state. The history of opposition to hazardous and undesirable development in Ireland reveals that individuals have proposed such strategies but the greens, as an authoritarian and hierarchical movement, have failed to adopt them. This has been evident amidst the various community campaigns. Peace again:

'The extent to which local groups are able to mount effective forms of opposition is determined by their ability to interpret, assess, and process the variegated bodies of knowledge available to them in complex cultures. This involves contesting the political discourses of development, growth, and progress – which are, above all, the weapons of the powerful – which also engages the broader population on their own discursive terms. The language of the powerful has to be contested, while at the same time the language of the powerless must be confirmed.

This entails an infinitely more difficult task than that faced by corporations and institutions commanding economic and political power, for theirs is only to insist that in late industrial society, the authority of technical rationality remains unsurpassed and, quoting Foucault, that truth "is centered on the form of scientific discourse and the institutions which produce it".'

Communities, with few exceptions, have done it all on their own, in their own ways. Where the green movement has got involved the opposition has become diluted. In many instances, instead of lending advice and support, as the anti-Carnsore anarchists once did, the green movement has attempted to control the discourse of protest. No better example of this came during the campaign to prevent Du Pont building a toxic waste incinerator at its Maydown factory in Derry. Despite the presence of almost 70 autonomous groups, Greenpeace tried everything in its power to wrestle control of the campaign and to lead it so that it could claim the glory in victory and donations from its admirers for its adventurous stance. It never occurred to Greenpeace that the groups needed the NGO's experience on incineration so that they could fight the battle on their own terms. In the end the local Donegal and Derry groups won because they defeated Du Pont with an economic argument; the science Greenpeace wanted to use was not needed.

The Du Pont and Sandoz (now Novartis) campaigns epitomised the green movement's one-dimensional approach to the issue of environmental protection and that of the health of the communities. Rarely during the campaigns did the green movement see the whole picture or even the brush strokes at the edges of the canvas. All they could see was the need to engage in a direct, vainglorious conflict with the state and industry. There was no lateral thinking to their approach. Against Sandoz, where the green movement was in the vanguard of the opposition, the corporate won. Against Du Pont, where the autonomous groups were in control, the corporate lost.

The failure of the green movement to recognise social, economic, political and emotional factors in its campaigning repeatedly has allowed its detractors to discredit its arguments, particular because few environmentalists take radical perspectives or can argue credibly about how the country should be run. Local autonomous democracy is not an integral aspect of their campaigning. Greens in Ireland tend to be bourgeois in their orientation and careerist in their outlook with little understanding of life in a low-income family or on a council estate or what it is like to work in or live near a chemical factory. Community groups without the direction of the greens always fared better than their allies because they were, at least up to the late 1980s, dogged and persistent, and because their non-violent (and sometimes violent) actions challenged government and industry in a manner that reflected the seriousness of their concerns.

Because they have never had a global agenda, like the larger green NGOs such as Greenpeace, and start off largely apolitical, community groups can oppose proposals for hazardous development with an increased mandate from within their own communities.

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s the state and industry frequently underestimated the strength and tenacity of the communities opposed to its proposals, content instead to attempt to discredit the likes of Greenpeace and latterly Cork Environmental Alliance because these groups sought a vanguardist position in the power relations between the state and the environment, failing to understand that the issues were not solely about the environment – that they were also about human rights and social conditions. It is this combination that is now forcing a new response, a new vibrancy, from communities. They have now become human rights issues, and the community resistance to the globalisation of hazard, in particular, has reached a new level. The war against the first phase of this globalisation, the establishment of the chemical industry, was lost back in the early 1990s when Sandoz defeated what seemed at the time like a mighty opposition. The skirmishes that have continued, such as the community opposition to the pollution that has killed hundreds of animals in the Askeaton area of Limerick, have been dismissed by the state and its industrial allies.

Liam Somers' determination not to cowed by the state has been admirable, but what has been more relevant has been his stamina, his patience and his will to stand up in his community. He sumed this up when he said: 'If I can't live on my farm, the fella next door can't live on it either. They have to sort it out. This is my family farm and I can't leave.'

The latest skirmish down the road here in Ringaskiddy is another example of the state's attitude to the wishes of the people. But the history of this campaign reveals a different pattern. In April 2001 Minchem, the hazardous waste disposal company set up in 1977 – becoming part of the Belgian Indaver group in November 1999 – and one of the state's contenders in 1989 to build a national toxic waste incinerator, phoned Braham Brennan of the Ringaskiddy & District Residents Association. They didn't identify themselves, other than to state they were a new industry wanting to locate in the area and could they meet the Ringaskiddy group in the Maryborough House Hotel to talk about their plans. Audrey Hogan, secretary of the group, recalled what happened. 'Five of us arrived up to meet them and that was the first we knew who they were. Then they announced to the public who they were. They wanted to come to the community centre in Ringaskiddy and put their plans on show but we objected to this and sent them a letter to say that we had no interest in meeting with them, and that they would never be welcome.'

Chastised by the community, Minchem/Indaver put their plans on display at the ferry terminal in Ringaskiddy on May 1, and began a series of 'information' meetings in Carrigaline, Crosshaven and Cobh to inform the communities that they planned to lodge an application with Cork County Council to build an incinerator that would handle 100,000 tonnes annually of hazardous waste. Indaver proposed to handle all the hazardous waste that was being exported for incineration. In 2001 that amounted to around 65,000 tonnes. The response from the communities was immediate. A silent protest was held at the ferry terminal and at each of the information meetings. 'We're willing,' said Braham Brennan, 'to take this to the courts, and we'll even go to Europe if we have to.'

Groups were formed to motivate the communities against the proposal. On September 5 they came together to form an alliance. A month later when the Carrigaline group decided to use the name Cork Harbour for a Safe Environment the other groups rallied under the umbrella banner of CHASE. Linda Fitzpatrick, who had been the public relations officer for the Carrigaline group, and Sean Cronin, who was acting as its chair, inherited the same positions with CHASE. The following month the company lodged its application with Cork County Council. In response the objections began to pour into county hall. 'As a group,' Linda Fitzpatrick explained, 'CHASE lobbied local and national politicians, met party leaders, got party policies changed and clarified, held information meetings, brought in expert speakers, raised general awareness, and submitted detailed objections.'

One of the first responses of the groups to Indaver's initiative to involve the community was to accept an invitation to visit the corporate's operations in Belgium for two days at the end of February. Mary O’Leary, Alan Navratil and Carmel Cronin from CHASE; John Howard of the Ringaskiddy Residents Association; Carmel Conroy of Cobh; Howard Crowdy, a reporter with the Southern Star; Martin Mullane of Glanbia, Kilkenny, Councillor Tom Tuohy of Haulbowline and John Bray of Glaxo-Smith-Kline were shown recycling parks, a 100,000 tonne municipal waste incinerator with energy recovery, a separation facility, two 45,000 tonne rotary kiln incinerators for liquid or solid industrial and hazardous waste, an 8,000 tonne static kiln specifically for highly chlorinated (30-40%) liquid material and a municipal waste and ash recovery facility. Carmel Cronin, in a report to the communities back in Cork, noted that the community recycling park they had been shown would be similar to Indaver's proposed facility for Ringaskiddy. 'This consists,' she said, 'of a huge tarmacadamed area similar to a big car park with skips and drop off stations for the various waste streams.' Of more significance to the group were the comments of the incinerator plant manager who admitted that a decrease in waste affected its operation. He also told the group that the cost per tonne of recycling was considerably less than cost per tonne of incineration. They also learned that the recycling rates in the communities had risen from 21% to 66%, which it had remained constant since 1999, prompting the comment from Carmel Cronin: 'This begs the question "could this be improved upon if the incinerator did not exist necessitating a constant feed at high fixed costs to the operator"?' On the second day the group were taken to see the hazardous waste facilities in Antwerp. Cronin reported what happened. 'Whilst we were there a large shipment of toxic waste came in from Luxembourg. We were told that 10 per cent of toxic waste is IMPORTED. If this is the case in the heartland of a heavily industrialised country, with a large petrochemical and polymer chemical industry to name a few, what guarantee is there that toxic waste will not be imported into Ringaskiddy?'

After being told that routine checks are made on employees to ascertain any build-up of pollutants or heavy metals, the group asked if body fat was measured for the build up of lipophilic, fat-soluble organics. According to Cronin 'there was a vague but negative reply'.

With the 2002 general election only months away the incinerator became a political issue. In Cork East and Cork South Central, the two constituencies closest to the proposed incinerator, every candidate, including Health Minister Micheal Martin, declared, in their election literature, that they were against the proposal. Not one candidate, including those from Fianna Fail, came out in favour of it. And every non-government candidate declared their party firmly against incineration. 'At the same time,' said Fitzpatrick, 'there was a level of apathy in communities such as Carrigaline. The old chestnut of the pharmachem industry raises its head again and again. People are not keen to voice objection to the incinerator if it could be seen as objection to the pharmachem industry, and thus their jobs.' This did not stop the communities from submitting 20,000 objections to the council as the debate about incineration and the need for a toxic waste incinerator in Ringaskiddy gathered momentum throughout 2002 and into the Spring and Summer months of 2003.

Despite this opposition it was clear when the politicians came around to discussing incineration again during the Protection of the Environment Bill in February 2003 the state had made up its mind and was doing everything it could to pave the way for incineration. Senator Paddy Burke, of Fine Gael, discussing the bill in the Seanad on February 13 realised this:

The Minister spoke on national radio before he introduced
the Bill to the House when he gave the impression that
incineration was the way to go. He stated there were 16 or
17 incinerators in a country like Denmark which has a
population of much the same size. The Bill seems to be all
about incineration. When Senator O'Rourke spoke, she said
it all. She said landfill would not work and that she was
not for incineration but what will we do? She said we were
coming too late as a nation to recycling but it is never
too late. Her comments lead me to believe the Bill is
totally about incineration.

Two days later Fianna Fail's Martin Cullen summed up the
state's position on incineration:

As politicians, we had better begin to understand about
what we are talking when we refer to incineration. We are
not talking about traditional incineration facilities
associated in the public mind with mass burning. No such
facilities will ever be built here. They would not be
acceptable to the government or to any political party. The
facilities in question have taken a huge leap in terms of
technology and treatment, even in the past three to five
years. Having addressed the waste problem so late, we have
enormous difficulties in our waste management systems.
Nevertheless, we are probably lucky because the technology
we will introduce will be so advanced as to allow us to
have managed facilities with very marginal emissions.

The following month, in response to a request for advice
from Cork Council, the Health and Safety Authority agreed
with Cullen. 'On the basis of the information the council
has supplied to the authority and the information obtained
directly from Indaver Ireland, the authority does not
advise against the granting of planning permission in the
context of major accident hazards,' the HSA said in a
report submitted to the council. The HSA, CHASE said, had
missed the point. 'We would consider accidents to include
fugitive emissions, even though the HSA did not consider
routine emissions. We would urge councillors to take the
true risks into consideration if it comes before them,'
said Linda Fitzpatrick. On 24 March Cork's planners said
they had no objection to Indaver's application. They
referred to a Health Research Board report, which claimed
'that modern incinerators, properly operated and
controlled, met environmental standards set down by an EU
directive'. All that was left in the way of the council was
their own County Development Plan, which excluded merchant
incineration and landfill in industrialised areas. 'In
order to grant planning permission,' Fitzpatrick explained,
'a material contravention of the existing County
Development Plan is required as the proposed site is not
currently zoned for industrial use.' County manager Maurice
Moloney confirmed that the council would seek a material
contravention of the County Development Plan. Fitzpatrick
said they were 'optimistic' that the councillors would vote
against the material contravention, but Indaver's managing
director John Ahern said they planned to apply to the EPA
for a licence in April and would appeal to Bord Pleanála if
the council vote went against them. On May 26, 2003 Cork's
councillors voted by 30 to 13 against it. CHASE rejoiced
momentarily. 'Members of CHASE are pleased with the outcome
of this vote,' Mary O’Leary said. 'Cork County Councillors
recognise the sentiment in Cork harbour, and the risks
associated with this incinerator, and they have reflected
the will of the people in their vote.' What worried CHASE
was the planning board's decision to allow Indaver to go
ahead with their municipal incinerator in county Meath,
despite a recommendation from the appeal inspector to
refuse it. What shocked them were the contents of Indaver's
Integrated Pollution Control licence that showed the
corporate wanted to burn 400 tonnes of asbestos waste a
year. What spurred them on was the knowledge that Cork
communities had won before, and could win again. 'This
proposal should not be allowed to proceed, and having
defeated it at this first stage, it will provide motivation
to Cork people to continue the fight for as long as
necessary,' O'Leary announced, aware that once again the
communities plus the combined forces of state and industry
would face each other in another mighty verbal battle.

An Bord Pleanála's decision to allow Indaver to go ahead is
clearly a political one, for it is a nonsense to say that
the state actually understands or even knows anything about
the toxicity of the emissions that come out of
incinerators. Still, this is a battle that has not ended.

CHASE's tactics mirror those of the groups who fought and
defeated Merrell Dow in east Cork back in 1989. This is the
reseeding of the democratic process John Waters spoke about
and we may start to see it this year and next, with an
electoral response to the politicians who blindly follow
the yellow brick road to globalisation's golden horizon.
Those with creative minds might argue that that horizon is
a metaphor for incineration, that it is actually a fiery
hell we are all going to burn in. The atavistic among us
would probably choose a different metaphor. The yellow
brick road, they might say, is leading out of town and we
don't need to take it towards any horizon, for our lives
are rooted in community – and community is right here with
our sense of place. And yes we need jobs in our place but
we don't need pollution, poison and politics.

What I would like to do now is go all academic or maybe
political on you and present a summary of ideas I believe
are the positive steps communities must take to improve
their involvement in these conflicts, towards making a
sense of place co-exist comfortably with resistance to
globalisation. I see sense of place as a crucial aspect of
future resistance.

1: Communities should source information themselves and not
rely on outside expert witness except as sources of
information and knowledge.

2: Communities should learn to combine plausible expert
knowledge with credible local knowledge to raise awareness
firstly in their own environment, secondly among the wider
local population and thirdly among the national population.

3: Once they have sourced the expert knowledge they need to
get it into the public domain and establish that it is both
credible and plausible knowledge. That should be done using
regular public meetings, use of the media (audio, print and
electronic) and word of mouth. The knowledge should become
ubiquitous in the local environment.

4: This expert knowledge should cover the economic, legal,
political and social spectrum. It should include legal and
planning precedents, as well as statements in the Dail and
Senate and elsewhere by politicians, and information from
every possible source and perspective.

5: This knowledge should also include the history of
community opposition to undesirable and hazardous
development in Ireland.

6: Links should be established with other groups, locally,
regionally and nationally, especially with groups and
individuals who are involved in anti-globalisation
awareness, campaigns and protests.

7: Communities should not work in isolation of both local
and national government, particularly development board and
council plans, plus state body initiatives.

8: Communities should consider the constitutional
ramifications of hazardous development in the context of
their rights as Irish people and their human rights under
the UN Declaration of Human Rights.

9: Communities should run their campaigns as autonomous
assemblies making use of the diverse social skills
available among their own people and among the wider
population, rotating roles and workload.

10: Communities should make chains of communication,
publicly and privately, with everyone involved with a
campaign, pro and con, no matter how central or peripheral
they are.

11: Communities must realise that they need a whole lot of
time, patience, commitment, perseverance and confidence to
run a campaign.

12: And luck ...