Christopher Owens  ✍ was at the Crescent Arts Centre, Belfast on 23-March-2024 to listen toa live podcast delving into the world of loyalism.


A wet and drizzly Saturday night in Belfast. A scenario I’m all too familiar with and one that, if you allowed it, would prevent you from doing or attending anything of note. And with the Shrapnel Podcast doing a live recording, there is no excuse for laziness.

Advertised as sold out, the audience are an eclectic bunch, some of whom look around the room quite a bit. Not in a nosy manner but more along the lines of realising that they’re not the only ones who have such interests and finding relief in that.

The following took to the stage:

๐Ÿ–ผ Sam McIlwaine and Gareth Mulvenna (Shrapnel Podcast hosts)

๐Ÿ–ผ Davy Adams (former Ulster Democratic Party spokesperson)

๐Ÿ–ผ Emma Shaw (founder/CEO of the Phoenix Education Centre)

๐Ÿ–ผ Beano Niblock (playwright/author)


Beginning the talk by asking how each member of the panel would define loyalism, Davy is quick to point out that he doesn’t consider himself as either a loyalist or unionist anymore as he no longer has time for tribal loyalties, so his allegiances lie with his family and his community. Beano takes a different approach by saying that he would still consider himself a unionist but more of an orphaned one and that, once upon a time, the term he would have used was working class loyalist, but it doesn’t mean the same to him as it did in 1971.

Emma uses these moments to illustrate her belief that loyalism is a broad church but one that is based on family and service to the community and one that has been maligned over the years not just through a hostile media but also from mainstream unionist politicians who were all too happy to goad loyalists into doing their dirty work. The end result of this, according to Emma, is a belief that young people from loyalist backgrounds are disadvantaged educationally and in the job market.

This leads to Davy declaring that the term ‘loyalist’ was created by unionist politicians to differentiate between ‘respectable’ unionism and loyalism (although Sam emphasises that people have to take responsibility for their own actions), thus anyone who raised their head above the parapet were swiftly disowned and castigated as Lundys. Beano notes that this fractured unionism sends out a variety of mixed messaging (who do you vote for, what do they deliver) which makes it difficult to have a united front and, although Emma defends the right for voters to have choice, Davy and Sam bring up the fact that if there was one PUL party, how would it cater to those (like Sam) who would see themselves as left wing?

From a nationalist perspective, this diverse/fractured (whichever term you want to use) perspective can be frustrating as it means that if you ask three unionists/loyalists about their views, you’ll get three differing views back. Sam correctly identified some social issues that are divisive (same sex marriage, abortion) but you can also add the status of Northern Ireland as well: is it as British as Finchley or is it something else entirely? With nationalism/republicanism, there are of course similar debates, but the key is that the end result is Ireland being free from British rule. As pointed out by Enoch Powell 40 odd years ago, the ambiguous nature of relations between NI and Britain has never been truly resolved by unionists/loyalists and, to some, this uncertainty can seem like goalpost moving at times. So it’s great to see the panel openly discussing some of these angles.

Moving onto culture, Beano points out that many loyalists feel that Gaelic culture is being elevated and imposed upon them. Although Davy responds to this with derision by asking why anyone would feel threatened by Gaelic culture (especially when it was kept alive by Irish Presbyterians), Emma manages to tease out the nuances in the debate by discussing the GAA pitch in East Belfast and how resources have been allocated to it over other initiatives which could help the people of the East improve their lot in life via education or employment. She is keen to stress that she has no problem with people wanting to join the GAA or learn to speak Irish, but the perception that these projects have had a substantial amount of money thrown at them because they tick the boxes of what funders are looking for is one that has annoyed the local community.

I have to admit, this is a very interesting angle that I had not considered before. Anyone who is familiar with the gymnastics and conformity that is required when applying for funding will be all too aware of what is being discussed here. We have also seen how such rigid conformity has led to ridiculous situations where students of Asian descent are being denied places in universities (despite scoring highly in tests) because of diversity quotas.

Emma reveals that, in the school where she is on the Board of Governors, there are over 20 languages spoken by the pupils (which, in theory, would make it an integrated school) but because it is classed as a state school, it is not entitled to funding from the IEF (Integrated Education Fund). She also brings up Lagan College (the first integrated school in the country) and, tying it back to her views on funding, points out that although the College likes to advertise itself as being oversubscribed (with the implication that people are fighting to get into the school) the reality is that several schools in the East have closed (such as Orangefield High School and Lisnasharragh High). So not only is it not a surprise that Lagan has high levels of applications, but that kids in the area have to be bussed out to other schools due to these closures.

Sadly, this is true. In 2015, the Belfast Telegraph revealed that:

…seven children from east Belfast had not been able to get a place at a local secondary. They were forced to travel either across the city to Breda Academy, which would mean two different buses, or go outside Belfast to Dundonald or Newtownards.

While there is an argument to be made that offering alternative environments for children to be educated is a good thing, this should be at the behest of the parents and the pupil themselves.

This moved into (what has been described as) the myth that Protestant youth weren’t interested in education, which everyone on the panel greatly dispute. Davy reminisces how education was very much drilled into him from a young age while Emma reveals that, as part of her PhD, she surveyed various primary and post-primary schools in Protestant areas and found that 98% of those she engaged with made it clear that they were very much encouraged by their parents and teachers to succeed in education.

Going to the Q&A section, my question about the possibility of loyalism becoming a populist movement (similar to what we’ve seen in the USA and, to a lesser extent, the south) is greeted with scepticism by Emma, noting that it would take a singular figure to unite the warring elements within unionism/loyalism (i.e. a Trump like figure). Davy describes populism as a threat to democracy (which, although I can see where he’s coming from, I’m not 100% sure I agree with him).

I am glad to say that the discussion on stage tonight was robust, intricate, level-headed, questioning and diverse. Each panellist represented a different strand within loyalism and weren’t afraid to ask each other difficult questions or tease out scenarios where they felt issues of class were far more relevant than loyalism (such as housing, education and employment) a very welcome approach and much more in the spirit of cross-community than a lot of the funding bodies set up to deal with such issues.

Amazing, the things you can find in your city if you venture out on a wet and drizzly Saturday night.


Listen to the Shrapnel Podcast here.

⏩ Christopher Owens was a reviewer for Metal Ireland and finds time to study the history and inherent contradictions of Ireland. He is currently the TPQ Friday columnist.

Loyalism ๐Ÿ”ด Alternative Voices — Shrapnel Podcast Live

Ten links to a diverse range of opinion that might be of interest to TPQ readers. They are selected not to invite agreement but curiosity. Readers can submit links to pieces they find thought provoking.


Lynx By Ten To The Power Of Nine Hundred And Thirty Eight

 

A Morning Thought @ 2104

Gaels Against Genocide In Gaza ✊with news of a solidarity event planned for Dublin. on 3 April 2024.
Gaels Against Genocide In Gaza



End The Genocide Now

Ten links to a diverse range of opinion that might be of interest to TPQ readers. They are selected not to invite agreement but curiosity. Readers can submit links to pieces they find thought provoking.


Before We Conform, Or Condemn, Let Us At Least Be Curious


One recognizes one's course by discovering the paths that stray from it - Albert Camus♞ 

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of Nine Hundred And Thirty Seven

Caoimhin O’Muraile ☭ Over the years women have rightly so fought for their rights often supported by their male colleagues. 

From the days of the “Women’s Social and Political Union”, the Suffragettes and the fight for the vote to more resent campaigns for equality in various walks of life. The WSPU were formed in 1903, Manchester, by Emmeline Pankhurst and unlike their predecessors, or parent organisation it could be argued, the Suffragists were predominantly, though not exclusively working-class women. 

The Suffragettes' main reason for existence was to secure the vote for all women, especially the working-class which is where they differed from the earlier middle-class, Suffragists or officially the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies formed by Millicent Garrett Fawcett in the mid-19th century. The Suffragettes also took more than a passing interest in the working conditions endured by women as the second Industrial Revolution moved along. In 1913 Suffragette, Emily Davidson, threw herself under the King's horse at the Epsom Derby forcing the abandonment or postponement of the race but costing Emily her life. The WSPU believed in violent means to achieve their goals including petrol bombing MPs homes and throwing bricks at policemen. When put in prison the women went on hunger strike and were often force fed using inhuman methods, a tactic used by the British on Irish republican prisoners later on.

The NUWSS or Suffragists as they were commonly known were much more peaceful than the latter Suffragettes. Their methods included petitions and talking nicely to male MPs about women’s suffrage. They were made up of middle-class women and their campaign was for the vote for middle-class women with property qualifications over the age of thirty. They cared little for the use of violence and actually opposed such methods later adopted by the working-class Suffragettes. They cared equally little for the plight of working-class women or their right to vote which the Suffragists believed working-class women should not get. In 1918 under the “Representation of the People Act” the aims of the bourgeois Suffragists were reached when the vote was granted to women with property qualifications over the age of thirty. Not until 1928, in Britian, did women get universal suffrage. In the 26 counties all women received the vote in 1922 after the formation of the Irish Free State.

Today we see women’s groups not fighting for the vote but for equality. These groups are based very much on class lines in much the same way as the earlier models outlined above were. The orthodox or bourgeois feminists are middle-class driven and show little interest in their working-class co genderists working in sweatshops for shit wages. The orthodox feminists are more about promoting women’s equality in the Boardroom or in the financial sector such as banking. It could well be argued, in fact I would argue, that many of the bourgeois feminist demands have been met and even surpassed. For example women executives in large companies are now common place and many of these women can be and often are tyrannical as employers or managers. Some of these women with their new found powers are not and perhaps never were looking for equality but superiority over their male counterparts. In many boardrooms they have achieved this aim beyond doubt. If anybody watched the series; Mr Bates Vs the Post Office it could not be failed to notice most of the lying bosses in the Post Office who were persecuting and prosecuting the Sub-Post Masters, were in fact women. One of them even went to church preaching for the God Squad as a Deaconess on Sunday before returning to her full-time post of lying through her teeth on Monday. 

Not all the management team were women, there were men equally as culpable but much less convincing. This is just one example but as a former trade union negotiator and supporter of women’s rights and equality I did find negotiating with women bosses a harder job than negotiating with men as women tended to believe they had the right to ride rough shod over long-standing agreements. In many London local authorities most Senior Personnel Officers were, and no doubt still are, women with men as their juniors. The way some of these female Hitlers spoke to their underlings can only be described as misandry and if the boot was on the other foot there would be cries of misogyny from the roof tops. So in this area in many cases women have achieved not only equality, and rightly so, but superiority. Equality means the clock stops at six o’clock not five to six or five past six, but on the hour of six. This divides the clock into two ‘equal’ halves.

In the financial sector, Banking in particular, many managers are now women, that is if you can ever see a Bank manager, male or female, so it could be argued the middle-class feminist movement have made gains in this department. They appear to have no interest, apart from exploiting, working-class women or their plight.

In the world of parliamentary politics women have achieved a lot with Britain having had three female Prime Minister in a comparatively short period of time since 1979. This must reflect the advances women have made in this area. In Ireland Sinn Fein, the largest party in the six counties and the main opposition party in the 26 county Dail are led by two women, Mary Lou McDonald who is national SF President, and Michelle O’Neil, Vice President and leader of the party in the six counties. The Irish Labour Party is now led by a woman, Ivana Bacik and the Social Democrats are also led by a woman, Holly Cairns. Many independent TDs are women as the Dail slowly fills up with women TDs. This is progressive and if these women show the electorate that they have what it takes, that is in a liberal democratic sense where whoever spouts the most convincing hot air gets the backing of the electorate, and are elected then that’s good enough. 

This liberal democracy bollocks applies to men and women alike. In Germany since unification the first woman Chancellor, Angela Merkel, held office for sixteen years. All across the globe in various so-called parliaments women are ascending to the top positions. In the United States although there has not yet been a female President women and women’s voices can be heard increasingly around Congress. So in this department women have made huge gains, but they can only make these steps forward if elected. A far cry from Constance Markievicz becoming the first woman elected to the Westminster Parliament and Nancy Aster the first woman MP to take her seat in the same building. Markievicz was elected on an abstentionist platform in the 1918 general election for Sinn Fein. In the same election Sinn Fein stood another woman for East Belfast, her name was Winifred Carney, the former Secretary to trade union organiser and revolutionary, James Connolly. Carney was also a former member of the Irish Citizen Army. This was at a time when women entering elections, let alone getting elected was unheard of.

So, many gains have been made in the areas briefly outlined above. The orthodox feminist movement have achieved and even surpassed in some areas their goals. It must be wondered now, what exactly are these bourgeois Feminists ultimate aims, equality or superiority for women?

The gains made by women at the higher end of society are in stark contrast to the virtually non-existent advances made at the lower end. Marxist Feminists, the militant end of the working-class women’s movement have had a much less impact on the employers or society. This is no coincidence as the demise in trade union power weakens their arm also declines certainly in Britian. Marxist Feminists view women’s liberation in its true form as part of the overall class struggle. However, that does not mean women’s rights in the workplace should not be fought for on a daily basis. Many of these rights are denied working-class women by female bosses and CEOs whose lofty position is very much down to bourgeois Feminist groups and their bourgeois male supporters pressurising over the years. Many of these female middle-class bosses are bullies, this I have witnessed first-hand, bullying frightened female workers terrified of losing their jobs!

Back in 1976 until 1978 at the Grunwick Film Processing Plant in London a strike took place. It lasted two years and much police violence was meted out to pickets, many of them Asian Women. The strike was called over the dismissal of Devshi Bhudia from his job at the plant. The strike was also over union recognition and the right to negotiate. Many of those on strike, in fact a majority, were women many of them Asian migrant workers. Where were the orthodox Feminist groups then to fight for these women? Nowhere, nowhere to be seen or heard. Fortunately trade unionists from around the country rallied to the call including then Yorkshire NUM President, Arthur Scargill, who led thousands of miners onto the picket line alongside these women. Indian born Jayaben Desai, a striking woman and trade unionist, said: “The strike is not so much about pay, it’s a strike about human dignity”. The outcome of the strike was a House of Lords ruling that the employer did not have to recognise the union or negotiate. The employer did not have to reinstate workers, despite the Scarman Report recommending such compromises by the employer be made.

Another point of exploitation of workers and women in particular is the contract cleaning industry. Some women are working for a pittance of a wage having to do three or four jobs for these cowboy employers, what about equality here? Many supervisors in this industry are women from the petty bourgeois strata and bully their underlings, particularly migrant women workers. Where are the voices who cry so loud about women’s representation or, in their tunnel opinion lack of, in the higher echelons of society where are these people campaigning for the rights of young mothers having to work all hours to feed their children? Perhaps we should not only by looking at women’s equality with men but also women’s equality with women!

The early genuine pioneers of women’s rights at work, including union recognition and the right to a healthy working environment was fought for not by bourgeois feminist or Suffragist movements. These rights were fought for by the women workers and teenage girls, the working-class, at the Bryant and May match works factory in Bow, East London. This strike was almost unanimously women workers in 1888. This strike paved the way for what became known as ‘New Unionism’ meaning for the first-time unskilled workers could organise and win. Then, as now, the bourgeois Feminist groups could not care a fuck for their co-genderists in the working-class and they are out for women’s superiority, that is bourgeois women’s superiority which has little if anything to do with women’s equality across the board.
Caoimhin O’Muraile is Independent Socialist Republican and Marxist.

Women’s Equality or Superiority?

Kenan Malik ✒ writing in The Guardian. Recommended by Christopher Owens.


Forty years ago, a US historian claimed that social changes were severing communal bonds. He was right

‘The hope that political action will gradually humanise industrial society has given way to a determination to survive the general wreckage or, more modestly, to hold one’s own life together in the face of mounting pressures.” American historian and cultural critic Christopher Lasch’s pessimistic prognosis of the shifting relationship of individuals to society and to each other in The Minimal Self was published 40 years ago. It might have been written yesterday.

From the late 1970s, Lasch published a series of books, most notably The Culture of Narcissism, The Minimal Self and The Revolt of the Elites, that prefigured many contemporary debates, about culture wars, the rise of a “liberal elite”, the corrosiveness of individualism, the encroachment of the market into social life, the creation of a celebrity culture, the rise of a “therapeutic” mindset.

Lasch’s early writings in the 1960s were deeply inflected by Marxism. Over time, his sulphurous critique of liberalism and of the impact of the market led him towards more familiar conservative themes, especially the defence of tradition, a critique of feminism and a wariness of progress. 

Continue reading @ The Guardian.

We Think Loneliness Is In Our Heads, But Its Source Lies In The Ruin Of Civil Society

 

A Morning Thought @ 2103

Gowain McKenna ✍ If one looks beyond the words and placations of the political class in Ireland to instead focus on the policies and actions thereof, it is beyond clear that Ireland is fast becoming the ultimate neoliberal state. 

This is a death knell to the Irish people, her language, culture and way of life. In other words, a functional neoliberal state is one without goodness; a place where humanity, love and care are effectively lost on it’s people. To hopefully rectify this outcome we first must understand and define what neoliberalism actually means in the modern day.

In essence neoliberalism is a one dimensional strategy that seeks to transform every facet of society to ensure the stability and health of the free market above all else. That is to say, unconstrained capitalism is the primary goal of neoliberalism. This is a society where supply and demand are uninterrupted by regulation, labour rights and the growth of services in the public sector such as health and education. Therefore, it may be useful to think of neoliberalism as being in direct opposition to the rights of man. So what will a neoliberal state actually look like?

There are both social and economic implications of a neoliberal state, both of which are intertwined. The neoliberal state, through a long drawn out process, will seek to remove the onus on the state to provide and to care for the most vulnerable in society and to instead shift the responsibility to the individual and the family. This was evident by the recent referenda on care and family this year on March 8th, which was thankfully opposed by the people. In addition, the neoliberal state will also shirk from the responsibility to provide adequate resources for health, housing and education to all of it’s people, instead preferring increasing privatization as the solution. 

To ordinary people this will mean unrealistic rent and mortgage rates and a health and education system that is only viable if you can afford the best of health insurance and the highest of university fees. It will be a state where progressive and liberal ideas, such as euthanasia and unregulated abortions are rushed through legislation without any degree of scrutiny. In this way, although such policies are disguised as progressive and pro-choice, they are in fact anti-human and anti-life. To continue, and perhaps most important of all, the biggest threat to the neoliberal state is a scarcity or a disruption of labour. Therefore, it will strive to flood the labour market and to placate labour unions in every way possible. In this way, the neoliberal state cannot operate effectively when there is any degree of ‘class consciousness’ among it’s people. Consequently, it will seek to destroy ‘class consciousness’ by championing so-called progressive ideologies and in purporting to defend minority rights, when in reality such gestures are nothing more than a convenient way to placate the masses. 

This is precisely why the neoliberal and the woke agenda fit hand in glove, one cannot function without the other. Finally, the neoliberal state can only ever be globalist in outlook and it is therefore likely to be a tax haven for multinational corporations, and will have little or no qualms about using the country as a landing pad to assist imperialist war machines. In essence the economics of big business and trade will always come first over the financial wealth and needs of the people, the small business owner and farmer.

To conclude, it is no exaggeration to say that the neoliberal state is a dystopian nightmare. It is a place where people are viewed only as financial instruments to be used and discarded. It is a place where genuine politics and social reforms are replaced by mere language and open-ended definitions. It is a place where the health and needs of the company take precedence to the health and needs of the worker. It is a place where profits and greed reign supreme at the expense of the most vulnerable in our society. It is a place without compassion, love or empathy. It is an island without soul, without borders, without language and without culture.

⏩ Gowain McKenna is a Belfast born engineer and musician. He has an M.Phil, MS.c and B.Eng in Aerospace Engineering, but has somehow found himself working in the marine industry in Co.Donegal Ireland, the place from which he now calls home. Visit his website.

Neoliberal Ireland

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of Nine Hundred And Thirty Six

Sarah Kay ๐Ÿ”– Erasure takes so, so many forms.


We talk of erasure when talking about censorship; silencing; oppression, suppression, and the annihilation in its absolute form, genocide. In an era of rampant state violence, from police brutality to wars of expansion, the chant remains the same: say their names. But how do we pass on this knowledge? Above all, what does bearing witness mean?

Erasure is an odd term. It can be active or passive. It doesn’t, in itself, indicate violence. If nothing else, it is about the passing of time. Remnants of past civilisations – Pompeii, Athens, Jerusalem, Homs, Bamiyan – those places were erased, but not for the same ggkreasons. The elements do not have criminal liability. Survivors are not carrying the same burden.

In Against Erasure, we catch a glimpse at life in Palestine before the 1948 Nakba. A Palestine that rises from the ashes of military destruction. We see multigenerational families tending to olive groves; we see patriarchs with long white beards reading to young grandchildren; we see women in colourful dresses, resting on a thick, rich rug, sharing tea and wisdom amongst themselves. We see lives, intertwined and interdependent, living peacefully, including the presence of other ethnicities: an Armenian family; a Bedouin tent; a group of Coptic monks. Musicians, artists – singers, oud players, trumpetists – adorn the pages of this book, full of life, full of history, heavy with millennia-old knowledge.

Erasure, in a genocidal context, is not simply about human extinction. It is about annihilation of culture, of tradition, but most importantly, of memory. We see the same dynamics at play on a lesser level but with the same intent elsewhere: book bans, historical revisionism, passive voice in news coverage. By erasing suffering, we erase victimhood. By erasing victimhood, we erase its cause. We erase culpability, and root causes. We then all become unwilling participants in the process of destruction.

Bearing witness is not about the reckless consumption of graphic horror on the daily basis. Bearing witness Is knowing what is in front of us – erasure – and refusing it. We say names, but we also know the faces. We talk about places, but we also know what they looked like before walls, checkpoints, and military patrols. Candlelit processions to mosques, parades, murals on the walls of schools and processions in Gaza, the times of the British mandate however must not be seen through positive nostalgia. It was colonisation still, and state control pouring out of every frame. But the aspiration for a different and better future was still there.

Against Erasure affirms that Palestinians have the right to exist; the right to live free from violence; the right to their language, their history, their culture and their land, a fertile one stretching from the river to the sea. Our duty is never to forget.

Teresa Aranguren and Sandra Barrilaro, 2024, Against Erasure: A Photographic Memory of Palestine Before the Nakba. Translated from the Spanish edition by Rรณisรญn Davis with Hugo Rayรณn Aranguren. Haymarket Books.ISBN-13: ‎978-1642599800.

⏩ Sarah Kay is a human rights lawyer.

Against Erasure

A Digest of News ✊ from Ukrainian Sources ⚔ 25-March-2024.

In this week’s bulletin

 Ukrainian unions’ statement on bombing of civilians and power stations.

⬤ UN denounces “climate of fear” in occupied territories; analysis – food sovereignty and war.

⬤ Russia’s persecution of free expression

⬤ And use of torture and indoctrination of children.

News from the territories occupied by Russia

9.5-year sentence minus 1 month for affirming that Crimea is Ukraine and Russia an illegal invader (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, March 22nd)

Russia tortures more Ukrainian POWs and sentences them en masse to 27 years for defending Ukraine (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, March 21st)

The strategic goal of the Russian Federation is the depopulation of Ukrainian territories — research (Opora, March 21st)

Renowned Crimean Solidarity journalist convicted of 'abusing' freedom of mass information in Russian-occupied Crimea (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, March 21st)

Russia moves to ‘revoke’ Soviet decree recognizing Crimea as part of Ukraine (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, March 20th)

UN report details ‘climate of fear’ in occupied areas of Ukraine, as the Russian Federation moves to cement control (UNHCR, March 20th)

New textbook for occupied territory tells children that Ukraine burns all Russian books and serves ‘Blood of a russky’ cocktails (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, March 19th)

Russians abduct 18-year-old from occupied Nova Kakhovka and torture out ‘confession to spying’ (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, March 18th)

The Kremlin’s Occupation Playbook: Coerced Russification And Ethnic Cleansing In Occupied Ukraine (Understanding War, February 2024)

News from Ukraine – general

Ukraine war latest: Russia hits largest hydroelectric plant (Kyiv Independent, 23 March)

Russia Launches Massive Attacks to Destroy Homes, Workplaces, Energy, and Economy of Ukraine (Confederation of Free Trade Unions of Ukraine, 22 March)

The Maidan uprising, 2014: Inaction as a path to impunity (Tribunal for Putin, March 20th)

What does a military chaplain do, and who needs him? (Tribunal for Putin, March 19th)

Not a single house undamaged: Pytomnyk from the air (Tribunal for Putin, March 18th)

Poll: Vast majority of Ukrainians against Russian as official or state language (Kyiv Independent, March 12th)

War-related news from Russia

On her knees: comments on Russia’s presidential election (The Russian Reader, 24 March)

Russia sentences poet Aleksandr Byvshev to 7 years for writing of its war crimes in Ukraine (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, March 22nd)

Persecution of the anti-war movement report. Two years of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine (OVD info, February 28th)

10 years for chatting. A bank employee from St. Petersburg sentenced for attempting to join the Armed Forces of Ukraine (Mediazona, February 21st)

Analysis and comment

Ukrainian refugees in Poland: ‘sexualised exploitation is the main risk’ (Posle.Media, 20 March)

“A meat grinder worse than Bakhmut”: Russia paid a shocking price for the ruins of Avdiivka (The Insider, March 18th)

Right to food: food sovereignty, war and the environment (Valerii Petrov on Commons.com.ua, 15 March)

Comment: Sergey Lavrov and Vulgar Anti-Imperialism (Against the Current, March 2024)

Ivan Dzyuba’s classic book republished: Internationalism or Russification: a study in the Soviet nationalities problem (Resistance Books, March 2024)

Research of human rights abuses

Violations of children’s rights: the Meduza report complements human rights reports (Anti Discrimination Centre, 19 March)

UN report demolishes Russia’s attempts to blame Ukrainian POWs for its atrocities in Mariupol (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, March 18th)

How Migration Was Affected By Russia’s Targeted Shelling Of Ukraine In October 2022 – January 2023 (Ukrainian Victory, January 2024)

๐Ÿ”ดThis bulletin is put together by labour movement activists in solidarity with Ukrainian resistance. More information at Ukraine Information Group.


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News From Ukraine ๐Ÿ’ฃ Bulletin 90

 

A Morning Thought @ 2102