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Showing posts with label Gearóid Ó Loingsigh. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gearóid Ó Loingsigh. Show all posts
Gearóid Ó Loingsigh ☭ writing in Socialist Democracy.

German police shut Pro-Palestinian conference

There is no doubt that the ghost of Joseph McCarthy wanders the earth through many a hallowed university hall, newspaper editorial room, police headquarters around the world and of course the cabinets of many western governments.

Censorship when it raises its ugly head, does so in a similar fashion to its past incarnations, though with new twists and turns that perhaps take us by surprise. However, it should come as no surprise to see that voices on Palestine are being shut down, though the recent German police assault on an international conference in Berlin was a major escalation in government attempts to criminalise those critical of the genocidal regime that holds sway in Tel Aviv and the white supremacist philosophy that is Zionism.(1)

Various issues are thrown into the mix. Palestine and Palestinian demands are presented as hate speech by governments and right-wing media, but so too is any defence of women’s spaces, though in this latter case the right-wing governments find some support from sectors of the Left who think that when they argue for censorship and the suppression of freedom of speech that somehow it will never be applied to them.

The German police stormed the three-day event as the first speaker was addressing it. They claimed they did so to prevent antisemitic statements being made i.e. not only are we in McCarthyite land of criminalising certain ideas by labelling them as antisemitic but we are in the land of Minority Report(2) where thought crimes can be punished in advance, before they have been committed. This is not that far removed at all from the Irish Hate Speech Bill that some on the Left have given support to, as the Police may inspect computers and phones and you may be charged with possession of material that may be used to commit hate speech. It was laughable and ironic that one of the photos of the police intervention of the Berlin event was the arrest of a young Jewish man, wearing a Kippa, who was there in solidarity with Palestinians. Following the event a number of Jews were charged with antisemitism.

Not only that but some of the speakers were banned from entering the country, amongst them Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah who was an eyewitness to what was happening in Gaza and is also the Rector of the University of Glasgow. The former Greek politician Yanis Varoufakis was also banned from entering Germany and both were warned that they could not participate even by Zoom from another jurisdiction, an unlawful extension of German jurisdiction and a suspension of the free movement of European citizens within the EU.

This is part of a wider criminalisation of protest and the criminalisation of thought. Though some on the Left in Ireland such as People Before Profit T.Ds like Paul Murphy who support hate speech legislation believed in the benevolence of capitalist leaders when restricting commentary on women’s rights would never be extended to them, it has and for obvious reasons. Most right-wing governments, particularly those that claim some liberal kudos on certain social issues have taken advantage of the defeat of workers, critical thinking and any opposition at all to capitalism to advance right-wing hate speech legislation and restrictions on academic freedom, including the dismissal of staff, limitations on the right to voice opinions that go against government policy and in the process have garnered the support of many liberal currents and of course major NGOs who depend on government largesse to finance themselves.

The German event is not an isolated incident. Over the years various lecturers in the US have been suspended or not had their contracts renewed for speaking out about Palestine. Zionists were the original cancel culture specialists who managed to turn spoilt students whining into action, getting staff sacked and silencing other students. Recently, a professor of 30 years standing at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in the US was suspended over a contribution made to a blog. In their suspension of the employee the president stated that “I find her comments repugnant, condemn them unequivocally, and want to make clear that these are her personal views and not those of our institution,”(3) 

 It was liberals, the wokerati and even some Marxists who pushed for employers to take action against employees for their personal views and activities outside of the workplace and now it has come back to bite some of them, though not all, as many liberals and wokerati in the US are Zionists. Some of those who had been targeted were vile racists who shouted “Jews will not replace us” as they marched with torches. But you fight Fascism, you don’t give employers control over employees’ lives, ever. As Trotsky once quipped, if you can’t convince a Fascist, acquaint their head with the pavement. He didn’t say give your boss and the state more control over you and beseech them to act in your interests. A few days prior to that, Columbia University had suspended six students for allegedly participating in a panel discussion on Palestine.(4) And in a further sign that jackboots are once again goosestepping through Germany, the University of Cologne rescinded a job offer to Nancy Fraser, a Jewish American professor of philosophy, over her condemnation of killings in Gaza.(5)

They will not stop at that and it is not limited to issues such as genocide, but even local domestic politics. In April 2023, a French journalist Ernest Moret was arrested by British anti-terrorist police due to his involvement in protests in France against the Macron government’s pension proposals. He refused to give the police access to pass codes for his electronic devices and was charged with obstruction.(6) There are other precedents for this, one of them being the arrest of David Miranda, Glen Greenwald’s now deceased partner, in Britain when returning from a meeting with another journalist who had also worked on the files released by Edward Snowden.(7) The courts later upheld his detention to be lawful. Police held him and demanded access to his electronic devices. Then there is the jailing and punishing of Julian Assange. The charges against Assange were dressed up in various disguises. The first of them was the now discredited rape charges in Sweden which were dropped and also espionage charges when the real reason for jailing Assange is that he, as a journalist, exposed US war crimes in Iraq. The message is clear, censorship is the order of the day as is the hounding of journalists who hold unpopular views and expose the crimes of the state. Assange did not receive the support he should have, due to the trumped-up rape charges, with many on the Left, like the cowards they are running for cover. Even today, when the rape charges have been exposed for the lies they were and have been dropped there are those who refuse to speak out on his behalf for this very reason.

There is no world in which right wing governments suppress freedom of speech, academic freedom, freedom of assembly and criminalise broad opinions that they label as hate speech and don’t target the Left. It has never happened and never will. When they stood aside on Assange, they prepared the way for the assault on the Berlin Conference. When they harassed and tried to silence women defending women’s spaces they prepared the ground for the assault. When they advocated and supported right-wing governments’ attempts at introducing hate speech legislation they paved the way for the criminalisation of solidarity with Palestine. When the Hate Speech Bill comes back before the Irish parliament, they should take note and do the correct thing and oppose it, unequivocally.

Leftists who advocated employers taking control of employees lives and opinions, those that demanded that JK Rowling and others like her be hounded from the public sphere and that what they termed hate speech, in reality thought crimes, should be punished in law have aided and abetted right-wing governments in getting us to where we are now, which is that it is now very easy to criminalise pro-Palestinian voices. All you have to say is Hate Speech! Meanwhile Rushi Sunak in Britain is pushing ahead with a very broad and loose definition of extremism which will see almost everyone who does not support Sunak or Starmer in the dock.

Notes

(1) See interview with Yanis Varoufakis.

(2) Minority Report is a Tom Cruise film in which three mutants can see the future and predict who will commit crimes and they are arrested, charged and sentenced in advance before the crime is committed. In the film the system unravels.

(3) WXXI News (16/04/2024) Hobart and William Smith Colleges professor suspended for comments on Israel-Hamas war. Noelle E.C. Evans. 

(4) WSWS (09/04/2024) Columbia University suspends and evicts pro-Palestinian students. Tim Avery. 

(5) The Guardian (10/04/2024) German university rescinds Jewish American’s job offer over pro-Palestinian letter. Kate Connolly. 

(6) The Guardian (18/04/2023) French publisher arrested in London on terrorism charge. Matthew Weaver. 

(7) The Guardian (19/08/2013) Glenn Greenwald’s partner detained at Heathrow airport for nine hours.

 ⏩ Gearóid Ó Loingsigh is a political and human rights activist with extensive experience in Latin America.

A New Wave Of Censorship And Repression

Gearóid Ó Loingsigh ☭ writing in Socialist Democracy.



I had been scheduled to speak at the RDS event organised by The Countess on a panel discussing prisons and the housing of males in the female estate, alongside Rhona Hotchkiss and Paddy O’Gorman, two very knowledgeable people on the issue and I was looking forward to it. There were other professionals in their field such as Stella O’ Malley who are due to speak on other aspects. Such events by their nature often include a wide variety of opinions, some of them not exactly complementary to each other. This conference was no exception. I decided to let the fact that the sole speaker on media censorship was from Gript. It is a right-wing Catholic media, but not that much further to the right on many issues than The Irish Times, despite its liberal reputation.

However, the last-minute decision to invite far right activist Jana Lunden to speak on education was a bridge too far. Lunden came to prominence during the protests over sexually inappropriate material being available in children’s libraries rather than adult libraries. These books were eventually relocated to the adult section thanks to back room lobbying by others. Lunden’s response was to gather a bunch of far-right males to storm libraries threatening staff. They didn’t just object to sexually inappropriate material for kids but anything that gave a positive image of gay people.

It was said to me that the presence of far-right thugs Andy Heasman and Fergus Power at rallies with her was accidental, they just turned up, but there are lots of photos of them together. There is even one rather bucolic photo of them all on a boat. They are anti-migrant, racists, homophobes and anti-working class, dividing us on the base of race or nationality and blaming the failings of the Irish state on those who had nothing to do with the mess FF and FG have us in i.e. they blamed migrants and the working class.

The issue shows the limitation of the Gender Critical movement in Ireland, which has failed to mark off a distance with such people and has included figures that are clearly homophobic and anti-feminist. There is a need for a GC movement that fights for women on all issues, including “older” issues such as abortion, divorce, contraception, sexuality and of course the modern invasion of women’s spaces, representation and sports. The invite to Jana Lunden, who presumably will turn up with the usual far-right thugs was the last straw. These people do not defend women, when the opportunity arises they will turn on women and lesbians in particular.

I will continue to advocate for prisons as a single sex space and write about it. But I can no longer associate with those who think that the broad church of a GC movement which includes liberals and even some standard right wingers from Fianna Fáil is in fact an elastic band that can be stretched to breaking point and beyond.

Unfortunately, most reformist leftists such as PBP, Rise and Rosa have all jumped on the bandwagon attacking women’s spaces and demanding that males have access to them and participate in women’s sports and this leaves little room for the building of a more progressive GC movement. However, I am not willing to tolerate Andy Heasman and his thugs.

⏩ Gearóid Ó Loingsigh is a political and human rights activist with extensive experience in Latin America.

Gearóid Ó Loingsigh Withdraws From The Countess RDS Gender Critical Conference

Gearóid Ó Loingsigh ☭ writing in Socialist Democracy.

Leo Varadkar resigned as the high king of Ireland, sorry, I meant to say Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister) and in true regal fashion his successor was chosen by a select cabal of the chosen Blue Shirts who have been in charge of this country for some time.

The anointing of Simon Harris as the new Taoiseach was a decision taken by a deeply unpopular party and was not the result of the balance of forces resulting from a general election. The south of Ireland has a parliamentary system, which means that it is parliament and not the people who chose the leader, though the only eligible candidates are those who have been elected to this parliament by the people.

New Taoiseach Simon Harris.

None of this formal democracy actually comes across as democratic. It comes across as what it is, the manoeuvres of hucksters, the corrupt, the so called great and good of society. Deals are done by businessmen, bankers, independent T.Ds who legally sell their vote to the biggest huckster in exchange for some local deal. So, the paving of roads in a small part of the country, could and does in practice determine the national outcome in choice of Taoiseach. It has been like this for quite some time, ever since Fianna Fáil lost any possibility of ever winning a majority and ever since Fine Gael lost the ability to do a deal with the treacherous Labour Party, which has proven itself willing to sell out time and again. Now a deal must be struck between three parties, FF, FG and the Greens plus a smattering of independents.

So, Harris’s anointment is not any less democratic than that of Varadkar’s or Martin’s before him i.e. it is quite undemocratic. We have put up with years of rotating Taoisigh without any election and instead the inner circle of the corrupt choosing from amongst their ranks. But this time the loyal “opposition” smell blood in the water and like sharks they begin to circle round, claiming correctly that the government was unpopular and that this in their view apparently necessitated a new election. It seems for the moment that this will not happen. All the claims and pushes for a new election have centred around the democratic value attached to his anointment. No party has been able to bring itself to say why the government should go. It is a right-wing government that has presided over a collapse in the health service, a housing crisis, cut backs, spiralling costs in the Children’s Hospital, not to mention the sheer wilful incompetency of an intellectually and culturally challenged coterie of corrupt landlords in thrall to international capital. But this is not the reason why an election should be called now as opposed to last year or in two months’ time.

The real reason that shows how unpopular and out of tune the government is, was the crushing defeat it suffered in two referenda in March. The government proposals were overwhelmingly rejected by the biggest margins ever recorded in referenda in the history of the state. The defeat was such a shocking blow to the government that its plans for another referendum on allowing the country to sign up to a European wide patents court looks like it will be shelved. Though patents and patent law can be complex it was the type of referendum the government would have been expected to comfortably win. But following its recent disasters, it is taking no chances.

The loyal “opposition” of Labour, Social Democrats, Sinn Féin and People Before Profit cannot bring themselves to demand the government stand down following the referenda failure because they were also defeated. All of the loyal “opposition” supported the government’s referenda proposals and did more campaigning than the actual government parties. Were they to use the referenda results as the reason for calling an election they would have to look in the mirror as the vote was also against them, in some areas of the country even more so. They have supported this government in all of its attempts to roll back women’s rights, housing rapists in women’s prisons, allowing men to participate in women’s sports, use women’s changing areas, erasing the word woman and female from legislation and from information leaflets from health authorities. They have supported and called for the imposition of the legally binding use of pronouns and self ID, something which has failed so far.

They have also supported the government in its attempts to introduce Hate Speech legislation. Hate was not defined in the legislation, the examples given to justify refer to actual acts of violence already covered by incitement to hatred or criminal harm legislation. Following the referenda defeat Sinn Féin saw the writing on the wall and has called for the government to withdraw the Bill it had previously supported, though the rest of the loyal “opposition” are still gung-ho for it all.

This loyal “opposition” not only supports the government in pursuit of misogynistic policies on women’s rights but also on other options. In the midst of the housing crisis, for example, they don’t counterpose the government’s ponzi scheme of constant house inflation with universal public housing, but rather with subsidies and sops to the construction industry, talking of affordable, or really affordable or even more affordable housing. Anything other than a break with the market and the ponzi scheme in housing.

The loyal “opposition” differs on technical matters, exact wording of the referenda, a clearer definition of hate, how much money landlords should make from the housing crisis, and on this last point none of them say they should make no money. They all want landlords to make lots of money and FF, FG, Greens, Labour and Sinn Féin are full of landlords. No one justified the call for an election because they are all complicit with the mess we are in and all of them bear responsibility for the reactionary referenda proposals and the disaster that followed. They prefer to point to technical matters rather than policy, as they essentially agree with policy and bicker over minutiae rather than substance.

⏩ Gearóid Ó Loingsigh is a political and human rights activist with extensive experience in Latin America.

A New Taoiseach 🚥 The Election No One Dare Justify

Gearóid Ó Loingsigh ☭ writing in Socialist Democracy 

Beyoncé, Cowboy Carter (2024)

Beyoncé was back in the news once again for a spot of cultural appropriation. It was not her first brush with cultural Neanderthals, she has been here before for apparently “stealing” Egyptian culture by dressing as Nefertiti. Added into the mix was a lesser-known black artist, Kaitlyn Sardin, who excels at Irish dancing and dared produce some fusion dance routines.

I have dealt with Beyoncé and Rihanna wading into the murky cesspit of the cultural appropriation debate in the past when they were accused of appropriating Egyptian culture(1) and won’t deal with it here. This time though, the debate is clearly about music, produced by people who are still around and not the attire of long dead Egyptians with little connection to the modern country. The fact that white country music fans are still around to complain, doesn’t make the debate any less sterile or ridiculous.

Beyoncé’s faux pas was apparently to record a country & western album titled Cowboy Carter. Apparently, some were of the view that a black artist shouldn’t record a “white” song or perform in a “white” musical genre. Her first release from the album was a song she composed, Texas Hold ‘Em.(2) And the hounds of hell were let loose to howl and drown out the music. Some radio stations refused to play the song, though that didn’t stop it going to No.1 in the country music charts and the debate, though debate might be too fine a word to put on it, erupted. She is not white, she is not part of the country music scene and she should stay in her lane, is a crude but accurate summary of most of those criticising her. 

She is actually from Houston, Texas, not that it matters. One person interviewed by The Guardian responded that “It doesn’t matter that you came from Texas. It matters if you’re actually living a country lifestyle. It bothers me that her song is being called country.”(3) These words might be familiar to some. They are normally advanced by identitarians when talking about whites playing genres considered “black” and in some cases other non-whites have levelled this accusation against a whole array of non-white artists including Beyoncé. It is reactionary rubbish with the racism, in this case, hiding just under the surface, behind a veil of cultural purity. One even went as far as to say that he would bet that Beyoncé had never been in the country saloon he was being interviewed in. Well, many black women would steer clear of such venues, for more than obvious reasons.

Cultures are not pure, ever. None. Not now, not ever, not even going back to the stone age. I am very sure, no stone age hunter armed with a flintstone hatchet ever shouted “You’re appropriating my culture” when he realised some other village had come up with the same invention, or even just “stole” the idea.

Country music is not pure either and to the shock and horror of many a man yearning for the days he ran around in his white bedsheets, it isn’t even that white. Blacks have made significant contributions to country music, not least the musical instrument known as the Banjo. What would country be without the banjo? Rhiannon Giddens, the black musician has dedicated her time to reviving the banjo as a black instrument and recording some excellent music, though unsurprisingly she doesn’t quite stick to genres either.(4) Her site describes her thus:

Singer, multi-instrumentalist, composer, and impresario, Rhiannon draws from many musical traditions including blues, jazz, folk, hiphop, African, Celtic, classical, and jug band. She bridges contemporary and traditional forms, and few musicians have done more to revitalize old-time influences in current music.(5)
Rhiannon Giddens

She composes her own songs, covers others, even ones such as Wayfaring Stranger, recorded by many white country artists, though actually written and composed by two Germans in the 1660s. As far removed from her as from the whites who might like to claim the song as their own (Links below to Gidden’s version,(6) Johnny Cash’s(7) the Mormon Tabernacle Choir(8) and even Ed Sheeran’s(9) very uncountry version. I have included links to all songs and routines mentioned in this article). The song belongs to whoever wants to sing it, however they wish to, though I personally think Sheeran murders the song with a flintstone hatchet, but each to their own.

So, Beyoncé is quite entitled to record in whatever style she wants. Part of what rankles some is that she went straight to No.1 and will make a fortune from the album and this is part of the stay in your lane slogan applied to blacks and whites. Elvis made a fortune singing what was essentially considered, at least initially, to be a black musical form and other white artists who have done this have been criticised by a black bourgeoisie who want that slice of the cake for themselves. Some of the whites criticising Beyoncé are undoubtedly racist, some might just be musical purists, though music is one art form that just doesn’t lend itself to purity. Others, like identitarians everywhere, think that the money is theirs. Flip sides of the same coin.

Beyoncé is not the only black artist to venture into the world of country,(10) Charley Pride and Ray Charles did so back in the 1960s at times of heightened tensions in the midst of the racial violence meted out against those demanding civil rights for blacks. When Charley Pride released his first country album, his image was not put on the record sleeve and they initially hid the fact he was black as part of their marketing strategy. He would eventually make it to the Grand Ole Opry in 1967. He had a total of 52 top ten hits on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart.(11) No mean feat and not a once off foray into country music either, he was a country artist. Linda Martell fared worse as she never hid that she was black and though she would also perform at the Grand Ole Opry in 1970, her album Color Me Country(12) never had the same success. Ray Charles also dipped his fingers into the pond producing Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music(13) in 1962. It was a best seller, topping the charts. 

So, Beyoncé is by no means the only or even the first black artist to find success in the genre. Black artists have always ventured into genres that were not considered to be black. Others have gone the other way and identitarians tend to criticise white artists doing “black” music, though when Gene Autry, the white country and western singer, nicknamed the Singing Cowboy recorded a blues album, nobody accused him of cultural appropriation. Though even non-whites get accused by the black bourgeoisie closely aligned to the US Democratic Party of cultural appropriation, Jews, Asians, even Africans get in the neck. Samuel Jackson infamously accused black British actors of stealing their jobs because they were cheaper and questioned the cultural bonafides of British-Nigerian actor David Oyelowo when he was cast as Martin Luther King in the film Selma.(14) He never criticised the decision to cast the black Yank, Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela in the film Invictus or Matt Damon as the white South African rugby captain in the same film. Given the backlash against his comments he decided to keep his mouth shut when the British-Ugandan actor Daniel Kaluuya was chosen to play the black revolutionary leader of the Black Panther Party, Fred Hampton. No one is safe from the accusation. It is a bit like the MacCarthy trials. “Are you now or have you ever been a homosexual? No, but I slept with a man who was. Have you ever appropriated a culture? No, but I hummed a tune by a man who had.”

Which brings us now to Kaitlyn Sardin, the US black Irish dancer. She has recently gone viral, though not for the first time, with her dance routines and not being as powerful as Beyoncé has come in for some vile racist abuse.(15) She produced a new video which is what is now termed fusion i.e. Irish dance with some developments. This is now quite common and there is a host of Irish groups producing fusion. My favourite is a routine called Freedom with the voice of Charles Chaplin and images from Belfast in the early seventies.(16) Though the first person to do this was Michael Flatley with River Dance which not only broke many of the “rules” of Irish dancing, it even went as far as to incorporate the Lambeg War Drums in a much more positive sense than the annual announcement of Protestant supremacy for which they are used every July 12th. Of course, Flatley, unlike Sardin is white and of Irish descent.
Kaitlyn Sardin

As I said there are many fusion groups in Ireland, the one I previously mentioned and even one which is danced to classical music titled Fusion Fighters Perform Fusion Orchestra.(17) Again, all as white as the driven snow in Siberia. There is even an all-female Fusion Fighters group from the USA that does a tap dance routine to William Tell.(18) The particular group started off with Irish dance and moved into other styles over time, so much so that even their website acknowledges it has less to do with Irish dance than they used to.(19) It is what happens with culture. It evolves, all the time. Again, they are white and no one said fusion is not Irish dancing and no one said anything about not being Irish, even though their Irish connections may be as tenuous as Darby O’Gill.

The term fusion is one of those designed to assuage musical purists more than racists. In reality there is no such thing as fusion music. All music and dance are fusion till it becomes accepted as the standard, when new deviations or fusions arrive. Though dancing has existed in Ireland for centuries it has not been immune to outside influences such as French Quadrilles in the 1800s or other forms. The clues are in the names, hornpipes and polkas for example are two types of music that you will find in other parts of Europe and indeed in the case of polkas they clearly originated in Eastern Europe, though most forms including reels and jigs are not exclusively Irish either. All cultures borrow.

Most instruments used in Irish music are not Irish in origin. Some, like the flute have arisen in most cultures around the world and archaeological remains have thrown up examples everywhere of flutes and whistles made from everything, including animal bones. Fiddles arose over a long process around the world and it is a bit difficult to pinpoint them to one country. Uillean pipes are Irish, though they too were part of a wider process in Europe with different types of pipes arising. Though Scottish bag pipes are perhaps the most famous type of pipe, there are in fact lots of pipes throughout Europe and parts of Africa, Iran, Azerbaijan and even India. Other instruments such as the banjo are African in origin, though the modern banjo has developed over time since it was first brought to the western world by slaves. The piano accordion is a relatively recent European invention from the mid 1800s, a further development of the accordion, which was also a European instrument. If we rejected all outside influences and demanded purity, we would have little in the way of Irish music or dance, were we to have any at all.

So, Kaitlyn Sardin should be celebrated. She is from the US, is black and more importantly is very good at what she does: dancing. The fact that she is not Irish or she recently produced a fusion routine is neither here nor there. Any liberal who got lost on the internet and accidently read this article will probably have nodded most of the way down: until now. The ridiculous statements made about Beyoncé and Sardin are generally rejected by liberals. But when the cultural capitalists hiding behind identity politics make similar claims against white artists or indeed between other non-white artists this rubbish is taken seriously. Culture does not belong to anyone, you don’t have to be white, black, Asian or Latin to perform in a particular style. Culture is a gently flowing river you bathe in, swimming ashore where you please along its route or letting it sweep you out into the sea. It has always been thus and always will be, despite the attempts of cultural capitalists to appropriate culture for their own grubby money-making ends, or racists imagining some non-existent purity. It doesn’t mean that some of the commercial outings by Beyoncé and other artists do it well. They don’t. Beyoncé was criticised for her depiction of India as a white paradise and other artists such as Gwen Stefani, Nicki Minaj and Iggy Azalea have been accused of engaging in crass portrayals of the cultures they seek to borrow from(20) and in Ireland we know a thing or two about how crass Hollywood can be when it comes to depicting Irish music. But that is another matter, many artists in particular genres have come up with really crass portrayals of their own cultures. The point is whether culture is pure, has lanes and you stick to them due to an accident or birth.

The legendary US folk singer Pete Seeger would joke that plagiarism was the basis of all culture and he was a wonderful plagiarist who introduced musical forms from around the world to a US audience at a time when there was no internet and it was not an easy feat. He introduced the song Wimoweh to the world, which has gone through multiple adaptations,(21) some of them very good and others absolutely dire, such as that recorded by the English pop group Tight Fit in the 1980s.(22) The original song however was quite different in style and written and recorded by the South African musician Solomon Linda(23) who was swindled out of the royalties on the song. Had Seeger stayed in his lane, most of us would never have ever heard of Linda or the story behind his song.

Demands for cultural purity are inherently reactionary, as are demands to stay in your lane, be they levelled by whites, blacks or Asians. Culture is to be celebrated and expanded. The accusation of appropriation would only make sense if someone like Seeger had said he wrote Wimoweh, that would be straightforward dishonesty, something he could never be accused of in his multiple adaptations of songs from Ireland, Japan, China, Indonesia, Scotland, Chile, Nicaragua amongst other places.

Beyoncé’s foray into country is perfectly fine, though personally, I don’t like her music, including her country. But that is my personal taste and has nothing to do with appropriation or other rubbish from cultural capitalists. The Irish radio on Saturday’s used to broadcast an Irish music show from the musical company Walton’s. It always finished off saying “If you do feel like singing a song, do sing an Irish one.” The exhortation was for all, not some, the point was to celebrate and enjoy music. Lets leave the cultural capitalists, purists, identitarians and racists to the handful of songs they mistakenly believe to be pure.

Notes

(1) See Ó Loingsigh, G. (02/05/2020) Cultural Appropriation: A Reactionary Debate. 

(2) See Beyoncé’s version here.

(3) The Guardian (04/03/2024) I can guarantee Beyoncé has never stepped foot in here: Houston’s country saloons review Texas Hold ‘Em. Diana Gachman.

(4) See for example Another Wasted Life.

(14) The Guardian (08/03/2017) Samuel L Jackson criticises casting of black British actors in American films. Gwilym Mumford. 

(15) Irish Central (25/03/2024) Irish dancer’s fusion choreography goes viral, triggers racists. Kerry O’Shea 

(16) See. 

(17) See.

(18) See.

(19) See.

(20) Business Insider (14/01/2023) Gwen Stefani is only the latest glaring example of cultural appropriation in pop music. Callie Ahlgrim. 
(21) See.

(22) See.

(23) See.

⏩ Gearóid Ó Loingsigh is a political and human rights activist with extensive experience in Latin America.

Beyoncé, Irish Dancing And The Nonsense Of Cultural Appropriation

Gearóid Ó Loingsigh ☭ writing in Socialist Democracy a month ago today.

Reference has been made on a number of occasions to the heroic actions of the Dunnes Stores Anti-Apartheid strikers in 1984 who spent nigh on three years on strike because they refused to handle South African merchandise. It has been pointed to as a success story for boycotts and one to emulate. The real story of the strike points to the difficulties we now face in implementing a real boycott of Israel.

Anti-apartheid activist Nimrod Sejake with Dunnes Stores strikers.

I used to go down to the picket line at the Dunnes branch in Henry St, every Wednesday as we had a half day at school and on Saturdays when there was no school and then more regularly once I had sat my Leaving Cert exam and was like many young people in 1980s Ireland, unemployed. So, I recently bought a copy of Mary Manning’s autobiographical account of the strike, Striking Back: The Untold Story of an Anti-Apartheid Striker (Collins Press). It brought to mind many of the instances and difficulties that they faced and it raises many questions for those who wish to point to them as an example to follow.

The strikers were implementing a trade union resolution, and at first knew little of the reality of South Africa. Something they corrected relatively quickly thanks in no small part to a South African exile, Nimrod Sejake, who turned up to join them on the picket line - an activist who had been arrested as part of the infamous Treason Trial. Mary Manning is full of praise for Nimrod and rightly so. Others do not come out so well and it is worth remembering the reality of that strike as it tells us some of the things that need to happen if we want to see similar action in relation to Israel.

The first thing that jumps out of the pages, early on, is that the trade bureaucracy did not give them any support and even their own trade union, IDATU (now called Mandate) was very reluctant to support them and what support they got was down to their official Brendan Archbold who was a stalwart in supporting them and the then head of the union John Mitchell. At every twist and turn they had to fight the executive of IDATU, whilst the rest of the trade union movement ran for cover. 

There will be no similar type of action around the Zionists unless it is put to the bureaucracy and they are challenged over their inaction in the midst of a genocide. Karen Gearon, the shop steward at Dunnes Store made a call at the National March in Dublin on February 17th for the trade union movement to stop talking and take action. It is not something that has been seriously echoed by others. Neither People Before Profit TDs or the IPSC have ever made a clear call for action from the trade union movement. It should be a central part of any boycott movement now. It is all well and good picketing Starbucks, but stopping the importation of Israeli goods would be more important and will only happen if the bureaucracy is pushed to it. The history of PBP is one of cowering in the shadow of the bureaucrats and never putting it up to them on any issue. They frequently share polite platforms with the bureaucrats and never challenge them. Their calls, when made are generic and are in passing. Their website and the IPSC site is limited to a consumer boycott with calls for the government, not workers, to take action.

I was also reminded by the book how the great and good in Irish society stood by whilst these workers were on strike. The Minister for Labour at the time was Ruairí Quinn, a member of the Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement (IAAM) and yet he did nothing. He was not the only mealy-mouthed figure in Irish society, nor indeed in the Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement.

The head of the Catholic Bishops Aid Agency, Trócaire, Bishop Eamon Casey privately wrote to IDATU early on describing the strike as ‘economically harmful to the already impoverished Black South Africans’ and the strikers request for support from the Catholic Church was described as impertinent. And just in case anyone doubted how he saw himself, he was of the view that both he and Trócaire should have been consulted before the strike took place. Their currency now is much devalued in Ireland but there are others like them who also think they have a veto on decisions. He was later forced to publicly back the strike having been embarrassed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s decision to present two strikers to the world at his London press conference enroute to pick up his Nobel Peace Prize. Though that took a while, and meantime nuns proudly scabbed and crossed the picket line. Casey’s attempts at sabotage and his later hypocrisy in belatedly supporting the strike, should not be forgotten. At the time he was seen as a moral guardian, his plundering of church funds to keep his lover and his child comfortable was not known. There are lots of other figures like him around now, who we might expect to support workers implementing a boycott, but might not when faced with the reality of it.

Another figure who comes out badly in it, is Kader Asmal the head of the IAAM. After three months of strike action, he met with John Mitchell and Brendan Archbold and told them to call off the strike, that it had served its purpose and that he was pulling his support. When Desmond Tutu invited the strikers to South Africa he privately told them he would not support them going as it was a breach of the cultural boycott of South Africa. Their trip to the country and the refusal of the Apartheid regime to let them in and their detention at the airport was a pivotal moment in the strike. Upon their return to Ireland, Asmal was one of the people to rush to the airport and give interviews and bask in the glory, as his position opposing the trip was never made public. He comes across very badly in the book. I recall him asking me for information on South African goods coming through the port where I had begun working and Brendan Archbold telling me not to trust him, that he was a sleiveen and would hang me out to dry. He was, and like him there are others just like that on the issue of Gaza. 

The contrast with Nimrod Sejake could not have been greater. He was a working class militant who suffered greatly and enjoyed none of the middle class trappings of Kader Asmal’s life in Ireland and unlike Asmal he had never crossed a picket line, something Asmal did in Trinity College where he worked, scabbing during a strike there. There are Palestinian equivalents to Asmal and also to Sejake. The IPSC pretends otherwise.

So, what are the lessons of the Dunnes Stores strike? One is that it wasn’t just a consumer boycott, it was a workers’ boycott and they were left high and dry by many of those who would have been expected to support them. If we are going to call for workers action, various people and bodies need to be challenged and would have to commit themselves publicly to it. So far this is absent. PBP and the IPSC are not putting it up to any of the institutions. In fact, the UNITE union complained about a sit in at Axa Insurance company saying it was harmful to the workers. The sit in was not organised by the IPSC but by CATU and Dublin for Gaza. 

It turns out that UNITE is a bit like IDATU. It has also passed resolutions supporting the campaign of BDS and yet “according to union insiders, Axa is Unite’s insurer in Ireland – and Unite’s designated provider of hotel accommodation is the Leonardo hotel group, which is part-owned by the Israeli Fattal group.”(1) UNITE members taking action would most likely be shunned by their own union. Just like the head of the IAAM, Kader Asmal had tried to undermine the Dunnes Stores strike, there are those in the IPSC who would run for the hills were workers to take action against Israel.

So, we do need to emulate the Dunnes Stores strikers, but we need to be clear about the challenges and the opposition we would face from the trade union movement itself, the Catholic Church (they never went away either) and sectors of the IPSC. It is time for action, but it is also high time that both PBP and the IPSC made clear calls for action and workers are not left hung out to dry, should they take action.

Notes

(1)Skwakbox (15/12/2023) Outrage builds over Unite’s use of Israel-linked firms as protestors occupy Axa Dublin office.

⏩ Gearóid Ó Loingsigh is a political and human rights activist with extensive experience in Latin America.

Dunnes Stores, South Africa, Gaza 🔴 A Tale of Two Boycotts

Gearóid Ó Loingsigh ☭ writing in Socialist Democracy.

The results in the referenda in the South returned a resounding defeat for the Irish political class. 

The first referendum on family and the deletion of references to women was defeated by 67.7% and the second one on the issue of care was defeated by an even greater margin of 73.9%, as some of the advocates of a Yes vote on family belatedly found they couldn’t stomach the privatisation of care that this amendment would insert into the Constitution.

Posters for and against changes to the constitution.

Not even in the Taoiseach’s and the Minister’s own constituency did a majority vote for the referenda. In Dublin West 63.02% voted against the family referendum and 70.9% in the care referendum. Only Dún Laoghaire voted by less than 300 votes in favour of the family referendum. This represents a major defeat for the government, the highest No vote in a referendum ever. There are political implications for them coming up towards a general election. There are also implications for their policies in relation to women and the constant attempts to erase the word woman from legislation, policy documents and information leaflets, particularly in the health sector, where a woman’s sex is hugely important in relation to the type of care required.

When the referenda were first mentioned, there were some debates and concerns from feminists about a sleight of hand at a constitutional level to leave the definition of a woman in such a manner that it wouldn’t apply so much to women but to men. We had seen school curricula undermined, the introduction of a whole swathe of misogynistic measures from placing rapists on the same prison wing as female inmates to twisting advertising for cervical smear campaigns which were no longer to encourage women to get a check-up but rather anyone with a cervix, in a country where many women were not fully aware of the meaning of the word, where new migrant communities included women with low or faltering levels of English, but clearly understood they were women. 

All of this against the background of the cervical smear scandal where the state outsourced testing to a company in the US that could do it cheaper, as women were clearly not worth spending much money on and women then died of cancer. Some of the leading male functionaries for that, went on to be given more powerful positions in the health sector.

This is also a defeat for the parliamentary left and their socio-political milieu in the government funded NGOs (the word Non, is clearly superfluous in the context of Irish NGOs). The Irish left was to the fore in arguing and campaigning for abortion, contraception, divorce and gay rights. In fact, none of these things would have come to pass, had it not been for the Irish left. Now however, they are engaged in a full-frontal assault on the rights of women, denying their very existence, placing their health at risk and demanding the prioritising of so-called trans medicine, diverting resources away from women towards men. This should be a wakeup call for them, to not surrender the fight for women to conservative forces in Irish society, who were undoubtedly an element in the referenda.

They found themselves on the same side as the government in an attempt to insert the privatisation of care and placing the burden of the costs of care on people’s families. They stepped back, though they weren’t the first ones out of the stocks to denounce it as neoliberal, that was left to sectors campaigning against the family referendum too. The misogynistic ideologues at the Irish Council for Civil Liberties and the Free Legal Advice Centres took their time in coming out against the care amendment, unsure perhaps whether they would be accused of turning their backs on their misogynistic advocacy for rapists being housed in women’s prison wings, or men competing in women’s sports, amongst other things.

It is not too late for the parliamentary reformist left to step back and reappraise the situation. One of the constituent parts of the People Before Profit coalition is the Socialist Workers’ Network which has a history of doing complete U-turns on a whole range of idiotic positions. They once flirted with radicalised Islam for example, they now no longer do that. It has been many years since any of their members described Al-Qaeda as an anti-imperialist organisation, so, the idea they might flip on these issues is not beyond the realm of possibilities. However, they have proven themselves to be political and morally bankrupt when it comes to the defence of women and whilst they might flip, there is really a need for them to be pushed aside and replaced by organisations genuinely committed to the defence of women.

They tried to remove mention of the word woman in the Constitution. The language of the Constitution is archaic and conservative, though it is clear from it that only women give birth. It centres the institution of marriage as the basis for society, something no socialist should support. It is an article that should be changed, modernised even, but this was a squandered opportunity where by sleight of hand, under the guise of introducing more progressive language (which it didn’t actually do) the right and the left engaged in an assault on women and fortunately failed.

⏩ Gearóid Ó Loingsigh is a political and human rights activist with extensive experience in Latin America.

Constitutional Sleight Of Hand Thwarted

Gearóid Ó Loingsigh ☭ writing in Socialist Democracy discusses the obliteration of a wall mural in West Belfast in support of the victims of Israeli genocide in Gaza. 
Once upon a time, Belfast was famed for its murals, so much so that even now a part of the tourist industry depends on a plastic paddy tour of the current murals on display in nationalist areas of Belfast.

Original Latuff cartoon. West Belfast mural.
Mural blacked out.
It was the 1981 hunger strike and its aftermath that saw an explosion in political murals in nationalist areas. As the 1980s went on, the technical and artistic quality of them improved dramatically and the politics they sought to represent expanded. Some of them were very militaristic, others much more political in content. On international issues, murals sprang up on South Africa, Palestine and figures from revolutionary struggles around the world were to be found on gable ends all over the city and indeed in other cities throughout the North. Nelson Mandela, Steve Biko, Camilo Torres, Che amongst others looked down at the wandering revolutionary tourists who would come over in August. The message was clear: Ireland was part of an international struggle against imperialism.(1)

After the peace process the quality continued to improve, but the politics went for a walk. Twee Celtic murals abounded, young girls dancing a jig displaced images of women holding an armalite aloft for International Women’s Day. Messages about Imperialism were softened, when not blunted entirely or removed. So, it comes as no surprise to see what has happened to recent murals.

Sinn Féin supporters recently unveiled murals in solidarity with Palestine. They are of good quality and try to capture the suffering of the Palestinians through the images and poignant quotes. However, they say nothing about who is causing the suffering: the US and Israel, though there are silhouette ghostly like images of soldiers standing over dead children. There was once a mural on the White Rock Road which pictured a US Indian superimposed over a US flag saying Your struggle, Our struggle. No references are to be made now to the US role in exterminating a people. That is strictly Verboten.

However, someone decided to reproduce a cartoon from the artist Carlos Latuff in mural form in Belfast. It depicts Joe Biden, standing with bloodied hands in front of Mary Lou, who is clearly identifiable in the image, and the leaders of FG and FF, who can be identified from the initials FG and FF on their backs. The British Army and the RUC used to deface republican murals, not any more. Very quickly, Sinn Féin, officially or unofficially (no pun intended, though it is apt) painted over the mural. It was quickly restored by others, who the artist Latuff described as real republicans.(2)

Sinn Féin are clearly uncomfortable about the issue in the run up their fest in Washington with Biden and not only are they content to throw Palestinians out of public meetings, they will now supress any public artistic attempts to draw people’s attention to the Slaughter Soirée they will have in the White House.

Many Palestinian voices such as the Electronic Intifada have called on Sinn Féin not to go to Washington, the calls in Ireland have been much more muted and tamer on the issue. However, it is a clear issue, what is colloquially called a no-brainer. You don’t have to think very deeply to understand that Sinn Féin shouldn’t go to Washington DC, that they should tell Genocide Joe they don’t want to meet him. They will go and they will say nothing about Palestine. Their erasure of a mural criticising them, tells you everything you need to know about their real attitude to Palestine: Whatever you say, say nothing, used to be a catchphrase about loose talk and informers, now it means never mention Joe Biden and the Palestinians in the same breath, unless you are green washing genocide. Meanwhile Sinn Féin does its part, emulating the British army and vandalising political murals.

Notes

(1) A selection of images can be seen on Bill Rolston’s website. Rolston has chronicled and photographed murals going right back to the 1970s.

(2) See.

⏩ Gearóid Ó Loingsigh is a political and human rights activist with extensive experience in Latin America.

Erasing Murals And Erasing Gaza

Gearóid Ó Loingsigh ☭ writing in Socialist Democracy responds to a Letter on claims that Sinn Fein has betrayed the Palestinians.

The Letter

Greetings Comrades,

I am a former member of Sinn Féin who still lives in a Republican and working-class community. I see a lot of point to your views on Sinn Féin and the peace process. But I think you hit the wrong note in your article: Sinn Féin, the IRA and the betrayal of the Palestinians by Gearóid Ó Loingsigh

The idea that: "Sinn Féin prefers a hooley, even some furtive carnal or political romance in the halls of power rather than show their solidarity with the Palestinians. They are in love with power, money and the screams from Gaza make them uncomfortable."

Is not true, is offensive and will put off the people who might otherwise listen to you. The leaders put forward a political analysis and the members accept it. If you want to oppose this, kick the ball and not the player.

Yours

Owen

Reply

Thinking Of Sinn Féin, Trying Not To Think Of Palestine

Gearóid Ó Loingsigh

22 February 2024
Biden poses for a selfie with Gerry Adams

To my surprise I have received some feedback from a Republican on my article Sinn Féin, the IRA and the betrayal of the Palestinians, published on this site and elsewhere in which I took issue Sinn Féin’s abominable decision to fly to Washington to meet and greet Joe Biden, a man whose hands drip with Palestinian blood. Though given the scale of the genocide, dripping with blood is an understatement as Palestinian blood gushes off his hands, like a burst oil well.

There were a number of points made, some of them more important than the others. One, was my insinuation that corruption was at the heart of the decision, that Sinn Féin were not going to give up on a hooley and a lavish shindig paid for by others. My comment on the matter was a bit facetious in part. I did describe the event as a hooley, and it is fair to say that it is a lot more than that, though the drunken shenanigans are a part of the festivities and the informal deals to be struck. Colum Eastwood from the SDLP stated that “I could not rub shoulders, drink Guinness and have the craic while the horrifying impacts of the brutal war in Gaza continue”(1) I had stated that:

Sinn Féin prefers a hooley, even some furtive carnal or political romance in the halls of power rather than show their solidarity with the Palestinians. They are in love with power, money and the screams from Gaza make them uncomfortable.

There is a part of those sentences that is obviously tongue in cheek. I don’t actually believe that Mary Lou will be trying to get her leg over anyone at the White House, though I wouldn’t discount any of the lower ranking minions on the junket trying their hand. The furtive political romance was a more serious comment. St Patrick’s Day at the White House is one for showcasing Ireland, not just in the paddywhackery sense of the word, but it is where informal and formal discussions can take place on economic policy, foreign policy and other matters. Not for nothing that Varadkar used last year’s event to shore up his support for the NATO proxy war in Ukraine with a false historical narrative about US government support for Irish freedom.(2) The government’s own propaganda about its importance actually says as much.

Sinn Féin have various corrupt reasons for going. I should point that there are various forms of corruption, there is the type of corruption of brown paper envelopes from Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael politicians seeking or giving favours. There is another type of corruption, which is that where politicians go along with policies they know to be wrong, immoral, damaging or dangerous for reasons of political expediency, as part of an overall strategy or because money will be legally made by the chosen few as a result of these decisions. Current government policies around vulture funds, the bank bailout (for which Sinn Féin also voted), privatization of the health industry etc., are examples of this type of corruption. I have no doubt that Sinn Féin members are involved in the brown paper envelope type of corruption, the building industry still reeks of Republican involvement, though they have a long way to go yet to outdo Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. But it is more the latter type of corruption that is important.

Two and a half years ago, Pearse Doherty stated that “big business and investors know Sinn Féin won’t go after them”(3) The issue has come up again recently with Sinn Féin seeking to assure US companies that the corporate tax rate is safe with them. The new head of the Industrial Development Authority Fergal O’ Rourke, in January this year described Sinn Féin as being on an outreach programme to reassure US companies.(4) He was fulsome in his praise for Sinn Féin and he wasn’t the only one. Henry Goddard from Deloitte Ireland claimed that Sinn Féin had done a good job in calming down international investors by reaching out to them, by meeting with them and even Mary Lou McDonald visiting Silicon Valley was cited as an example. He stated:

Fair play to Sinn Féin, they went out to the US, they engaged, said all the right things and provided a lot of confidence. They now need to follow through on that.(5)

They are going to Washington to follow through, to reassure not only US businesses but the Irish capitalist class that the economy will be in safe hands with them and those business leaders from IBEC, various companies like PwC and others who have praised Sinn Féin are not mistaken. Sinn Féin has stated that it is worried that it might not win the next election and has repeatedly spoken about reassuring the so-called business community.

The other aspect of the visit is that were they not to go, it would send a message to their reactionary base in the US that they are on the side of “Islamic terrorists”. It doesn’t matter how true this is, their base in the US has never been very discerning about these issues. It will also give the government parties something to beat them with and allow them to claim that Sinn Féin are a party unfit for bourgeois government.

Implicit in the feedback is the idea that my criticisms of the Provos would annoy or offend Republicans who would otherwise be open to the general message i.e. kick the ball not the player. But the player and the ball cannot be separated in politics. If someone is upset at facetious comments about romances and would otherwise be won around, then they clearly haven’t appreciated the scale of the slaughter in Gaza, nor Biden’s role in it and Sinn Féin’s ditching of what would, once upon a time, have a no brainer for their base. Proof is in the pudding and the fact that some Sinn Féin supporters see through the party’s position shows that those who can be won round have been won round already. Those in attendance at the meeting from which three Palestinians were ejected are all lost causes, political degenerates.

This brings us to the last item which is how Sinn Féin is selling this to their base. Part of the criticism of kicking the player is that Sinn Féin has taken a position, spelt it out publicly and its members have accepted this. This is not how democracy works in that organisation. But the position was best spelt out by Gerry Adams. He stated that Palestinians would understand why they had to go. Would they really? Apart from the corrupt and contemptible Palestinian Authority that spends a full third of its budget on security and repressing other Palestinians, who in Palestine would understand? The parents who saw their children shot and bombed? The prisoners? The families of prisoners? The thousands of people who pulled others from the rubble with their bare hands? Or just Abbas who, busy stifling Palestinian dissent, has had little to say or do on the genocide.

Adams made one further point. He claimed there was a lack of coherence amongst Sinn Féin critics.

Some folks are saying the Sinn Féin leadership shouldn’t meet with the American political system… They are not saying we shouldn’t meet with the British political system. The Brits are up to their neck in this.(6)

He is right about the contradiction, but it doesn’t absolve him, rather it condemns those who are ambivalent about it. All Adams is pointing out, indeed boasting about, is that they are in cahoots with British imperialism and treasure that relationship as much as they do their “special relationship” with the US. He went on to underline this point.

Serious people involved in struggle, particularly people who are involved in national liberation struggles, understand that your own struggle whether it be internationalist has to be your primary focus.
So, they will expect you to raise their issues and we should. They would expect you to stand with them, and so we should. But they would not expect us to do anything - any more than we would expect them to do anything - which would set back our own struggle.
So, I think it’s Irish-America’s day, it may be dominated by what’s happening in Washington.(7)

Adams, clearly hasn’t a clue about what an internationalist struggle is. How could boycotting Biden harm the Irish struggle? Adams' question goes to the heart of the matter - he and Sinn Féin, not only cling to the illusion that the Irish peace process is bringing unity closer but also that US imperialism plays a progressive role in Ireland and that upsetting Biden would be a set back and annoy a regime that is committed to some progressive outcome in Ireland. Adams is not the only one to believe in this progressive role of US imperialism, Yasser Arafat also believed in it and thus we got the Oslo Accords and 30,000 people in Gaza have been murdered by this progressive imperialism of Adams and Arafat.

Courting reactionary elites in the US is not putting the Irish struggle first, it is continuing with Sinn Féin’s gallop to the right. It is to paraphrase the expression about the struggle for socialism in Ireland that Labour Must Wait! Now Palestine must wait, indeed everything and everyone must wait. What must never happen is that US imperialisms and Sinn Féin’s reactionary base in the US be upset.

Whilst the Republican who gave the feedback is clearly aware of Sinn Féin’s limitations on the issue of Palestine, there is no republican milieu waiting to be won round on this issue that may be put off by the tone of my last piece or other such pieces by other writers elsewhere. There is no world in which the player and the ball do not both get a well-deserved kicking. Indeed, were I in a position to do so, I would give them the hiding of their lives. Alas my efforts are unfortunately more modest than that.

Anyone who is Republican and thinks Sinn Féin is right to go to Washington is thinking only of Sinn Féin and not of Palestine. They are, like Adams and co, looking the other way in the midst of a genocide, something you would have thought was an easy issue to take a position on. But when you drink of the Peace Process Kool Aid, you don’t drink half the glass, but chug the whole glass down in one go, like Mean Joe Greene in the famous Coca Cola ad of the 1970s. Like Greene, Sinn Féin has been asked to reshoot the scene time and again. Greene vomited after his sixth coke, though he had to swallow eighteen, 16-ounce bottles on the final day of shooting.(8) There is no end to what peace process supporters are asked to swallow and unlike Greene, no sign anyone in Sinn Féin is about the puke at the nauseous spectacle of being asked to sideline a genocide for the meet and greet in Washington DC.

Notes

(1) The Derry Journal (29/01/2024) SDLP Leader, Derry MP Colum Eastwood 'cannot in good conscience' go to US for St Patrick's Day. Brendan McDaid. 

(2) Remarks by Taoiseach Leo Varadkar at the White House Shamrock Ceremony and St. Patrick’s Day Reception.

(3) Irish Independent (10/10/2021) Pearse Doherty Interview: ‘Big business and investors know Sinn Féin won’t go after them’ Hugh O’ Connell. 

(4) Business Post (14/01/2024) IDA boss reveals Sinn Féin plans to woo US firms on corporate tax. Donal MacNamee and Lorcan Allen. 

(5) Ibíd.,

(6) Irish Independent (27/01/2024) Gerry Adams says calls for Sinn Féin to boycott St Patrick's Day visit to US are ‘inconsistent’. Maeve McTaggart and Hugh O’Connell. 

(7) Ibíd.,

(8) See Pendergrast, M - For God, Country and Coca Cola. New York. Basic Books. paragraph 34.99 and footnote 34.117

⏩ Gearóid Ó Loingsigh is a political and human rights activist with extensive experience in Latin America.

Thinking Of Sinn Féin, Trying Not To Think Of Palestine

Gearóid Ó Loingsigh☭ writing in Socialist Democracy examines the relationship between music, religion And liberation Struggles


Chilean folk singer Victor Yara

Lots of people on the Left, from revolutionaries to liberal wokesters (who are in fact generally quite rightwing) frown on religion, for obvious reasons and certain musical forms that they associate with religions, for less obvious reasons. Religion, struggle and music have gone hand in hand, though, for quite some time. It is not that surprising. Many lefties would be surprised to find out where some of their favourite songs and tunes come from or what happened to them afterwards.

That religion and music should blend easily in periods of struggle is not that surprising. Old man Marx gave us more than a hint in his oft abused quote on religion and opium. He wasn’t condemning religion in that particular quote, he did quite a lot of that elsewhere, but was rather explaining what its social role had been. He described it thus.

Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.(1)

So, it should come as no surprise that some, not all religious or religiously inspired music, should deal with social issues or a yearning to be free from oppression. Nor should it surprise us that some of these songs have crept into the secular vernacular at times of heightened struggle, sometimes in conjunction with believers in religious superstition and on other occasions in direct opposition to them.

The US folk singer Utah Phillips once remarked that the Salvation Army used to break up public union meetings by marching their bands down the street playing religious tunes. According to him the Wobblies (the IWW, Industrial Workers of the World) used to borrow the tunes and put new lyrics to them because the tunes were pretty and people knew them and they wrote lyrics that made better sense and thus thwarted the Salvation Army’s attempts at union busting. However, one of the songs he sang from that period was Solidarity Forever. The tune is a religious tune, Say, Brothers, Will You Meet Us(2) (I have included links to songs where available). 

It went on to become associated with a song celebrating the life of the abolitionist John Brown, in the song John Brown’s Body. Though a song about a political struggle against slavery, it was unsurprisingly full of religious imagery, and Brown himself was quite the fervent evangelical. His body moulders in the grave, but his soul apparently went marching on. Pete Seeger would revive this song.(3) 

And before the Wobblies ever did their own version it reached its maximum religious expression in The Battle Hymn of the Republic, a song written in a Union army camp during the American Civil War that cast that war in a religious almost apocalyptic light of the final fight between good and evil, with its lines of  “As he died to make men holy. Let us die to make men free.” For many outside the folk circuit, it is this version that is not only sung in the US as a patriotic song, but is sung in many churches around the world as a religious anthem. With the Wobblies it came full circuit and was rid of its religious imagery and was neatly a song of struggle calling for the destruction of the established order and not the individual religious transformation.

When the union’s inspiration through the workers’ blood shall run.
There can be no power greater anywhere beneath the sun.
Yet what force on earth is weaker than the feeble strength of one?
But the union makes us strong.

It is not the only time religious songs have dealt with earthly suffering as part of what Marx referred to as an expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Other religious tunes would find their way into the secular world and even stay there, thanks to struggles and not religious superstition, though in some cases the lyrics changed. Pete Seeger was not only one for singing such songs with no changes, he also revived others and changed them to make more sense as Utah Phillips would put it.

Seeger’s revived a version of How can I keep from singing? a Christian hymn written in 1868 is one such example. It is very religious, but in Seeger’s version he makes some changes. The lines

Since Christ is Lord of heaven and earth,
How can I keep from singing?

Become a bit more secular with love replacing Christ as the dominant force in life, that saves, redeems and guides us.

Since love is lord of heaven and earth
How can I keep from singing?

He also incorporated later verses added by Doris Plenn in the 1950s

When tyrants tremble, sick with fear,
And hear their death-knell ringing,
When friends rejoice both far and near
How can I keep from singing?

In prison cell and dungeon vile,
Our thoughts to them go winging
When friends by shame are undefiled
How can I keep from singing?(5)

Here of course, singing is also raising your voice, and making it heard on issues, very often involving political prisoners. This might be an obscure example, even for the generation that first heard it sung in the 1950s & 1960s during protests. However, there are other examples of secular movements borrowing religious songs whole hog, and turning them into anthems albeit with some changes such as substituting the word heaven with freedom and so forth. We shall not be moved, became a protest song in the 1960s, not only in the US, but also in Ireland and other parts. The Freedom Singers version sung at the March on Washington in 1963 managed to hang on to that religious feeling.(6) Other versions by Pete Seeger not so much.(7)

This song though is often sung in a religious context as I shall not be moved.(8) It did not require much to become a political song, just a political context and some minor changes. Its origins are disputed to some degree, though it is a spiritual song attributed to black slaves before emancipation.(9) It was popularised in 1930s labour struggles before it became popular again in the 1960s. It was even translated into Spanish and recorded by Adolfo Celdrán as an anti-francoist song.(10) His version is very upbeat and the lyrics are somewhat changed, though the chorus is a straightforward translation of the original.

Of course, the 1960s was a period of musical explosion with the folk song, jazz and blues revival and the mainstreaming of them all along with new musical forms such as soul and of course the mainstreaming of gospel. So, it should come as no surprise that old songs, some with a very religious flavour were revived, nor that gospel should give a voice to black communities fighting against Jim Crow in the South and discrimination throughout the US. One such song was Oh Freedom, which mixed religious salvation in the hereafter with freedom from slavery in the here and now.

Oh, freedom!
Oh, freedom!
Oh, freedom over me!
And before I’d be a slave
I’ll be buried in my grave
And go home to my Lord and be free.

And of course, there is that most famous of protest songs from the 1950s and 1960s, We Shall Overcome. It has a longer and more convoluted history than some of the others. The tune itself comes partly from two religious songs, Prayer of the Sicilian Mariners and O Sanctissima,(11) taking the lyrics also from a gospel song I’ll Overcome Someday,(12) undergoing some changes in the black tobacco workers strike of 1945-46. Then Pete Seeger got his hands on it, changed some the lyrics again and made it into what it is now known as,(13) echoing what he claims his father used to say to him, that plagiarism was the basis of all culture.

Though some songs went in the opposite direction. One of the most popular country/gospel songs is I’ll Fly Away.(14) The lyrics are clearly escapist, they are a perfect summary of religion being the opium of the people that deadens the pain and makes it all that more tolerable. Despite what is being said about the influence of religious songs here in this article, religion is not a force for liberation, even though people have turned to it on occasions in times of struggle.

Some glad morning when this life is over
I’ll fly away
To a home on God’s celestial shore
I’ll fly away

I’ll fly away, oh Glory
I’ll fly away
When I die, Hallelujah, by and by
I’ll fly away

Just a few more weary days and then
I’ll fly away
To a land where joy shall never end
I’ll fly away

It couldn’t be clearer. Death relieves all pain (technically true, as the corpse no longer feels) and there is some free from pain reward in the afterlife, one that is not available in the current actual real life. But this song was inspired by some lines from a secular song The Prisoner’s Song,(15) recorded by Vernon Dalhart in 1925(16) and later by various country artists such as Johnny Cash.(17) This crossover or inspiration was less common.

The US, a deeply religious society was not the only one to find such musical influences in songs of struggle. Ireland’s canon of songs of struggle and indeed ordinary folk and traditional songs is replete with references to gods, faith etc. Though it is not as common as you would think and I know of no examples of religious songs becoming secular songs of struggle, other than some of those borrowed from movements in the US where this transition had already taken place. I don’t have enough knowledge of other parts of the world, but it is safe to say some such crossovers took place. The ANC anthem N’Kosi Sikelel’ iAfrika was a religious song.(18) The title means God Bless Africa, though it was incorporated as the new national anthem with verses from the previous Apartheid anthem as part of the deal with white and transnational capital.

In Latin America, given the influence of Liberation Theology it is not surprising to find lots of religious references in songs of struggle, from Argentina up to Mexico with Cuba being a notable exception to this. Nicaraguan musicians such as the Mejía Godoy brothers were famous for it with songs such as Christ from Palacagüina.(19) In the song the child Jesus defiantly tells his mother that he doesn’t want to follow in his father’s footsteps to become a rheumatic carpenter, but rather wants to become a guerrilla fighter. Of course, when the guerrilla priest Camilo Torres joined Colombia’s ELN and was killed in combat, it lead Uruguayan singer/song writer Daniel Viglietti to write his song Cross of Light.(20) Camilo Torres had famously stated that it wasn’t important whether we believed the soul was mortal or not, as we all agreed that the human body was.

They say that following the bullet a voice was heard
It was God shouting: Revolution!

General, inspect the cassocks
A sacristan has a place in the guerrillas.

There were of course other responses that were more unforgiving of not only the reactionary role of the Catholic Church and religion in general but even questioning the idea of the Christian god. The Argentinian, Atahualpa Yupanqui in his song Little Questions for God, famously recorded by Chilean folk singer Victor Jara, murdered by Pinochet, puts it very bluntly.

There is an issue on earth
More important than God
And it is that nobody coughs up blood
For someone else to live better…

Does God look out for the poor?
Perhaps he does, perhaps not
But he surely dines
At the boss’s table.(21)

So, what is the purpose of this article? Other than an interesting historical perusal of the origins of certain popular songs. To say that our cultures are complex and are woven with a fabric made of many threads, some of them obscured in the haze of history by now. There are those on the left who moralise and see themselves as being above it all and holier than thou (pun intended). Pious priestly anarchists and woke types for the most part, who think they have cast off all vestiges of the past and institutions that they, correctly reject. But our society is a complex mix of the social forces that produced it, from the Methodist preachers involved in the first attempts to set up trade unions, such as the Tolpuddle Martyrs to liberation theologists in Latin America praying out of the barrel of a gun, having in many cases, the same negligible effect as praying to the mythical invisible man in the sky, but that is a matter for another day. Theology is theology at the end of the day.

The other part of Marx’s quote on religion that is often ignored by people who have either never read him or get their politics from Facebook memes is:

The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo…

When people engage in struggle, they embark on a path towards tearing down that halo, but it is not an overnight process, something the Anarchists could never get their head round in their discussions with Marx, who was not in favour of wasting too much time convincing people that there was no soul, but rather in fighting for their real material bodies. So, people in struggle adopted some of the songs to the new circumstances or continued, as they fought, to seek solace in the songs of their particular religious superstition. What should they replace them with?

Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers on the chain not in order that man shall continue to bear that chain without fantasy or consolation, but so that he shall throw off the chain and pluck the living flower. The criticism of religion disillusions man, so that he will think, act, and fashion his reality like a man who has discarded his illusions and regained his senses, so that he will move around himself as his own true Sun. Religion is only the illusory Sun which revolves around man as long as he does not revolve around himself.Yes, there are lots of songs from cultures all around the world that have no religious references. But this is a process and does not happen overnight. Rejection of religious superstition generally flows from people engaging in struggle, it is not the impetus to struggle. Many famous atheists such as the late Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins or Stephen Fry are reactionary dyed in the world imperialists with a penchant for singling out Islam above all religions. Dawkins once infamously remarked whilst sitting in a stereotypical English park setting that the tolling of Anglican bells was somehow genteel when compared to the Muslim call to prayer, which he described as harsh.(22) The man’s musical taste is shite, to put it bluntly, but it is not the case that people who reject religious superstition embrace more progressive ideas.

Stephen Fry for example, had little to say about Palestinians and accepted Israeli propaganda in his Alternative Christmas Address. Hitchens was all gung-ho for the Iraq War and Dawkins in his book The God Delusion claims what he terms the “educated elite” are more prone to atheism, which is a highly suspect affirmation for which he, the scientist offers no evidence. He goes on to then describe the Anglican Church (established church as he put it) as a pleasant pass time. His condescension for the working class and contempt is barely disguised through his book, he says less educated as he is too posh to say Chavs, or maybe even too posh to have heard the term.

Rival churches compete for congregations - not least for the fat tithes that they bring - and the competition is waged with all the aggressive hard-sell techniques of the marketplace. What works for soap flakes works for God, and the result is something approaching religious mania among today's less educated classes. In England, by contrast, religion under the aegis of the established church has become little more than a pleasant social pastime, scarcely recognizable as religious at all.(23)

So, these religious songs that talk of the human condition and those that were adopted and/or adapted in the process of people’s struggles are to be celebrated, not mocked or frowned upon. It is through their struggles that they will leave religious superstition behind, and not just the rational result of education. Meanwhile, open some wine, put on some music and if you can’t enjoy Mahalia Jackson singing some gospel, then you are wasting both the wine and the electricity and need to broaden your musical horizons and stop hanging around with Pious Priestly Anarchists.

Notes

(1) Marx, K (1844) A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right.

(2) See 

(3) See 

(4) See 

(5) See  Enya also did a version of it, though in a completely apolitical context.

(6) See

(7) See 

(8) See 

(9) See Hawn, C.M.(02/02/2023) History of Hymns: ‘I Shall Not Be Moved’ 

(10) Sabatella, M. (n/d) We Shall Not Be Moved: About the Song. 

(11) See 

(12) See 

(13) See 

(14) See 

(15) See 

(16) See 

(17) See 

(18) See 

(19) See

(20) See 

(21) See 

(22) See 

(23) Dawkins, R. (2006) The God Delusion. London. Bantam Press p.41

⏩ Gearóid Ó Loingsigh is a political and human rights activist with extensive experience in Latin America.

Music, Religion And Struggle

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