(en) anarkismo.net: March in support of refugees in Dublin by
Dermo - WSM
Thanks to the work of a few volunteers we had some banners to bring to the Refugees are
Welcome rally and march at the Spire on Saturday the 12th of September. I was on my bike
into the Barricade Inn to pick up the banners. The banners were important to link up
certain struggles. One linked the appalling reaction to the social housing crisis by this
government with their slow reaction to the humanitarian crisis on the edges of fortress
Europe, which simply stated Homes for All, Refuge for All, and another which read No
Borders No Nations. There was a good crowd assembled there when we arrived at the Spire
and it grew steadily as Memet Uludag spoke frequently, often, and introduced each of the
speakers. The rally was a response where people wanted to express their solidarity with
the refugees who are attempting to escape war and death.
For the next hour or so a number of people spoke of how bad the situation was and how
inadequate the response of our present government was. There were chants from the crowd
making sure that the leaders of the EU and here in our present Government heard us say
that 'Refugees are welcome here'. The truth is we put people into camps that we call
'Welcome Centre's' and we have one of the lowest rates in Europe in terms of actually
granting asylum to people. In 2010, we let 25 people stay as approved refugees, and in
2013, our success rate was one of the lowest in Europe at 8.6% whilst the European average
was closer to 25.2%. Now I realise that to some of the irrational racists all these
figures are irrelevant, because it's all about going with your emotions and not dealing
with facts.
The truth is that this is a hostile country to seek asylum in and by no stretch of the
imagination do we welcome people into this country who are seeking asylum. Tell the
African shopkeeper in Cabra who had his car keyed by some young thug last week; tell my
co-worker who is Nigerian (but also now an Irish Citizen) whose is now homeless with her
family thanks to the bank repossessing the house that she was renting. Tell it to any
Traveller who has been born here and raise here, and they'll tell you about how Welcome we
make people feel who are different to us. The people gathered here in this crowd might
welcome refugees but this State and the leaders in Government have consistently used
asylum seekers as a means to divide and conquer the masses. That's why direct provision
was set up, to make some people rich with government contract, and to put people into
places all over the Country where they are isolated, and conspicuous. Then the rumours can
be started about people getting something for nothing and we can all descend into the
madness of fighting each other whilst the boys at the top carry on business as usual.
In fact we now have a system in Direct Provision which is recognised by the Minister
Aodháin O'Riordain, New Communities, Culture and Equality in charge of it as being
"regrettable" but still it carries on. 20% of the people living in direct provision have
been there for over seven years. Sure we welcome refugees. Of course all this information
and knowledge did not prevent senior labour party people showing up on the demonstration.
It's easier to show up on a demo than it is to dismantle the structure of refugee camps
which your party now presides over.
From all the speeches - that I heard on Saturday, with the exception of Memet and a
Muslim Cleric and perhaps one other speaker, all of the speeches were from white Irish
majority. Brendan Ogle from the Right To Water actually got booed at one stage for
bringing his talk back to that campaign one too many times. There were many good points
raised by various speakers, Bríd Smith spoke of the ease with which money flows in capital
across all borders and its only people this system has issues with, Paul Murphy spoke of
the need to end direct provision, Clare Daly made the links to Irelands support of the
wars that displace people in the first place through the re-fuelling in Shannon. We were
reminded of the role of Israel as arms supplier and tester of those arms on the civilian
population of Palestine. Another speaker made mention of the fact that Jeremy Corbyn got
elected leader of the Labour party as a sign of people's will for change.
I think that it is positive and it indicates that people desperately want change. He went
from being elected to addressing a similar type of Rally in London welcoming refugees.
This is a good change for the labour party who campaigned in the last election around
tighter immigration controls. Another woman told us about Department officials from the
Office of Migrant Integration confiscating various items which were donated by a local
group in Monasterevin as they expect that some of the refugees will be placed there. One
would wonder why public servants operating under the authority of the Department of
Justice and Equality, can see that taking toys away from migrant children who have yet to
get here helps with process of integration? But from many of the speeches the story, the
voice of the asylum seeker, the person trapped in the system of direct provision, the
voice of the refugee, the human story was missing from all the speeches.
After an hour we moved off and marched to the central bank. There Colm O'Gorman, adding to
the long list of white Irish speakers, from Amnesty spoke about how shameful it was that
people died fleeing conflict whilst leaders and states did nothing. All true. Another
speaker made mention of the fact that Jeremy Corbyn got elected leader of the Labour party
as a sign of people's will for change. I think that it is positive and it indicates that
people desperately want change. He went from being elected to addressing a similar type of
Rally in London welcoming refugees. This is a good change for the labour party who
campaigned in the last election around tighter immigration controls.
But my hopes for change reside with the people and not with new old white men in charge of
political parties. It is in the young faces in the crowd who know in their hearts that a
system which allows humans to die on the shores of a land that they hope will give them a
future, is wrong. It is the fact that people know this to be the case. It is the young
people who will not wait be placated with platitudes or satisfied with putting a different
old man in charge. It is in the people that rallied in Dublin, and London, in Frankfurt,
in Vienna and in places all over to world who do welcome refugees in their hearts but know
that this system does not.
My hopes spring from the fact that people have come together to collect goods and send
them in convoys to Calais. In a massive display of collective organising independent of
this government we are witnessing people responding in real solidarity to the needs of
other people. It is interesting that all this is happening at a grassroots level and below
the official system. A system which plainly uses people like a resource and deems all
resources expendable cannot be either reformed or trusted. There is no such thing as
getting the right driver for that system. More and more people are realising this, as the
raw contradictions of capitalism are exposed to detriment of us all.
http://www.anarkismo.net/article/28526
