Workers Solidarity Movement

Every now and again something winds you up a little too much and you find yourself being a little obcessive in response.  On hearing RTE had reported a daft figure of 8000 as attending tonights anti-choice rally this happened to me.  It was very clear this was a massive overestimate but then how to produce an actual calculation of an event in the past.  But then the anti-choice movement gave a hand and posted a video of the entire rally, shot it appears from the roof of Buswells.

Fintan O'Toole has an article in the Irish Times answering what he describes as the 5 errors of the 'Crusade against Abortion.' I want to go one further and look at what these errors tell us about the methods of those who want to control women's bodies. And more importantly how it is an error for pro-choice activists to allow the debate to be framed through responses to those errors. 

Let us begin by recognising Fintan is not bringing any new facts to the table, simple assembling the refutations to these claim that everyone who has been following the discussions around abortion in any detail is aware of. This is important because the core point I want to make is that when the various aspects of the so called pro-life movement throw out these claims in interview after interview they already know them to be false. They also know they are relatively easy to contradict, as Fintan has done. So why do they consider asserting them over and over to be effective?

More than one in four people in Northern Ireland support a woman’s right to choose on abortion, an Belfast Telegraph poll has revealed.  The findings come from a major survey commissioned by the Belfast Telegraph and carried out by LucidTalk, members of the British Polling Council (BPC). A weighted sample of 1,130 adults was surveyed between November 6 and 23; 90% were questioned by telephone and the rest interviewed face to face.

On Saturday last (24^th November), approximately 15,000 people marched through Dublin to demand an end to austerity.  It was a lively and vociferous march that seemed to herald a renewed sense of militancy among those attending. This militancy was most evident when Eugene McGlone, president of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, was roundly booed when he rose to speak.  Despite attempts to claim that this booing was orchestrated by Sinn Fein and the ULA, it was clear that a great many of those booing were doing so spontaneously and were expressing their frustration at the lack of action by the trade union leadership in terms of organising a real fightback over the past few years.

The numbers at Saturday’s anti-austerity march were impressive given the relatively low key build up, but what was more impressive was the militant mood of the protesters. This was exemplified by the booing and heckling of ICTU president Eugene Mc Glone with chants calling for a General Strike. Mc Glone, in the style of a seasoned professional union official managed to pick himself up and give a speech which though cynical in delivery, bore more than a grain of truth that the radical left should not dismiss out of hand.

On Saturday 24th November, thousands of people will march from Parnell Square to the GPO in Dublin behind the slogan “Boycott The Property Tax.  Fight Austerity”.  This protest, jointly organised by the Dublin Council of Trade Unions, the Campaign Against Household and Water Taxes, Communities Against Cuts and the Spectacle of Defiance and Hope, will give people the opportunity to show their opposition to the introduction of the property tax and the further entrenchment of the austerity agenda which will come in the budget on 5th December.

This college year has seen a large increase in the number of students taking out loans in order to go to college. As part of an aggressive advance into the student debt market, Bank of Ireland has already agreed schemes to provide “discounted loans” to students in DCU and Trinity, and to postgraduate students across the country (in this case the scheme was negotiated directly with theState) .BofI is also said to be in “advanced discussions” with over 10 other 3rd-level institutions.

In August 400 people marched through Dublin to protest the internment without trial of a 58 year old woman in ill health for over a year. In May her husband told the Belfast Telegraph she “is so ill that she had to be taken to a recent visit in a wheelchair. Her hair is falling out, she has lost a lot of weight, and her arthritis has got worse. She is suffering from severe depression after a year in solitary.”

As general strikes and unrest erupts across Europe last week it is important to reflect on our recent day of action against Austerity. On the 20^thNovember tens of thousands of people marched in cities across the UK against austerity and the recent passing of the devastating welfare reform bill. In Belfast, several hundred took part in a similar rally organised by the Northern Ireland Committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions.

Far from showing any potential power these ritual marches from A-B ending with various sound bites and pitfall speeches from our trade union officials serve to reinforce a pervading cycle of powerlessness and are solution to defeating austerity.

Once it became clear that the Children's referendum was going to be passed Twitter came alive with outraged Yes campaigners complaining about the low turnout. It demonstrated that no one, it appears, was willing to 'think of the children.' Pop singer Sinead O'Connor went so far as to suggest that it should be made a criminal offence not to vote. 

Image by infomatique License CC by-sa