Anti-Austerity Strikes: Protests Grip Europe

Anti-Austerity Strikes: Protests Grip Europe

Anti-austerity protests and strikes

Activists battle with police during violent clashes in Lisbon, as protests against austerity sweep across Europe.

10:21pm UK, Wednesday 14 November 2012

Video: Protests Across Europe Against Austerity

Enlarge

Rome is being brought to a standstill as anti-austerity protesters take on riot police in the streets.

A wave of anti-austerity anger is sweeping across Europe with general strikes in Spain and Portugal and walkouts in Greece and Italy – grounding flights, closing schools and shutting down transport.

Millions of workers have been taking part in the dozens of co-ordinated protests in a so-called European Day of Action and Solidarity against spending cuts and tax hikes.

Hunger Strike: The Irish Experience

by DENIS O’HEARN

When people ask me, “what is the most important thing you learned about Bobby Sands?” I tell them one simple thing. The most important thing about Bobby Sands is not how he died on hunger strike, it is how he lived.

New York – Bıa news agency, 5 November 2012

The hunger strikes of 1980/1981, in which ten men including Bobby Sands died, are the most famous use of that political weapon. Yet hunger striking has a long history in Irish political culture. It is said that the ancient Celts practiced a form of hunger strike called Troscadh or Cealachan, where someone who had been wronged by a man of wealth fasted on his doorstep. Some historians claim that this was a death fast, which usually achieved justice because of the shame one would incur from allowing someone to die on their doorstep. Others say it was a token act that was never carried out to the death – it was simply meant to publicly shame the offender. In any case, both forms of protest have been used quite regularly as a political weapon in modern Ireland.

The history of Irish resistance to British colonialism is full of heroes who died on hunger strike. Some of the best-known include Thomas Ashe, a veteran of the 1916 “Easter Rising”, who died after he was force-fed by the British in Dublin’s Mountjoy Jail. In 1920, three men including the mayor of Cork City Terence MacSwiney died on hunger strike in England’s Brixton Prison. In October 1923 two men died when up to 8,000 IRA prisoners went on hunger strike to protest their imprisonment by the new “Irish Free State” (formed after the partition of Ireland in 1921). Three men died on hunger strike against the Irish government in the 1940s. After the IRA was reformed in the 1970s, hunger strikes became common once again. IRA man Michael Gaughan died after being force-fed in a British prison in 1974. And Frank Stagg died in a British jail after a 62-day hunger strike in 1976.

Unlike in Turkey, the Irish make no distinction between a “hunger strike” and a “death fast,” although many hunger strikes have started without the intention of anyone dying. In 1972, IRA prisoners successfully won status as political prisoners after a hunger strike in which no one died. They were then moved to Long Kesh prison camp, where they lived in dormitory-style huts and self-organized their education (including guerrilla training), work (including cooperative handicrafts production), recreation, and attempts to escape and rejoin the conflict. The prisoners used their relative freedom to raise their collective and individual consciousness about their struggle against British occupation of Ireland. They read international revolutionaries like Che Guevara and Irish socialists such as James Connolly. This was, in turn, a foundation for rebuilding the IRA on a basis that included a less hierarchical and more participative structure, with a higher emphasis on community politics as a part of armed struggle.

As the IRA rebuilt their organization in prison the British government also changed strategy. The main pillar of the new strategy was a “conveyor belt” of security operations that included widespread arrests of young Catholic males, heavy interrogation including torture, and juryless courts in which a single judge pronounced guilt often on the sole basis of verbal or written statements under interrogation.

European General Strikes announced: “We don’t owe! We won’t pay!”

Main Greek union calls general strike on November 6-7

ATHENS – Agence France Presse

EPA photo

Greece’s main union to called a 48-hour general strike for November 6-7 in protest at a new wave of austerity measures unveiled by the government in order to unlock EU-IMF bailout loans, AFP reported.

“The central aim and demand of the unions is the rejection (by parliament) of unacceptable, destructive and coercive measures imposed by the troika,” the General Confederation of Greek Workers (GSEE) said in a statement, referring to the EU, IMFand European Central Bank.

October/31/2012

—————————————

#14N: European General Strike

29 October 2012

Soulevons-nous! Erheben wir uns! Solleviamoci!

Northern Ireland: Here Comes Trouble(s) — (again)

[Typically, bourgeois Brit media characterize rebellious violence in Northern Ireland as nonsensical and anarchistic, without good or understandable cause.  This is especially true since the highly touted peace deals were consummated years ago.  But today, conditions in Northern Ireland continue to worsen for the people as the economic crisis grows.  Farmers march in protest of milk prices, mass resentment grows at plans for a celebratory visit by the hated British monarchy, provocative Orange marches are staged, and the gap between the conciliating compradors of Sinn Fein and the abused and discarded working class youth in the streets is a faultline that the powers only address with force. — Frontlines ed.]

  ——————————————–

Police Wounded In Northern Ireland Violence

Sky’s David Blevins reports on the anarchy that emerged in Belfast as the annual Orange Order march reached an ugly end.

By David Blevins, Ireland correspondent, Sky News — Friday, July 13, 2012

Nationalist protesters face the police in Ardoyne in north Belfast after an earlier Orange parade returned back past shops in the area

At least 20 police officers have been injured during public disorder at a flashpoint in North Belfast.

Nationalist youths rioted for hours after a loyalist march on a contentious stretch of road.

The teenagers went from hurling missiles to ramming police lines with vehicles they had stolen.

Officers deployed water canon and later fired plastic bullets in an attempt to restore calm.

Police later came under gun attack. Officers escaped injury when at least 10 shots were directed at them.

Nigel Dodds, the Democratic Unionist MP, witnessed the unrest in his constituency.

“There comes a point where everybody has to stand up against people who only are interested in violence,” he said.

The Orange Order had been told it must complete its annual parade earlier than usual.

Loyalists were outraged when the Parades Commission then permitted a nationalist protest march on the road.

Tension reached breaking point when rival factions came face to face, exchanged chants and threw bottles at each other.

Not for the first time, police were caught in the middle.

Protesters clash with police in Ardoyne following an Orange Order parade in north Belfast

Gerry Kelly, a Sinn Fein member the Stormont Assembly, said: “Let’s sit down, talk this out and come to some sort of accommodation. We have had worse problems to solve.”

North Belfast witnesses similar disturbances every July but they are now being fuelled by a power struggle.

Sinn Fein had called for calm but dissident Republicans made no such appeals.

Assistant chief constable Will Kerr, the officer in charge of policing parades in Northern Ireland, encouraged “individuals and communities” affected by trouble to respond in a “calm and responsible manner”.

With the Orange Order demanding its right to walk traditional routes and Catholic residents objecting, the marching season often provides the backdrop for a period of tension on the streets.

Loyalists march to mark the victory of King William of Orange over the Catholic King James in 1690.

To some, it is tradition; to others, triumphalism and they rarely compromise.