CPIR Statement: Crocodile Tears for the Magdelene Survivors

national | anti-capitalism | press release

Monday February 25, 2013 18:02

by CPIR - Páirtí Cummanach na Poblachta

What was the point of Enda Kenny's tears? None other than to create the illusion of a moral contract between the rulers and the ruled.

When we see a free state premier crying and asking for forgiveness, there is only one thing we can be sure of - after decades of denial, the Irish comprador class has found itself with no hiding place and has been forced to own up to yet another horrendous crime against humanity.

For some time now, the facts of slave labour camps know as the "Magdelene Laundries" have been making their way into the public consciousness, via books, films and documentaries, and through the noble efforts of the survivors themselves to tell the world that they will not be buried in silence.

Despite the appointing of Catholic traditionalist, Martin McAleese, to write a report into the functioning of these slave labour camps, since 1922, we know that the comprador free state and the Catholic church directly colluded to force women, and girls as young as twelve, into a system of mental and physical abuse and the extraction of slave labour. Many of the women were to spend the rest of their lives in these cloisters of terror, which, incredibly, were still plying their trade until 1996. All the survivors carry the terrible scars, as a life sentence.

Enda Kenny and the bourgeois media have been careful to downplay the class nature of this crime. In truth, the Magdelene Laundries were part of a system of violent control of the Working Class. It was, more particularly, the violent control of the wombs of Working Class women - the comprador class would decide on the production of children, according to their own labour needs. But, like all good capitalists, the Irish comprador class knew how to turn any situation to its advantage. The slave labour of these women subsidized the profits of many of Ireland's biggest hotel chains, who got their laundry done cheaply and with military efficiency. Indeed, the free state army enjoyed clean sheets and shirts, thanks to the detergent raw skin of young female hands.

Women daring to escape from these hell holes were hunted down by the Gardaí, as runaway slaves, and returned by force to their captors. Those who were pregnant - not all by any means - had their children stolen from them, to be trafficked onto the baby markets of the United States.

Now, in the second decade of the 21st century, the free state has admitted to its crime. But, what a strange criminal it is. Instead of having a judge hand down it's punishment, instead of hearing the compensation it must pay to its victims, the condemned free state tells its victims that it is setting up a fund, and invites them to apply to that fund to see what they might get. Is this the new paradigm for crime and punishment? Criminals will decide what compensation, if any, they will award their victims? If they apply.

If justice is not involved in this theatre, and certainly it isn't, then what was the point of Enda Kenny's tears? None other than to create the illusion of a moral contract between the rulers and the ruled. "We let you down." In other words, you could have expected justice from us, but we failed you. Now we have realised our error, and the contract between rulers and ruled is safe, once more.

In fact, there was never any contract between the free state and the Irish people. The state the Irish people created was overthrown, by coup d'état, in 1922, and replaced by two British imposed partitionist statelets. The southern statelet is the instrument of native Irish comprador wealth and privilege. No wonder that it found a willing ally in that other instrument of imperialist power, the Holy Roman Church. The Irish Working Class, the great majority, can expect nothing from these foreign impositions, but slavery, abuse and exile. And, indeed, they have gotten those in abundance.

No, the Magdelene survivors will get nothing from the free state but more use and abuse. In their youth, their labour was extracted without mercy. Their living entombment was a whispered terror to keep all Working Class women underfoot. Now, they will now be used to paper over the unbridgeable gap between rulers and ruled in Ireland, just as the survivors of the so called Industrial Schools have been used. They will be used to create the image of a solidarity and a morality that the free state was imposed precisely to destroy in Ireland. We know this to be so, since just as Kenny's tears fall, so too does the guillotine fall on the most vulnerable in Irish society - to pay the gambling debts of those who Kenny and his ilk really answer to.

Páirtí Cummanach na Poblachta
Communist Party of the Irish Republic
25iú Feabhra 2013

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Comments (6 of 6)

taxpayers again foots the bill for religious crimes

by fred

Mon Feb 25, 2013 18:27

What really pisses me off every time a scandal like this hits the public airwaves, is that the taxpayer takes the hit again for something someone else perpetuated.

I had nothing to do with putting young girls in this ugly predicament. Yet Enda kenny says sorry on my behalf and says some of my money will be used to compensate victims.

Fuck that. Let the people truly responsible for these institutions cough up from their huge estates for this travesty. I'm sick of paying for the crimes of the church. If we must pay their child abuse compensation bills and magdalane laundry abuse compensation bills, then the church should give the primary schools back into state hands in return for us paying out compensation for all these abuses. At least then we get something in return.

And let the politicians who actually facilitated it take public responsibility if still living by surrendering their state pensions and other such rights, and maybe doing some time or a bit of community service in a similar institution.

I was not born when most of this shit happened. Why should I or anyone else like me have to shoulder the blame or the cost unless I get my schools back in state hands or something similar in return.

Make the church pay for it's crimes against Irish citizens by returning our schools.

Innocent taxpayers?

by anti free state

Mon Feb 25, 2013 19:41

Fred,

that's the point, this was as much a state crime as a religious crime. Yes, you personally may have had nothing to do with it, but the body that organised this, the state, still exists pretty much unaltered in its underlying structures. If you support the current state then you can't complain that the state's tax collection system goes to compensate its victims.

Nobody ever has to take responsibility for their actions in Ireland any more. No wonder our leaders do what they like to us

Tue Feb 26, 2013 17:57

by blaming "the state" the individuals who made the decisons remain blameless and get away scott free again. Meanwhile the taxpayers money is used to cover their asses. Most importantly Nobody takes responsibility for their actions.

Thats a real Irish disease isn't it?. And here you go again supporting that behaviour. No consequences for those in power ever.

Well what I'm saying is that there should be consequences. The church as an institution should lose the schools. The priests and nuns involved should individually face justice. The politicians who allowed it should lose state pensions and individually face justice. Consequences. Then maybe this kind of stuff won't happen again because there are seen to be real consequences for the individuals making such rotten decisions. Not just some payment by the taxpayer to cover the real culprits asses as you are advocating.

That approach just signals impunity and lack of accountability. Why wouldn't politicians and religious leaders fuck us over again and again, knowing they'll keep their estates and fat pensions and, worst case scenario," shure all that will ever happen is that the taxpayer will just have to pay if we get caught out"

Time to abolish the partitionist statelets

by An Drighneán Donn - Páirtí Cummanach na Poblachta

Tue Feb 26, 2013 18:18

Fred, a chara, I understand what you are saying. But, we cannot forget the the free state was set up precisely to maintain the imperialist domination of the Irish people. You could take out all the politicians, priests and gardaí that were involved with the Magdalene Laundries and shoot them (which, of course, would be a very good thing to do) but you would have changed nothing. Because it is the 26 county statelet itself which is the instrument of injustice. It is linked, at all times, to British imperialism. And this fact is made blatant by the announcement that free state troops will go to Mali, under the command of the British army.

Those who take part in free state elections and take part in Leinster House are helping to pretend that it is not the free state itself that is the problem. These people who imagine they are going into LH to change the system are very much deluded. They are doing the dirty work of imperialism, by tying to the Irish people's emotional attachment to an alien imposition.

people just spread blame if allowed. We need to halt that

Tue Feb 26, 2013 19:12

but until individual politicians start to fear being held personally to account in the future for their individual choices, they will continue to go along with the whip system that allows such behaviour as supporting the US in Shannon or sending soldiers to support French / US imperialism and resource control in central Africa.

If they know they can spread the blame afterwards, some people will vote for terrible things. It's all about being able to shirk personal responsibility and complete lack of personal accountability.

Bringing a moral conscience back into Irish politics starts with bringing back individual personal responsibility for decisions. Otherwise the cockroaches can just hide behind the party blanket and say "I was only following orders"

And we all know where THAT attitude leads!

You could totally change the way the state functions by putting the emphasis on this whole personal responsibility thing.

And a completely irrelevant and dysfunctional parliament might actually start to work again.

When did the free state ever work for the Irish People?

Tue Feb 26, 2013 19:28

This is the question, Fred, a chara, has the 26 county statelet ever worked for anybody, but a small number of landowning families and their bankers?

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CPIR Statement: Crocodile Tears for the Magdelene Survivors

Comments (6 of 6)