Report from Last Saturday's Demo

national | miscellaneous | news report Friday October 18, 2002 13:58 by Global Women's Strike

US warplanes out of Shannon, No to Nice - Invest in Caring Not Killing!

(sorry folks, late due to illness)

Women, children and men who are part of or supporting the Global Women's Strike had a contingent at the national protest action at Shannon Airport on Saturday 12th October. The Strike, grassroots Action independent of any political parties (and of the ‘Irish Anti-War Movement’), said, 'Not In Our Name' and protested the giving over of Shannon Airport to refuel US war planes and troop carriers - on their way to slaughter for oil. We were there to demand, on our own behalf and that of our sisters and brothers round the world, 'Invest in
Caring Not Killing' which is a theme of the Strike - reclaiming the $900 billion-plus now spent on global military budgets and the millions already used up for the EU’s ‘Rapid Reaction Force’, to be spent on caring, feeding, healing and learning.

The Global Women's Strike, women's independent voice in the global movement to change all economic and political priorities, takes place on the 8th March every year. Thousands of grassroots women and children in over 60 countries round the world, in rural areas, villages, towns and cities take part and many men have written statements in support and have participated in other ways. At Shannon, the Strike contingent was composed of mothers, including single mothers, and other carers, all of us doing unwaged work and some of us waged work as well, some of us immigrant women and men, unemployed, pensioners, students, of different religions or beliefs, from different countries, races and ethnic groups.

The Global Women's Strike set up our placards and banners on the approach road to the airport terminal, behind the garda checkpoint (in the past the gardai have tried to prevent protests from moving towards the terminal but didn't even bother on this occasion), and others came to join us. Estimates of numbers vary but there were several hundred anyway on the protest once it moved off. One chant on the march we felt represented us particularly: 'we want welfare not warfare.'

When we got to the terminal building, some of us at the front were shoved back and assaulted by the gardai when everyone tried to enter the terminal building. One of us spoke with the gardai while this was happening to us and explained that several of her relatives had been or are currently in the army or police, that it's poverty that drives many men (and women too) to take this road and then they’re trained and sent as cannon fodder to slaughter other poor people. Or else they are ordered take part in dangerous 'peacekeeping' and ‘peace enforcement’ in war situations created by others for profit. Or given orders to protect warplanes and bombs from the likes of women and children.

A speak-out had been arranged outside the terminal building - a few politicians spoke and they were put on first, but some of the women and men who spoke were independent activists, including people who have undertaken direct action against this or previous wars, and women or men who belong to no political party. It was far livelier than the usual rallies with representatives from political parties, and not at all as boring as the parties that preach at us and tell us what we already know. Maggie Ronayne point of reference in Galway for the Wages for Housework Campaign, which co-ordinates the Strike, spoke for the Strike and said why she was there, as a woman and a carer, and why all the Strike women were there on their own behalf but also representing our sisters everywhere in the world, to make our demands. Women do most of the work of caring for everyone and for the planet, but we get no wages for 2/3s of this work and the majority of us get low pay when we get a wage at all. In times of war, our burden of work and the repression against us is multiplied thousands of times.

In outlining the cost of war to women and to everyone else as a result, she said that it is women in particular who are relied on to make up the shortfall from the savage cuts to welfare and denial of our basic needs and rights that go to increased military spending instead. The war is also an attack on working class people in the US. Bush is looking for at least $14 billion in welfare and services cuts to the poorest people there in order to fund the war. This was reflected in signs women and men supporting the Strike carried, including: 'Deport the Warmongers (Bertie and Co) Not Asylum Seekers', 'We Want Welfare Not Warfare,' 'How Does the USA afford these Warplanes? Cuts in Benefits and Services to: single mothers, homeless people, disabled people on low or no incomes, pensioners, Latin@, Black and Native American families, refugees'. Talking about the amount of global spending on the military annually and the millions more that politicians want to throw at the planned European army, she emphasised that women taking action in the Strike and at Shannon were demanding this entire budget for themselves and their families, for everyone else and for the planet – we have to demand everything to win it.

Other women and men supported us during the march and especially after we had spoken out about why we were there, including a father of two children who offered to carry our 'Invest in Caring not Killing' placard because by that point one of us had been injured by the gardai. He took it to the gardai who were blocking the entrance to the airport terminal, protecting the warplanes from us. Using the placard, he spoke to them about being a father and the fact that many of them probably were fathers and mothers too. He said it made him realise the work that mothers in Afghanistan have had to do to try to ensure their children survive, the choices they have to make, whether to watch their children die of hunger in refugee camps or try to get them food in extremely dangerous situations, such as going out to pick up yellow food parcels which might be bombs. (He later got arrested during the action in the airfield.)

A Muslim woman from Iraq now living in Ireland with her family also spoke. She said she was not part of any political party and had never spoken out like this before but it meant a lot to her to be taking part and to have everyone here at Shannon. Her relatives and many friends were back home in Iraq and so many children had already died as a result of the sanctions. She emphasised that 'these are human beings not abstractions' and that the warplanes were going to bomb places she knew and people she loved - in a war for oil, 'this is not an abstraction'. She said that while everyone knew that Saddam is a brutal dictator, it was the people of Iraq, who were made up of diverse people and she named them – Arabs, Kurds, Sunni Muslims and Shia, etc – who were the ones who should decide how they wanted to live their lives. They should be allowed to find justice for themselves: it couldn't be done by outside military forces and this war. She also said that it would mean a lot to the people she knew there to know that we were here trying to stop the war and prevent them from getting killed and she would tell as many as she could.

There were various other activities - including surrounding, and demanding answers from, the gardai in charge of the operation because they would not even let a six-year-old child and her mother into the terminal so that the child could go to the toilet (the inspector in charge tried to sneak away and hide when people were calling for him to answer questions but one of us, who knows him from taking part in previous actions there, spotted him and he was surrounded). The State TV channel did not show up to cover any of it but were forced to get images and make a report on their main news bulletin because their phone number was given out to protesters during the demo and they had gotten over 50 calls already by the time some of the Strike women could get through to phone them.

After about two and a half hours, we all began to make our way back to the airport entrance. On the way, some of the protesters began to take down the perimeter fence that surrounds the actual airfield and then about 200 others were able to go through onto the airfield itself, where they sat on the grass and sang. People got pushed back eventually by the gardai who threatened them with water cannon, police dogs and horses. Ten people were arrested but were released when a busload of others from the protest turned up outside the police station and demanded them back. They were released without charge though a file has been sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions, for someone 'higher up' to decide.

We all had a good day and overall, we felt that more grassroots people i.e. the majority of the working class could take part, be visible, speak out and act. Women, as those who do most of the caring work for people and the planet, have been central to every anti-war movement as we are to this one. Parties and organisations always claim to represent us, refuse to mention we were there and then claim our grassroots, organising work as their own. This does not build the movement but hides, not just women's struggle but those of all grassroots people and in so doing, presents us as passive 'victims' of capital's attack on us. BUT WE WERE AT SHANNON, WE REPRESENTED OURSELVES AND OTHER INDEPENDENT WOMEN AND MEN, WE TOOK ACTION, WE SPOKE OUT AND ARE SPEAKING OUT ABOUT WHY WE WERE THERE USING A VARIETY OF MEANS.

What was also good about the day was that some of us will no longer allow ourselves to be portrayed as passive 'supporters' of organisations and politicians that claim to speak for us but don’t. We began the collective speaking-out of all of the sectors of people opposed to war AND direct action against the war. All of these sectors, visible and autonomous, and both speak-outs and direct action are necessary if we are to prevent it.

To sign the Global Women’s Strike petition to all governments on ‘Invest in Caring Not Killing’ and to get more information about the Strike and how you can be part of it, visit our website: http://womenstrike8m.server101.com
For further information, email: womenstrike8m@server101.com or telephone (IRL) 087 7838688.
The Global Women’s Strike is co-ordinated by the International Wages for Housework Campaign and WinWages (Women’s International Network for Wages for Caring Work).