'You want mute acquiesence from your "civilians" while you take it all but you can't have it'

dublin | summit mobilisations | feature Friday April 30, 2004 05:52 by =-) - Indymedia Ireland

Cynical attempt to justify the militarisation of Dublin

• ORGANISERS CONDEMN BANNING OF MAYDAY PROTEST
• 'THIN GLOSS OF UNITY': DEBATE
• DUBLIN GRASSROOTS NETWORK – GOVERNMENT ARE INCITING A RIOT’
• THREE JAILED: FIRST ARREST DETAILS
• DGN INVITATION TO DUBLINERS
• BOMBSCARE A ’CYNICAL EXERCISE’
• NO-ONE IS ASKING WHY WE ARE PROTESTING?
• ANOTHER EUROPE IS POSSIBLE – MARCH AND CARNIVAL
• DGN NO BORDERS WEEKEND DETAILS

GOVERNMENTS EAST AND WEST OF EUROPE 'UNITE' IN REPRESSION OF DISSENT:
Where are we? Are we in Europe, the UK or Ireland? Are we in Poland because it seems that what has just gone on there in the runup to the EEF Summit is now being replicated here? The Poles stood up to active and ongoing villification and harrassment and made themselves heard despite blanket repression redolent of the Soviet era in Eastern Europe.

MIASMA OF FEAR: UNQUESTIONING MEDIA
An Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and Minister for Justice Michael McDowell have succeeded – with the help of an overwhelmingly unquestioning media happy to print Garda press statements verbatim and relay Garda corporate videos over the airwaves - in spreading a miasma of fear and violence and militarism over dear old dirty Dublin.

NOISY PROTESTERS ARE THE TERROR THAT THE ‘WAR’ IS ON? IS IT ABOUT THE OVERTIME? THE BLUE FLU? BIN-LADEN? WAR IS PEACE? A FAVOUR FOR GW?
The Gardai and Irish Government seem determined to conflate International Terrorism with the Anti–Authoritarian Wing of the Global Justice Movement. Repeatedly tonight – Primetime – Ireland’s main TV current affairs programme – hinted at the threat of a Terrorist Spectacular without ever plainly saying the words ‘Al Qaeda’. They also Broadcast what can only be described as a Security Services Public Announcement laying out where and how protesters would be stopped if they attempted to move closer than a distance of approximately four miles from Farmleigh House where the EU Summit is taking place. Basically Protesters are being mixed up with and portrayed as a terrorist threat by the Gardai, State and Compliant Media. The word ‘Agitators’ is substituted for ‘Protesters’ in Primetime lingo. How convenient for this agenda that a ‘suspect device’ was found yesterday in the environs of Mountjoy Square where Indymedia and Community Media Network are welcoming protesters from Ireland and abroad (and others) to an Independent Media Festival. An Indymedia Videographer who was at the scene at the time describes the bomb squad ‘operation’ that ensued as ‘a cynical attempt to justify the militarisation of Dublin’. The pictures and video are worth a thousand words. Sudden Northern Irish style Militarisation of Dublin because of what exactly? Sounds like some surreal upside-down rerun of Derry in the runup to the Troubles to me. ‘Young Hooligans’ (repeatedly and bizarrely scapegoated by the mainstream press as a species of ‘British Invaders’) are once again painted as a threat sufficient to require and justify an open ended anti-democratic pseudo – military response. Wtf? Have the Gardai got a good taste of the ‘Overtime’ from Policing at Shannon? Payoff to prevent a repeat of the Blue Flu’? Or a carefully planned favour (and practice run) to go along with the Shamrock for George Bush and his increasingly unpopular Friends in the EU. Big Bold Demonstrations in Dublin or Shannon when the EU comes back to meet Bush again in Clare might prove to be an embarrasment to ‘Boston’ so why not create a full on climate of fear well in advance of his arrival. It might conveniently keep the natives at home later in the summer. How far the state is willing to go in this pre-emptive campaign of villification and hysterical fearmongering is as yet unclear. We'll know by the end of the summer and the (various) elections.

THE DUBLIN GRASSROOTS NETWORK MEETING POINT IS BEHIND POLICE LINES / BUTCH GARDA PANIC BROADCAST / WHY IS THIS HAPPENING? / WILL THE ENGLISH TURN US INTO ZOMBIES (AGAIN)? Continues . . . . .
It is happening because of a couple of hundred English and European protesters are arriving to attempt to noisily protest the EU Summit and demonstrate international dissent from the Militaristic, Rascist and Neo-Liberal Agenda of the Irish Government and the EU in the company of the Dublin Grassroots Network and roughly in the same area and with roughly similar concerns to the AEIP March and Carnival. Here are some more people (some second-generation Irish) with rights to Irish Citizenship for McDowell to target and demonise. ALL foreign protesters according to Gardai are ‘Violent’, intent on infiltrating the ‘good’ Irish Protesters and basically burning down the town and justifying their overtime. The ‘300’ are going to turn us Irish Protesters all into smash it up zombies overnight and the Gardai are going to have to beat the sense back into us all if everybody does not acquiesce themselves into a protest pen somewhere in the middle of nowhere far far away from the Uncontestably Wonderful EU Thing that is being born. The Dublin Grassroots Network meeting point near the Aisling Hotel is off limits by a long long way says the Butch Garda Panic Bulletin. The Park is wrapped like a Christmas Present in barbed wire with 500 combat ready troops inside. Dick Roche justified all this on TV tonight with a photograph of a concentration camp. To his credit Keiran Allen threw back the dubious credentials of the Irish State when it comes to lectures about Fascism and Imperialism and threw the Anti-Nazi credentials of the European Left along with them. He didn’t say however that they are attempting to use ‘terrorism’ as an excuse to come for the NOISY ones first and that they have a right to be noisy and be heard. He should have. He is setting up an exit strategy and it is not a pretty sight when people the SWP protested with in other European Cities are now being scapegoated with the unspoken consent of the same group.

WELCOME TO THE EURONATION ONCE AGAIN. WELCOME TO THE NEW EUROPE. WELCOME TO IRELAND OF THE WELCOMES. NO BLACKS NO DOGS NO WOMBLES. NOT EVEN IF THEY'RE ENTITLED TO IRISH CITIZENSHIP. WOMBLY CHARACTERS MEET AND GREET THE INDO AT THE IMC.
The Gardai have indicated publically that they are collecting lists of names and doing stop and search at ports, airports, hostels, B&Bs etc. The accomodation arrangements of the Dublin Grassroots Network for the arrival of the various exotics - shaky at best because of the unrelenting demonisation of both in the ‘popular’ press – are in a state of disrepair – the Independent Media Festival building is the only indoor space in the city actively welcoming protesters and providing them with any kind of information and orientation – some of them understandably want to stay in the only place that is known to them and is secure in a militarised city where they have been told in no uncertain terms that they are isolated and will not be able to walk the streets without being under surveillance. So It’s getting messy. Beds have been found but more will be needed. The Irish Indo tomorrow will be amusing that’s for sure. Some ‘Wombly’ characters took a notebook off an Irish Independent Juornalist in the Indymedia Festival Venue at one stage today when it was realised by those around her that she was an journalist taking dictation from those around her. An Indymedia person taking dictation in a similar way from strangers at an reception being held by the Irish Independent (in honour of the Article 133 Committee or a group of politicians for instance) would probably have ended up in Jail for a good week or in Internal Exile or both. It wouldn’t end up top of the news as this inevitably will It is only polite to ask permission before stealing the words from peoples mouths in order to collect more lurid details to twist out of shape in order to fuel your editors desire for a full blown moral panic. A moral panic which has an internment camp lined up ready to go out in West Dublin waiting at the end of it. Drunken reckless manipulative journalists have built up quite a reputation in Indymedia circles recently so this response should be seen for what it is. Those present decided in a straightforward manner to keep the notebook. It’s not like journalists are or were banned if they identifiy themselves as what they are. TV3 were wandering around yesterday, Primetime were in for a chat about the centre and the Indymedia ethos which went unmentioned and unbroadcast in their Toy Soldier Game Garda Control Special. None of the issues driving the protests in the media are or were mentioned or explained - just lots of pictures of watercannons, soldiers, riots, barbed wire, dogs and (grafitti interestingly enough).

‘YOU WANT MUTE ACQUIESENCE FROM YOUR 'CIVILIANS' AND YOU WANT IT ALL RIGHT NOW BUT YOU CANT HAVE IT’
Kerian Allen (SWP) was going on on Primetime about the fact that POSTERING for Political Events is now illegal in many Irish Cities including Dublin and contended strongly that this is a kind of once and for all attempt to drive the disobedient citizens who don’t like Bush, Bertie, Blair or Berlusconi and their War back into their homes once and for all in advance of the Bush Visit. The Veneer of the Gardai and their role ‘controlling’ a protest has slipped revealing a desire of the part of the Irish Government to frighten and intimidate ‘civilians’ into mute acquiesence. The Media ignores the agenda of the protesters in a BLANKET fashion while indulging in a pornography of lurid and misrepresented detail. EuroMayday in Dublin has morphed from being a day for celebration, networking, protest and the promotion of human rights into a foretaste of a EU State which routinely deploys threats of terrorism and overblown shows of military force against its own civilian population.

SO IF YOU HAVE SPACE FOR A NOISY ONE OR TWO OR TEN - (AND WANT TO DEFEND THE RIGHT TO PROTEST) - SHOW THESE PEOPLE THAT ‘NIL AON TINTEAN MAR DO THINTEAN FEIN’