Strength in Unity against Oppression

By a member of People Before Profit , Cork City Branch

I am a member of the Community Action Tenants Union (CATU) of Ireland. We are a union of tenants and we use our collective power for change, to stop evictions and to improve living conditions. In December and January CATU and the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC) organized occupations of premises of AXA , the multinational property and insurance company. But why are Irish tenants concerned about Palestine and why are they occupying the premises of the likes of AXA?

We know our shared history. The then British Chief Secretary for Ireland, Arthur Balfour, of the infamous ‘Balfour Declaration’ massacred tenants in Mitchelstown, County Cork who were protesting against poor living conditions. After the Irish War of Independence, Winston Churchill sent hundreds of Black and Tan Auxiliaries, primed with their experience of committing atrocities in Ireland, to Palestine to suppress Arab revolt just like he had sent them to Ireland to suppress Irish revolt.

We are united by our past but also our present, victims of the same system of oppression. Zionist ideology is responsible for the oppression of Palestinians but we must also recognize that the oppression and displacement of peoples throughout history isn’t just racist, it is also extremely profitable. During the brutal destruction of Gaza, the Israeli Ministry for Energy announced 6 new licences to drill for natural gas in Gazan waters. This exploitation is made possible by billions of dollars worth of US and European weapons. It makes military armament corporations very rich. Even in the West Bank where 400 Palestinians have been murdered since October armed Israeli settlers, backed by the Israeli army, do the dirty work of the bank such as Leumi and Alliance Bernstein. The settlers and the army illegally evict Palestinian people so that these banks can move in and build highly profitable settlements on the land.

We feel the historical pain and cruelty of evictions committed by landlords and soldiers in Ireland during the Iriah famine, but it still continues on today. These days, thugs working for the banks and hedge funds backed up by Gardai, evict Irish people, also for the sake of profit. The British landlord gave way to the Irish landlord and now the Irish landlord has given way to the multi-national landlord.

But the problem was never the nationality of the landlord, it is the very existence of the landlord. Corporate landlords such as AXA and Kennedy Wilson take our rent money and invest it into the likes of Leumi and Alliance Bernstein. Those banks build settlements in occupied Palestine. Through Alliance Bernstein, AXA Insurance then puts massive financial investments into the biggest weapons manufacturer in Israel, Elbit Systems.

In some cases AXA is charging Irish tenants as much as €3000 a month. They then invest their profit into colonial expansion. The same company that is evicting and exploiting us here is also evicting and displacing Palestinians.

We are inextricably linked by global finance.

All over the world, the profits of war are too tempting for some to resist. They’ll blind themselves to massacres of children just to get rich. We must expel from Ireland all corporations that refuse to divest from the profits of war and occupation. No one should get rich from making people homeless and then murdering them. Their profits, including the miniscule taxes they pay in Ireland, are covered in blood.

We’re on the streets every Saturday to demand the government expel the ambassador and sanction Israel. Their deaf ears must be opened by direct action. That is why CATU occupied the AXA offices. That is why we continue to fight landlords in the Dáil and that is why we must take radical action to disrupt businesses profiting from genocide.

There is a war here in Ireland also… a war of rich against poor. A war we know well from history.

Israel has one of the best funded armies in the world and they are butchering some of the poorest people in the world. Ireland can relate to that. Ireland knows what that feels like.

One side has nuclear weapons. The other side doesn’t even have food. At flashpoints around the world, if they can’t exploit you, then they’ll kill you and exploit the land you stand on.

The occupation forces don’t just want Gazan land, they want the Gazan sea and the Gazan natural gas beneath it. Our part in the fightback, in the form of the BDS movement demonstrates a very special power at work. Not a military power, not a governmental power, but a power stronger than both combined. People power. International, organized, people power. When they go to war, we go on strike. When they commit genocide, we commit mutiny. We boycott, we divest, we sanction. It’s up to us. We cannot depend on the governments of the world to stop war because they and the economic interests they represent benefit from war.

It’s up to us! So keep sharing BDS posts online, It is working. Keep talking to your friends about BDS, pick up some leaflets on BDS at the stalls.

Join CATU, because our struggle is united.

Join the Raise The Roof housing protests, because our struggle is united.

We’ll continue to fight for Palestine, our struggle is united.

And don’t ever forget:

‘If the workers take a notion they can stop all speeding trains. Every ship upon the ocean they can tie with mighty chains. Every wheel in the creation, every mine and every mill. Fleets and armies of the nation will at their command stand still.’

Join CATU. Support BDS. Free Palestine.”