Am I the only crayture who experiences a burning frustration rising in my chest when a conversation on activism takes the inevitable pivot to “At least we have the right to protest. At least we aren’t being slaughtered for speaking out”.
There are only so many “At leasts…” one can take. “At least… the council gave us a poop-a-scoop” (to pick up the dog shit around Crumlin) was the final straw for me and liberal activism with its co-opted, compliant handlers.
Sponsors, donors, local authorities, politicians, local newspapers, and celebrity activists are all very good at patting us on the head like grateful peasants when we volunteer or protest the right way. But this isn’t solidarity. This is a cop-out that reveals a total bankruptcy of class consciousness in many activist circles. This “at least” mantra is not just wrong, it is actively counter revolutionary, and anti-revolutionary, and it is deeply off-putting and insulting to the working class.
I read a meme today. It prompted me to write about this. It was slagging people in the Western world for complaining about the rising cost of gas, and at the same time not doing anything about Palestine.
The first problem with this thinking is that it creates a hierarchy of oppression. It implies that because Palestinians have it worse, we have no right to be angry about our own exploitation. We must reject this outright. Suffering is not a competition. The working class of the West is not “lucky” we aren’t getting killed. We are differentially exploited. Our exploitation in Ireland, one of the richest countries in the world, is simply more bureaucratised. It is less visible, yes, but nonethless real.
No, we aren’t killed by bullets in the streets, but we are being slowly tortured. The housing crisis. The waiting lists that stretch for years. The precarious job contracts. The sleepless nights. The palpatations. The stress. The pressure to keep a lid on it. Look normal, dress normal, talk normal. Fit in, and do not show any signs of strain, weakness or struggle. Tis grand. The state doesn’t need to shoot us; it just keeps us busy, exhausted, indebted, feeling shame, distracted, or fighting each other for scraps. That is the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie wearing a friendly, EU-funded, Yankee bleached smile.
The slow, grinding fear (and sometimes terror) keeps the masses compliant and it is no less oppressive. The only difference being it just costs the vassal state less.
Here is where the environmental and pro-Pal movements lose the plot entirely. There is a tendency to refer to Ireland as being independent. But we are no more independent than we are sovereign, or for that matter, neutral. We are a node in the Zionist controlled imperialist web. The Free State is neutral in name only. The US military uses Shannon Airport to funnel weapons and troops to the Zionist regime that is bombing civilians in Palestine, Lebanon and Iran. This is a vassal state… a logistics hub for the same empire that arms and funds the Zionist genocidal enitity. While activists cry “Free Palestine” outside an empty Dáil, the Dublin government facilitates the very supply chains that drop those bombs. And still the liberal activist insists we’re lucky that we can protest safely, while they refuse to connect the dots. The safety of our protest is contingent on the Dublin government’s complicity in making Gaza unsafe.
And the environmental movement? God help us all. It’s becoming all pro-Pal lately, have you noticed? A Rewilding Festival that needs reminding what’s wrong with IDF soldiers being there tells you all you need to know about the rise of green fascism, as sponsored by the smiling EU assassins.
When more working class activists reject bullshit identity politics and culture wars then, and only then might we have a chance of that long craved for unity that is desperately needed in our activist chambers.
Bourgeois chauvinism is real. We saw this first hand when Labour, Green Party and PbP members got involved in our 2-Tier EU immigration protest at IPO in the summer of 2024. At that time, Black and Brown male refugee numbers swelled. The Irish Refugee Council framed it as a “humanitarian” crisis. A swarm of white saviours came down to the IPO looking specifically for Palestinian refugees. Some of them were totally baffled to find an Irish homeless couple in a tent at the IPO and debated if they too would need food or a duvet.
I remembered all this after I watched a video of a Labour councillor, a Marie Sherlock, again. It is comical to watch her tell off a grassroots media correspondent of Aontacht. She asks him to “slide on” when asked why their bin demo didn’t join up with a CATU demo across the way. Home owners concerned about bin charges is a separate war to the eviction war renters are fighting, apparently. Sideways punches are so much easier than punching up, afterall.
Separating our individual struggles, whether that’s as an Irish worker from the struggle of the global proletariat, or separating the council tenant from the grievance of the home owner (who is still working class but has been led to believe s/he has more in common with the ruling elite than the struggling tenant), is a huge problem in our country. We are the same class. If you do not own the means of production and have to work to earn a crust, you are working class.
The super-exploitation of the Global South is what props up the seeming relative, but very fake stability of our vassal state. Bourgeois “luck” is built on their back, and that is nothing to be thankful for. It is a crime to be organised against.
Lenin warned us about the “economists” who thought trade unionism and legal reforms were the final goal. He told us that class consciousness means understanding that the entire system must be abolished. When the pro-Pal movement says, “At least,” they are pacifying us. They are telling us that the act of marching is the victory, rather than the act of dismantling Zionism. They reduce anti-imperialism to a permitted performative event. The Free State or Parades Commission gives them a route, a permit, and a few cops to wave protestors along. Why? Because it acts as a safety valve. It lets us blow off steam, feel virtuous, and go home. A small minority of pro-Pal activists return to overcrowded flats, and mouldy temporary accommodation. A very small minority. Most go back to their comfortable abodes, without questioning why the same system that funds and backs Zionism is the same system that owns the swathes of property and real estate, and controls the CEOs and bosses… and politicians - left, right, and centre.
James Connolly knew this. He knew that the British Empire wasn’t a flag. The empire was, and still is a system that is alive and well in Ireland today. The Irish worker’s fight against the vulture foreign investor landlord is the same fight as the Palestinian’s fight against Zionism; we are fighting the international bourgeoisie and its Zionist-led imperialist enforcers.
As a mother, this is what breaks my heart. I do not want my child to be “less dead” than a child in Gaza. I want him to be free. I want all children to be free. But that requires us to reject the liberal pity-party.
We have to stop letting the middle-class activists frame our suffering as “manageable.” We have to stop accepting that our protests are “safe” while our everyday lives are a war of attrition. We need a class analysis that sees the enemy clearly.
So dear state approved activists, if you can’t pass the mic, or isolating working-class ruffians, then at least stop telling us we’re lucky to have a voice. We want the power to use our voice. We are not numbers to make your peace demo look good on Insta. We have a message. A class message!
We refuse to use our voices to beg for crumbs from a state that kills to keep us quiet. Our actions are about building international solidarity – not the patronising kind that pity us, but the revolutionary kind that supports a rent strike in Ireland, a revolutionary encampment at a zionist university, and working class acquisitions of empty buildings owned by billionaires.
Wannabe revolutionaries, remember this: the polite, well-fed protest arm of the very system that oppresses us all will not be there for you in your hour of need. Be careful who you tail.
So, to end, the message is…
No more comparisons.
No more hierarchies.
Just the unbreakable, international class struggle.
Why? Because we refuse to be less dead.