Report of Global Women's Strike Events in Shannon, Ennis and Galway on 8th March

national | miscellaneous | news report Monday March 10, 2003 20:01 by Global Women's Strike Working Group Galway - Global Women's Strike maggie_ronayne at hotmail dot com

We had a fantastic Strike! Women from many sectors who took part said 'great', 'colourful and noisy', 'different to usual', 'everyone could speak out and each woman and man had something useful to add', 'not the same old boring speeches by politicians'. Men commented that they were very moved especially by the morning event in Galway where two women from Iraq spoke some truth about the effects of sanctions and war. Around 150 took part between all 3 events in Galway, Ennis and Shannon. Women at events organised by other sectors of the movement in Dublin, Westmeath, Belfast and Cork also distributed Strike information or highlighted the Strike. A massive and unecessary Garda presence met us at Shannon........

Report of Global Women's Strike Events in Shannon, Ennis and Galway on 8th
March

We had a fantastic Strike! Women from many sectors who took part said 'great', 'colourful and noisy',
'different to usual', 'everyone could speak out and each woman and man had something useful to add',
'not the same old boring speeches by politicians'. Men commented that they were very moved especially
by the morning event in Galway where two women from Iraq spoke some truth about the effects of sanctions and war.
Around 150 took part between all 3 events in Galway, Ennis and Shannon. Women at events organised by other sectors
of the movement in Dublin, Westmeath, Belfast and Cork also distributed Strike information or highlighted the Strike.

In Galway, about 70 women, children and men, including women of colour, many women with very young children, older women,
Muslim women and students took part in a speak-out against war, sang, played music or read poetry. Men and boys supported
the Strike by preparing a breakfast for all women, doing childcare, playing music, speaking out or carrying out other technical work.
Maggie Ronayne, the point of reference for the Wages for Housework Campaign in Galway and Strike co-ordinator, introduced the Strike saying,
'Our aim is to collectively make women's hidden case against war visible. We not only are the majority of victims but we take on the brunt of
the work of opposing war. We are always the first to be denied by cuts or privatisation of basic services and benefits we need to care for
children and others in the community; we know well that that money is taken to feed the war machine. We are here to demand back that stolen wealth
that is wasted on military budgets for women and for our care of every precious human being and our planet.' An African mother, seeking asylum
with her three children in Ireland, spoke passionately on the wars, poverty and domestic violence faced by African women - 'no-one knows, they
just don't know in the West about the poverty, I mean real poverty, faced by African women.' A woman of Roma descent described the unending war on
Roma communities, the added burden on women within the communities and why we all need the money from military budgets. She also recalled the Zapatista
struggle of Indigenous people in Mexico to us.

Two women from Iraq, both of Kurdish-Arab descent and both Muslim, spoke with great emotion. Women and men were moved to tears as both women told the truth
about effects of sanctions and their opposition to war. They spoke of relatives supporting the war only because they had give up hope, saying 'let them come
and kill us all, we have nothing left,' of relatives and others already dead, exhausted from sanctions or coping with the after-effects of the last Gulf War.
One of the women told of battles with relatives to change their minds to oppose war and to support them to keep going. She emphasised that the racism is so pervasive,
in Europe and the US, that it is hard for many, even those in the movement here, to understand that 'they are our sisters and brothers in Iraq.' With the obscene
differences in the world between those few who have most of the wealth and the vast majority of us, most in the global South, who have little or nothing, some lives
are worth less. Other women, including women of colour, took up this point and spoke on the war on Iraq as 'a huge racist onslaught'.

Men also spoke out in support of the Strike, on being inspired to take non-violent direct action by women's struggles against war and of the demand for resources and
money for caring work and for communities. Rab Fulton a Scottish poet, writer and activist, who is awaiting a court case after the previous Saturday's protest at Shannon
airport, spoke out against the distortions by the government of civil disobedience as 'violent' and the acceptance of this in the media and by Sinn Fein, the Green Party and
Labour among others. He added that when they attack non-violent direct action against the war in Ireland today, they are attacking the struggle, work and victories of the women
of Greenham Common, Rose Parks who refused segregation on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, the children of Soweto and many others. Internationally renowned playwright John Arden
read a piece from his and Margaretta D'Arcy's play, The Non-Stop Connolly Show.

In the main square of Ennis, people from the Strike bus were greeted and joined by Clare Women's Network and other women, children and men gathered behind a wide orange banner that
read 'Women Say No War/ Invest in Caring Not Killing'. Many women passing by on foot or in cars stopped to join in the lively and musical protest or beeped to show support. Several women
living in Ennis spoke out against the waste of money on military budgets. Clodagh Kelly from CWN emphasised the clarity of the Strike call for a total change in priorities. Roisin Garvey from
Food Not Bombs spoke on the ongoing war waged by Nestle pushing infant formula on African mothers and killing their children.

When the Strike caravan arrived in Shannon town we encountered the beginning of the massive, unnecessary police presence, which had been drafted in for our Strike action. It completely outnumbered
us and included hundreds of Gardai [police] as well as detectives, cars, vans, dogs, two police helicopters, police patrolling airfield perimeter fence [not nearly as many as for the non-violent direct
action demo the previous week though] and terminal, behind the fence there were more police, vans and fire engines with water cannon and barricades blocking the final part of march route and the front of
terminal building. The vans' cameras filmed us arriving and the march, and a woman Garda tried to film the speak-out close up from behind a large barricade. Two, five and then seven people - women and men -
went to the barricade and blocked her view, moving with her to prevent her getting a clear shot. Her male colleagues called her away to de-escalate what was becoming a stand-off. One helicopter followed the
Strike bus from Shannon town to the airport - and then left. We were escorted to the airport by (marked and unmarked) Garda cars and vans as well.

However, in contrast to the notable unhelpfulness of Aer Rianta [the airport authority], the rank and file Gardai had been extremely helpful to the Strike organizers before the day's events, and were helpful
for the entire afternoon in various ways, with uniformed Gardai approaching the Strike bus in Shannon town to do their own 'refusing', offering to break orders from higher up so that children could be taken to
the toilet in the airport terminal. After all, they were guarding the lawbreakers, and we were upholding Ireland's constitutional neutrality - in fact calling for that neutrality to be globalised like our Strike!

The short march of 50-60 people, led by the road-wide Strike banner 'Women Say No War/ Invest in Caring Not Killing', was diverse, colourful, noisy and musical with many songs and much chanting. Chants included
Mothers/sisters/grannies etc say no more - rape and looting, tanks and war' and 'Mothers say, Bush and Blair, How Many Kids, Will You Kill Each Day?' and 'We want welfare not warfare.' Placards said 'mothers say
no war', 'welfare not warfare', '$900 billion dollars = global military budget' etc. Men and boys did a bit of chanting on 'No More killing'. Taking part were young mums with many children and buggies, some dads
(pushing buggies) and other men supporters, pensioners, women of colour, women from MAMA (Mid-West Alliance Against Military Aggression), Clare Women's Network, 'veterans' of Greenham and Shannon women's peace camp,
teachers, students, archaeologists, women from Shannon town, Ennis, Limerick, Galway, Connemara, Dublin, Tipperary, Kilkenny, Derry, etc.

On arriving close to the terminal, we found barricades had been erected so we could not get anywhere near the building. The last public bus stop was also closed and the overwhelming and pointless Garda presence, which
in today's mainstream media, Gardai themselves have referred to as 'overkill', clearly seriously disrupted the operation of the airport. Irate passengers had to drive to a far car park to get access to the area behind
the barricades.

Our grassroots speak-out, in front of the barricade started with traditional Irish airs played on a tin whistle by Emma Dowling. Events also included a good deal more music, poetry, international updates on Strike events
in over 70 countries all over the world, including
-- recognition of the struggle of the Venezuela government's Women's Institute on Strike with us where women had led the movement that reversed a US-backed coup in the past year
-- the massive and growing movement against war in the US, news of which is censored from
us.
There were live radio link-ups with SW Clare community radio, the ASF Women's Commission radio show in Belfast and KPFK in the west coast of the US. Police helicopter buzzing of us stopped after people looked at Gardai
and complained they could not hear.

Among the speakers were women of colour, women from the North of Ireland, single mothers, women activists, teachers, unemployed men. One woman called Garda Inspector Tom Kennedy on breaking his word to the movement since
he had promised that no charges would be brought against protestors on the mass trespass last year and we all know now that this was a lie. Rose Tuelo Brock, from South Africa, spoke on the racism of this proposed war and
how wars destroy life, they represent the priority of death and destruction over life. Women who had come down from Derry spoke out against Raytheon, the giant arms manufacturer that set up in Derry - which some nationalist
leaders welcomed as providing jobs.

Everyone present offered huge applause and cheers to recognize the great piece of work that the women from the Shannon peace camp have done. Tracy Ryan from the camp, formerly from Faslane peace camp, spoke about the history of the
camp and reminded us of the continuing effects of war on Palestinian women and children. Maggie Ronayne added that we must also remember the call from Kurdish women in a refugee camp in Northern Iraq, against war and for our support.
Women in different parts of Kurdistan are opposing war, contrary to the outrageous use of the Kurdish people as an excuse for war. One mother of two living in Galway said that we women do the work of building community and ensuring the
survival of everyone, here in Ireland as well as Kurdistan, and that needs to be the priority and the focus. Women can make the priorities change and we can be part of that here in West of Ireland too.

Men spoke again to support the Strike and against military service. Pier Paolo Frassinelli, an Italian immigrant to Ireland, said that it was not just Shannon or this war that we want to stop but that we want a world with no spending on
weapons, armies, or waste of money and resources on this. 'I refused my military service, I did not want to be trained to kill' and he outlined what he did instead, working with children with disabilities. This was a victory for the movement
in Italy, that so many refused that the State made it legal for men to be able to do something useful for people instead. He gave examples of women and men refusing to kill or be part of the build-up to this war and ended with a piece from a
Bertold Brecht poem 'General, your tank is a powerful vehicle': 'General, man is very useful./ He can fly and he can kill/ But he has one defect:/ He can think.'

Women spoke directly to the police after this: 'We're talking about you, you know...you are our relatives, you are our sons, our fathers, our brothers and our sisters.' 'We're asking you all to refuse this work, go off sick, just stop doing it,
just come out through your Association or by whatever means, you can help end the use of Shannon with us. You know as well as we do that the use of this airport for refuelling of US warplanes is illegal under our constitution. This war, if it happens,
will be illegal. You know, as well as we do that Bertie Ahern will not protect you if all this ends up in court and people get tried for war crimes. He'll shop you straight away! But you can end this.' Gardai looked visibly uncomfortable.

A musician and singer from Clare sang anti-war songs and had everyone singing Bob Marley's 'Get up, stand up, stand up for your rights...don't give up the fight,' ending with us all belting out the last line, which he changed to: 'We'll give George Bush
a fight.'

In the final part of the day, ex-Greenham Common women wanted to focus part of the action on the airfield perimeter fence, laying flowers and tying messages to it. On the way back down, the Strike bus stopped at a section of the fence and four women made for it.
A detective stopped us and shoved one woman back, saying they had orders not to let anyone near The Fence. Women carried on arguing with him, as he was shouting into his radio-control, 'Back up, back up, immediately!' Let's just say that uniformed Gardai didn't exactly
hurry to the scene. Then there were 22 of them between four women and The Fence plus Garda vans, cars, etc. After a stand-off involving women refusing to get back on the bus with much banter about how ridiculous the Gardai must feel following orders like this, one woman
was allowed to lay flowers, accompanied by an officer. But it seems tying messages posed too much of a danger to security. Women carried on arguing, with women from Derry asking, 'What are you afraid of?' to the Gardai. As soon as they saw the fence close up, with one
roll of barbed wire on top and a small trench dug behind it, the Derry women commented, 'Call that a security fence?!'.

To add to the hilarity, the Strike bus got stuck in the mud on the verge and women and men called on Gardai to help get it out, which they did, complete with tow truck. Meanwhile, we all got off and had another protest in front of the line of Gardai protecting The Fence.
It was very lively with drumming, guitar, other music including songs from Greenham Common converted for Shannon, chants and interaction with Gardai. As one protester commented, 'This is not so different to the line-up in front of The Fence on last Saturday's demo. Except
for the media spin and the government distortion of non-violent direct action as 'violence'.

Two things are clear from the day:

1. Most rank and file Gardai do not want to be doing this job at Shannon and don't want blood on their hands. The movement must act further on this - call on them to have another 'blue flu' and find ways to address soldiers and their families in the army as well. This week.
2. The cost even of protecting warplanes at Shannon from women, children and men who will not let our sisters and brothers in Iraq be slaughtered for oil is appalling in its enormity. It must be millions by now. This is money taken by the barbarians who govern us
from adequate maternity services in rural areas, from carers' allowances, from cancer care, from pensions for women working in the home, from family allowances and benefits, from asylum seekers, from facilities for people with disabilities, from social housing and on and on.
The time is now to demand it back.