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National - Event Notice Thursday January 01 1970 Shannon Blockade 2: Name the Day national |
anti-war / imperialism |
event notice
 Thursday December 11, 2003 12:56 by Dominic Carroll - Clonakilty Against the War / Cork Anti-War Campaign (personal capacity) clonakiltyagainstthewar at eircom dot net
 Co-operation between GNAW and the IAWM needed for future blockades The first attempt at blockading Shannon was marvellous testament to the willingness of the anti-war movement to engage in mass, non-violent, civil disobedience. The turn-out on the day was superb, not only because of the travelling involved, the time of the year and the energy-sapping nature of relentless anti-war activity, but also because of the risk of arrest. And the upbeat mood amongst participants suggests a willingness to return sooner rather than later. Though our first attempt at blockading must be considered no more than a qualified success, a great deal was achieved, not least the unity in action of anti-war groupings. However, it should be stressed that many, many people at Shannon on Saturday would claim allegiance to neither the Grassroots Network Against War (GNAW) nor the Irish Anti-War Movement (IAWM), and neither would they consider themselves to have participated in the protest on the side of one or other group. Nevertheless, both organisations – along with several ‘non-aligned’ groups and activists - deserve credit for their work in building for the blockade (publicity, buses, postering, contacting, reconnaissance, etc.). On the day, unfortunately, co-operation was minimal, and it is surely obvious that a greater degree of co-operation must be achieved for future Shannon blockades to succeed. |
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Comments (15 of 15)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15Can I suggest that at the next blockade that, if we have to have them, we have different stewards. The stewards with a small few exceptions, I think there was one who was up for it older bloke in a suit think his name is Mick. They did not have a clue on Saturday.
It is not as if it was a difficult plan and directions were fairly obvious, almost seemed like they were trying to sabotage the whole thing.
Date for next blockade should be set as soon as possible.
With Christmas and the New Year we need a few weeks to organise. What better date than February 15th, the 1st anniversary of the huge Dublin demo?
We should also have frank discussion and learn from last Saturday. It was a great success but a bit more co-ordination, exchange of information, etc. would have made it even more successful.
Ireland is peppered with anti-war groups. Why not plan this democratically. Every group has meetings open to all potential activists to come and discuss a future blockade. Decisions should be made democratically at these meetings regarding a potential date for a blockade and the tactics that would be acceptable to each group (including the use of speeches and stewards) Once there is clear agreement in each group, delegates are elected with the clear mandate to communicate the agreed decisions to a delegates meeting. The delegates would be authorised to communicate the decisions of their group only. At this delegates meeting further proposals can be carried back to the local group. these can be discussed and delegates can again be chosen to communicate these new decisions to the wider group. At the first delegates meeting there could be agreed a secure on-line venue to discuss further developments (as it is difficult to have people travelling across the country on a regular basis) These secure forums could be used to co-ordinate action on the day. Each local group could act autonomously each having tactics that are part of an agreed master plan.
Positive thinking people.I think the next blockade should be as early as mid to late January with Europes media glare focused on Ireland and how we run our ship.
Also ,from a student perspective,last weekend was awkward because many had exams or simply were going home for Christmas so student numbers in late January should be vastly increased.
Grass roots and IAWM need to get it together,bit more direction!
It is true that many people who came to Shannon would claim no allegiance to any of the 2 main organisations that called for the blockade, but they support and feel comfortable with different methods.
There are 2 main issues that need to be addressed:
1. if the IAWM insists on having stewards who tell people what to do--mind you, this didn't work on the day, and that's why the blockade was a qualified success--then a lot of people will organise independently, through affinity groups and other forms of non-hierarchical organisation. If he IAWM is serious about its willingness to cooperate, it should address this issue.
2. Speeches. Most activists simply have had enough of the same of speeches by self-appointed leaders of the movement. So if you want speeches you should just have an open-mike accessible to everyone.
Agree totally with David in regrad to how to organise. Furthermore while I appreciate Dominic's desire to co-operate more closely with us, such co-operation would have to have an open agenda, not one pre-confined to organising pre-announced days of action taking the form of blockades. Furthermore is there any point in the grassroots
co-operating with people who are hostile to direct action (this includes a lot of the IAWM leadership). Co-operation yes, but we need to do it properly for it to work.
Would we have a better co-ordinated approach if we didn't name a day. There were about 4- 700 cops the last time (I've heard many estimates). I don't think we can work these odds - unless the aim is purely to cost the state money
We've have tried the publically announced fence pulls and blockades. They have increased security massively but gained us little in terms of numbers - in fact its mostly the same people each time with a few new faces
Perhaps the time has come to look at other tactics. There were about 400 people (most of them "shannon veterns" ) combined between Grass roots and IAWM.
reckon we could get at least 200 of them down down from both groups with no advance publicity.
Any opinions ????
conor
If we announce an action in a general time frame but do not give the day time and tactics. As a compromise we announce that there will be a blockade, lets say, in the last 2 weeks of january, and announce meetings to plan for this, but only publicise the exact day within secure organisations. This would mean that the state would have to spend a fortune defending the airport or that security for the action would be minimal.
There certainly was a degree of the IAWM telling people what to do on Saturday. I have no problem with things being organised, in fact it is essential. However, besides maps and stewards and all that there was a big problem with the way the IAWM went about the protest. For one, and I didn't realise this until later, the Irish Times said on Saturday that na Gardai were planning on re-routing traffic through the industrial estate. When the march got under way was were escorted along in our little security bubble right to where they wanted us to go. They played us for fools. A little bit of checking the place out beforehand might be helpful in the future.
Another things is why does the blockade have to take the form of one big march. With the numbers there we could have had about a dozen groups of 25 people - each group could go to different locations - with that many we could surely cause an effective blockade. Whereas when we all meet up in one spot, and then all together as one big unit it is much easier to police... Just some suggestions.
Connor never thought I'd see the day!!!! Yes in total agreement with that!! Shane...yeah and that's an argument for us being better organised on a local level - there were things happening off the steward's script because Dublin GNAW was well organised to go off script. We need to be similarily organised in our city.
I agree with Conor, why advertise our demo's unless we anticipate a fairly large turnout, a 'spontaneous' demo of a smaller number of participants could be very effective.
But we still need to have a good turnout to show that there is popular support for the protests...
I like the new ideas though think that discussing them here is effectively announcing them to the gardai and jourrnalists that now frequent here.
We have to plan everything better, talk to people we trust and use the media to our advantage, when and only when we are ready!
And next time as everyone loves suprises lets suprise the Gardai and Airport security with day, time, type of action!
I think there should be and have been 3 prongs to the way the movement attacks the war.
1. Mass 'prove we are popular' anti-war mobilisations like Feb 15. The failure of these to acheive anything in themself after the possibility of them doing so had been rediculously hyped by the SWP has put activists off them. But they still have a central role both as an entry point for some and as a way of avoiding prong 2 and 3 being isolated by state repression.
2. March 1st, Dec 6th publically announced 'direct actions'. These are ways for new people who want to go that bit further to get involved in a situation where they will be able to judge the risk for themselves in advance. At some stage (and this is really our main goal) we may get such large turn outs for these that the Gardai cannot contain them. Once this happens the use of Shannon will end.
3. More secretive smaller scale direct actions like the CW5, CW2, Dubsky and Kelly ones.
Finally there remains prong 4 which unfortunatly was much discredited by the anti-action trots. This is the possibility of Shannon workers taking strike action against refueling. Probably not all that likely and because of its use as a bludgeon in the March 1st debates something that few take seriously. But if it happened it would also take Shannon out of the war.
I think that at the ESF it was resolved to try and have another F15 style thing all around the world, or Europe at least anyway.
Can anyone who attends the ISF (or who was at the ESF) fill us in on this?
I suggest that on this date, we have another of the mass direct action/blockades attempts. Try and bring as many people as possible down to Shannon. Be it for a march, or blockade, or runway invasion.
Not much point in marching around Dublin.