'Behind The Headlines: Life under occupation'
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Thursday August 08, 2002 16:38
by Justin Moran - Sinn Fein
maigh_nuad at yahoo dot com
086 366 7694
Public Meeting on Palestine
Four young Palestinian Students from Ramallah will give an account of life growing up under illegal Israeli Occupation. 8pm, Tuesday 13th August 2002 Project Arts Centre, East Essex Street, Temple Bar Organised by Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign Please forward this e-mail to anyone on your mailing list and encourage as many as possible to attend. The delegation is being hosted by Feile an Phobail and the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign and have had a number of successful engagements in Belfast as part of the Feile events.
Comments (17 of 17)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17Why don't the Irish Palestine Solidarity Group or whoever organises these events hook up with other groups around the country who are doing work in this area. There are known groups in every major city of the country who have campaigned in solidarity with the Palestinians.
The Cork Peace Alliance in association with Comhlámh hosted a hugely successful public meeting with guest speaker Dr. Ali Halimeh within 2 weeks of the Israeli Defence Forces invasion of Jenin.
There are many people around the country who are interested to hear about this issue. Surely if you are bringing people over from Palestine it would be worth a lot more for all concerned for them to visit as many places in a country as possible.
Bring 'em down to the real capital!
Why don't you either get in touch with the IPSC in Belfast or Dublin or leave a contact number or email here so someone could get in touch with you, before the Palestinians go home?
It's a fact that all these solidarity groups are Dublin based. In my weaker moments, I sometimes wonder if they think that the world ends at the red cow. As regards the suggestion of contacting the IPSC, I did so months ago and am still waiting for a reply.
The Palestinian teenagers are actually going to Galway for a day as well. There is a local IPSC group active there, I believe. They're only going to be in the Republic for two days so there's a limit on what they can accomplish.
But Oliver, you should feel free to contact the IPSC again. I know that sort of thing can be annoying but unfortunately shoestring operations, which most solidarity groups are, can't always keep everything going perfectly, there are bound to be glitches. I believe there are another couple of people in Cork in regular contact with the IPSC now and there may be more going on there.
In fairness, 5 days to organise and publicise a public meeting is not realistic except in the most exceptional circumstances - you don't want a half baked meeting with 10 people attending.
Should we ring up the IPSC every week to find out what they're planning for the Dublin area so we can catch them in time to try to organise something in Cork? They know (or should know at this stage) who the campaigners are in the major cities in Ireland and they should contact them in advance to see if there is interest. This interest, I would say, is not limited to the major cities - smaller towns could pull just as many curious people on this issue.
If these visitors are also going to Galway (where? when?) and they are only here for two days, fair enough. It happens too often that interesting speakers are invited to Dublin and no thought is given to whether other people might be interested. This phenomenon is not, of course, limited to the IPSC.
*snigger* Anti-Cork jibe aside the delegation was brought over by Féile An Phobail, western Europe's largest community festival and have spent about a week there taking part in the activities, holding meetings and cultural evenings and taking part in Palestinian Day, which is annually built into the Féile calendar.
While in the country, it was decided to bring them to Dublin and Galway, time restrictions as was pointed out, mitigating against going elsewhere.
As to the person looking to contact me, my phone number and email address is always on all the posts I make.
Oliver there is a very active IPSC in Belfast so your comments about Dublin are just sour grapes. Groups like the IPSC are only successful if people take an interest and if you are interested you should contact IPSC Belfast or Dublin to get on their internal mailing lists and stay in touch with those who organise events so that you can set up an IPSC in your area. This way you can see what the other groups are doing and build your area up using the shared information and knowledge.
Really, people from Belfast are hardly going to go down to Cork/everywhere else on the weekends to do the work for you all - do it yourselves! It's not rocket science.
Carlos what on Earth is stopping these self important movers and shakers in Cork from contacting the IPSC in Belfast or Dublin themselves and letting them know that they are interested in setting up a Cork branch? Do you not think the people in Belfast and Dublin have enough to do organising their own area without having to remember to contact Mr/Ms Important Activist in Cork to see if possibly they are interested in letting Belfast do all the work for them down in Cork, too?
For fuck's sake.
What is Sinn Féin solution to the situation in Israel-Palistine?
S.F. only care about the Palestinian situation because they draw dodgy comparisons bewteen Israeli occupation and British occupation.
S.F. would like to see the Israeli people driven into the sea and kicked out of the Middle East Similarly they would like to see Irish Protestents exterminated, oops I called them 'Irish' protestents, becaiuse Shinners think you have to be white and catholic to be truely 'Irish'
Stap,
One should not have to set up a branch of IPSC to organise a solidarity meeting. As already pointed out two groups, neither of which is the IPSC, organised a successful public meeting in Cork last April. There are enough 'groups' in Cork without the same people setting up a branch of another group just so that they might be contacted for future events.
The point I'm making is that if good speakers are being brought in from abroad, it might be a good idea to spread the word around at the time of organising the event to give other groups an opportunity to do something in their neck of the woods, time and energy permitting.
IS THAT TOO FUCKING MUCH TO ASK?
Carlos, they fucking post their notices on this here wire everytime there is a meeting or something going on and on each post there is a contact name, address, phone number and email. IS IT TOO MUCH TO FUCKING ASK FOR YOU TO FUCKING CALL THEM IF YOU WANT TO ORGANISE SOMETHING - ANYTHING!- IN YOUR AREA?
GET OFF YOUR FUCKING HOLE
No one is going to hand you the revolution on a silver platter or haven't you wised up to that fact yet?
Jesus Christ the cheek of some people
Given that there are active groups around the country who have worked on the Palestine issue before, I don't think its unreasonable of them to ask the IPSC (or anyone else) to contact them when a speaker is being brought over, or for other events when activity could be extended outside of Dublin. This is not about getting the IPSC to organise stuff for you, its about letting groups know about resources (in this case speakers) that could and should be shared. Perhaps the groups could get together and set up a mailing list, letting each other know of events in advance, so that they can all co-ordinate their efforts.
(This is not the same as giving the usual public notice of a meeting. Public notices are usually less than a week in advance, and a week is not enough time to organise a complementary event)
Sometimes nobody will have enough notice, or the circumstances won't be right, and that's fair enough.
Nice one Ray, that's exactly what I was going to say to Stap (sic) Whinging without the colourful language.
You also know what it is like to be labelled lazy when there is absolutely no evidence of laziness. To call for an improvement in the situation is not laziness and does not preclude action on many levels.
I still don't understand what is so hard about YOU calling ANYONE in the IPSC if you want to bring something the IPSC has been working on down to YOUR area.
Look the IPSC people work hard and it is not always easy getting things done in their own area. Waiting for them to call you because you think they should know that you are an important person and interested in the subject is a bit rich, honestly. They are just regular people, not psychic or full of super-activist powers. You can get a lot more done if you stop waiting for or rather, *expecting* the mountain to come to Mohammad and go to the mountain yourself.
So, have you talked to anyone in the IPSC Belfast or Dublin, and asked them to include you on their mailing list, or let them know that you want to do similar events in your area, and given them your phone number, have you contacted them whenever a notice has gone up here to express your interest and remind them that your area is able to host events, too? Somehow I don't think so, you strike me as someone who spends too much of his time waiting by the phone for it to ring instead of going out and making things happen.
You've only yourself to blame for why your area is left out of the loop.
My comment concerned the fact that I recieved no reply to my attempt to contact the IPSC. To describe my comment as "sour grapes" is nonsense. I don't need any advice or support from Belfast or Dublin to engage in solidarity with the Palestinian people. I was engaged in such activity as recently as two weeks ago.
Wah, wah, wah, wah.
Public Meeting on Palestine
Four young Palestinian Students from Ramallah will give an account of life growing up under illegal Israeli Occupation. 8pm, Tuesday 13th August 2002 Project Arts Centre, East Essex Street, Temple Bar Organised by Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign Please forward this e-mail to anyone on your mailing list and encourage as many as possible to attend. The delegation is being hosted by Feile an Phobail and the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign and have had a number of successful engagements in Belfast as part of the Feile events.
Regarding the comments of why certain areas were not able to have the 4 young people over to Cork, wherever so that talks/events could be organised there;
Firstly- time constraint. It took them four days to get to Ireland whereas if they were white and European they would here within a day. It will take them the same amount of time and hassle to get back to Palestine.
Secondly- The only reason that it has been possible to bring these four young Palestinians over to Ireland is because the ordinary people of West Belfast gave generously to bring them over. Most of the IPSC in Belfast spent 9hours, two saturdays ago, collecting money along the Falls Road, where many taxi drivers gave money everytime they drove past the crowd of IPSC activists.
As has been mentioned already they were also guests of Féile an Phobail(the West Belfast Festival) and therefore took part in various events during the Féile.
Thirdly- They are young people not life long activist who specifically brought over to Ireland to give talks. The aim of their visit was threefold;
to help ordinary people understand how life is for young people living in Palestine,
to develope a human relationship between specifically the people of West Belfast(but also Irish people throughout the 32 counties)
This cannot be done within an hour or two in the atmosphere of a formal public meeting.
Finally and almost more importantly for them to ENJOY THEMSELVES. As they have gone through a lot having been lucky enough to had a chance to talk with them.
Fourthly- This is hopefully the beginning of a new program aimed at developing the relationship/solidarity between Irish people and the Palestinian People through bringing young people over to Ireland.
Hopefully there will be more young people from Palestine over next year.
And hopefully all of those who were concerned that the Palestinian young people did not give talks in other places in Ireland get involved in this program by offering to take in some young people from Palestine next summer and undoubtedly help with the financial costs of bringing them over.
Regarding the tension felt between those involved in the IPSC and those who are not. The IPSC no doubt like many other groups would like more people to become involved in this umberella group of activists who have solidarity with Palestine.
I would like people to set up and become involved the IPSC wherever they are, regardless of whether there is an organisation who has solidarity with Palestine. I personally know a lot of Shinners, Trade Unionists, Swimmys, Greens who although are involved with groups who have given talks etc on Palestine- they are involved.
Myself included.
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