2 + 2 = 15,000! Mainstream Media Mayday Maths Mix-up! How many people are ACTUALLY coming?

dublin | summit mobilisations | opinion/analysis Wednesday April 14, 2004 18:09 by redflaremist

Oh the irony of it all... after any demonstration the media and Garda "sources" usually trim a quarter off the top of the actual attendance, yet this time in the run up to Mayday they are keen to boost the number of potential protesters exponentially...

How many people are coming from abroad (and around the country) to Dublin for the Grassroots Network No Borders weekend? Nobody can answer that yet - we wont know until the day. We can however take an EDUCATED guess at the numbers, looking at the preparation for the weekend, the numbers on previous anarchist/libertarian demonstrations before, and the discussions that have been happening abroad on various websites.

The term "the New Genoa" has been laughably mentioned in the media. Genoa was one of the biggest anti-capitalist actions in the past five years. Roughly 50% of the people participating in the Genoa actions (peaking at roughly 250,000 in total on the Saturday) were Italian nationals. This is from a country with a population of over 50 million and a long history of anarchist and autonomist politics. Other people that travelled came from around Europe as Genoa is a continental European port and is easily accessible by road, rail, boat or plane.

Ireland, being an island of course, is a country that is relatively difficult to reach from anywhere but the UK in comparison to the European mainland. It has a history of an 80% Catholic right wing vote from 1921, and no long tradition of syndicalism, anarchist unions, squatting, autonomist actions, etc that characterise other European nations. The "Left" and those that espouse anti state views are miniscule relative to even the UK - and our population at five million or so means that in real terms there are very, very few anarchists in Ireland. The longest running anarchist group in Ireland are the Workers Solidarity Movement (WSM) who have been around for 20 years or so and their membership has always hovered around the 20 mark.

In recent years though, there's been something of an upsurge in distinctly libertarian actions in Ireland.

The first big Reclaim The Streets was in Sep 2001 (after a couple of false starts) with a game of street football in O'Connell Street. Approximately 300 people attended this. The crowd at the May 2002 RTS never numbered more than 1000 overall during the day. With lots of media pre-coverage and hype (although admittedly nowhere in the same league as what we're seeing now) in the run up to the subsequent RTS parties (Sep 2002, May 2003), and talk of "repeat violence" and "revenge" for the "riots" in May 2002, the numbers at these street parties never went over 800.

On March 1st last year, the Grassroots Network Against War (same people as who are organising Mayday) called for a taking down of the fence at Shannon in a peaceful direct action to show opposition to the US Military using the airport as a refuelling base. Again with pre-media hype of violence, approximately 300 people showed up to demonstrate. At the Dec 6th Shannon Blockade late last year, approximately 300 or so people joined in with the Grassroots/Libertarian group that was blockading a roundabout.

Other anarchist and libertarian actions that have happened in the recent past are the Carlo Giuliani Commemoration march in July 2003 (crowd of around 80 people), the "No Justice, No Peace" street theatre on Dame Street in January (roughly 100 attended), blockades of Top Oil garage on Amiens Street (between 20 and 40 people), and the mock funeral for the Thessaloniki 7 outside the Greek Embassy (around 25).

So the largest out of all those actions are the RTS parties in May 2002, Sep 2002, and May 2003, with the total crowd at any one point never numbering more than 1000.

In the UK, the only group that have publicly organised to come to Dublin are the Wombles, a pacifist group based in London who occasionally employ the "Padded Bloc/White Overalls" tactic at demonstrations. Their public meetings in London have been attended by approximately 60 or 70 people, around half of whom signalled their definite intention to travel to Dublin. There has been ONE thread on urban75.com talking about Dublin, which is fairly low on traffic. There are also some brief mentions on enrager.net, and apart from that there is very little.

The Dublin Grassroots Network has been busy plastering Dublin with stickers and posters, but these have a limited audience and are promptly ripped down. The Mayday weekend has been promoted (for all the wrong reasons) in the papers, but no real information about the lineup/meeting times of actions and the ideology behind them has been aired. The scaremongering has no doubt turned many "borderline" people away from taking to the streets, unfortunately.

The other group calling for street actions on Mayday, "Another Europe is Possible" (which is a front organisation set up by the Socialist Workers Party [SWP] when it could not force the Irish Social Forum to endorse street protests during the EU presidency), have done precious little groundwork in the run up to Mayday. Their website is very infrequently updated, they have no working groups to deal with issues like accomodation for visitors or media, and a quick look at their internal mailing list for organisation reveals non-existent organisational traffic (if you are interested: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Another_europe/)

Yet Rory Hearne has ridden the coattails of the Grassroots effort, appearing on TV and on radio. This is simply because the mainstream media are lazy and reach for the closest contact they have for "anti globalisation" issues - and Rory, ever keen for publicity, obliges, even though his organisation have done nothing practical in the way of helping to build for Mayday. The number at the last AEIP/SWP anti privitisation demo at the gate of Dublin Castle numbered around 30. Their planned demo for April 2nd for the EU Economic Ministers meeting in Kildare never materialised due to lack of support.

So, where in the name of FUCK are the media and the Gardai getting this figure of 10 - 15,000 from? Which tabloid journalist or Garda Seargeant has been in touch with these "hordes" of anarchists who are intending on flooding the capital? How have they been able to count the number of people arriving?



Of course, the number is invented, for various reasons. It helps to create a climate of fear and tension if the public is led to believe that a "tidal wave" of "hate-filled" anarchists are arriving on Irish shores (similar to the methods used by the media to create hysteria surrounding asylum seekers and refugees).

This climate of fear in the preceeding weeks means that the Gardai are likely to avoid any political heat if they assault demonstrators.

But the real reason, I suspect, is that the Special Branch and the Detective Unit are worried that some day soon, they will sit down at their desks to a P45 (they really shouldnt worry with a law & order jackboot thug like McDowell at the helm).

The Provisional IRA, on ceasefire since 1994, were the lifeblood of the Special Branch in this country. They kept them occupied, investigating smuggling rackets, robberies, talking to informants in pubs, infiltrating republican circles, tapping phones, intercepting international contacts.

Those days are long gone now, since Sinn Fein have adopted the policy of "A Ballot Box in one and a Ballot Box in the other". The Provisionals got a taste for political power, and elections became their prize, instead of industrial Semtex from the Czech Republic.

This meant that loads of fat Special Branch yahoos had nothing to do any more. They wanted to hang onto their jobs though - so what better way to invent an "anarchist menace" threat, and convince the Government that thousands of euro need to be poured into combatting it?

What ding-dong told the Cabinet that the anarchists were enough of a threat to cancel "A Beautiful Night"? Presumably by the same logic (that the O'Connell St event would descend into a riot) that next year there wont be any St Patricks Day Festival or that MTV will never be allowed back here (after their gig co-sponsored with HB held on Dollymount Strand turned into a riot).

Ultimately what will probably happen on Mayday is a repeat of the "Repaint The Streets" action in Sep 2003, which was widely seen as a police dry run for the upcoming WEF Forum pencilled in for Dublin. Helicopters, Mounties, hundreds of Garda in yellow jackets, fat Special Branchers standing on Dame Street - ALL HANGING AROUND WITH NOTHING TO DO, bored out of their minds, watching pink & silver hippies dancing, and cyclists blowing bubbles, singing and listening to music, drawing messages of peace on the ground. A ludicrous waste of resources and our money.

Its a win-win situation for the Branch and the Gardai. If there is no confrontation, then the Branch can say that the extra Garda manpower they demanded, and their intelligence gathering prevented it (and who is going to question that?). If there is any minor confrontation (and in all seriousness, not a single website or post has promoted physical confrontation with the Gardai) then they can physically brutalise to their hearts content, and claim it was necessary, because these people were "known agitators". Are the Gardai that assaulted people in May 2002 (and at other times) "known agitators"??



So for Mayday you'll still probably see a massive Garda operation (with the Army, without identification, on standby) on the streets, for maybe somewhere between one and five thousand demonstrators. Who knows what security operation will be in place for the dinner of Blair, Berlusconi, et al. But you can rest with the knowledge that it will all be paid for by YOU.