Sinn Fein to put together campaign this weekend for opposition to racist referendum.

by Mark Grehan Mon Apr 19, 2004 15:12

Sinn Fein, the Greens, the SWP, have all affiliated to the campaign as has Republican Sinn Fein. Labour Party members have attended all the meetings and have been heavily involved in all working groups. The Labour party is yet to affiliate, mainly due to the fact it has not as yet taken an official position on the referendum. Other groups invoved include the Workers Solidarity Movement, Residents Against Racism, UCD Students and numerous others. At the first meeting there was over 100 people in attendance some from just under 30 groups.Many groupings are unable to affiliate as it is contrary to their charter/constitution but individuals from these groups have been attending. All this information was freely available and was previously put up on indymedia, Josephine. Perhaps you should attend a meeting or join our email discussion list before drawing an uninformed conclusion on our activites or what are weaknesses are. You can join it by emailing againsttheracistreferendum@eircom.net

by Josephine Mon Apr 19, 2004 14:15

"You are wrong groups are affiliating to and have already affiliated to CARR."

Who are these groups exactly? No political party will affiliate, it is the parties that you need if the referendum will be defeated as they have the canvassers and resources.

"No media has questioned the name of the campaign, and in fact most paper have in opinion pieces either called the referendum racist or have said that it will lead to increased racism. "

Who cares about the media, they are not concerned about how the CARR are recieved on the doors they are only reporting stories. In any case it is not the letters pages of the Irish Times where the referendum will be won or lost it will be on the doorsteps of the working class estates.

"The focus on the name and not the referendum itself is beginning to wear thin at this stage."

Well change it then. Unless CARR changes its name it will simply be by-passed as each party simply campaigns against the referendum under its own name.

by Mark Grehan Mon Apr 19, 2004 10:27

Josephine,
You are wrong groups are affiliating to and have already affiliated to CARR. No media has questioned the name of the campaign, and in fact most paper have in opinion pieces either called the referendum racist or have said that it will lead to increased racism. The focus on the name and not the referendum itself is beginning to wear thin at this stage.

by Josephine Maxwell Sun Apr 18, 2004 02:50

Mark, I think we all agree that people in the CARR don't thin that everyone voting Yes will be racists and we all agree that the referendum is racist. What people have the objection to is that by calling yourself CARR you are been seen to be calling people racist. The name is VERY important, you can't have one that alienates those very people you are trying to win over.

In any case if the name doesn't change no significant party or group will affiliate, so CARR will not really get anywhere. Remember it is the parties that have the resources and the hundreds of people knocking on thousends of doors.

by Disenfranchised Sat Apr 17, 2004 11:28

As a Northern citizen, how do i go about having a say in this - this will equally apply to citizenship rights in the North.

Is it too late to register to vote at an address in the South.

Mobilise support for the refugees.

by observer Sat Apr 17, 2004 01:48

Why don't you read the fucking posts before you tro out your usual crap. They must be paying you well the amount of forums you cover. Yourself and Tiny..... the Branch don't waste their money !!!

by Tiocfaidh Armani - Na Fianna Éireann Fri Apr 16, 2004 23:43 info at fiannaeireann dot com The Irish Republic as proclaimed in 1916

This really is typical of Indymedia and how stupidly pedantic people get on this about the littlest of things, and take their eye off the bigger picture. Maybe this would explain that the leftys with all their numbers never actually get anywhere!!

People may argue over the issue of a name but lets not take our eye from the bigger picture. It is vitally important that we win this referendum and with less than 8 weeks to go, the time for these petty stupid arguments is over. Why can people not put their petty squabbles behind them about the small matters and focus on the serious business at hand and get on with the campaign to defeat this referendum.

Provisional Sinn Féin are really making a shambles of things if they start off their own campaign. It is election year after all I suppose!!! Unite or die!!!

by Mark Grehan Fri Apr 16, 2004 20:08

So on open broad campaign free for everyone to join is undemocratic, well done. Also entitlement to citizenship by virtue of birth on the island has been the law in Ireland, preceeding the foundation of this state, it is not a loophole.

by until it sleeps Fri Apr 16, 2004 16:52

Great, an anti democracy campaign. Who are you to decree if referenda are legitimate or not. Let the Irish people decide. Or are you afraid they might not agree with you? This referendum is not "racist", it merely closes a constitutional loophole and brings Ireland into line with the rest of Europe. The ideal that an open-borders immigration regime can work is nice, but ultimately a fallacy. For the record, I believe that immigration can be enormously beneficial to Ireland,but it must be planned or will lead to serious problems.

by Mark Grehan Fri Apr 16, 2004 14:42

The inclusion of the name racist in the naming of the group is not to imply that everyone who votes for the referendum is racist it is to point out that this referendum was designed as a cynical ploy by the government to use the race card during the local and european elections and as a smokescreen to divert attention away from their failed policies. If this referendum is introduced. It will also discriminate amongst children due to their parents racial background.
But i think it is time to leave issue of the name alone, the most important issue is the quality of our arguments in our leaflets and not the name. I dont believe people will vote for the referendum because of the name of the campaign group. If people were paying attention to the papers they will see that many of the papers have had opinion pieces calling the referendum racist and Gerry Adams also called it racist in his Easter commemoration speech. It seems the name is only an issue for a minority of political activists and not the media or any people who we have talked to on the streets.
On a different note there is a protest organised for Wednesday 21st April at 6.30 outside Leinster House. It is vital that we get as many people as possible there to signal to the government the depth of unhappiness out there with the referendum. I would urge people to spread the word and to put a big push for numbers to attend the protest.

by Janus Fri Apr 16, 2004 14:23

Thank you Alan for proving my point so eloquently. You see kids, this is basically a left wing pissing contest. People who don't describe it as a racist referendum, possibly because of their desire to win it, are of questionable revolutionary commitment. Or r-r-revolutionary as Alan puts it.

Even FFers call it racist points out Alan. So the fuck what responds Janus.

This is not about whether the referendum is racist or not. It is, for what it's worth.

It is about one thing, one thing alone and nothing else. Winning it. Things that help us win are good. Things that do not are bad. It's pretty basic, and pretty alien to people on the Left who've never won an election or referendum in their political careers and clearly don't know how.

by Alan MacSimoin Fri Apr 16, 2004 12:59

The referendum is only eight weeks away. That's not a lot of time to get the Vote NO message over. We will need to leaflet our neighbourhoods, hold local meetings to get more people on board, put up posters, get our viewpoint into newspapers/TV/radio, raise the cash to pay for all this, etc.

The name 'CARR" may or may not be a problem. But let's not use that as an excuse to stand aside. And consider the likely coverage of a name change after having publicly launched as 'CARR': "campaigners backtrack and admit referendum is not racist".

The fact is that it is racist because it discriminates against some Irish children because of where their parents came from, and it is being run alongside the elections to divert attention from government policies and shift the blame onto immigrants.

Interestingly, people as distant from the 'left' as the Kerry Fianna Fail councillor who wrote to the Irish Times last week, describe it as a racist referendum. But some of our 'r-r-revolutionary' friends seem afraid to say in public what they say in private.

Anyway, if you won't get involved in CARR (which includes people from many organisations including Residents Against Racism, Sinn Fein, Workers Solidarity Movement, the Labour Party, Dublin Grassroots Network, the Green Party, ICCL, and many more plus lots of people who aren't in anything) - then get together with likeminded folk and campaign in the way you think is better.

But don't just sit around bitching about others who are actually doing something useful. There should be no problem having several different campaigning bodies - as long as we all co-operate and don't simply duplicate each others' efforts.

by observer Fri Apr 16, 2004 12:23

As Janus said, the implication of the campaign title is to say to anyone considering voting yes is that they are racist. Maybe they are, maybe ther're not. But you certainly won't change their minds by implying that they are.

Apart from that, it needs to be couched to bring on board everyone with concerns about the referendum INCLUDING those who beleive in tightening existing legislation on asylum and residency. It will not be won by allowing supporters of the referendum to portray it as a campaign run by the usual suspects and as the "loony left". Or to make it some kind of test of whether this is a multi cultural society.

They tried and failed to do that with the Nice referendum because it was a genuine broad front of people who agreed on one thing and one thing only. How well would the Anti Nice campaign have gone if it had been called "Vote No against a Fascist military EU state" or "Vote No for a Soviet Europe"?, or "Vote No for a Christian Europe"?

by shinner Fri Apr 16, 2004 12:06

I agree with both observer and Janus, at the last referendum we campaigned under alliance for a NO VOTE. Such a title would probably be the most inclusive.

by Janus Fri Apr 16, 2004 12:00

I'd be supportive of the campaign as well but I have to agree with Observer. The choice of name is absolutely appalling. It was clearly picked by people who were more interested in making an ideological point than in actually winning the vote.

As another person points out, you're not going to win over supporters of the referendum if you start from the position that they're racists. It also does as much to make race an issue in the elections as anything the other sides are doing.

While everyone else is trying to keep race out of the election, at least publically, CARR is doing everything it can to make it THE issue.

I'd rarely let something as petty as the title of a campaign serve as an excuse for people not to tie into it, but in this case, I think there's validity to the argument.

by R Isible Fri Apr 16, 2004 01:54

Taken from the Irish Independent Thursday April 15th 2004:

" Ian Paisley says that holding a referendum to change the definition of an Irish citizen from anyone born on the island to only those born here whose parents have lived on the island for three of the four previous years amounts to a unilateral change to 1998 agreement."

by R Isible Fri Apr 16, 2004 01:13

What are you arguments against if you don't believe it's racist and that people that vote for it are supporting a racist measure.

Do you not think that people should be confronted with an honest argument that it's racist and left to make their minds up? Or do you believe that "ordinary working classs people" are all racist and that you've got to sneak it past them by feeding them some lie?

by observer Fri Apr 16, 2004 00:09

You hit it on the head. This is a serious issue and if people are going to let slogans get in the way, we might as well give up now. Including racist in the campaign title is suicide. Not only SF but Higgins and others have made that point. Only way to defeat this is bringing the largest number of people on board and that means not excluding anyone.

by John Meehan Thu Apr 15, 2004 22:39

Many SF supporters are already active in the CARR - members of many different political parties, and members of no political party at all, are also supporting this broad based campaign.

People interested in becoming involved should go to other parts of the indymedia.ie site where there is p[lenty more good information.

by Party hack Thu Apr 15, 2004 20:10

One reason why SF and ever other party that opposes the amendment will not affiliate to CARR is the name. You con't go on doors and tell people they are racists, who do you expect people to be persuaded that way?

by observer Thu Apr 15, 2004 19:54

I think you might find that SF are more interested in actually trying to defeat McDowell than playing "Bolsheviks" with the SWP. This is not going to be defeated by a anything that resembles the IAWM. Victory will require a broad front of everyone opposed to it, from William Binchey to the WSM. It's not a game and it's not part of some pre-revoutionary fantasy.

by Major Woody Thu Apr 15, 2004 19:15

SF may be happy to provide credibilty to SWP fronts but there is an election going on. Better men than you have canvassed!

by Peter Sutherlands Nemesis Thu Apr 15, 2004 18:32

Campaign Against the Racist Referendum
12a Brunswick place, Dublin 2
email: againsttheracistreferendum@eircom.net
087 7974622 or 087 6662060

by grassroots head Thu Apr 15, 2004 18:11

There is already a campaign fighting against this amendment called Campaign Against Racist Referendum (CARR). Suggest that you liaise and work with them, add to weight to their already existing network of support.