Sunday May 2nd: NO BORDERS CAMP. Dublin Grassroots Network organise against Fortress Europe

dublin | summit mobilisations | press release Wednesday April 21, 2004 17:33 by Dublin Grassroots Network grassrootsdublin at yahoo dot com 0872820906

Sunday 11am SHARP @ Customs House Quay/IFSC. Tickets are e15 return. Bring music, food, wine, games.

On Sunday May 2nd the Dublin Grassroots Network will be opening a temporary No Borders camp to welcome asylum seekers and refugees to Ireland. We will be assembling at 11am SHARP on Customs House Quay (at the Memorial Road junction at the Matt Talbot Memorial Bridge, just in front of the IFSC). Tickets for the return trip are 15 euro per person. Please assemble on time. We will be back in Dublin by 7pm for the No Borders film "Holiday Camp" in the Indymedia Centre, which is about the Woomera Detention Centre in Australia. All are welcome to attend.

On Sunday May 2nd we will be opening a temporary No Borders camp to welcome asylum seekers and refugees to Ireland. This camp will be located south west of Dublin at a location where the effects of the anti-human policies of Fortress Europe are physically visible.

The people who break through the razor wire of Fortress Europe often find themselves impoverished after the journey, and the State is not keen to help them in any way (forbidding them to work in most cases). Their quality of life is diminished by State oppression.

As a gesture of welcome, we are asking people to bring food, wine, beer, music, games, and anything else that will make the No Borders camp a true place of welcomes for immigrants. We want to celebrate diversity of culture, and give people a chance to express the true meaning of friendship and "Céad Míle Fáilte".

The buses organised to travel to the camp will leave from near Customs House Quay on Sunday May 2nd. We will be assembling at 11am on Customs House Quay (at the Memorial Road junction at the Matt Talbot Memorial Bridge, just in front of the IFSC). PLEASE arrive on time as the buses cannot stay long due to timetabling commitments. We should arrive at the camp location some time after 1pm. Tickets for the return trip are 15 euro per person.

During the afternoon, there will be a brief explanation of why we made the trip, anti racist and No Border literature will be available, time for food and games, and discussion sessions about planning for future campaigns against the policies of Fortress Europe (including the upcoming racist referendum on Irish citizenship). The afternoon will also be an opportunity to reflect on the previous day's actions, and to talk to people who have made the trip over to Ireland for the No Borders weekend. We will be leaving for Dublin around 5.30pm.

All around us borders are erected by those in power. Borders are used to divide and separate us, to make us weak, to foster racism and discrimination among us. Borders contribute to nationalistic violence, they treat human beings with disrespect and disregard basic fundamental civil and human rights.

In Ireland we have traditionally put across a message of "Céad Míle Fáilte" (*a hundred thousand welcomes in Irish/Gaelic) to visitors to our shores. But with massive unemployment and emigration from Ireland since the inception of the State, the flow of immigrants and asylum seekers was -from- Ireland to other places, rather than people coming here. The visitors we extended our welcome to were tourists alone, who had money to spend.

Now as "modern" Ireland advances into the 21st century, and Irish people collectively forget their long history of economic migration, the message of "Céad Míle Fáilte" has been exposed as a sham, a shallow and vacuous fraud, a welcome that only extends the hand of friendship - once there is cash lining the pockets of the visitor arriving on our shores.

For the people that arrive today in a (supposedly) prosperous country, searching for work and a place to live, there is no welcome. Only harassment from the Garda Immigration Bureau. Only legal and political minefields to stop them residing in this country. Only Supreme Court judgements and referenda proposed by right wing zealots denying them peace and stability. Only terrifying Nazi-style night time police raids, imprisonment, and deportations.

The Irish State perpetuates this sham of "Céad Míle Fáilte" on May 1st, its alleged "Day of Welcomes". It claims to welcome those from the ten new EU states, but at the same time deports and harasses those from outside the borders of Fortress Europe. Only last month two specially chartered flights, with Gardai on board, deported over a hundred "failed" asylum seekers, including very young children (several of whom were Irish citizens). Those that do not meet the stringent guidelines are treated inhumanely and without consideration.

Imagine a world with No Borders. People would be free to travel and work where they want. There can be free interaction and engagement with people from different cultures, breaking down barriers, mistrust and misunderstandings. Futile wars over nation boundaries become a thing of the past. We come to respect others, regardless of their skin colour, gender, ethnicity, or background as equals.

Critics of a No Borders world say that this would lead to a mass exodus of people from the poor global South to the rich global North. The real question that must be asked is why would this happen? Then we get closer to the real answers of global inequality; economic exploitation of developing countries by capitalist multinational corporations; the greedy consumer ethos of richer countries; the legacy of colonialism; and racism. We get closer to the heart of the reasons why people decide to travel hundreds of miles (and often risk their lives) to get to the global North, and through the border of Fortress Europe.

We welcome people from the new EU ascension states to Ireland - but we also welcome everybody else to Ireland, regardless of where they are from.

We hope that you will join us in this No Borders action, to show that we are ashamed of the immigration polices of Fortress Europe, and to extend a welcome to those who have come here seeking a better life - just as Irish people have done elsewhere for many years.