NO BORDERS CAMP - meet at 11am, Customs House Quay

dublin | summit mobilisations | event notice Friday April 23, 2004 13:29 by Dublin Grassroots grassrootsdublin at yahoo dot com

Sunday 11am SHARP @ Customs House Quay/IFSC. Tickets are e15 return.

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.

http://struggle.ws/eufortress