Two more convicted of public order offences from Mayday 2004; STILL no anarchist support

dublin | eu | opinion/analysis Monday January 10, 2005 12:52 by R

Mayday 2004 fallout.

The fallout from Mayday 2004 continues - not that you would know from reading this site, or from the Dublin Grassroots Network site either (which hasnt been updated in six months), the group responsible for organising the protests for their "No Borders Weekend". Two more people were convicted last week in the Dublin Circuit Court of public order offences on the Navan Road on May 1st, and were fined 500 euro each by the judge. Nobody from the Dublin anarchist community was present in court to offer these two people financial or just simple support.

The Gardai have been given free reign to re-interpret what happened on the Navan Road. Their testimonies in court, containing over-exaggerations, and their telling of the story with many mainstream media hype references, go unchallenged on the stand. Nobody from the anarchist groups have come forward to volunteer as witnesses for defence solicitors to counter the garda statements.

Talking casually to members of the anarchist community about these convictions, you get a similar attitude to when asked about the 2 Wombles arrested (a continuing source of antipathy between the UK and Irish anarchists). "It was their own fault", "They should have left the squat when they were told", "They were far too headstrong, if they'd listened to the Dublin people then they wouldnt be in prison" - these comments about Joe and Polly are the same as the ones offered up now about the "dumb students" arrested on the Navan Road. "What the fuck were they sitting down on the road for", "If they'd stood up and linked arms with the black bloc then they wouldnt have been arrested", "They can only blame themselves".

It is hypocritcal of the anarchists in Dublin to say that it was up to people to make their own individual choice on the Navan Road whether they wanted to confront the police line or not, and then not bother to support them when they get arrested and harassed by the state. These arrests and court cases are of no concern to the anarchists now however. Rather than get involved in a difficult legal support campaign, they have now switched their time (and money) to the far easier and fashionable "autonomous centre" campaign.

There have been a couple of similar projects to this in Dublin before in the past which closed down after lack of support and interest. How do the anarchists expect this one to succeed when they dont even bother to organise legal support for the people arrested at their demos? Rather than help people they dont know, they prefer to stay within their own self-satisfied clique, burying their heads in the sand when it comes to doing hard slog work. This scenario is an exact replica of the situation arising following the Mayday 2002 "Reclaim The Streets" riot, where people were left in court with no support from RTS (which is now defunct, having dissolved mostly into DGN).

Meanwhile, longer articles have started to appear in left-wing journals and publications, looking at the Mayday 2004 weekend and the issues arising from the various internecine conflicts. The WSM have a feature in their "Red and Black Revolution" about the buildup, where "What Next?" has an article from a Marxist viewpoint critical of the Wombles (taking the ESF and their attitude in Dublin as discussion points).

DGN site: http://struggle.ws/dgn/index.php
Red & Black Revolution articles: http://www.struggle.ws/wsm/rbr/rbr8/media.html
http://www.struggle.ws/wsm/rbr/rbr8/mediagame.html
What Next? article: http://www.whatnextjournal.co.uk/Pages/Latest/Wombles.html
The Wombles: http://www.wombles.org.uk/