Interested in maladministration. Estd. 2005
RTEs Sarah McInerney ? Fianna Fail supporter? Anthony
Joe Duffy is dishonest and untrustworthy Anthony
Robert Watt complaint: Time for decision by SIPO Anthony
RTE in breach of its own editorial principles Anthony
Waiting for SIPO Anthony Public Inquiry >>
Indymedia Ireland is a volunteer-run non-commercial open publishing website for local and international news, opinion & analysis, press releases and events. Its main objective is to enable the public to participate in reporting and analysis of the news and other important events and aspects of our daily lives and thereby give a voice to people.
Julian Assange is finally free ! Tue Jun 25, 2024 21:11 | indy
Stand With Palestine: Workplace Day of Action on Naksa Day Thu May 30, 2024 21:55 | indy
It is Chemtrails Month and Time to Visit this Topic Thu May 30, 2024 00:01 | indy
Hamburg 14.05. "Rote" Flora Reoccupied By Internationalists Wed May 15, 2024 15:49 | Internationalist left
Eddie Hobbs Breaks the Silence Exposing the Hidden Agenda Behind the WHO Treaty Sat May 11, 2024 22:41 | indy Human Rights in Ireland >>
Why I Fear What Labour Will Do to the Education System Sun Jul 28, 2024 11:00 | Stephen Curran We are facing a radical agenda set by the progressive wing of the educational establishment, says Dr Stephen Curran. We should build on the past 14 years' foundation, not tear it down.
The post Why I Fear What Labour Will Do to the Education System appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.
Labour Has Just Betrayed a Generation of Young People Sun Jul 28, 2024 09:00 | Richard Eldred By dropping the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act, the Education Secretary has declared war on the culture of free speech on campus. The fight-back starts here, says Claire Fox in the Telegraph.
The post Labour Has Just Betrayed a Generation of Young People appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.
The Extreme Weather We?re Experiencing Is Not Man Made, According to the IPCC Sun Jul 28, 2024 07:00 | Mark Ellse Day-to-day weather, with all its extremes, is "just weather", according to the IPCC. With their authority onside, we can shrug off the BBC's melodramatic climate reports and misinformation, says Mark Ellse.
The post The Extreme Weather We?re Experiencing Is Not Man Made, According to the IPCC appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.
News Round-Up Sun Jul 28, 2024 01:17 | Richard Eldred A summary of the most interesting stories in the past 24 hours that challenge the prevailing orthodoxy about the ?climate emergency?, public health ?crises? and the supposed moral defects of Western civilisation.
The post News Round-Up appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.
Green MP Proposes Sweeping Reforms to House of Commons in Maiden Speech Sat Jul 27, 2024 19:00 | Sean Walsh The sweeping House of Commons reforms proposed by Green MP Ellie Chowns are evidence that the Mrs Dutt-Pauker types have moved from Peter Simple's columns into public life. We're in for a bumpy ride, says Sean Walsh.
The post Green MP Proposes Sweeping Reforms to House of Commons in Maiden Speech appeared first on The Daily Sceptic. Lockdown Skeptics >>
Voltaire, international edition
Netanyahu soon to appear before the US Congress? It will be decisive for the suc... Thu Jul 04, 2024 04:44 | en
Voltaire, International Newsletter N°93 Fri Jun 28, 2024 14:49 | en
Will Israel succeed in attacking Lebanon and pushing the United States to nuke I... Fri Jun 28, 2024 14:40 | en
Will Netanyahu launch tactical nuclear bombs (sic) against Hezbollah, with US su... Thu Jun 27, 2024 12:09 | en
Will Israel provoke a cataclysm?, by Thierry Meyssan Tue Jun 25, 2024 06:59 | en Voltaire Network >>
|
Dave Douglass given a standing ovation
Dave Douglass, miner and anarchist, will be speaking at the opening of the Grassroots Gathering in Dublin this Friday. The report below (from UK indymedia) describes how miners from the Hatfield area of South Yorkshire, last week played tribute to his contribution to their struggle, giving him a standing ovation for his service. National Union of Miners members from the Hatfield Main branch paid tribute to the struggles of their branch and to their delegate Dave Douglass in Stainforth, Doncaster district.
More than 60 National Union of Miners members from the Hatfield Main branch paid tribute to the struggles of their branch and to their delegate Dave Douglass at a March 5, 2005 social in Stainforth’s Old Club in the Doncaster district of England.
The event marked the South Yorkshire branch's closure after 87 years representing miners. The collieries nearby were either closed or privatised by 1994.
Dave Douglass joined the branch as a delegate in 1979 while working as a "ripper" on the coal face. Today he and other Hatfield members at times rasp or cough, a symptom of pneumoconiosis known better as
black lung disease, caused by inhaling coal dust. Douglass now provides advice to miners, widows and their families at the Miner’s Advice Centre in Stainforth.
Douglass was the delegate during the 1984-1985 miners' strike and has also served on the NUM area executive and the South Yorkshire NUM panel. Throughout the event miners still called Douglass by his nickname, "Danny the Red".
"When he first came to Hatfield, people despised him," said one former miner who got up to speak. But Douglass' dedication to the workers turned him and many others around. "He was a man who stuck by his
principles."
Another miner, Aggy, paid tribute to Douglass. "He's represented us. He's looked after us as workers. You can't disrespect this man," he said, pointing to Douglass. Another miner told how Douglass had paid for copies of the coroner's report for the widows of miners
out of his own pocket.
Douglass paid tribute to the workers themselves stuck by him and his radical politics and looks (a Castro-like beard) even when police arrested him for growing marijuana plants in his garden. Douglass is a
member of Class War and the Industrial Workers of the World and once wrote a regular column for the communist Weekly Worker.
Douglass recalled the Hatfield branch's reputation for inviting controversial speakers from the Black Panthers to Sinn Fein to the Palestinian Liberation Organization to South African apartheid activists and a guerrilla from El Salvador. The branch also marched
in the 1985 gay pride march to reciprocate for the solidarity fundraising by London's gay community for miners during the 1984-1985 coal strike.
"I am indescribably proud of the branch," said Douglass, citing the branch as one that never lost sight that "it's the members of the union that make the decisions."
As the speeches came to an end, the audience stood and gave Douglass a standing ovation for his service. The evening was thick with emotion as the former miners unashamedly hugged and kissed each other on the cheek, as they told their stories particularly of the '84/'85 strike, known to them as "The Great Strike". Aggy told a story about how he was jailed for 26 hours for giving a police officer a 'Sieg Heil' Nazi salute. The police arrested him for "impersonating a police
officer."
Betty Cook from Women Against Pit Closures said that the strike changed the role of women in mining communities forever.
"The strike really gave women confidence," she said. Women went on the front lines during the strike. The police broke Cook's knee on the picket line, making her one of an estimated 20,000 people injured, two
miners and a taxi driver killed during the strike.
She said that her involvement in the strike prompted her to go to college and then university. She recently spoke to working women in Germany. She now works as a call centre worker, one of the service jobs the government said would replace mining jobs. But even
those employers were planning to off-shore those jobs to the Mediterranean island of Malta. She called for working class access to education and a socialist society.
"Women during the strike didn't have a political voice. We've got one now and we’re going to use it," said Cook.
The NUM now has a membership of 3,042, largely due to the privatization and consequent closure of all but seven coal mines in the United Kingdom.
There are more people working in the mine nostalgia business than in the mining industry now, said Douglass, who denounced the closure of the coal fields as "industrial genocide".
The result is unemployment and disillusionment in former mining areas that the whites-only British National Party (BNP) is seeking to exploit electorally for the national election expected in May this year. In its February 2005 Voice of Freedom newsletter, the BNP claimed it was being smeared by the government and media just like the miners were during the strike.
The NUM leadership has angrily rejected the BNP call for a Miners' Memorial Day. "The racism and religious hatred pedalled by those on the far right is totally alien to the values of decent people everywhere and they will find little support in mining areas.
"It is a most disgraceful attempt by a fascist party to associate itself with the miners' cause in an attempt to win votes in mining areas. The BNP never supported the miners' cause in any way whatsoever nor have we ever wanted their support," said Steve Kemp, NUM national secretary.
Douglass called for a more direct approach to the BNP in miner communities. "We have to give them the boot, in more senses than one."
Banner Theatre and Rotherham band, Toe'In'The Dark, also entertained the crowd.
Peter S Moore
https://www3.indymedia.org.uk/en/2005/03/307927.html
|
View Comments Titles Only
save preference
Comments (2 of 2)
Jump To Comment: 1 2"Aggy told a story about how he was jailed for 26 hours for giving a police officer a 'Sieg Heil' Nazi salute. The police arrested him for "impersonating a police officer."
now thats actually pretty funny...
Funny its is indeed jack:
Dave Douglass fair dues to him also; his writings are pretty cool "all power to the imagination" is a really good read also. Would love to see dave in dublin though.
Respect to the Hatfield Main Branch all the in the mining communities who fought back against the thatcher reich nightmare thing
I think the miners strike was the end of an era of mass scale workers struggles, with big general strikes and arguments for nationalising large industries. Like i d like to hear what dave would say, i think the way workers are orgainised has changed
a lot
still better off in a union for wage levels and what not
but in terms of revolutionary struggle theses mass workers things dont happen around here anymore
small scale despersed could be more efeffective
whateever
no doubt dave wd call me a petty bourgeoise wanker
growing ganja castro beards snowmen