Workers Solidarity Movement

Next week the latest in a long line of parasitic chancers who have ruled Britain and (up to 90 years ago) all of Ireland for centuries will descend on the city of Dublin. As a result some one million people are going to have their lives seriously disrupted and tens of thousands have already had to suffer intrusive Garda calls at their homes. Streets all over the city will be closed, Garda will be harassing pedestrians and motorists, even the zoo will shut. And all for what? That is a question that seems impossible to answer.

Presumably whoever dreamed up the idea of bringing the British queen over was a bit carried away with the whole peace process and forward march of history thing. This visit no doubt was intended to show how 'we' had all grown up and moved on. Instead the visit is going to underline the elitist nonsense that is the British monarchy as some million people are having four days of fore lock tugging imposed on them by their own state security forces.

Just as with the recent wedding of her grandson in London no sign of protest is to be tolerated. This is no hyperbole, six days before the visit was due to start Gardai were to be observed scrapping stickers off lamp posts just in case the royal one might catch a glimpse as she was whizzed by and form the impression that someone in Ireland was not so keen on her.

Stranger still the Garda appear to have removed some 200 posters advertising the 6th Dublin Anarchist Bookfair, which had been erected with council approval. They didn't even mention her and the event, on Saturday 14th in Liberty Hall, would be over 36 hours before she even set foot in Dublin. It's hard to see any sort of logic to this, apart for the lack of love lost between cops and anarchists in general and the fact that anarchists were among those who gave her son Charles and his new missus a scare back in London in December. Maybe the royals have developed a phobia since, after all in the bubble they exist in its rather unusual to have anyone disagree with them, never mind attack their car with sticks and paint.

That the state security forces are worried that the Real or Continuity IRA might take a shot at her royal parasiteness is not in itself unreasonable, the British royals are hardly popular in traditional Irish nationalist circles. Killing a third of the population of the island on three separate occasions is probably going to leave some ill feeling, even if the last time you had a serious go at it was 170 years back. There are no shortage of bar stool republicans foolishly providing fodder for the 'its all about security' agenda by posting online fantasies about sniper rifles and car bombs. No doubt the usual Garda dependent crime correspondents will be paying back favors through turning such quotes into shock horror 'exclusives' in the days to come to justify the enormous clamp down on civil liberties underway. It would be better for the population if she (and Obama) were told not to bother coming and so saving 30 million euro to pay for some extra teachers or nurses over the next few years.

The Garda Press office is being its usual Orwellian self about all this. In a press release today they start off by claiming that "All business and commercial activity will continue as normal in Dublin city" before going on to say that no one can park just about anywhere in the city center from Saturday and that Garda will be harassing both pedestrians and motorists constantly. Given the outcry from city center traders about LUAS construction and bus corridors its rather hard to see quite how this constitutes commercial activity continuing 'as normal'. But in any case its not even true, some premises, in particular a number of pubs and bizarrely Dublin zoo have been ordered to close. And it appears they intend to close down the M50, the motorway that circles Dublin - where even the closure of one lane results in prolonged city wide disruption.  When public sector workers took strike action for one day back in November 2009 the media nearly had a stroke about the disruption these 250,000 workers out to defend their living conditions caused.  But now that a single parasite is to bring over four days of chaos to the city the same commentators remain tight lipped.

And what about the tens of thousands of citizens who are unfortunate enough to live on or near a street the royal parasite might pass down. They have been subjected to intimidating house calls from the Garda, told to take their children off the streets on the days she'll be hanging around and in the case of at least one city center flat complex told they can't hang out their laundry! One of the questions the Garda have been asking is if there are any guns in the house! Perhaps hoping to catch some dissident republican off guard who might answer, "oh yeah the sniper rifle is under the stairs .. oh wait!.."

You are, by the way, under no legal obligation to answer their questions if they call, nor can they randomly stop and search you on the street without reasonable suspicion you have drugs or if you have been arrested you under Section 30 of the Offences Against the State Act (hello again Mr Orwell.)

The British royals pretty much are the personification of everything that is bad about the way the world works. They have vast unearned hereditary wealth in a world where billions live in extreme poverty. In the words of an old English protest song "by theft and murder, they took the land".  They expect people to bow and scrape before them as if they were something special rather than the accidental product of a sexual encounter most of us would rather not dwell on. Their history is bloody and murderous, when they weren't commanding the slaughter of millions in their various imperialist adventures they were busy knocking each other off. Their palaces should be taken off them and turned into museums and hospitals and they should be packed off on some YTS / FAS program to go and learn some useful skills.

In the meantime one of the grosser occasions of the visit will be when the royal parasite will be sitting down to stuff her face with our local wealthy 1% at Dublin Castle on Wednesday night. Well some 90+ years after independence I guess we already know how Animal Farm ends.

The WSM is planning to join the eirigi organised March on the Castle from 5.30pm on Wednesday, May 18th at St Catherine’s Church on Thomas Street, Dublin 8. The march will depart for Dublin Castle at roughly 6.30pm. The protest which will include speeches, music and street theatre is expected to last until at least 8.30pm. If your feeling a little outraged by all the disruption I'll see you there, on the streets. 

WORDS: Andrew Flood