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Recent Articles about Ireland / Britain GenderWSM marks International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Wo... Nov 26 18 8 reasons anarchists are voting Yes to Repeal the hated 8th May 25 18 Decades of organising wins new abortion referendum in Ireland Feb 02 18 Rallying for Choice in Belfast ireland / britain |
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 Saturday October 14, 2017 00:31 by Kellie - Workers Solidarity Movement andrewnflood at gmail dot com
 On 14th October 2017, Rally for Choice will march through the streets of Belfast. - Last year saw us counter protest the Rally for Life in the North of Ireland, for the first time we marched against their lies instead of our usual static demo. Our counter protest was a huge success, despite being organised at short notice and with only a handful of activists. The protest burst across our streets and convened at Buoy Park afterwards for speakers. We outnumbered the Rally for Life 2016 significantly. This year, with heightened urgency, even more organisers have come together to have a stand-alone march. We do not need Rally for Life to galvanise us. We are here, in huge numbers, and we are angry.
Rally for Choice is a revolutionary, grassroots, feminist organisation of ordinary people who have come together to make our voices heard. We have an anarchist structure and strive for a horizontal organising arrangement where everyone is equal. Roles are rotated so that no one becomes burned out or takes on too much. We try to avoid terms like manager or leader, and use co-ordinator instead. Our structure is very inspired by the Workers Solidarity Movement. Organising a Rally for Choice in the North has been a complex but liberating process. We have gathered into sub-groups for Social Media, Outreach and Fundraising, as well as the official paperwork that comes with holding a protest in Belfast, plus we have strong branding which is very important (as we learn from any episode of The Apprentice). We have been meeting weekly to fortnightly since May 2017. There are only two places in the city where we are officially allowed to gather without Public Liability Insurance (PLI): outside Queen's University and City Hall. Neither of these are large enough for the Rally for Choice. Buoy Park (officially known as Cathedral Gardens) is free to use, but we need permission from Belfast City Council and we must purchase PLI. Other places in the city require gatherings to pay. Paying to protest isn't something we should have to do. We have encountered so much resistance from Belfast City Council, that it has been hard to avoid the impression that they are trying to silence us. One of our events, Picnic for Choice in Botanic Gardens, was declined permission at 4pm the day before it was held. Any march in the North requires a notification to be sent to the Parades Commission. They don't grant permission per se, but they must be notified. They can put restrictions on the march and we will have to have an official meeting with them 10 days before the Rally. The Rally can be classified as 'contentious' up to 14 days before. This will require more meetings and paperwork. The City Centre PSNI will also be informed ahead of the day. Branding Social Media
Please follow us to keep up to date. We have an excellent video about why we are doing this, and there is another one coming soon... Outreach As it's incredibly close to all our hearts, we want to include and involve as many people as possible. We've sent information packs to Women's Centres and Groups across the province. We've held pro-choice information stalls to distribute leaflets in Belfast and in Tyrone. One of the reasons why we chose October is that we want people from the March for Choice in Dublin on 30th September 2017 to be inspired, and come and support us in the North! We want everyone to come to Rally for Choice. We don't want this to be just Belfast. We want this to represent people Ireland-wide. Fundraising We will use this kindness wisely. Holding a successful Rally is expensive. As well as the leaflets, posters, stickers, public liability insurance and outlay for merchandise, we also want to make a huge purple banner and have some purple surprises for a bit of atmosphere on the 14th October.
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HauptseiteSupport Sudanese anarchists in exile Joint Statement of European Anarchist Organizations International anarchist call for solidarity: Earthquake in Turkey, Syria and Kurdistan Elements of Anarchist Theory and Strategy 19 de Julio: Cuando el pueblo se levanta, escribe la historia International anarchist solidarity against Turkish state repression Declaración Anarquista Internacional por el Primero de Mayo, 2022 Le vieux monde opprime les femmes et les minorités de genre. Leur force le détruira ! Against Militarism and War: For self-organised struggle and social revolution Declaração anarquista internacional sobre a pandemia da Covid-19 Anarchist Theory and History in Global Perspective Capitalism, Anti-Capitalism and Popular Organisation [Booklet] Reflexiones sobre la situación de Afganistán South Africa: Historic rupture or warring brothers again? Death or Renewal: Is the Climate Crisis the Final Crisis? Gleichheit und Freiheit stehen nicht zur Debatte! Contre la guerre au Kurdistan irakien, contre la traîtrise du PDK Meurtre de Clément Méric : l’enjeu politique du procès en appel Ireland / Britain | Gender | en Fri 19 Apr, 17:09
The WSM took some time out from our future directions discussions session at Cloughjordan eco village over the week to mark the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. Saturday the 30th of September 2017 will go down as a high point in the fight for abortion rights in the Republic of Ireland, and that is a struggle that stretches back decades. Years of campaigning and maintaining a focus on the issue, saw a massive crowd of nearly 30,000 people take to the streets for the annual March for Choice as organised by the Abortion Rights Campaign [ARC]. The calls are for action, and the need for Repeal of the 8th Amendment which bans abortion in almost all circumstances. The Workers Solidarity Movement in Ireland is in full support of the protests in Brussels on the 28th September demanding a guaranteed, free, and accessible access to abortion across Europe. The EU has stood by idly while the bodily autonomy of pregnant people continues to be violated by some member states including Ireland and Malta. It has similarly done nothing while other member states progressively attack reproductive rights based on the political whimsy of the controlling parties of ever-increasing conservative governments. We hope the this mobilisation will demonstrate the united commitment to reproductive freedom for all. Every year in either Dublin or Belfast the pro and anti choice movements come head to head around the so called ‘Rally for Life’. This year it was Dublin’s unwilling role to play host to the bigot parade. It mattered more years than many as a referendum on the hated 8th Amendment that bans abortion is promised for next year. It could be that the next Dublin bigot parade scheduled for 2019 will come after they have suffered a major defeat. International Womens Day in Ireland saw thousands take to the streets in a sequence of 'in work time' protests under the heading 'Strike4Repeal'. Abortion is illegal in almost all circumstances and the protests were an attempt by pro-choice activists to forced the government to stop delaying a referendum to repeal the anti-choice 8th Amendment placed in the Irish constitution in 1983. Workers Solidarity Movement members took part in organising the day and in the aftermath produced a number of articles and videos detailing what happened. Somewhere in the region of 70 people attended an emergency protest yesterday outside Belfast City Hall. Amnesty International is holding its International Council Meeting in Dublin this week and earlier today many of the delegate attending staged a protest at the Dail (Irish Parliament) against the criminalisation of women under Ireland's anti-choice laws. A couple of hundred people came to the pro choice solidarity rally in Dublin, Ireland last nigh organised by the WSMt. It was called to protest against the prosecution of a women in Belfast for supplying her daughter with the abortion pill. News broke on the 19th June that a Belfast woman is to stand trial for helping her daughter procure an abortion. In response on 24th June a letter was handed in signed by 215 abortion activists admitting that they are guilty of breaking the law by either taking or helping someone procure the Early Medical Abortion (EMA) pill. This is as complete a story about what happened to 'Migrant X' that we are aware of. Migrant X is a young migrant women who it emerged was refused an abortion by the Irish state despite apparently meeting the grounds of the X-case legislation and instead forced to carry the pregnancy and agree to a C-section. The pregnanacy itself was the result of rape, Migrant X attempted suicide after being refused the abortion and later went on a hunger and thirst strike. Once what had happened to her became known there were sizeable pro-choice solidarity demonstrations called across Ireland and at Irish embassies overseas. We have been given information that the migrant woman at the centre of the current forced pregnancy was 'committed' to a psychiatric hospital following her initial request for termination. It’s already known that the initial request was made when she was 8 weeks pregnant. It was this crucial period in which she was being held incommunicado which led directly to the Caesarian option being possible to impose as an ‘alternative’ to allowing her to access the abortion she had asked for. more >>
The announcement that there will be a referendum to decriminalise abortion in Ireland is the product of decades of active campaigning. Pro-choice campaigners built for repeal ever since the hated 8th amendment was entered into the Constitution in 1983, putting a ban on abortion, which was already illegal in the country, into the constitution. If at first this seemed like a distant demand now repeal looks by far the most likely outcome in May. The story of how this happened illustrates how change comes in general. That is not through elections but through people getting organised to demand that change, regardless of which politicians happen to be running the show in any particular year.
This is the Workers Solidarity Movement position paper on Abortion Rights as collectively agreed at July 2017 WSM National Conference. This position paper sits under the Patriarchy paper which in turn is under the Anarchism, Oppression & Exploitation paper, and hence does not repeat any of that material in these.
Next week will see the promotion of Fermanagh & South Tyrone MLA (Member of Northern Ireland Assembly), Arlene Foster to the position of DUP leader and the North of Ireland’s First Minister. Foster is a woman who was once described to have “learned a lot from the likes of Thatcher when it comes to dealing with men in politics."
Over 1,000 abortion pills were seized last year at customs, a figure that represents double the amount seized the two years previous. This fact is very much in contradiction with the myth of the anti-choice side that there is no demand for abortion in Ireland.
Child-care in Ireland is so expensive because it is so undervalued. Only through care-workers’ collective withdrawal of labour will those who rely on us realise how vital our work is. more >>
The Workers Solidarity Movement in Ireland is in full support of the protests in Brussels on the 28th September demanding a guaranteed, free, and accessible access to abortion across Europe. The EU has stood by idly while the bodily autonomy of pregnant people continues to be violated by some member states including Ireland and Malta. It has similarly done nothing while other member states progressively attack reproductive rights based on the political whimsy of the controlling parties of ever-increasing conservative governments. We hope the this mobilisation will demonstrate the united commitment to reproductive freedom for all.
So what are exactly are we proud of? Is it just that we are attracted to a particular gender or genders? Or, are we proud of our courageous history of struggles as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered/ LGBT/ Queer people for our rights, and against bigotry, oppression and hatred? |
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