How best can small local civil society groups oppose genocide?

Adrianne Murphy volunteers as a presenter on Ros FM, a community radio station in Roscommon Town. She said that, “Marches and gatherings to say we are anti-genocide and we want the war stopped are important.”

“People can get in touch with their councillors, their TDs, to say ‘not in my name’. We need to stand up and be counted. Every individual needs to do that,” she added.

Kelly Earley is a writer from Coolock, Dublin, and she called for civil society groups to take “a unified approach and a standard response”.

Patricia McGrath is a lecturer, co-ordinator and researchers attached to UCC’s centre for Adult Continuing Education. She said, “Just keep highlighting it and raising awareness. The only way to stop all this horror is to stop making arms, but I don’t think anyone in Ireland can do that. Just keep up the awareness and keep protesting.”

Damien Walshe, CEO of Independent Living Movement Ireland, said:

“Local community groups can encourage people to participate in actions (and to) put pressure on their politicians around the Occupied Territories Bill. Also, raising awareness about the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) campaign and staging local actions around supermarkets aimed at stopping produce from the Occupied Territories. We do have a historic track record, when the actions taken by the Dunnes Workers in the 1980s around the apartheid regime had a ripple effect. Economic pressure should be a key driver in bringing an end to the destruction in Gaza and longer-term peace and stability for Palestinians and for Israelis who oppose the genocide in Gaza.”

Maria O’Dwyer, based in Limerick, is the national coordinator of the Prevention and Early Intervention Network. She said local civil society groups can help “by boycotting certain products and services, the AirBnBs, the Coca Colas, don’t supply them in community cafes”.

“I’m really surprised how little flying of the Palestinian flag we see as an act of solidarity. You see it at the big events, but if you’re in communities and at meetings how often do you see it? Something as small as that is significant in terms of solidarity. Plus, it spurs people to ask questions, no more than the Pride flag, people may ask why it’s there, and you tell people,” she said.

Declan Costello is a development worker with Offaly Local Development Company. He said groups can help to “raise funds, raise awareness, try and influence public opinion. Encourage the State to keep taking the steps it has and maybe do a bit more.”

In conducting our wider online survey we asked the same question. Most respondents called for protests and/or boycotts, along with calls to increase local awareness about the international Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) campaign and to continue to lobby the Irish government.

These are 15 representative comments from 55 responses on how local civil society groups can take action:

1. Show solidarity.
2. Pressure the Government to act, including to enact the Occupied Territories Bill.
3. Focus on practical supports also at local level, in particularly for Palestinians who find themselves seeking asylum in Ireland.
4. Lobby TDs and councillors.
5. Change only happens when those in power are forced to make changes. We should be using more disruptive techniques.
6. Boycott all things Israel linked.
7. Weekly vigil highlighting the genocide in Gaza.
8. Organise the delivery of information to communities through leafleting, organising speakers, offering to visit schools.
9. More visible action, more spaces for conversation, more working to challenge and tackle far right voices which seek to demonise Palestinian people.
10. Help local people to understand the common ground they have with Palestinians. Inequality emerges in scarcity, functions in separation and results in powerlessness. Civil society groups support wellbeing which emerges in flow, functions in togetherness, and results in choice (based on teaching of Miki Kashtan, convergent facilitator).
11. Petitions. Vigils. Contacting politicians. Boycotting. Use social media to inform people about local ways to take action.
12. Make sure everyone understands the dangers of fascism and racism.
13. Lobby the Government for boycott measures and implement local boycott measures.
14. Hold events with Palestinian speakers, artists, activists, witnesses.
15. Reach out and support groups and co-operatives on the ground in the West Bank.

 

Is there anything else you wish to say on the genocide?

We also asked people at the end of the survey: Is there anything else you wish to say on this subject? These are 15 comments chosen to best represent the 42 responses we received.

1. List maybe 10 practical things that community development workers/communities can do, no matter how small. People need hope that they can make a difference in some small way.
2. What happens in Gaza is important for everyone everywhere, because the erosion of international law make everyone less safe. We are back to Might is Right. Gaza holds up a mirror to society and it’s an awful reflection.
3. The community and voluntary sector, apart from some notable exceptions, has been very weak in its response to the genocide. Why is this?
4. Leadership from trade unions and umbrella organizations has been less than adequate.
5. Community development does not stop locally – it needs to look beyond. Thinking it stops locally is a lazy perspective and contradicts any human rights speak you may utter.
6. I am curious as to whether organisations in the C&V sector in receipt of larger sums of government funding are more restricted in voicing their support.
7. Highlight all Israeli products so as people can stop using and buying them.
8. I am only involved in a small way. I cannot give more time to it as I work a lot. I feel torn in two trying to have enough of my own life to sustain myself and remain a competent help to others. But that’s how it is. And that is a first world privileged problem.
9. Symbolic gestures do matter.
10. Money talks. BOYCOTT!
11. Thanks for the opportunity to contribute.
12. As an FRC we have agreed to abide by the BDS campaign.
13. Some community leaders have been very strong, others completely silent. We can and should do more in the face of genocide.
14. This is a struggle for humanity. We can’t afford to be silent.
15. Civil society organisations need to stand up and add their voices. People hate “seeing it on the news”, but many have no channel for their distaste and so disengage. It’s a duty of civil society to call it out, along with the other systemic injustices like housing and health.

These responses, comments and suggestions were first published in Issue 90 of Changing Ireland. The one-to-one interviews were conducted by Owen Ryan and the survey by Allen Meagher.