RECENTLY, TODAY FM’s Matt Cooper challenged me in an interview on his show The Last Word saying protests, like the ‘People’s Assembly’ at the Dail opening (I attended the peaceful one!), aren’t listened to. “What makes you think,” he asked me, “that if your trade union groups and community activists were to double, treble, quadruple, your numbers – that anyone would take any notice?”
This is a point of view often expressed by media and political commentators and is clearly held by many Irish people who have decided not to engage in widespread protest during this crisis.
Indeed , internationally, the absence of protest in Ireland is contrasted to the huge waves of mobilisation against austerity in our partner bailout countries such as Greece, Spain, and Portugal. In contrast to most articles you will read that just complain about the state of the country in this piece I am providing a contrarian view that outlines eleven reasons why us Irish should protest against austerity, particularly with the Budget coming shortly in October. I also give examples of where protest has worked. So here’s my reasoning.
1. We need to rid ourselves of the belief that this crisis was our fault because ‘we partied too hard’ and, therefore, we deserve this austerity ‘hangover’.
Most of us bought houses as a place to live for our family and not a speculative investment. We should not let it be spun away from the fact that it was banks (national and international), developers, government, financial investors and regulators that caused this crisis and not ordinary people. We have bailed them all out and we are the ones who are paying for it. This is wrong.
2. Contrary to the dominant narrative, protests have actually been quite effective in Ireland.
Examples include the various protests and campaigns that achieved a reversal of cuts to Special Needs Assistants, the abandonment of plans to sell-off Irish Forests, the retention of the Community Employment Scheme, maintaining local hospital services, the home helps’ Labour Court decision and the reversal of the cut in pensioners’ entitlement to a medical card.
Also recently protests at receivership auctions successfully forced Allsop auctioneers to declare it will no longer put repossessed family homes up for sale. The ‘Front Line’ public sector workers succeeded in mobilising against the second Croke Park Agreement.
It cannot be ignored that there have also been campaigns that have ostensibly failed, such as the household charge. However, these have created a base that is likely to oppose future cuts, water charges, and so on. They also added to a more fundamental change by creating alternative political representation for the coming local elections. The point here is that these examples show a society that is more oppositional than is normally portrayed, even if it is mainly at a local and sectoral scale. But there is significance resistance and not just a passive acceptance of austerity.
3. Internationally, protests have been successful.
Across Spain local housing forums have reversed repossessions and forced the banks to renegotiate with distressed borrowers. In Greece the huge popular protest and general strikes ensured a debt write down, while in Iceland protests forced the government to resign and a referendum that achieved a write down of their debt as explained in a recent report: “Icelanders who pelted parliament with rocks in 2009 demanding their leaders and bankers answer for the country’s economic and financial collapse are reaping the benefits of their anger.
Since the end of 2008, the island’s banks have forgiven loans equivalent to 13 per cent of gross domestic product, easing the debt burdens of more than a quarter of the population”.
4. Historically, mass popular protest and mobilisation has worked
Examples include Martin Luther King’s US civil rights movement. Similarly, it was people power that brought down the Berlin wall. In our own history that we are commemorating this year, strikes and protest achieved trade union recognition and living wages.
While it was not through compliance and passivity that this country’s independence was achieved. Indeed, the word ‘boycott’ has its origins in the struggle waged by the Irish Land League against evictions of tenants in Mayo by Captain Charles Boycott, the land agent of an absentee Landlord.
5. Austerity has failed economically and socially and alternative policies have been developed.
The former IMF Chief of Mission to Ireland has even called for austerity to be stopped as it is counterproductive. Meanwhile the NEVIN economic institute has outlined that the government has greater flexibility than the phoney debate over the scale of adjustment as being 2.5 or 3.1bn. Think tanks like TASC and NGOs like Oxfam have outlined that there is an alternative strategy available based on stimulus and taxing wealth.
However, these alternatives are are not being taken seriously by the media or government who still place their faith in mainstream economists who were wrong about the crisis and austerity. Protest would launch alternatives into the public and political debate.
6. This country’s debt burden is illegitimate.
Mass protests, as we saw in Greece and Iceland, actually strategically strengthens the hand of the government in negotiations to get this burden reduced further. Up to now the IMF and the EU have pointed to lack of action by the Irish people as evidence that we accept our ‘medicine’. Its time we stated our limits clearly.
7. Budget adjustments to date have been unfair and inequality has risen.
The social costs of poverty, stress, emigration, cuts to disability services and carers, mortgage distress, and unemployment are scandalous and addressing these issues should be prioritised over repaying bondholders, achieving arbitrary fiscal targets and satisfying international financial markets. Those who held power and privilege before the crash – the wealthy, politicians, highly paid civil servants, bankers, solicitors, corporations – still retain their power and privilege. They have, in comparison to the majority of us, and in particular the lower income sections, suffered very little.
8. The paralysis arising from the collective fear that has gripped us since this crisis hit needs to end.
We have been warned since the start of the crisis that the country was going to go bankrupt and the ATMs would stop printing money etc, and yet Ireland still functions. This fear has bred compliance and inaction. We need to challenge our own fears and see that we have nothing to gain from being compliant ‘good children’ any more.
The politicians don’t want us to embarrass them and upset our European masters through protest. Isn’t it time that was changed?
9. Austerity is a breach of our human rights.
The Irish government has signed up to various human rights treaties that commit them to protect the most vulnerable. As the UN Independent expert on poverty Magdelena Sepulveda, said following her visit to Ireland in 2011: “Human rights are not dispensable and cannot be disregarded in times of economic uncertainty. On the contrary, these are times in which people become more susceptible to potential infringements on their basic rights and have higher risks of falling into poverty.”
10. Protest can help renew our broken society and shape the nature of the recovery.
The Celtic Tiger promoted the values of greed and individualism and now we suffer our problems on our own. But we have a strong history of community and solidarity. Rather than celebrating rising property prices and higher GDP figures the recovery should prioritise sustainable economic and social development.
11. Our democracy has been hollowed out by failed election promises and unelected bodies like the Fiscal Council.
We are told that we have an option to influence things at election time. But another 5bn of austerity is planned before the next General election. The time to act is now.
12. It is a time for new leadership in Ireland.
Individuals and as organisations who believe in social justice have a responsibility to take a stand and say enough. The recent protest outside the Dail was too small to be effective. Organisations such as the trade unions, community groups, charities, political parties have an even greater obligation to use the extensive resources they have to organise protest.
13. Finally, there will be more unjust cuts in this budget…
Water charges are coming in, and more repossessions will happen. We need to remember Martin Luthur King Jr’s advice: “Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom.”
People are going to protest on October 12th in Dublin against another austerity budget. I will be there. Will you?
Dr Rory Hearne is a Lecturer in Geography NUIM, member of Claiming Our Future and former community worker.
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