{"id":34610,"date":"2024-10-04T11:56:41","date_gmt":"2024-10-04T09:56:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/?p=34610"},"modified":"2024-10-08T08:06:45","modified_gmt":"2024-10-08T06:06:45","slug":"shamrocks-watermelons-palestine-politics-in-belfast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/shamrocks-watermelons-palestine-politics-in-belfast\/","title":{"rendered":"Shamrocks & Watermelons: Palestine Politics in Belfast"},"content":{"rendered":"
Through a conflicted prism, the effect of the year-long war in Gaza on the music and politics of Northern Ireland.\u00a0<\/span><\/h5>\n

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Stuart Bailie<\/span><\/h4>\n

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Belfast is 4,000 miles away from Gaza, but the empathy is strong. Almost every Saturday, a rally takes place in this small industrial seaport in the northeast of Ireland. Local people gather to show support, marching from Writer\u2019s Square to the front gates of City Hall.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Often there is a speech by Sue Pentel from Jews for Palestine-Ireland, who calls out the latest fatalities and appalling news. Another regular is Mohammed Samaana, a native of Nablus in the West Bank, who has worked here as a nurse in the National Health Service for over 20 years. He represents the Irish Palestine Solidarity Campaign and he tries to voice his overwhelming sense of anguish.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Some of the events have been supported by Amnesty International and the union movement. They share many of the same features that you might see in London, Glasgow or Manchester. The call-and-response chants have been used for generations, notably against the war in Vietnam. The names of the political villains may have changed, but the war crimes persist.<\/span><\/p>\n

Artists Against Genocide have made dozens of kite-shaped banners, inspired by the poem<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c<\/span>If I Must Die\u201d <\/span><\/i>by Palestinian writer poet and academic Refaat Alareer. He was killed by an Israeli airstrike in Gaza on December 7 last year, together with six members of his family.<\/span><\/p>\n

As an antidote, the marchers sing \u201cBella Ciao,\u201d the Italian song that has become an anti-fascist anthem. A more recent addition to the activist songbook has been adapted from a scene from the <\/span>Hunger Games: Mockingjay<\/span><\/i> film. It was rewritten by the online influencer Maryam Amaria for these fearful times:<\/span><\/p>\n

Strange things are happening
\n<\/span>The news is lying too
\n<\/span>Are you, are you,
\n<\/span>Following the truth?<\/span><\/p>\n

Many of the Belfast supporters carry Palestinian flags or wear the keffiyeh. The watermelon graphic of red, white and green is a reminder that a nation can be cherished even when the flags and emblems are outlawed. It is something Irish nationalists understand.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mothers Against Genocide is a powerful presence, walking with framed pictures of the dead children of Gaza. Some of the Irish women carry metal lids from old-fashioned dustbins. For generations, their families had rattled the lids on the roads at night to warn the neighborhood that a British army patrol had arrived.<\/span><\/p>\n

Certain moments during the Saturday events are expressly Irish. Organizations like Cairde na Palaist\u00edne Bh\u00e9al Feirste (Belfast Friends of Palestine) sing and chant in their preferred first language of Gaelic. One of the regular slogans is <\/span>N\u00ed saoirse go saoirse don Phalaist\u00edn <\/span><\/i>\u2014 \u201cthere is no freedom until Palestine is free.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Ireland has a huge reserve of defiant songs in its folk tradition and some of these have been roused for a new purpose. \u201cOr\u00f3 s\u00e9 do Bheatha \u2019Bhaile<\/a>\u201d (Cheers, You\u2019re Welcome Home) might date to the 18<\/span>th<\/span> century, or even further back. It was rewritten ahead of the Easter Rising of 1916, a call for Irish fighters to honor the past and rid themselves of the colonizers. The song has found a new use during the recent campaign for language rights and now it has become a song for Palestine. It has traveled as far as the college campus of George Washington University in Washington DC during the student occupations of April-May.<\/span><\/p>\n

Several times, the marches have stopped outside Broadcasting House, home of BBC Northern Ireland. This is a chance for the speakers to rail against suspected media bias in news reporting. On January 20 this year, 120 demonstrators stood on the BBC steps, wearing replicas of the iconic blue press vests, marking the horrific toll of journalists, killed by IDF munitions or snipers.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mustafa Osama is another regular face, a graduate of Cairo University who teaches the dabke dance tradition in his adopted city. He has brought a welcome relief to the Saturday gatherings, calling his students up for a demonstration of Levantine culture at City Hall, a time to clap and smile in a moment of communal joy. Then on June 15, Mustafa acted spontaneously, spinning and stomping by the fortified gates of the Caterpillar plant in West Belfast, dancing to affront the image of the company\u2019s notorious D9 bulldozers that have ripped through so much of Gaza and the West Bank. This, we realized, was the rhythm of resistance.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n<\/strong>Creative Belfast and Resistance<\/h4>\n

March 17 is Saint Patrick\u2019s Day, when the island honors its patron saint. This is a traditionally a time for Irish political leaders to fly to Washington DC and exercise their green power, presenting gifts and Celtic blarney at the White House. Given that President Biden identifies as Irish and had visited his ancestral roots at Ballina in County Mayo in April 2023, this was especially opportune.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Yet the rising death toll in Gaza and the popular call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions turned the planned visit into a contentious one. Since America was supplying Israel with finances and armaments, was it morally justified to visit Washington with a bowl of shamrocks?<\/span><\/p>\n

This question was forcefully raised by Bernadette Devlin McAliskey, addressing the National Demonstration for Palestine in Dublin, on January 13. Bernadette had been a formative civil rights activist in the 1960s \u2014 a powerful speaker who became the youngest Member of Parliament when she entered Westminster in 1969. She was a witness to Bloody Sunday in Derry in 1972, as British paratroopers killed 13 civilians (another victim died four months later). Parliament had denied her the chance to speak about the deaths to her constituency. Bernadette walked across the House of Commons and slapped the then Home Secretary Reginald Maudling in the face.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, she was not denied the chance to speak about Palestine on her Dublin platform. She said she was outraged at the actions of the Israel Defense Force in Gaza. She lamented their many breaches of the United Nations Charter. Joe Biden, she reckoned, was \u201can enabler of genocide.\u201d And then she delivered the memorable throwdown: \u201cWho in their right mind, on the national day of a country that freed itself from oppression, would go to America and hand the bastard a bunch of feckin\u2019 shamrocks?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Stiof\u00e1n \u00d3 Luachr\u00e1in from the music group Huartan was at the rally and witnessed Bernadette\u2019s speech. He had spent a month in Palestine in 2017 and on his return, had joined every local campaign group, speaking and organizing. He was in a meeting of Irish Artists for Palestine after the Dublin speech when a friend suggested making a dance tune that featured the Bernadette quotes. This was exactly his thoughts. So, he put together the track in haste and then sought permission for the use of the quotes. He contacted Bernadette through mutual friends. The word came back. She liked it.<\/span><\/p>\n

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