We need more than a march

Well, we were out in our tens of thousands. Gardai figures say 100,000 plus but if ever an occasion bursting with potential was wasted, it was today. Where was the creativity, the spontaneity, the surge to build a movement, the taking back of lost territory and forging a new kind of people’s politics.

Marching bands from the Fire Brigade and Prison Officers Unions along with the community salsa band were all placed in the first quarter of the march. Where were the loudhailers spitting chants and slogans? We marched like sheep quietly, obediently shepherded by well-organised and extremely pleasant and accommodating stewards, sans anger and passion. Where was the maximising of the energy that got us out on the street, giving it voice and sensation in all its myriad possibilities?

Where were the major NGO and voluntary sector organisations to-day, apart from the half dozen small groupings who will always turn out reliably? Where were those NGOs swollen by philanthropic funds and an over-familiarity with government, the gatekeepers to representation, the professionalised class of liberals who have sucked the life-blood from what was once a vibrant, organic, model of people’s democracy and participation? Did they need to bring in consultants to tell them where they should be? Were they not interested because it was outside of their 35 hour a week paid contracts?

At the end rally only a few thousand were lucky enough to even hear the ICTU President (one of my favourite activists) and General Secretary speak because march stewards blocked off the street where the platform was located from the remaining 90,000 or more still finishing the route. Loudspeakers were non -existent outside of the cordoned off street and by the time the key figures had spoken and the rally dispersed, marchers were still flooding into nearby streets. I had expected to hear speeches not just telling us what the problem is- we all know that by know- but outlining actions and activities to take this enormous physical manifestation of protest further. Instead, we were instructed to put our placards in the appointed skips to prevent littering and consciously or not the inference was, that we wouldn’t be needing them again. Then we were thanked for coming. Sin e. We were marched to the top of the hill and abandoned. It felt like political coitus interruptus.

We, the people, the workers, the unemployed, the vulnerable in our inestimable diversity, were lined up, walked through the streets almost mutely and sent on our way home at the end. Goddamn it! The Celtic Tiger and its sanitised, single issue-focused culture requiring genuflection at the altar of professional expertise and polite dialogue has diminished and suppressed our instincts for innovative thinking and action. We need to do something beyond worshipping at the church of masochism where the talk is all about taking a hit and hairshirts and start singing, performing, demonstrating and producing the rainbow of possibilities that collective, organic change can bring. We need agitprop, we need localised action groups, we need a palpable and consistent sensation of our priorities that lingers longer than the hour and half it took to walk through the city centre.

We need a leadership that recognises that all of that and more must be encouraged, accommodated and promoted. That means an opposition leadership of more than one entity or power bloc, not just the trade union movement or political opposition parties- the times and our survival demand it. Yes, the trade union movement have put forward a 10 point plan of alternative economic recovery and we want the government to take cognisance of it, but we need more than a single one-off march and a few days of strike action.

We need a leadership to embolden the unemployed, the redundant, the anxious, the embattled but still employed, whole communities, families, churches, discriminated groups, jugglers and strugglers to act, to agitate, to create, to imagine alternatives, to envision the change and make it happen.

We got here because we failed to adequately challenge a corrupt government party, inept, self-interested coalition parties and their cronies in high finance and venture capital. No more. We have to use every means possible to resurrect first principles of social justice. There must be no more following the unimaginative, the sterile march-to-the -top –of- the hill- and –then-hurtle- down- again politics, no matter who calls upon us to do so.