From Unity, 23 September 2006

Memorable event to mark the anti-fascist war in Spain

by Mary Horton

The International Brigade Commemoration Committee held a very successful event on Saturday [16 September] with a meeting in Transport House, followed by the unveiling of a plaque to the brigaders and also the Belfast launch of Bob Doyle’s book Brigadista: An Irishman’s Fight against Fascism (Dublin: Currach Press, 2006).
    Getting a packed house on a Saturday morning in Transport House is no mean feat, but that was the situation when people showed their interest in the second seminar organised by the Messines Association, Belfast Trades Council, and the IBCC. Joe Bowers chaired the meeting, and the theme of the talks was the common history that the people shared regarding the fight against fascism and the Spanish Civil War.
    Jimmy McDermott, a local trade unionist and historian, recalled the situation that those on the left faced at that time, whilst Manus O’Riordan, SIPTU Head of Research and also the Executive member for Ireland of the International Brigade Memorial Trust, spoke about a diversity of volunteers, drawing attention to the diversity of traditions—Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, atheist—as well as of political loyalties—Republican and Unionist—of those who supported the Spanish Republic. Both contributions were welcomed, and many questions were asked from the floor.
    Michael O’Reilly welcomed people to Transport House, noting the contribution that the members of the ATGWU had made against the Franco regime. The veteran Bob Doyle joined the meeting part way through the morning.
    Later in the day in the John Hewitt bar there was a packed house as John Gray introduced the launch for Bob’s book. Kevin Doherty gave the crowd a warm welcome; there was not even standing space, and people spilled out onto the bright sunlit pavements, listening to the speeches from the outside as well as inside. As one of the participants noted, a “Tour of Belfast” bus was going past at the time, and tourists took photographs of what they must have thought was a typical Saturday afternoon scene of an overpacked pub in Belfast.
    John Gray gave an excellent introduction to the book and to Bob’s life. Bob gave his speech (which is reproduced here in full); speaking quietly but determinedly, he gave an analysis of the fight that we have on our hand regarding capitalism. All during the day his warmth and humanism came through as many people came up to meet him and greet him. Announcing the unveiling of the plaque, Lynda Walker also welcomed the relatives of the late veterans who were present: Marie and Seán Edwards, who had travelled from Dublin, Rob Smith from Dundee, Manus, Annette, Luke and Neil O’Riordan, Cherry Duncan, Emmett O’Connor, and others—more than twelve.
    Reading a verse of David Marshall’s poem”—“In unremembered graves they lie | Untrumpeted, their songs forgotten | Our children are not taught their history”—she said that we will make sure that our children are taught their history and that this event is part of that remembering. Reading Charlie Donnelly’s poem “The Tolerance of Crows,” she noted that it was as relevant then as it is now, and that we must fight to make all this kind of inhumanity a thing of the past.

            Death comes in quantity from solved
            Problems on maps, well-ordered dispositions,
            Angles of elevation and direction;

            Comes innocent from tools children might
            Love, retaining under pillows,
            Innocently impaled on any flesh.

            And with flesh falls apart the mind
            That trails thought from the mind that cuts
            Thought clearly for a waiting purpose.

            Progress in the nerves and
            Discipline’s collapse is halted.
            Body awaits the tolerance of crows.

    Bob unveiled the plaque and was presented with artwork by Gerry Gleason.
    Song and music followed, with Angela and Liam Delaney, Dee McDowell, Brian and Mary Mulrine, and Gerry Jones, and the session musicians provided brilliant music to a backdrop of roaring political chatter, not the best of order but certainly much appreciated. Joe Mulheron sang his song about the Spanish Civil War, and the night and the music flew on into oblivion.
    Reporting on his web site almost immediately, Ciarán Crossey noted that “over four nights Bob spoke to packed houses from Dublin on 12 September through Sligo and Derry and on to Belfast on the 16th. Crowds ranging from 30 in Sligo, 60 in Derry to over 200 in Belfast heard Bob link the struggle in Spain with the struggles today against globalization and the war in Iraq. Every available copy of his book was sold . . . There were a large number of people who left the book launch after we’d sold all our books and raced round Belfast city until all the books there had gone from Eason’s, Smith’s, and Waterstone’s.”
    It is to be hoped that the IBCC will reproduce the material from the talks in pamphlet form some time in the future. A third seminar will be held later in the year.

Bob Doyle’s speech

Hello, everyone.
    I have prepared something to say to you all, but I’m not as strong as I used to be, so I will read what I can, but please bear with me if I hand over to my comrade Harry Owens should I need to.
    I’d like to tell why I’m here. Some of you may wonder why a ninety-year-old veteran of a war that happened a long time ago in a far-off country is here speaking to you today.
    Some of you who know a little about the Spanish Civil War may see it as a glamorous episode in working-class history, when young poets, like Byron in Greece, fought and died in a foreign land for a noble cause.
    Perhaps you have come to see me, a decrepit, romantic relic.
    But I am not here to indulge in emotional memories—though I have many memories of comrades and events that affect me deeply.
    I am not here to make you sad with tragic recollections of a heroically fought war, or to make you happy with my survival into old age.
    I am here to make you boil with anger. The powers that supported Franco in Spain are still active, and today their reach is global.
    The same US corporations that supplied the fascists with oil in Spain are today pilfering the oil of the Iraqi people.
    The British government that lied to the people while secretly giving financial credits and hypocritically allowing arms to be smuggled to the Spanish fascists is the same government that lied about weapons of mass destruction and led the British people into a war that they did not want.
    Those who lie and cheat in order to hold on to power, who exploit child and slave labour in the Third World to make yet more profits, who torture, murder and massacre in defence of “their interests”—they are still in control.
    When I am told that Spain was the last noble cause, I know that I am speaking to someone who doesn’t want to see the obvious truth. In 1936 there were many apologists for racism and oppression who did not want to see fascism for what it was.
    Today the fight against those who put profit before people is just as intense, and the stakes are higher than ever. We must make common cause with those in the Third World who are now in the front line, as Spain once was. No more Kenyan peasants must be forced off their land and into urban slums so that supermarkets can sell cheap roses and out-of-season strawberries. No more Congolese child-soldiers must kill and be killed so that Nokia can sell ever-cheaper mobile phones.
    Those who stand up to corporate global capitalism, like Chávez in Venezuela and Castro in Cuba, must be defended. Those whose greed would destroy our environment, with catastrophic consequences for humanity, must be defeated. It is indeed a noble struggle, and it will not be over until the liberation of the entire human race.
    La lucha continua!

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