From top: Water protesters arrive in Dublin for a Right2Water rally in August, 2015; Dr Rory Hearne
The water protests and Right2Water have changed Ireland. They have helped people realise that we do not just have to accept everything that we are told, that there are alternatives.
Dr Rory Hearne writes:
Again they will come to Dublin this Saturday in their tens of thousands – from every corner of the country and from all parts of Dublin.
Another tidal wave of the ‘ordinary’ men, women and children of Ireland – taking to the streets to make their voice heard against austerity, the ‘unjust’ water charge, the unequal recovery and to have ‘a government for the people’.
It could be the biggest water protest yet.
And this one is even more significant because it takes place just a few days away from the general election. This is because the water protest movement, the largest protest movement in Ireland since the 1913 lockout, is changing the course of politics in Ireland.
The government and mainstream media have never fully understood or wanted to understand why so many people took part in the water protests and how they are changing how people think about politics.
The water protesters have become like the irritating fly that buzzes around a nice quiet room. We were supposed to be in recovery and austerity finished yet the protests just got bigger and bigger. They upset the cosy consensus. And so the government sent out Alan Kelly and the Gardai as their swat to try kill it.
But they have failed.
There will be tens of thousands of people in Dublin on Saturday saying to the entire political establishment, ‘we are the Irish people awakened from our slumber of passivity – we are saying ‘no more’, we want our country back to be run for the welfare of its people, and we are going to vote for politicians who have stood with us’.
This is a profound statement that will have a major bearing the outcome of the election because it shows that the Irish people are not just lying down as they did at the start of the crisis in 2008 and when the Troika rolled into Dublin to takeover in 2010.
Remember all the questions about why didn’t the Irish protest at the imposition of austerity, the bailout of the banks and the Troika (IMF, ECB and EU) taking over the country?
Remember when the former Minister for Finance, Brian Lenihan, said in April 2009 that other European countries were ‘amazed’ at the extent of austerity inIreland and that there would be “riots” if these were introduced in any other European country.
Remember Enda Kenny, smil the cover of Time magazine in October 2012 where he explained to the world that there had been no large-scale demonstrations in Ireland because “(Irish) people understand that you have to do difficult things to sort out our own public finances”.
They thought they had convinced the Irish people to stay quiet by getting us to blame ourselves for ‘partying to hard’ in the boom years.
They thought the election was going to be the Irish people sensibly choosing stability over chaos.
But the government never learned from their mistaken attitude to the water protests. They didn’t listen to the people then and they still aren’t listening now.
Through the water protests and the Right2Water/Right2Change movement –made up of communities, trade unions and Left political parties – the Irish people found their voice of protest. They found their dignity and decided to take a stand.
Water was the issue people could take action on. They could stop a water meter being installed outside their house in a way they couldn’t stop a cut to the local hospital or community centre.
They could protest on the street at a water protest. And through that people could express their anger at all the injustices of austerity, the bank bailouts and the debt. And while there had been smaller on-going protests such as the Ballyhea Says No against the Bondholder Bailout in Cork, against local hospital closures – the water campaign united everyone.
This is why the water campaigners are a key force that is making this election like no other in the history of the state. They are a key influencing factor in the decline in support for the establishment parties of Fine Gael, Fianna Fail and Labour and rise of the independents, Sinn Fein, Social Democrats and the AAA/PBP.
This is because the water movement, and particularly the communities who first started opposing the installation of water meters, took a stand to defend the Irish people against austerity when no one else would do it.
And their constant presence in communities and again on the streets this Saturday reminds people of this simple fact – that when the Irish people’s backs were to the wall – the establishment parties of Fine Gael, Fianna Fail, Labour and the Greens prioritised the bondholders, vulture funds, the ECB, developers and corporations – and made the ordinary joe soap pay the price.
It is interesting to compare the huge numbers of Gardai deployed to enforce the installation of water meters in the face of local community protests with the lack of policing available for communities being overrun by drug gangs.
And of course who benefits from the installation of water meters? Siteserv – the company belonging to Fine Gael’s favourite oligarch – Denis O Brien. It says it all about the government and Irish state’s priorities and who they actually represent – and it’s not ordinary people. And when it comes to voting next Friday week the people will not forget that.
The power and influence of the water movement is shown in its ability to involve people who were never involved or interested in politics or activism before.
And we know this because myself and some of my students in a module on social movements I was teaching in Maynooth last year undertook a survey of over 2000 water protestors. We found that over 55% of water protestors had never protested before (see findings of the research here).
The water movement has also successfully used new forms of media – particularly social media – to play a key role in providing a means of communication of a different analysis of issues and information that people would not have received before from the mainstream media.
This change is being translated into the election as the Right2Water/Right2Change campaigners have worked on getting people to register vote. Also through the Right2Change list of candidates they are encouraging people who never voted before out to vote (delivering 200,000 newspapers outlining this in the next week).
Just as with the Marriage referendum that motivated young people to register and vote in greater numbers than before so too the water issue and Right2Change candidates give people, particularly in disadvantaged areas with traditionally low turnout, a reason to be bothered to vote.
They see in the independents and Left parties politicians who have protested with them and who will stand up for them. That increased turnout of anti-establishment voters will have a big bearing on the election.
On top of that not only are people voting for alternatives, they are no longer giving preference transfers to the establishment parties. So after voters vote 1,2,3 for their favourite Independent, Sinn Fein, PBP-AAA, Social Democrat, they are stopping. In the past they would have filled out the whole ballot paper. Fianna Fail and Fine Gael will lose from this reduced number of transfer votes.
But the water protests have done even more to change Ireland. For years people have been talking about the decline of community and active citizenship and that people in Ireland had just stopped caring about their neighbours and society.
Now the water protests have brought people together in local community campaigns. It has moved from the water issue to people getting together to see how they can address homelessness and the housing crisis, to local hospital issues, to educating themselves about politics, to looking for community centres and space for people to meet their neighbours and see how they can improve their community.
It has brought back a sense of solidarity and cooperation with people seeing how they can work together to build a better country.
The protests and Right2Water have changed Ireland. They have helped people realise that we do not just have to accept everything that we are told, that there are alternatives.
Make sure you bring your rain coat and umbrella on Saturday. It looks like rain.
Dr Rory Hearne is a Senior Policy Analyst with TASC, the Think-Tank for Action on Social Change. His column appears here every Wednesday. Rory is an independent candidate for the Seanad NUI Colleges Panel. Follow him on Twitter: @roryhearne
Right2Water rally information here
UPDATE:
Meanwhile…
Case against me dismissed. Awaiting further news from the court. Will update later.
— Joan Collins T.D. (@JoanCollinsTD) February 17, 2016
Previously: Joan Collins TD Arrested
