Gaza Solidarity Protests Aberdeen Introduction

As an active member of Scottish Palestine Solidarity, Aberdeen I've been actively involved in organising and often chairing the Gaza Solidarity protests, calling for a ceasefire and an end to the genocide, as Israel responded to attacks by Hamas on 7 October 2023 with its terrible and indiscriminate bombardment of Gaza, killing more and more civilians and children each passing day, whilst the world has looked on.

My introductory comments to these protests have become an  account of the carnage in Gaza week on week, as the world has looked on and failed to end Israel's massacre of the population through air assaults and their collective punishment of withholding food, water, medicines and fuel. They have referenced Israel's war crimes in real time, and the dismal failure of our Westminster government and the Labour leadership to call for a ceasefire, instead greenlighting Israel's war crimes.

I've decided to publish them on this blog, in part to archive them for myself, and in part to keep this account live for as long as the carnage in Gaza continues, and as an account for posterity when the day comes, as surely it must, when this is over. It may end but it must never be forgotten.

Time to tell Israel enough is enough - Support Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions

Here is my speech for the protest in Aberdeen on 7th April to condemn the shootings of unarmend Palestinians by the Israeli Defence Forces. 

That very day the news broke about the killing of photo journalist Yusef Murtaja despite wearing a PRESS vest. Yet our government still sells arms to Israel and refuses to condemn this outrage.

"So here we are again 

Gathered together in Aberdeen to condemn once again the horrific actions of the Israeli government against the people of Palestine

And sending a message of support and solidarity to the people of Gaza

Here’s what you need to know about the shooting of unarmed Palestinians protesting in Gaza

These are not clashes

Clashes are incidents that take place between equals

Clashes are what you see in Parliament, when Jeremy Corbyn takes on Theresa May or the SNP and Labour disagree on levels of taxation

What we are seeing in Gaza just now is a massacre – pure and simple

Soldiers armed with live ammunition are shooting unarmed Palestinians

And let’s make no mistake 

Most are engaged in peaceful protest – you can see that from the video footage on social media

But it doesn’t actually matter if some of those Palestinians are throwing stones or bits of burning rubber
 

Shooting and killing is a complete over-reaction

It is a tactic designed to terrorise

To put down and control an entire population to make them feel powerless

Men, women and children – trying to tell the world what is going on in Gaza

Killed and maimed by live ammunition

It’s terrorising and it’s terrorism – pure and simple

Reconnecting people with their values and their democracy

This is my speech for today's May Day March and Rally in Aberdeen. Written in the wake of yesterday's council election results it looks at the challenges facing our movement in our fight to have a better society for all, as the General Election approaches.

"We live in strange times.

We’ve had 7 years of a Tory government who have hammered ordinary folk

Poverty pay

Rises in insecure labour and zero hours contracts

Wages cap and vastly increasing inequality between the rich and the rest of us

Hideous caps on benefits and a benefits system described by Ken Loach at the STUC as “conscious cruelty” - “a campaign of systematic punishment” which leaves more and more of our children, disabled people and elderly in poverty and distress

Our young people hit particularly hard 

Cuts to the NHS and public services and a massive selling off of the NHS – our NHS (especially in England and Wales)  – to private companies running for profit not patient care.

Don’t believe Tory lies – Let’s kick them out and rediscover our country's compassion and humanity

Lies, damn lies and statistics!  That phrase always pops into my mind whenever I hear a Tory/Lib Dem politician justify their policies over the past five years in government.

I know that I am biased because I want to live in a country where there is social justice and greater equality, where everyone is treated with respect, and where the rich don’t become obscenely wealthy on the backs of the rest of us and particularly the poorest.

A country where families and the most vulnerable don’t have to rely on the charity of others to survive and where food banks are not the fastest growing industry.

A country where health care is still available to everyone free at the point of need, and is well enough staffed with compassionate, well paid and well treated professionals so that the quality of service matches or surpasses the service that those rich enough to afford private health care get.

A country which values the public services that we all use and that some of us provide, and recognises their significant importance for all of us who use them but also for the economy as a whole. After all, public servants pay their taxes, shop and buy in their local communities, and use their local trades people, keeping their businesses in work.

But biased or not, I am sick of hearing the lies that pop out of the mouths of certain politicians as easily as breathing. Ruth Davidson, Leader of the Scottish Tories,  has particularly irritated me over recent days. So, there are fewer children growing up in workless households are there Ruth? And she says it as if it is a great thing that her government has achieved. Well, maybe it is from her perspective. But, how does it fit with the increasing numbers of children growing up in poverty WHO LIVE IN WORKING HOUSEHOLDS? With parents for whom work DOESN’T pay –  low waged and dependent on government top ups and the charity of food banks.

Social justice – rhetoric or reality?

I like Nicola Sturgeon. I really do. I like her clear focus on social justice and her willingness to make that part of the political vocabulary again. During the UNISON referendum hustings I asked her a question about child poverty and she told me that she was passionate about ending poverty – that it was her passion for social justice that had brought her into politics. Good to hear!

What puzzles me though, is why the SNP Government over the past few years – years in which Nicola has been deputy first minister - has persisted in policies which run counter to a social justice agenda. Why they have continued with a Council Tax freeze which, although electorally popular, has been shown to benefit the richest rather than the most vulnerable, who are most dependent on public services; why they have cut college places, a route out of poverty for many children from working class and poorer backgrounds; why they have voted again and again against including the living wage in procurement?

Maybe there’s a limit to what you can do as a deputy. From the trade union responses to Nicola’s statement it is clear that they are prepared to give her the benefit of the doubt – to take her at her word. It would be churlish not to do the same.

Ordinary people standing in solidarity with Gaza - Stories from the Aberdeen protests

As we gathered for the third Saturday in a row to stand in solidarity with the people of Gaza, to mourn the deaths and injuries of so many Palestinian people, so many children, a woman came up to me, with tears in her eyes. “I need to do something about this,” she said. “Tell me what I can do.”

She had been out shopping and had stopped to listen to the speakers at the protest. Speakers like Ibrahim, who grew up in Gaza with family still there, like June, of the Scottish Palestinian Solidarity Campaign, who read out a poem written earlier that week by a young mother living in Gaza, who got a phone call from “someone who knew my name” warning her family that their home would be bombed and to leave; speakers like seasoned trade unionist, Brian, who wept when he heard of the killing earlier that week of the four little boys playing football on the beach.

“I didn’t know,” she said, “Tell me what I can do.”