Hands Off Our Mothers

Why were female protesters stripped and cavity searched?

This April Fools Day a protest took place outside Leinster house against the Genocide in Gaza. There was a mixture of people there but the general flavour of the day was that a group of middle class trust fund babies formed a daisy chain across the entrance to Dail, or at least that’s the assumption. I have no idea who these people are. As Paddystinians go, these people were garden variety but very staunch. The group that organised this demonstration is called Mothers Against Genocide and actually staged an overnight vigil for Mother’s Day to mark the event. Now I am as sick to the teeth of the issue of Palestine taking over cultural, traditional and seasonal events that should be left out of the foreign war debate. I am completely on the side of those who criticise the way in which some of the Palestine protests are conducted, including this event. But it is only mild criticism. I do also admire the tactics of blocking the gates as I have been part of a few protests to the same effect on other issues. I always tip the cap where a good piece of activism is involved as I know how much it takes out of you as a person to take a stand on something but I also think a perfectly worthy cause has been hijacked by people with dual motives and been used to attack our social institutions. The fact that Mother’s Day came under attack from … some … of the same people who supported the removal of Mother from the constitution is not lost on me however there is a detail in amongst the noise and havoc of the events of yesterday morning that doesn’t sit right with me. In fact, I am up in arms about it.

At 8:15 AM yesterday morning, an Garda Siochana launched an operation to clear the protestors from the gates of the Dail, which they had sat down in front of and linked arms. As the Women refused to move, arrests were made. Some of these arrests were described as violent. I believe fourteen women were lifted and taken to various Garda stations in total. Now up to this point, right wingers could stereotypically celebrate the removal of lefties by the gards along the lines of pettiness. Zionists will be delighted at this point for sure that anti-Zionists were removed but if you are like myself, possessing an understanding of activism and how activists can be treated, I find the enjoyment some people take out of Palestine protestors being arrested to be unnecessary and ignorant of effect this has on the ancient art of protest as a whole. You see what can happen to the goose, can happen to the gander. Even here at this point in the affair, the arrests of these women brings me no glee or anything remotely like it. More power to ye girls. It is what has allegedly happened after that point that should bring even the most militant anti-Palestine head to heel. According to media accounts and the MAG group themselves a number of the women arrested were strip searched back at the station with one of them being subjected to a full cavity search.

It is the measure of your moral compass how you process that information. If you read that and feel nothing, you are not human. If protestors of any description are subjected to strip and cavity searches at the behest of the state, likely to court favour with a foreign nation, then we should all be up in arms about this. As a man, the thoughts of being violated like that would drive me to violence. I would not accept a strip or cavity search from these animals. I can only imagine how these mothers felt. Imagine if that was your daughter, sister or mother? I mean since when do those searches ever need to be conducted against participants of organised protests? Since when was that normal? Those who cheer this on are clearly captured by the Zionist mind virus but there needs to be a further line of questioning here, a further unpacking of what has occurred to these women if you will.

What has happened yesterday is that State has decided to use the powers of search completely inappropriately as tactic of fear and intimidation. This upping of the ante to use an extremely obscure procedure on relatively peaceful protestors is evil and vindictive. But I need to go further here and describe this for what it was, is and will be if it ever happens again. The use of strip and cavity searches carries with it an element of sexual kink or domination that only a pathological freak could even entertain in the course of his duties while dealing with run of the mill protestors. There is a domination aspect to those acts of degeneracy that were carried out yesterday and the fact that any arrest for protesting would lead to a strip or cavity search should rock Irish society to its core. To be clear, a cavity search means the following:

A body cavity search is a physical examination of a person's body cavities, including the oral, anal, and vaginal cavities, typically conducted to search for concealed contraband or evidence

The MAG group have stated rightly that this tactic was deployed as a tool of State repression. MAG’s demonstration represented a timely inconvenience to the State as it desperately clamoured for Donald Trumps favour in the run up to “Liberation Day”. We have also seen a major crackdown in the west on Palestine protests on campuses and on the streets since the American elections. Some of this clamp down I agree with due to the vitriol and disruption caused to society, largely by non-nationals on student visas, however I will agree that it has infringed on the protections of free speech and the right to protest. It is clear to see that under the cover of bogus anti-semitism claims, Western governments are being pressured to protect the vanity of Israel. To see the Irish Governemnt violate the bodies of Irish women as an exhibition of fealty to Zionist demands, and that’s exactly what this was, is repugnant to me as a civilised Irish man. I don’t care about our GDP or any foreign policy that requires the forced digital penetration of somebody’s mother. This is not normal. This is not acceptable whatsoever on any level. Shame on those who ordered this and those that supported it.

It also needs to be said openly to these women that they have been failed by the left wing parties. At the moment of arrest, it seems that no elected member of the Oireachtas was present. Had they have been there with you, no such arrest would have taken place. Do you believe Mary Lou’s or Paul Murphy’s orifices would have been interfered with if they were there with ye at 8:15 AM? It is time for you to reevaluate the protection and leadership those figures provide your movement. There is no way that the perverted orders of the Gardai weren’t conceived and approved from within the very halls of the Oireachtas itself.

lastly, I want to add a bit here for parity. Solidarity against state overreach shouldn’t be a difficult sell. We have seen all sorts of malice in the language used against us as anti-mass immigration protestors. When women and children were baton charged in their own front yards in Newtown Mount Kennedy we were shown no sympathy from the left. When they were man handled by riot squad in Roscrea, Coolock and other places the left remained silent. I get that. It is hard to be human when we don’t see it coming our way but it has to start somewhere. We have to make it known that we will not accept people’s mothers getting sexually violated by the State in order to intimidate them and the rest of us out of our convictions. I refuse to hold my tongue out of spite. My heart goes out to those poor women who were defiled by Drew Harris’s animals yesterday, it truly does. Mothers Against Genocide, give these bastards hell for this.