Thatcher: A Destroyer of Communities

I very rarely speak ill of the recently departed. But I have little affection for Margaret Thatcher who died today.

When she became Prime Minister in 1978, she used the words of St. Francis to define the tenets of her new government, “Where there is discord, may we bring harmony. Where there is error, may we bring truth. Where there is doubt, may we bring faith. And where there is despair, may we bring hope."

However she practiced the complete opposite and brought division, suffering, unemployment and poverty to so many communities across Britain and Ireland. Her political philosophy of individualism, light touch business regulation and free markets, was anathema to me and as a young radical in the early 1980s, I took part in many protests against her policies including that of the H-Block prisoners. 

Her government operated a dirty war in Northern Ireland and controlled Loyalist death squads that killed nationalist civilians. When IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands was elected MP with a bigger mandate than she ever achieved, she had the law changed to stop prisoners from participating in parliamentary elections. She supported right-wing anti-democratic terror regimes in countries such as Pinochet's Chile, Saudi Arabia and apartheid South Africa.

Thatcher with Pinochet

She was the chief ally of a United States that openly funded military puppet regimes in Central and South America that launched vicious wars of oppression against their own peoples.

US President Ronald Reagan and Thatcher were united in building a new expensive generation of nuclear missiles (Cruise & Pershings) that were to be placed on British and European soil. This decision spawned an international peace movement that included the huge female peace camp outside the RAF base at Greenham Common Berkshire where these weapons were to be sited.
 
Thatcher used all the forces of the state to destroy traditional mining communities in England. 

She took away local government in London when she abolished Greater London Council (GLC) then led by Ken Livingston. Thatcher privatised key sectors of the economy to the detriment of the British people, oversaw the loss of many of nation's manufacturing industries and the growth of the financial services. Britain no longer had an international image of being a country that made and exported things. Instead London became instead an international centre for banks and financial houses which spawned a generation of young bankers and stock traders who arrogantly portrayed themselves with a 'Greed is Good' ethic. The peoples of Northern England particularly suffered immensely under her rule as the large manfactured industries closed down and as the new financial services gravitated towards the south. 
The Poll Tax left to high levels of civil unrest.
 
She left Britain a deeply divided unequal society. 

"Nobody would remember the Good Samaritan if he had only good intentions. He had money as well." (Thatcher 1980)

 

Thatcher with Rupert Murdoch

She assisted the news corporations to undermine the media trade unions and to monopolise ownership of a press that became a mouthpiece for big business.

A quote from an interview that she gave in 1987, best summaries her life’s work, “there's no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families".  Such a philosophy has little time for the weak and community and only promotes greed, selfishness and egotism. 

Michael D Higgins: Greatest Advocate of International Human Rights in the History of Dáil Éireann

More than any public representative in the history of the Oireachtas, Michael D Higgins has campaigned tirelessly at home and abroad against the oppression of peoples, in defense of human rights and in securing justice for all.

It is notable that whilst generations of Irish parliamentarians unashamedly kept their mouths shut on human rights abuses perpetuated by successive United States governments and their allies, Michael D has had the courage of his convictions to not allow himself to be coerced into silence. He did not distinguish between torture and coercion committed by the USA, China, Soviet Union or any other regime. Whenever the opportunity arose to defend the downtrodden and stand up to the powerful, he did so.

In recognition of this consistent, effective and proud record,  he became the first recipient of the Seán MacBride Peace Prize awarded by the International Peace Bureau in Helsinki in 1992. 

Solidarity with Oppressed Peoples Everywhere

His international causes including highlighting abuses in countries such as Western Sahara, Chile, Iraq, Turkey, East Timor and Somalia, some of which he visited and some of which he was expelled from.

In particular, he has been since the 1970s an outspoken critic of the brutal armed occupation and creeping colonisation being perpetrated by the Israelis in Palestine.

He was an early supporter of the Anti-Apartheid movement as it sought to end the racial oppression of blacks in Southern Africa and introduce democracy.  

On February 11^th 1990, I along with dozens of other peace activists was lucky enough to be with him in a packed Atlanta Hotel on Dominick Street Galway city, as we watched the release of Nelson Mandela from prison unfold live on television. Michael D and the rest of us were part of the international people power movement that finally succeeded in forcing Western governments to end their unswerving support of the racist South African government.

UCG Reunion 2008: Remembering the Anti-Apartheid Campaign

He was never afraid to take on the so-called defenders of the ‘Free World’ as they poured weaponry and military advisors into Chile and Nicaragua in order to overthrow democratically elected governments who were endeavouring to end the economic stranglehold of the nations natural resources held by a tiny elite and multinational corporations.

He visited Nicaragua and El Salvador in the early 1980s as tens of thousands were being slaughtered by US armed paramilitary gangs and authoritarian regimes. His endeavours at the time were praised by Irish Catholic missionaries who had lived in the region and by Bishop Eamon Casey of Galway

In 1984 he was one of only 4 TDs to join the huge public protests against US President Ronald Reagan’s visit to Ireland.  Michael D was with other graduates that included myself outside UCG in Galway when we burned our degrees to coincide with Reagan being awarded a Honorary Doctorate of Law by the university authorities, even though he had just previously broken international law by mining the ports of a sovereign state- Nicaragua.

In the last decade Michael has been the leading parliamentary campaigner against the illegal invasion of Iraq by US coalition forces, against the illegal detention camp at the US military base in Guantanamo Cuba, against the CIA rendition flights including their use of Shannon Airport and against the militarisation of the Salthill Airshow.

Michael D Higgins participating in the Galway Alliance Against War demonstrations held to condemn the presence of military planes at the Salthill Airshow from air forces that participated in the illegal Iraq war

Check out also my blog article Michael D. Higgins: Conscience of the Nation

What Did the Irish Ever Do for Chile?

As stated in my previous article on the 'An Irishman's Guide to the History of the World- 'The Americas' , brave freedom-loving Irish played an influential role in the liberation movements of at least nine American countries as they helped defeat nasty Spanish, English and other European imperialists.

First President of Chile

No Irish contribution in Latin America is more notable than in Chile where Bernardo O’Higgins, the illegitimate son of an Irishman, became the first president of the country when it was declared an independent republic in February 1818.

Chilean towns, roads and ships are named after those Irishmen who contributed to Chilean’s struggle for nationhood.

2010 - Joint Chilean & Irish Stamps Honour Irish Heroes of the Chilean War of Liberation

In October, 2010, Ireland and Chile issued stamps to commemorate the bicentenary of the beginning of the struggle for Chilean Independence. The stamps honour two men with Irish backgrounds who played a crucial role in the quest for Chile’s liberation - Bernardo O’Higgins and John (Juan) MacKenna.

Irish Drill Used To Rescue Trapped Miners

Coincidentally in the same month(oct), proof that the benign influence of Ireland towards this Latin Amerian country still exists was shown by the fact that the drill head used to miraculously rescue the 33 trapped miners in the Atacama desert in October 2010 was made by an Irish engineering company (Mincon) based at Shannon in Co. Clare.

Bernardo O’Higgins: Liberator & Democrat

Bernardo’s most famous victory was at the Battle of El Roble in 1813 when he heroically led a cavalry charge that routed superior Imperial forces. His rousing speech to his troops before the attack has become legendary. Shouting “Lads! Live with Honour or Die with Glory! The one who is brave is the one who follows me!” Riding by his side that day was another Irishman John (Don Juan) MacKenna from Monaghan who was Commander in Chief of Artillery & Engineers in the revolutionary army & later commander of Santiago.

Spain soon sent further reinforcements to the country, inflicting a series of defeats on the rebel army forcing the remnants to take sanctuary in Argentina. O’Higgins returned in 1817 with an invasion force jointly commanded with Argentinean hero José de San Martin which overthrew the Spanish within the year .

San Martin's Irish Officers

The rebel leader José San Martin had many Irish aide-de-camp in his service, including Thomond O’Brien from Wicklow who served by his side in all his major wars across South America including in the Chilean campaign.

Irish Origins of Chilean Navy

That other great liberationist, Simon Bolivar, also participated in the Chilean independence struggle and was brought to that country in the ship Chimbarazo commanded by another Irishman, Charles Wright from Drogheda in Co. Louth, who himself achieved legendary status for his naval exploits and later founded the Ecuadorian navy.

Bernardo O’Higgins had the foresight to establish a Chilean navy recognising that, without it, victories on land would be meaningless if the surrounding seas were controlled by the enemy. In his own words "This victory and a hundred more will be insignificant if we do not dominate the sea."

He commissioned an ex-British navy officer George O’Brien from Ireland to establish a navy.

The first ship the patriots secured was a royalist ship Aguila taken in Valparaíso by a boarding party led by Raymond Morris, an Irish officer of San Martín's army who had served in the British Navy. He was appointed her captain. With a contingent of 25 soldiers (Chile's first marine corp), Morris sailed to Juan Fernández where the crew daringly rescued rebel prisoners held in the town.

The 'O'Brien' Chilean Submarine

O'Brien was the first Chilean naval officer killed in action when he led a boarding party from the Lautaro against the Spanish frigate Esmeralda that was blockading Valparaíso.

The Chilean navy still commissions ships in his honour.

O'Higgins - Too Radical for Conservative Nobility

Unlike some of his fellow more conservative isolationist landowning Chilean revolutionaries, O’Higgins possessed strong liberal democratic ideals and fought for the liberation of all South America from colonial rule. He abolished titles of nobility and expelled Santiago’s royalist archbishop. Such radical reforms alienated him from the aristocratic elite who forced his abdication and exile from Chile in 1823.

An Irishman - Latin America's Most Powerful Ruler

Bernardo’s father Ambrosio (Ambrose) O'Higgins was the most powerful representative of Spanish Imperial rule on the continent, being Viceroy of Peru and governor of Chile. He was born in Sligo 1720, the son of a tenant farmer. Like many Irish in an Ireland experiencing a brutal British colonial occupation where Irish Catholics were treated as an inferior subjugated peoples and denied basic human rights, Ambrose was sent as a young man to Spain where educational and career opportunities existed for Irish Catholics.

Established First Transcontinental Postal Service

In 1756 he emigrated to South America, initially working as a trader before taking an engineering position with the Spanish Imperial Service. Ambrosio made a deep impression on the continent establishing its first reliable postal service, that linked once isolated Chilean colonies with the city of Buenos Aires via a chain of weatherproof shelters built across the inhospitable terrains of the Andes mountains.

Irish Governor Of Valdivia

His big breakthrough came when the military governor of Valdivia in Chile, another Irishman John Garland, convinced him to be his assistant. In the late 1780s, Ambrosio was named Governor General of Chile and began a remarkable social and economic transformation of what was formerly a backwater colony by building roads (including between Santiago and Valparisso) and cities most notably San Ambrosio de Ballenary. Ballenary was an aristocratic title bestowed on him by a gracious Spanish king, probably in recognition of his birthplace of ‘Ballinary’ in Co/ Sligo Ireland.

Friend of Native Indians & Landless Peasants

Ambrosio was an enlightened ruler, establishing roads, towns, libraries and markets and abolished the repressive encomienda feudal system whereby native lands and peoples were granted to Spanish colonists to do with as they wished.

MacKenna: Rebel Commander-in-Chief

John MacKenna, from Monaghan, was a close friend of both Ambrosio and Bernardo and was a key figure in Chile’s struggle for freedom, becoming Commandant General of the rebel army and credited most notably with an important victory over superior Imperial forces at Membrillo.

Similar to O’Higgins senior, he left Ireland for Spain before serving in the Spanish military. Ambrosio made him governor of Osorno in southern Chile, where he used his engineering skills to rebuild the ruined city.

After a coup d'etat by a faction led by José Carrera in 1814, he went into exile to Argentina with O’Higgins and was killed there soon after by José’s brother in a duel in Buenos Aires

Lynch: "Last Viceroy of Peru"

Born in 1824, Rear Admiral Patricio Javier de los Dolores Lynch was a Chilean naval hero who played a leading role in Chile's war against Peru in 1880-1881. He was appointed Supreme Military and Political Commandant of Peru during the occupation period and is often referred to at the "Last Viceroy of Peru". He was though denounced for his harsh rule and was condemned by many leading liberal politicians of the time including the prominent Chilean-Irish writer Benjamin MacKenna.

Since his death, the Chilean navy has always had a ship 'Almirante Lynch' in service.

Lynch: Galway to Chile via Argentina

Lynch was the son of Estanislao Lynch y Roo who had served with San Martin's Army of the Andes. He was originally from Argentina and was the son of Patrick Lynch from Galway who came to Buenos Aires in the 1740s.

Another descendant of Patrick was Che Guevara, the Argentinean-born hero of the Cuban Revolution. Che's father was Ernesto Guevara Lynch.

Benjamin MacKenna - Liberal Politician & Writer

One of Chilean's most well known writers, journalists and historians is Benjamín Mackenna, grandson of General Juan (John) MacKenna, hero of the Chilean War of Independence. During his lifetime he also served as mayor of Santiago and Chilean ambassador to the United States.

Benjamin lived in exile for many years after participating in the failed liberal revolution of 1851. Captured and imprisoned, he escaped disguised as a woman (shades of Eamon De Valera in his exit from an English prison in 1919!). Whilst abroad, he visited his ancestral homeland of Ireland.

Irish Sanctuary for Chileans Fleeing Pinochet Persecution

In a country where the Irish legacy has been one of liberation, freedom, justice, democracy and egalitarianism, it is only natural that refugees from Chile fleeing the Pinoche's military junta in the 1970s were granted asylum status in Ireland. Though their numbers were small, nevertheless their influence was noticeable in the contemporary student union movement, in left wing politics and amongst liberation theologians in the Irish Catholic Church

See also my articles on
What Did the Irish Ever Do for Austria?
What Did the Irish Ever Do for India/Pakistan?
What Did the Irish Ever Do for Americas/Mexico?