Dáil debates

Tuesday, 17 November 2015

Paris Terrorist Attack: Statements

 

4:50 pm

Photo of Paul MurphyPaul Murphy (Dublin South West, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

I express the deep solidarity and sympathy of the Anti-Austerity Alliance and the Socialist Party to everybody affected by the murderous attacks in France. Seeing the pictures and hearing the stories was horrifying and everybody can empathise and express solidarity with those affected. The attacks seem to have been deliberately aimed at a well integrated part of Paris. That brings to mind the French anti-war slogan: “vos guerres, nos morts”, "your wars, our deaths". It is a reflection of the deeply backward obscurantist reactionary ideology of ISIS which incredibly described the concert it attacked as “a party of perversity”. Its aim is to divide people, promote and create repression of Muslims, polarise society and recruit in that situation. The murderous assault came a day after the attack in Beirut, which saw 44 people killed by suicide bombers and a month after the attack on the Russian airline claimed by the IS affiliate in the Sinai Desert in which 224 people were killed. There is no justification, excuse or mitigating factor which explain any of these attacks which are driven by the extremely backward, reactionary ideology of the people involved.

Many around the world will ask how ISIS can be stopped. We can say with a high degree of certainty that beating the drums of war and raining down more bombs on Syria will not stop ISIS. That has been happening in the Middle East for more than a decade of imperialist intervention. It has fuelled the rise of ISIS by allowing it to present itself falsely as in some way the defender of the Muslim world. The drums of war should stop being beaten. All the talk of war and the airstrikes should be stopped and troops from western powers should be withdrawn from the Middle East.

The ongoing support by western governments for the occupation of Palestine and the oppression of Palestinians by the Israeli state should be ended. They are used as a pretext by ISIS to recruit people for its own cause.

The attacks on democratic rights, which unfortunately are ongoing - it appears the state of emergency in France will be extended for three months - will also not stop ISIS. It will prevent an Air France strike taking place. It allows draconian actions to be taken by the French state. It is reminiscent of the Patriot Act in the United States, giving the right to take people's passports from them and to conduct searches without having warrants. That is not the way democratic rights are defended by abandoning and attacking those democratic rights in the context of this crisis. They should be resisted and democratic rights should be defended by acting on them.

The most successful force in the Middle East in fighting ISIS is the Kurdish forces of the YPG and the PYD. They have united not just Kurds but Christians, Muslims and many other people in the region in a battle against ISIS and have scored the most successful defeats of ISIS in the region. They have done so because while not perfect, they offer a vision of fighting for a different, better society where the resources of the Middle East are used in the interests of the majority. They are not based on a backward ideology or simply pawns of western imperialism, and it gives a glimpse of how movements can be built in the Middle East and around the world against terrorism and war and for a better and, ultimately, a social society.

ISIS wants to benefit from polarisation but other right-wing forces in France, Front National, and right-wing Islamophobic, racist forces across Europe want to benefit from these also. We must reject Islamophobia. The logic that says that Muslims have to apologise for the actions of ISIS or that they are in some way responsible is the same logic that affected Irish people in Britain in the past and it should be absolutely rejected. If anything, and it is the case, people should be more welcoming than ever of refugees. It is Muslims, above all, who are the victims of ISIS. This is precisely the horror from which they are fleeing.

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