Back in antebellum America, it was common for negro slaves to avoid marrying a spouse from the same plantation for a very poignant reason – no man or woman wants to see their beloved raped, humiliated, beaten or whipped before their very eyes, it’s more than can be borne, and for that reason slaves often married slaves from neighbouring or distant plantations to avoid the reality of their powerlessness in protecting their beloved. And on Sundays, a day of rest in slave-era America, when husband and wife might meet up, the scars or tears would be acknowledged but ignored. Such was the life of a slave as described by a former slave Frederick Douglas – there’s a free online book of his life here.
In Ireland our mass media seems to be adopting a similar attitude towards the repayment of unguaranteed bonds at State-owned banks – “shure, if we can’t do anything about it, why meidhir people with the unavoidable”. That’s why last May 2011, when €200m was paid at Anglo to unsecured, unguaranteed bondholders, there was scarcely a peep from the media – Laura Noonan at the Independent was the honourable exception. It was different in November last year and January this year when the whole country was aware that billions were being paid over to unsecured unguaranteed senior bondholders at Anglo, or IBRC as it is now known following its merger with Irish Nationwide. But tomorrow, we will pay out €1.5bn and there has nary been a peep. Here are the details:
Who: AIB, which is 99.8% owned by the State and which has so far cost €20.7bn to bailout
How much: €1,500,000,000 (€1,500m or €1.5bn)
When: tomorrow, 11th April 2012
What: “Unsecured”, that is, not secured against specific assets, “unguaranteed”, that is not covered by the September 2008 guarantee or its extensions, senior bonds at AIB which were originally issued on 11th April, 2007. The ISIN number is XS0294958318
Maybe the mass media is consciously trying to spare our feelings, believing there is nothing that can be done. After all, AIB is one of the two pillar banks and despite costing us €20.7bn to date, along with the EBS which is now merged into it, it’s dead money, we’ll never see that again, so why bring up the subject which will only cause pain. Frederick Douglas ran away several times from his “owner”, was caught, was dreadfully punished, eventually escaped to the North where he learned his alphabet by pretending to mock white children, boasting he knew more letters than they did, and when the white children sang out their ABCs, Frederick wrote them down and practised them and eventually the man became a writer of some note. His story is inspiring even if the passage of 200 years has not dulled the graphic savagery meted out to enslaved people.
So whilst the Irish Times, IN&M, Communicorp, Alan Crosbie and RTE spare your feelings, tomorrow at 5.15pm, the communities of Ballyhea and Charleville – who have held weekly bank bailout protests for 59 weeks, details/photos here – will again come together, on the library plaza opposite the Charleville AIB branch to protest at the payment.
800 years of oppression and now this!
Really, you need to dial back the indignation. It’s certainly a shitty situation and we need to think about how we’re going to deal with it. But General Sherman isn’t going to show up anytime soon. His modern counterparts answer to men who owe their success to the support of Jamie Dimon. That’s the problem, really.
There is no national movement behind which people can march and demand this madness stop.
There never has been and it’s unlikely there ever will be. Geography, history and the resultant insecure mindset would have to be overcome first.
I’m reminded of John Betjeman’s poem ‘Ireland with Emily’, and in particular the lines:
“Stone-walled cabins thatched with reeds,
Where a Stone Age people breeds
The last of Europe’s stone age race.”
That this rings so true is almost as depressing as setting alight yet another €1.5 billion of our money.
@Kieran, there is a bit of a ragtag grouping called “Not our Debt” which focusses on Anglo/IBRC
http://www.notourdebt.ie/
but the most active group has the been the community of Ballyhea, just south of Charleville, and indeed more recently the people of Charleville themselves who have marched in rain, hail or shine, walked to the Dail, fasted and dealt with domestic and international media, and maintained strong online campaigns and who tomorrow evening may be the only people in the country who mark the disappearance of €1.5bn of national wealth from a bank that has received a €20.7bn bailout.
@nwl Thanks for the link. It’s an interesting looking group alright.
I was thinking of national groups along the lines of trade unions, the IFA/ICA, business groups, political parties, etc. who have local branches established across the country.
It would take one of these such groups to really mobilise people. But even then, they’d have to take on our “independent” media as well.
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Hi folks, just a quick personal response and some info @keiran
As someone involved with the Debt Justice Action network, the network behind
the Anglo Not Our Debt campaign, Im not sure that “ragtag grouping” is either a useful or fair representation. Its unclear what its based upon, as networks and movements are by definition built upon broad section of consensus. Heres some information that seeks to address that.
We launched in mid January. We are a broad grass roots coalition including community workers and community groups affected by cuts, campaigners and activists (including people from Ballyhea i might add who are part of this network), organisations that have direct experience in debt justice campaigns in the global south (successful ones which fought for and won debt cancellations against unelected bodies like the IMF), faith based organisations and people from a popular education perspective.
We also include economists, trade unionists and people from a social justice background and a growing number of people who have no previous experience in campaigning at all, but that make a direct connection between their lived experiences of poverty/unemployment/insecurity/anger, the socialisation of private debt, and a sevile political infrastructure that faciltates the interests of power and capital before any notion of equality, social justice and democracy.
Whilst much of our work is localised – for example we continue to hold educational meetings right across the country, we are also part of growing international peoples movements against the socialisation of private debt. I myself spend the past weekend with about 90 people from 12 countries across Europe and North Africa with a desire to coordinate national response to this issue
Our network has been the first in Europe to conclude our own comprehensive citizens debt audit and our lead including in countries like Egypt and Tunisa. You can download the debt audit here http://debtireland.org/resources/publications/an-audit-of-irish-debt/
The network has also produced multiple educational resources (videos, articles, interviews, FAQ’s etc) on the website http://www.notourdebt.ie
Anyways, not in anyways claiming that our network is “the movement” and we see lots of really good work being done by other – not least this blog itself. Our current focus in Anglo was a tactical political choice. As a zombie bank still under police investigation and that resonates with the public as structurally corrupt it was (and remains) an obvious target to facilitate a public conversation. We clearly played a role in the forcing the government to make a political dance in shuffling money around between IRBS, NAMA and BofI. Whilst this cannot be considered a success in and off itself, it is also clear that this is the beginning of a long struggle with some lessons learnt already.
Hopefully this illuminates that there is a lot more going on than what the mainstream media decides to cover.
If you want to get in touch, involved and stay up to date check us on.
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/NotOurDebt
Twitter: @NotOurDebt
Web: http://www.notourdebt.ie
Fair play to you. And thanks for the info.
Meanwhile, back in Establishment LA-LA Land, our taxpayer-funded national broadcaster has the following main news story on its website:
“RTE ‘disappointed’ over leaked BOI document”
Reblogged this on Brian M. Lucey and commented:
Another day, another bondholder bonanza….
Reblogged this on Challenging the assumptions of power, capital and "common sense" social order and commented:
From Nama Wine lake
“Wise men learn from the errors of others. Average men learn from their own errors. Dumb men never learn.”
[…] Just Another Day In the Irish Economy As €1.5bn is Paid Over By State-Owned Bank To Unsecured, Ung… […]
As an American living in Ireland I felt extremely uncomfortable with the appropriation of Frederick Douglas’ life and an implied parallel to slaves’lives prior to the Emancipation Declaration to Ireland today. Hello? The Irish people have the vote and have nearly a century of independence. They are not politically enslaved, nor do they get literally raped, beaten, or daily humiliated by their ‘masters.’ To try and make a metaphorical point is too far a reach and is disrepectful to the true misery of what African slaves endured in the Americas.
This is not just a case of ‘sure what can you do’, but a passivity that refuses to recognise the mass collusion with the Celtic Tiger agenda that led to this fiscal mess. That means everyone was complicit whether actively or passively. The failure to call political leaders to account and bear responsibility for the debacle is a shrugging off of what is collective guilt and responsibility.
So you can just shuck off those metaphorical manacles already!
@ Bee Smith
As an Irishman living in the US…..From the moment a child’s education is delegated to the church, right through voting for people known to be corrupt, much of Ireland is about deference, to authority. Ireland is after all proud to be “the most compliant bailout nation”.
The only authority Ireland does not respect, is the authority that comes with setting a good example.
As for slavery, every Irish song has a dead person, every famous Irish poem (bar mine) has a dead person, every hero is tragic, and everyone who died painfully, albeit in vain, is a hero.
Sometimes it is the mind that is enslaved.
@sf ca writer If it is Irish minds enslaved then it is only the individual who is keeping their will under lock and key. I still feel affronted by the comparison to African American slaves. Mental slavery is self-imposed. If you use the excuse/explanation/defence of a nation being conditioned to deference and compliance then why are Irish writers such as James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, Flann O’Brien, Oscar Wilde so reverred for their writing? I don’t think they are simply cultural cuckoos in the nest. Don’t romance about passivity.
@sf ca writer:
“Sometimes it is the mind that is enslaved.”
WOW! God, you got that in one!
[…] to be paid over to unguaranteed, unsecured bondholders today! Just another day in the Irish economy as Is this happening? Why do I feel like 5 of us know about this, and we know because we read Nama […]
Can I ask how you found out that this 1.5BN is to be paid today?
@shinnylites, there is a blogpost here of all bonds payable in each of the covered Irish banks
https://namawinelake.wordpress.com/2011/06/03/when-are-bondholders-in-irish-banks-due-to-be-paid/
However, it is the communities of Ballyhea and Charleville in Cork who keep this issue alive with weekly protests, details of which you can see here. And today they will be protesting outside the AIB in Charleville at 5.15pm
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ballyhea-bondholder-bailout-protest/162154057174719
Diarmuid O’Flynn also maintains a number of online sites including the terrific bondwatch
http://bondwatchireland.blogspot.co.uk/
And the Chattering Magpie
http://thechatteringmagpie14.blogspot.co.uk/
Thanks for the links and the further info namawinelake. I have just seen the list of the rest of the bonds to be paid this month and have to say I am dumbfounded. April is one heck of a good pay day for some.
Also, does anyone know why the Irish times did not report this today?
I’ve followed the Bondwatch Blog for the past 18 months and it makes for informative but depressing reading knowing that unsecured creditors are being paid.
Glad to see that NWL is giving this issue the prominence that it should have in the MSM (mainstream media).
Well I contacted the Irish Times Finance Desk and the person I spoke to said that they would look into why it wasn’t reported in their today. They couldn’t tell me why it wasn’t reported on; the guy I spoke to simply said he wasn’t there yday. Well at least the complaint has been made.
Good on you for contacting the IT
[…] Well, this was one of the threads that was lost in the politics.ie outage today. Lest we forget: Just another day in the Irish economy as Reply With […]
@Bee Smith
I agree with you. The Irish situation and US slavery are not the same. However the Irish are mentally enslaved, by the church, by their leaders, and by there adherence to a dream of being somehow more wholesome than everybody else. It is a country where basic human rights are conditional on not upsetting priests, and corrupt politicians easily get re-elected. Being a free Irish is not quite the same as being a free American.
I also reckon political correctness has destroyed American civility, and despite everything else, the Irish can at least converse with each other with out always offending somebody…..
for example….so some bogman calls me a jackeen….. so what……at least I don’t have pigs sleeping under my bed….
Talk about slavery! It is not the peculiar institution of the South. It exists wherever men are bought and sold, wherever a man allows himself to be made a mere thing or a tool, and surrenders his inalienable rights of reason and conscience. Indeed, this slavery is more complete than that which enslaves the body alone…. I never yet met with, or heard of, a judge who was not a slave of this kind, and so the finest and most unfailing weapon of injustice. He fetches a slightly higher price than the black men only because he is a more valuable slave.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU, journal, Dec. 4, 1860
Whoops… finger to fast. What I was trying to say is that slavery comes in many guises and as Martin Luther King pointed out “As long as the mind is enslaved, the body can never be free.”
@Bee with the exception of Flan,they all fled Ireland and created their greatest work in exile,similar to Dennis O’Brien.At one point this modern day exile was lionized by a fanning press and supine political class.Posing at Farmleigh,New York Stock Exchange and spouting nonsense about creating jobs,if he resided in Ireland and paid taxes like other mere mortals,that may help create a few jobs!
Based on a new book that just came out,it was extracted in Sindo last week,his estimated tax savings by relocating to Portgal result in Siteserv effectively being a freebie.
@John, it should be pointed out that Denis O’Brien’s spokesman has previously put it on the record that Denis O’Brien pays taxes on his Irish income, though the quantum was never given so that might be €10 or €10m a year.
@NWL on INCOME,apologies was referencing the estimated CGT which exceeds the PP for Siteserv.He avoided that by relocating to Portugal,according to last weeks Sindo.How do you ‘tax’ the extremely controversial awarding on the mobile phone license!
By posing with Enda…FT described Siteserv as ‘crony capitalism’ most widely read financial newspaper in world,maybe WSJ but up there.
@NWL apoligies shameless plug for Elaine Byrne’s new book,when is the Kindle edition out Elaine?
This was what I referenced above.
http://www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/catalogue/book.asp?id=1205048