Anti-Isis troops rally to bus strike... as Gaeilge
MILITIA taking on Isis in Syria have rallied to a more mundane cause here at home... the striking Dublin Bus workers.
And they have done so with a stirring battle cry, as Gaeilge – Beir Bua literally translated as Be Victorious!
The US-backed Bob Crow Brigade, a group of British and Irish volunteers helping Kurdish forces in northern Syria, tweeted its backing for the strikers on Thursday. The group, affiliated to the socialist International Freedom Battalion, posted a picture on social media of two balaclava-clad soldiers standing in frontof a mural of James Connolly’s starry plough banner, that read ‘Socialism will win’.
It was accompanied by the message: ‘#BobCrowBrigade stands in solidarity with _ #DublinBus workers on strike today and in the coming weeks. Beir bua!’
It was the second time that the Brigade has posted about Irish affairs in the past week. On Wednesday, it posted a message of support for the campaign to repeal the constitutional amendment prohibiting abortion.
‘International Freedom Battalion in solidarity with our sisters in Ireland fighting to #Repealthe8th,’ it tweeted, along with a picture of two female soldiers behind a banner that read ‘Ní saoirse go saoirse na mban’ (there is no freedom until the freedom of women).
A spokesperson for the group told the Irish Mail on Sunday that a number of Irish citizens had been fighting with the Brigade in Rojava, but their identity could not be revealed.
‘One member who is a fluent Gaeilgeóir was discovered as such by a Kurdish woman involved in training. When she found out, she told him that he must fight to defend his language,’ the spokesperson said. ‘He was inspired by this to take all his notes in the training centre – where they learn Kurdish history, language and culture – in Irish rather than English. This makes him possibly the only owner of a Kurmanci-to-Gaeilge phrasebook!’
Volunteers who join the Brigade undergo standard military training, as well as mandatory lessons in the Kurdish language and jineology training, which is the Kurdish theory of women’s liberation.
Referring to the ‘Repeal the Eighth’ message, the spokesperson said that Kurdish women ‘are also fighting against fundamentalist oppression’.
‘Across the world, women are denied sovereignty over their bodies and across the world the option is to fight with all our strength... by oppressing women, they have created an insurgent army in every home.’
The Brigade is named after the militant trade unionist and former general secretary of Britain’s Rail, Maritime and Transport Union Bob Crow.