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Anti-Imperialist Bloc at SF Irish Parade

by salem (salim [at] mashriq.org)
A call to all anti-imperialist, whether anarchist or socialist. Join with Irish revolutionaries to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Hunger Strikes at this years San Francisco St. Patricks Parade.

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The marching unit number is 49, 1st division.


We assemble on 2nd Street between Mission & Howard at noon and must be prepared to march off at 12:30 on Sunday, March 11th.


We welcome all signs and banners you would like to bring with you related to commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the 1981 hunger strike, and would very much welcome such things as linking the Irish hunger strike to focuses on other anti-imperialist and class war prisoners.


Please contact me as soon as possible to advise if you can attend and march with the IHSCC.


Adh mor,


Peter Urban


_______________________________________________________________


San Francisco St. Patrick\'s Day Parade Anti-Imperialist Contingent


Help Commemorate the 20th Anniversary of the 1981 Hunger Strike


For several years now, the San Francisco Bay Area chapter of the Irish Republican Socialist Committees of North America have asked you and your organisation to join us as part of an anti-imperialist contingent in the San Francisco St. Patrick\'s Day Parade. Many of you have and we are proud to have had the All-African People\'s Revolutionary Party, International Indian Treaty Council, Peace and Freedom Party (SF and East Bay), Bolshevik Tendency, Industrial Workers of the World, Workers Solidarity Movement, and a number of others join us over the course of recent years.


This year, however, the IRSCNA will only be formally represented by its motorized entry in the parade and will not have a marching contingent in the parade. This doesn\'t mean we won\'t be there, however, but we will be integrating our marching unit into that of the Irish Hunger Strike Commemoration Committee (IHSCC) this year, as a display of our commitment to the commemoration of the 20th Anniversary of the 1981 Hunger Strike this year. We are asking you to do the same with us this year, bringing the solidarity you have so warmly given to the IRSCNA over the years to the IHSCC this year.


It was 20 years ago that brave and determined volunteers of the Irish National Liberation Army and the Irish Republican Army joined together in a hunger strike to win recognition as political prisoners and prisoners of war. During the course of that hunger strike, three INLA and seven IRA prisoners died from starvation, having endured in many cases over sixty days consuming nothing other than water. The hunger strike drew the world\'s attention to the struggle for national liberation and social justice being waged in Ireland and riveted the eyes of the world on the island of Ireland through the supreme sacrifice of these volunteers.


As founding members of the IHSCC, the IRSCNA join with other Irish and progressive activists in the Bay Area this year to see that this sacrifice is not forgotten and to raise awareness that the Good Friday Agreement concluded in 1998 stripped Irish republican and republican socialist prisoners of war of the political status won through the 1981 hunger strike. Through multi-media installations, including the Day of the Dead altar erected at Mission Cultural Center this past November by artist Martin Travers of the IHSCC which kicked off this 20th anniversary commemoration for us and the installation planned for most of the month of April at the SomArt gallery, events such as planned forums hosting relatives of the martyred hunger strikers in both the East Bay and the City in May, a film showing in August, and events modified to reflect this spirit of commemoration in February, June and July, the IHSCC is ensuring the memory of these ten dead men and those who joined with them in the struggle but survived is not lost.


During the month of March, we are looking to the socialist, anti-imperialist, and progressive community to join us in the IHSCC contingent of the San Francisco St. Patrick\'s Day Parade to pay tribute to the memory of the heroic sacrifices of the hunger strikers of 1980 and 1981 as well as to demonstrate to the liberation forces in Ireland today that they still have the solidarity of the Left throughout the world for their just struggle.


While we intend to have a banner and placards available for participants, we welcome the practical and creative contribution of any who would like to bring their own banners and signs to the contingent, and specially request that those participating attempt to tie the sentiments expressed to the commemoration of the hunger strike.


As always with this parade, we will not have full details until shortly before the parade, but we can tell you that the parade this year will take place on Sunday, March 11th, shortly after noon (most likely) and will assemble in the South of Market Street area, down around 2nd Street. We will provide additional details as soon as they are available and while we know that some of you require these details before fully determining the extent of your participation, we would greatly appreciate the earliest notice you can provide us with, if you are intending to participate, and an estimate, no matter how rough, of the number of individuals you think might join us from your organisation.


Next year, you can count on us to be soliciting you back to an IRSCNA contingent, but this year, please join us in paying tribute to the martyrs of the 1981 hunger strike, and all the men and women who participated in the hunger strikes of 1980 and 1981 in Ireland
by o'reilly
I just moved here from Boston and I was curious what the Irish population was like in numbers out here.
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