Living on the Line

I have taken to the streets for various causes over the years: a woman's right to choose, immigrants' concerns, lesbian, gay and bisexual rights, and AIDS issues. As the US turned steadily more reactionary I grew accustomed to backing lost causes, none more distressing than my opposition to G W Bush's invasion of Iraq. Friends and I picketed in San Diego, Washington, DC and Manhattan, opposite Hillary Clinton's offices and later on First Avenue where hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers joined millions worldwide on 15 February 2003, to oppose the war.

But rallies, letter-writing and telephone calls failed to stop Bush, so I pondered, what next? Refuse to pay taxes? Block the entrance to the Marine Corps Recruiting Depot? Symbolically damage US war machinery? I eventually settled on withholding part of my taxes as I researched legal implications and tried to gather my courage to do more.

In the end, fear of prison overcame my convictions. Horror stories abound of violence against transgendered folks caught up in the criminal justice system. Even something as ordinary as a routine traffic stop can turn bad, as an ftm (female-to-male transsexual) I met in California found out when a highway patrolman raped him on a deserted country road after he read "female" on the guy's driver's license. The ftm never reported the assault, terrified to walk into a rural police station, brawny, nearly six foot tall and bearded, to come out as transsexual and point the finger at one of the force's own. Like many minorities – blacks in America, Travellers in Ireland – transsexuals fear the police.

Which is why I admire any activist willing to take nonviolent action as far as prison. Willie Corduff, Philip and Vincent McGrath, Micheal Seighin and Brendan Philbin – the Rossport 5 – don't face the same risks I would in jail, nonetheless, they have given up ultimate control over what happens to them. They have ceded their right to come and go as they please, walk beneath the open sky, eat what they choose, sleep when they want, provide for their families and rest in the comfort and protection of their loved ones. Even privacy to relieve themselves or bathe has been sacrificed.

A few weeks ago Minister Noel Dempsey on RTÉ1, in response to an activist's demand that the Corrib deal be renegotiated, sputtered words to the effect that the government was bound by legal contract. In other words, the sovereign nation of Ireland stands powerless before a multinational corporation. Last week, a more honest answer was exposed: the current government has no interest in renegotiating the contracts. How else can you explain that Minister Dempsey granted Shell permission to drill off Donegal under terms identical to the Corrib Field? Terms by which the real owners of the West's resources, Irish citizens like you and me, are ordered to stand by while Shell exploits one of the richest gas fields in Europe gratis, sells gas back to us at ever increasing market prices and deducts all business expenses, including legal fees to keep the Rossport 5 behind bars, from their already insignificant Irish taxes.

In my years of activism, I've yet to see a more clear-cut conflict. On the one side, five ordinary farmers with impeccable integrity forced by circumstances to act extraordinarily. On the other, a corporation dissatisfied with merely exorbitant profits, willing to put Irish lives at risk for a few more dollars and nonchalant about worsening their already appalling environmental and human rights record. Overlooking the conflict, in every sense of the phrase, is an Irish government saddled with a mind-boggling history of corruption and incompetence, assuring us the pipeline is safe even as they scramble to deal with a leaking National Aquatic Centre, the Donegal, Rossiter and Lyons Garda scandals, the Dublin Port Tunnel fiasco, the Dublin docklands real estate debacle, and on and on.

Days when I walk home with fellow hurling and football fans from Croke Park (I love Gaelic games!) I imagine similar crowds turning out for the next Shell to Sea protest. Then! I envision, Bertie Ahern, Enda Kenny and others who by collusion or inaction are leaving five innocent men to languish in prison will be compelled to act in their constituents' true interests rather than serving as yes-men for avaricious corporations. The Rossport 5 have put their lives on the line, the least we can do is exercise our freedom to come and go by going to march in their support. Try it, you'll find it's actually fun. Decidedly more fun than going to jail.