Racist Murder — Fight The Establishment, Not Each Other

On the 30th of March, Easter Saturday, two Croatian men were on the recieving end of racist abuse from a gang in Clondalkin village. The men, Josip Strok and David Družinec, then got on the 13 bus towards Bawnogue where they were followed in a car by the gang. When the 2 men arrived at their stop, they were immediately assaulted by the gang. David Družinec was knocked unconscious in the attack and Josip Strok was beaten so severely that he died in Tallaght hospital 5 days later.

Josip Strok was murdered, and David Družinec was severely injured, because the two men were speaking Croatian to each other. This is a vile racist attack and the usual suspects, who’ve spent the last few years whipping up hate, division and racism, have blood on their hands.

The author of this article is from Clondalkin. This murder has both angered and upset me. It would be normal to say that the violent racist gang doesn’t represent the good, welcoming people of Clondalkin (they don’t, of course), but this would overlook the very real fact that the whole political spectrum has shifted to the right. This is known as the Overton Window, which is defined as “the range of policies politically acceptable to the mainstream population at a given time.” In simpler terms, in Ireland it’s seen as politically acceptable and quite popular to lean in to racist, anti-immigration rhetoric at the present moment, whereas 10 years ago such inflammatory language would have been considered unacceptable in mainstream politics.

So we are here: a society that seemingly doesn’t bat an eyelid when buildings planned to be used for emergency accommodation are firebombed with alarming regularity. The main opposition and supposed “centre-left” party, Sinn Féin, have even begun parroting racist talking points about immigration and refugees. This is just a political game for them, it’s about being electable and chasing what’s considered popular. They’re no better than the other mainstream parties in Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. This is why socialist principles are crucial to fighting racism.

You see, it suits the political establishment to perpetuate the ideas that “unvetted males of military age” are a danger to society, are stealing your home and draining your community resources. This allows the political mainstream to wash their hands of any responsibility for the ills of society. They’re happy to let the poorest people, migrants and Irish alike, fight it out for scraps while they and their buddies in business make obscene, record profits.

As a Clondalkin native, I grew up in a good, working class community that, like every other area, had it’s negatives and it’s positives. My parents availed of a Fianna Fáil housing initiative in the mid-1980’s where they handed back their council home in Tallaght to move in to a private housing estate in Clondalkin. The catch was that one person in the household must be in gainful, full-time employment.

With thousands of “upwardly mobile” people moving to private homes with mortgages, Dublin Corporation filled the gaps in council houses with poorer people from inner-city tenements and flats, people suffering from generational poverty, many of whom were unemployed. With these communities already suffering from a chronic lack of basic services, a lack of resources and no jobs, this ghettoised many communities.

Once heroin took hold, the mainstream media and the political class could point to impoverished council estates and pin societal problems on the poor. Council estates were demonised as the state began building private housing estates almost exclusively in to the 90’s.

This private house building scheme was ramped up even more during the Celtic Tiger years, when there was plenty of money to be made if you were a dodgy politician, an investor or a property developer. Ireland’s current housing crisis has its roots in the 1980’s and the legacy of those decisions is still evident today, and still ensures Fine Gael maintains a policy privatisation and profitability of housing in 2024.

Why is the history of the housing crisis relevant to the murder of Josip Strok? To put it simply, fascists have built up a following through slogans like “house the Irish first” or “Ireland is full”. Both phrases are repeated constantly by racist accounts on social media.

Because Ireland’s housing crisis is constantly worsening and more and more people are forced in to emergency accommodation, there is a severe lack of available housing. Fascist grifters, intent on causing division, barely scratch the surface of Ireland’s housing problem and offer no solutions. They look at homeless figures and deliberately put the blame on refugees and migrants.

This lets developers, landlord TDs, vultures and government parties off the hook. Fascists are useful idiots for the establishment. They stir up racial tension in the poorest communities, the communities that have been starved of resources by successive governments since the 1980’s.

Communities that have been left behind are an easy target for fascists. When the political centre crumbles, it leaves a vacuum. In that vacuum the narrative can shift either left or right. Angry poor people, oftentimes trying to figure out why they live in poverty, can be swayed either towards fighting for systematic change where social movements can take hold, as seen with the water charges, or pinning their problems on immigration.

Unfortunately, the failure of the left to capitalise on growing resentment and anger, coupled with low levels of social struggle, as well as isolation and pandemic conspiracy radicalisation, has led to a surge in support for anti-immigration politics.

When the Dublin riots broke out in November last year in the wake of a stabbing incident outside a school, an audio clip was circulated on Twitter. In this audio clip, a known fascist agitator called for all foreigners to be attacked and killed. Rioters attacked migrant workers that night. They attacked migrant bus and Luas drivers, they attacked migrant service staff, they attacked anyone who looked different or spoke with a different accent.

They attacked them because they were emboldened. Emboldened by the well-known usual suspects, who stir up anger and hate all the time. It’s clear that the “Ireland is full” perpetrators are not “concerned citizens” as they often portray themselves to be, they’re violent racists who openly target anyone who isn’t white and Irish, and they embolden and manipulate the poorest in society to act as their own gang of foot soldiers.

With the rise in racist attacks and the murder of Josip Strok, there is definite cause for concern but hope isn’t lost either. The mainstream approach is to demonise poor estates and call for more Gardaí. This doesn’t solve any longstanding problems in communities but socialists offer actual solutions.

A community isn’t neglected because of immigration, a community is neglected because of deliberate decisions made by mainstream politicians in local councils and in the Dáil. Chronic underfunding of working class areas predates any type of major immigration by decades.

Unlike Sinn Féin, Labour or the Greens, socialists in People Before Profit and the Red Network won’t bow to racist pressure. Instead, we’ll counter racist arguments by pointing out who is to blame for the problems in society: the rich. Socialist activists will ensure to fight on issues affecting communities.

Campaigns on GP services, school places, job opportunities, housing and more. These fights give working class people something tangible to grasp. Campaigns like these can offer people hope at a local level. This local work can give hope to people nationally and help create national movements.

One such movement that is absolutely vital to tackling the far-right is a National Housing movement. On April 23rd at 5:30pm, ‘Raise The Roof - Homes For All’ a housing campaign group consisting of political parties, housing groups, Trade Unions and student groups, are calling for people to assemble outside the Dáil to demand action on housing.

On May 23rd, there is also National Homeless and Housing demonstration taking place. We need feet in the street for both of these demonstrations. When good numbers mobilise on housing, it gives others hope and scares the crap out of the establishment.

When working class people have something to fight for, something tangible and something positive, it can help bring about progressive change that can impact hundreds of thousands of people. We’ve seen this with the defeat of the water charges, the Repeal of the 8th amendment and with Marriage Equality. While working class people can be susceptible to the lies of the far-right, they are also the ones who will bring about change from below. Change won’t be handed down by landlord TDs, it must be fought for.

“Ireland is full” says the slogan, but the population still hasn’t reached the same level it was at before An Gorta Mór in the mid 19th century. With more than 166,000 empty homes, significantly more than the numbers of homeless people, those in emergency accommodation or on housing lists, Ireland is full of greedy landlords, Airbnbs, vulture funds, venture capitalists and rich politicians.

With a new social movement for housing, we can rid Ireland of the leeches that control the housing market and ensure we finally have homes for all as a basic minimum.

To the family of Josip Strok, we at the Red Network offer our condolences and our solidarity.

Ar dheis Dé go raibh agat.