People Before Profit’s Group Leader on Dublin City Council, Councillor Conor Reddy (Dublin North West/Ballymun-Finglas) has today written to the Lord Mayor requesting an urgent re-examination of the decision to invite former U.S. President Barack Obama to the Mansion House in September to receive the Freedom of the City award that the council decided to bestow upon him in a controversial 2017 vote. Reddy notes dramatic shifts in global affairs since 2017 and the fact that there have been two local elections since the Council originally bestowed the honour on the Obamas.
“In the eight years since Barack Obama was first granted this symbolic honour, the world has become a far more dangerous place and all of these changes can be traced back to foreign policy decisions made by the Obama administration,” Cllr. Reddy said. “Tensions with China have escalated, it was Obama who first proposed the US military’s strategic Pivot to Asia.”
“Israel’s current Genocide in Gaza and their wars on Iran, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen were all made possible by Obama’s decision to double down on support for the Zionist state. In 2016 Obama signed off on an historic, $38 billion military aid package for Israel, with this aid coming on top of hundreds of millions worth of aid and arms delivered by the US to Israel under the same administration. This aid was delivered despite escalating apartheid, occupation and land seizures from 2008 to 2016 and came after the devastating prolonged assaults on Gaza in 2008 (Operation Cast Lead) and 2014 (Operation Protective Edge). Obama is just as complicit in the Genocide and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians as his successors - Biden and Trump. For this reason alone, he should receive no welcome in Ireland.”
Commenting on other aspects of Obama’s time in office, Cllr. Reddy added: “Obama radically expanded U.S. drone warfare throughout his Presidency, ordering hundreds of strikes across Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia that killed civilians at weddings and in family gatherings. He backed the 2009 coup in Honduras, recognising a de facto government installed by force, keeping with the long American tradition of denying democracy in Latin America.”
Cllr Hazel De Nortúin (Dublin South Central, Ballyfermot-Drimnagh) condemned Obama’s domestic policy, “It’s not just wars and crimes overseas, Obama failed at home too and in many ways, his failures lead to the rise of Donald Trump and the American Far Right. Despite offering Black Americans hope, Obama completely failed to dismantle the ‘new Jim Crow’ of mass incarceration and racialised poverty. He chose to support wall street over ordinary Americans and presided over historic increases in economic inequality in the US.
“We have requested that the Lord Mayor reverses his decision to invite the Obamas to the Mansion House. If the Lord Mayor decides to proceed, Cllr Reddy and I will bring an emergency motion to the first full meeting of the City Council at the start of September, calling for the revocation of Obama’s Freedom of the City.”