In 1984, a 21 year old woman named Mary Manning had seen enough. Mary was working at a branch of Dunne Stores, a supermarket chain located in central Dublin. Mary had seen enough of the injustices of apartheid and decided to do something about it - she refused to handle grapefruit imported from South Africa.
Mary was soon joined by another worker named Karen Gearon. When they continued to refuse to handle South African goods, they were both suspended. Their trade union had already issued directions to not handle produce from South Africa, so the suspension caused another 10 workers to go on strike.
Support for the strike grew slowly, but one of the supporters was a South African man named Nimrod Sejake. Nimrod was a former cell mate of Nelson Mandela who was living in exile in Ireland. His support brought the strike’s attention the archbishop of South Africa, Desmond Tutu, who took a detour to Dublin on his way to Oslo to collect his Nobel Peace Prize.
When he met Mary Manning and the other striking workers, he invited them to South Africa. Travelled there in 1985, but were refused entry and deported back to Ireland. The deportation became national news in Ireland, and brought even more attention to the strike.
The strike continued until 1987, when, due to public pressure, the Irish government banned the importation of South African goods. The ban was the first ban of South African imports by a Western Government.
A few years later, when the striking workers met Nelson Mandela, he told them that their strike showed “ordinary people far away from the crucible of apartheid cared for our freedom”.
Big names, bad opinions
It’s been a weird few months of working in tech, and I’m not even talking about AI.
DHH wrote some absolute bollocks on why London should stay white. If you haven’t read it yet, you’d be better off reading this. Or this one from my former colleague Tekin.
At the same time, the CEO of Vercel posted a happy selfie with a genocidal head of state.
We also have the senior management of the biggest companies in the world bowing down to and agreeing to whatever old shit the US comes out with.
If you think we should keep politics out of tech, then tell the (m|b)illionaires to do it first. Their money and influence has emboldened some real pieces of shit, who in turn have caused job losses, misery, violence, state sanctioned kidnappings, mass surveilance, removal of rights for LGBTQ+ and disabled people. Beyond that, their actions impact us all.
What happened here? Maybe the mask slipped, maybe power corrupted them, maybe it was all an illusion to begin with.
It used to be somewhat enjoyable.
So what?
The story of Mary Manning and the other Dunne Stores strikers is still important. The systems in which we all operate are ran by people with practically unlimited money. Mary Manning was probably paid not much more than minimum wage and her refusal to handle grapefruit from an apartheid state changed Government policy.
As people without the money or power to influence international policy, we can still exert our influence with our actions.
I’m not going to eat at a local Café that plays racist news on the TV. I’m not going to drink in a pub if the owner wants to deport anyone who isn’t white. I’m not going to buy books written by someone who takes joy in causing other people’s misery.
I’m also not going to host my websites on a platform ran by someone who is mates with people causing the death of thousands of people. So, this is the first post after moving this site back, once again, to Netlify.
Imagine what we could do if we were more like Mary who refused to handle the grapefruit.
Honourable mentions
- 🧑💻 I started a new job this week. It’s great so far.
- 🎮 While watching the Machine Games documentaries and when it got to Wolfenstein I realised they passed me by. I highly recommend them given the current state of everything.
- 🎮 Hades 2 is great. I thought it was just more of the same at the start, but the more I play, the more I uncover the differences.
- 📺 Wayward is so creepy it’s giving me weird dreams.
- 📺 Alien: Earth also gave me a weird dream - John Malkovich was an android chasing me around a building. Yes, I know that he’s not in it.
- 📺 We’re a bit behind on Taskmaster, but I’m enjoying it so far.
- 📺 MAFS once again, and there’s no real nutcases this time, but some very awkward people. Everyone just needs to go to therapy.