Workers Solidarity Movement

Anarchism is today finally emerging out of its long held position as ‘the conscience of the workers’ movement’, as the eternal critic of Leninism and state centred politics. It long took the side of the working class against the Party, a position Lenin mocked when he wrote: “The mere presentation of the question—"dictatorship of the party or dictatorship of the class(1); dictatorship (party) of the leaders, or dictatorship (party) of the masses?"—testifies to most incredibly and hopelessly muddled thinking....to contrast, in general, the dictatorship of the masses with a dictatorship of the leaders is ridiculously absurd, and stupid.”(2) Interestingly this was not written about anarchists, but rather about the position held by a Dutch-German Marxist tendency that was part of the Comintern.  This tendency and others comprise what is known as ‘left-communism’.

What should happen to the €51bn gasfield off Rossport? Let Shell keep it and let the fat cats get fatter? Try to make Bertie’s government nationalise it and use the wealth for our benefit?

The World Bank and its sisters organisations of global capitalism, the IMF and WTO have their origins in the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, in July 1944. Although the World Bank attempts to present the goal of the organisation as “reducing poverty”, this has never been their objective. Their main objective is to fund large-scale power and infrastructure projects in the third world to prepare the way for the exploitation of these countries natural resources and cheap labour by northern corporations.

This is the text of the old 'Environment & Animal Rights' position paper.  It was removed at the 2007 National Conference and is kept here for archiving purposes. You can read the current paper 'The Environment'

Turkey has been under the spotlight this year, due to the threats of the Army against the possibility of an Islamist party taking the presidency. This move came to pose a number of questions to the European establishment, as Turkey has been negotiating its entry to the EU. The apparently uneasy two alternatives of government in Turkey are political Islam or the old fashioned authoritarian Kemalist secularism, which has the army as its vigilante sector of the ruling block. The European bourgeoisie has been quite keen to support the ruling AKP Islamist party, instead of the military, sending a clear message that they won’t favour a dictatorship in the vein of that of 1980. Actually, they have compared the authoritarian tradition of Turkey to Greece, saying that entry to the EU would eventually help to democratise it.

In recent times, with the increasing influence of business interests on the state, and with the near destruction of social security, workers’ existence is becoming more and more insecure. Precarity is a term that has been developed alongside casualisation to describe the changes wrought by these and the form of working class existence that has developed because of them. Rather than the job-for-life and job security associated with such, workers’ are being coldly moulded into an acceptance of labour that rests on the whims and qualms of the bosses rather than an environment that it is within the workers‘ power to effect and change.

Wage increases were handed to the top-brass while ordinary health workers and the public were faced with cut-backs, lay-offs and recruitment freezes. It's clear that the politicians, the powerful HSE bureaucracy and the hospital consultants will continue to look out for each other while ordinary people suffer.

In 1907 Belfast saw the first big battle between the working and employing classes in Ireland. The dockers' and carters' strike was the spark which lit a fire of working class militancy. Workers were flexing their muscle, Catholic and Protestant were uniting, 'Larkinism' was giving the bosses nightmares. Even the police got caught up in the new mood and mutinied.

“Anarchists Against the Wall (AATW) is a direct action group that was established in 2003 in response to the construction of the wall Israel is building on Palestinian land in the Occupied West Bank. The group works in cooperation with Palestinians in a joint non-violent struggle against the occupation.”

Operating under the principle that “It is the duty of Israeli citizens to resist immoral policies and actions carried out in out name”, the AATW is actively resisting the construction of the wall with more than protesting in the streets, governed by the belief that the Israeli segregation of the Palestinian people will not end by itself. Instead, they believe that the only way to end the occupation is by creating a social climate that is “ungovernable and unmanageable” for the Israeli state.

There no longer remains any doubt that climate change has been caused by the activities of humans. The resulting problems of flash flood, more severe droughts, hurricanes etc alongside increased resource and water wars will have drastic economic, social and political consequences right across the globe. For many people both in the richer developed north and the global south, the ensuing climate chaos will only further exasperate their already precarious lives and livelihoods.Whilst governments like our own make almost daily pronouncements about ‘tackling’ climate change, and the media have weekly reports of increasing chaotic and unpredictable weather conditions, both have carefully avoided talking about its main cause. The one thing that historically has caused and continues to perpetuate the effects of climate change is putting private profit before public welfare.