Workers Solidarity Movement

Awareness League

The Awareness League in Nigeria is to become the first African section of the IWA. Readers of Workers Solidarity will remember the League from the reports of the jailing of four of its members by the state for opposing the military coup there. The international appeal launched on this occasion raised nearly $2000 dollars, saw pickets and demonstrations in many countries including Ireland and resulted in the publication of over 54 articles in languages including Japanese and Hindi. The four comrades were released.

The IRA CEASEFIRE is approaching its first anniversary. That year has been striking for two things, on the one hand the success of the 'peace process' in turning Sinn Féin from demonised pariahs to lauded peace makers. On the other hand, the failure of the process to produce any substantial gains for the nationalist community.

THE PROTESTS against the housing of a Traveller family in Farnagh near Moate were racist. The organisers deny this but then go on to say that their main objection is that they "were not consulted" by the Council about rehousing the family of Alice and Joe Joyce. Do these same people expect to be "consulted" everytime a settled family is given a house? Of course not.

One of the ringleaders, local priest Fr Liam Farrell, even claimed that the protesters were concerned for the family, worried about their transition from an urban to a rural area! More honest was the one who told journalists that he did not want "inferior people" in his town.

ARE TRAVELLERS a distinct "ethnic" group with their own traditions and customs? Very few people want to accept that they are. This reflects the widespread racism towards them, a racism which insists on seeing them as "failed settled people". They are seen as "problems" rather than a people who have been denied even the most basic rights.

Irish Travellers are a very small minority group, constituting less than 1% of the population. Their numbers currently stand at approximately 23,000 people in the 26 counties and another 1,500 in the North. There are also an estimated 15,000 Irish Travellers in Britain and 7,000 in the U.S.A.

NOLAN TRANSPORT CASE
- 1990 INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS ACT COMES HOME TO ROOST

WORKERS AT Nolans Transport in New Ross have been told their strike is illegal. They have been in dispute since February 1993 for better pay, better conditions and union recognition. Now they could be jailed if they continue to picket.

WHO REMEMBERS when Democratic Left was formed? It was only two and a half years ago when they arrived on the scene trying to convince us that they were like an anti-coalition Labour Party. Their founding policy statement said "we see no role for our party as a partner of a right wing government". And some were convinced, like the Labour members who uprooted themselves and joined DL, thinking it more left wing.

Discussions have begun between anarchists and two Asian trade unions, the National Garment Workers Federation in Bangladesh which organises 5% of the 1 million textile workers of Bangladesh and the GEFONT trade union federation of Nepal. The NGWF calls itself an "independent revolutionary union organisation". GEFONT was a (pro-China) Communist Party oriented federation but following the collapse of the USSR and solidarity from anarchists during the recent battery strike is now developing contacts with anarchists.

The 1994 Human Development Report issued by the United Nations reveals that:

Daniel Guerin's book "Anarchism" has been translated in Russian and Arabic for the first time. Thanks to a collection at our 10th birthday party we are able to send £100 pounds to aid in the publication of this important work in these languages. The Arabic version will be distributed among immigrants in Europe, in the Lebanon and in other Arabic speaking countries. It's available in English from the WSM bookservice for £7.95.

Originally published in Workers Solidarity 44, 1995

DAVID ERVINE of the UVF linked Progressive Unionist Party has been saying it. So has founder member of the modern UVF, Gusty Spence. Gary McMichael of the UDA's Ulster Democratic Party hints at the need for it. What they are all talking about is a new working class loyalist political party.