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Workers Solidarity 112 is online

category ireland / britain | anarchist movement | link to pdf author Monday November 23, 2009 23:55author by Workers Solidarity - WSM

The November - December 2009 Edition of the Workers Solidarity freesheet is now online. This is the 112th issue of Ireland's anarchist paper for you to read online, download a PDF of or distribute. 10,000 copies of the print edition are produced.
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Click on one of the links below for a PDF version of Workers Solidarity 112.

PDF of Workers Solidarity 112 Web Edition 2.3 Mb

Anarchism and the WSM

We carried out an anti-Lisbon campaign involving the distribution of 15,000 copies of a special edition of Workers Solidarity and putting up posters advocating a no-vote. Our activity was designed to begin a discussion about the sort of Ireland and Europe people would like to live in, and was centred on the needs of working people. The vote may have been lost but several thousand people got to hear about the anarchist alternative.

Our members have been active in supporting the MTL dockers during their prolonged strike in Dublin, where several community marches and an occupation of the freight depot were staged. As we got to print talks are still taking place about the details of a return to work, but the company has been defeated in its attempt to break the union.

We were also on the streets, with 15,000 others, in the national march against cuts in the community sector on Sep 30th in Dublin and mobilised for the ICTU regional protests on Nov. 6th. Our message was that ‘marching is not enough – a national strike is needed’.

WSM members have been involved, with others, in the new Social Solidarity Network of workers, unemployed, students and communities who want to resist cutbacks in pay and services.

Members in Belfast, who earlier this year were involved in defending Roma immigrants against racist gangs, supported a picket of the BBC offices there in protest at the neo-nazi British National Party being given a television platform.

We held well-attended public meetings in Cork and Dublin with a guest speaker from the Zabalaza Anarchist-Communist Front, a South African anarchist organisation. You can find out more about Zabalaza at www.zabalaza.net.

Our series of public meetings about the economic crisis and the anarchist alternative continued with one in Navan in early November. WSM members also met with probably the planet’s best-known anarchist, Noam Chomsky, who visited Belfast and Dublin at the end of October.

The WSM held a successful national conference on October 31st, where we discussed the future policies and strategies of the organisation as we head into what might be a period of heightened social struggle. If you are interested in joining us in this struggle, then get in touch!


In This Issue

There is Another Way : Anarchists find huge hoard of wealth

The rich remain rich and the rest of us are supposed to keep them that way. That’s why we get pay cuts, health cuts, education cuts, job cuts. It’s not as if dipping into the pockets of PAYE workers is the only way to foot bills.

It's Time to Strike Back

Working people hit the streets in huge numbers on November 6th. The protests showed, once again, that there is a willingness to resist the government’s attacks on living standards. Most observers put the total number who walked out of work to take part in the eight protests at around 100,000.

Francisco Ferrer: Murdered By the State

A hundred years ago this year, a huge campaign arose around the world to save the life of Francisco Ferrer. A Catalonian by birth, Ferrer was an active anarchist and well known across Europe and the Americas for his radical views on education. Ferrer’s enemies were not for turning though and the campaigns failed. He shot to death by firing squad on October 13th 1909.

Social Solidarity Network formed

The government has inflicted growing hardship upon workers and communities across the country, spreading the ethos that we should all commit to sharing the pain. This has been perpetuated by mainstream media, as “sharing the pain” has been portrayed, as the only way out of this crisis.

Review of the Someday Independent

“Someday Independent” is a 4 page leaflet produced by Dublin Shell to Sea. The design/layout and graphical work is of a very high standard and compares favourably to high cost, professionally produced brochures. The overall colour scheme and design is a pleasing blue “wave” design which is easy on the eye and appropriate to the subject material without drawing too much attention to itself.

Fascists Get the Boot

In October, Anti-Fascist Action successfully prevented a large European neo-nazi gig from going ahead in Kerry. Dozens of Slovakian, Polish and Czech neo-nazis were planning to spend a long weekend in Ireland to celebrate the birthday of a leading fascist living in Dublin who’s originally from Prague. AFA managed to stop the gig from taking place and even had the pleasure of bumping into a few of the Blood & Honour fascists in Dublin.

A veteran anarchist speaks of revolution, war and bad coffee…

During his recent visit to Dublin, Workers Solidarity took the opportunity, over “bad coffee”, to chat to 93 year old Roma Marquez Santo about some of his experiences of the Spanish revolution. In 1936 Roma was a metal worker and a member of both the UGT trade union and the POUM, an anti-Stalinist communist party.

Thinking About Anarchism: Workers Have the Power

In the WSM we're often asked why we spend so much time talking about the working class. Even the title of our paper, Workers Solidarity, seems a bit odd to some - why are we talking so much about workers? Isn't anarchism for everybody? And aren't we all middle class now?

Review of Black Flame

This is an excellent work. It is wide ranging, both in terms of subjects covered and geography. The latter makes a welcome break from most accounts of anarchism, which are sadly all-too Eurocentric. The former sees anarchist analysis expanded from the usual subjects of political authority and economic class into gender and imperialism (and national liberation struggles). It covers such perennial issues as anarchist organisation (including ‘Platformism’), the Spanish Revolution and a host of others.

That's Capitalism

If the recession is hitting everyone, who is buying the Goldvish mobile phone? This diamond-encrusted mobile costs a cool €1 million. See www.goldvish.com. And you can write the cheque with a limited edition Montblanc fountain pen for $25,000 (€17,072).

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