Workers Solidarity Movement

Trade Unions are important organs of the working-class. Gregor Kerr - a member of the Irish National Teachers Organisation who has been involved in campaigns against "social partnership" and in many strike support groups - argues that trade union involvement should form a central part of the political activity of all anarchists.

Many revolutionaries in recent years have been engrossed in analysing the mistakes of the past and the changing nature of capitalism. Andrew N. Flood a participant in the "Intercontinental Gathering for Humanity and against neo-liberalism" argues it is time to start moving on to the constructive work of building a new movement.

WHEN THE REAL IRA exploded its massive car bomb in the centre of Omagh as it was thronged with Saturday afternoon shoppers on August 15, they showed a callous disregard for the safety and lives of hundreds of people. The bomb and the horrific loss of life and injuries caused by it provoked widespread condemnation throughout the island.

Since the April 25th day of action against racism and deportations, the Anti-Racism Campaign has been campaigning to win for asylum seekers the legal right to work. At present, refugees seeking asylum are prohibited from working or taking up full-time education.

Recent months have seen the banking and financial sectors in Ireland coming under scrutiny as never before. On the one hand there have been allegations of offshore accounts designed to dodge tax being set up for favoured customers and of money being illegally taken from people's accounts through various guises such as charging interest and bank charges not actually due.

"Are ya right there Michael, are ya right? Do ya think that we'll be home before the night? Well it all depends on whether, the old engine holds together. And it might now Michael sure it might."
(Percy French song)

Well, we all know the story by now. The Celtic Tiger leaping and bounding, an expanding economy and a rising tide that lifts all boats. Regular readers of Workers Solidarity might take all this with a grain of salt, and they would be right.

A long time ago Karl Marx wrote that "religion is the opium of the people". Well a few decades after the above line first saw the light of day a group of Mancunian Railway workers set up a football club. That was over a hundred years ago and I would update what old Karl wrote and say that Sport is the new opium of the people.

In 1871 Parisian workers took control of their city, creating the Paris Commune. It was eventually suppressed, leaving tens of thousands of communards dead. A violent campaign against the left ensued in Europe, driving the anarchists underground. The tactic of 'propaganda By deed' was born out of the frustration felt by revolutionaries because of this.

On January 1st 1994, a rebel army called the Emiliano Zapata Liberation Front (EZLN) rose against the Mexican government in Chiapas, Mexico. Workers Solidarity contributor Andrew Flood has been researching the life of ordinary people in the Zapatista area. Below he writes about some of his findings

Mujeres Libres (Free Women) were a group of women anarchists who organised and fought both for women's liberation and an anarchist revolution during the Spanish Civil War. The work they did is truly inspirational. Their example shows how the struggle against women's oppression and against capitalism can be combined in one fight for freedom.

As anarchists they rejected any relegation of women to a secondary position within the libertarian movement. In the 1930's feminism had a narrower meaning than it does now, and they rejected it as a theory which fought for 'equality of women within an existing system of privileges'. They argued "We are not, and were not then feminists. We were not fighting against men. We did not want to substitute a feminist hierarchy for a masculine one. It's necessary to work, to struggle, together because if we don't we'll never have a social revolution. But we needed our own organisation to struggle for ourselves".