Workers Solidarity Movement

This is a collection of videos of protests around the May 2011 visit of the British Queen to Dublin.  Ten thousand security personnel were deployed and the city locked down over the four days to prevent effective protest.

The election of Barack Obama to the White House in 2008 was one of the most celebrated electoral victories of recent times. Not since Nelson Mandela’s win in South Africa, following the collapse of the Apartheid regime, was the supposed power of the ballot box so publicly celebrated and displayed.

Obama’s victory was hailed as a triumph for the ‘democratic process’ and was widely touted as a fine example of how people power and electioneering can trump entrenched bigotry and money.

Since the demonstrations called last Sunday, the central squares of cities all across Spain have been occupied by camps of protestors, furious at austerity and the uselessness of all the existing politicians and the pointlessness of this coming Sunday's local elections.

The movement consists mainly of young people, both students and unemployed or precarious young workers calling themselves by names such as Juventud Sin Futuro (Youth Without Future) and #DemocraciaRealYa (Real Democracy Now!). Bypassing existing organisations, whether political parties or trade unions, the participants have organised themselves via Facebook and Twitter, in the manner of the Tunisian and Egyptian activists of the Arab Spring.

The British Queen - An enemy of the working class, an enemy of the poor, head of the imperialist British state, symbol of privilege, inequality and oppression.

The visit: why now?
There is a drive to normalise the British occupation of the six counties and partition. It is part of a wider pattern to integrate Ireland into the loose alliance of imperialist nations. There has always been a desire on behalf of the British state, the USA and the European Union to engage Ireland as a junior partner in the imperialist club. The ending of the war in the north and the gradual normalisation of relations between Britain and Ireland has allowed an acceleration of this process. The visit of Britain's Queen Elizabeth is all part of it.

On last Tuesday evening at Solidarity Books a small but very interested audience listened to James McBarron of Cork WSM give a talk outlining why people should oppose the impending visit of the queen of England to the Republic of Ireland. In his presentation, he reminded us that the institution of monarchism, the British monarchy in particular because of its historic role, is bound up intimately with the promotion of imperialism, militarism and privilege, and therefore should be opposed.

10,000 soldiers and Gardai will be deployed to protect the queen of England and US president Barrack Obama during their visits in May. Over 20 million euros will be spent by the state on the visits.

Last weeks killing of PSNI officer Ronan Kerr combined with the massive public backlash expressed on various media outlets and rallies has served to strengthen the status-quo and the acceptability of the PSNI. In doing so providing a hostile environment for radical politics to operate in and ‘legitimacy’ to an intensification in intimidation and repression of republicans, their families and dissenters who dares to question the status-quo. Some media commentators suggesting that the booby trap car bomb will do for the PSNI what Bloody Sunday massacre did for the Provisional IRA.

This week Belfast City Council approved a homecoming parade for the Royal Irish Regiment and Irish Guards from Afghanistan. The motion was backed by the DUP, UUP and Alliance parties, but opposed by the SDLP and Sinn Fein. The final vote was 26 to 20. Smaller parades will also take place in Lisburn and Enniskillen.

When “dissident” republicans killed policeman Ronan Kerr with a booby-trap car bomb on Saturday, they were pursuing what they believed was a strategy that would eventually lead to the defeat of British imperialism in Ireland, firstly by destroying the policy of normalisation, "ulsterisation" and the co-option of  republicans into the political system, and ultimately in breaking the will of the British ruling class to maintain their hold in Ireland.

Once again the apostles of "liberal interventionism" are filling the newspapers and airwaves with their apologetics for Western imperialism dressed up as humanitarian mercy missions. Last Friday's UN resolution 1973 is being touted as why this latest military incursion into a middle eastern oil producing land "has nothing to do with Iraq". Yet North African and Middle Eastern voices of scepticism regarding French, UK and US motives are being systematically ignored. Here is the perspective of a Libyan anarchist, calling for support of the struggle against the tyrannical Gaddhafi regime, but fearing the Western military intervention is dividing the insurgents and burying the revolution.