Workers Solidarity Movement

As is the case with most of my comrades, I did not suddenly wake up to find out that I am an anarchist. It was rather a gradual process that started with a determination to fight racism, challenge patriarchy and doubt the existence of some omnipresent old man with white beard.
I was born in 1987 to a Russian mother and a Georgian father in Siberia during the last years of the USSR and spent most of my childhood travelling back and forth between Russia and Georgia, changing different cities and schools and meeting people who were very eager to prove to me how much of a better nation Georgia is in comparison to Russia and vice versa. What affected my ideology the most was my family’s decision to move to Greece where I got to meet many interesting people and during the last years of school together with friends to start reading books on atheism, feminism and anarchy.

Czech anarchist, Anti-Racist and Squatter Jakub Polak passed away after a long term illness last week on Tuesday 25th September. Jakub Polák was born in Czechoslovakia in 1952. He became a political dissident as a teenager during the Prague Spring (1968). Because of his political activity Jakub wasn’t allowed to study in university. This made him even more involved in the various underground and dissident movement activities.

On the 10^th anniversary of the death of former Civil Rights activist and Anarchist John McGuffin, local activists including former friends and comrades gathered in Derry’s Bogside and gave the iconic monument a fitting rebellious make-over with the red and black colours of anarchism. Over the next fortnight the black flag of anarchy will fly over Free Derry corner in a fine tribute. No Gods No Masters!

Three days after Christmas, on one of those clear winter days during which the dark clouds are pierced by a sunlight that turns the water to silver, a group of friends gathered at Bull Island in the heart of Dublin city to say goodbye to Sue Richardson. Sue died in October in 2011, aged seventy, sitting at her kitchen table, waiting for the kettle to boil.  At her funeral a former housemate said, ‘Sue had an uncanny knack of turning the conversation away from herself’. She had an extraordinary life, yet spoke very little about it. The story here cannot be anything but incomplete.

Image: Sue on a pro-Choice picket of
a Rogue agency in Dublin in 2007

If Captain Jack White DSO, CNT, was the first of the great individual characters of northern anarchism, those that followed soon after into the later twentieth century were every bit as unique. ‘Slumdom’ Jack McMullen and John McGuffin were not merely products of their time and social circumstances, but transcended the context into which they were born and the politics of their generation. They were in every sense truly dynamic libertarians whose politics speak to us of a far greater and more diverse political culture in Belfast than we have hitherto been led to believe. They also have in common a type of writing whose style approximates to a combination of Emile Zola and Spike Milligan. This makes both individuals fascinating to read though at times perplexing, and it is their writing which marks them out as much as their activism.

It was not until the early twentieth century that an anarchist group was established in Belfast. Although we have little information on anarchists elsewhere on the island, it seems entirely possible that this was the first specifically anarchist group north or south. It emerged in a time of rising militancy, though not working class militancy, and when communal relations were especially strained, and proceeded from the propagandist labours of two remarkable Scottish anarchists. One of these individuals, John or ‘wee’ McAra, as he was also known, is a subject in this chapter.

A Wee Black Booke of Belfast Anarchism (1867-1973)
by Máirtín Ó Catháin

Contents

Introduction
Anarchism in an Irish and Ulster Context
The Nineteenth Century
The Early Twentieth Century
The Later Twentieth Century
Conclusion
Bibliography 

On August 23rd 1927, two Italian-born anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were judicially murdered by the State of Massachusetts in the USA, having been framed for two murders they didn't commit. 

It was with great sadness that the WSM learned of the news of the passing of Bob Miller on June 17. Bob was a member of the Anarchist Federation and a comrade from Manchester, England. Many of us got to know Bob since after he visited Mayo in 2006 spending a week in Rossport supporting the Shell to Sea campaign. Since then Bob and his partner Sally have attended several Anarchist Bookfairs in Dublin and many members of the WSM had the priveldge to get to know Bob as a friend. 

Over 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. Born to Catholic parents outside Barcelona, Ferrer became involved at a young age in anti-royalist activities in Spain. He fled to Paris to escape the Spanish authorities and there became involved with anarchism and the great love of his life: education and learning.