Spunk Library

Workers Solidarity No 47: Introduction

    from Workers Solidarity No 47

    paper of the Irish anarchist
    Workers Solidarity Movement

For Starters

WE ALL MADE a difference.  As the opinion polls
showed support for divorce slipping some feared that
this basic civil right would be defeated again.  Then
Patricia McKenna won her High Court case to stop the
government funding the 'yes' side.  Meanwhile the
anti-divorce groups were pulling in big money to fund
their propaganda.

Instead of fatally damaging the 'yes' side, her case had
an unforeseen result.  A lot of people who had not
intended to do anything got worried, and then got
stuck in.  In the end the good guys won by a whisker.
But, however small the majority, we did win.  And
every single person who put leaflets into their
neighbours' letter boxes, stuck up a few posters, talked
to their family & friends... everybody who worked for a
'yes' victory made a difference.  Every vote was needed.
So, the next time you wonder if there is any point in
getting involved in campaigns or struggles for change
think of the divorce referendum.  Every person has a
contribution to make, and sometimes an extra one or
two people can, literally, make all the difference.

The fight in our neighbourhoods
WSM members have been involved in the anti-water
charges campaign since its inception.  We have helped
organise local meetings, protests at Labour & DL
conferences, pickets of court cases.  We have worked to
win trade union support, and assisted in the building a
movement which, in Dublin alone, now has over 8,500
paid-up members.  We have written about it in our
paper and produced a special edition of our Anarchist
News bulletin.  Why so much effort?

Because it is about working class people saying we
refuse to continually foot the bill for everything while
the rich avail of tax amnesties.  Because it is about
people taking direct action: getting organised and
refusing to pay the double tax instead of naively relying
on the empty promises of politicians.  Because it offers
an opportunity for rebuilding class consciousness and
confidence.  That's why!

As councils move to cut-off the water supply of non-
payers the heat will be turned up as the campaign
protests, obstructs and reconnects.  The state will
probably take a more aggressive stance than they have
up to now.  One immediate task is to set up local
groups and involve more non-payers in them.  Just as
trusting politicians won't win anything, neither will
relying on a relatively small number of activists to
organise events.

Instead of leaders and followers, we need involvement
- working class people managing their own struggle.
We can turn more supporters into activists, build
strong local groups, and defeat the water tax.  Let's do it.

Another anarchist magazine

Readers looking for more detailed information and
ideas than we have space for in this paper should get
hold of the Workers Solidarity Movement's magazine,
Red & Black Revolution.  Issue no.2, which appeared
recently, carries an exclusive interview with Noam
Chomsky.  Here he gives his views on anarchism and
Marxism, and the prospects for socialism.

Other articles look at Sinn Fein's pan-nationalist
strategy (by Gregor Kerr, a former National Committee
member of the Irish Anti-Extradition Committee), Irish
Travellers' struggles for civil rights and ethnic
recognition (by Travellers' rights activist Patricia
McCarthy), management attacks and union leaders
love of partnership (by SIPTU Regional Committee
member Des Derwin), how single issue campaigns can
get sucked into the system they were set up to oppose
(by former unemployed activist Conor McLoughlin),
what anarchists mean by revolution, the trials and
tribulations of the modern Russian anarchist
movement, and a report from the European libertarian
gathering in Spain last summer.

Copies can be obtained from shops like Bookworm in
Derry, The Other Place in Cork, Books Upstairs in
Dublin, or direct from the WSM for #1.50 (#2.00 inc.
post & packing).

Irish anarchist papers

As well as the WSM's Workers Solidarity, Red & Black
Revolution and Anarchist News, there are two other
anarchist papers being produced in Ireland at present.
These reflect the wider international growth of interest
in anarchism.

Ainriail
30p+postage from TFC, P.O. Box 102, Galway.

>From Galway, this aggressive little paper is produced by
The Frontline Collective.  This new anarchist group
seems to be making an impact around the city.  They
introduced their first issue last year with "if you're one
of those people who've swallowed all the crap about
there being 'no such thing as working class anymore'
or that 'we live in a classless society' then this is the
time to stop reading".

Organise! (The Voice of Anarcho-Syndicalism)
60p+postage from Organise!, P.O. Box 505, Belfast BT11
9EE.

This Belfast-based anarchist-syndicalist bulletin now
appears as a magazine.  Vol.2 no.3 includes articles on
whether there can be a left wing loyalism, the 'peace
process', water privatisation, the French government's
nuclear tests, and a review of Ken Loach's film 'Land
and Freedom'.  The group producing the magazine
seek to build an alternative to the existing trade
unions, a revolutionary union like the CNT in Spain.

**************
Check out my hompage at
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/2724
for the latest issues of Workers Solidarity
and Red & Black Revolution as well as my
zine DOS.

  RBR