Over 30 years of anarchist writing from Ireland listed under hundreds of topics
Projects of Death in Mexico’s Sierra Norte - Community and Environment Under Attack
Date: Tue, 2014-10-14 18:03
OLINTLA is a small village in the Sierra Norte, a remote, mountainous region to the east of Mexico City. The landscape there is dramatic, green and beautiful, mostly sunlit jungle, rivers and wildlife. The hillsides are occasionally populated by farming towns and villages, mainly indigenous communities whose way of life is constantly threatened. In recent years, the Mexican state has accelerated plans for the development of a vast hydroelectric power plant in the area, directly impacting the people in Olintla and about a dozen or so neighbouring communities. What appears on the surface to be a ‘green energy’ project is in fact closely bound up with community displacement and the aggressive extraction of local oil and gas reserves, primarily to the detriment of the region’s water resources and wider capacity to sustain life. Unfortunately, Olintla is far from an atypical case but represents how indigenous communities in Mexico, as in Latin America more generally, tend to bear the brunt of the state’s creation of opportunities for private capital accumulation, called ‘development’ by those in power and ‘projects of death’ by the communities affected.[1]
Role of the Anarchist Organisation
Date: Tue, 2014-10-14 16:03
WSM position paper on the role of the anarchist organisation, as agreed at National Conference October 2014.
Budget 2015 - a scattering of crumbs
Date: Tue, 2014-10-14 15:17
According to RTE these are the changes in the Budget. After years of making us pay for the crisis it appears that a few carefully selected crumbs are being thrown under the table to quiet us down. Predictions are that most people won't see a significant change in take-home pay. Most of the positives on social welfare and services represent the government returning a fraction of what was taken and the 'Make the Youth Emigrate' dole rates remain in place.
WSM membership & Engagement
Date: Tue, 2014-10-14 14:17
This position paper outlines WSM membership and how we engage with spheres of people interested in the WSM.
Modified by WSM National Conference, July 2017
Garda repression builds for huge water tax demonstration in Dublin Oct 11th
Date: Sun, 2014-10-12 14:01
Following increasing Garda suppression of community resistance to water meters tens of thousands of people took part in a march against the water tax in Dublin on October 11th. This was the largest demonstration since 2010 and reflects a broad rejection of the way the costs of the capitalist crisis continue to be imposed on ordinary workers. The huge size of the demonstration certainly suggest a mass boycott of the tax could make it impossible to implement, as was the case in the last attempt to introduce a water tax.
Organize your Rage! Popular Outrage shakes Mexico at Student Disappearances in Guerrero
Date: Thu, 2014-10-09 16:59
Protests took place in cities across Mexico yesterday following the disappearance of 43 student teachers in the southern state of Guerrero almost two weeks ago, with many of those having gone missing after the police arrested them. Thousands of people blocked streets and roads, chanting “They took them alive; we want them back alive"!
The students, who studied at Ayotzinapa, a radical teacher training college in Guerrero, went missing on the night of 26 September. Iguala’s municipal police fired on the students’ buses and, an hour later, unidentified gunmen fired upon them again. The attacks left three students and three others dead in the city, as well as at least 17 wounded. 43 students remain unaccounted for, a significant number of whom were seen being driven away in police vehicles after the first attack. A mass grave has since been found in a nearby location, but the charred remains have yet to be identified.
Dublin Solidarity rally with Kobane
Date: Thu, 2014-10-09 15:08
On October 8th about 200 people marched though Dublin to show solidarity with Kobane under attack by ISIS in an emergency demonstration organised at short notice.
What was intended as a rally turned into a march on the Dail (Irish parliament) when more than the expected 30-40 people turned up. The attendance was made up of members of the Kurdish community in Ireland, Turkish leftists and anarchists, left-republicans and other socialists.
Tell Us Lies About Kobanê -unpicking the demand for Turkish & western intervention
Date: Thu, 2014-10-09 14:12
The notion that the fall of Kobanê could be prevented by the intervention of the Turkish army is a smokescreen that covers the truth that they are already intervening - on the side of ISIS. The Turkish state's selective blockade of the border, which allows arms and volunteers to cross for ISIS, but strangles them for the YPG defenders of Kobanê is the decisive intervention that is giving ISIS the upper hand.
This fundamental truth has been put forward by some minority voices in the mainstream media. Chiefly those intrepid reporters on the ground trying to cover the story. Honourable mention should be made of the BBC's Paul Adams amongst others. But these marginalised voices have been drowned out by the official media line issuing from the central editorial offices downwards, that the Kurds of Kobanê and Turkish Kurdistan are protesting "against Turkey's inactivity" or "failure to intervene". This is the world turned upside down. And Orwellian newspeak where the exact opposite of the truth is reported as accepted fact. The banners the protesters are holding say "Turkey Stop Supporting ISIS".
Belfast Anarchist Bookfair - 4 Oct
Date: Wed, 2014-10-01 12:28
The WSM will have a stall and be participating in one of the discussions at this years Belfast anarchist bookfair. Come along and say hello to us.
Stall - all day, 11-6pm
4pm - Discussion "Anarchist tendencies in Ireland:
Panel discussion including Maria (Workers Solidarity Movement) and Jason (Belfast Local Solidarity Federation)"
Leaked Report: Self Serving NGO's Want to Perpetuate Rescue Industry, Not End Direct Provision
Date: Tue, 2014-09-30 22:13
Last week, it was revealed that four Irish NGOs – the Immigrant Council of Ireland, Nasc Irish Immigrant Support Centre, Focus Ireland and Sonas Housing – had submitted a report to the Minister for Justice about the accommodation of suspected sex trafficking victims in direct provision centres. While the report raises a number of very valid concerns, it’s unsurprising that one particular line has received the most attention – the allegation that “traffickers have used the asylum system for residency and accommodation while simultaneously trafficking victims”. The media focus on this uncorroborated claim is unfortunate (albeit totally predictable) at a time when asylum seekers’ complaints about their housing are finally starting to get the headlines they should have had for years.