Over 30 years of anarchist writing from Ireland listed under hundreds of topics
This is a detailed guide on how to make a political banner for a demonstration or banner drop. It uses 3 real examples to illustrate. [Download as PDF]
These 3 banners are:
Saturday saw the annual anti-choice parade and yet again RTE reported a grossly inflated figure of the number marching. They headlined it as ‘tens of thousands’ and in the body of the article quoted the organisers claiming 70,000 without further comment, appearing to endorse it. As we are going to show below at the very least that’s a tenfold exaggeration, in fact by our count about 5300 people took part. And while that estimate might be out by 10 or even 20% its physically impossible for it to be out by up to 1500% as that would require ten people too fit into a one meter square space.
We use the same counting methodologies (see below) for almost every demonstration that takes place in Dublin, from huge anti water charges protests to smaller but still significant ones on a huge range of issues. We do these sorts of counts more than a dozen times a year. We don’t always publicise the numbers we reach - organisers always tend to overestimate somewhat, most often guessing a figure that is twice what actually attended. Generally we agree with what the demands of a demonstration are so we don’t want to appear to undermine it by publicly providing real numbers. But we do count, we do use those counts internally in the WSM and we often communicate them directly to organisers.
Every year in either Dublin or Belfast the pro and anti choice movements come head to head around the so called ‘Rally for Life’. This year it was Dublin’s unwilling role to play host to the bigot parade. It mattered more years than many as a referendum on the hated 8th Amendment that bans abortion is promised for next year. It could be that the next Dublin bigot parade scheduled for 2019 will come after they have suffered a major defeat.
Thoughts and rambles from a new WSM activist, an open invitation to the pissed off masses - Does the state of the world today make you despair? Perhaps you know deep down there's something wrong, that the constant stream of hate and fear pedalled by a media owned by a handful of billionaires is bringing out the worst in humanity? But wasn't it partially our own governments fault for selling guns and bombs to these warmongering states you ask? In, say for example, the Middle East? Maybe dropping countless bombs on civilian targets contributed to the huge flow of innocent refugees towards Europe and western countries?
If you want to cringe hard, watch the Fine Gael PR team's latest attempt to make Leo Varadkar and Simon Coveney look human. The comments section is uplifting and worth a read, another case of an arrogant elitist organisation thinking they can put out any auld waffle without a kickback from the people they abuse [1].
From the Anti-Racism Network Ireland:
Several hundred people marched through the streets of Derry 23 July to demand the immediate release of Derry political prisoner Tony Taylor, interned without trial by the British State for 500 days. In marking this occasion of his 500 day of incarceration Anarchists in Derry joined with the relatives, friends of Tony Taylor including other a number of republican organisations, socialists, trade union and human rights activists, the largest seen in the city for a number of years.
Note to readers: Passed by National Conference, July 2017. This paper sits under the WSM's Anarchism, Oppression & Exploitation and Class and Exploitation position papers. It doesn’t repeat the material to be found in those papers.
Passed by WSM National Conference, July 2017. This sits underneath the Anarchism, Oppression, & Exploitation position paper.
Passed by National Conference, July 2017. This paper sits under the State & Democracy paper. Have a look at that to understand contexts that are not repeated here.
Position paper on Patriarchy as collectively agreed by the July 2017 National Conference. Note this sits underneath the Anarchism, Oppression, & Exploitation position paper.
Workers Solidarity Movement position paper on Sex, Gender, and Sexuality as collectively agreed by the July 2017 National Conference. Note this sits under the Patriarchy position paper and so doesn't repeat that material.
Position paper on Platformism and the WSM as collectively agreed by the July 2017 National Conference. This sits under ‘The Role of the Anarchist Organisation’ paper, hence it doesn't repeat that material here.