Workers Solidarity Movement

Tensions have been growing amongst the migrant communities in Lesvos since the beginning of January when the new right-wing government (New Democracy) implemented more aggressive migration policies with a view to “decongest” the Aegean islands and to stem the flow of migration. Deputy minister Stelios Petsas announced that “the government, from the first moment, followed a different policy on the refugee-migration issue. With a comprehensive plan based on four axes: guarding the borders, speeding up asylum procedures, increased returns and closed pre-departure centers.” What this translates to is increased spending on border controls, a staggering backlog of asylum claims, fast-track border procedures that fail to protect people (including children) from deportation if they are rejected in the first instance, even if they appeal, along with large scale confinement and detention.

People protest against the Pre-Removal Detention Centre in Moria Camp after an Iranian migrant was found dead, hung in his cell.

Cork showed the far right the door on January 4th as about 300 anti-fascists turned up at city hall to face down a  far right rally of about that peaked at about 70.  The anti-fascist rally was called by Cork Rebels for Peace, "a broad spectrum of left political & community activists from across the city and county and we’ve called upon a celebration of diversity, inclusiveness and solidarity.  We have come together to show the far right that Cork city will not succumb to intolerance."

A very successful anti-fascist Rally For Peace took place December 14th as 100s of anti-fascists occupied the planned site at the Dail of a far-right rally. Stewards did a great job of containing far-right provocations throughout the rally.  The 1st group of far right agitators that appeared were visibly bewildered to find the site of their rally occupied. This group included masked members of Generation Identity, the group linked to the New Zealand mass killer & two of whose Irish members were jailed recently. [see video]

On the apolitical labelling of the movement - Many of us have been following the Yellow Vest clashes on the streets of France with great interest and trying to understand this movement that appeared to come from nowhere.  It is another story of the pressures of late stage capitalism collapsing the center of politics, a center no longer able to fool more of the people most of the time.  A movement made possible by social media but which also reflects the often chaotic ‘apolitics’ of such movements.  And worrying in the context of the millions being poured into far right propaganda a movement in which the far-right have made some progress in infiltrating, even if our comrades in France are physically driving them out of the protests.

There is no such thing as an apolitical movement, all there can be is a movement with internal contradictions as well as internal struggles to resolve those contradictions.

Jordan Peterson is a Canadian scholar who rose to prominence after his statements concerning a bill passed in Canada (C-16) to prevent trans people from being targeted by hate propaganda and from being denied services, employment or accommodation on the basis of their gender expression and identity. Peterson’s stance consisted in a slippery slope argument whereby this kind of law would supposedly lead to people being fined or imprisoned for not using a trans person’s preferred pronouns. By framing the law as an attack on free speech, Peterson may have mislead many people into thinking that this fantasy of his was actually what the content of the bill was about. Indeed the Canadian Bar Association made a lengthy public reply to his concerns (though without naming Peterson), clearly stating that the bill had been grossly misunderstood.

As it turns out, Jordan Peterson believes that hierarchies of class, gender and race are ordained by nature. As a direct outcome of this, he denies the existence of white privilege or patriarchy and is known to believe, along with many fascist organisations, that ideologies which contradict this perspective are part of a marxist conspiracy (‘’cultural marxism’’) to undermine western values and bring about totalitarianism. With no sense or irony whatsoever, Peterson suggested that kindergarten educators who supposedly target children with “postmodern marxist ideologies” should be tried for treason.