Workers Solidarity Movement

Ignoring cries of “Behind you!” as stock villain David Cameron skulked behind them waving his “veto”, Europe’s leaders announced to the world last week that, this time, they had definitely fixed the crisis in the Eurozone. “Oh, no you haven’t!” jibed the media, “Oh yes we have!” Merkozy and the Eurocrats blustered desperately. “Oh no you haven’t!” responded the markets this week.

Interview with veteran Irish anarchist activist Alan MacSimoin on how he became interested in anarchism, his work in researching the history of Irish anarchism and hopes for the future.

There were angry scenes at Belfast city hall recently as the Sinn Fein Lord Mayor Niall Ó Donnghaile refused to present a Duke of Edinburgh award to an army cadet. The heated debate inside coincided with an angry loyalist mob outside who attacked cars outside claiming this was an attack on their community. It brought back memories of the sectarian cockpit of city hall politics of the 1980s.

Primary school communities in some of the poorer areas of the country have been left reeling as the extent of savage cuts to the numbers of teachers in DEIS primary schools begins to emerge.

This conversation between anarchists from the so-called “peripherals” in the Eurozone, Portugal, Ireland, and Spain took place by timely coincidence on the very day that saw the birth of the Spanish M15 movement.  This spread for a period around the globe and was to some degree a precursor or pattern for the “Occupy Everywhere” movement which emerged later this year. On a historical point of interest, in this conversation we also look at the precursor to the M15 movement, the March 12th mass demonstrations in Portugal called by the Geração À Rasca movement.

Saturday night pensioner Francis Morgan began tearing down the wooden boarding at the disused Transport House union building in Belfast city centre to demand rights for homeless people.

'I am a Belfast man born and bred and I want to bring the heart back into the city. I want to open this building as a shelterter for the homeless until the end of March.... this union building belongs to its members and I am calling on them to give this building for the homeless,' he told the Irish News.

Occupy Cork staged a "Parade of Defiance" against the austerity programme of the government on Saturday December 3rd in Cork. Cork Community artlink provided many props and floats for the march , a samba band gave the march an noisy and energetic flavour beyond the usual sloganeering. 

Saturday saw the 2nd Spectacle of Defiance & Hope take place in Dublin, just ahead of the budget cuts that are expected to further devastate community organisations & services. The Spectacle describes itself as a "broadly based alliance of community organisations from Dublin and beyond" and also represents an attempt to break from the standard pattern of demonstrations in Dublin to create something more fun, participatory & engaging.

This year as every year I went back to the place of my birth, Greece. I go back to Greece once, sometimes twice a year if I can. The experience of my last and recent visit to the place was a different experience all together that has me sick to my stomach and feeling extremely upset. 

Here in Ireland I read about Greece on a daily bases on the web, in the liberal mainstream and radical press and as well as I keep regular contact with people though phone calls and the internet. This gives me the false impression that I understand the current situation in Greece even though I'm living 2500 miles away from the place for a good 11 years now. Primarily I went back  to meet good friends and family but also because I have that odd habit to travel around the place try to figure out things for myself.

The court psychiatrists evaluation of Norwegian neo-fascist killer Anders Breivik as paranoid schizophrenic follows in a long line of similar evaluations of recent far-right murderous attackers in Western Europe and gives the lie to the notion that the political abuse of psychiatry was a phenomenon of the former USSR alone. By rendering his crimes "apolitical" the official version of "not bad, just mad" absolves the propagandists of the hate that motivates Breivik and other far-right extremist killers of any responsibility for their violence. The Daily Mail's Melanie Phillips, whose vile stream of hate-propaganda against muslims was extensively quoted in Breivik's manifesto for murder, will doubtless be toasting the Norwegian psychiatrists verdict with champagne. (Pic: Passport photo of Breivik released by Norwegian police for press use)