Workers Solidarity Movement

This educational discussion was based around a text that says “We believe the most important division in today’s left is between those that hold to a folk politics of localism, direct action, and relentless horizontalism, and those that outline what must become called an accelerationist politics at ease with a modernity of abstraction, complexity, globality, and technology.” from Manifesto for for an Accelerationist Politics

We tended to disagree, the audio of what is a relatively informal introduction and chat covers a range of issues we have with this approach.

A chat about the Manifesto for for an Accelerationist Politics- WSM Dublin by Workers Solidarity on Mixcloud

Following on from the rapid spread of Isis in Iraq & Syria Paul Bowman presented an update intended to inform on the contemporary politics of Jihadism and its entanglement with regional and global imperialist power plays.

He starts by looking in detail at the ideological / religious background of the Salafist movements including ISIS and how such movements differ from those of the Muslim Brotherhood / Ikwanite.

It is a confusing time to be on the revolutionary left as everything that was once certain turns to smoke.

Technology has overturned and remade what constitutes effective communication and the construction of networks.

Quite how to organise is no longer clear, while old reference points of 1917, 1936 or even 1968 no longer provide definitive models.

Talk by Mark Bray, author of Translating Anarchy: The Anarchism of Occupy Wall Street followed by an hour of discussion.

Translating Anarchy tells the story of the anti-capitalist anti-authoritarians of Occupy Wall Street, who strategically communicated their revolutionary politics to the public in a way that was both accessible and revolutionary.

Translating Anarchy: The Anarchism of Occupy Wall Street - talk by Author Mark Bray in Dublin by Workers Solidarity on Mixcloud

Over the years, Dublin’s working class has organised to fight landlords, developers and politicians in search of decent housing and well-being for all. This panel at the 9th Dublin anarchist bookfair considered how some of these earlier campaigns and direct actions can inform today’s struggles.

Dublin Housing Action: Past, Present and Future - Anarchist bookfair 2014 audio by Workers Solidarity on Mixcloud

[Audio recording of recent talk and discussion in the Black Rose anarchist social centre in Sydney on the theme of identity politics and its relevance today. Below is the text of the talk given by Timothy followed by a lively and constructive discussion covering everything from sexual violence in radical spaces to ‘intersectionality,’ feminism and autonomous organising.]

This talk is at a midpoint between being an original work, and being an exegesis of Selma’s James justly famous “Sex, Race and Class.” This astonishingly brilliant work contains within itself the clear foundations of a historical materialist, or Marxist, conception of the relationship between capitalism and oppression. Because I have mixed in many of my own original points, both intentionally and no doubt by accidental misinterpretation, I would strongly suggest everyone here goes and reads the original.

Andrew, a member of Workers Solidarity Movement, gave  an eyewitness account with photos of the Gezi park protests and the state brutality against people in Istanbul, where he spent a week recently. Sevinc , an anarchist from Turkey,  gave details of the background of the struggle.

The video is includes photos & video from Gezi park.    Recoded Thursday 27 June, 7.30 at Wynns hotel, Dublin

On Sunday around 30 people attended a talk by Wendy Bacon organised by Jura Books im Sydney on the topic of anarcha-feminism and women's liberation. What did anarcho-feminism mean to 1970s feminists? Does it still have relevance for today's feminists?

Jura  Books in Sydney recently hosted  'Anarchism in Bulgaria as I see it' by the 88 year old exiled anarchist Jack Grancharoff. Around a dozen people listened intensely to Jack as he described his upbringing and his involvement in anarchism and challenges faced by both fascism and Stalinism.

A Dublin anarchist bookfair meeting at which two speakers - Milton Sánchez Cubas (President of the Celendin Interinstitutional Platform (PIC), a network of 40 grassroots organisations from Celendin Department of Cajamarca, Peru) and Aida Julieta Quinones Torres (a member of the Environmental Committee for the Defense of Life which monitors the socio-environmental impact of the La Colosa mine, in the department of Tolima, Colombia) –looked at the impact on their communities of exploitation by mega-extractive multinational corporation and explained how they organize to face this threat