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Title: Workers Solidarity Movement Author: Andrew Flood Date: March 25, 2005 Language: en Topics: Workers Solidarity Movement, Ireland Source: Retrieved on 8th August 2021 from http://www.anarkismo.net/article/200
The Workers Solidarity Movement is the Irish anarchist communist
organisation who members are involved in anarkismo.net. It has been
active on a wide range of issues in Ireland for over 20 years.
The Workers Solidarity Movement was founded in Dublin, Ireland in 1984
following discussions by a number of local anarchist groups on the need
for a national anarchist organisation. At that time with unemployment
and inequality on the rise, there seemed every reason to argue for
anarchism and for a revolutionary change in Irish society. This has not
changed.
Like most socialists we share a fundamental belief that capitalism is
the problem. We believe that as a system it must be ended, that the
wealth of society should be commonly owned and that its resources should
be used to serve the needs of humanity as a whole and not those of a
small greedy minority. But, just as importantly, we see this struggle
against capitalism as also being a struggle for freedom. We believe that
socialism and freedom must go together, that we cannot have one without
the other. As Mikhail Bakunin, the Russian anarchist said, “Socialism
without freedom is tyranny and brutality”.
Anarchism has always stood for individual freedom. But it also stands
for democracy. We believe in democratising the workplace and in workers
taking control of all industry. We believe that this is the only real
alternative to capitalism with its on going reliance on hierarchy and
oppression and its depletion of the world’s resources.
In the years since our formation, we’ve been involved in a wide range of
struggles — our members are involved in their trade unions; we’ve fought
for abortion rightsand against the presence of the British state in
Northern Ireland, and against the growth of racism in southern Ireland;
we’ve also been involved in campaigns in support of workers from
countries as far apart as Nepal, Peru and South Africa. Alongside this,
we have produced over eighty issues of our paper Workers Solidarity, and
a wide range of pamphlets.
As anarchists we see ourselves as part of a long tradition that has
fought against all forms of authoritarianism and exploitation, a
tradition that strongly influenced one of the most successful and far
reaching revolutions in this century — in Spain in 1936 — 37. The value
of this tradition cannot be underestimated today. With the fall of the
Soviet Union there is renewed interest in our ideas and in the tradition
of libertarian socialism generally. We hope to encourage this interest
with Red & Black Revolution. We believe that anarchists and libertarian
socialists should debate and discuss their ideas, that they should
popularise their history and struggle, and help point to a new way
forward.
Our newspaper Workers Solidarity is now a free news-sheet and appears 6
times a year. With a print-run of 6,000, this means a huge increase in
the number of people here in Ireland receiving information about
anarchism and struggle for change. We have simplified the process for
joining the WSM. Although the basics still hold — you have to agree with
the WSM’s democratically decided policies and you have to agree to work
for these — joining is a lot more straight forward. If you want details
on this just write or email us.
In recent years the WSM has been very active in opposing the war and in
particular in helping to organise direct actions at Shannon. We also
fought the introduction of bin charges in Dublin, our Cork members were
also involved in the campaign there and were also been active in the Old
Head of Kinsale struggle.
In terms of helping to build a broad libertarian movement in Ireland we
have continued to work in the Grassroots Gathering. We also initiated
campaigns against both Nice referenda, in the second over 50,000
libertarian leaflets were distributed.
We were involved in the organisation of a number of Reclaim the Streets
including the one that saw the Gardai riot on Dame street. We helped
defeat the 2002 March 6^(th) anti abortion referendum and were very
involved in bringing Women on Waves to Ireland before that referendum.
We played a significant role in organising against the EU summitas part
of the Dublin Grassroots network.
To get regular updates about what we are up to subscribe to our mailing
list Ainriail.
The WSM currently has three branches in Ireland, two in Dublin and one
in Cork.
If you are interested in finding out more about anarchism or the WSM,
contact us.