I was a student at Trinity College Dublin in the last four years of the 1980’s. The following account is based entirely on my recollections of student activism in those years, unfortunately I don’t seem to have archived any of the actual leaflets or papers produced back then. At the time we were always disappointed with the level of struggle, it’s only in hindsight that I realize that period was one of relative militancy in terms of student struggles in Ireland.
Carlo Tresca is one of those rebel workers whose memory deserves to be honoured and Pernicone’s excellent biography does just that. Pernicone’s has previously produced an excellent history of the Italian anarchist movement ("Italian Anarchism: 1864-1892", Princeton University Press, 1993) and this work is of equal quality and of interest to anarchists. He obviously understands anarchism and writes with sympathy and knowledge about it. Such historians are rare.
In the latest round of attacks on ordinary workers in order to force us to pay for the crisis in capitalism the government had "declared a moratorium on Recruitment and Promotions in the Public Service with effect from 27th March". This is both yet another direct attack on public sector workers and an indirect attack on all workers as it means our access to health, education and other essential services will be further reduced.
An initial reaction to the ICTU announcement that March 30 is off
That the very threat of a national strike was enough to force government and IBEC (Irish employers organisation) to change their position demonstrates the power the working class holds when we threaten to withdraw our labor. For all the media attempts to convince us we are powerless and that class struggle is a thing of the past when faced with the reality of the organised working class standing up both bosses and state were keen to avoid any confrontation that could illustrate and encourage our collective power.
From J18 City of London, to N30 Seattle, S11 Melborne, S26 Prague; these are all dates that signify a growing movement of international opposition to capitalism. I took part in the S26 demonstrations in Prague which succeeded in disrupting the IMF congress there. The IMF was forced to cancel its evening entertainment’s and so many delegates fled the city or stayed in their hotels that the last day of the congress was cancelled after the embarrassment of speakers addressing empty halls.
This is my personal report on the demonstrations in Prague to shut down the IMF/World Bank on Tuesday September 26 2000. I marched near the front of the anarchist (blue) section of the demonstration.
The strength of this movement is that it has come from many places, that it is a network without a head or a central committee that has successfully united many issues in a combined opposition to what we have been told was unopposable. If the demonstrations of the last years have achieved anything it is that they seized the neo liberal slogan ‘there is no alternative’ by the throat and dashed it into the ground.
This is the second of three talks I delivered at the Prague S26 counter summit.
When I left school in Ireland the first job I applied for was in McDonalds. They didn’t advertise jobs, there was no need but instead whenever they needed people they mailed out to a list of those who had called into the joint in the last couple of weeks. They interviewed about 60 people for four or five jobs. I didn’t get one! On Friday as I got the bus to the airport in Dublin I noticed a bus shelter where McDonalds were advertising for workers and boasting they were paying over the minimum wage. Like all low paid service sector employments they now have massive problems finding enough people to work for them.
We understand that we are not going to bring down the world order headed by the World Bank on Tuesday or by blockading any of their meetings. Instead we send out a clear message that there is an alternative. This alternative is not merely a question of policies but also of a new world in which for the first time the ordinary people of the world will take direct control over how our societies are run, not simply by occasionally choosing between professional politicians but by self management in the workplaces and the communities.