The period from 1997 to 2007 saw anarchism in Ireland move from an ultra marginal role to just a marginal one, a similar level of significance to the rest of the far left. This video is a brief history of anarchism during that decade and why there was a massive growth in terms of percentages if rather modest in terms of actual numbers. It includes anarchist involvement in pro-choice, community, anti-war, work place struggles, reclaim the streets and of course the EU summit protests of Mayday 2004.
Writer: Andrew Flood
Articles by Andrew N Flood
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.
These are two audio interviews with US anarchist Ashanti Alston who the WSM have brought to Ireland to speak at the Anarchist bookfair. Ashanti describes himself as a former member of the Black Panther Party and a former soldier in the Black Liberation Army, in connection with which he served 14 years in prison in the US. Today he is an active US anarchist who speaks at events all over North America, giving him a valuable persepective on the state of the movement today.
Former Black Panther Ashanti Alston in conversation with Andrew Flood in Ireland by Workers Solidarity on Mixcloud
A PDF pamphlet which contains two articles looking at the struture of the Zapatistas and their strategy. The first from 1997 was based around interviews done in a Zapatista community and with international peace observers as well as an exhaustive study of material in English on the Zapatistas including all their communiques. The second written in 2005 updates the critique developed in the first in the light of the new direction announced in 2005.
In the late summer of 1996 I was one of the two Irish delegates to the 3,000 strong international meeting held in the rebel areas of Chiapas Mexico. The experience of getting to the meeting through miles of jungle and military checkpoints was an experience in itself but the meetings themselves were an extraordinary thing to find oneself at. For me it was a transformative experience both personally and politically, one of those points at which ‘two roads diverge in a wood’.