Workers Solidarity Movement

Madrid saw significant riots on Tuesday as police attacked the tens of thousands of protesters who had surrounded the parliament building to protest the introduction of more severe austerity cuts. A WSM member from the Spanish state explains the context, what happened on Tuesday and the demands of 'En Pie', the movement which called the protest.

The platform “En Pie” (Stand up), composed of a diverse group of left-wing political party members and 15M activists, had called a protest for the Tuesday 25th September at 19.00 in Madrid. The intent was to surround the parliament buildings (Congress) in the centre of Madrid, to show that democracy had been “kidnapped” by inept Spanish politicians, and to demand that all politicians inside resign and re write the Spanish constitution. ¨En Pie, Stand Up¨ is composed by a very diverse group of members of left wing groups and 15M activists.

On Wednesday last, 19th September, the United Left Alliance held a press conference at which it announced “plans to launch a public campaign of resistance to property tax and austerity”.  For those of us who have been working alongside ULA members for over 12 months now to build the broad-based Campaign Against Household & Water Taxes (CAHWT), this announcement came as something of a surprise. CAHWT already is a ‘public campaign of resistance to property tax’ so why do the ULA (who are part of CAHWT) feel the need to ‘launch’ something that already exists?

Anti Household Tax campaigners have this week had 2 major victories against government and County Council attempts to bully people into registering for the hated tax. In Clare, following a week long campaign which culminated in a protest march to the Council offices on Friday (21st), the Council were forced to publicly back down from threats to withhold or delay third-level grants from students whose families are refusing to pay the household tax.

On the anniversary of the Wall Street occupation which sparked a global movement and captured media attention, Occupy Belfast acquired a second building.  A statement released on the groups Facebook page reads ‘members of the Occupy Belfast Movement took a step towards expanding the movement’s reach by taking control of a multi-unit residential property in an undisclosed location in Belfast.

The major job losses will affect Belfast and Larne which is already struggling with decades of under-investment and high employment.  FG Wilson has received a staggering 12 million in various state handouts via the quango Invest NI, and last year doubled its pre-tax profits to £7.8m. Caterpillar’s share price rose by 1.2% after the announcement on Thursday. According to one inside source who spoke to the Belfast Telegraph ‘That 1.2% rise would have kept the people they were going to sack in a job,” (1)

Marian Price has been detained without trial in inhumane conditions since May 2011.  Despite the fact that the charges against her – encouraging support for a paramilitary organisation – have been dismissed and her release ordered by the courts, she continues to be held on the direction of the North’s secretary of state, Owen Patterson. 58-year-old Price spent a year in solitary confinement in Maghaberry (an all-male prison) and Hydebank prisons.  During this time she was locked in her cell for 21 hours a day while kept under constant camera surveillance.  The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture has said that spending anything more than 15 days in solitary confinement amounts to torture.

Loyalist rioting this week in North Belfast is a reminder that beneath the shiny new ‘normalised’ Northern Ireland is a political process that reaps what it sows.  While our local politicians continue to promote and sell the North to greedy developers, investors and tourism the reality is the majority of us, the working class have been left behind by a so-called settlement in which we are left to rot to be discarded and disposed when necessary. As increasing poverty, sectarianism, lower wages, mass unemployment, lack of affordable and social housing; including the introduction of water charges back on the agenda being as raw as ever the need to build a political alternative to the politics of green and orange is as urgent and relevant as ever.

A Civil Rights march from Coalisland to Dungannon was organised on Sunday 26 August 2012 to commemorate a similar demonstration 44 years earlier and to highlight existing abuses. The march finished in Anne Street, Dungannon with speeches from Councillor Barry Monteith, Rev Fr. Raymond Murray and IWU trade union representative Gareth Mackle. 

Racism is definitely not a "new fruit" in Greek society and not a unique phenomenon to this country. I have witnessed it with my own eyes as it manifested throughout the years I was living there so I can share with you a little knowledge of how it ripens.

In Greece being different is not a good thing, as you will suffer a lot if you are a minority! Your life will be a living hell, if you are a woman or find yourself in a minority like being a  lesbian, gay, gypsy, Pakistani, Albanian, Egyptian, Bulgarian, Ukrainian, Nigerian... In other words it will take a lot of effort to escape being discriminated against and that's without mentioning the people that are prepared to stand up for all these people, the likes of socialists, autonomists, anarchists, people that volunteer in NGO's or anyone that cherishes humanism/altruism. For people to fit in, in a land the locals like to call Hellas (and of the sun) to survive within it is to stay silent and live life in a comatose state.   

We don’t know a lot about the personal life of this son of a small farmer.  He was the richest man in Ireland in 2008 with an estimated wealth of €4.7billion and now he is only out of jail because the Judge wants him to help the Irish Resolution Banking Corporation (IRBC) recover some of the €2.8 billion that he owes them.  You may never have heard of IRBC but you will know of it’s previous alias: Anglo Irish Bank,winner of the dodgiest bank award in a state where there is stiff competition for that prize.   His son is in prison, (plush Training Unit in Mountjoy) serving a sentence for what the Judge called ‘outrageous’ contempt of court as he sought to put money/assets beyond the reach of the bank.  His nephew Peter is supposed to be there for the same reason but has gone missing.  All we know about Sean – the daddy of the empire is that he’s big into the GAA and he likes to play poker for a few quid with his friends. Along with his love of poker, I would guess that Sean senior fancies the odd western.