Firstly I have to make it clear that we regard religious belief as a purely personal matter. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. We are in favour of every-one's right to worship as they want, to hold whatever beliefs they want and be free to express those beliefs.
Equally we are opposed to anyone telling us how to live our lives or what to believe. It is this which leads us into conflict with the Catholic church in Ireland.
In Ireland organised religion, especially Catholicism (with it's named constitutional position) has worked to limit the freedoms of all regardless of their own personal beliefs.
The history of the Catholic church (like most organised religions) has been one of violence and intolerance. What they all have in common is when they are in a position to impose their views by force they will do so. For much of the Catholic church's history it's priests, bishops and popes have acted more as warlords and bandits then religious leaders.
People sometimes think that this kind of abuse of power is something that happened in the past and is now over. Not so. Over the past decade or so we have seen the death of Sheila Hodgers in a catholic hospital in Drogheda because she was refused treatment for her cancer because she was pregnant. Both herself and the baby died in the pursuit of catholic dogma. Then Eileen Flynn was fired from her job as a teacher in a catholic school because she was pregnant and not married. The X-case was the most famous example of the influence of catholic dogma on the supposedly secular laws of the state. The antics of the church during the divorce referendum showed just how influential they still were when it came to a battle.
More recently, the Catholic Church has changed tactics and is no longer openly opposing reforms which it knows it cannot defeat. Their silence on the de-criminilisation of homosexuality was an example of this change of strategy. However, they are moving into the community instead with church run resource centres and projects springing up in working class communities allover the place. Their influence here is less direct but more insidious particularly where they control the only community resources there are in an area. This is often the case especially outside Dublin.
An organisation like the Catholic Church, which controls the major institutions in a society such as education and health services, has enormous power as a result. Even though its influence may be waning in the area of religious practice, its power remains because of its control of these institutions. This control also leads on to development of secret sects such as Opus Dei and the Knights of Columbanus who use their positions of power to maintain church influence over legislation and policy.
The history of anarchism (far from the caricatures) has been one of a constructive input into the development of humanity. It is about all of us coming together to create a world with greater freedom and participation for all.
Central to our politics is the belief that ordinary people have the ability to wrest power from the bosses and state and build a self-managed world.
When we say ordinary people we mean the vast majority who own and control little or nothing of this world at present; workers, unemployed, home-workers etc. Only by mass participation can anarchism and freedom become living reality (as opposed to a historical curiosity).
You don't build a house by starting with the roof. We believe that revolutions are made from the bottom up. This new world will be built around the sort of organisations historically thrown up by people themselves in struggle; such as worker's and community councils. These will be based on democracy with fully recallable delegates at all levels.
Is this possible? Would the collapse of government and capitalism not lead to chaos. Of course not. Right now we are the lifeblood of the system. We make and distribute everything; all goods and services. We produce the wealth. We have no need of profiteers, poverty pimps and parasites.
It is possible to organise production so the needs of all are met. It is possible to create structures that allow everyone to participate in the decisions that effect them.
Essentially, unlike most religions we do not believe man is born naturally bad, greedy or tainted. If freedom and a better way of life were won out we would not easily give it up or destroy it.
Anarchism can work and has done so historically. Perhaps the best example of anarchism in practise on a massive scale was Spain during the struggle against Franco. Here workers mobilised to destroy fascism. 2 million were members of the anarcho-syndicalist CNT. In anarchist controlled zones self-management became a reality on the land and in the factories.
At least 60% of agriculture in the anti-fascist zones was collectivised. This lead to a phenomenal growth in both living standards and agricultural production on the land. The collectives federated on a provincial and regional level to co-ordinate the distribution of goods and services over a wide area.
Almost all industry in Barcelona (at the time Spain's most industrialised region) was collectivised. This lead to an extraordinary improvement in service and work conditions. One often quoted example is that of the trams:
Within a week of beating back the fascists and military in July 1936 anarchist tram workers had them back in service. With 700 trams; a 100 more then were running the day before the coup. The number of passengers carried increased by 50 million over the year 1936-37. Wages were equalised and improved, fares were standardised and reduced, there was free medical care for all workers. Over the three years of collectivisation with no real police force there were only 6 cases of theft from the tram workshops.
Unfortunately Franco's fascists won out . But anarchist ideas had been proved sound in practice. There wasn't chaos and disorder. Self-management and participation in the economy by all for the benefit of all does work. Its not just a nice idea.
To build an anarchist future will take more then the power of prayer. That's where we come in. The Worker's Solidarity Movement has been in existence for just over 10 years. So we are a new organisation; small in numbers but rich in ideas. Unlike the parliamentary parties or the Leninists we do not see ourselves as the leaders who know it all. We do think we have some good ideas and are aim is to convince people not to lead them by the nose.
We try to involve ourselves in struggles to change and improve society on a day to day level. We are involved in both social and economic struggles (the latter mainly around union issues).
It is in the struggle for social change in Irish society that we find ourselves drawn in to struggle with the catholic church.
The church has set itself firmly against even the most minor social reforms. They are in the forefront of the fight against child sex education, non-denominational schools and hospitals, contraception, lesbian and Gay and bisexual rights, civil divorce, abortion rights etc. However the tide of history is on our side.
Most recently we were among the founder members of the Dublin Abortion Information Campaign (DAIC). This organised the campaign around the X-case where the government attempted to stop a young girl going to England to have an abortion. This eventually led to a referendum providing for abortion information in Ireland. Though as yet (as happened with the delay in the legalisation of homosexuality successive governments have proved unwilling to legislate). Nevertheless DAIC was an example of how anarchists could make a small but very real contribution to forcing the pace of social change in Ireland and in weakening church power at least in the fight for people's hearts and minds.
We continue to challenge the church in our battle for social change. We stand for the complete separation of church and state. Yes we ultimately oppose the state as well. This is a tactical question. Ultimately we would like to do away with the system of wage slavery but for now higher wages is a more winnable demand.
On a day to day level we campaign and support campaigns against clerical control of hospitals, schools, youth centres and community centres. We are against laws which attempt to interfere in peoples private lives. The WSM is in favour of the most progressive laws in the areas of divorce, abortion, contraception, sterilisation, adoption and Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual rights.
There are limits to what can be achieved under the present system. But a victory in any of these small struggles weakens church power and lets in a little more light, a chink in the armour is exposed and, for a moment, they are exposed as beatable.
Our ultimate goal is to build an anarchist Ireland. In such a self-managed society where people control their own destinies there will be less time for the mystical and authoritarian ideas of most religions. You can help to bring that day a little closer. Join us!!!
Talk by Conor McLoughlin for the WSM public meeting on Confronting Church Control in Dublin, March 1995