Resistance, No. 6

Many thanks to the person who scanned and forwarded this to the Archive. This is a significant addition to the selection of Socialist Workers Party materials held here.

Resistance, billed as Ireland’s Socialist Magazine, was produced by the SWP. As an advert for it notes: “Resistance is the bi-monthly magazine of the Socialist Workers Party (Ireland)”

This edition from July/August 2002 has a very wide range of articles contained within.

There are pieces on Genoa, the roots of Zionism, and another piece on anti-Semitism. A piece by Richard Boyd-Barrett considers the then recent General Election. Grace Lally has a piece on the European Social Forum in Florence. Sinead Kennedy looks at ‘the role of the World Bank in global capitalism’. Goretti Horgan considers ‘how sectarianism feeds off poverty in the North’.

In the piece by Richard Boyd-Barrett he notes the gains by the Green Party and Sinn Féin and argues that:

Although small, both parties had a national profile and were seen to be untainted by corruption. Both parties spoke about the need for ‘clean politics’, equality, a defence of public services and the environment. Both parties were perceived to be working on the ground and were often associated with local campaigns and street politics. For people who felt that the political establishment was a million miles from their concerns Sinn Fein seemed like a viable and radical left alternative. Joe Higgins, Socialist Party, and Independents like Seamus Healy and Finian McGrath were also associated with grass roots campaigning and benefited from the mood.

And he suggests that:

Socialists should not make the same mistake in the local elections in two years time. A bloc of the SP, SWP and the WP with smaller groupings could have a real impact. But, of course, it’s on the front of real struggles that a Socialist bloc is even more vital. Mass action, socialist organisation and the leadership it can offer will be necessary if we are to pose a real challenge to the establishment in this country. A united left could offer that kind of leadership but it will require the end to petty squabbling and sniping. The Socialist Workers Party is committed to pursuing that end – we hope that others on the left will join us. The alarming resurgence of the far right across Europe is a warning of what might await if we don’t pass this test.

Goretti Horgan in the piece on sectarianism notes:

While the bulk of sectarian attacks are by loyal­ists on Catholics. there is a growing trend of attacks on Protestants in places where they are in a minority – such as the stoning of school buses carrying Protestant kids in Strabane or attacks on the Fountain enclave in Deny. And there are attacks also on anti-sectarian Protestants by loyalist thugs. The Church of Ireland rectory at Glenavy, Co. Antrim was attacked, because the vicar. Rev. Eric Storey, has written a book calling on the Church of Ireland to break its links with the Orange Order. So how can sectarianism be growing almost ten years into the peace process and four years since the Assembly was established?

And she writes:

There is an alternative to the vicious cycle of sec­tarianism. It lies in the tradition of Protestant and Catholic workers uniting to fight as a class against the bosses. One trade unionist, born and bred on the Shankill, regularly complains ‘there is no solu­tion to the problems of working people on the Shankill which does not also help the people of the Falls – and vice versa. When are people on both sides going to see that?’ Down through history, they have seen just that – there is a need for unity every week in workplaces across the North.

The editorial argues that the next challenge is the Nice Treaty which had been signed in 2001, defeated in a referendum in Ireland in that year and was facing a second referendum.

The pressure is on as regards the Nice Treaty. The new jubilant FF/PD government is gearing up for a campaign to get the Treaty passed, preparing to go to any lengths to discredit those campaigning against it. In the first campaign the Government underestimated the degree of opposition. Presenting Nice to us a second time may just blow up in their faces. The reasons for opposing Nice are still valid.

And:

Resistance stands with the anti-capitalists, environmentalists, socialists and anti-racists who oppose the corporate interests that are destroying people’s lives. 57 million people in the EU are living below the poverty line. The EU establishment is doing nothing to tackle the needs of these people. The EU has little to offer us but unemployment, redundancies, stagnant economies and the privatisation of our services. Every time the EU leaders get together for a summit, huge numbers of people gather to tell them that their Europe is too militaristic, too profit-driven, too dismissive of the environment and unrepresentative of the people. After the general strike that coincided with the June EU summit in Seville, in which 1.5 million people took part, the Seville Social Forum called two days of protests and meetings entitled ‘Against a Europe of Capital and War’. That is the message that we need to send to those who would ram the Nice Treaty down our throats.

There are also a number of book reviews including Shostakovich, Feeny’s A hundred turbulent years (of SF), Tariq Ali’s The Clash of Fundametalisms and Paul Ginsborg’s ltaly and its discontents. And the last page has a column from Eamonn McCann on ‘Fine Gael’s difficulties’.

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