CONTENTS:---- Creating the Commons: On the Meaning of Bolivia's Water Wars - Tom Murray
http://www.wsm.ie/c/creating-commons-meaning-bolivia%E2%80%99s-water-wars ---- Rojava -
Revolution Between a Rock and a Hard Place - Andrew Flood
http://www.wsm.ie/c/rojava-revolution-between-rock-and-hard-place ---- Murray Bookchin:
The Next Revolution (Review) - Eoin O'Connor
http://www.wsm.ie/c/murray%C2%A0bookchin%C2%A0%C2%AD%C2%A0the%C2%A0%C2%A0next%C2%A0revolution%C2%A0review
---- Brigadistas in Paradise - The Green Brigade and Left Wing Fan Culture - Eoin
O'Ceallaigh
http://www.wsm.ie/c/brigadistas-paradise-green-brigade-and-left-wing-football-fan-culture
---- Island of no Consent - Maternity Care and Bodily Autonomy in Ireland - Sinead Redmond
http://www.wsm.ie/c/island-no-consent-maternity-care-and-bodily-autonomy-ireland
The Twisted Road to Partnership - Can the Trade Unions be Saved from the Bureaucracy? -
Gregor Kerr
http://www.wsm.ie/c/twisted-road-partnership-can-trade-union-movement-be-saved-bureaucracy
All the Evil in the World - Pandora, the One Percent and the new European Reaction - Mark
Hoskins
http://www.wsm.ie/c/all-evil-world-%E2%80%93-pandora-one-percent-and-new-european-reaction
Thinking About Anarchism - Anarchism and the State - Cormac Caulfield and Ferdia O'Brien
http://www.wsm.ie/c/thinking-about-anarchism-anarchism-and-state
The Water Revolt in Ireland - Ferdia O'Brien http://www.wsm.ie/c/water-revolt-ireland-2015
Editorial
The eleventh issue of the Irish Anarchist Review goes to press in the middle of the
biggest battle in the war against austerity in Ireland to date. Tens of thousands of
people have taken part in mass demonstrations against the water charges, up and down the
country thousands have taken part in acts of physical resistance against water meter
installation and hundreds of thousands, at the very least, are getting ready to
participate in a mass boycott of the charge. Furthermore, the level of political
consciousness of the population has risen considerably over the last year, with a distinct
anti-establishment atmosphere, and in some cases an anti-state atmosphere, developing.
Methods of organising have more or less followed community syndicalist lines that are
highly compatible with anarchist practice, with local committees using direct democracy
and the tactics of direct action. At the moment there is no unified national campaign, but
a number of different umbrella groups representing different outlooks and tactics.
Somewhat counterintuitively, this has been one of the strengths of the campaign so far,
with sections retaining the ability to use the tactics of their choice and a movement that
is not beset by infighting, as was the case in the latter days of the Campaign against
Home and Water Taxes. At the same time, anarchists should argue against attempts to divert
the movement into the cul de sac of electoralism, as is the wish of both unashamed
reformists and self described revolutionaries alike.
Across Europe the dilemma is the same. Seven years of resistance to austerity has
seemingly produced limited success. In Spain, the arrests of anarchists and Basque
activists this year, along with the gag law threatens to stifle dissent. Some will look to
the electoral sphere, through Podemos, to get out of jail, in a manner of speaking, but
with anarchists and migrants still incarcerated under Greece’s left wing SYRIZA
government, is this really a solution? It certainly seems that SYRIZA’s progressive
programme has hit a brick wall and that they are beginning to withdraw some of their more
radical policies.
While the turn to electoralism could make some of us despair, it doesn’t necessarily have
to be that way. There's a theory in evolutionary biology known as 'punctuated equilibrium'
which claims that most species show little evolutionary change over the course of their
collective life span. Instead, they remain in an extended state known as stasis until,
over a short space of time, geologically speaking, rapid evolutionary change occurs. There
is a case for saying that the fight back against austerity in Ireland has unfolded in
punctuated equilibria, over three phases, beginning with the public sector strike in 2009
and the left and trade union led marches of 2010, rekindling in 2011 with the occupy
movement and the campaign against home taxes, and finally, evolving into the spontaneous
revolt that has unfolded against the water charge with periods of stasis in between. Each
stage has been more developed and right now, it is not set in stone that the electoralists
will be able to co-opt the campaign.
As Andrew Flood writes in his article on Rojava, “Revolutions are seldom made in
favourable circumstances”, and we can take inspiration from those, like the people of
Western Kurdistan and in Chiapas, Mexico, who are conducting revolutions in circumstances
far less favourable than ours. Their revolutions may lack the ideological purity that many
anarchists would desire, but they exist in the real world and not in the dusty pages of
the manual for revolution. Political engagement with movements that are actively engaged
in revolutionary transformation can only enrich our tradition and in turn, our ideas could
help influence those revolutions. But before we can influence anyone, it is important that
we have a unity of ideas and a method of articulating those ideas in a coherent fashion.
Too often in recent years, anarchism has suffered from being all things to all
individuals, a smorgasbord of ideas you could pick and choose from. Maybe it’s time for
anarchism to grow up; And by that we don’t mean we think it should dispense of it’s
utopian yearnings and make peace with “pragmatic solutions”, rather that it should “come
of age”, and articulate a vision for a new society that begins with the conditions of the
early 21st century, not the 20th.
To achieve this goal, we reiterate the necessity for anarchist organisation. Most of our
competitors who articulate an alternative to the current society, and indeed, all of those
who are trying to convince us that this one is just fine, are highly organised and have
the means to set the political agenda of the coming years. But while those organisations
can have the appearances of monoliths with one voice, ours should be a diverse movement of
many voices that can nonetheless act with effective unity. We hope that you find the
articles in this publication stimulating and that the ideas expressed will encourage you
respond with ideas of your own, and maybe you will join us in the pursuit of radically
transforming society. It is long overdue.
IAR Editorial Committee - Mark Hoskins, Brian Fagan, Ferdia O'Brien
Special thanks to Paul Bowman and Liam Hough for feedback and editing help
Layout - Brian Fagan
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