This short article asks the genuine question is it time for a new popular front formation to defend democracy and fight fascism, however, in the current concrete environment by necessity it would need to be different from 90 years ago, and so, how? The popular front concept was a communist […]
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Film Review – The Zone of Interest
Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest announces itself dramatically, with a blank screen and two minutes of foreboding music by Mica Levi heralding something ominous and important. The film, loosely based on the Martin Amis novel of the same name, centres around the professional and family life of Rudolf Höss, […]
Book Review – The Trinity of Fundamentals by Wisan Rafeedie
“I live according to the rules ‘visit no one, do not receive anyone’—to which I once added ‘and do not open the peephole on the door for an old woman from Al-Bireh’—and ‘measures, precautions, requirements, and rules.’ Between this and that, I resist and I cook, I sleep, I dream, […]
Women artists against war, part 2
It is important to distinguish between wars of oppression and liberation wars, between imperialist invasion and resistance to it. Anti-imperialist wars create a different consciousness among the population. In early 1942, the artist Sofia Sergeyevna Uranova (1910-1988) was drafted and remained in her division until the end of the war, […]
St Patrick’s Day Subservience
It is hardly surprising that many progressive people have become increasingly uneasy about the Sinn Féin leadership’s relationship with the British establishment. Party vice president and Stormont First Minister, Michelle O’Neill, was recently pictured in a close embrace with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, while only last May, along with […]
Michael Gaughan (1949-74)
The tricolour that draped Michael Gaughan’s coffin was used for Terence McSwiney’s funeral, contributed by life-long Communist Party member Muriel MacSwiney, widow of Terence MacSwiney. During the people’s resistance against injustice in the North of Ireland, it was said that ordinary people did extraordinary things. This could be said of […]
Letter to the Editor: Trade Union Politics in the North
Socialist Voice articles last month by Jimmy Doran and Niall Cullinane provided the basis of an interesting discussion in the Greater Belfast Branch of the CPI. The articles were about the January 18th “Generalised Strike Action” across the North, directed against the British Tory Secretary of State for withholding funding […]
Book Review – Slow Down: The Degrowth Manifesto by Kohei Saito
Kohei Saito’s book on degrowth communism was an unlikely bestseller in 2020, with half a million copies sold in Japan. This is an oft-cited line introducing Saito’s works in the West, in anticipation of the English translations. After the English translation of Marx in the Anthropocene coming out last year, […]
Palestine and Ireland
The first British military governor of Palestine, Ronald Storrs, wrote that the purpose of the 1917 Balfour Decleration was to create a “loyal Jewish Ulster in a sea of potentially hostile Arabism.” The settler-colony of Israel was created by the same imperialist interests which colonised Ireland and brutalised our people. […]
A Carefully Crafted Story – RTÉ’s Inside Penneys
Fresh off the back of a year of public-private financial blunders, including revelations of Ryan Tubridy’s secret overpayment, UK-based barter account use, undisclosed free-car deals and a Toy Show Musical money-pit scandal, our public-service broadcaster is back with ‘Inside Penneys’. During the summer of 2023, Motive Television / RTÉ production […]
Imperialism for Slow Learners
When Barack Obama was elected as the first black president of the United States in 2008, there was jubilation and celebration of this “historic event”. The “We are One” concert was held on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to celebrate the incoming President Obama where Pete Seeger and Bruce […]
Gaza and the War Addiction of the Imperialist Class
We are in a pivotal moment in the global anti-war movement. Not since the Iraq war and the start of the so-called “global war on terror” have we seen so many people actively engaged in direct action, political education, boycotts and sustained protest. Rarely, if ever, has the racism and […]
Farmers’ Struggles and Fascism
Why have the Indian farmers left their farmlands to protest on the streets? And why should it be of concern to workers around the world, including Ireland? India is a developing country, the majority of the population of which still depends on agriculture. Modi, who promised that advanced technology will […]
Freirian Critical Dialogue – An Empowering Element of Struggle
One of the major drawbacks to radical and transformative actions by activists involved in struggle, is the hoary old chestnut of a lack of class consciousness out there in the wider population… or so we like to believe. We say it constantly: why is it that there appears to be […]
A Woman’s Place is in the Revolution
One of the most interesting anecdotes in the history of the 1916 Rising is the picture of Pearse telling the British of the surrender alone. We know he did not stand alone but Elizabeth Farrell was there with him, a vital messenger airbrushed out of history. Many women throughout history […]
Imperialism’s attacks on Irish neutrality
In January, Policy Exchange, a right-wing British think tank produced a report entitled, “Closing the Back Door: Rediscovering Northern Ireland’s Role in British National Security.” It has a foreword by two former British Defence Secretaries and is endorsed by a former First Sea Lord and Security Minister. It can therefore […]