Solidarity 134, 26th June 2008

John Kells Ingram and "The Memory of the Dead" ("Ninety Eight")

The Memory of the Dead, better known as Ninety Eight, one of the best-known of Irish Republican songs, was first published in Thomas Davis’ paper, The Nation in 1842. It was written overnight after its author John Kells Ingram had spent an evening arguing Irish politics and history with a group of fellow Protestant students at Trinity College Dublin. Ingrams dared to speak of 98! In 1842, the movement for “repeal” of the Act of Union between Ireland and Great Britain (1801) was, under the leadership of Daniel O’Connell, a mass movement. The Nation was the publication of its radical, or...

1798: Ireland’s year of liberty

Who fears to speak of Ninety-Eight? Who blushes at the name? When cowards mock the patriot’s fate Who hangs his head for shame? (full poem) From May to September of 1798 the power of Britain in Ireland was threatened by fierce rebellion. The rising had the character of a forest fire. It was rarely clear where the main centre was. When any significant source of unrest was identified and attacked it appeared that the real danger lay somewhere else. The Catholic peasants of Wexford, driven to desperation by savage landlordism, created a movement powerful enough to capture and hold Wexford town...

Police riot as “anti-imperialists” embarrass themselves

George Bush’s visit to London on 15 June was an opportunity for socialists to take advantage of large scale opposition to the actions of the American and British governments’ both abroad and at home. Unfortunately, the demonstration held by the Stop the War Coalition was as politically vacant as previous ones. Instead of highlighting wider issues of global capitalism, the only subject on the agenda was the war in Iraq. The demo was embarrassingly small; only about 2,000 strong. The speakers were of an equally disappointing character. Stop the War Coalition convenor Lindsey German spent most of...

Socialist Action lashes out

These are bad times for the Socialist Action group. Not only did the defeat of Ken Livingstone mean the loss of their sinecures at City Hall, their front group “Student Broad Left” has now almost disappeared. In an attempt to shore up their position, SA have hit out at their erstwhile allies in the SWP. Ruqayyah Collector, the outgoing NUS Black Students' Officer who embarrassed herself as the self-appointed “left unity” candidate for NUS president, is probably not a member of Socialist Action — she isn't even notionally a socialist, more of a populist, semi-Islamist liberal. However, she has...

Socialist Worker:social patriots

The 21 June Socialist Worker, an issue geared for the SWP’s anti-BNP demo in London, was full of establishment anti-fascism, claiming that the BNP are not a “respectable” party and calling for an apolitical cross-class front against fascism. To this end, the paper included an article about the “hidden story” of West Indian people fighting for the Allies in World War Two, as “revealed” by a new Imperial War Museum exhibition. Simon Assaf tells us that “Over 10,000 West Indians volunteered to defend Britain against the Nazis”, neglecting to mention the imperialist character of the war on both...

The middle classes are starving?

Chris Marks reviews Dispatches (Channel 4, 23 June) This programme focused on the rising cost of living, and specifically the price of food in Britain today. It followed the Harpers, a “typical” middle-class family, as they cope with the rising cost of their weekly grocery shop. But from the very start we see that this is no “typical family”, for instance, in the first introduction to the family Kevin Harper, who works in the City, has to decide whether or not it is expedient to carry on buying free range organic eggs with added Omega 3 or switch to a budget range. Other than the Harpers the...

“We didn’t machine gun our teachers”

In 1968 I was a 14 year old student at a posh school in the centre of London. Events of that year did not pass unnoticed even among the sons of the bourgeoisie. The film If made an impression and, even if we didn’t machine gun our teachers, there was at least one organised protest there demanding the right to party unconstrained by school rules on Saturdays. A few of us decided to go on the March 17th demonstration against the war in Vietnam (see the article in Solidarity 129 for what happened and my impressions). In my case, this was the culmination of a growing awareness of Vietnam and...

Not going back

If you’ve been listening to the Radio Four’s series, 1968, a selection of old radio news broadcasts from each day of that year, you will know that it has got quite exciting (as exciting as Radio Four gets), covering events and France over the last two months. June also featured the women machinist strikers at Ford Dagenham. In June 1968 these women struck against sex discrimination in their job grading. We heard a news reporter trying to interview women on the picket line, and a wonderful exchange ensued, reminding us of the powerful feeling workers can get from deciding to strike. For these...

Lambeth Save Our Services

Well over a hundred people attended the "Save Our Services in Lambeth" meeting hosted by Lambeth local government Unison on 11 June, and agreed to launch a Public Services Not Private Profit campaign to unite the various workers' struggles and anti-cuts initiatives currently taking place in the borough. Heenal Rajani, Unison convenor for Lambeth housing, outlined the council's latest proposals. Having narrowly "won" a ballot in favour of an ALMO (in fact a substantial majority of tenants either opposed the ALMO or voted "don't know"), the council now wants to give private companies ten year...

Education Not for Sale grows

Education Not for Sale, an anti-capitalist student alliance in which Workers' Liberty students are involved, held the first meetings of its new steering committee on 8 June. It was attended by activists and student union officers from institutions around the country, and was characterised by lively discussion on a variety of issues. We agreed plans for an intervention in the London demonstration against George Bush, for a variety of briefings and campaign materials for activists, and how to oppose attempts by the NUS leadership to bring back their anti-democratic - but defeated - "Governance...

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