Commentary
Articles: Ireland: a Bosnia waiting to happen Tony Blair and Queen Victoria Why we publish Workers' Liberty Download PDF
Articles: Ireland: a Bosnia waiting to happen Tony Blair and Queen Victoria Why we publish Workers' Liberty Download PDF
By Sean Matgamna The single most striking thing about Ireland in the 27 years since the British Army assumed direct control of a Northern Ireland that was disintegrating into sectarian pogroms and civil war is this: despite much talk, much marching and much resolution-mongering, and despite the fact that there is a powerful working-class movement in Ireland, the labour movement and the left in Britain has had no appreciable effect on events in Northern Ireland. The left has had no real grip on what is going on in Ireland, or what might happen in the future. Though much fine work has been done...
Tony Blair and his friends may not be very good at ideas, policies, principles and such like, but there is one thing they do know about: the media. Ever since seizing the leadership, Mr Blair and his chums have devoted an extraordinary amount of time and energy to cultivating their media image — whether by sucking up to the likes of Rupert Murdoch and Lord Rothermere, or by blackguarding any journalist who resists the Campbell/Mandelson ‘spin’ on a story. The Blair clique is particularly touchy about those publications closest to it ideologically — the Guardian, Observer and New Statesman...
By Sean Matgamna Let us start where this debate started, with Cliff and the SWP. There was a sea-change on the Israel-Palestine question in the post-Trotsky Trotskyist movement in the middle and late 1940s. Tony Cliff, who left Palestine in September 1946, played a central role as an ideologist of this change. His pamphlet Middle East At The Crossroads (1946) was published in at least three languages; he was boosted in the SWP-USA’s internationally-circulated Militant, after the Cannonite fashion, as one of the Great Marxists whose "method" allowed him to understand things obscure to everyone...
By Jim Higgins Arguing with Sean Matgamna is rather like wrestling with a warm jelly and, despite my long-term experience with the gelatinous character of his political method, I was foolhardy enough to agree to his request to enter the debate flowing from his article: Paul Foot: Philo-Semite (if I am not mistaken this means a lover of Jews). This I did, under the proposed headline: Sean Matgamna: Philo-Pede which means lover of feet. The article actually appeared with another, quite inappropriate headline: A Secular Democratic State says Jim Higgins. This is inappropriate for two reasons. 1...
This website uses cookies, you can find out more and set your preferences here.
By continuing to use this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions.