Sunday ramble. Im unsure about how possible it will be to actually end the Act of Union by referendum - but even the idea or slim possibility that the British State may be dismantled(to a degree) shortly is - at the same time - electrifying and a glimpse of the form future defeat may take. The longer capital fails to escape stagnation, the deeper it sinks its fangs into people internationally and pursues the historically mistake-laden task of rapidly reconstituting the social bases upon which its states rest on - the more historical movements are reanimating back to life. And their counter-movements. The reawakening of class memory on these islands could with surprising speed disorientate and bowl over large swathes of our left, rendering plans and strategies to the extent they exist, irrelevant. In the context of; i) The centenary of the Irish Revolution, ii) The failing Southern(gradual) and Northern(imminent?) statelets, iii) The now actualised imperial nature of EU-NATO and popular dislike thereof, iv) The ascent and mainstreaming of Sinn Féin across the islands(and moreso the destabilising possibilities of attempts to legitimise and coopt parts of republican history post-22/68) That its not unfathomable a win in the Scottish independence referendum could be the first domino to fall, opening up an organic regeneration of the indigenous revolutionary movement of the islands - Civil Rights/republicanism. Although it may arise completely unrecogniseable from before - we might guess characteristics could include citizenship-based discourse, opposition to the Church, foregrounding of Political and autonomy/rights issues with underdeveloped yet radical Economic/base analysis. And minimum demands which are by the nature of the Crisis, transitional. In other words, infinitely more fertile grounds and a step forward in this early phase of class recomposition. In the case of such a phenomenon being left ungrappled with - the form it eventually finds may be rejuvenated and more effective reactionary nationalisms which only deepen the status quo. I think the left(I hate the term as much as you do), needs to start work now on picking up the thread of the last century of Irish radical history, in order to rebuild class memory and for it to really know thyself. Like anything, it is necessary to hegemonise our own counter-narrative. One of our own deeply buried and contorted history of struggle in order to be able to speak to and be listened to by the sudden eruptions of situations and movements of significance to come. Thats not saying the revolution is next week, it means its necessary to know how to understand, at some point in the eternity to follow, things when they kick off on this island or even know how to relate and contribute to it. Because in all likelihood we probably wont recognise its embryonic stage as proto-socialist. It is most undialectical, as they say, to think being a socialist and the desired transformation itself is about grinding people down with a red flag and I told ya sos. Think about how historically-aware and rooted across decades the Irish Choice movement is. The response to each new crisis is organically grounded and propelled by an unbroken chain of previous tragedies. The language, strategy and demands are grounded in the experiences of women and the movement itself - in X-Cases, Migrant Ys, 8th Amendments. Likewise the general public might not yet understand themselves as consciously pro-choice, but probably pro-choice in relation to a desire to repeal the 8th which is a basis to develop that understanding. We can learn from this success by building the meaning of an Irish socialism out of our history. I would say elites are currently constructing their own narrative for the centenaries, regardless of whether were ready and able to combat that or not. I think this self-knowing of class memory and motivation by historical class-vengeance is what Podemos have achieved in its resonating condemnation of the Transition regime of 78(the post-Franco State). Crucially they were able to speak to 15-M, the movements and with astonishing success for such an anarchist-influenced movement almost totally monopolise the loyalty of it for an election. And Izquierda Unida, unable to establish a relationship with 15-M and with their own dodgy history, have been suddenly bowled over - not unlike the Irish Home Rule Party being wiped out overnight by Sinn Féin in 1918 or the Northern Irish Labour Party during The Troubles. I think there could be a similar appetite for revenge against the Freestate; a EU-critical Civil Rights-republican movement may well find its own articulation - but it wont necessarily find its way to us, to internationalism or anticapitalism unless we speak the language and have an open, dynamic engagement with it. *Unfinished Business pun* youtu.be/WQyZfF6nx7I
Posted on: Sun, 07 Sep 2014 14:27:34 +0000
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