When the Irish Socialist Federation was first founded the action of its originators evoked a great deal of adverse criticism. We believe the launching of our journal will evoke still more. It is fitting, therefore, that we should devote some little space to explaining the central idea of this new venture in the fields of Socialist activity. We do so in no apologetic mood (our course is marked and mapped, and we shall resolutely pursue it), but in the belief that the more our purpose is understood the more will our methods be appreciated and endorsed.
The editor of this paper, the present writer, has been in the Socialist movement more years than he cares to enumerate, and in several countries as well as his own, and in each of the former he has noted with regret the adoption by Irishmen as soon as they became Socialists of a line of conduct fatal to the best interests of the Socialist cause amongst our people. To illustrate this, let us ask the reader to conjecture what should be the first result of the winning to Socialism of a worker of the Irish race. Obviously the first result should be that he should become a medium for, so to speak, translating Socialist ideas into terms of Irish thought, and a channel for conveying the Socialist message to others of his race.
But this he could only do as long as his Socialism did not cause him to raise barriers betwixt him and his fellow countrymen and women, to renounce his connection with, or to abjure all the ties of kinship and tradition that throughout the world make the heart of one Celt go out to another, no matter how unknown. Yet this is precisely what their adoption of Socialism has caused in the great majority of cases amongst Irishmen. Led away by a foolishly sentimental misinterpretation of the Socialist doctrine of Universal Brotherhood, or Internationalism, they generally began by dropping out of all Irish societies they were affiliated with, no matter how righteous their objects were, and ended by ceasing to mix in Irish gatherings or to maintain Irish connections. The result upon the minds of their fellow countrymen and women was as might be expected. At home and abroad the Irish Celt has had to keep up a perpetual watch and ward against insidious and relentless foes; for hundreds of years England has had the ear of the world, pouring into it calumnies and hatred of the Irish until the latter had become an Ishmael among the nations, and nowhere more so than in America. The bitter words of our poet –
Aye, bitter hate and cold neglect,
Or lukewarm love at best,
Is all we’ve had or can expect,
We aliens of the West.
simply chronicled truthfully the international status of our race.
The editor of this paper, the present writer, has been in the Socialist movement more years than he cares to enumerate, and in several countries as well as his own, and in each of the former he has noted with regret the adoption by Irishmen as soon as they became Socialists of a line of conduct fatal to the best interests of the Socialist cause amongst our people. To illustrate this, let us ask the reader to conjecture what should be the first result of the winning to Socialism of a worker of the Irish race. Obviously the first result should be that he should become a medium for, so to speak, translating Socialist ideas into terms of Irish thought, and a channel for conveying the Socialist message to others of his race.
But this he could only do as long as his Socialism did not cause him to raise barriers betwixt him and his fellow countrymen and women, to renounce his connection with, or to abjure all the ties of kinship and tradition that throughout the world make the heart of one Celt go out to another, no matter how unknown. Yet this is precisely what their adoption of Socialism has caused in the great majority of cases amongst Irishmen. Led away by a foolishly sentimental misinterpretation of the Socialist doctrine of Universal Brotherhood, or Internationalism, they generally began by dropping out of all Irish societies they were affiliated with, no matter how righteous their objects were, and ended by ceasing to mix in Irish gatherings or to maintain Irish connections. The result upon the minds of their fellow countrymen and women was as might be expected. At home and abroad the Irish Celt has had to keep up a perpetual watch and ward against insidious and relentless foes; for hundreds of years England has had the ear of the world, pouring into it calumnies and hatred of the Irish until the latter had become an Ishmael among the nations, and nowhere more so than in America. The bitter words of our poet –
Aye, bitter hate and cold neglect,
Or lukewarm love at best,
Is all we’ve had or can expect,
We aliens of the West.
simply chronicled truthfully the international status of our race.
Under such circumstances, and we repeat those were and are the normal conditions of our existence as Irish – under such circumstances the man or woman who broke away from and kept aloof from contact with things Irish and with an Irish environment became, in the eyes of their fellow countrymen and women, deserters from the weaker side in a fight, and therefore objects of opprobrium and of hatred. In the case of those who became Socialists this was invariably the course of events; the dislike and hatred did not precede, but followed the breaking away from Irish associations. Had the convert to Socialism showed that his conversion did not operate to make him hold aloof from his fellow countrymen, or to decry their cause, he would have become a medium for attracting the Irish, instead of repelling them, and each fresh Irish recruit to our cause would have meant an added power of convincing the Irish worker that Socialism made its devotees better equipped mentally and morally to combat oppression than any scheme evolved by the invertebrate Irish middle class politicians; but this is just what the Federation and its organ proposes to do. We propose to show all the workers of our fighting race that Socialism will make them better fighters for freedom without being less Irish; we propose to advise the Irish who are Socialists now to organize their forces as Irish and get again in touch with the organized bodies of literary, educational and revolutionary Irish; we propose to make a campaign amongst our countrymen, and to rely for our method mainly upon imparting to them a correct interpretation of the facts of Irish history, past and present; we propose to take the control of the Irish vote out of the hands of the slimy seoiníní who use it to boost their political and business interests to the undoing of the Irish as well as the American toiler; we propose to challenge all the other federations and nationalities in this country to a generous rivalry in the work of our common emancipation; and we propose, finally, to show the world that after seven hundred years battling against a mighty oppressor we are still, as a race, lusty and vigorous for the fight, and that abreast with the march of the intellect of the world we raise the ideal of the legions of our unforgotten dead, “Ireland for the Irish”, on to the plane of the higher, nobler and all comprehending “World for the workers”.
Thus all may see and learn that
Ireland has no leper sores
Her eye is clear, her stature strong,
Still thro’ her veins the life blood pours
In mighty tides of speech and song.
She watches by eternal shores
The birth of Right, the death of Wrong.
Thus all may see and learn that
Ireland has no leper sores
Her eye is clear, her stature strong,
Still thro’ her veins the life blood pours
In mighty tides of speech and song.
She watches by eternal shores
The birth of Right, the death of Wrong.
This whole piece is an example of how Connolly's socialism did not simply reduce all workers of the world into one indistinct unit based on class. He did not believe that the class struggle necessitated the denial of ethnic distinction or for a socialist to become a deracinated individual for the sake of a misinterpretation of internationalism.
This is the issue we are facing today. "Solidarity" with the working class of other nations being used to justify the erosion of national boundaries and the removal of the natural identity of diverse groups of peoples. Viewing the world solely through the lens of class struggle destroys the very idea of diversity by turning separate groups into one nondescript mass, ironically exactly what liberal capitalism also does.
This is the issue we are facing today. "Solidarity" with the working class of other nations being used to justify the erosion of national boundaries and the removal of the natural identity of diverse groups of peoples. Viewing the world solely through the lens of class struggle destroys the very idea of diversity by turning separate groups into one nondescript mass, ironically exactly what liberal capitalism also does.
"...the uncompromising attitude of the Dublin Socialists on the national question made it clear that Socialism meant on the political side of Ireland an absolute revolutionary change which would make the people of Ireland complete rulers of their own country, as the economic change would thus logically make them owners of the country they would politically rule.
In other words, the Socialists of Ireland had to recognise that the world for the workers can only be realised by the people of each country seizing upon their own country and wresting it by one means or another from the hands of the present rulers or proprietors and restoring it with all its powers and potentialities to the people who inhabit it and labour upon it."
#nationalism #nation #country #irishpeople
In other words, the Socialists of Ireland had to recognise that the world for the workers can only be realised by the people of each country seizing upon their own country and wresting it by one means or another from the hands of the present rulers or proprietors and restoring it with all its powers and potentialities to the people who inhabit it and labour upon it."
#nationalism #nation #country #irishpeople
This quote, taken from Socialism in Ireland (1908), compliments the previous article and plainly states that Connolly's conception of socialism did not interfere with the separation of individual nations, but rather it could only work within distinct countries for the people of those countries.
www.marxists.org
James Connolly: Socialism in Ireland (1908)
James Connolly: Irish Socialist Republic - To the Irish People (1896 + 1908)
"What is the struggle today? What is this process that we're all witnessing? What is it that the elites are currently carrying out across the world in the form of globalisation and neo-liberalism?
This is a struggle of Capitalist versus Traditionalist. This is the demiurge of Capital endlessly expanding, overcoming barriers of traditional morality, traditional barriers to profit and commodifying everything, and turning the world into one universal marketplace. And the footsoldiers in that are the bourgeois anarchists that they use to attack defenders of tradition, that they use to attack defenders of nations...
...the Left has been swallowed up by Liberalism and has become the battering ram for elites and for Big Capital to push through positive liberalism over negative liberalism, to push through the the social agenda of Woke Capital and to destroy barriers to profit, and barriers to commodification, and to the ideal of one global, universal market where everyone is an interchangeable cog, everyone is an identityless consumer, that abandons his traditional identity and takes up a consumer identity...
...the barrier to this are the people who uphold traditional identities which can't be commodified, and that is Traditionalists and Nationalists, and somehow for all their material analysis of Capitalism, Leftists can't see this."
- Keith Woods
https://youtu.be/151aXRbavdA
This is a struggle of Capitalist versus Traditionalist. This is the demiurge of Capital endlessly expanding, overcoming barriers of traditional morality, traditional barriers to profit and commodifying everything, and turning the world into one universal marketplace. And the footsoldiers in that are the bourgeois anarchists that they use to attack defenders of tradition, that they use to attack defenders of nations...
...the Left has been swallowed up by Liberalism and has become the battering ram for elites and for Big Capital to push through positive liberalism over negative liberalism, to push through the the social agenda of Woke Capital and to destroy barriers to profit, and barriers to commodification, and to the ideal of one global, universal market where everyone is an interchangeable cog, everyone is an identityless consumer, that abandons his traditional identity and takes up a consumer identity...
...the barrier to this are the people who uphold traditional identities which can't be commodified, and that is Traditionalists and Nationalists, and somehow for all their material analysis of Capitalism, Leftists can't see this."
- Keith Woods
https://youtu.be/151aXRbavdA
YouTube
Ireland And The Neocolonial Agenda
Are the Irish people the beneficiaries of white privilege? And what form does the anti--colonial struggle take today?
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"I believe the Gaelic movement has great promise of life in it, but that promise will only be properly fulfilled when it naturally works its way into the life of the nation, side by side with every other agency making for a regenerated people.
The chief enemy of a Celtic revival today is the crushing force of capitalism which irresistibly destroys all national or racial characteristics"
#celtic #gaelic
The chief enemy of a Celtic revival today is the crushing force of capitalism which irresistibly destroys all national or racial characteristics"
#celtic #gaelic
Taken from The Language Movement (1898).
As with Keith Woods' analysis of the situation, Connolly understood that the destruction of distinct identities is a necessity for the expansion of capitalism. With this in mind, any reader of his work would have to be delusional or deliberately self-deceiving to arrive at the conclusion that Connolly would support what is currently happening to Ireland under neo-liberalism, which the modern Left do while claiming to oppose the system.
As with Keith Woods' analysis of the situation, Connolly understood that the destruction of distinct identities is a necessity for the expansion of capitalism. With this in mind, any reader of his work would have to be delusional or deliberately self-deceiving to arrive at the conclusion that Connolly would support what is currently happening to Ireland under neo-liberalism, which the modern Left do while claiming to oppose the system.
www.marxists.org
James Connolly: The Language Movement (1898)