Nationalism and the 'national question'

Solidarity with the Baloch protests!

Since early December the part of Balochistan occupied by Pakistan has been swept by major protests against killings, disappearances and abductions by the Pakistani army. Protesters against this violence and for holding its perpetrators responsible have also travelled the best part of a thousand miles to Pakistan’s capital Islamabad. Across the country they have been met by arrests, repression and state violence. On 5 January the protest in Islamabad was continuing and being joined by people from other national and ethnic communities concerned about disappearances and state violence...

Hamas: a “black hole” for the French and international “left”?

Published on Ni patrie ni frontières by Yves Coleman on 26th October 2023 . Pic: Logo of Hamas. As far as Hamas is concerned, it seems to me that there are, roughly speaking, 5 competing interpretations: 1) Those who think that Hamas is an original national liberation movement, with a secondary religious component, and which must be an interlocutor in the negotiations with Israël. The former Trotskyist leader Edwy Plenel (now the director of “ Mediapart ”, an online left-wing “independent newspaper,” with 200,000 subscribers) explains, at the same time 1 , that Hamas is generously financed by...

Stalin of 1913 and the national question: a note

While Workers' Liberty activists who have discussed George Fish's article on "The Marxist case for Tibet, Xinjiang, Hong Kong, and Taiwan independence" agree with the gist of the conclusions for today...

The Irish working-class and its inheritance

This second instalment on “Connolly’s historiography” in our series Connolly, politically unexpurgated is the foreword to his booklet Labour in Irish History (1910). Its conclusion, ”only the Irish working class remain as the incorruptible inheritors of the fight for freedom in Ireland”, is one of Connolly’s most-quoted maxims, but the lead-up to that conclusion defines “freedom” as restoration of (supposedly communistic) Gaelic tradition, and equates capitalism with “foreignism”. In her great work, The Making of Ireland and its Undoing , the only contribution to Irish history we know of which...

James Connolly's Marxism part eight: Socialism in Ireland

The articles by James Connolly in this issue of Solidarity are part of our series, “Connolly, politically unexpurgated”. They express Connolly’s answer on the issue of how socialism would make headway in Ireland given the hostile influence of the priests and the division of the working class on religious lines. We find that amongst a large section of the Irish in this country [the USA], and Irish Socialists here are included, it is tacitly assumed that Socialism cannot take root in Ireland, that the Home Rule press, the supposed conservative habits of thought of the people and, above all, the...

Solidarity as the principle for the future

Hein Htet Kyaw ( Solidarity 669 and 670 ) argues that leftists in the richer countries should avoid “white saviour complex and white guilt” as political guidelines. Instead leftists should stand for “solidarity”. Otherwise, he argues, they end up as “useful idiots for the Islamists”, “campists”, or “useful idiots for Putin and Russia’s colonial war”. Costume-playing as “anti-imperialists”, with the tacit assumption that “the United States and NATO [are] the only imperialist camps on the planet”, they fall into “the anti-imperialism of the idiots”, complicit in the imperialisms or regional...

Connolly's Marxism: socialism and nationalism

In Ireland at the present time there are at work a variety of agencies seeking to preserve the national sentiment in the hearts of the people. These agencies, whether Irish Language movements, Literary Societies or Commemoration Committees, are undoubtedly doing a work of lasting benefit to this country in helping to save from extinction the precious racial and national history, language and characteristics of our people. Nevertheless, there is a danger that by too strict an adherence to their present methods of propaganda, and consequent neglect of vital living issues, they may only succeed...

James Connolly, German warmonger (2)

Part of a series of articles on Connolly: workersliberty.org/connolly At first James Connolly responded to World War One in line with the international socialist movement’s Basle Manifesto of 1912. We saw that in the instalments of this series on Connolly in Solidarity 652 and 653. From late August 1914 he shifted to a pro-German stance in line with the previous writings of the Irish Republican Brotherhood. Some perverted battle-lines Nothing is more remarkable in this war than the manner in which the ruling class in the countries of the Triple Alliance have appropriated and used for their own...

James Connolly, German warmonger (1)

German soldiers in WW1 Part of a series of articles on Connolly: workersliberty.org/connolly At first James Connolly responded to World War One in line with the international socialist movement’s Basle Manifesto of 1912, as we saw in the last instalments of our series on Connolly, in Solidarity 652 and 653 . From late August 1914 he shifted to a pro-German stance in line with the previous writings of the Irish Republican Brotherhood. The war upon the German nation Now that the first drunkenness of the war fever is over, and the contending forces are locked in deadly combat upon the battlefield...

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