The Socialist March 2024

TheSocialist

PAPER OF THE SOCIALIST PARTY

ISSUE 159

MARCH 2024

STAND AGAINST GENOCIDE!

RISE UP FOR GAZA

JOIN THE SOCIALIST PARTY

socialistparty.ie

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SHORTS & ANALYSIS

The Socialist

Arms trade – an industry of death that profits from slaughter Automated Slaughter In Gaza we are seeing history's first AI-assisted genocide. According to Jewish Voice for Peace, an AI programme generates lists of 'power targets' - high-rise flats, universities, public buildings - for destruction. Each target is reviewed and approved by human operators.

One anonymous source inside the Israeli war machine said: 'It really is like a factory... there is no time to delve deep into the target... we are judged according to how many targets we generate."

The AI even predicts "collateral damage" for each airstrike – roughly how many civilians will die.

Programmes with names like "Fire Factory", "The Gospel," and

"Alchemist" spy on people, generate targets, and organise the logistics which make mass destruction and slaughter possible.

What a window this opens onto the dystopian future of war and state repression under capitalism.

US bankrolls genocide But EU aid to Israel is outstripped many times over by the US. Every year, the United States Congress gives Israel another $3.8 billion in military aid. This year, they sent an additional $14 billion. By 25 December, Israel had received 244 planes and 20 ships full of bombs, shells and other war material.

Profiting from death The Israeli state has a lot of experience suppressing and killing Palestinians. Other oppressive governments are very interested in buying their military goods, making Israel one of the world's largest exporters of weaponry. In the process, they give billions in public money, in the most direct way imaginable, to the war machine that has turned Gaza into a hell on Earth.

By Manus Lenihan

Workers refuse to bloody their hands Ireland, too, buys Israeli military equipment – the Department of Defence paid €8.5 million to Israeli weapons manufacturers between 2012 and 2022.

Irish government complicity Meanwhile, Irish companies sell military and dual-use hardware that helps the Israeli occupation. The Irish government is campaigning for the EU to review trade agreements with Israel, and protests have pressured the Irish Strategic Investment Fund to divest from Israeli weapons companies like Elbit. But all the while they keep buying and selling with the Israeli war machine, which just shows their hypocrisy.

EU helps fund the war machine On top of that, European Union bodies give huge grants of public money to Israeli institutions directly involved in the war and occupation. Israel's state water company, which openly steals Palestinian water, benefits from research grants from EU funds. As does the security institute at Tel Aviv University supplies theory and doctrine to the Israeli military – including the Dahiya Doctrine, which calls for massive attacks on civilian areas. The grants go to builders of illegal White Phosphorous weapons, cluster bombs, and drones which patrol the open-air prison that is Gaza.

3,500 workers at 11 ports in India have refused to handle any weapons going to Israel. The Water Transport Workers' Federation of India declared in a press release on February 14 that it would refuse to load weapons that would kill civilians in Gaza. It said: "We call upon the workers of the world and peace-loving people to stand with the demand of free Palestine." The day before, the World Federation of Trade Unions called on workers to stand in solidarity with Palestine.

There have been similar workers' actions in Italy, Catalonia and Belgium. Such actions show the impact that working-class solidarity can have and reflects the broader horror to what is happening in Gaza.

What a stark contrast to our capitalist rulers.

St Patrick’s Day visits: No shamrocks for Genocide Joe!

By Harper Cleves

W

HEN JOE Biden mistakenly referred to the Israeli invasion of Rafah as “our military operation” – this was more than a slip of the tongue; it reflected the reality that US imperialism has played a decisive role in this genocide. They have sent, and will continue to send, billions to the Israeli regime, as well as giving them diplomatic cover for their genocidal war.

It is this context in which the Irish Government parties of Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil, and the Green Party – as well as opposition party Sinn Féin – are choosing to continue the annual tradition of visiting the US for St Patrick’s Day and (in the case of the government) bestowing the sitting US president with a gift of shamrocks.

Solidarity from below

The Irish working class has consistently demonstrated consistent solidarity with the Palestinian cause. A February 2024 ‘Ireland Thinks’ poll showed that 79% of Irish people think the Israeli State is committing genocide in Gaza. In most working-class estates, you can see Palestinian flags being flown in solidarity, and fundraisers have been organised in communities to provide aid and medicine for the people of Gaza.

Irish politicians have felt the pressure from the movement of solidarity from below and were forced early to come out

in favour of a ceasefire. And yet, when governments were asked to record their reactions to Israel being charged with genocide in the International Court of Justice case, Ireland was listed as critical alongside the likes of the US and the UK. They have also refused to expel the Israeli Ambassador and allow US warplanes to go through Shannon.

False friends

Sinn Féin in particular, has enjoyed a reputation for being longtime supporters of the cause of Palestinian liberation. And yet, throughout this genocide, Sinn Féin has consistently fallen short when it has come to standing in solidarity with Palestinians. At the onset of the violence, they refused to call for the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador, only changing their position after receiving a groundswell of opposition from would-be supporters.

Upon receiving criticism from voters and members alike for persisting with their plan to visit the White House even amidst ‘Genocide Joe’s’ continued funding of the the Israeli siege on Gaza, former Party leader Gerry Adams said at a fundraising event ‘they [Palestinians] would not expect us to do anything– any more than we would expect them to do anything – which would set back our own struggle.”

This quote, incredibly crass when faced with the enormity of the genocidal violence facing Palestinians today, was also proven to be untrue. At a Sinn

There can be no twee greenwashing of this enabler of mass murder

Féin-hosted ‘Solidarity Rally for Palestine’ event in Belfast, a number of Palestinian activists, some with family in Gaza, were thrown out of the event after calling on Sinn Féin to boycott the White House on St Patrick’s Day. Cosying up to imperialism

Sinn Féin is unfortunately less concerned with ending a genocide in Palestine than it is with securing funding from Irish American donors, and using US imperialism to hopefully bol-

ster its own political ambitions. As far back as 2003, during the imperialist invasion of Iraq, Sinn Féin politicians shook hands with war monger President George W. Bush.

All of these political parties may claim that maintaining this visit allows them to keep a ‘dialogue open’ with the US so that they might influence the course of events in Gaza. However, this visit reflects their unwillingness to undermine their relationship with and dependence on US capitalism – even if it

means shaking the bloody hand of a man responsible for the murder of over 10,000 Palestinian children.

We must continue to pressure the government parties, and Sinn Féin as the would-be alternative, to boycott the White House this St Patrick’s Day. Joe Biden is facing tremendous pressure internally, losing votes amongst young people and people of colour by continuing to support the Israeli state. This could strike a further blow to his prestige and the prestige of US capitalism.

NEWS

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The Socialist

mounting Dublin: Oversupply of offices, The crises facing third level major shortage of houses students

By Jonathan Diebold

C

APITALISM, SOME say, is the most efficient economic system in human history, apparently because it can respond to consumer demands quickly. It might be worth introducing such people to the housing crisis in Ireland, where the system has responded to the urgent demand for more housing with the construction of acres upon acres of unusable commercial office space.

According to an analysis by BNP Paribas Real Estate Ireland, Dublin alone is predicted to be oversupplied by 250,000 square metres of office space by next year, much of which is currently under construction despite the low demand. According to a report by proprietary consultancy firm HWBC, there’s a total of 334,450 square metres of office space under construction in the city, three-fifths of which have no future tenants lined up.

Nowhere to live

The entire market has a vacancy rate of 16%. This is a sharp contrast to the residential sector – a survey of landlords by the RTB in 2022 estimated the vacancy rate in rental properties in Ireland to be around 1%! According to a 2022 Revenue report, this rises to 3.2% when including properties for sale as well.

By Conor Tormey

It is a criminal waste that there is an abundance of empty office space during a housing crisis

The Irish Times, in writing about the phenomenon of empty office space this month, found there were only 330 rental properties on Daft.ie in Dublin city centre postcodes. For every one of these postings, many of which are studio apartments, student accommodations, or bedsits, over 1,000 square metres of offices are being built in the city, a large majority of which are destined to be vacant. 78,000 office jobs need to be created to fill these vacancies – an impossible task without tens

of thousands of new places for people to live.

Seize vacant property

The solution is so glaringly obvious that a child could come up with it. The for-profit construction sector is building too many office spaces and needs more housing. With a downturn in the world economy, a fall in multinational investment, rising interest rates and more people working from home, vacancies will likely remain high.

Vacant offices that are wasting space could be seized from their private owners and repurposed. A recent 18-month study by Shay Cleary Architects found such conversions increasingly viable, based on the cost of converting and the falling value of office buildings. The state could use such new conversation to provide people with public homes to rent or buy. We cannot allow such a criminal waste of space to continue while the housing crisis continually deepens.

RTE payments scandal: Golden parachutes for senior management All prosecutions for non-payment need to stop. The TV licence should be abolished. Instead of this regressive and unfair charge, we need to see its replacement with funding through a progressive taxation system, where the vast profits and wealth of corporations are gone after. In addition, a levy on social media companies could bring in millions.

By Finghín Kelly

I

F YOU thought that the RTÉ payments scandal could not get any worse, then you were very much mistaken.

February saw the new Director General, Kevin Backhurst – who was meant to clean up the mess – reveal that he authorised huge ‘golden parachute’ payouts amounting to hundreds of thousands to departing senior management last year. The former Chief Financial Officer was paid €450,000! The rest of the pay-outs are being kept secret, including the amount paid to Fine Gael Minister Simon Coveney’s brother, Rory who was Head of Strategy.

A democratic public broadcaster

Non-payment of TV licence

Contrast this with how regular workers are treated – who get nothing for leaving a job voluntarily and can’t even claim social welfare! This also contrasts with how regular workers in RTÉ are treated where there is a huge level of bogus self-employment and precarity.

In protest over the scandals thousands are refusing to pay the TV licence. One in five households is now refusing to pay the licence fee. Sixty

Workers in RTE protesting during the Summer after this scandal broke

people a day are currently before the courts and that’s set to increase with 13,000 District Court summonses issued to non-payers last year.

The amount not paid by these 13,000 households amounts to €2.1

million. This is the same amount that RTÉ senior managers squandered on their ‘Toy Show The Musical’ flop. And is a little less than the €2.3 million paid to senior managers last year in golden parachute payments.

Changing the way funds are collected is not enough. We also need a complete transformation of RTÉ. RTÉ’s cosy relationship with commercial interests has to end. It is one of the world’s public broadcasting companies that’s most dependent on commercial revenues.

End all advertising on RTÉ.

RTÉ is also hugely dependent on buying programmes on the cheap.

Funding should be brought in line with international norms, and be doubled so quality programmes can be made.

Senior management needs to be cleared out. Bring in salary caps and bring RTÉ into democratic public control with regular RTÉ staff, representatives of artists, journalists, actors, and the public brought into the heart of decision making.

THE GOVERNMENT’S disdain for students and young people continues as students face the mounting cost of living, the mental health crisis that the existing pitiful services are unable to cope with, and the student accommodation crisis.

Private accommodation chaos It was recently revealed that vulture funds now own more student accommodation than DCU, UCD, UCC and TCD combined. Students are being charged exorbitant rents, and those who work a fulltime minimum wage job while skipping classes cannot cover these rents.

Linked to this is student housing operators attempting to offer only 51-week tenancies, and with only 66% of students having a written tenancy agreement many are being left with little to no protections. This is the consequence of a government that puts private market profiteering over the needs of students.

With this accommodation crisis, as well as the continued increase in the cost of living, and the pressures on courses, the daily life of students is one of mental anguish – leaving one in three students considering dropping out of thirdlevel education Protest action needed In this context, the official student movement has been relatively quiet. However, on Wednesday, 14 February, TCDSU, supported by USI, organised an occupation of the Department of Higher Education to support several demands.

These included seizing vacant housing, rent controls, restoring the eviction ban and numerous others. Over 20 Gardaí were mobilised to remove the students.

This is the student movement's first occupation of a government building since 2010, when 50,000 students marched in opposition to austerity. Students all over the country must unite to build a campaign based in all colleges that organises effective protests focused on defeating the government and their policy of profit over student needs.

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ANALYSIS

The Socialist

Referendums 2024: Irish constitution – 87 years of misery & misogyny

By Emma Quinn

T

HE IRISH Constitution has for 87 years ensured that “unmarried mothers” suffer immeasurable cruelty, discrimination and persecution by the Irish state.

Carefully drafted by close allies Eamon De Valera and Archbishop of Dublin John Charles McQuaid, the socially conservative, heavily Catholic Church influenced constitution enshrines systemic misogyny into the Irish state. De Valera was a staunch sexist and anti-feminist. McQuaid was an active enabler and protector of child abusers and was accused of heinous abuse himself.

Their ideal of a mother, of a woman, is the obedient married woman whose duty was to serve her husband, and the Irish state with unlimited free care.

Legally and socially this became the only acceptable woman.

Their legacy was the estimated 30,000 women incarcerated in Magdalene Laundries. The 56,000 “unmarried” women and 57,000 children in Mother and Baby Homes. The estimated 9,000 babies and children who perished in these “homes” where the infant mortality was double the national average. The slave labour and statesanctioned kidnapping and forced adoption. Thousands more unmarried pregnant women left Ireland to escape the shame and stigma. Systemic institutional abuse in schools, care and

nursing homes.

The last Mother and Baby Home closed its doors in 1998, but the Constitution and the second-class position of single parents continue to this day.

The current government has treated the survivors of Mothers and Baby Homes with contempt. The social welfare and legal system are still inherently hostile to women parenting alone. The Catholic Church still runs the vast majority of our schools and has a toxic influence on our health system.

Reality at odds with the government’s faux feminism:

l one parent families have the highest deprivation and consistent poverty rates in the country and were disproportionately hit by Covid and the cost of living crisis; l they make up 75% of families becoming homeless; l they have a net worth of seven times smaller than the average household; l they are much more likely to work part time, be low paid, and on temporary contracts; l they experience extreme levels of stress and anxiety Government inaction endangers the referendum

What could have been a cathartic rejection of conservative Catholic Ireland and a much needed catch-up of the Constitution with the reality of life in Ireland today; has thanks to the gov-

ernment, the religious right and the far right become a confused and uninspiring mess.

Once again the government opted not to implement the recommendations of the Citizens’ Assembly and instead chose minimal wordings rather than support for care in the wider community and embedding ‘gender equality’ – which could have evoked the solidarity and sentiment of social progress that so imbued the Marriage Equality and Repeal referendums and in turn mobilised an enthusiastic turnout.

They have consistently ignored groups directly impacted by the care as-

pect of the referendum, including carers and crucially disabled people who were not even considered in the wording.

Vote Yes in solidarity, but fight for real equality

While the proposed wordings for the referendums fall far short of what is needed, they are nonetheless better than the sexist stereotypes and narrow patriarchal family currently in the Constitution. The Constitution currently only gives rights to families based on marriage. Families headed by a single parent or where people are not married have second-class status. That impacts

important legal rights. This referendum widens the definition to include more families, based on "durable relationships". It would remove outdated, sexist language that implies a woman's role is to provide care and "duties" in the home.

In reality, the changing of the Constitution without action is largely meaningless. We will vote Yes to finally recognise one-parent families and we will fight tooth and nail for socialist feminist demands, the only way to deliver what is actually necessary for single parents, their children, disabled people, carers or anyone who is struggling to survive in modern Ireland.

What’s behind Sinn Féin’s decline in the polls? terview in December, Mary Lou McDonald went out of her way to raise the prospect of deporting Ukrainian refugees.

On Gaza, Sinn Féin’s has consistently had to play catch-up with the reality of the horrors taking place and the mood in the Palestine solidarity movement, of which it claims to be a solid part. From its initial refusal to demand the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador; to its decision to join the St. Patrick’s Day celebrations at the White House; to the shocking viral footage of Palestinians (offering a critical view of Sinn Féin’s actions) being shouted down and escorted out of the ‘Solidarity Rally for Palestine’ in Belfast; more and more people are questioning where Sinn Féin’s loyalties really lie – with the oppressed Palestinians or with American capitalists and the capitalist system.

By Eddie McCabe

T

HE POLITICO website’s poll of polls shows that Sinn Féin’s support has been in consistent decline since late September 2023, falling from an average of 33% to 28%. One poll in the Business Post in January put Sinn Féin’s support as low as 25% – its lowest since the 2020 General Election.

Clearly this is a trend that reflects a shift in southern Irish politics, which in the years since the last general election has been marked by Sinn Féin’s rise at the expense of the Government parties.

And while these parties may relish Sinn Féin’s troubles in the polls, there has been no boost in their own support.

The main beneficiary has been in the ‘Independents and others’ category, as well as the smaller opposition parties.

So it’s not confidence in the Government that’s hurting Sinn Féin, but diminishing confidence in Sinn Féin itself.

Blunders and betrayals

Even the superficial analyses offered by political commentators have linked Sinn Féin’s drop in the polls to the biggest political issues over the past five months – and Sinn Féin’s weak responses to them – namely immigration (and the far right activity around it)

Taking the right-wing path Sinn Féin are shifting to the right and failing to inspire working class voters

and the Gaza genocide. On both issues Sinn Féin has made what many have seen as blunders, and many others have seen as appalling betrayals of its supposed principles.

On immigration, Sinn Féin’s response to the pressure coming from the nefarious forces of the far right has been to cave to it, rather than rebuff

their racist lies. As such, in the Dåil debate on immigration sparked by the racist ‘Rural Independents’, Sinn Féin’s TDs made no criticisms of the blatant racism contained in the Independents’ motion. Instead, they went out of their way to insist that they are opposed to “open borders” and wanted to speed up deportations. In a similar vein, in an in-

The truth is that these recent mistakes are not just errors in judgments, but are symptomatic of Sinn Féin’s long-term and accelerating shift to the right. Having taken up the First Minister position in the North, its next aim is to take up the position of Taoiseach in the South.

Every other consideration (indeed every principle) will be subordinated to that aim. And like every pro-capitalist party with a radical veneer, Sinn Féin

mistakenly believes that the path to government power is through moderating its (in this case already moderate) politics.

Pat Leahy in The Irish Times posed the problem for Sinn Féin this way: “Lurking underneath all these tactical difficulties for Sinn Féin is the more substantial strategic conundrum – how do you stand as the party of change, if you are simultaneously promising you won’t change lots of things, principally Ireland’s economic model?”

Of course, given the dissatisfaction with the Government, and given that Sinn Féin is the largest opposition party and therefore seen as the most likely way to an alternative Government – the primary factor in its rise in recent years – things could shift back to Sinn Féin the closer we approach an election. What seems increasingly unlikely, however, is any enthusiastic popular surge behind Sinn Féin.

This has important implications for those on the left. A real left and socialist alternative needs to be built, not as a way to offer Sinn Féin support from the left as it continues on its rightward path, but as an alternative to both the Government and Sinn Féin, and any prospective Governments they form – which will only maintain the capitalist status quo of crisis, inequality and oppression.

NORTH

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The Socialist

Stormont restored – can it last? in opinion polls, it would likely trigger a leadership contest. The recent opinion poll that showed them losing support to TUV is illustrative of that concern. But there are opposing pressures – the DUP remains the only Unionist party capable of challenging Sinn Féin as the largest party in the North.

By Kevin Henry

A

FTER TWO years of boycott by the DUP, Stormont has now been restored with the election of Speaker, First and Deputy First Minister and of a four-party Executive.

The fact that it will have the first nonunionist First Minister is of significant symbolic importance for many, particularly Catholics, including those who have never voted Sinn Féin – even if the position has no real power as it is a joint office with the Deputy First Minister,.

In general, the restoration of this Executive has been met with far less fanfare than we have seen previously with, for example, ‘Fresh Start’ or ‘New Decade, New Approach’. In part, this reflects the fact that people feel they have been here before, and unlike previous deals this was not a deal between political parties but primarily one between the DUP and the British government.

Why deal now?

The strike of 18 January, which involved 170,000 workers across the public sector, including health, education, civil servants and transport, played a hugely important role in putting pressure on the DUP. On the day, Socialist Party members distributed thousands of leaflets calling for ICTU to name the next day of all-out action, i.e. broadening the action to involve the

Alternative to sectarianism

Behind the smiles real tensions remain amongst Stormont parties

private sector.

We also called for money from Westminster to be released, whether Stormont was restored or not, and not be held ransom. The strike most certainly acted to put pressure on the more moderate wing of the DUP, who in any case generally felt that the boycott was running its course and that if they got some movement on the Protocol they would have the basis to return to Stormont.

Unionism split

Opinion polls show that three quarters of DUP voters back the current deal.

Not that this meant the moderates had an easy road to restoring Stormont.

They faced significant opposition, both internally (among their officers and executive) and externally from Jamie Bryson and the TUV who distributed hundreds of posters saying “Stop the

DUP Sell Out”. Groups like ‘Let’s Talk Loyalism’ organised thousands to sign ‘Keep Your Word’ pledges. While these events have not been massive they do reflect real discontent among a section of Unionists about the institutions being restored, which is unlikely to simply go away.

If the moderates are seen to not be delivering for their community, if their support was again to slump consistently

As has always been the case, the sectarian polarisation in society means that the Assembly is inherently unstable and this is increasingly the case as issues under debate are more and more the fundamental issues of division.

The more fundamental issues can be seen in the Tory / DUP deal document, in which the preamble rules out calling a border poll if conditions will not be ‘objectively met’. Yet there is no agreement on what the conditions are, and more importantly, an official government document points to an open break with the idea that Britain has no selfish interest in Ireland. At the same time, Mary Lou McDonald says a United Ireland is within touching distance.

So you will have increased ‘preparation’ or agitation on part of republicans, but intransigent opposition to calling one on part of unionism and the British state. Socialists have to point out that a border poll is not a solution, but neither is its denial – only the building of socialist cross-community, working-class politics can resolve these issues.

Trans healthcare: Discriminatory underfunding must end Discrimination

By Keighley Duffy

T

HERE EXISTS a long, grim history regarding the Queer community’s relationship with medical institutions. Since the destruction of medical literature on early gender-affirming practices during the first Nazi book burning in 1933, we have seen how the institutions that are meant to keep us healthy have betrayed us.

The use of lobotomies to “cure” what was deemed “deviant sexual tendencies”, the stigmatisation of homosexuality as a mental illness until 1987, the indifference of those in power during the height of the AIDS crisis, the forced sterilisation of transgender people, the pathologising of trans identity, as well as reprehensible acts of genital mutilation on intersex infants and conversion therapy, both of which are still yet to be fully banned. One of the most egregious examples of this failure in the modern day is the crisis in transgender healthcare.

Lack of access

There is only one place in Northern Ireland where transgender adults can access the care they need: the Brackenburn Gender Identity Clinic. Having only recently begun offering first appointments to those referred to the service back in October of 2017, there are currently 826 people awaiting first appointments, with the official wait time for new referrals being 75 months. However, in 2023, only 13 patients were seen for first ap-

pointments, meaning that, at this rate, it would take over 63 years for someone referred today to be seen.

Predicting wait times is impossible due to the inconsistent frequency with which patients are seen. In 2021, there were 61 first appointments; meanwhile, between 2018 and 2020, there were 29 consecutive months in which no one was given an appointment. Even the most generous estimates from the numbers provided by the clinic put the wait time at more than double the official estimates. This is the result of more than just the ongoing crisis in the NHS, it is the result of the callous disregard for trans lives coming from those in charge.

Trans patients also face discrimination in their pursuit of the care they desperately need with one in seven trans people in the UK report experiencing medical discrimination from their GP. Discrimination isn’t just limited to GP practices; a 2022 report found that 70% of transgender and gender-diverse people have experienced transphobia from a primary care provider. Even when trans people manage to obtain referrals and patiently wait years for a first appointment, we are confronted with three hours of intense scrutiny in a dehumanising diagnostic procedure derived from outdated ideas of gender identity and dysphoria. All of this just so they can gain access to medication that is accessible to a cisgender person with a cursory visit to their GP. The failures of this system forces trans people to choose between expensive private healthcare, which most people struggle to afford, or self-medicating, which lacks oversight from medical professionals. Neither of these are viable alternatives, but what does a working alternative look like?

Brutal austerity

The state of trans healthcare can’t be detached from years of brutal austerity that have stripped our NHS to the bone. We have to fight for fullyfunded and genuinely accessible gender identity services, fully integrated into the NHS and based on a model of informed consent. Such an ap-

proach should be GP-led and prioritise autonomy, allowing healthcare professionals to discuss gender-affirming care so that patients can make informed, evidence-based decisions about the care they wish to pursue granting more control over their healthcare. This could bring an end to the gate-keeping of potentially lifesaving care from transgender patients

and wouldn’t require trans people to obtain a gender dysphoria diagnosis.

The political establishment has made it clear that they will cut our services to the bone, and they have no interest in trans liberation. The only power we can rely on if we are to solve the crisis in transgender healthcare is the collective power of oppressed and working-class people.

6 SPECIAL FEATURE THERE IS truth to the saying that you should ‘Judge people by their actions, not by their words’, writes JAMES MCCABE. For example, Joe Biden has expressed belated concern for “exposed and vulnerable” Palestinian civilians, but his suspension of funding for UN aid agencies in Gaza says much more about his imperialist view of Palestine than his cheap words of sympathy.

F

OR MANY Israeli politicians, there is no such contradiction between their words and their actions.

The copious genocidal statements of the Israeli political and military establishment have aligned quite directly with their genocidal actions.

So, when Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said “Gaza won’t return to what it was before” and “We will eliminate everything”; he meant it. When the Israeli Minister for Heritage Amichai Eliyahu said that in his opinion, “there is no such thing as uninvolved civilians in Gaza.”; he meant it. When Avi Dichter, a minister from Netanyahu’s Likud Party, said “We’re rolling out Nakba 2023”; all the evidence shows that he meant it.

The majority of Gaza’s population are descendants of the original Nakba (Catastrophe) – the 1948 forced displacement of 750,000 Palestinians. Over the past five months, we’ve seen the destruction of 70% of homes in Gaza and the internal displacement of 85% of its people. Israeli bombs and bullets have killed over 30,000, while thousands more are buried under rubble. Fourfifths of the world’s hungriest people are now located in the Gaza Strip and ActionAid has reported that significant numbers of children in Gaza right now are dying of severe malnutrition.

Hands off Rafah

More than a million Palestinians have crowded into the small city of Rafah (near the Egyptian border), vastly swelling its previous population of 280,000. Rafah has faced regular attacks

by Israeli airstrikes over the past months as it became the most densely populated refugee camp on Earth. And still, the US has vetoed another resolution for an immediate Israeli ceasefire at the UN Security Council. Netanyahu stated his intention to “finish the job” as he announced the plan for a ground assault on Rafah, despicably starting on the first day of Ramadan (10 March).

On the ground in Gaza, we’ve witnessed the obscene phenomenon of IDF soldiers posting TikTok videos of themselves as they carry out war crimes with smiles on their faces. The grim concept of the “war crime influencer” has sadly come into being. At the Kerem Shalom border crossing, hundreds of far-right Israeli activists have been blocking aid trucks from entering Gaza. Eleven Israeli cabinet ministers even attended a conference recently that was devoted to the far-right fantasy of the Israeli resettlement of Gaza.

Western media’s pro-Israeli state bias The incredibly biased, pro-Israel narrative of the Western media means that

Gaza: 500,000 face conditions of acute starvation

The So we’re fed a very sanitised, skewed version of what’s going on. Orwellian terms such as “evacuations” or “voluntary migration” are being used by the mainstream media as a veneer for the reality of forced displacement and ethnic cleansing. They're essentially telling us that Israeli officials might sound genocidal, but we shouldn’t believe our eyes and we shouldn't believe our ears.

But despite their efforts to throw dust in our eyes, millions of ordinary people across the world have taken to the streets, or taken workplace action to demand a ceasefire and an end to the occupation of Palestine. The movement against the Israeli state would be immeasurably strengthened by viewing the occupation through an anti-capitalist framework. One that sees how the US and European ruling classes nurtured the Israeli state as their “strategic asset” in the Middle East. A state that guarantees Western imperialist domination of the natural resources and cheap labour of the region.

While imperialism tries to distance itself from the supremacist, racist, apartheid ideology of the Israeli regime, it has no qualms about fostering it politically and financially. The genocide in Gaza is a particularly heinous example of the barbarism of imperialism and the Western ruling classes but it must be added that capitalism as a system can’t exist without coercion, exploitation, colonialism and racial oppression. But the violent thugs who orchestrate this genocide should note the words of civil rights activist and revolutionary, Assata Shakur: “Where there is oppression, there will be resistance.”

Mass struggle against Israeli state terror In general, the international movement for Palestine tends to underestimate the power that Palestinians can wield if they organise collectively in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The Palestinian masses on both sides of the Green Line represent a powerful force. The mobilisation of this force can deliver serious blows to the Israeli occupation and its imperialist backers.

A revolutionary mass struggle by Palestinians could be supported by the power of the working classes in the region, in countries like Egypt, Iran and Turkey. It would also necessitate reaching out to the Israeli working class, whose capitalist leaders have only delivered a society based on perpetual insecurity and war. Although it may seem like a distant prospect now, the conditions do exist for a united movement to throw this capitalist system that breeds Islamophobia, anti-Semitism and violence into the dustbin of history where it belongs.

The immense wealth and resources of the region should be seized and brought into public ownership under the democratic control of the masses.

The right of return for all Palestinian refugees is a central aspect of the struggle for socialist revolution in the region.

A democratic socialist Middle East and Western Asia would put an end to capitalist rule and would at last allow for real self-determination for all nationalities; whether Palestinians, Israelis, Kurds, Armenians, Azerbaijanis, and the rights of all religious and ethnic minorities would be guaranteed. Anyone who wants to see an end to the horror we're witnessing, must stand with Palestinians and the struggle for socialist change.n

ALL EYEE

as Gaza geno

Why does US imperialism bac

By Donal Devlin ON 25 February, 25-year-old Aaron Bushnell, a serving member of the US Air Force, tragically died of wounds incurred from self-immolation in an act of protest against the genocide in Gaza. It was a desperate expression of outrage at the criminal support this massacre is receiving from the US ruling class. Days before, the US representative on the UN Security Council raised her hand yet again to veto a resolution for a ceasefire in Gaza – condemning countless more innocent people to further torture and death.

Despite episodic and mild criticisms of the Israeli State’s action over the last few months, US imperialism’s support for the Gaza genocide has been unwavering. Its political representatives, from the Biden administration to the vast bulk of the members of the House of Representatives and the Senate, have dismissed any suggestion that the massacre should cease.

McCarthyite witch hunt A McCarthyite witch hunt has been conducted to try to stamp out the movement of solidarity with Palestine that has bubbled up in the US. In November, a motion was passed to censure Rashida Tlaib, the only Palestinian-American representative in the House of Representatives. Tlaib has vocally opposed the Israeli State’s genocidal war on Gaza. Significantly, November’s motion was backed by both Republicans and Democrats.

In the face of a growing revolt against the war on college campuses, this witch hunt was extended to the heads of prominent US universities, with a Congressional hearing demanding to know why there had not been a clampdown on these protests and the groups behind them. This resulted in the resignation of Harvard President Claudine Gay, the first black person to hold this position.

During the hearing, Gay faced a grilling from Congresswoman Elise Stafanik, who has voiced support for the ‘great replacement theory’. This is a disgusting, racist and anti-Semitic conspiracy theory that argues that there is an attempt by “elites”, usually code for Jewish people, to replace white people with people of colour.

Anti-Semitism The example of Stafanik points to the fact that support for the Israeli regime from representatives of US capitalism has nothing to do with opposing antiSemitism or addressing the past sufferings of Jewish people. History has shown that anti-Semitism, like all forms of racism, is an embedded part of the outlook of the US ruling class.

In the 1920s, the archetypal US capitalist Henry Ford published a newspaper that consistently propagated antiSemitic tropes. Notoriously, in the 1930s and 1940s, during the persecution of Jews in Europe the US stubbornly maintained strict anti-Semitic immigration laws, condemning millions to the industrialised murder of the Nazis.

SPECIAL FEATURE

ocialist

7

Far-right’s roots in capitalist chaos – no time to lose in the fight back

ES ON RAFAH

By Laura Fitzgerald

ocide set to escalate

ck the Israeli State?

Biden is feeling pressure at home to end this genocide

Imperial domination While there is an important pro-Israel lobby in the form of AIPAC, which funds a large number of Congress members and Senators, this is not the decisive factor in explaining the support for the Israeli State. Like the British Empire before it, support for the Zionist project and the Israeli State on the part of US imperialism is rooted in a strategic necessity of dominating and exploiting the Middle East.

The region’s most important resource, oil, was described in a State Department memo as being “...a stupendous source of strategic power, and one of the greatest material prizes in world history.” If ever the interests of the US and the Is-

raeli State were to clash, the influence of the lobby would collapse like a house of cards.

Unlike the dictatorial Arab regimes, the Israeli State is considered a more stable force that can act as its proverbial cat’s paw, boasting as it does the fourth largest military, armed with high-tech equipment and nuclear weapons to boot. It is not for nothing that then Senator Joe Biden said in 1986, “If there were not an Israel, we'd have to invent one.”

Growing opposition While US imperialism will back the Israeli State to the hilt, providing it with $3.8 billion per annum and an addi-

tional $14 billion in the context of the Gaza genocide; there is growing opposition to its murderous actions amongst young and working-class people throughout the US. Opinion polls have for months shown majority support a ceasefire, while 35% believe that what is happening in Gaza is a genocide; this rises to 49% among 1829 year-olds.

It is in the interest of all working-class and poor people in the Middle East and North Africa, including the Israeli working class, that the rule of imperialism and capitalism is ended in this region. Its rule has only helped perpetuate oppression, poverty and bloodshed.n

“IT'S TOO ridiculous to take seriously and too serious to be ridiculous”. In Naomi Klein’s latest best seller Doppelganger (2023), she returns frequently to this Philip Roth tidbit in grappling to sum up the conspiracy theory rightists and the alternative universe they inhabit.

A recent example of this was contained in a ‘Vote No in the family referendum’ flyer that unironically boasted a stock image of a kitchen sink, and another of a mother and her baby with the heading: “Women are ‘not chained’ to this.. women are deeply connected.. to this”. How is it that a coterie of backward extreme rightists, Catholic fundamentalists, conspiracy theorists and hard-core racists and even fascists, are gaining ground, organising, and having an impact at this time?

An international backlash The far-right threat is an international phenomenon emanating out of the system of capitalism itself. Wracked with multifaceted crises – economic, ecological, political, social and more – increased protectionism, nationalism, chauvinism and repression are objectively necessary from the point of view of the capitalist system reeling from these crises.

Since the 2008 economic crash, these processes have led to revolutionary uprisings in some countries.

They resulted in the popularising of some rudimentary anti-capitalist and class-aware ideas en masse – the 1% versus the 99%; the sham of ‘meritocracy’ exposed; the ‘right’ of billionaires to exist became a source of ridicule.

This presents an ideological problem for capitalism’s ruling class.

The 2010s saw a new feminist and queer struggle wave emerge, a phenomenal mass awakening leaving no country untouched in its exposition of gender violence and its call for bodily autonomy and freedom. The BLM revolt, and the school student strikes for climate justice also brought hope. A capitalist system, most especially one in decline, needs racism, needs sexism, needs the gender binary on so many levels, including the unpaid care work that majority women do and the macho violence that the capitalist state and imperialism rely on. These vices are as much part of the profit-system as environmental degradation and workers’ exploitation. The strong anti-feminist, anti-trans element to the right-wing backlash therefore flows from the needs of the system.

Symptoms of a decaying system The capitalist system in crisis means increasing exploitation and oppression. The latest Oxfam wealth report indicates that since 2020, the richest five men in the world have doubled their fortunes, while nearly five billion people globally have become poorer.

In this state, the housing crisis only seems to reach a new nadir every number of months. There is no shortage of reasons to feel angry, disaffected, or alienated.

The brutal conditions, the isolation, the mental and physical health endangering realities of the capitalist system – combined with an absence of a class conscious understanding of capitalism as a system – these are ripe conditions for predatory, hateful far-right actors to gain influence.

As well as organising with renewed urgency to come together in broad alliances with all anti-racist and antifascist campaigners to counter these forces in every workplace, community, university and school, there is also an urgency to deepen anti-capitalist and socialist political organising. This vital struggle for fundamental change must be consciously brought into a burgeoning anti-fascist movement.

An urgent movement The poison of the far right has its seeds in today’s capitalist polycrisis. The solution therefore must be left, anti-capitalist, revolutionary and socialist.

Anti-oppression struggles will be vital in pushing back against the anti-feminist, anti-trans and racist ideas that the far right is peddling – ideas that the more mainstream political establishment will increasingly echo, with all the danger that this poses to people of colour, queer people etc.

Moreover, these anti-oppression struggles have to be increasingly merged with every other struggle – as the workers in Cork library understood when they successfully pressured Forsa Union to call a major anti-far right demonstration in the city last year, combining a vital workers’ and LGBTQ rights struggle.

A Left that fails to recognise the importance of these struggles and issues will be a Left ill-equipped to really wholesale expose the capitalist system – a vital element in building the basis for true solidarity of all the working class and oppressed, which is a prerequisite for socialist change. This solidarity is the only place where hope lies, amidst the bleak backdrop of a cruel, violent and unacceptable capitalist status quo.

8

INTERNATIONAL

The Socialist

What’s behind the farmers’ protests in Europe?

By Charlotte Slevin

F

ARMERS' PROTESTS erupted across Europe in recent months, with protesters blocking roads and occupying public spaces in many cities. While protests began in Germany in mid-December, they’ve since spread to many other countries.

Why the discontent?

There are several overarching themes: rising costs, environmental regulation, excessive bureaucracy, and undercutting by foreign imports are common concerns across the continent.

Race to the bottom

The European Commission recently finalised a trade deal with Mercosur, a South American trade bloc, which would allow imports of cheap animal products to Europe. Similarly, Ukrainian grain has flooded markets in Eastern Europe since 2022, driving down prices. Ukraine and the Mercosur countries don’t have sustainable solid food production laws. In effect, a race to the bottom in food regulation is taking place, one with major impacts on our climate.

In general, more regulation means more costs to produce food; the beef produced on pasture that was previously rainforest is much cheaper than Irish beef, for example, so European farmers are undercut. European politicians from the capitalist establishment professing green credentials are totally hypocritical when they are essentially greenlighting deforestation in the Global South.

EU leaders aren’t as attached to their

green policies as they’d like the public to believe. A delay has been announced to a law that would have required farmers to set aside 4% of land for wildlife.

In France, a policy to reduce pesticide use has been paused. In this rollback, which will continue, we’re reaching a critical juncture in the climate / biodiversity crisis and capitalism’s response.

There is a growing contradiction between the system's faux “green capitalism” and the actual demands of capitalist agriculture.

Far right influence

It is important to remember that farmers are not a homogenous group. Class interests vary wildly across geographical areas, specialisation (if it is a dairy farm or a sheep farm, for example), whether it is a family farm or a corporation, etc.

Small family farms would benefit from not having to try to keep up with the ruthless free market when often they cannot due to geographic constraints and unfavourable climate conditions.

Despite rhetoric from farming organisations and rural politicians, most climate measures are voluntary.

Often, these measures work because farms will receive cash support above what they already receive from the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy in exchange for implementing green farming methods. But of course, a farm will only apply for these payments if the farm is not profitable in the first place. This causes the paradoxical situation of the most environmentally damaging farms being already profitable enough not to require extra payment and, therefore, in-

The far-right are trying to tap into anger amongst farmers in various European countries

centivised to increase their intensity and environmental damage continually. The anger comes when measures are not voluntary.

This anger can be taken advantage of. Far-right groups across Europe have mobilised to support the farmers. For example, the AfD in Germany has voiced support for the protests. While farming organisations have rejected this support, it is not hard to see how the far right could co-opt this movement. Opposition to government interference is a key theme of the protests, an issue the far-right is well-versed in.

In addition, the far right often deploys overt climate denial. Farmers are not

automatically open to climate denial, but small and medium-sized farmers who fear green measures squeezing their livelihoods may be prone to it.

For a just transition

We’re rapidly approaching multiple major climate tipping points, but we’ve long past the capitalist tipping point of a system producing only destruction.

Without a strong working-class and socialist movement offering a credible alternative, groups will fall into the far right’s orbit. And as the far right gains power, it’ll reverse the green reforms of the past decades, which could push the Earth System into a new state. Green

capitalism has reached its end, and these protests are a warning.

A socialist programme for climate catastrophe would mean a just transition that protects the livelihoods and incomes of workers and small farmers, and ensures no job losses for agricultural workers. It would end the dominance of dairy and beef and move to sustainable agriculture, afforestation and rewilding. Democratic public ownership of the major agribusinesses and other key sections of the economy could allow the food production and distribution to be planned to sustainably meet our needs and protect the environment.

Kenya: “Dark Valentine” protests against gender-based violence

By Rosie Jones ON 14 February this year, Kenyan women's rights campaigners called “Dark Valentine” vigils across the country to mark the lives lost to femicide and to demand urgent action. The vigils were sparked by the murder of the young Nairobi woman, Rita Waeni, who was brutally killed in a short-term rental apartment in the capital. The 20year-old student’s murder has left the country shocked and horrified, sparking an outraged call to end gender-based violence and demand justice for all the recent victims.

Since the start of this year, 16 women and girls have been killed by men’s violence in Kenya. One of the women who was commemorated at the vigil was Grace Wangari Thuiya, a 24-year-old beautician who was assaulted and killed by her boyfriend in January. Protests were organised in cities such as Nairobi, Mombasa, Lodwar, and Nyeri. Twenty thousand women and men went onto the streets in the largest protests against gender-based violence, femicide and gender oppression the country has ever seen.

Protests in Kenya are illustrative of the global feminist revolt against gender-based violence

Anti-feminist reaction Demonstrators marched through the streets of Nairobi chanting “Stop Killing Women”. Signs prominently decorated the crowd stating, “Being a woman should not be a death sentence” and “Women’s Lives Matter”.

Protestors called for the Kenyan government to recognise femicide as a national crisis and put an end to the

epidemic of gender-based violence.

The protest demands were extended to recognise the violence facing transgender, non-binary and queer people also.

This inspiring multi-gendered movement faced an online rightwing backlash with claims that the surge of feminist protests has left men feeling emasculated by chal-

lenging the “promise of patriarchy”.

This kind of reaction is a reflection of the international deepening of antifeminist and sexist ideology, promoted among young men by misogynistic figures such as Andrew Tate. The worsening conditions of the capitalist crisis are laying fertile ground for polarised divisions of society.

“Not monsters, but sons of the patriarchy” Between 2016 and 2023, there have been at least 546 victims of femicide in Kenya. This tragic injustice is usually turned into sensationalist media coverage with victim blaming myths and ‘stranger danger’ fear-mongering. In reality, 371 of the 546 women were killed by an intimate partner. The sister of 22-year-old Italian femicide victim Giulia Cecchettin, who was tragically murdered by her boyfriend, bravely remarked “A monster is an exception, a person who’s outside society, a person for whom society doesn’t need to take responsibility, but there is responsibility… Monsters aren’t sick, they are healthy sons of the patriarchy and rape culture. For Giulia, don’t hold a minute of silence, but burn it all down.”

This statement stresses the need for mass socialist feminist struggle against the patriarchal capitalist system to completely transform society and get rid of its horrific embedded ideas of supremacy and violence. It is crucial to act this International Women's Day, to struggle against men’s violence and imperialist violence so acutely reflected in Gaza right now and to forge a socialist feminist path towards true liberation for all.

WORKPLACE

9

The Socialist

“We are not delivery machines”

Food delivery workers fight back as humans and not machines.”

By Keishia Taylor

V

Organising struggle

ALENTINE’S DAY is one of the most profitable nights of the year for food delivery apps like Deliveroo, Uber Eats, and Just Eat. This made it the perfect night for delivery workers, some of the most exploited workers in Ireland, to join the international strike against their appalling pay and conditions.

No love for gig economy

Over the past few years, the minimum rate per delivery has been slashed from over €4 to as little as €1, depending on the impenetrable dynamic pricing algorithm. Riders report having to work an extra three or four hours per shift to maintain their pay, which, with rising housing, fuel and food prices, does not stretch as far as before. The only way to make more money is to work longer and ride faster, taking more risks in busy traffic. Many work 10 hours per day almost every day just to survive.

In a boon for the “gig economy,” food delivery workers are legally considered contractors rather than employees and are therefore not protected by employment law or entitled to minimum wage, holiday pay or the right to unionise. These workers must supply their own bike or vehicle, safety equipment, insurance and fuel, and many are forced to take loans to cover these expenses while the apps evade any responsibility.

Migrant workers have a crucial role to play in building a fighting trade union movement

Representatives of the apps have been quoted all over the media claiming that their drivers enjoy the flexibility, are satisfied with their work, and benefit from various “perks”. But this is a farce. In the words of one rider, “There’s no flexibility at all: you have to work the peak hours, or you don’t make anywhere near enough money.”

Racist abuse and harassment

The vast majority of riders in Ireland are migrants, particularly from Brazil or other South American countries, who turn to delivery work as one of the only available options, with many renting app accounts under the table, making them even more vulnerable. Many intend to do deliveries temporarily but need help to change jobs due to institutional barriers.

Migrant riders also face racist abuse on the streets regularly, including verbal threats, physical assaults, intimidation from car drivers, and bike theft. The Gardaí do little to help riders when they report incidents like assault or bike theft, and only last year, four Dublin Gardaí were suspended for extorting cash from migrant delivery workers.

These workers deserve dignity every day – “all we are asking for is to be seen

The lack of legal protections as both a worker and a migrant makes it extremely difficult for these workers to challenge their paltry wages and dangerous conditions. Last year, a Supreme Court verdict against delivery workers in the UK sparked semi-spontaneous strikes of thousands of delivery workers, inspiring those in Ireland to take action.

These strikes were organised via social media, word of mouth, and particularly in Brazilian Whatsapp groups with hundreds of members. This grassroots explosion of activity by some of the most exploited and oppressed workers is brilliant and hugely inspiring, but the multinational delivery apps and the state institutions backing them up are far more organised.

It will be crucial to build the biggest and most organised campaign possible that develops a combative strategy to flex the power of the workers who do all the work. Such an organisation of workers could fight for legal union recognition as one of their demands, as well as build solidarity with food delivery workers worldwide and with communities and other workers here in Ireland to fight against racism, inequality and the exploitation of migrants and of all workers. The trade union movement must step up to the plate and help these workers get organised – an injury to one is the concern of all.

The kind of trade union movement we need – interview with Tommy Fitzgerald, regional officer for Unite the Union THE SOCIALIST spoke to Tommy Fitzgerald, Republic of Ireland regional officer for Unite the Union

In terms of the public sector, it’s likely that the recent pay deal will be passed and be accepted by Unite members, even though it can’t be certain that what has been agreed will match inflation. There is a small element of local sectoral bargaining, but Unite is concerned that Labour Court decisions on this element will be binding, as well as the effective ‘no strike’ clause that has been agreed.

Describe how Unite has tried to respond to the cost of living crisis?

Unite has sought to push for inflationbusting pay deals where possible, to set off a trend and encourage struggles. The best recent example in Ireland was the 12.5% pay rise we obtained for plumbers and fitters. We have seriously gained in membership in this sector as a result of this outcome, which has rightly been interpreted as a statement of intent

by Unite. It’s a virtuous circle for any trade union to fight, make gains for your members and grow your union.

That is not to say that all pay claims and resulting disputes are successful, but it is understood that you have to try even when there are no guarantees.

It is true that inflation-busting deals have been more prevalent in Britain and the North of Ireland. The legacy of social partnership still lives on in the south of Ireland to a huge

Unite protesting against racism and the far-right after the riots in Dublin last November

degree, with pay disputes being side tracked into the industrial relations machinery of the state. There is a real danger in this, as the anger that drives members to embark on a pay campaign can dissipate over time if it ends up in protracted negotiations in the Labour Court.

And what about the public sector, understanding that Unite has a smaller footprint there compared to the likes of Forsa, INMO and the Teacher Unions who are all recommending the recent pay deal?

using our networks and resources, and pointing to the real culprits in terms of the crisis in housing and healthcare, but also point to the resources that are available to provide a decent living for all. A patient but persistent approach is needed to dispel any misguided ideas that have permeated from either the far right or the government on these questions.

Can you comment on how the trade union movement needs to adapt to the reality of Ireland’s more diverse workforce and the development of the far right?

Finally, can you say something about ICTU’s ‘Better in a Union’ Campaign that was officially launched this month, and which Unite has promoted online alongside other unions.

Unite is responsive to the opportunities to organise migrant workers, as can be seen recently with our link-up with migrant care workers here on restrictive work permits.

I would describe it as an awareness campaign geared towards workers who may have a low awareness about what trade unions are about.

It’s being very well-resourced.

In terms of the far right, the trade union movement cannot take the view that this is a development divorced from the workplace, especially in the diverse workplaces in which we organise. We have to combat pernicious far-right ideas

The challenge for the unions is to match this with on-the-ground organising so that there is the maximum amount of direct contact with workers. History has shown that there is no substitute for building real power in the workplaces.

10

The Socialist

REVIEW & THEORY

Review: The Zone of Interest Socialism 101 series #18 directed by Jonathan Glazer

How do Marxists view religion?

By Conor Payne

Reviewed by Robert Cosgrave

I

N THE nearly 80 years following the end of the Second World War, Nazism has been depicted so many times on screen that one could ask whether there was any point in another film showing the monstrous crimes committed by the Third Reich.

Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest shows, however, that there remains much that can be said about the horrors of the Nazis on screen.

The film centres on Rudolf Höss, Commandant of Auschwitz Concentration Camp, and his wife Hedwig.

The Höss family enjoys an idyllic life in their villa with its resplendent gardens, and they go swimming in the river nearby. Hedwig’s life, in particular, appears to emerge fully from the dreams of a TikTok “trad wife”. This is a life they live quite literally right outside the gates of Auschwitz. Throughout many of the scenes of fascist domesticity, the horrific sounds of the industrialised mass murder that took place in the camps can be heard.

The soundscape proves particularly impactful if one can see the film in a cinema. The family are presented throughout as the model German settlers of the East. When Hitler said, “our Mississippi must be the Volga”, it was the genocidal and imperialist efforts of those like Höss he had in

mind. Like in all imperialist plunders, figures like Höss make sure they get their spoils – Hedwig has first refusal on all clothing, jewellery and makeup stolen from the camp inmates upon arrival.

Höss can conduct much of his business as camp Commandant from home.

In one particularly effective scene, they meet with a representative from a prominent industrial group who explains to them how they have manufactured a crematorium that would prove especially efficient in the disposal of the bodies of those murdered in the camps.

From this scene as well as others, we see how thoroughly enmeshed German capitalism was with the depravity of the Nazi regime.

In another equally chilling scene, Höss is at the headquarters of the SS in the Berlin suburb of Oranienburg – also the site of one of the earliest concentration camps. The meeting, conducted again to the letter of a businesslike atmosphere, discusses the new stages of the genocide of Europe’s Jewish population, beginning with the deportation of hundreds of thousands of Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz. For this Höss is deemed instrumental and it is for him his greatest triumph.

Reviewers from the Irish Times, The New York Times, and The Guardian all see Höss through the lens of Hannah Arendt’s comment about “the banality

Marxist journal of the Socialist Party:

Socialist Alternative no.18 Includes articles on: l 25 years on: Has the Good Friday Agreement delivered? l Sinn Féin, PBP & the question of a left government l Anti-oppression struggles & the revolutionary process l What does ChatGPT mean for workers? l 75 years since the founding of the NHS l Germany 1923: Lessons of the lost revolution l Reviews of The Myth of Normal, Close To Home and The Patriarchs: The Origins of Inequality

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of evil”, however this, in many senses, undersells the barbaric nature of Höss and others.

The Nazi project was, above all else, a mass movement of counter-revolution aimed at destroying every aspect of social progress internationally, in particular the socialist movement in Europe and the USSR, and the Jewish population which they saw as the source of this movement.

In this project, the Nazis were supported from the beginning by the summits of German industry, shaken to their core first by the October Revolution that brought the working class to power in Russia in 1917, and later by the revolutionary period in Germany from 1918-1923.

Anyone watching the film today cannot help but think of the ongoing genocide in Gaza and the unending stream of horrors being committed by the Israeli regime against Palestinians. That such abominable atrocities are still happening in the 21st century speaks volumes about the barbaric nature of the capitalist world we live in.

In showing the Third Reich not as an aberration but as the result of the monstrous system of imperialism, racism and capitalism, The Zone of Interest is to be commended and should be watched by as broad an audience as possible, notwithstanding the highly disturbing subject matter.

S CIAalternati LIST ve Marxist Journal of the Socialist Party Issue 18 l Summer 2023 l €4 / £4

“A PillAr of Strength”

Anti-Oppression Struggles and the Revolutionary Process

Reflections on Marxism & Oppression

INSIDE

l Sinn Féin, PBP & the Question l What Does ChatGPT Mean l Germany 1923: Lessons of

of a Left Government in Ireland for Workers? the Lost Revolution

As Karl Marx famously wrote, “Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.”

These words sum up the dual nature of religion in capitalist society; both a pillar of that society but also at the same time a genuine source of respite for those who suffer under it. The scientific advancements of the last centuries mean that humanity has moved beyond the need for supernatural explanations to understand either the natural world or human society.

Still, religion not only continues to exist but to thrive. To understand this, we need to look both at how religion is used by the capitalist ruling class and what it often means for the working class and for oppressed people.

Far-right and authoritarian politics are on the rise across the world – targeting minorities, women’s and LGBTQ rights, and social progress.

Religious fundamentalism is often integral to this – from the evangelical right in the US and Latin America, to the theocratic regimes in Iran, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia, to the most fanatical sections of the Israeli State who claim that God has granted them occupied Palestinian land.

At the same time, sectarianism and the persecution of religious minorities is a feature of every capitalist society. Right now in the West, Islamophobia is used by the far right but also by the ruling classes generally to demonise migrants, and to justify imperialist wars and dehumanise the victims of these wars.

For the vast majority of ordinary working-class people who hold religious beliefs, they have nothing to do with these kinds of divisive and inhumane agendas. For most, religion is an important source of comfort, meaning and community.

This is understandable in a world where we are often extremely alienated from nature, our work and other people, and where the system reduces so much of our lives to soulless drudgery. Even where, as in Ireland, traditional organised religion is in decline, many look to alternative spiritual and mystical practices.

As socialists, we are not in the camp of those who sneer at religious beliefs or who, like Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens, use atheism or rationality to demonise minorities or uphold the status quo.

In terms of religion and the state; the socialist position can be summed up simply enough: full separation of Church and State, but also full freedom to practise any religion so long as the rights of others are not impinged.

While always defending the right to religious beliefs and opposing discrimination against religious practice or communities, Marxists also recognise the ways in which religion is used in capitalist society to uphold the status quo. In most capitalist countries, the leading authorities of the main religions are part of the broader ruling class, linked to the political, media and economic elites, and use their positions to sanctify capitalist privilege as natural, god-ordained etc. At the same time, many people fighting against injustice and oppression have also drawn on their various religious traditions while doing so, and many important radicals, socialists and revolutionaries have been religious believers.

For Marxists, the injustices of capitalist society can only be understood in material rather than spiritual terms – it's a system where everything is subordinated to the drive to increase profits for a wealthy minority, and this minority class is extremely organised and conscious in defending its system. At the same time, for the working class and oppressed there is a material need to organise to lift the burdens that the system imposes on us.

In general, religious or spiritual explanations of the world tend to obscure these realities and are an obstacle to fully understanding the system we are living under.

Revolutionary theory proceeds from the understanding that the brutal world we live in is the work of humans, not divine providence, and similarly that it is only by a struggle by the oppressed and exploited majority of humans that it can be transformed.

This is why Marxists are materialists – not because we dismiss the role of religion in people’s lives today but because we want the fullest possible understanding of the system we are living under so that we can most effectively fight it.

HISTORY & ENVIRONMENT

11

The Socialist

Jim Larkin @ 150 – a towering figure of the Irish working-class movement phy, sought to starve them into submission for being members of the Irish Transport and General Workers Union (ITGWU), the union founded by Larkin, demanding that they sign a pledge repudiating the union, which they refused to do. Eventually the workers were forced back to work without achieving their demands, but the union wasn’t broken.

The aftermath of the mammoth Dublin Lockout felt like a defeat for those involved, including Larkin. In 1914, he moved to the United States and became active in anti-war and socialist politics, joining the International Workers of the World (IWW) union.

He helped found the Communist Party in the US and was arrested and served time in prison as part of the state repression that engulfed the country in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution.

By Oisin Kelly

J

ANUARY 2024 marked the 150th anniversary of James Larkin’s birth.

Larkin remains an inspiration for socialists and working-class activists to this day due to his legendary leadership of many major strikes in the early decades of the 20th century, particularly the Great Dublin Lockout of 1913.

Larkin was born in Liverpool to Irish parents in 1874 and grew up in poverty. He became active in socialist politics as a young man, joining the Independent Labour Party. He soon emerged as a leader of his workmates during the 1905 dockers’ strike in Liverpool, after which the National Union of Dock Labourers (NUDL) employed him as an organiser. It was as a union organiser for the NUDL that he moved to Ireland.

An inspiration for today

Socialist ideas

Larkin’s methods were related directly to his political outlook. As a revolutionary socialist, he did not accept that workers should meekly ask for improvements to their working conditions and pay. He saw that the vast wealth of the capitalist world is built on the labour of working people, and therefore, workers should boldly and militantly demand the wealth they created.

Larkin championed the sympathetic strike. This is where workers, even if they have a different employer, would take strike action in sympathy with those workers who are in dispute.

Goods would be ‘blacked’ or not handled if coming from a workplace in dispute. The sacred rule that trade

Larkin's role as an inspiring working-class leader was absolutely connected to his socialist politics

unionists do not ‘cross the picket’ of another dispute was fought for and established in this era. These solidarity methods resulted from the understanding that all working-class people have a common bond and an interest in furthering each other’s struggles.

Workers’ unity

In 1907 a significant strike took place in Belfast following action by employers to sack workers joining the NUDL. Sympathy actions such as ‘blacking’ of goods meant the actions spread throughout Belfast, and while the dispute centred around the un-

skilled dock workers, action spread to other workplaces in Belfast, such as women tobacco workers.

A key feature of the 1907 Dockers’ and Carters’ strike was the unity between Protestant and Catholic workers.

It illustrated how working-class action unites Catholic and Protestant workers behind their common interests. This was true in 1907 as it is today.

Mobilisation of the power of the trade union membership was a key aspect to what became known as ‘Larkinism’. Larkin saw unions as organisations with active memberships, where members organise to stand up

for each other in workplaces and for fellow workers elsewhere.

Internationalism

Larkin was also a true internationalist, and this was reflected in his trade union organising. In the capitalist economy, then and now, it is not possible for workers to restrict their interests to one country.

During the 1913 Dublin Lockout, he sought to spread the struggle to Britain, seeking British workers to join with sympathy strike action in solidarity with Dublin workers. The Dublin bosses, led by the notorious William Martin Mur-

Following deportation, Larkin returned to Ireland and remained a political organiser, forming the Irish Worker League in 1923 and being elected to the Executive Committee of the Communist International in 1924. Throughout his life he remained an active and prominent trade unionist and socialist organiser and was elected as a Labour Party TD for a brief period in the mid1940s.

In a world where war, poverty, injustice, oppression, and climate catastrophe predominate, it is no wonder Larkin remains an inspirational figure who sought to build a socialist world where workers would no longer be on their knees – where they would arise and achieve greatness for themselves.

Red alert: Gulf Stream collapse could be closer than previously thought

By Aileen Lynch & Kyle Lowry

T

HE GULF Stream is a powerful, warm ocean current originating in the Gulf of Mexico and flowing northward along North America towards northern Europe. The Gulf Stream transports warm water from the tropics to higher latitudes, heating the air. The westerly winds carry this warm air towards Europe.

This is a significant part of our climate system. Ireland and Britain enjoy milder winters and cooler summers compared to locations at similar latitudes, such as northern Canada or Russia, thanks to the tempering effect of the Gulf Stream.

The Gulf Stream is part of a more complex and expansive system known as the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). This system plays a crucial role in global climate regulation, transporting warm surface water towards the poles and returning cooler deep ocean water to the equator.

The AMOC's influence extends beyond temperature modulation, affecting rainfall patterns, marine ecosystems, and global sea-level distribution.

The AMOC is at a tipping point in climate change; if it occurs, it will not be easily or readily reversible. It is difficult to say what the risk level or what global temperature rise would be required to trigger the collapse, but as theoretical physicist Sabine Hossenfelder noted, "Maybe we don't want to make a big global experiment to find out?".

Collapse within our lifetimes?

The stability of this crucial climate system faces significant threats from ongoing climate change because of unchecked fossil fuel consumption.

The melting of Greenland's ice sheet due to increasing global temperatures dumps cold, fresh water into the ocean, diluting the water and making it less dense, thus disrupting the delicate balance of the AMOC. The AMOC is at its slowest rate in over a millennium and has weakened by 15% since 1950. A paper in 2023 suggested a potential collapse of the AMOC between 2025 and 2095. The collapse of this circulation would stop the Gulf Stream from being pushed further north, significantly lowering European temperatures. Models suggest an average temperature decrease of 5 degrees celsius, shifts in global rainfall patterns, and major disruption to marine ecosystems.

More alarmingly, in February 2024, computer models used to simulate changes in the global climate over 2,000 years found evidence that a slow decline in the AMOC could lead to a

Stop capitalist catastrophe

Gulf stream collapse is yet another horrific symptom of capitalism's ecological catastrophe

sudden collapse in less than a century.

In geological timescales, this is catas-

trophic and would not allow for adaptation to the radical consequences.

The climate crisis is being driven by the capitalist economies that demand the consumption of vast fossil fuel resources for energy production, transportation and manufacturing.

Capitalism also encourages a culture of consumption where goods are produced at an unsustainable pace, exacerbating the production of greenhouse gas emissions and contributing to the weakening of the AMOC. All of this underlines the urgent need for revolutionary change to take society’s wealth and power out of the hands of the climate criminals profiting off the Earth’s destruction, and toward a society based on the needs of people and the planet.

TheSocialist

PAPER OF THE SOCIALIST PARTY

ISSUE 159

MARCH 2024

INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY 2024

FOR A FEMINISM THAT'S ANTI-RACIST, ANTI-CAPITALIST & SOCIALIST What the Socialist Party stands for: “The day has passed for patching up the capitalist system; it must go.” — James Connolly was right. The immense social, political and economic crises that dominate life in the 21st century all testify to this truth, but the climate emergency gives added urgency to its meaning. That’s why the Socialist Party stands for revolutionary socialist change, and why we are organising to bring it about. We support every right and reform that can improve life for working-class people, while fighting for what’s needed. We say: if capitalism can’t afford to provide for our needs then we can’t afford capitalism.

Workplace • All workers need double-digit wage rises.

For a €17 an hour minimum wage.

• End precarity and bogus self-employment. For guaranteed hours with permanent contracts for all workers.

• A four-day work week with no loss of pay.

• Reduce the pension age to 60. A guaranteed decent pension for all.

• No layoffs. Open up the books and take large job shedding companies into public ownership, under democratic workers’ control and management, with compensation paid only on the basis of proven need.

• Repeal the Industrial Relations Act. For the

right to organise and effective action.

• For a fighting trade union movement that organises the unorganised and mobilises the power of its membership. All officials should be elected, subject to recall and live on the wages of the workers they represent.

Housing • Reduce and freeze rents at affordable levels. Reinstate the eviction ban.

• For a major programme to build public homes. Take the big construction companies into public ownership. Seize vacant properties and unused land being hoarded for profit.

• Provide culturally appropriate accommodation for Travellers.

• Nationalise the banks and repudiate the odious debt. Reduce mortgage payments to affordable levels.

Public services • End church control of schools and hospitals – full separation of church and state.

• For a major public works programme to build public schools, hospitals and childcare facilities.

• For a one-tier, national health service free at the point of use. Bring all private hospitals, nursing homes and pharmaceutical companies into public ownership.

• Free publicly-run childcare scheme for

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every community. Extend fully-paid parental leave to two years and provide high quality early-years education.

• For 24-hour free counselling services and education programmes to begin to tackle the mental health crisis.

• Free education and training for all. Abolish the Leaving Cert system and provide a Third-level place for all who want one, with a living grant for all students. Build affordable, accessible student accommodation.

Environment • For substantial investment in an expanded, reliable and free public transport system.

• End the reliance on fossil fuels – keep them in the ground. For extensive state investment in renewable energy, retrofitting homes and public buildings, and green jobs.

• For a just transition to a zero carbon economy, with no job losses or regressive carbon taxes.

• Take the fossil fuel companies, big agribusinesses and corporations into democratic public ownership to stop the destruction of our planet for profit.

Equal rights for all • Oppose all forms of racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia.

• For LGBTQ-inclusive, consent-based sex education in schools. Fully fund trans healthcare.

• Reduce the voting age to 16.

• Defend the right to asylum. End Direct Provision. Abolish all racist immigration laws.

• Black lives matter! Oppose far-right division!

• Fight to end gender-based violence, abuse and harassment in all its forms.

• For a socialist feminist movement that unites the whole working class in the struggle against oppression.

For workers’ unity in Ireland • For the unity of the working class, Protestant and Catholic, North and South, in opposition to all forms of sectarianism, paramilitarism and state repression.

• For a socialist Ireland, with no coercion and the rights of minorities guaranteed, as part of a free, equal and voluntary socialist federation of Ireland, Scotland, England and Wales, as part of a socialist Europe.

End the rule of the billionaires • Take the wealth off the 1%. For real progressive taxation on incomes, assets and profits to fund public services.

• Stop tax avoidance and evasion by the wealthy.

• Double corporation tax. End corporate welfare policies.

• No to all forms of privatisation in health, education, transport, housing, energy, sanitation, water and broadband provision.

For socialist change • Capitalism produces inequality, environmental destruction and war. We need an international struggle against this system.

• Solidarity with the struggles of workers and oppressed peoples internationally.

• Oppose all imperialist powers, wars and occupations. No to NATO and EU militarisation. US military out of Shannon.

• No to corporate “free trade” agreements.

No to the bosses’ EU and “Fortress Europe”.

• Build a new mass party that organises workers and young people in struggle against all injustices and for a socialist alternative. For a working-class movement to bring about a left, socialist government that breaks with capitalism.

• Take the key sectors of the economy – the monopolies in banking, industry, services, agriculture and big tech – into public ownership under the democratic control of the working class.

• Replace the capitalist market with a democratic socialist plan of the economy based on the interests of the overwhelming majority of people and the environment.

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