Irish Left Review - Joined up thinking for the Irish Left

I’m sure like me, readers of this have been consumed with the great debate going on in Ireland at the moment. Apart from the rain and  receding flood waters, it’s all anyone wants to talk about. Of course the outcome of this discussion will be seen in the very near future, but still its good that there is a serious and informed engagement with this right across the Irish public whatever.

And no, I’m not talking about the fact that Sean Gallagher is just another Fianna Fáil bag man - that is old news. The only thing note worthy on that issue is that it seemed for a moment that Ireland’s de-politised, anti-intellectual, empty sound bite culture had found their man of the hour. That is someone who was capable of repeating meaningless nostrums about entrepreneurship, being ‘modern’ and concentrating on the future, not the past, while finding it difficult to hide the fact that apart from a long history of fundraising for the kickbacks and brown envelopes party he couldn’t even match up to his own cliches.

The topic I’m referring to of course is the payment of the 700 million unguranteed and unsecured Anglo Irish Bank bond on the 2^nd of November (or the Billion Dollar Bond, if you prefer). And of course, I’m being ironic about the debate. Even though its highly likely to be paid in full, its hardly being discussed at all.

However, briefly, it has been raised in a number of places and its important to highlight these. Firstly Namawinelake has a very thorough two part post which asks what would happen if “Anglo didn’t repay the $1bn bond maturing on 2nd November, 2011?” Having looked at the points of view of the various stakeholders NWL then argues, correctly, that the bond should not be paid.

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Rakel Sigurgeirsdóttir, an Icelandic teacher from Reykjavík sent on this explanation for the open letter (below) that is addressed to the foreign experts invited to attend the Iceland´s Recovery-Lessons and Challenges conference, being held on October 27^th in Reykjavík. The foreign experts include Paul Krugman, Martin Wolf, Simon Johnson, and Willem Buiter. The full letter is published below this brief introduction.

Next Thursday there will be a conference in Reykjavik to review Iceland’s achievements and examine the challenges that still lie ahead. The conference is co-hosted by International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Icelandic government. As they say in the announcement:

“speakers will include international and Icelandic academics, Icelandic policy makers and IMF staff involved in designing or implementing the program, as well as representatives of civil society.”

The attached letter (see below) is written by a group of Icelandic citizens to the foreign experts who are involved. Those who signed the letter are concerned that information provided to the foreign speakers about Iceland’s economy may have been selectively chosen to convey a view of things that Iceland´s government and the IMF wish were true but does not reflect the true state of affairs. Therefore we want to give them our point of view on the economic situation of the government and municipalities, the financial system and common citizens of Iceland.

Although it says, in the conference announcement, speakers will include representatives of civil society we can’t find them. At least not among the Icelandic speakers. If we look to the foreign speakers: Joseph Stiglitz talks from a band. Paul Krugman seems to be more concerned of his political view than the consequences of the crisis on the Icelandic public. Martin Wolf is just the Moderator of the panel discussion in the end. But maybe there is some hope in Willem Buiter. Other foreign participants are former or current IMF-staff.

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In Occupy Dame Street practice, we indicate a point of process by making a letter “T” with both hands (like time out in basketball, for instance). We also call it a technical point. It is a very powerful gesture because it allows you to cut into the list of speakers and thus it should be used only if a person wants to make a comment directly to the facilitator. They may remind the facilitator that he or she forgot to ask for clarifying questions at the beginning of the consensus process or they may want to correct any information that they know is misguided. In many of the General Assemblies that we have had in front of the Central Bank in Dublin since October 8th when the occupation began, people have been using the technical point for many things but rarely for what it is meant for. This only testifies to the fact that the process is a learning curve for us all. This text is meant to make a point of process on Occupy Dame Street and, more generally, on the occupy movement worldwide. I will try to do my best not to abuse this right and wish to say that the views expressed here are mine only and are inspired by but do not represent the thousands of beautiful and courageous voices of the people who have come to participate in and support Occupy Dublin.

As Occupy Dame Street (ODS) enters its third week and the encampment is getting ready for the unpleasant wetness of an upcoming Irish winter, it is perhaps a good moment to suggest some time out so that we can think about the opportunities and needs of the process that keeps people involved in this movement and draws many more to it every day in many distant corners of the world.

We have to realise that what we are witnessing is the greatest struggle of our times unfolding before our very own eyes. Across the world, people are standing up in solidarity with one another, bringing their own very local and personal concerns to influence significantly the decisions that they make and actions that they undertake collectively. There should be no doubt that the scale of this movement (spanning across continents and places as remote as Madrid and Sydney, Toronto and Seoul, Sarajevo and Tokyo and a myriad of others) as well as its character is very unique.

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“No point getting toilet paper. It will be miles away by now.”

Here is Leonardo Da Capo and Kate Wimslet above from the new movie Contagion!, which is already spreading like an incurable rash across box offices near you. The movie is telling the true story of how actors travel all around the world making films and in the process carrying with them virulent deadly diseases such as the lurgy, rabies, pimples, syphilis, and popcorn. A lot of people have already made the point that the movie is not meant to be a true story but is only a metaphor that is meant to warn us about the dangers of immigration, and therefore that we should close all our borders, including the bookshops, but the irony is, and I don’t believe in irony, that more than 30 people died during the making of the film, all of them from illnesses contracted because they went abroad. But you won’t hear that mentioned in the film, will you? Oh no. And why not? Because it is a work of fiction.

In fact, the correct way to look at the film is this, my way. Rather than the film’s message being a metaphor for clamping down on illegal immigrants, those deaths of the various crew members (including two best boys, one first grip, and Miss Wimslet’s fluffer) should be seen as a metaphor for the Hollywood movie industry and the way that it spreads its evil testicles through foreign cultures, the subcutaneous implicit insidious liberal value-system that Hollywood embodies infiltrating and undermining locally constructed belief systems such as voodoo, Copernicanism, creationism, heart-warming fascism, and, in places like Australia, Bananas in Pajamas and penis puppetry. These long-held and much-cherished vernacular worldviews struggle in the face of the virulence of Hollywood liberalism because of the latter’s technological know-how, its shiny newness that appeals to all primitive, innocent savages, and its loud bangs and large-breasted women, all of which distract and confuse the former penis worshippers so that they do not notice the sneaky subtext being slipped in underneath: the sympathetic portrayal of Jews and freemasons, the blatant feminism, the tolerance for inferior races, the anthropomorphizing of Muslims. All of these things are there, if you look closely, but nobody does because they are all still recovering from the shock of seeing an elephant fly.

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In general social and political movements need good writers who in gathering their thoughts on what is a dymanic situation in the all important early stages of that movement manage to provide for others the means to focus on its most important aspects. It requires an understanding of the wider situation which has spurred the movement to form in the first place and an appreciation of the different view points that such a movement attracts, both from those that support it and from its critics.

I am quoting here a big enough section of what is a long post, but its essential you read all of Richard’s points on Cunning Hired Knaves.

The choice of the Central Bank building has puzzled some people, given the presence of Ireland’s Own Private Tax Haven to the left of Connolly Station, but in reality, the logistical challenges posed by an IFSC occupation would have been insuperable for the small group of pioneers who took the first step. There is a severe lack of suitable public spaces in central Dublin. There are no spaces where citizens (in the broadest sense of the term) can freely engage in open dialogue about life in the polis, and besides, the Central Bank, now with its very own IMF technocrat, is a good a symbol of the unaccountable nature of ruling institutions –the Global Mubarak- as any.

Hang around Dame Street for a few hours, or a few days, as I did last week, and you begin to realise that something different is happening there. There are people standing around, talking about politics, and economics, and history in public. There is music and poetry and talks. This sort of thing isn’t supposed to happen in Dublin. In Dublin’s pubs, whose residual reputation as hives of political intrigue is wholly undeserved, they turn up the music so you stop talking about politics and start drinking and talking about football.

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Progressive people are delighted by the blossoming of the Occupy…phenomenon.  Many of us are not quite sure where it all came from so quickly and heaven knows where it is all going on to, but one thing is for sure, it has given some energy to the Left.

And for certain, that is what the Left need.  After 30 years of Thatcherite hegemony and the rightward drift of Social Democratic and Labour parties, the Left has looked tired and defeated.  This has of course meant that the Neo-Cons and Neo-Liberals have been able to eat away at the progressive gains made for ordinary people over the past five decades.

The most recent crisis in Capitalism, far from causing the retreat of Thatcherism, has been used to accelerate its key objective - the further erosion of the state.  With little parliamentary representation, progressive political parties have been struggling to stem the tide, whatever about being able to initiate the kind of social and economic policy that we need in the 21^st century.

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