Rundale

First, a reminder to check out the Neutrality Roadshow which is still travelling across the island of Ireland hosting conversations with local communities warning of the dangers to Irish neutrality if the government dismantles the Triple Lock. Follow @neutrality_now for up to date news, including on the national demonstration in Dublin on 14th June for Peace and Neutrality.

Alan O’Gorman reflects on Ireland’s relationship to colonised peoples and empire through the category of race. While Ireland was the first British colony, and a laboratory for racial differentiation, this does not automatically translate into solidarity with others suffering the same fate. Today, Ireland’s colonial history can just as easily be deployed to foster a white, ethno-nationalism. Internationalist, anti-racist solidarity is a political choice and praxis that needs to be intensified on all fronts.

Is voting for a public representative really the apex of democratic expression, or does democracy require a
deeper transformation of our everyday lives? In a context where militarisation is being pursued undemocratically by the Irish government, Adam Stoneman encourages us to look further afield for inspiration on what democracy can look like. His review of Joris Ivens and Marceline Loridan’s 1976 documentary How Yukong Moved the Mountains brings us to the collective decision-making, discussion and exchange of criticism that marked the Chinese Cultural Revolution, without ignoring it’s contradictions.

Finally, Elisavet Mantzari and Patrick Doyle reflect on the ‘Co-operation between Co-operators’ joint conference between the UK Society for Co-operative Studies and the Society for Co-operative Studies in Ireland. The event, which took place in Belfast in February, marked the first time in a generation that the Irish and British co-operative societies had collaborated, with the aim of transforming society through the dissemination of ideas around economic democracy.