From Organise: anarcho-syndicalists in Ireland
“An Open Letter to Members of the IWW Ireland and other Anarchists and Anarcho-Syndicalists on this Island
Dear comrades (if you are that) on September 19th in the social chamber of the Spanish state’s National Court (the heir to Franco’s Public Order Tribunal) a trial will be held against 18 unions of the CNT – AIT. They have been taken to court by an organisation that defines itself as anarcho-syndicalist, and which the IWW in Wales, Ireland, Scotland and England as well as North America stand in solidarity with in the same international – the International Confederation of Labour or ICL, in Spanish Confederación Internacional del Trabajo. That organisation is the CNT affiliated to the ICL, which by its actions and practice demonstrates the complete opposite of the ideals and praxis of anarcho-syndicalism.
As we are an anarcho-syndicalist organisation based in Ireland, this letter is primarily addressed to members of the IWW in Ireland.
In this lawsuit the CNT affiliated to the ICL are demanding that the CNT-AIT is ordered by the courts to “refrain from using the name ‘Confederación Nacional del Trabajo’, or the initials ‘CNT’ or its logo, whether in its premises and signs, publications, brochures, banners, union sections, Confederal Nuclei, websites, social networks or any support or means of communication to the public and to remove this name and acronym from all of them.”
Each of these 18 CNT-AIT unions “shall be ordered to pay compensation for moral damages of fifty thousand euros, which would make a total of nine hundred thousand euros” or “alternatively the amount that the Court prudently [ha!] determines.” So comrades of the IWW Ireland, to be clear, a section of your international is suing anarcho-syndicalists for close to one million Euros!
The quotes we have used are from the Confederal Nucleus of the CNT-AIT Navarre, and while our comrades from Navarre “hold all the unions of the CNT-ICL responsible for this complaint, some for agreeing with it and others for remaining impassive or looking the other way” in the face of this act of vengeance against their organisation, we hold the IWW WISERA of which IWW Ireland and all the other affiliates to the International Confederation of Labour responsible.
With our comrades in the CNT-AIT we will not forget “the organisations that define themselves as anarchists and that in the face of this trial… remain as silent as the dead.” It is time for members of the IWW Ireland to speak out, to condemn the actions of their sibling organisation and demand that they cease this attack which utilises the repressive mechanisms of the state against the anarcho-syndicalists of the CNT-AIT. It is time to make clear where you stand on the indefensible actions of the CNT-ICL. Silence in the face of these attacks is complicity and will place you clearly on the side of the enemy.
Further, the CNT-ICL are hoping, while using the non-existent veil of ‘legality’ to cover the immorality of their actions, to seize the Local premises of many of the 18 unions being taken to court. They are using the court to evict militants of the CNT-AIT who self-manage Locals which act as important cultural and resource centres for the organisation and the working class communities they are based in. Members of Organise! and many others were hosted in one such Local in Alcoi during the last IWA Congress.
So what happens if the courts agree with the CNT-ICL that they, and not the people running and using these premises, ‘own’ them centrally? It seems clear, the comrades who actually run and maintain them will be evicted and the premises will be sold off in order to further swell the coffers of an increasingly centralised and authoritarian union organisation that can no longer be recognised as bearing any resemblance to an anarcho-syndicalist union. This, bluntly put is an attack on the working class in the pursuit of profit. It, along with the rest of this lawsuit is abhorrent.
It is clear that the CNT-ICL’s objective is to make the CNT-AIT disappear, our comrades assure us that they are not going to succeed. They expect nothing from the State Courts who they recognise “do not like us, since we defend the Social Revolution and Anarchy and despite everything will remain faithful to our libertarian principles.” We simply ask of the IWW members in Ireland, and of other anarchists who remain silent, where are your principles? Inaction now is a betrayal that will not be forgotten.
Long live the CNT-AIT
For workers control, social revolution and libertarian communism,
Organise! friends of the International Workers’ Association”
Continued: Click on link https://organiseanarchistsireland.com/in-defence-of-the-cnt-iwa/?fbclid=IwY2xjawFR8_RleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHY83YImV8e3JMKrvWX0C1UU7PeEZsu3_T0DA3xvWmnU9yaaFH__ab-YUbQ_aem_V2fQp7_S-Eqb7xksZs7z4Q
