The Workers’ Party of Ireland condemns the murderous terrorist attacks in Paris and Saint-Denis which has been claimed by ISIS/Daesh and expresses its condolences to the families and friends of the many victims and its solidarity with the French people.

 

The WPI condemns with equal force the recent terrorist attacks carried out in the Bourj al-Barajneh district in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Lebanon, in Syria, in Iraq and Afghanistan. There is no hierarchy of victims of the outrages perpetrated by fundamentalist, ultra-reactionary terrorist forces who are the enemies of peace, freedom and social progress.

 

The WPI also decries the responses of the right, the bourgeois parties and the media whose only answer is steeped in national chauvinism, racist stereotyping, calls for further repression and “pitiless war” which nurtures and aggravates division and hatred and studiously ignores the material realities within which these attacks take place.

 

The repeated “interventions” in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Mali together with the destruction, devastation, division and misery which this has caused are pointedly overlooked and further “intervention” is glibly presented as an answer. The conditions and circumstances in which these jihadi groups are created and sponsored are avoided in the political discourse.  Daesh/ISIS is only the most recent barbaric example of this particular phenomenon. The record of imperialism’s alliance with obscurantist, reactionary forces in Afghanistan and its use and manipulation of jihadis in Libya and Syria illustrate the historical and current connections between imperialism and these backward, reactionary forces. The covert and open political and military interference in Syria by the US, EU and NATO in collaboration with their reactionary clients in the region, including Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey through which these forces have been financed, assisted and sustained, demonstrates the need for an objective analysis and response.

 

The growth of religiously-inspired nationalisms, which objectively or subjectively serve the interests of imperialism and capitalist exploitation, by seeking to divide the working class, by murdering those opposed to reaction, theocracy and obscurantism, by offering no threat to the existing economic order, presents a serious challenge that must be overcome in the struggle for workers’ and peoples’ emancipation.

 

There is, however, no excuse for terrorist barbarity as there is no justification for the barbarity of imperialism. Our thoughts and best wishes are with the survivors, the families and friends of the victims in France, Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and elsewhere.  The values of the French Revolution which placed reason above the dark forces of obscurantism and solidarity and comradeship at its centre and which are reflected in the rallying cry of “Liberty Equality Fraternity” are appropriate at a time of such dangerous developments.   

The Workers’ Party of Ireland, consistent with its commitment to the principle of international workers’ solidarity, expresses its continuing comradeship to the communists and progressive forces in France, Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan.

 

International Section

Workers’ Party of Ireland

November 2015