Liberals, the Workers’ Party and Irish Labour History book launches… it’s all happening here. May 16, 2008
Posted by WorldbyStorm in International Politics, The Left.trackback
Quite an eventful weekend politically. Well, for some.
Belfast hosts the 55th Congress of the Liberal International this weekend. LI President Lord Alderdice, ah yes, him, formerly merely John, said:
“There is of course profound symbolism in holding the LI Congress in the Europa Hotel. It was once the most bombed hotel in the world, but became the setting for US President Bill Clinton, and leading politicians from Britain and Ireland to set Northern Ireland on the road to peace and economic prosperity. Last month Northern Ireland celebrated the 10th Anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, but its importance is not to be found in looking back at the past, but in applying its lessons at home and elsewhere. It is no accident that last week saw Northern Irish and South African politicians meeting with Iraqi parliamentarians to assist them in finding a way forward, and this week I will return again to the Middle East where our work is also finding resonances with, and giving some hope to the political leaders of divided communities there.
And Belfast, or so it would appear, has become the new touchstone for hope… well, actually I guess it would be more accurate to suggest that it has once more become the touchstone for hope… back to Lord Alderdice:
Liberals are not just about the freedom and dignity of individual people, we also recognize that none of us can fulfill our potential on our own, especially when we are struggling against the giants of hunger, disease, poverty, war and increasingly, of environmental degradation. These are giants which can only be addressed when we work together. It is no accident that we are gathering in Belfast, a place where hope has gradually emerged out of the ashes of a city of despair.
Good stuff. Incidentally the LI website is interesting, not least because in true…er… liberal fashion it doesn’t duck the issue of the tension between economic and social liberalism and how proponents line up on different sides of both those issues within the LI.
So we read that:
The freedom to be creative and innovative can only be sustained by a market economy, but it must be a market that offers people real choices.
Tell us more…
This means that Liberals want neither a market where freedom is limited by monopolies or an economy disassociated from the interests of the poor and of the community as a whole. Liberals are optimistic at heart and trust the people while recognising the need to be always vigilant of those in power.
Which to me is fascinating, because in a way it’s close to social democracy, and yet emotionally, because it’s not rooted in any sense of class it isn’t at all.
Anyhow, for those as like such things no doubt the Europa will be of interest.
And meanwhile, in Dublin this weekend, Friday 16th and Saturday 17th, the Workers’ Party is holding its 2008 Árd Fheis under the heading ‘Socialism is the Alternative’. Here is the agenda.
There are some interesting speakers at the Árd Fheis, including Athanasios Pafilis, Greek Communist Party MEP who sits in the United Left Group in the European Parliament (ironically, exactly the same group as Sinn Féin). Mafaida Guerreiro of the Communist Party of Portugal is also there, as is - perhaps more prosaically) Jack O’Connor, SIPTU General President.
Have to say, that’s a mighty slimmed down Clár compared to back in the day. Punchy one might even say. Still, knowing the party of old no doubt everything will run over at least an hour or so. At least? What am I saying? They’ll still be there debating during the closing address…
It will hardly come as a surprise to most who read these pages that I won’t be there - although an odd nostalgia (and to be honest curiosity) still remains, or is it the other way around? But I know at least one person going and wish them well. Hit the bar early comrades… 
And finally in this round up, what about this book launch for Essays in Irish Labour History, edited by Francis Devine, Niamh Puirseil and Fintan Lane (details on Irish Academic Press website)
which is being launched on Wednesday at 7 pm in Liberty Hall. Des Geraghty and Francis Devine are the speakers.
Busy times.
I see the Liberal International’s site lauds Ayn Rand as an important liberal thinker, which is stretching the definition of liberalism beyond the boundaries of even what is commonly termed ‘classical’ liberalism.
Ayn Rand… (puts head in hands) Jesus wept.
Wasn’t/isn’t Haider’s FPO a member party of the Liberal International as well?
Up until 1993, but from reading the history there was always a nationalist/liberal tension in the party and it was only then that the nationalists gained the upper hand resulting in a split away from it by the liberals and it seceding from the LI. So liberal was it that it actually was in coalition with the SDP in the early 1980s with nary an eyebrow being raised.
That said it had some scary scary roots, with people who came from a most unsavoury political background. But an explicitly Nazi party it does not appear to have been in political orientation (indeed arguably it was Haiders showboating comments that screwed them when they returned to power in the late 1990s).