‘After the Bintifada’

 A Marxist analysis of the Dublin bin charge campaign

Introduction

For a short period the left were at the centre of some of the most dramatic events seen in Dublin in recent times.  A Socialist TD, Joe Higgins, and a large mass of working class activists and representatives were dragged off to jail while simultaneously the representatives of capital walked in and out of tribunals documenting the grossest forms of corruption.  Not only where none of these jailed – the whole idea that the capitalists would ever be held to account for the corruption seemed simply laughable.

The drama soon ended as more and more attacks were mounted.  On the campaign, on the non-payers and on workers facing new forms of exploitation as privatisation began to bite within public services.

The tragedy of the campaign was that a substantial number of working class people were willing to fight but the campaign was not big enough to generate a spontaneous leadership.  For a brief moment the existing left organisations were given the task of leadership.  They failed this task quite miserably.

Not only has there been a failure to analyse and learn form the campaign, but as it shrinks sections of the left suffer under the delusion that it is advancing from strength to strength!

Kevin Keating and John McAnulty apply the methods of Marxism to the bin charge battle in the hope that a new layer of militants can honestly debate the campaign and prepare for the future battles that lie ahead - battles that will face all the pitfalls and traps that militants struggle with following the bin charge arrests.

 Kevin Keating and John McAnulty