John Connolly´s ideas TODAY

I´m sure that most of the population of the Western world haven´t read anything about Connolly, and don´t even know who he is. Despite this, the 101st anniversary of the Easter Rising has been marked by the enhancement of one of the most charismatic leaders of the event. Among all the celebration, there is a cruel reality taking place in almost the whole of Europe, the economic recession is still here and, though a recovery is glimpsed in the distance, Ireland has been seriously affected by this crisis. And you may be asking to yourself: okay… but, what does Connolly have to do with the recession?
Well, different sectors from the leftists have recovered some ideas of the crucially important revolutionary socialist. And not only that, his thoughts are emerging in different places around Europe. Concretely, this quotation below is being spread among the detractors to the European Union and its politics.

Shan Van Vocht (socialist newspaper) January, 1897. Reprinted in P. Beresford Ellis (ed.), "James Connolly - Selected Writings", p. 124

'If you remove the English army tomorrow and hoist the green flag over Dublin Castle, unless you set about the organization of the Socialist Republic your efforts would be in vain. England would still rule you. She would rule you through her capitalists, through her landlords, through her financiers, through the whole array of commercial and individualist institutions she has planted in this country and watered with the tears of our mothers and the blood of our martyrs.'  

Its interpretation today is a call against the European Union because, though every European country enjoys its autonomy, we are all subjugated to the rule of the Union in the same way Ireland was under England´s.

If you want to know more about Connolly, click here

- Connolly, J. (2008). Socialism and the Irish Rebellion: Writings from James Connolly. Dublin: Red and Black Publishers.