We republish here an article by Gerry Ruddy, originally published in the The Red Plough (March 2011), which draws some important lessons from the mass movements in North Africa and the Middle East and their relevance to the struggle for a united Ireland.

Friday's election saw Labour gain the most votes and seats in its history. But Fine Gael came out as the largest party. Eamon Gilmore and Enda Kenny have established negotiating teams to prepare the way for a coalition government. While Labour's leaders have given the negotiations the go ahead any final decision must be made by the party conference which meets on Sunday. Fightback is wholly opposed to such a deal.

The February 23 general strike called by the GSEE and ADEDY unions was yet another massive mobilisation of the working class, which showed – as we saw on December 15 – that the working class after a short lull, following on from the failure to stop the PASOK government from going ahead with its austerity measures, is recovering fast. The effect of the Arab revolution was also evident.

No country is immune from the class struggle today. Even Switzerland, that country considered a safe haven for the wealth of the world’s capitalists, is feeling the effects of the world economic crisis. Social and class polarisation is taking place and this was clearly expressed at last year’s congress of the Swiss Social Democratic Party (SPS).

While the political arithmetic of the next Dáil won’t be clear until after February the 25^th, the battle lines in the state have been drawn for some time. The Irish bourgeois are well aware that Fianna Fáil are a dead duck. Now Enda Kenny has decided to concentrate his fire on the Labour Party. There is one reason alone for this. The bourgeois want full control of the levers of power and to all intents and purposes they want a continuation of Cowen and Lenihan’s austerity programme, regardless of whoever leads the government.

The government had decided as far back  as December last year, when their latest drastic budget cuts were presented and passed, to turn student nurses into ‘free labour’, or, as the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) has rightly called it, ‘slave labour’.

As the General Election approaches, the Labour Party leadership continues getting rid of the most radical aspects of its election programme. And, Labour Party members only get to know about these changes through the media.

Zastava is no more. After twenty years of agonizing transition from a centrally planned “self-management” economy to capitalism, the factory, which once stood as the symbol of post World War Two prosperity and development in the former Yugoslavia, is about to be erased from the state registry of companies, giving way to an Italian multinational FIAT.

According to the Bundesbank, German GDP grew by 3.6% in 2010. This comes after the steep 4.7% drop in 2009, when the recession hit Germany hard. Unemployment has gone down from the 10.5% peak of 2005 to 7%. It now stands at just under three million. Volkswagen is taking on 3,000 workers, BMW and Daimler 400 each. Lufthansa has announced plans to take on an extra 4,000 staff this year. The same picture can be seen in chemicals, electronics and other industries. When the rest of Europe is facing lay-offs and sluggish growth, what is different about Germany?

A new grouping has been formed within the JOSD (Unified Organisation for Socialism and Democracy) in East Sarajevo, “based on the principles of Marxism and liberty” and which “rejects and renounces bourgeois and obsolete nationalist ideologies”. After the fratricidal civil war that tore apart the former Yugoslavia, promoted by local nationalist bourgeois cliques, we now see the beginnings of a reawakening of the most radical youth whose points of reference are the struggles of the past that united the peoples of this region and Marxism. We publish it for the interests of our readers and welcome this development.

Ireland may go to the polls on March 11^th, but the huge implosion in the Fianna Fáil Party might yet bring that date forward. The FF and Green Party coalition government has eventually reached the end of the line, the Greens have left the government and will “support the finance bill from the opposition benches” Three years of austerity measures and a protracted period of political and financial uncertainty have completely transformed the political landscape in the state and affected the consciousness of all classes within society also.

About 15,000 Dutch students demonstrated last Friday in The Hague against the cuts in higher education. This was the first big protest against Mark Rutte’s new right-wing government, and the biggest student demonstration since 1988.

Amid scenes of confusion embattled Taoiseach Brian Cowen has finally hauled up the white flag and announced an election for March 11^th.

School students took to the streets of London against coalition education reforms again yesterday, this time to demonstrate against the abolition of a grant, the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA), a weekly payment for 16- to 18-year-olds whose household income is under £30,800 to encourage them to stay in education. Students travelled from as far away as Sunderland and Cornwall to protest against the scrapping of the EMA. The allowance had already been closed to new applicants.

The events of the past two months represent an important shift in the consciousness of British students. Having grown up knowing only economic boom, previously labelled as “apathetic” by the media, stood up and made their voices heard. Their message is simple and has found an echo across many layers of society: “We will not be forced to pay for a crisis we did not cause!” This wave of protests and occupations has swept even the most deeply entrenched prejudices of the last period from the political landscape, leaving many (both on the right and the left) trailing in its wake.