Youth Against War Website

by Andy Roberts Fri Oct 04, 2002 21:13

socialist youth against the war? while youth against the war may sound all inclusive, one look at the website and it shows that it is infact just a front group, links to socialist youth, who though they may have formed the group are the only one's involved by the looks of it. The only other links are the CWI and Anti-War Movement (an umdemocratic alliance). So, is Youth Against the War a collective open democratic group or is it just a campaign by Socialist Youth for Socialist Youth and if so this should be renamed Socialist Youth Against the War

by aunty party Sat Oct 05, 2002 00:53

socialist party, sponsored by yahoo and all the spammers at cjb.net - like every other socialist youth site it's blighted with ads.

there are thousands upon thousand of email services in the world and you pick...yahoo!

by OK - SP Sat Oct 05, 2002 01:01

Youth Against the War is a campaign launched by SY. We want to get young people, that have a range of political views, active in opposing the war. If we used just the SY banner many would be hesitent to get involved if they were not socialists.

We are quite open about it, we launched this. There's no problem with launching a broad group. It's all about getting more people active in the Anti-War movement.

by Shane - SY/ SP Sat Oct 05, 2002 10:26 Tallaght

Y.A.W is not a front group. Socialist Youths involvement in it has been made no secret, we have launched the organisation as a platform for various shades of Young People oppossed to war to voice their opposition.

The aim of Youth against War is to basically bring young people out say no to war as part of the Irish Anti War movement.

Youth Against the war has people in it who arent involved with SY or the SP. Further more the links on the site are fairly valid in that they represent groups linked to anti war, as you may notice Kevin has put a contact address down for people to contact him with anti war sites, which arent listed.

Although comments such as "Todays front is brought to you by..." are funny I think their losing the point, furthermore comments about the use of cjb.net are not important to this discussion. Its free why pay some corporate thing yearly money when same service for free?

by Shane Sat Oct 05, 2002 10:41

Hi Andy, in relation to your question,

"So, is Youth Against the War a collective open democratic group or is it just a campaign by Socialist Youth for Socialist Youth and if so this should be renamed Socialist Youth Against the War"

Its an open group all are welcome to join. Irrespective of whatever political alliance or belief you have once your oppossed to war. Hope that answers your question!

by iosaf Sat Oct 05, 2002 11:37 iosaf at email dot com

Kev and his friends aren´t putting all
eggs in one basket.
they recognise muppetry.
let them do their thing.
They´re building a mass movement.
nice one lads.
remember happy photos.
:-)

by iosaf - reclaim the streets! Sat Oct 05, 2002 14:02 iosaf at email dot com 00447979324324

don´t forget to let us in the
indymedia family know what you´re up to.
cyber eggs can simultaneously be kept
in many baskets.
but sure you guys know that don´t you.

by Harry Pollitt Sat Oct 05, 2002 23:22

"So, is Youth Against the War a collective open democratic group or is it just a campaign by Socialist Youth for Socialist Youth and if so this should be renamed Socialist Youth Against the War"

And the reply "Its an open group all are welcome to join. Irrespective of whatever political alliance or belief you have once your oppossed to war. Hope that answers your question!"

That's not an answer to that question. How come any time any one says 'front group', a apologists hops up to say 'know their are lot's of people in it not just SP/SWP' - well that's the point of a front group.

The question is does it have a democratic decision making structure and therefore independance from the SP.

by Shane Kenna - SY Sun Oct 06, 2002 13:00 shanekenna at hotmail dot com

Like S.Y. the Youth Against War have a democratic decision making structure and is therefore independent from the SP.

Furthermore to be a cover group you also have to deny your involvement in a movement or hide the fact, on both accounts we dont.

by Andy Sun Oct 06, 2002 19:38

explain this radical open democratic structure you have put in place for both socialist youth and youth against the war

by Brian Cahill Mon Oct 07, 2002 13:56

Every broad group or campaign which is launched by an existing organisation is not a "front".

The Socialist Party is often very critical of the practice of some on the left of using a front group to disguise who they really are. That does not mean that we are opposed to the idea of launching wider formations when they will be useful. The important difference is that for a wider formation to be more than just a front-name it has to have some life of its own.

When we take the initiative to launch the Alliance Against Nice or the Dublin Federation of Anti-Water Charges Campaigns or whatever we are not setting up wholly owned subsidiaries but genuinely broad organisations. There have been may other genuinely broad organisations on the left set up by already-existing groups - for example Libertarians Against Nice which has been established on the initiative of the WSM.

As we explained in our pamphlet response to the SWP, our problem with their front groups is not that they are "broad" organisations or that they have been started by the SWP, but instead that they are given no life of their own and are ruthlessly kept as the sole property of the SWP Political Committee.

Which brings us on to Socialist Youth and the new Youth Against the War campaign.

Socialist Youth is the youth wing of the Socialist Party. It is not a "front" in any meaningful sense of the word - the link with the Socialist Party and the precise nature of its role are made quite explicit. Even so, Socialist Youth maintains its own independent structures and makes its own decisions. Socialist Youth's policies and actions are decided at Socialist Youth branch meetings at SY conference and by an elected steering committee.

Youth Against the War is a broader campaign which Socialist Youth is trying to set up, recognising that lots of young people who aren't socialists would like to get involved in an anti-war campaign. Again, the fact that Socialist Youth is setting YAW up is openly stated on the YAW website and literature. The precise structures which the campaign will have will be decided by the people who get involved in it, but Socialist Youth will certainly push for it to have a solid democratic structure which lets people of any political background or none have their say. As for links on the website, at the moment there are links to Socialist Youth, the Irish Anti-War Movement and Indymedia. If you want to see other links added, then send them in. Nobody in YAW or in SY will have a problem with linking the site to the LAN one or the Workers Party one or whatever.

by Brian Tue Oct 08, 2002 15:35

LAN came about from conversation between different anarchist groups in ireland on the irish anarchism list actually!

by Andrew Wed Oct 09, 2002 13:49

Brian's summary is right but in fact the emergence of LAN was somewhat more complex.

The idea of something like LAN started with a letter from the AF to the WSM suggesting we produce a joint PDF leaflet for the Nice campaign. We (WSM) discussed this and decided to see if support existed to create something a lot more substantial.

Over a period of a couple of months there was discussion of what was possible on Irish anarchism but also at formal and informal meetings of anarchists. One example would be the meeting at Ecotopia (attended by two members of the SP strangely enough, they probably thought it was going to be a more general anti-Nice meeting).

From these it emerged that the three anarchist organisations plus libertarians from a wide range of other groups thought a join campaign was a good idea. In general there was agreement that the core issues were globalisation, fortress Europe, militarisation, policing and the need for a libertarian alternative.

The next step was a national meeting held in Dublin and attended by about 40 people. In advance of the meeting a draft leaflet was drawn up based on the points above, circulated to Irish anarchism, discussed, modified and then brought to the meeting.

That meeting made all the decisions right down to what the name of the campaign would be. There were actually around ten different suggestions and we choose between them by a sub-PR vote. LAN was carried by only one vote after a number of counts.

That meeting agreed the leaflet text, the print run, the email address, who would be treasurer, secretary etc, and who would do the web page. As far as I can tell all these decisions have now been implemented.