Joint CPI and CYM statement

A political attack on the labour movement and an attack on democracy

The Communist Party of Ireland and the Connolly Youth Movement wish to express their solidarity with the family, friends and comrades of the victims of the massacre that took the lives of ninety-one people in Norway on 22 July 2011.
The people of Norway, and democracy in Norway, suffered a vicious attack directed at the social-democratic party that is at present in government and its youth movement, the AUF.
This was not the action of a madman, as the press would have us believe. Nor was this an isolated event. This was a manifestation of the right-wing political assault on labour and working people that is occurring all over the world.
This tragic event should serve as a lesson to everyone in the labour movement globally. Fascism—the last stand of the monopoly capitalist system in its vile attempt to save itself—has not gone away and in fact is growing as the crisis of the system deepens and its contradictions expose its vulnerability. The ideas and the actions of this individual and of neo-Nazi groups is a product of the moribund and decaying political, social and ideological system of monopoly capitalism.
Western governments have constructed false enemies, promoted division, racism and anti-Muslim sentiment and presented complex global problems in terms of good and “evil”—all designed to construct a world view that reflects their global strategic interests.
The labour movement needs to fight back. It needs to fight fascist ideology and actions with the ideology of working-class solidarity and struggle. It needs to express its vision of a world of equality, freedom, respect, diversity, and community. It needs to fight for this particularly in Europe in the context of the growing assault on working-class families to force them to pay the debts of banks and private corporations.
The eighty-four young activists who were brutally murdered on the island of Utøya were murdered because they stood up for Norwegian sovereignty and democracy and for a more equal and tolerant society. They were attending their summer school as part of their struggle for a better world and for working-class principles.
As one youth activist in Norway has said, “Not a minute’s silence but a life of struggle.” This is also the commitment of the Communist Party of Ireland and the Connolly Youth Movement in memory of these brave young comrades.

Eugene McCartan
Communist Party of Ireland

Conor Meikleham
Connolly Youth Movement