Connolly resurrected
The Lost Writings: James Connolly
Introduced and edited by Aindreas O Cathasaigh
Published by Pluto Press
Price £40.00 (hb); £12.99 (pb)
y new material that enriches our understanding of Irish history
is to be given a warm welcome. And so it is with the ``Lost
Writings: James Connolly'', edited by Aindreas O Cathasaigh. For
the editor, Connolly was the most interesting and relevant of men
of 1916. And having delved deep in the various archives O
Cathasaigh has come up with a collection of writings not known to
have been published anywhere else from the time of their original
publication by Connolly himself.
Arguing that most of Connolly's organising was carried out
through the pen, O Cathasaigh seeks to bring to our attention the
nature of that organising principle. Beginning with the Workers
Republic (1898-1903), followed by The Socialist (1902-1904), The
Harp (1908-1910), The Irish Worker (1911-1914), The Worker
(1914-1915) and concluding with The Workers Republic (1915-1916),
he has drawn together a series of pieces which he claims will
help the reader to continue and finish the work of Connolly.
The editor has also provided a very useful introduction which
traces the history of attempts to publish the work of James
Connolly. In many respects this is as good as any part of the
book, because it shines a light into the murky and censorial
world of Irish publishing where short term narrow political
interest held sway over more ``mundane'' matters such as the truth.
However, in concluding his introduction O Cathasaigh was setting
his sights a bit high by expecting that Connolly might be read
``on the bus from work, or after putting the kids to bed, or while
waiting for the rent allowance''. It is difficult to imagine this
courtesy being afforded to the less challenging work of Pearse,
never mind the revolutionary `sedition' of his socialist
colleague from the GPO.
We inhabit a different world in the 1990s. Dublin is no longer
the city of 1916. And capitalism has outlived - and indeed
outmanoeuvred - much of the socialist critique waged against it.
Rummaging through the work of socialists from a long gone era in
search of a panacea for the ills of the modern world makes
Marxism appear as the opium of the Marxists. New modes of thought
and methods of application are required to prevent Marxism
becoming a sentimental collection of shibboleths.
Connolly's scientific approach to the understanding of society
was a manifestation of a deeper need to truthfully pronounce on
why a thing had come to be what it was regardless of surface
appearances. Hence his sharp little comment on media
manipulation: ``We are told that the truth must be kept back lest
it give comfort to the enemy..... if the enemy takes a town he
surely knows that he has taken it. It is not he, but the peoples
of these countries that are being decieved''. A salutary lesson
that the first principle of democratic leadership is that
leadership must, before all else, be defended against leaders.
Doubtless, O Cathasaigh has added something to our understanding
of Connolly. Some will claim that the insights gleaned are more
chronological than theoretical. Yet that in itself is not an
argument against O Cathasaigh's project. We wish him every
success in his endeavours.
Exposing the cause of cancer
Living Downstream: An Ecologist looks at Cancer and the
Environment
Sandra Steingraber
Published in Britain and Ireland by Virago
Price stg£18.99
Published in US by Addison Wesley
Price US$24, Can$32.95
Sandra Steingraber was receiving the plaudits and confessions of
grassroots activists when the news came through that the chemical
industry had done a hatchet job on her book.
It has been common for many years for industry critics to comment
and review on authors and books which challenge their domineering
world view of the modes of production, economics, politics and
the environment.
In North America, in particular, the chemical industry has used
spin doctors, public relations companies, scientists and
bureaucrats to attack critics of modern industrial society.
Despite its pretence of morality and ethics, the medical and
scientific media has been one of the worst culprits, allowing
industry apologists a free rein.
``The medical profession has failed to develop and enforce strict
guidelines for disclosing conflicts of interest,'' Dan Fagin and
Marianne Lavelle argue in their book Toxic Deception: How the
chemical industry manipulates science, bends the law and
endangers your health. ``Full disclosure of relationships between
physicians and pharmaceutical manufacturers is necessary to
affirm the integrity of the medical profession and maintain
public confidence.''
Sandra Steingraber's book, Living Downstream: An Ecologist looks
at Cancer and the Environment, had been published in the US in
the early summer of 1997 but had got off to a slow start. Few
media picked it up and she feared it would be lost among the
beach reading of the silly season. Then in July, the first world
conference on breast cancer was held in Canada. Steingraber was a
keynote speaker. ``It was very heavy on the environment, so I did
a lot of international media there,'' Steingraber - who argues
that up to 90% of all cancers have their causes in environmental
pollution - recalled, noting that the book seemed to be moving
through the grassroots movement, significantly the cancer
activist community which was becoming more politicised. The
cancer groups were also networking with a diverse range of groups
which, Steingraber learned, were forming alliances under the
banner of environmental justice and were looking at the causes of
society's ills.
By October the book was into a second printing and was selling
well. Then the mood changed. On 20 November the New England
Journal of Medicine (NEJM) - regarded as one of the top medical
journals in the western world - published a damning review of
Living Downstream. It was written by Jerry H. Berke, who signed
himself as a medical doctor and gave what appeared to be his home
address - which was unusual. ``The objective of Living
Downstream,'' Berke wrote, ``appears ultimately to be controversy.''
Berke, it turned out, was the director of toxicology at WR Grace,
a large chemical manufacturer based in Woborn, Massachusetts. The
company had been implicated in the pollution of the town's
drinking water.
``It became a twofold issue,'' Steingraber said. ``Why was his
employment not disclosed. More importantly, why did the NEJM
think it appropriate to ask this person to review the book in the
first place, particularly since this physician has no research
published in the medical literature. His only claim as an expert
is that he works in occupational medicine for this chemical
company. He is not a published researcher in the field. Finally
the NEJM apologised in the Washington Post for what it called an
ethics blunder, that it was a mistake, not part of a larger
systemic problem.''
Despite this attack, the book is set to continue selling when it
comes out in paperback in the US later this year. Steingraber
herself is still upbeat about the book's message. ``I see a lot of
signs at the grassroots level that all kinds of different people
are coming together, particularly the cancer groups, the
anti-toxic groups, citizens groups, organic farmers and people
who are fighting battles at small community levels. They are
having some spectacular successes.
``It's true that they don't get reported in the national media so
we can't all feel victorious because we don't know about them. In
my job as circuit writer/author I'm amazed at communities who
have come together and successfully stopped this or that, often
after extreme struggle.''
Steingraber believes that democracy is on the side of
communities, especially those who are ``bearing all the costs in
terms of their health'' because some ``people are making profit at
the expense of other peoples' health''.
``That's a basic ethical problem, especially when it involves
children. The data on childhood cancers and the link to the
environment, particularly pesticide exposures before birth is so
clear. You can't blame their lifestyles because three year olds
don't drink or smoke or hold stressful jobs. Most of these
childhood cancers have no hereditary influences so the
environment is the only reasonable place to look and when we
look, those links are quite clear.''
By Robert Allen
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