14 November 2015
The general secretary of the Communist Party of Ireland, Eugene McCartan, condemned the violent attacks on people that took place in Paris last night, which from the latest reports seem to have left 160 people dead.
“These are shocking attacks, which cannot be countenanced by progressive people. They do not help the cause of oppressed people in the Middle East or Africa. They are carried out by barbaric groups with a barbaric view of freedom and rights.
“They are also a violent reaction to the violence of imperialism and the plundering of resources and peoples. And we have to ask the question, What kind of suffering can create such a violent reaction? What kind of alienation and anger can recruit young people into this kind of reactionary religious extremism?
“Most important of all, what is the relationship between US and EU imperialism and the rise of these groups? We cannot condemn these attacks and not also condemn the deliberate destabilising of regimes and overthrowing of governments by the United States and the European Union. They are two sides of the same coin of imperialism and will be defeated only by progressive anti-imperialist movements in the peripheral and the core countries working together.”
