The Irish Republican Socialist Party sends greetings of solidarity on the occasion of the twelve year anniversary of the founding of the South Asian Network for Secularism and Democracy being celebrated on 6 November.

We in Ireland are all too familiar with the devastating legacy of religious sectarianism actively encouraged by British Imperialism in its former colonies. For this reason we applaud the work of your organisation among the people of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Nepal, as well as the children of these nations in the diaspora, to support the struggle for democratic rights, secularism, and social justice and in opposition colonialism and imperialism, as well as discrimination based on religion, gender, caste, or ethnicity.

We know that SANSAD is actively engaged in support of the struggles of the workers and peasants of the nations of south Asia and that you have engaged in opposition to imperialist wars of aggression, foreign occupations, and the domination through means of economic power of one nation by another, all of which echo our own concerns.

Because of a shared history of domination by British imperialism and the violence and crippling social divisions perpetuated by a system of religious sectarianism, we recognise in your efforts a reflection of our own struggle in Ireland. Your victories over these obstacles in the nations you represent will therefore be as though they were our own and the victory we seek in Ireland will be one which moves you closer to liberation as well. This is because wherever we fight against these injustices, we are joined in one struggle, a struggle for the liberation of humanity.

Peter Urban
International Department,
Irish Republican Socialist Party

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