Declaration of Russian anarcho-syndicalists KRAS-IWA against the war in Libya.
The "humanitarian" intervention of NATO States in Libya with purpose esentially to provide a military assistance to one party in a local civil war, has once again proved: there are no “revolutions” in the North Africa and in the Middle East. There are only a stubborn and bitter struggle for power, profit, influence and control over oil resources and strategic areas.
Deep discontent and social-economic protests of the working masses in the region generated by global economic crisis (attacks on the living conditions of workers, increase of unemployment and poverty, spread of precarious work) are used by oppositional political groups to make the coups, overthrowing the tyranny of the corrupt, senile dictators and rising in their place. Mobilising the unemployed, the workers, the poor as cannon fodder, discontented factions of the ruling class distract them from their social and economic demands, promising them "democracy" and "change". In fact, the coming to power of this motley bloc of "backbenchers" of the ruling elite, liberals and religious fundamentalists will not bring the workers any changes for the better. We know well the consequences of the victory of the liberals: new privatizations, strengthening of market chaos, emergence of the next billionaires and further aggravate poverty, suffering and misery of the oppressed and the poor. The triumph of the religious fundamentalists would mean growth of clerical reaction, the ruthless suppression of women and minorities, and the inevitable slide towards a new Arab-Israeli war, which hardships would again lay on the shoulders of the working masses. But even in "ideal" option of establishing of representative democracy regimes in North African and Middle Eastern countries, the working people will not win anything. The worker, ready to risk their lives for the sake of "democracy" - is like a slave, who vows to die for their "right" to choose his slaveholder. The representative democracy is not worth a drop of human blood.
In the struggle for power unfolding in the region, the European NATO States and the United States take even more openly side with the oppositional political groups in the hope that the victory of these forces and the "democratization" model of political domination will bring them new benefits and privileges. Supporting "democracy" in Tunisia and Egypt, they hope to strengthen its influence there, to deliver their capitalist "investors" from corruption of dictators and to take part in the upcoming privatization of riches of ruling clans. Helping the liberal, onarchist and religious-fundamentalist opposition in Libya, which acts in conjunction with a number of former senior officials of the Gaddafi regime, they expect to take control of rich oil reserves. Along with them, some Arab states enter into struggle for influence having their own ambitions in the region.
The powers-that-be are going again with bombs and shelling to "save" lives of people and to "liberate" them from dictatorships, killing people. The governments of Western European countries and the U.S. are lying and hypocritical: yesterday they helped dictators, hugged them and sold them weapons. Today they are demanding dictators go, "listening to the demands of the people", but do not hesitate to suppress the protests of population in “their own” countries completely ignoring his demands. When the vast majority of inhabitants of France or Britain, Greece or Spain, Portugal or Ireland say they do not want to pay from their pocket the State aid to banks and businesses, and demand to cancel the austerity measures, anti-social pension and labor reforms, the authorities answer to them that democracy "is not ruled by street".
A "humanitarian" intervention gives the rulers of Western Europe and the United States a great opportunity to distract the population of countries-in-their-power from the consequences of actual crisis. The “short victorious” war for “saving people and democracy” designes for make the European and North American workers to forget about anti-social policies of governments and the capitalists and to experience again the pride in their "humane" and "fair" rulers in the next edition of "holy alliance" between the oppressors and the oppressed .
We call on workers of the world not to yield to a "democratic"and "humanitarian" fraud and to oppose strongly a new escalation of capitalist barbarism in North Africa and the Middle East.
If we could bring our voice to the oppressed and exploited poor in the region, over thousands-kilometres-long distances and language barriers, we would encourage them to return to the initial social and economic motives and themes of their protest, to rebel, to go on strike and demonstrations against low wages, high prices and unemployment, for social emancipation - but not to allow to involve them in political games in a power struggle between different factions of the ruling classes.
We call on the workers of Europe and America to go in the streets to protest against the new "humanitarian" war in the interests of states and capitalists. We appeal to sections of the International Workers Association to increase their internationalist and anti-militarist agitation and to initiate anti-war demonstrations and strikes.
DOWN WITH WAR!
DOWN WITH ALL STATE AND ARMIES!
NOT A SINGLE DROP OF BLOOD FOR DICTATORSHIP OR DEMOCRACY!
NO TO ALL GOVERNMENTS AND “OPPOSITIONS”!
FOR SOLIDARITY WITH WORKING PEOPLE`S STRUGGLE FOR SOCIAL EMANCIPATION!
LONG LIVE THE GENERAL SELF-ADMINISTRATION OF WORKING PEOPLE!
Confederation of Revolutionary Anarcho-Syndicalist,
Section of IWA in Russian region
Comments
I'm glad someone has written
I'm glad someone has written this
Quote: The "humanitarian"
This seems too simplistic and ideological. Does a struggle between different factions of the bourgeoisie invalidate any simultaneous class struggle?
That article doesn't state
That article doesn't state that class struggle isn't valid - it ends with stating its support for workers struggling in their own interests. That sentence you quote just states that there have been no "revolutions" in North Africa and the Middle East, and there have been no social revolutions (as yet of course!)
Yeah, wouldn't it be great if
Yeah, wouldn't it be great if workers struggled in their own interests! Let's call on them to do that!
Nobody is cclaiming that communist revolutions have occurred. But to say "there are no revolutions in North africa seems to miss a lot of what's happening in Egypt, at least.
A similar discussion, more
A similar discussion, more developed, appeared here.
This article is at best banal. At worst it tends towards minimising the social movements in Egypt and Tunisia and elsewhere, movements which are continuing, movements which clearly have some profound proletarian content even though - inevitably - the various rulers and would-be rulers are also part of the equation. When has it ever not been so?
Quote: If we could bring our
This explains the position of KRAS and at least it is an honest conclusion of the reality we live in. Noone on libcom had any idea neither wrote any statement on Northern Africa. KRAS members did and in their statements they try to let's say realist. But to you that may seem banal. To me it means, if it could be translated and circulated in native languages of North African population, it would be 100times better than the whole libcom debates...
In your dismissive attitude
In your dismissive attitude ("noone on libcom had any idea neither wrote any statement on Northern Africa" - not at all true, and incredibly arrogant to state that this has been the case; besides, would you include yourself in that?) you don't respond to either what i posted or to the debate mentioned. Which is typical of an ideological superiority that doesn't struggle to overcome separations in words (your actions might possibly be different, but here all we see are words). So much for the struggle for "communism" (ie community/communication).
A text that looks at the precise contradictions in the various struggles in Northern Africa, rather than just lumping everything together, if translated, might well be a 100 times better than any text or debate, here or elsewhere, but who here is fluent in Arabic and Russian or English?
Feel free to write such a
Feel free to write such a text. My organization used KRAS and ZSP texts on Tunisia and Egypt for its website to spread the class position in Czech and Slovakia as in fact no-one else did. Too little, but at least something. And admin: no flaming .
OliverTwister wrote: Yeah,
OliverTwister
do you think there has been a revolution in Egypt? Or elsewhere in North Africa?
Steven. wrote: do you think
Steven.
doesn't this rest on definitions? for liberals, a change of government by extraparliamentary means is a revolution. for libcommers, we're interested in social revolution and fundamental shifts in the class structure of society.
Like Steven, I welcome this
Like Steven, I welcome this leaflet.
I think that ‘slamming’ it as ‘banal’ (default setting for too many on Libcom) has hindered a discussion of:
- The vast array of forces (from France, UK, US, Turkey, Qatar, now NATO, etc) pouring death and destruction on Libya, following Iraq (x2), following Afghanistan (x2 in recent times), in addition to that unleashed by M Kaddafi et famille;
- The divisions amongst the vultures about who is in charge
- The reasons why these imperialist hyenas have decided to make a ‘moral crusade’ on Libya rather than Bahrain or Yemen
- The question of whether this is ‘just’ another ‘war for oil’ or is indeed a war against workers, against uprisings
- The parallels (or lack of them) between this situation and that of Spain 36 (the transformation of an uprising of the exploited into an inter-imperialist holocaust)
- A convincing answer to those (many millions) who ask in genuine bewilderment: ‘Isn’t OK that ‘they’ prevent Kaddafi from slaughtering ‘his own’ people’?
- A discussion of what is the way forward for the workers and exploited of Libya in the current situation
I don’t want a discussion about ‘what use are leaflets anyway’, nor ‘what’s the point of taking a ‘position’ on this’. Apart from this leaflet, there are precious few statements on Libcom against imperialist war as concretised in Libya today (maybe it’s considered too ‘banal’).
Some arguments have been raised on the Libya thread, but few (no-one?) has tackled head-on this imperialist armada and its meaning.
Neither does it help to refer back to discussions on Egypt: it’s true that this leaflet in itself is ‘insufficient’ (show me one that isn’t); that (IMO) it suffers from the same underestimation of revolts in the Middle East that we’ve seen in earlier discussions; that it’s not right to focus, in the first paragraph, on the idea that this ‘proves’ there have been no ‘revolutions’ in the Middle East or North Africa.
But Libya isn’t Egypt. The ‘fact’ is that the focus appears to have shifted from revolts of the oppressed to the onslaught of imperialism. I don’t pretend to have answers. I would welcome further contributions. Not a ‘slamming’ of debate.
The signs of the defeat of
The signs of the defeat of Libyan revolution
http://libcom.org/library/signs-defeat-libyan-revolution
Hey, rather than a comment I
Hey, rather than a comment I think that should go in the library as an article in itself. Could you post it up?
Aight.
Aight.
MT wrote: My organization
MT
huh, no-one else did?
http://protikapitalu.org/?p=61
written in the middle of february and published in the beginning of march.
english version here
it is not the question of competition but accuracy is a good thing.
oh apology, honestly, I
oh apology, honestly, I haven't seen this.
fair enough, no problem. i
fair enough, no problem. i hope to meet you soon! :)
I agree with Steven and
I agree with Steven and Lurch: we should welcome this leaflet. It was certainly one of the first internationalist statements on the new war, and is an uncompromising defence of class principles. The ICC first published its current article on the war, in French, on 28 March, at least a week later, and the English version appeared several days after that. I am not sure when the ICT issued its statement, or other internationalist groups, but the point stands, and there have not been many statements since.
I accept that there are signs that the KRAS, like other comrades, have not yet grasped the immense importance of the social movements that have been breaking out in the Middle East. But faced with an imperialist war, this is not the first issue to clarify.