The Long Revolution of the Global South. Samir Amin
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to return from exile as appendages of the U.S. armed forces? Unfortunately, this is not impossible, but not “inevitable,” far from it.
The Kurdish question is a real one, in Iraq as well as Iran and Turkey. But on this subject also, it should be remembered that the Western powers have always cynically acted with double standards. Repression of Kurdish demands in Iraq and Iran has never reached the level of continual police and military violence as in Turkey. Neither Iran nor Iraq has ever gone as far as denying the very existence of the Kurds. Yet, as a NATO member, Turkey should always be pardoned. NATO, you will recall, is an organization of democratic nations, or so the media constantly reminds us. The eminent democrat Salazar was one of the founding members, and the Greek colonels and Turkish generals were unconditional supporters of democracy!
Iraqi popular fronts were formed around the Communist and the Baath parties in the best moments of its stormy history. Whenever such fronts exercised power, they always found common ground with the main Kurdish parties, which were always, moreover, their allies.
The “anti-Shia” and “anti-Kurd” excesses of Saddam’s regime were certainly real: bombardments of the Basra region by Saddam’s army after its 1990 defeat in Kuwait and use of gas against the Kurds. Such abuses came as a response to Washington’s armed diplomatic maneuvers, which had mobilized sorcerer’s apprentices pressured to seize the occasion. Nevertheless, Saddam’s reactions were criminal and stupid, since the success of Washington’s appeals was quite limited. But should we expect anything else from dictators like Saddam?
The power of the resistance to the foreign occupation, unexpected in these conditions, would seem to be a miracle. This is not really the case because the basic reality is that the Iraqi people as a whole (Arab and Kurd, Sunni and Shia) detest the occupiers and are quite well aware of its daily crimes (assassinations, bombings, massacres, torture). We should then be able to envisage a “United National Resistance Front” (call it whatever you like) proclaiming itself as such, publicizing the list of organizations and parties that constitute it and their common program. Up until now, this has not been the case, mostly because of the destruction of the social and political fabric caused by the successive dictatorships of Saddam and the occupiers. But whatever the reasons, this weakness is a serious impediment that facilitates divide-and-rule policies, encourages the opportunists to become collaborators, and generates confusion about the objectives of the liberation.
Who will succeed in overcoming these barriers? The Communists should be well placed to do so. Already militants—on the ground—are differentiating themselves from the “leaders” (that is, the only ones known to the dominant media) who, not knowing which way the wind is blowing, attempt to give a semblance of legitimacy to their support for the collaborationist government by pretending to complement it with armed resistance! But many other political forces could, in the circumstances, take decisive action toward forming such a united front.
It remains the case that, despite its “weaknesses,” the Iraqi people’s resistance has already defeated (politically if not yet militarily) Washington’s project. This is precisely what worries the Atlanticists in the European Union, faithful allies of the United States. The subaltern associates of the United States today fear the latter’s defeat because that would strengthen the capacity of peoples in the South to force globalized transnational capital from the imperialist triad to respect the interests of the nations and peoples of Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
The Iraqi resistance has made proposals that would make it possible to get out of the impasse and assist the United States to withdraw from the trap. It proposes: (i) formation of a transitional administration with the support of the UN Security Council; (ii) immediate cessation of resistance activities, as well as military and police operations by occupation forces; (iii) the withdrawal of all foreign military and civilian authorities within six months. The details of these proposals were published in the January 2006 issue of the prestigious Arab journal Al Mustaqbal Al Arabi, published in Beirut. The European media treated this message with absolute silence. Such a response is clear proof of the solidarity of the imperialist partners. Democratic and progressive forces in Europe have the duty to dissociate themselves from this imperialist policy and support the proposals of the Iraqi resistance. Leaving the Iraqi people to confront its enemy alone is not an acceptable option. It reinforces the dangerous idea that there is nothing to expect from the West and its peoples and consequently encourages unacceptable—even criminal—excesses in the activities of certain resistance movements.
The sooner the foreign occupation troops leave the country, and the stronger the support from democratic forces in Europe and throughout the world to the Iraqi people, the greater will be the possibilities for a better future for this martyred people. The longer the occupation lasts, the more dismal the future that follows its inevitable end.
5. THE PALESTINIAN QUESTION
The Palestinian people have, since the Balfour Declaration during the First World War, been the victim of a colonization project by a foreign people that has treated it like white settler colonialists in the United States treated “redskins.” This is true whether one cares to acknowledge it or pretends to be ignorant of it. This project has always been supported unconditionally by the dominant imperialist power in the region (yesterday Great Britain, today the United States), because the alien state established with that support can only ever be the ally, also unconditional, of the interventions required for the continual submission of the Arab Middle East to imperialist capitalism.
This is completely obvious for all peoples of Africa and Asia. Consequently, the affirmation and defense of Palestinian rights spontaneously unite the peoples on these two continents. However, in Europe, the “Palestinian question” causes division, resulting from the confusions fostered by Zionist ideology, which is often met with favorable support.
Today, more than ever, in conjunction with the deployment of the American “Greater Middle East” project, the rights of the Palestinian people have been abolished. Yet the PLO had accepted the Oslo and Madrid plans and the road map designed by Washington. It is Israel that has openly disowned its signature and continues to implement an even more ambitious expansion plan. The PLO has consequently been weakened: public opinion can rightly reproach it for having naively believed in the sincerity of its opponents. The support by the occupation authorities for its Islamist adversary (Hamas), initially, at least, and the spread of the Palestinian administration’s corrupt practices on which the “donors”—the World Bank, Europe, NGOs—are silent, if they are not participants, had to lead to the electoral victory of Hamas, an additional pretext immediately cited to justify unconditional alignment with Israel’s policies, “whatever they are”!
The Zionist colonial project has always been a threat, beyond Palestine, for neighboring Arab peoples. Its ambitions to annex the Egyptian Sinai and its effective annexation of the Syrian Golan bear witness to this. A particular place is given to Israel in the project for a “Greater Middle East,” to its regional nuclear weapons monopoly and its role as a “required partner” (under the fallacious pretext that Israel has “technological competence” of which no Arab people is capable! Here we have the obligatory racism!).
It is not my intention here to analyze the complex interactions between the resistance struggles against Zionist colonial expansion and the political conflicts and choices in Lebanon and Syria. The Baathist governments of Syria have, in their own way, resisted the demands of the imperialist powers and Israel. That this resistance has also served to legitimize more questionable ambitions (control of Lebanon) is certainly not debatable. Moreover, Syria has carefully chosen its allies from among the “least dangerous” in Lebanon. The Lebanese Communist Party had originally organized resistance to Israeli incursions into southern Lebanon (including water diversion). The Syrian, Lebanese, and Iranian governments cooperated closely to destroy this “dangerous base” and substitute Hezbollah for it. The assassination of Rafic Hariri obviously gave an opportunity for the imperialist powers (led by the United States, with France following behind) to intervene with a double objective: to force Damascus to align with the group of vassalized Arab states (Egypt, Saudi Arabia)—or, failing that, liquidate the vestiges of the degenerated Baathist government—and dismantle what remains of the ability to resist Israeli incursions by demanding Hezbollah’s “disarmament.” Rhetoric about