En relaci�n a Re: [CrashList] Self Determination- Support It!,
el 22 Aug 00, a las 3:45, Julien Pierrehumbert dijo:
> Julien to Nestor, Tony, Mac, and last but not least the man who
> doesn't post enough, Rob.
>
> Nestor:
>
> >Imperialism is the mechanism by which those countries that
> >succesfully completed their national revolutions and managed to
> >organize self-centered capitalist economies extract surplus value
> >from the rest of humankind. Indonesia does not belong to that club,
> >it has never had.
>
> If you want. But your definition is different than the ones of the
> others (see lower) and also different from the common sense
> definition. Again, we should define problematic words in the first
> place and not beginning in the 36th thread of the thread (you're
> obviously not the one I'm aiming at, I'm talking for all of us, incl.
> me). Or maybe we should try to avoid controversial labeling and
> name-calling altogether.
Hurried, gotta go to office now. But a couple of points. My
definition is just a recasting of the definition by Lenin which, in
its essence, was taken from the English economist Hobson. It is my
opinion that it is not a mere "name calling" but an, er, objective
way to deal with relations of power in the current world. It points
to qualitative, not quantitative (thus amenable to grey zones where
you can get lost) definitions. And it raises the question of unequal
exchange as the basis of world market, which has a long trail of
consequences. Conservatism in the working classes of the privileged
countries is not the less important of them. That is, I try to stick
to a definition which puts order into the chaos and raises new
issues. Other definitions are not necessarily that deep.
>
> >There is no "plage on both houses" here. Let us assume [...]
> > not that I believe that. In such a case, what we are
> >confronting is simply the attempt by the Javanese bourgeoisie to
> >perform the same tasks that were performed in Western Europe three or
> > four centuries ago. Not to speak of the military erradication of
> >Languedoc by the Languedoil, by the way. This movement implies to
> >curtail the ability of central, imperialist bourgeoisies, to extract
> >surplus value and, thus, is -funnily enough- anti-imperialist!
>
> I don't see the point discussing in an assumption in which nobody
> believes and even less how it is an argument aginst the "plague in
> both houses" idea. Does the behaviour of the european bourgoisies
> centuries ago or the crusade against the Cathars (?) somehow excuse
> the one of the Indonesian state?
They put it in perspective. It was, in a sense, the same historical
necessity, in a different environment. Just to stick to la douce
France, I could have quoted the Hundred Years war for that matter,
but comparison would have been more complex. The point of this part
of my argument is simply that these comparisons are the best simile
to an "experiment" that we can do in social and historic science.
What I was trying to say is that EVEN IF the situation were that way,
it would be understandable in the context it is taking place now.
> Even if this "movement" was
> anti-western imperialism, does it mean it couldn't be Indonesian
> imperialism as well? Or do you argue that there is only one
> imperialism?
Yes. That is exactly what I mean. This is what Lenin meant, by the
way.
I understand that with your definition Indonesia can't be
> imperialist, so replace that name with a plague name of your own
> choice.
>
> >...
> >This is the full story.
>
> I think I already answered to this argument (my paragraph on colonial
> leftovers).
>
> >Funnily enough, so to say, and no matter the
> >ideological preferences of the Indonesian government or the East
> >Timorese government, the only option in Timor is either unification
> >with Indonesia as a step towards the reconstitution of a united Malay
> > Federation spanning from Kuala Lumpur to the Pacific, or the joyful
> >acceptance of a mockingly "independent" regime in Dili, unable to
> >resist without imperialist support.
>
> I agree, except for the "as a step...". It can obviously be united
> with Indonesia as a step to nowhere or to something else.
It depends on the forces at work. I believe that history is not a
nonsensical, no-logic process. If both Timorese and Indonesians are
defeated in their endeavour, they will step to "nowhere or to
something else". But the tasks that need accomplishment will remain.
I know this in a, say, personal way, being an Argentinian. Argentina
is an example of a country that has not completed its historic tasks,
which is skirting them all the time, and thus sees them appear at
every bend of the road, only that each time in a worst shape. Last
July 17th we commemorated the 150th. aniversary of the death of
General San Mart�n, one of the two Liberators of South America. One
of the dictums of San Martin (which in Argentina are quoted as a
matter of fact but without any attention to their content) was "You
shall be what you have to be, or you will be nothing!" Well, we are
facing that alternative every time. Same will happen to Indonesians
and Timorese, same happens to the whole of humankind in fact. For
instance, if we do not stop the current social regime and its
associated ecologic madness we shall also end becoming "nothing".
>
> >Indonesia, no matter what kind of regime rules
> >there, is the rightful "owner" of East Timor, and East Timorese
> >resistence to this unification is, IMHO, just a way to subject the
> >East Timorese to imperialists and to weaken Indonesia.
>
> "owner"??? What do you mean? Whatever the East Timorese want to do
> with their land except destroy it, I respect them. Whoever thinks they
> know better than them or who wants them to sacrifice themselves for an
> unspecified higher interest, I despise him.
Yes, "owner" is not the best word, but I do not find a better one,
it's my poor English. What I mean, since you are kind enough to ask,
is not a matter of land ownership, but of, so to say, historic
destiny. There is no way in which East Timor can develop freely
unless free from imperialism. There is no way in which East Timor can
become free from imperialism but within a common, unified country
that includes the whole of Indonesia. This is what I meant. And,
before you ask me, yes, I believe that freedom from imperialism is
the only freedom that counts in the current world. Not the only
important one, I repeat: THE ONLY ONE THAT COUNTS. The central
contradiction, and the most overriding one, a situation that only
gets tougher with time.
>
> >The slaveowners were both for keeping slavery working
> >and the nation divided. England -whose mills depended on American
> >cotton, that is on slavery, to work- was for "self determination" of
> >the South. But England in the 1860s seemed to be more revolutionary
> >than the USA today, because common English citizens (even though they
> > were mill workers) knew that it was their duty and it was in their
> >general interest to support the North, against the South, that is the
> > unificators against the secessionists.
>
> Please someone who has a serious knowledge of american history correct
> me, but isn't this slavery thing more of a propaganda item vs. a real
> cause of that war?
I have a serious knowledge myself. This American Civil War issue was
a theme of concern for me because many of the issues raised there are
the ones that mark the history of my country. The "slavery item" was
not a propaganda issue. Slavery implied a privileged connection
between the South and England (not precisely due to humanitarian
reasons, which EXISTED, but because slavery hindered the expansion of
a domestic market and menaced free farmers as well as urban workers
in the North, thus allowing for an alliance between the bourgeois,
the peasants and the workers against it), slavery generated a hunger
for land which pushed the South ever Westward, slavery imposed an
increasingly false lack of balance in the Congress, and most
important of all, slavery put in danger the Union (in order to escape
the constricting tariff fostered by the North, the slaveowners -at
the same time oligarchs who realized their capital outside their own
country, like their Latin American counterparts of this day, though
in a minor way- wanted to reinforce the rights of the States against
the rights of the Union). So that slavery was partly, only partly, a
propaganda issue. It was the "mode of production" that lay at the
core of the whole host of issues that the Civil War, truly a
Revolution, put an end to.
> Anyway, it's curious that someone who opposes
> humanitarian intervention on the Kosovo issue thinks that there are
> good reasons to invade people's place, destroy economies and murder
> civilians. I'm not denying that the result of that Kosovo affair was
> not a peaceful and multiethnic Kosovo but the result of that war was
> not a slave-less and non-racist country. But maybe Marx supported the
> North? Then I guess I can only follow the rest of the cult...
This is quite an insulting paragraph, so that sorry if I answer with
some anger.
1. You are quite an ignorant on these issues, it looks like you speak
because air is for free! Slavery was stamped away from the USA for
ever, racism remained (Anyway, in order to impose this mean program,
the established classes of the North and the South saw themselves
forced to murder the President, the most radical leader that the USA
had ever produced). Slavery and racism are NOT the same thing. As to
Marx's support to the North, yes, he gave it and well he did. But I
am not a dumb follower of Marx. I believe he was deeply mistaken on
Bol�var, for example.
2. I quote again, against my habits, because this is worth special
treatment:
> Anyway, it's curious that someone who opposes
> humanitarian intervention on the Kosovo issue thinks that there are
> good reasons to invade people's place, destroy economies and murder
> civilians. I'm not denying that the result of that Kosovo affair
> was not a peaceful and multiethnic Kosovo
If this sentence above has a sense at all, that sense would be that
"how can you be 'pacifist' in Yugoslavia and a 'war hawk' in the
American Civil War?" Well, the problem is that I am not precisely
what would be termed a pacifist. I am a war hawk, I have always been
and will die a war hawk. I hate wars, but I do not shun at them, in
the same way that if you attempt to intrude into my house and try to
steal me you will not have a warm, tender reception. Only that my war
is a class war, the war against reaction. On the Kossovo issue, I am
for rejection of the interventionists by any means possible, and on
the American Civil War I would have been for rejection of the Anglo-
Southerner alliance.
Too much neutrality has somehow dimmed your mental abilities on this
issue, Julien.
Well, stop with flaming!
As to Tony's remarks and your replies, I will leave the job to him.
N�stor Miguel Gorojovsky
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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