Nestor:
>>The new conditions in which imperialism was forced to operate (direct
occupation is always the Panacea, seldom possible however in our days)
transformed the equation in a way that Mark's positions as stated above (as
well as those of my fellow countrypeople who support ultra-left positions, and
who consequently either get immolated in suicidal actions, are isolated from
our masses, or relapse into bitter cynicism by considering that "there is no
alternative") are not taking into account. The eventual result (scant as it is,
it is a positive result) of the immense wave of upheavals that followed World
War II was the possibility, for our own societies, to enact our own politics,
in a way that no open colonial state (not even "Home Ruled" India) could
imagine. This makes everything messier, of course, but this is a fact that any
political analysis must take into account.<<
Nestor, this huge wave of anti-colonial and national liberation struggles,
post-1945, was based on a still earlier, and equally immense wave of struggle which
erupted 100+ years before (Indian Mutiny, China, Latin America) and produced Sun
Yat-Sen and Gandhi and the ANC, as well as Peron, and a host of other struggles. All
these things happened under the iron heel of colonialism and amid desperate
difficulty. The 'freedoms' you speak of seem to me however to have produced a
pitifully smaller revolutionary wave in our own time. What is there to celebrate?
Patrick Bond's struggle for stand-pipes? The "new conditions in which imperialism
was forced to operate" have been almost entirely successful in castrating the
working classes of the peripheries. I think you have proved my point for me: not
only does Argentina today have LESS sovereignty (formal and real) than a century
ago, there is also much less mass political awareness and less mass resistance now
than then.
I'm not at all suggesting suicidal, isolationist activites or ultra-left
immolationism. I'm merely pointing to the historical realities, which you have yet
to come to terms with.
Mark
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