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Dear Comrades and friends:
I view the struggles of the citizens in the Middle East whether in Egypt
or Lliberia in the same way Fred Feldman has done in his attached
e-mail. I am not concerned so much as to what comes after but what is
the nature of the struggle which is as part of a very deep seated
opposition to the autocracies of those regimes in the Middle Eastor
northern Africa. You can see this in much the same light as the
struggles of those who opposed the Eastern European Stalanist regimes
over 20 years ago. This is a very progressive struggle for basic
freedoms we take for granted. True this is not a working class rising.
It is a popular cross class rising against an autocracy and as such it
has major limitations.
Since the rise of Stalinism in the 1920's the Socialist left has been
fed a steady diet of repression for the greater good i.e. in support of
the "workers State" or in support of actually existing socialism as
acceptable. To this end dictators like Qaddafi have been supported
because they support Cuba or Venezuala is a major problem we have to
overcome. This attitiude is the result of the Stalinist myths repeated
over and over again until the Socialist left came to believe that the
myth was truth.
Even totalitarian dictatorships are dependent on the population and the
societies they rule. Totalitarian power is strong only if it does not
have to be used too often. If totalitarian power must be used at all
times against the entire population, it is unlikely to remain powerful
for long. Since totalitarian regimes require more power for dealing with
their subjects than do other typesof government, such regimes stand in
greater need of widespread and dependable compliance habits among their
people. More than that they have to be able to count on the active
support of at least significant parts of the population. These regemes
can no longer count on a passive population and as a consequence have
destabalized internally.
Three of the most important factors in determining to what degree a
government’s power will be controlled or uncontrolled therefore are: (1)
the relative desire of the populace to impose limits on the government’s
power; (2) the relative strength of the subjects’independent
organizations and institutions to withdraw collectively the sources of
power; and (3) the population’s relative ability to withhold their
consent and assistance.
Qaddafi in particular has maintained his power base by manipulating
tribalism within the Liberian state. He depends on security forces
largely run by his sons and closest supporters with a weak army and a
decentralized state apparatus. His power base is a very tiny and
disentragiting clique.
Dictatorships have specific characteristics that render them highly
vulnerable to skillfully implemented political defiance. Dictatorships
often appear invulnerable. Intelligence agencies, police, military
forces, prisons, concentration camps, and execution squads are
controlled by a powerful few. A country’s finances, natural resources,
and production capacities are often arbitrarily plundered by dictators
and used to support the dictators’ will. In comparison, democratic and
working class opposition forces often appear extremely weak,
ineffective, and powerless. That perception of invulnerability against
powerlessness makes effective opposition unlikely.
In Tunisia, Egypt, Baraine, Algeria and now Libya the mask of repession
has slipped. The dictatorships have been exposed. The plunder has been
exposed. Massive unemployment and skyrocketing food prices triggered
the Tunisian and Egyptian upsurges and the Egyptian upsurge and defeat
of the dictatorship triggered the Libyan demonstrations.
Qaddafi's own response of massive violence against unarmed peaceful
demonstrators backfired and has led to his regimes destabalization.
It's not outside influence by the U.S.A. that has created this
situation. It is political resistance of the type we all seek to create
with our demonstrations and organizations in the advanced capitalist
countries that has created the situation in the Middle East and Northern
Africa.
Resistance of this order is what progressives and Marxists the world
over can can look to and learn major lessons from. Albeit there are
major problems with "regime change" not led by a class struggle
leadership and those problems are starting to show in the Egyptian
situation. The military still rules in Egypt and may impose one
dictatorship for another but the popular uprising will pose limits on that.
Political defiance whether in demonstrations or any of a hundred other
ways we are all familar with does not accept that the outcome will be
decided by the means of fighting or repression chosen by the
dictatorship. As such, it is difficult for the regime to combat. It
has aggravated weaknesses of the dictatorship and has severed its
sources of power. This leads to errors of judgment and action by the
dictators such as Qaddafi's unleashing of violent military action and
using his airforce to shoot demonstrators from helicopters. The heroic
response of the Libyan people to continue the fight has broken the back
of the military. Qaddafi is now depending on the security forces of the
few remaining supporters and has no viable base to depend on to retain
power.
What has amazed me in all these struggles has been that they are being
carried out by peaceful resistance in the main and that in Libya this
political resistance has lead to the armed forces splintering and
turning over arms to the people. As noted earlier, all governments can
rule only as long as they have the cooperation, submission,and obedience
of the population and the institutions of the society. Political
defiance, unlike violence, is uniquely suited to stop the sources of
power of these regimes.
It is to the enormous power of people in the streets or people defying
the power of the state that we must look to see how that great
revolutionary potiential can be utilized for social change in our own
countries. If we learn one lesson, it is that power comes from the
street. Social change comes from mass political defiance not from a few
people painting slogans on a wall or a few anarchist youth breaking a
few windows, but from mass opposition to the existing order. These are
the lessons I have learned over 40 years in the struggle first in the
Viet Nam anti war movement and later in enumerable social and union
struggles.
Yours
Rennie Amundsen
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