Comrades,
>
> Rafael Writes
>
> Comrades I think that these subjects are very
> important I want just appoint some general aspects
> based in my observations in Sweden.
Did Sweden have any colonies?
> First the historical imperialist dominations process I
> can say that the evolution is from a colonial form to
> a semi- colonial forms in terms of state dominations,
> but the exploitation in economical terms is even
> harder today than in times of brutal colonialism. But
> now the most powerful and active in the unjust
> relations is the multinational companies not any more
> national states.
That's true but the imperialist nation state will step in if the interests
of its multinationals are threatened as in the case if Chile under Salvador
Allende.
You're right about the worse level of exploitation but from the perspective
of people in a former colony, it's harder to see a local subsidiary of a
multinational company as an enemy than it is to see a colonial master as an
enemy.
For example, during the British colonial period, Malayans were discriminated
in terms of opportunities to advance in their careers both in the civil
service, military, police and corporations, since the managerial and higher
supervisory posts generally went to the British.
In the medical services, equally qualified Malayan doctors could only become
"Assistant-Doctors" and no doubt the exploitation of workers in the
plantations and estates was harsh.
Even the best opportunities in business went to British companies when
tendering for government contracts and all this created a lot of resentment
against colonial rule which was a major factor contributing to the support
for the Communist Party of Malaya and other national bourgeois independence
movements.
However, now the situation has changed with Malaysians even heading some
local subsidiaries of multinational companies such as IBM, SAP, Oracle,
Texas Instruments, Motorola and so on.
Furthermore, if the workers have a grievance against a local subsidiary of a
multinational company, they can take their complaint to several government
bodies to seek redress or even take the company to court.
Malaysia also has certain particular circumstances which make some
Malaysians prefer working for multinational companies and that is a racist,
aparthied-like policy which gives special priveleges to one race the Malays
in terms of employment, places in educational institutions, business
opportunities and so on -- a policy which vrey effectively created a racial
divide which is very hard for leftists and progressives to overcome.
This policy was enshrined in the constitution by the British and it
initially was to run for 10 years as a sort of affirmative-action programme
to enable the Malays who were generally agrarian people better compete with
the immigrant Chinese, Indians (East-Indians) and Eurasians who were
generally urban, since the British colonialists had kept the in rural
activities and relied on immigrants to work in the government, services and
corporations out of fear that the Malays would soon start demanding
independence.
When Malaya became independent, a coalition government comprising three
comprador capitalist parties -- the United Malays National Organisation
(UMNO), the Malayan Chinese Association and the Malayan Indian Congress were
in power and while they had some differences over certain aspects of this
special privileges, they all generally agreed to it and Malayan politics has
since been polarised along racial, rather than class lines which suits the
local capitalists fine.
Following the May 13, 1969 racial riots over these special privlieges, the
Malaysian government extended the period of these special privileges
indefinitely and introduced what it calls the "New Economic Policy" to bring
Malays up into all areas of government services, state-owned industries and
private industry.
So the civil, police and military services first became staffed mainly by
Malays, followed by strategic industries like telecommunications, public
utilites, then state-owned enterprises -- many of which have since been
corporatised with a major government equity, then the private corporations
owned by people or holding companies owned by UMNO and to a leser extent
even multinational companies dealing in petroleum, telecommunications and
others which supply equipment to the government agencies or state-owned
enterprises.
The government also requires that only companies with at least 70% Malay
equity can tender for government contracts and this has resulted in the
multinationals creating largely Malay-owned front companies to tender for
government or state-enterprise contracts while they supply the equipment and
do the turnkey installation and commissioning through these front companies.
Also, these state-owned companies or companies with political connections
hire mainly Malay workers at all levels and this has created a lot of
resentment among the Chinese, Indians and Eurasians, leading to many
professionals, skilled workers and business people from these races
migrating to places like Australia and Canada.
The only places where this discriminatory policy are more relaxed are in the
factories and assembly plants owned by multinationals though the
semiconductor and electronic assembly plants generally employ a majority of
Malay assembly line workers, along with workers of other races.
This creates a situation where on the one hand, Malay workers feel that the
government provides them with employment security and thus they are loyal to
the government, while while on the other the non-Malays see the
multinationals providing them with employment opportunities, rather than as
exploiters.
This is why, especially non-Malay skilled workers, professionals and
business people are generally ambivalent to or even in favour the entry of
the IMF into Malaysian economic affairs and also imperialist
globalisation -- believing that they would remove this special privileges
policy and give them better economic opportunities and it's very difficult
to argue with them.
Some Malays are also ambivalent to or favour imperialist intervention since
they feel excluded from opportunities by the cronyism which has developed
within UMNO which is reflected in the conflict between the prime minister
Mahathir and his former deputy Anwar Ibrahim.
Malaysian politics is now split between the ruling coalition called the
Barisan Nasional (National Front) which was expanded in the 1970's to
include the original three racially-based bourgeois parties and other
multi-racial jounior partners in the one hand and the Barsian Alternatif
(Alternative Front) comprising the Keadailan (Justice) party headed by
Anwar's wife, the largely Malay, Pan Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS), the
largely Chinese, social democratic Democratic Action Party and the largely
Malay, left nationalist Malaysian People Party (PRM) on the other.
The Marxist, Parti Sosialis Malaysia (Malaysian Socialist Party) is not in
either coalition but supports some of the Alternative Front's objectives,
hoping that it will open up more political space for it to operate.
At this point in time, only UMNO is interested (most probably just paying
lip service) in anti-imperialism and anti-globalisation, mainly to protect
their own bourgeois interests.
Mahathir is not totally opposed to globalisation nor to imperialist
investment in Malaysia but wants to have some control over its worse
aspects.
Besides that, there are some progressive NGOs like the Third World Network
and individuals like myself who speak up against it.
Well that's the Malaysian situation today and it's quite a complex internal
situation which the imperialists can easily exploit to their favour.
Perhaps opposition -- especially among affected workers -- will grow against
it once the worst effects of imperialist globalisation are felt after
Malaysia opens up its economy according to terms dictated by the WTO.
Already bank workers are being retrenched as Malaysian banks merge to face
competition from the imperilist banks which will have the freedom to open as
many branches as they want after restirctions are lifted in 2003.
Foreign banks like Standard Chartered and Hongkong Bank have already
retrenched some staff through voluntary separation following their
computerisation and automation of many commercial banking activities to let
customers do most of their banking activities themselves.
> In general the left parties specially communists have
> reduced a lot in it's international activities. At the
> contrary the bourgeois (ruling) class has intensified
> its cooperation form of work globally. They have at
> least well globalised coordination en the finance and
> communication sectors.
And imperialist funds to back various NGOs -- especially "civil-society"
NGOs
> One of the weakest fields for left forces is that we
> have too little control or influence of the mass
> media, whereas our enemies control almost all means of
> communication. In hole world just nine multinational
> companies own almost all mass media. In Sweden an
> Scandinavia just two familjes.
Yes, indeed that is a major problem and as even third-world developing
countries like Malaysia open up their TV channels to internal newsagencies
like CNN, the more the extent of penetration of imperialist ideology.
> I thin that if we will grow and defeat the capitalism
> we have to conquest the alternative cheaper means of
> communications such as Internet, study groups. Now if
> we see the left Internet sites for example it is very
> inefficient compared with the private commercial
> sites. Ok they have much more money but we cannot
> change the situation of we don't discuss globally this
> subject and do something.
It's going to be rather difficult for left publications, whether online or
print to match the efficiency of commercial publications with its full-time
staff but leftist organisations should bother more about the content, rather
than slick form.
However, there is an example in Malaysia of an opposition party's
twice-weekly internal organ which managed to beat the circulation of major
bourgeois newspapers.
The party is the Pan Malaysian Islamic Party of (PAS) and despite government
regulations on the sale of party organs to the general public, PAS' organ
Harakah was widely available, especially on newstands run by individual
merchants.
It also has a website at http://www.harakahdaily.com/ (which has been
suffering from overcapacity problems lately) but I believe that it was its
print edition which helped it come second in the last general elections in
November 1999 and displace the social democratic Democratic Action Party
(DAP) as leader of the opposition. Most of PAS support is the rural northern
states of peninsular Malaysia where there is relatively low Internet
penetration compared to the major cities and towns.
PAS is well funded and following its electoral gains, the Malaysian
government got alarmed and restricted publication of Harakah to twice a
month from twice a week while allowing unlimited freedom to publish on the
Internet and that should tell us how ineffective the Internet really is
today in terms of reaching the broad masses, especially in Third World
countries -- despite what Internet "wallahs" here and people like Ben
Seattle in the United States like to think about the "effectiveness" of the
Internet in reaching the broad masses.
> I think that on order to change this situation we have
> to analyze more Antonio gramsci's theories about
> "cultural hegemony of the ruling classes against the
> other classes" I mean that the imperialist way to
> manage information (maybe disinformation) we have to
> oppose with other anti-imperialist way.
There are bodies in Malaysia which try an counter this influence, especially
the Consumers Association of Penang but it's paper is rather hard to find in
the newstands today.
However the weight of neo-liberal and libertarian ideology flowing in
through the Internet and the imperialists' media channels is overwhelming
and even leftists seem to find it quite acceptible for militants to
"demonstrate in their Levis and smoke Marlboros and visit Starbucks" after a
demontration or picket.
> If you have some interest in discuss subjects related
> to Internet as a strategic mass media for the left
> movements I would enjoy to participate in.
>
> Greetings
> Rafael
My short answer to that is that the Internet can and should be used as a
tool for information dissemination and communication and organisation by
leftists but we should not rely too much on it, especially since Internet
communication is certainly not private and can and has been intercepted by
the imperialists.
Furthermore, as mentioned in my example of PAS and Harakah above, the
Internet is generally available to bourgeois, petty-bourgeois and upper
strata workers and less available to the blue-collar workers and peasantry,
so leftists are going to have to find ways of locally printing out
Internet-based content for people in their respective areas.
I still remember the days when activists produced leaflets by manually
cranking a duplicating machine with a stencil inside it -- not to mention
the gooey black ink that they had to feed it from a tube.
Back then, there was no Internet, word processors nor even PCs but people
were somehow much more militant and politically aware (in the correct
direction) then that they are today.
Fraternally
Charles
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