You are simply wrong to claim that we don’t support the Kurdish national
liberation struggle. In the document which you criticize we say: “As the
RCIT has repeatedly pointed out, we refuse any political support for the
bourgeois-Islamist Erdoğan government. We support the right of national
self-determination of the Kurdish people.” (Thesis 7,
https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/war-clouds-in-eastern-mediterranean/
<https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/war-clouds-in-eastern-mediterranean/>)
Similar we state in the more extended theses “Turkey and the Growing
Tensions in Eastern Mediterranean”: “14. In terms of domestic politics,
the Erdoğan regime is a government based on a bourgeois-parliamentary
system which increasingly takes bonapartist features. However, calling
it “fascist” as many Stalinists are doing is a silly caricature of the
very term. Furthermore, another important feature ofErdoğan’s domestic
policy is the intensified national oppression of the Kurdish minority.
Revolutionaries in Turkey fight for a workers and poor peasant republic
and the unconditional right of national self-determination for the
Kurdish people.”
(https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/turkey-and-the-growing-tensions-in-eastern-mediterranean/
<https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/turkey-and-the-growing-tensions-in-eastern-mediterranean/>)
What we don’t do – in contrast to you – is to support and cheer the YPG
which serves as foot soldiers of U.S. imperialism since more than five
years.
Hence, your analogy with the Libyan rebels (which you continue to smear
as racist) is unfounded. You say: “But RKOB seems to have a double
standard. In 2011 the Libyan rebels were allied with NATO in the
campaign to overthrow Gaddafi. Yet RKOB does not denounce them as
pro-imperialist.”
The “little difference” between the YPG and the Libyan rebels is that
the later started and waged the struggle independent and that the
intervention by NATO (and their collusion with elements of the rebel
leadership) was episodically. The Western imperialists never could bring
the country under their full control. Hence, not long after the downfall
of Gaddafi the U.S. Ambassador was killed and nearly all imperialist
embassies were evacuated. No NATO troops were stationed – may be some
special troops operated in secret here and there but there were no
military basis.
You might also remember that Obama – in his final long interview -
mentioned the military intervention in Libya as one of his big mistakes.
Guess why?!
And if the GNA government would be loyal servants of imperialist Great
Powers why did they not support it with substantial military aid in the
past years?! In contrast, they either stay neutral or support Haftar.
Now compare this to the years-long relationship of the YPG and US
imperialism. You have US troops on the ground, close collaboration,
military bases – and all this since many years!
One must be really totally blind to ignore the difference!
Am 20.09.2020 um 10:52 schrieb Chris Slee:
RKOB acknowledges that "Turkey is oppressing the Kurds", but downplays
this by saying that the oppression of the Kurds is "an important issue
but not the only one in this region". Of course it is not the "only"
issue, but since it is "important" then we should express our
solidarity with those fighting for Kurdish rights against the Turkish
state - including the PKK and YPG/YPJ. But RKOB does not do so.
He claims that the YPG is "circling around US imperialism". I assume
he is referring to the cooperation between the Syrian Democratic
Forces and the US in fighting against ISIS.
But RKOB seems to have a double standard. In 2011 the Libyan rebels
were allied with NATO in the campaign to overthrow Gaddafi. Yet RKOB
does not denounce them as pro-imperialist.
RKOB denies that the Libyan rebels were racist. They included a
diverse mixture of political ideologies, so I will not generalise
about the whole rebel movement. But certainly a powerful section of
the rebel movement was extremely racist.
The rebel militia from the city of Misrata ethnically cleansed the
black population of the nearby town of Tawergha, destroying their
homes and driving them away, causing them to flee to refugee camps in
other cities. Even after the war against Gaddafi was over, the
Misrata militia refused to allow the refugees to return for more than
6 years. In 2018 an agreement was reached that they would no longer
be blocked from returning, but as far as I know few have done so,
because of the devastated condition of the town, and because of
continuing fear of the Misrata militia.
In judging whether the Turkish-backed Government of National Accord is
better than the Haftar forces, their attitude towards black people,
including the refugees from Tawergha, would be one criterion (not the
only one, of course). I have not studied this question sufficiently
to form a definite opinion on this.
Chris Slee
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*From:* [email protected] <[email protected]> on behalf of RKOB
<[email protected]>
*Sent:* Saturday, 19 September 2020 4:38 PM
*To:* [email protected] <[email protected]>
*Subject:* Re: [marxmail] War Clouds in Eastern Mediterranean
In my opinion, there are the following problems in your argument.
1) You say, rightly, that Turkey is oppressing the Kurds. This is
surely true and has to be opposed by all socialists and democrats. But
in contrast to the perception of you and other supporters of the YPG,
politics in the Middle East does not circle around the Kurdish
question. It is rather the YPG which is circling around U.S.
imperialism (and sometimes other holders of power like Assad).
You can not and should not judge all states and forces primarily by
what they say on the Kurdish issue. It is an important issue but not
the only one in this region.
2) You say: “Erdogan's desire to make Turkey more influential in the
Middle East - to make it more like an imperialist power.” We can
discuss about Erdoğan’s “desire”. But this is not decisive for
Marxists. It is the objective role of different forces in a given
conflict. There have been national liberation movements in history
fighting under the banner of Islam which might have “desired” to
create a “global caliphate”. However, objectively they were fighting
the occupation by British, French or US imperialism. Apologists of
imperialism took this ideological mantle as a pretext to denounce such
struggles. Communists don’t do this.
It is necessary to have not an impressionistic characterization of a
state (“the desire of its head is …”) but an objective class analysis
of its political and economic position. A brief summary of our
analysis of Turkey can be read in chapter V of this book:
https://www.thecommunists.net/theory/world-perspectives-2018/
<https://www.thecommunists.net/theory/world-perspectives-2018/>
3) The difference between the Libyan GNA government and General Haftar
is similar to the difference between Morsi and General Sisi in Egypt.
Or, to give another analogy, between the Erdoğan government and the
Turkish military dictatorships from 1980 onwards. Yes, they are all
bourgeois. Yes, they all collaborate in one way or another with this
or that Great Power. But if you are blind to recognize the difference
between a semi-democratic bourgeois parliamentary system and a
full-blown dictatorship, you repeat the nonsense of the Stalinist
“social-fascism” theory of the late 1920s and early 1930s.
It is because you are incapable to recognize this difference that you
put the foreign intervention of Saudi Arabia/UAE on the same level as
Turkey’s. One attempts to bloody crush a liberation struggle. The
other tries to exploit and manipulate it (in order to finally
liquidate it). “In the end” it is all the same. Likewise, “in the end”
we will be all dead. But in the meantime we can do a few things if we
are not instantly killed! Serious political people must not ignore
this difference!
4) It is a well-known slander of pro-Gaddafi people to denounce the
Libyan Revolution as “anti-Black racist”. Behind this is the claim
that the Gaddafi dictatorship had been somehow better for Black
people. There is no doubt, that there exist (and always existed)
anti-Black chauvinist trends in the Arab world. But the Libyan
Revolution did not centre around the issue of Black people and did not
follow an agenda of “anti-Black racism”. This is Gaddafian slander of
the revolutionary process and a cheap excuse for refusing to take
sides in the civil war (see only this e.g. the second half of our
essay:
https://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/
<https://www.thecommunists.net/theory/liberation-struggle-and-imperialism/>).
--
Revolutionär-Kommunistische Organisation BEFREIUNG
(Österreichische Sektion der RCIT,www.thecommunists.net
<http://www.thecommunists.net>)
www.rkob.net <http://www.rkob.net>
[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
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Revolutionär-Kommunistische Organisation BEFREIUNG
(Österreichische Sektion der RCIT, www.thecommunists.net)
www.rkob.net
[email protected]
Tel./SMS/WhatsApp/Telegram: +43-650-4068314
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