Re: M-TH: Re: "Kosova revisionists let NATO off the hook"
Rob, hi.. I did not mean to imply that Indonesia's scorched earth policy was inititated 24 years prior (you are right in saying that its catalyst was the referendum), what I was trying to say and obviously I did not do it to clearly was that there had been an ongoing repression of the East Timorese for 24 years which included murder and destruction, this was just intensified to a scorched earth policy last year after the referendum. I agree there is Australia is still well ensconced in its imperialist role (something which of course GLW and the DSP are well aware of, and will continue to campaign against). I'm not saying it put a stop to imperialism, what I am saying is that it went against the imperialist policies that had been established and it did put a bit of a spoke in the relationship between Australia and Indonesia (if only for a little while). I agree some of my arguements were a bit simplistic (and probably still are), I have to admit I am still getting a hang of polemicising and I am not as well versed in marxist theory as I would like to be - (give me a couple more years or so though ). comradely, Kim B On Mon, 24 Jan 2000, Rob Schaap wrote: > G'day Kim, > >This is the case with East Timor ... UN > >intervention went against 24 years of Indonesian and Australian > >imperialist policy. Without it, Indonesia would have continued its > >scorched earth policy of murder and destruction. > > Er, it was the materially unsupported referendum proposal that started the > scorched earth policy of the Indonesians/militias, Kim! There WAS a time > for armed peacekeepers, and that was when something approximating a peace > pertained - before and during the vote! Habibie wasn't up to allowing > that, of course (although, personally, he seemed all for it), and concerted > foreign pressure (of the kind the US is happily exerting now) would have > been necessary 18 months ago. Australian and UN intervention started the > slaughter, for mine (and, I suspect, CNRT complicity, too - they didn't > lift a finger to help their people when the chips were down, as a good bit > of 'murder-of-the-innocents' footage was politically awfully useful - just > a suspicion, mind). > > And Australia's imperialist policy has been impeded exactly how? We seem > nicely ensconced in the chair, for mine. You know I didn't oppose > intervention - but that was because I saw only one alternative future once > the vote had been cast (for ET and Indonesia alike), and it promised to be > far worse than imperialist rule from Canberra. It's still imperialist rule > from Canberra though, innit? > > >But I guess that would have been okay, because then dogmatists could say > >"well, isn't it terrible that the East Timorese were massacred, but at > >least we stuck to our principles ..., we have a cut and dried absolutist > >position that says no compromises with imperialism, to bad this meant that > >any chance of working class revolution that may have exist will not occur > >now because there is no working class because they have all been massacre. > >But hey, we did stick to our 'on principle' objections". > > Here I agree with you and the GLW completely - but, as I think Bob's > position is not usefully nuanced here, so do I think yours is lacking. > > Yours ever-compromisingly, > Rob. > > > > > --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- > --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
Re: M-TH: Re: "Kosova revisionists let NATO off the hook"
Sorry I have taken a couple of days to reply, but I have not been at the computer for the last couple of days. To reply to David, I would agree with what Rob said in his post regarding the TNI/Indonesia forces. Yes, while it is true Falintil had orders to wait, the Indonesian forces could have easily overrun the Independence forces if they had choosen too. One of our comrades spent a week or so with some of the Falintil forces, and while he said they were willing to fight they were underarmed and many were starving and were concentrating on protecting those people who had fleed to the townships. I would also agree with Rob's comments on imperialism that imperialism is a relationship not a status. comradely, Kim B On Tue, 25 Jan 2000, Rob Schaap wrote: > Hi again, > > >To claim as the Green Left does that the E Timorese were in > >danger of extermination is to echo the imperialist line that the E > >TImorese were helpless at the hands of Wiranto. This is not true, if > >they were rendered helpless it was at the hands of the imperialists. > > If Djakarta had seriously suspected no foreign displeasure would be > forthcoming, they could have kept the East Timorese independence forces > down quite easily - as indeed they had done for a quarter of a century (I > doubt they'd ever have wiped 'em out militarily without huge cost - but > then it was never really necessary to go that extra yard as long as the > Anglo-Saxons kept their noses out of it - the money had been getting to the > right places reliably enough). > > >This is why we say imperialists hands off! Arm the resistance fighters! > > There are quite a few of those. There always have been. I suspect some > will quietly be armed (after they're legitimised over a year or two) ... > and some will not (amongst whom, I confidently predict, shall be numbered > the rapidly growing Socialist Party membership). > > >For a Constituent Assembly in East Timor! > > Until, I suppose, a bolshevik party develops and has to dissolve it on > account of how it alone represents the working class, be the members of > that class witting or otherwise. > > Doesn't matter, really. East Timorese would as likely end up shooting East > Timorese as under my own sad expectations. Imperialism has long ago > created its beneficiaries, its victims and its associated fragmenting > identities. All a new hegemon can do is rearrange the lifeboats on a > Titanic thoughtfully pre-holed by the manufacturers. > > Keep the Prozac handy and watch this space. > > Anyway, I do actually agree with the slogan, Dave. I just think the timing > is more important than it might suggest. If a formally sovereign > constituent assembly were voted in over the next few months - before the > occupying force has a chance to put some lead in the appropriate saddlebags > - I reckon East Timor has a half-chance of relative peace as an essentially > social-democratic republic, integrated into a world system that will feed > it in return for its immanent potential. If a parliament takes two > foreign-authored years to come about, I reckon we'll have a > robber-baron-cum-compradorial elite at the despatch box, and gunfire at the > treeline. > > I tend not to hold great hopes for a socialism-in-one-microscopic-dot > project. Surely it is not ours to look to the East Timors of this world > for democratic-socialist sovereignty? World change is where it's at, I > reckon. The bourgouisie with which accounts must be settled don't live > atop the local hill anymore, and the dangerous linkages capitalism has > produced between the workers of the world are no longer decisively those of > the shop-floor. As our BHP workers confront the local manifestation of the > world-bourgeoisie's war against workers, they know it will not be won > somewhere in the West Australian desert, but rather by workers around the > world perceiving their own interests in those of the Australian few. > Workers of the world actually can unite nowadays. Let's hope such unity > might be forthcoming before once again workers have nothing left to lose > but their chains. > > And, by the way, this rigorous definition of imperialism doesn't cut it, > for mine. Imperialism is a relationship rather than a status. Sure, > Indonesia relates to the US and Japan as colony to empire - but so did East > Timor relate thus to Indonesia. Australia is both imperial and colonial, > too, I reckon - depends on which relationship you're looking at. > > Yours morosely pedantic, > Rob. > > > > > > > > > --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- > --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
Re: M-TH: Re: "Kosova revisionists let NATO off the hook"
Kim replies; > > Bob, > yes GLW did support UN intervention into East Timor. The reason for this > was made clear in a number of articles (which I hope you took the time to > read, and not just the Australian Sparticist coverage of the issues). > At no time did any of the article in GLW down play the imperialist nature > of the UN, what we did focus on was whether the working class in East > Timor would be helped in this particular case by the intervention of the > UN. In the case of East Timor, the working class were being annilated. > They could not defend themselves, Falintil was in disarray and under > armed. Well I don´t believe this other then it being a left cover. I mean talking about the horrible (Indonesian government troops) and Australian troops being better! Ha Ha. Lets look at the record. For example Australian troops in Vietnam, or how about the barbarity of the Australian government in relationship to the Aborigines? Or how about Bougainville, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Irian Jaya. Ging back even futher during WW2 the Libian people saw Australian troops as the most brutal raciist murders to ever march across their country. In reality the fake left and the Greens were tailing the labor bureaucracy in Australia on this stuff and once more playing the little drummer boys for working class youth to go off and occupy another country in the interests of hardly the Eastt Timorese people but their own interests. > > To "on principle" reject UN intervention into East Timor because it is an > imperialist tool is dogmatic and I have to admit that I am getting sick > and tied of people who from their warm safe homes who aren't having > their immediate family raped and killed, preaching about socialist > absolutes and principles. It is not. And Lenin was quite specific on the role of the UN of his time as being the "figleaf" of imperialism. > > Lenin warns against this dogmatism in Left Wing Communism: An Infantile > Disorder. In Left Wing Communism, Lenin cites the "on principle" > opposition to negotiating the Brest-Litovsk Treaty with imperialists to > bring peace between Russia and Germany. Lenin says "to reject compromises > "on principle", to reject permissiability of compromises in general, no > matter what kind, is childishness, which it is difficult even to consider > seriously. A political leader who desires to be useful to the > revolutionary proletriat must be able to distinguish concrete cases of > compromises that are inexcusable and are an expression of opportunism and > treachery" Comparing a tactical approach advanced by and encircled victorious proletarian revolution and using it to justify your own capitulation to little Australian imperialism is quite mind boggling. But I guess ya need a left cover for sending the boys off to die. However I think the line of "not one penny to the military" is more appropriate here. And as far as Lenin supporting just wars well this is true to a certain degree. But hardly in the light of GLW playing little drummer boy for its own ruling class under the guise of "forcing" them to intervene. In fact I believe Lenin was quite explicite in always seoperating the reds from the blues and always in the context of pointing out that in the final analisis the "main enemy is at home".. By the way this is hardly and isolated innodent. But a line which as been followed by the "left" for quite a long time not in the least in the imperialist attempts to destroy thee former SU and there tto they were siding with imperialism .. So no you don´t convince me. Espoecially when at best your are trying to reform trhe foreign policy of the little rascist imperialists Australian ruling class aND ITS HISTORICAL BLOOD SOAKED HANDS WHICH YOU HAVE BEEN COMPLETELY SILENT ABOUT. Warm regards Bob Malecki --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
Re: M-TH: Re: "Kosova revisionists let NATO off the hook"
Nice piece. Except one must take up China in all of this and not in the least the growing inter-imperialist rivalry with Japan.. Bob -- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Re: M-TH: Re: "Kosova revisionists let NATO off the hook" > Date: den 24 januari 2000 14:21 > > Kim wrote: > > > > >In his polemic against Kautsky and in Socialism and War, Lenin argues that > > >socialists need to look at whether particular wars benefit imperialist > > >powers or the working class struggle. If they do not then socialists can > > >and should support them. This is the case with East Timor ... UN > > >intervention went against 24 years of Indonesian and Australian > > >imperialist policy. Without it, Indonesia would have continued its > > >scorched earth policy of murder and destruction. > > First of all, Indonesia is not imperialist. It is a semi-colony > dominated by US and Japanese capital. In a war with either we > would defend Indonesia. In relation to E Timor, the benefits of the > occupation enriched some Indonesian bourgeois and army > generals, and some Australian oil companies, but the main reason > for the invasion in 1975 was to comply with US policy to fight > communism in the 1970's. > > It is true that US policy no longer needs an occupied E Timor. > SInce the end of the Cold War and US unrivalled world hegemony, > it attempts to achieve its goals by democratic means if possible. It > is not possible actually, since imperialist super-exploitation > requires the use of force to destroy resistance. > > Therefore it is not true that the UN intervention breaks with > imperialist policy of the last 24 years. It continues that policy by > using the apparently peaceful face of imperialism ie the UN to cover > for its ongoing super-exploitation. > > So it is true that imperialism can work in the interests of workers > and peasants, even in the short term. Just as Lenin did not argue > that workers should have supported Britain or France to liberate > Belgium, we do not support Australia liberating East Timor. Why? > Because the cure is worse than the disease. The UN occupation of > E Timor makes it very difficult for the E Timorese workers and > peasants to have a real anti-imperialist revolution which goes all the > way to socialism. The UN troops will not allow the liberation > fighters to break with the new national bourgeoisie fo Gusmao and > Co. > > Rob at least recognises this, but says that without the Australian > intervention more, if not all, of the E Timorese workers would have > perished. But this does not take into account that the E Timorese > freedom fighters, if they have not been required by the UN and > Gusmao to remain in their camps, could have defended the > population. Those who wanted to were told by Gusmao not to for > fear that worse reprisals would follow. This makes a mockery of the > deaths of 100,000's of freedom fighters since 1975. > > To claim as the Green Left does that the E Timorese were in > danger of extermination is to echo the imperialist line that the E > TImorese were helpless at the hands of Wiranto. This is not true, if > they were rendered helpless it was at the hands of the imperialists. > This is why we say imperialists hands off! Arm the resistance > fighters! For a Constituent Assembly in East Timor! For a > federation of socialist republics in Asia and the Pacific! > > Dave > > > >But I guess that would have been okay, because then dogmatists could say > > >"well, isn't it terrible that the East Timorese were massacred, but at > > >least we stuck to our principles ..., we have a cut and dried absolutist > > >position that says no compromises with imperialism, to bad this meant that > > >any chance of working class revolution that may have exist will not occur > > >now because there is no working class because they have all been massacre. > > >But hey, we did stick to our 'on principle' objections". > > > > > >Kim B > > > > > > > > > > --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- > > > > > --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
Re: M-TH: Re: "Kosova revisionists let NATO off the hook"
Chris replies; > > In Bob's opinion - but that does not address the issues. As usual Bob takes > a very abstract approach to being revolutionary: it is enough to say > revolutionary sounding things, but not to expect that progressive people > can intervene concretely in any situation to take the leadership away from > the ruling class. It is a battle fought entirely on the terrain of > revolutionary rhetoric. Well, I certainly do not think I am abstract at all. I don´t believe in "progressive" peoples but the independent mobilization of the working class which is the only class capable of overthrowing any "ruling class". > > It also reveals a failure to understand the progressive reasons for > upholding the right of nations to self determination. That by no means > necessarily entails supporting the imperialist nature of the war that NATO > waged. If we make distinctions and avoid remaining stuck in one-sidedness, > we can see that it might well have entailed supporting the right of the > Kosovans to armed resistance. However as the Green Left article argues one > of the imperialist objectives in Yugoslavia was to be a condescending > saviour and avoid supporting the responsibility of the Kosovans to claim > the right to self-determination, almost certainly because of racist and > imperialist prejudice against muslims. Yeah sure Chris. But if we are going to talk about the "right of self determination" one should talk about the imperialist attack on Serbia in order to stick up the former Yugoslavia. In fact the national question in regards to the Kosovos became immediately subordinated to the imperialist intervention. And in Bosnian earlier there was no national question (Croatia either) but different groupos of people occuipying the same territory and turning it into a nationalist and communalist bloodbath. Bob Malecki --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
Re: M-TH: Re: "Kosova revisionists let NATO off the hook"
rOB WRITES... > > Well, we've already talked about Rwanda '91-'95. If Burundi is irrevocably > on that terrible path, I favour the same sort of intervention as the > Guardian was calling for from the starter's hatchet in Rwanda. Well, when we look at Africa it must be in the context of the destruction of the SU which "supported" all of these movements here and there. Today many of these ex "marxist" guerrills are playing all kinds of games with varying degrees of different imperialist powers who want a piece of Africa. Burundi must be seen in this light just as the whole operation in the former Zaire. But also the present new war going on at present between the Etriamns and Ethiopians. The only social force capable oof drastically changing the situation is the South african proletariat which at present is unfortunately tied to the post pro capitalist/imperoialistr government oof Nelson Mandela and his crowd. Warm regards Bob --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
Re: M-TH: Re: "Kosova revisionists let NATO off the hook"
On 25 Jan 00, at 1:59, Rob Schaap wrote: > Hi again, > > >To claim as the Green Left does that the E Timorese were in > >danger of extermination is to echo the imperialist line that the E > >TImorese were helpless at the hands of Wiranto. This is not true, if > >they were rendered helpless it was at the hands of the imperialists. > > If Djakarta had seriously suspected no foreign displeasure would be > forthcoming, they could have kept the East Timorese independence forces > down quite easily - as indeed they had done for a quarter of a century (I > doubt they'd ever have wiped 'em out militarily without huge cost - but > then it was never really necessary to go that extra yard as long as the > Anglo-Saxons kept their noses out of it - the money had been getting to the > right places reliably enough). > Yes exactly, the deal was Indonesia colonises E Timor in return for aid and other favours. But the bottom line was Indonesia remains a semi-colony super-exploited by the US and Japan, and to a much smaller degree Australia. I agree that the Australian ruling class benefitted from Timor Gap oil. But this is not sufficient to call it 'imperialist' given the massive extent to which Australia's surplus is extracted by Britian, the US, and Japan. The reference to Aussie being the sherrif's deputy politically is an accurate expression of the dependent economic relationship with the US. > >This is why we say imperialists hands off! Arm the resistance fighters! > > There are quite a few of those. There always have been. I suspect some > will quietly be armed (after they're legitimised over a year or two) ... > and some will not (amongst whom, I confidently predict, shall be numbered > the rapidly growing Socialist Party membership). Yes, but now in the legitimised UN social imperialist decolonisation process which renders them open to disarming by the UN and repression by Gusmao as soon as he gets his own army and police force operating. > >For a Constituent Assembly in East Timor! > > Until, I suppose, a bolshevik party develops and has to dissolve it on > account of how it alone represents the working class, be the members of > that class witting or otherwise. Why not? In Russia, who else represented the working class? The mensheviks? The argument that the Bolsheviks should not have dissolved the CA is based upon the bourgeois democratic norm that the majority of the population rules which includes the exploiters and independent producers whose class interests do not coincide with the working class. Russia was the classic demonstration of the necessity for permanent revolution in our epoch. The best that the Russian bourgeoisie could offer workers and peasants was Kornilov. Fortunately, the workers exercised their control of transport to fuck Kornilov up beautifully. Should we have said at that point. The workers can defeat reaction since they control the economy, but we have to give power back voluntarily to the vile bourgeoisie so that they can exploit us for another epoch before we qualify as the "revolutionary majority" according to the Menshie textbooks? > Doesn't matter, really. East Timorese would as likely end up shooting East > Timorese as under my own sad expectations. Imperialism has long ago > created its beneficiaries, its victims and its associated fragmenting > identities. All a new hegemon can do is rearrange the lifeboats on a > Titanic thoughtfully pre-holed by the manufacturers. > Anyway, I do actually agree with the slogan, Dave. I just think the timing > is more important than it might suggest. If a formally sovereign > constituent assembly were voted in over the next few months - before the > occupying force has a chance to put some lead in the appropriate saddlebags > - I reckon East Timor has a half-chance of relative peace as an essentially > social-democratic republic, integrated into a world system that will feed > it in return for its immanent potential. If a parliament takes two > foreign-authored years to come about, I reckon we'll have a > robber-baron-cum-compradorial elite at the despatch box, and gunfire at the > treeline. Like Haiti perhaps? There is no future in an bourgeois democratic revolution creating a breathing space for the mobilisation of the socialist forces. The opposite happens, the so called peacekeepers disarm the progressives and defend the local bourgeois and the agents of imperialism. This is what the UN does everywhere. As the Brit journal Living Marxism (which we are familiar with on this list) stated, the UN is now an "empire on which the sun never sets". The point about the demand for a CA is not that I think that an advanced bourgeois republic is possible. The opposite. IT is because it is NOT possible that mobilising the population around such a demand brings it up flat against the bourgeoisie's refusal to grant even minimal rights, and makes it clear to the masses that they have to go all the w
Re: M-TH: Re: "Kosova revisionists let NATO off the hook"
Hi again, >To claim as the Green Left does that the E Timorese were in >danger of extermination is to echo the imperialist line that the E >TImorese were helpless at the hands of Wiranto. This is not true, if >they were rendered helpless it was at the hands of the imperialists. If Djakarta had seriously suspected no foreign displeasure would be forthcoming, they could have kept the East Timorese independence forces down quite easily - as indeed they had done for a quarter of a century (I doubt they'd ever have wiped 'em out militarily without huge cost - but then it was never really necessary to go that extra yard as long as the Anglo-Saxons kept their noses out of it - the money had been getting to the right places reliably enough). >This is why we say imperialists hands off! Arm the resistance fighters! There are quite a few of those. There always have been. I suspect some will quietly be armed (after they're legitimised over a year or two) ... and some will not (amongst whom, I confidently predict, shall be numbered the rapidly growing Socialist Party membership). >For a Constituent Assembly in East Timor! Until, I suppose, a bolshevik party develops and has to dissolve it on account of how it alone represents the working class, be the members of that class witting or otherwise. Doesn't matter, really. East Timorese would as likely end up shooting East Timorese as under my own sad expectations. Imperialism has long ago created its beneficiaries, its victims and its associated fragmenting identities. All a new hegemon can do is rearrange the lifeboats on a Titanic thoughtfully pre-holed by the manufacturers. Keep the Prozac handy and watch this space. Anyway, I do actually agree with the slogan, Dave. I just think the timing is more important than it might suggest. If a formally sovereign constituent assembly were voted in over the next few months - before the occupying force has a chance to put some lead in the appropriate saddlebags - I reckon East Timor has a half-chance of relative peace as an essentially social-democratic republic, integrated into a world system that will feed it in return for its immanent potential. If a parliament takes two foreign-authored years to come about, I reckon we'll have a robber-baron-cum-compradorial elite at the despatch box, and gunfire at the treeline. I tend not to hold great hopes for a socialism-in-one-microscopic-dot project. Surely it is not ours to look to the East Timors of this world for democratic-socialist sovereignty? World change is where it's at, I reckon. The bourgouisie with which accounts must be settled don't live atop the local hill anymore, and the dangerous linkages capitalism has produced between the workers of the world are no longer decisively those of the shop-floor. As our BHP workers confront the local manifestation of the world-bourgeoisie's war against workers, they know it will not be won somewhere in the West Australian desert, but rather by workers around the world perceiving their own interests in those of the Australian few. Workers of the world actually can unite nowadays. Let's hope such unity might be forthcoming before once again workers have nothing left to lose but their chains. And, by the way, this rigorous definition of imperialism doesn't cut it, for mine. Imperialism is a relationship rather than a status. Sure, Indonesia relates to the US and Japan as colony to empire - but so did East Timor relate thus to Indonesia. Australia is both imperial and colonial, too, I reckon - depends on which relationship you're looking at. Yours morosely pedantic, Rob. --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
Re: M-TH: Re: "Kosova revisionists let NATO off the hook"
Kim wrote: > > >In his polemic against Kautsky and in Socialism and War, Lenin argues that > >socialists need to look at whether particular wars benefit imperialist > >powers or the working class struggle. If they do not then socialists can > >and should support them. This is the case with East Timor ... UN > >intervention went against 24 years of Indonesian and Australian > >imperialist policy. Without it, Indonesia would have continued its > >scorched earth policy of murder and destruction. First of all, Indonesia is not imperialist. It is a semi-colony dominated by US and Japanese capital. In a war with either we would defend Indonesia. In relation to E Timor, the benefits of the occupation enriched some Indonesian bourgeois and army generals, and some Australian oil companies, but the main reason for the invasion in 1975 was to comply with US policy to fight communism in the 1970's. It is true that US policy no longer needs an occupied E Timor. SInce the end of the Cold War and US unrivalled world hegemony, it attempts to achieve its goals by democratic means if possible. It is not possible actually, since imperialist super-exploitation requires the use of force to destroy resistance. Therefore it is not true that the UN intervention breaks with imperialist policy of the last 24 years. It continues that policy by using the apparently peaceful face of imperialism ie the UN to cover for its ongoing super-exploitation. So it is true that imperialism can work in the interests of workers and peasants, even in the short term. Just as Lenin did not argue that workers should have supported Britain or France to liberate Belgium, we do not support Australia liberating East Timor. Why? Because the cure is worse than the disease. The UN occupation of E Timor makes it very difficult for the E Timorese workers and peasants to have a real anti-imperialist revolution which goes all the way to socialism. The UN troops will not allow the liberation fighters to break with the new national bourgeoisie fo Gusmao and Co. Rob at least recognises this, but says that without the Australian intervention more, if not all, of the E Timorese workers would have perished. But this does not take into account that the E Timorese freedom fighters, if they have not been required by the UN and Gusmao to remain in their camps, could have defended the population. Those who wanted to were told by Gusmao not to for fear that worse reprisals would follow. This makes a mockery of the deaths of 100,000's of freedom fighters since 1975. To claim as the Green Left does that the E Timorese were in danger of extermination is to echo the imperialist line that the E TImorese were helpless at the hands of Wiranto. This is not true, if they were rendered helpless it was at the hands of the imperialists. This is why we say imperialists hands off! Arm the resistance fighters! For a Constituent Assembly in East Timor! For a federation of socialist republics in Asia and the Pacific! Dave > >But I guess that would have been okay, because then dogmatists could say > >"well, isn't it terrible that the East Timorese were massacred, but at > >least we stuck to our principles ..., we have a cut and dried absolutist > >position that says no compromises with imperialism, to bad this meant that > >any chance of working class revolution that may have exist will not occur > >now because there is no working class because they have all been massacre. > >But hey, we did stick to our 'on principle' objections". > > > >Kim B > > > > > --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
Re: M-TH: Re: "Kosova revisionists let NATO off the hook"
Before I get into needless trouble, I'd better point out that I'm agreeing with Lenin on the quoted bits of *Infantile Disorder* (not that I quite agree with the whole book) - and only disagreeing here with the application of Lenin's polemical poke at Kautsky [on evaluating wars] to the East Timor situation. Cheers, Rob. >In his polemic against Kautsky and in Socialism and War, Lenin argues that >socialists need to look at whether particular wars benefit imperialist >powers or the working class struggle. If they do not then socialists can >and should support them. This is the case with East Timor ... UN >intervention went against 24 years of Indonesian and Australian >imperialist policy. Without it, Indonesia would have continued its >scorched earth policy of murder and destruction. > >But I guess that would have been okay, because then dogmatists could say >"well, isn't it terrible that the East Timorese were massacred, but at >least we stuck to our principles ..., we have a cut and dried absolutist >position that says no compromises with imperialism, to bad this meant that >any chance of working class revolution that may have exist will not occur >now because there is no working class because they have all been massacre. >But hey, we did stick to our 'on principle' objections". > >Kim B --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
Re: M-TH: Re: "Kosova revisionists let NATO off the hook"
G'day Kim, >In his polemic against Kautsky and in Socialism and War, Lenin argues that >socialists need to look at whether particular wars benefit imperialist >powers or the working class struggle. If they do not then socialists can >and should support them. It's not as if East Timor was ever going to be a sovereign nation-state in any meaningful way, was it? I argued thus against Hugh on the matter of Kosovo, as I remember. East Timor's people were fighting against one imperial master (and Indonesia could easily have become an even worse master - still can, really) in circumstances where they could not prevail unless they successfully appealed to the Anglo-Saxon powers - that's how I read CNRT policy, anyway. Fine, let's be honest about it. With Wiranto's power looking likely to prevail at the time (he pretty well controlled Habibie and he looked, for a while at least, to have a realistic shot at Junta control if he played the incident right), why not opt for the lesser evil (as it demonstrably must have appeared to thousands of cringing woman as they faced sudden widowhood and a phalanx of drunk M-16-wielding militia-members grimly undoing their trousers)? Lenin's polemic seems too simplistic for the particularities of such a moment, I reckon. >This is the case with East Timor ... UN >intervention went against 24 years of Indonesian and Australian >imperialist policy. Without it, Indonesia would have continued its >scorched earth policy of murder and destruction. Er, it was the materially unsupported referendum proposal that started the scorched earth policy of the Indonesians/militias, Kim! There WAS a time for armed peacekeepers, and that was when something approximating a peace pertained - before and during the vote! Habibie wasn't up to allowing that, of course (although, personally, he seemed all for it), and concerted foreign pressure (of the kind the US is happily exerting now) would have been necessary 18 months ago. Australian and UN intervention started the slaughter, for mine (and, I suspect, CNRT complicity, too - they didn't lift a finger to help their people when the chips were down, as a good bit of 'murder-of-the-innocents' footage was politically awfully useful - just a suspicion, mind). And Australia's imperialist policy has been impeded exactly how? We seem nicely ensconced in the chair, for mine. You know I didn't oppose intervention - but that was because I saw only one alternative future once the vote had been cast (for ET and Indonesia alike), and it promised to be far worse than imperialist rule from Canberra. It's still imperialist rule from Canberra though, innit? >But I guess that would have been okay, because then dogmatists could say >"well, isn't it terrible that the East Timorese were massacred, but at >least we stuck to our principles ..., we have a cut and dried absolutist >position that says no compromises with imperialism, to bad this meant that >any chance of working class revolution that may have exist will not occur >now because there is no working class because they have all been massacre. >But hey, we did stick to our 'on principle' objections". Here I agree with you and the GLW completely - but, as I think Bob's position is not usefully nuanced here, so do I think yours is lacking. Yours ever-compromisingly, Rob. --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
Re: M-TH: Re: "Kosova revisionists let NATO off the hook"
To quote the great Al Pacino: I thought I was out, but they've sucked me back in ... Well, Chris, I don't think I do miss the point. I argued evidence for what GLW calls 'genocide' was thin on the ground. I used the numbers (which I, at least, contextualised so that they might hjave a skerrick of meaning) as circumstantial evidence against the proposition - but anyway, if they wanna call it genocide, let GLW tell us why it was - specifically, why it was BEFORE March 24 1999 - as only that might legitimate (or otherwise) bombing cities to a rubble. And if they wanna do a good job, they can distinguish it from the western-authored Krajina clearances of '95 and what has been (predictably) happening to Kosovar Serbs, Gypsies and, ferchrissakes, all non-ethnic-Albanian-but-Muslem-nevertheless Kosovars. >Besides, with the evidence of what had happened in Bosnia failure to >intervene in Kosovov would have made the west culpable in genocide. My point always has been that the west was ALREADY culpable. The production of ethnic enclaves where substantially tenable nation states once existed looks like a long-established policy to me - and it was an ambitious policy, too. People had been going to school, working, drinking, and copulating across ethnic lines for untroubled decades, and that all needed to be undone. Impressive performance, when you think about it. But not without its visible flaws. A German who appeals to race is a lawbreaker, a Nazi and a threat to the State. Milosovic and Karadzic are condemned on the first two criteria, but the appeal to the security of the State is denied them. And Tudjman, Izetbegovic and the KLA leadership are excused on all three counts. Now, I wouldn't give you a plugged kopek for the whole miserable lot of 'em, but I know I can't make any internally coherent sense of these ascriptions/distinctions. >No doubt Bob on "revolutionary" grounds opposes intervention in Burundi at >present. However in a spirit of internationalism and human rights, some >intervention in Burundi is now essential, even if it does not involve >imperialist bombing their infrastructure! Well, we've already talked about Rwanda '91-'95. If Burundi is irrevocably on that terrible path, I favour the same sort of intervention as the Guardian was calling for from the starter's hatchet in Rwanda. THAT we COULD have stopped - or at least curtailed. And we either didn't try, or, in the case of apparent French strategy, helped it along. I don't quite understand the alignment of forces in the DRC war today, but it seems people are still dying in their thousands as a consequence of this outrageous act of ommission perpetrated in the early '90s - for every bullet-ridden corpse there are a hundred dead because of what the war does to the social welfare and reconstruction budgets of the diverse economies of the DRC, Angola, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Namibia, Rwanda et al. Each case on its 'merits', I reckon. Armed soldiers with clear charters to protect victims and to fight aggressors, sez I. That might mean dozens of body bags, which is why I doubt it'd happen, but no-one'll ever explain the million dead of Rwanda to the satisfaction of anyone not so corrupted by 'real politik' as actively to reinforce that 'reality'. It also seems to me that western soldiers on the spot would happily have risked life and limb for those pleading families, if only they'd had (a) the numerical strength to have a reasonable chance of coming out at the other end, and (b) a clear charter to do what it takes. The beautiful simplicity of such scenarios (if, indeed, Burundi constitutes one such) is that absolute hell on earth is the certain alternative. I'm still to be convinced this was true in the Kosovo of February 1999. >I trust Rob will make the distinction, even though Bob, I am sure, will be >incapable of it. I'm more confident holding forth on Kosovo than I am on central Africa, but I doubt the massive bombing of Burundi's physical infrastructure (which could hardly be all that massive) would occur even to the trigger-happy stuffed uniforms of NATO - there'd be no dressing that up as a great budget-enhancing victory, no matter how good the PR. The only distinctions I feel we could make, I try to enumerate above, anyway. And yeah, I was all for intervention in East Timor, too. But, of course, we're already stuffing that up now. The CNRT are beginning to complain that they've been through an awful lot just to change from one master to another. Still - on the 'certain alternative' criterion - I'm still with you on that one, Chris. That said, it's time to make a noise about the sluggish imposed transition plan and point out that, if Coehio's lefties have ammassed the greater support already, then democracy is already speaking - and should therefore be bloody-well heard NOW. Cheers, Rob. --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
Re: M-TH: Re: "Kosova revisionists let NATO off the hook"
Bob, yes GLW did support UN intervention into East Timor. The reason for this was made clear in a number of articles (which I hope you took the time to read, and not just the Australian Sparticist coverage of the issues). At no time did any of the article in GLW down play the imperialist nature of the UN, what we did focus on was whether the working class in East Timor would be helped in this particular case by the intervention of the UN. In the case of East Timor, the working class were being annilated. They could not defend themselves, Falintil was in disarray and under armed. To "on principle" reject UN intervention into East Timor because it is an imperialist tool is dogmatic and I have to admit that I am getting sick and tied of people who from their warm safe homes who aren't having their immediate family raped and killed, preaching about socialist absolutes and principles. Lenin warns against this dogmatism in Left Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder. In Left Wing Communism, Lenin cites the "on principle" opposition to negotiating the Brest-Litovsk Treaty with imperialists to bring peace between Russia and Germany. Lenin says "to reject compromises "on principle", to reject permissiability of compromises in general, no matter what kind, is childishness, which it is difficult even to consider seriously. A political leader who desires to be useful to the revolutionary proletriat must be able to distinguish concrete cases of compromises that are inexcusable and are an expression of opportunism and treachery" He continues: "There are different kinds of compromises. One must be able to analyse the situation and the concrete conditions of each compromise, or of each variety of compromise. One must be learn to distinguish between a man who has given up his money and fire-arms [Lenin is refering to an example he had given earlier] to bandits so as to lessen the evil they can do and to facilitate their capiture and execution, and a man who gives his money and fire arms to bandits so as to share in his loot. In politics his is by no means always as elementary as it is inthis childishly simple example. However, anyone who is out to think up for the workers some kind of recipe that will provide them with cut and dried solutions for all contingencies, or promises that the policy of the revolutionary proletariate will come up against diffucult or complex situations, is simply a charltan". The demand for UN intervention was a tactical one which was one not made for the benefit of imperialism, but instead for the benefit of the East Timorese working class. The Australian government did everything in its power to stall, and to continue "business as usual" with the Indonesian government. It did not want to send troops in and only did so when its hands was forced by tens of thousands of people on the streets. In his polemic against Kautsky and in Socialism and War, Lenin argues that socialists need to look at whether particular wars benefit imperialist powers or the working class struggle. If they do not then socialists can and should support them. This is the case with East Timor ... UN intervention went against 24 years of Indonesian and Australian imperialist policy. Without it, Indonesia would have continued its scorched earth policy of murder and destruction. But I guess that would have been okay, because then dogmatists could say "well, isn't it terrible that the East Timorese were massacred, but at least we stuck to our principles ..., we have a cut and dried absolutist position that says no compromises with imperialism, to bad this meant that any chance of working class revolution that may have exist will not occur now because there is no working class because they have all been massacre. But hey, we did stick to our 'on principle' objections". Kim B On Mon, 24 Jan 2000, Bob Malecki wrote:> > -- > > From: Rob Schaap <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Subject: M-TH: Re: "Kosova revisionists let NATO off the hook" > Yeah, and in what context? Because the Green Lefdt Weekly has been very > busy itself with supporting imperialist intervention by its "boys" in > Indonesia. And did support a UN intervention in Kosovo. So there crying > fake leftist tears today for the hysteric campaigns drummed up to pull of > this stuff does not let them off for there pro imperialist line. These > people really are the little drummer boys for imperialism in my opinion. > > Warm Regards > Bob Malecki > > > --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- > --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
Re: M-TH: Re: "Kosova revisionists let NATO off the hook"
At 06:22 24/01/00 +0100, Bob Malecki wrote: >These >people really are the little drummer boys for imperialism in my opinion. In Bob's opinion - but that does not address the issues. As usual Bob takes a very abstract approach to being revolutionary: it is enough to say revolutionary sounding things, but not to expect that progressive people can intervene concretely in any situation to take the leadership away from the ruling class. It is a battle fought entirely on the terrain of revolutionary rhetoric. It also reveals a failure to understand the progressive reasons for upholding the right of nations to self determination. That by no means necessarily entails supporting the imperialist nature of the war that NATO waged. If we make distinctions and avoid remaining stuck in one-sidedness, we can see that it might well have entailed supporting the right of the Kosovans to armed resistance. However as the Green Left article argues one of the imperialist objectives in Yugoslavia was to be a condescending saviour and avoid supporting the responsibility of the Kosovans to claim the right to self-determination, almost certainly because of racist and imperialist prejudice against muslims. Rob concentrates on the number and causes of the deaths and misses the point in the article about the meaning of genocide: >In the UN Genocide Convention, genocide is defined as >acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in >part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group. Such >acts, with these aims, are not restricted to killing, but >include deliberately inflicting on the group conditions >of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction >in whole or in part, such as uprooting people from their homes. > >The Nuremberg Tribunal Charter explicitly lists deportation >of the civilian population as one of its crimes against >humanity. The genocide in Kosova was not a question of >numbers of dead, but the fact that half the population of >Kosova had been driven across borders, and around 80% of >those remaining inside Kosova had also been uprooted from >their homes. Besides, with the evidence of what had happened in Bosnia failure to intervene in Kosovov would have made the west culpable in genocide. No doubt Bob on "revolutionary" grounds opposes intervention in Burundi at present. However in a spirit of internationalism and human rights, some intervention in Burundi is now essential, even if it does not involve imperialist bombing their infrastructure! I trust Rob will make the distinction, even though Bob, I am sure, will be incapable of it. Chris Burford London --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
Re: M-TH: Re: "Kosova revisionists let NATO off the hook"
-- > From: Rob Schaap <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: M-TH: Re: "Kosova revisionists let NATO off the hook" > Date: den 22 januari 2000 13:33 > > G'day Chris, > > Still bloody busy, but I feel obliged to make the point that you should tell > us what form of critique of leftie positions this is meant to represent. A > couple of f'rinstances, if I may : Yeah, and in what context? Because the Green Lefdt Weekly has been very busy itself with supporting imperialist intervention by its "boys" in Indonesia. And did support a UN intervention in Kosovo. So there crying fake leftist tears today for the hysteric campaigns drummed up to pull of this stuff does not let them off for there pro imperialist line. These people really are the little drummer boys for imperialism in my opinion. Warm Regards Bob Malecki --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
