LENIN'S TOMB

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Israeli assault on Gaza posted by Richard Seymour

There has been, for some while now, a pattern of provocative strikes by Israel against various targets in Gaza. They killed six civilians in the process. Routine iniquities in and of themselves. Israel makes periodic bloodshed, punctuated by eye-rolling acquiescence in 'peace' negotiations, a business and hobby. Its whole form of state organisation is dependent on this constant hunt. It would almost be bored if there was no frontier to test, no problem population to molest, no moral red-line to cross. Lacking this raison d'etre, it would atrophy and die of malaise. But this time, they sought a definite response: rocket fire, hopefully in abundance, with the usual ineffectuality. It's not that they really care, they just need the pretext. Israeli propaganda reels off the list of rocket 'incidents', with resulting psychologically traumatised sheep and car alarms, with impatient listlessness.

Now, a full-scale bombing campaign, with a threat of invasion, appears to be afoot. We know what this means, and for whom. The news coming from residents is of constant bombing, electricity being lost throughout Gaza City. The IDF twitter account brags of the bodies it has already captured - they brandish the head of Mahmoud al-Zahar, a Hamas leader who, they grin, has been 'eliminated', just as his son was when the IDF bombed Gaza in 2008. And they warn that any Hamas members, however high up or low down in the organisation, had better keep out of the way in Gaza for the next few days. Without succumbing to the murderous logic according to which Hamas membership is grounds for execution by the bullet, the bomb or the chemical burn, we remember how Israel unilaterally adjusts the concept of Hamas membership to fit the exigencies of its bombing campaigns. Aha - going to school are you? That's a Hamas stronghold. Death.

Russia Today reports that IDF reservists are being called upon for an invasion. At this point, the excuses for yet another sadistic gorefest in Gaza are looking care-worn. The same old tired, robotic half-sense: Hamas. Rockets. Sderot. Terrorism. Something something something, dark side. Something something something, complete. There will be some barbarous, nonsensical, infuriating things said in news broadcasts over the next few days. All uttered in that exaggerated American accent that high Israeli officials seem to learn.

Rather than waste time attempting to construct something coherent out of the by now traditional Zionist melange of hysteria and sniggering sadism (waaah look at their rockets, ha ha ha look at their bodies) something that can be addressed as a semi-rational argument, we should just focus on reconstructing what has happened to Israel's position since Operation Cast Lead, and particularly since the Middle East revolutions began. Just as importantly, we need to trace the links from this venture to the reconstitution of American power in the Middle East, which Obama's Pentagon is now attempting to secure by proxy. (Leaving aside, for the moment, the argument as to how successful they have been in their attempt to annexe national rebellions). For it is a crucial question how much the timing and nature of this assault is driven by domestic politics, (viz. the germinal threat posed by the Arab Spring within Israel itself, and the Israeli state's attempt to consolidate its political control over the population), how much by regional politics and Israel's need to recoup some of its losses through a demonstrative beating, and how much the tempo of the war on Hamas and Palestinian resistance is driving it directly. One part of this question can be answered immediately: Obama gave this venture the green light.

Labels: colonialism, gaza, Israel, middle east, racism, revolution, US imperialism, zionism

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

What Are We Fighting For? posted by Richard Seymour

I have contributed an essay to this collection, What We Are Fighting For, published by Pluto Press. It follows from last year's conference at the ICA, which sought to deal with some of the political, strategic dilemmas posed by Occupy. It features Peter Hallward, David Graeber, John Holloway, Nina Power, Mark Fisher, Zillah Eisenstein, Dan Hind, Owen Jones, Hillary Wainwright and other excellent contributors. It also features, as I just mentioned, me. I'm in there. Buy it. Buy it or you're not my friend any more.*

*(See, this is what happens when you become a member of the petty bourgeois intelligentsia - non-stop hawking of your own wares, all relations subordinated to the cash nexus, all sentimental bonds drowned in the icy waters of egoistic calculation. No, but seriously.)

Labels: anticapitalism, counter-hegemony, occupy, revolution, socialism, socialist strategy

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

The Syrian revolt enters a new phase posted by Richard Seymour

As Bashar al-Assad flees the capital, the armed segments of the revolution appear to be inflicting blows on sections of the security apparatus and taking over major cities: the revolution is turning a corner. Robert Fisk reports that a crucial dynamic now is the fracturing of an alliance between the Sunni middle class and the Alawite regime, signalled by the spread of the revolt to Aleppo. And defections from the state-capitalist power bloc continue. Indeed, Juan Cole has suggested that such divisions must run deep in the Syrian state for the opposition to be capable of planting a bomb that can kill a senior minister.

...

The course of this uprising, from the immolation of Hasan Ali Akleh in January 2011, redolent of Mohamed Bouazizi's death in Tunisia, to the suicide attack on the defence minister, has been brutal. In the early stages, the Syrian government had a monopoly on violence. It was police violence and the decades-long rule by the Ba'athist dictatorship, undergirded by repressive 'emergency law', which provoked the 'days of rage'; it was the police beating of a shopkeeper that provoked a spontaneous protest on 17th February 2011 in the capital, which was duly suppressed; it was the imprisonment of Kurdish and other political prisoners that led to the spread of hunger strikes against the regime by March 2011. And it was the security forces who started to murder protesters in large numbers that same month. It was they also who repeatedly opened fire on large and growing demonstrations in April 2011. In the ensuing months until today, they have used used everything from tear gas to live bullets to tank shells.

And the main organisations of the Syrian opposition pointedly refused the strategy of armed uprising, noting what had happened in Libya, and arguing that the terrain of armed conflict was the ground on which Assad was strongest. Nonetheless, the scale of the repression eventually produced an armed wing of the revolt. The Free Syrian Army became the main vector for armed insurgency, expanded by defections from the army and the security apparatus. Now it is making serious advances.

In response to the insurgency, the argument among a significant section of the antiwar left has been that this revolution has already been hijacked, that those who initially rose up have been sidelined and marginalised by forces allied with external powers, intelligence forces and so on. Thus, the arms, money and international support for the armed rebellion is said to be coming from Washington, and Riyadh, and Tel Aviv. The likely outcome is the decapitation of a regime that is problematic for the US, and its replacement with a regime that is more amenable to the Gulf States and Saudi Arabia. Moreover, they argue, the political forces likely to hegemonise the emerging situation are essentially reactionary and sectarian. The left, democratic and anti-imperialist forces are, they say, too weak to lead the fight against Assad's regime. And so, as Sami Ramadani puts it in the latest Labour Left Briefing, "the sacrifices of the Syrian people have been hijacked by NATO and the Saudi-Qatari dictators".

Tariq Ali was the latest to make this case on Russia Today (prompting an impassioned rebuttal from this left-wing Syrian blog). MediaLens, an organisation whose output I have promoted in the past, also takes this view, and reproaches myself and Owen Jones for being insufficiently attentive to the accumulating mass of evidence that the armed revolt is basically a creature of imperialism, its actions no more than, effectively, state terrorism. Obviously, I think this is mistaken.

...

I'll start with imperialism. One has to expect that in a revolutionary situation, rival imperialist powers will try to influence the course of events. We have seen the US, UK, France and Russia all involved in Syria's battle in different ways. Washington has long provided funding and other types of support to opposition groups, and the CIA is alleged to be training groups outside the Syrian border. It has two specific reasons to be involved: taking out a strategic ally of Iran, and being seen to be on the side of democratic change in the Middle East. The nature of its involvement is dictated by its preference for some sort of coup d'etat rather than a popular revolution; they want to encourage more senior regime defections so that a faction of the old ruling elite can coordinate its forces, lead an armed assault on the bastions of the Assad regime, and then declare itself the new boss. That is most likely why they are selectively feeding arms to groups they deem reliable, and training various select groups outside the country.

Russia, of course, is nowhere near as powerful an imperialist state as the US. Its role is arguably slightly enhanced by the fact that it is backing up a centralised, well-armed regime (vis-a-vis the insurgent population), whereas the 'Western' imperialist powers have been trying to infiltrate and co-opt elements of a very loosely coordinated resistance. The rebels by all accounts are extremely poorly armed; the trickle of weapons from the Gulf states is nothing compared to the helicopters, tanks and other munitions which the Assad regime possesses and deploys with such indiscriminate force. However you assess the relative balance between the various intervening forces, though, the point is that if you want to talk about imperialism in Syria you cannot just ignore the intervention taking place on behalf of the regime.

In fairness, many of those commentators highlighting imperialist intervention have also noted the flow of arms from Russia to the regime - Charles Glass, for example. Moreover, none of them appear to be denying serious repression by the regime. Rather, Patrick Seale is typical in arguing that the transition to an armed strategy, provoked by the regime, has been immensely destructive, as this is the terrain on which the regime is the strongest.

Nonetheless, there is in some of this a type of 'blanket thinking' that one commonly encounters, in which a signposted quality of one organisation, or faction within an organisation, or individual within a faction, is taken to be expressive of the situation as a whole. Thus, for example, Ramadani characterises the Syrian National Council (SNC) and the Free Syrian Army (FSA) are characterised as "Saudi-Qatari-backed ... logistically backed by Turkey": which is some of the truth, but simply not the whole truth. I will return to this. Likewise, when Seale describes the opposition strategy as being one of provoking "Western military intervention to stop the killing on humanitarian grounds", he ignores the declarations of the Local Coordinating Committees (LCCs) which are the organisational, cellular basis of the revolt, and which have consistently opposed imperialist intervention. He also ignores the left-nationalist and Kurdish forces - there are traditions of anti-imperialism in Syria well beyond the Ba'ath Party.

Or, let's take as an example this article by the comedy writer Charlie Skelton which is being recited widely. It basically makes two arguments. One is that leading figures within the Syrian National Council have connections to various US-funded bodies. The other is that vocal neoconservatives are pressing for military intervention and 'regime change', and declare themselves pleased by the successes of the armed opposition such as the Free Syrian Army. In and of itself, this could be part of a valid argument: why should these people be the spokespersons for the Syrian revolution in the Anglophone media? Why should the interests of Syrians be hijacked for some imperialist grand strategy? However, inasmuch as this ignores the majority of what is taking place, instead looking solely at narrow networks of influence, this is indeed a form of 'blanket thinking', allowing small minorities to stand in for the whole.

Imperialism is certainly involved. However, a few vulgar regime apologists to one side, no one is denying that there is more to it than that; that there are internal social and class antagonisms that have produced this revolt. If you want an analysis of the breakdown of the Syrian social compact in the last decade, amid a new wave of US imperialist violence which sent waves of refugees fleeing from Iraq, and Bashar al-Assad's neoliberal reforms, you should see Jonathan Maunder's article in the last International Socialism. The important point is that the regime can't survive. It is incapable of advancing the society any further, even on bourgeois terms. There is, therefore, only the question of how the regime will be brought down, and by whom.

The question is, is the geopolitical axis dominant? Is it this, rather than domestic antagonisms, which will determine the outcome of this revolt and its meaning?

...

When you hear from ordinary Syrian activists, and not the exiles in the SNC, you don't hear a lot of support for an invasion or bombing: quite the contrary. The trouble is that there have been groups advocating intervention, and there has been a degree of intervention already. And while the rank and file have never been won over to the strategy of armed imperialist intervention, there isn't much unity over what strategy should be pursued and to what precise end. The question then is which forces can dominate and impose their line.

Before addressing this, one should say something about the organisational basis of this revolution. It isn't the leadership of the Syrian National Council (SNC), whose role as an 'umbrella' group belies their lack of influence on the ground. At the most basic, cellular level, it is the local coordinating committees (LCCs). A section of these, about 120 of them, have recognised the SNC since it was founded, and have some formal representation. In fact, they are grossly under-represented in the SNC structure compared to the liberal and Islamist opposition groups. And they don't make a very effective representation within the SNC structures, which means that when the SNC speaks it isn't necessarily speaking for the grassroots. However, a larger chunk, some 300 LCCs, have declined to recognise or affiliate to the SNC. The LCCs have opposed imperialist intervention, despite the bloodiness of Assad's repression; they have even tended to resist the trend toward militarisation of the uprising. Now, the LCCs, being localised resistance units based in the population, are not politically or ideologically unified. There are undoubtedly reactionary elements among them, as well as progressive and just politically indeterminate forces. So, the question of political representation is significant.

And at the level of political representation, there are various ideologically heterogeneous coalitions and groups. The SNC is understood to be the main 'umbrella' organisation unifying several strands from Kurdish to liberal groups. The leadership is disproportionately weighted toward exiles, while the actual systems of representation within the SNC are seriously skewed toward the bourgeois liberals and the Muslim Brothers. That's not the end of the world, given that some people have been invoking 'Al Qaeda' (really? people on the Left buying into this? Apparently so...) or just sectarian jihadis of one stripe or another. The fact is that Islamists and liberals are a part of the opposition in most of the old dictatorships of the Middle East, from Tunisia to Algeria to Yemen to Egypt to Bahrain etc etc etc. But these forces do represent the more conservative and bourgeois wing of the resistance to Assad. Generally speaking, like the LCCs, they have opposed the strategy of armed struggle - this is one of the reasons for their generally antagonistic relationship with the Free Syrian Army. But they did favour a strategy of armed intervention until forming an agreement in January with the left-nationalist National Coordination Committee for Democratic Change, which rejected all imperialist intervention from outside the region: in other words, they would accept help from Arab states, but not from the 'West'. (Caveat: as will become clear, the SNC negotiators did not get this agreement ratified, and it may well be that the issue of imperialist intervention was one of the sticking points.)

Why, then, did the dominant forces in the SNC look for a time to imperialist intervention? I think it is obviously because these are not forces that are comfortable with mass mobilisation, least of all with armed mass mobilisation. A UN-mandated intervention - bombing, coordination with ground forces, etc. - would have solved this problem for them, achieving the objective of bringing down a repressive and moribund regime without mobilising the types of social forces that could challenge their hegemony in a post-Assad regime. Then they could have been piloted into office as the nucleus of a new regime, a modernising, neoliberal capitalist democracy. But as the prospects of such an intervention declined, as the grassroots failed to mobilise for some sort of NATO protectorate, and as the emphasis shifted to armed struggle via the Free Syrian Army (FSA) throughout the first half of this year, the SNC has been compelled to respond. It has developed a military bureau to relate to the FSA, albeit this has produced more claims of attempted manipulation.

Despite its international prominence, however, the SNC is not the only significant political formation organising opposition forces. The main organisation in which the Syrian left is organised is in the National Coordination Committee for Democratic Change, mentioned above - also known as the National Coordination Committee (NCC), tout court. This is the second most widely recognised organisation aside from the SNC, and has a much stronger basis within Syrian society. It is headquartered in Damascus rather than in Turkey, it has a strong basis in the LCCs and includes Kurdish, nationalist and socialist organisations. There have been attempts by both the SNC and NCC to overcome their differences and construct a sort of united front against Assad, but their political and strategic differences have made this impossible. Another factor obstructing unity is the NCC's position within Syria; it is far more exposed to military reprisals by the regime, and thus must pitch its demands very carefully. This is an important reason why it has emphasised a negotiated settlement as the answer to the crisis.

Also of significance is the Kurdish National Council, created by Kurdish forces in anticipation of having to fight their corner in a post-Assad regime: indeed, the reluctance of the majority of Kurds to actually support the SNC has been a significant factor in the composition and division of labour in the opposition. For Kurds oppressed in Assad's Syria, who do not automatically trust a future regime dominated by Sunni Arabs to protect minorities, it is seen as far more sensible to turn to a dense network of regional supporters and interests, described very well here.

The lack of unity between any political leadership and the revolutionary base - which extends to a lack of coordination between the coalitions and the armed groups, as we'll discuss in a moment - is a real weakness in the revolution. Aside from anything else, it makes it harder for the opposition to win over wider layers of the population - because people aren't sure exactly what they'll be supporting, what type of new regime will emerge from the struggle. There is a real fear of sectarian bloodshed, notwithstanding the cynical way in which the regime manipulates this fear. The military and civilian opposition leaders have tried to allay this fear, and FSA units say they are working with Allawi forces. But without a degree of unity and discipline, with the continued disjuncture between the turbulent base and the political leadership, and with Assad's forces heavily outgunning the opposition, this is a powerful disincentive for people to break ranks with the regime. Moreover, if some greater degree of cohesion and coordination is not reached, then the risk of some force outside the popular basis of the revolt (say, a few generals leading a proxy army) interpolating itself in the struggle and siezing the initiative, is increased.

This is not to argue that the SNC and NCC must converge around a common programme and then somehow impose themselves on the LCCs. I don't know how the political division of labour in the opposition could be optimised, and unity between the base and the leadership of such a movement would have to be negotiated and constructed on the basis of a recognition of the mutual interests of the social classes and ethnic groups embodied in the movement. Further, whether a merger would help or hinder the revolution probably depends very much what the agenda is and who is materially dominant in the emerging representative institutions. It does, however, explain why there have been and will continue to be attempts at forging some sort of unity, despite the ongoing antagonisms and differences between the various forces, and despite the very real problems with the SNC leadership.

...

As for the armed contingent, the Free Syrian Army (FSA) has been summarily vilified and demonised by many polemicists. Consistent with the 'blanket thinking' referred to previously, the FSA has been deemed a sectarian gang, terrorists, a Saudi-Qatari front, and so on. The first and most important thing about the FSA is that it is made up of anything between 25,000 and 40,000 assorted rebels - defectors from the armed forces, both soldiers and officers, and various civilians who volunteered to fight. As such, it is as politically and ideologically variegated a formation as the LCCs. Nominally, the FSA is led by Colonel Riad al-Asaad, a defector from the air force whose family members have been executed by the regime. But the reality, as Nir Rosen describes, is more complex: "The FSA is a name endorsed and signed on to by diverse armed opposition actors throughout the country, who each operate in a similar manner and towards a similar goal, but each with local leadership. Local armed groups have only limited communication with those in neighbouring towns or provinces - and, moreover, they were operating long before the summer." In other words, this is a highly localised, cellular structure with limited cohesion.

Contrary to what has been asserted in some polemics, then, the FSA is not simply a contingent of the SNC. It formed independently, several months into the uprising, following a series of lethal assaults on protests by the regime, specifically in response to the suppression in Daraa. It incorporated armed groups that had been operating locally with autonomous leadership for a while. Its relationship with the SNC, despite attempts by the leaderships to patch over differences, has been strongly antagonistic - largely because of the SNC leadership's opposition to the strategy of armed insurgency and its fears of being unable to control the outcome. Earlier in the year, a split from the SNC formed briefly over this point, with a group formed within the council to support armed struggle. Therefore, those who describe the FSA as "the armed wing" of the SNC, as The American Conservative did, are only exposing their ignorance, as well as that blanket-thinking. The same applies to those who say that the FSA is a Turkish-Saudi-Qatari client. Undoubtedly, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf monarchies have an interest in this struggle. Certainly, the leadership of the FSA is currently situated in Turkey, and enjoys Turkish support. And Turkey is a NATO member. But the extent of any support must be judged to be poor, because by all reports the army remains an extremely loose, and lightly armed force. Purely on military grounds, the regime has always enjoyed the advantage, and continues to do so. Moreover, the FSA is just far too disarticulated and heteroclite to be converted into someone's proxy army - unless you assume that any degree of external support automatically makes one a proxy, which strikes me as specious reasoning.

Finally, there is the question of the FSA's human rights record. Those who want to oppose the revolt say that the armed insurgents are a bunch of thugs or even - some will actually use this propaganda term - 'terrorists'. Well, the fact is that the armies have captured and tortured and killed people they believed to be regime supporters or informants. I believe they have blown up regime apparatuses and probably have killed civilians in the process. My answer? You can criticise this or that attack, you can say that the Islamists who bombed Damascus and issued a sectarian statement are not allies of revolution. But you can't keep saying this is a 'civil war' and then express shock when one side, the weaker side, the side that has been attacked and provoked, the side that is ranged against a repressive dictatorship, actually fights a war.

For the regime is fighting a bitter war for its own survival, and it is destroying urban living areas in the process. Do you want to go and look at Jadaliyya, and see the kinds of reports they post every day? Do you want to see the footage of what the Syrian armed forces are doing to residential areas, not to mention to the residents? Unless you're a pacifist, in which case I respect your opinion but disagree with you (in that patronising way that you will have become used to), the only bases for criticising such tactics are either on pro-regime grounds, or on purely tactical grounds. Among the tactical grounds are the objection that 1) this is the territory on which the regime is strongest (true, but I think the signs are that this can be overcome), and 2) there is a tendency in militarised conflict for democratic, rank-and-file forces to be squeezed out (not necessarily the case, but a real potentiality in such situations which one doesn't overlook). Of course, those tactical observations are valid, and people are entitled to their view. My own sense is that the regime has made it impossible to do anything but launch an armed insurgency and so these problems will just have to be confronted.

...

All this raises the question, then: what accounts for the advances being made by the insurgency given its relative military weakness and strategic divisions? Part of the answer is that there is no surety of continued advance. It's an extremely unstable situation, wherein the initiative could fall back into the regime forces' hands surprisingly quickly. The current gains have been chalked up rather quickly, and not without serious cost. Nonetheless, the dominant factor clearly is the narrowing of the social basis of the regime, and the growing conviction among ruling class elements, as well as the aspiring middle classes, that Assad and the state-capitalist bloc that rules Syria can neither keep control, nor update the country's productive capacity, nor reform its rampantly corrupt and despotic political system.

Much has been made of Assad's supposed popularity, and the fact that he does have a significant social base. Even if the signs are now that the core bases of his regime are starting to split, the durability of the pro-Assad bulwark has to be encountered and understood. Recently, there was a Yougov poll of Syrians, which Jonathan Steele drew attention to in the Guardian. 55% of those Syrians polled said they wanted Assad to stay, and the number one reason they gave for saying this was fear for the future of their country. Now, you can take or leave a poll conducted under such circumstances. After all, the poll was conducted across the whole Arab world, with only 97 of its respondents based in Syria. How reliable can it be? And it would seem pedantic and beside the point to expect anyone targeted by Assad's forces to pay any heed to it. Nonetheless, there's a real issue here in that at least a sizeable plurality of people are more worried by what will happen after Assad falls than by what Assad is doing now.

A significant factor in this, as mentioned, is the problem of sectarianism. There is no inherent reason why a country as ethnically and religiously diverse as Syria should suffer from sectarianism: this is something that has to be worked on, and actively produced. The Ba'ath regime certainly didn't invent sectarianism, but in pivoting its regime on an alliance between the Alawi officer corps and the Sunni bourgeoisie, it did represent itself as the safeguard against a sectarian bloodbath and has constantly played on this fear ever since, even while it has brutally repressed minorities. Given the breakdown of the class and ethnic alliance making up the regime's base, sectarianism as a disciplinary technology is one of the last hegemonic assets the regime possesses. The importance of opposition forces being explicitly anti-sectarian (as has been seen repeatedly) can thus hardly be over-stated. At the same time, fear of imperialist intervention and some sort of Iraq-like devastation being visited on the country, is also real. Syria, as the host of many of Iraq's refugees, experienced up close the effects of that trauma. Nor is there much in Libya's situation today that I can say I would recommend to the people of Syria. So, it has been of some importance that despite serious bloodshed the LCCs and NCC maintained resistance to the SNC approach of trying to forge an alliance with imperialism.

If you observe the tendencies in each case of revolution, you see amid concrete differences important similarities. For example, there were considerable differences between the Mubarak and Assad regimes and in the tempo and pattern of resistance and opposition. This was not just in terms of foreign policy and the relationship to US imperialism, but also in terms of the prominence of the state as a factor in neoliberal restructuring which was far more important in Syria, the impact of the invasion of Iraq and the ensuing flows of refugees and fighters, the role of an organised labour movement in sparking rebellion which has so far played very little role in Syria (strikes have tended to be organised mainly be professional or petty bourgeois groups - another serious limitation faced by the revolution), and the role of military repression and insurgency in each state.

Even so, there are broad convergences which point to a general pattern. Most important of these are:

1) within these societies, a secular tendency toward a widening of social inequality, coupled with a narrowing at the top of society, resulting from the imposition of neoliberal accumulation patterns.

2) the fraying of the class alliances sustaining the regime as a consequence.

3) the exhaustion of the regime's resources for adaptation, and intelligent reform, such that all concessions come far too late and after such immense repression that it is hard to take them seriously.

4) the declining capacity of the state to maintain consent (or rather, encircle and marginalise dissent) either through material consessions or terror.

5) the re-emergence of long-standing opposition forces in new configurations during the period immediately before and since January 2011, with middle class liberal, Islamist and Arab nationalist forces playing a key role.

6) the emergence of forms of popular organisation - militias in some cases, revolutionary councils in others - performing aspects of organisation that would ordinarily be carried out by the state, and assuming a degree of popular legitimacy in contention with the regime.

7) the defection of significant sections of the ruling class and state personnel, who attempt to play a dominant, leading role in the anti-regime struggle and assume control of reformed apparatuses afterward.

My estimation is that in the context of the global crisis, and amid a general weakening of US imperialism - notwithstanding the relatively swift coup in Libya - these regimes are going to continue to breakdown, and opposition is going to continue to develop in revolutionary forms, ie in forms that challenge the very legitimacy of the state itself. The old state system, based around a cleavage between a chain of pro-US dictatorships and an opposing rump of nominally resistant dictatorships, is what is collapsing here. That is something that the advocates of negotiations as a panacea here might wish to reflect on. Certainly, I have no problem with negotiations as a tactic, particularly in situations of relative weakness. But these are revolutionary crises inasmuch as they severely test the right of the old rulers to continue to rule in the old ways.

These processes, not just in Syria but across the Middle East, are richly overdetermined by the various crises of global capitalism, which are so deep, so protracted, and giving rise to much social upheaval, that it is beyond the capacity of even the most powerful states to bring them under control. Into these complex processes, as we have seen, imperialist powers can impose themselves in various, often destructive, ways; but those commentators who spend all their time charting the agenda of US imperialism and its webs of influence in the region would do well to scale back and get a wider perspective. There is no reason at this moment to think that imperialist intervention is, or is going to be, the dominant axis determining the outcome and meaning of this process.

Labels: capitalist crisis, egypt, libya, middle east, neoliberalism, revolution, syria, tunisia, US imperialism

Wednesday, July 04, 2012

Marxism 2012 posted by Richard Seymour

Don't forget to come to Marxism 2012, starting tomorrow. There is so much to discuss this year, so many arguments to have, so many people who are wrong about everything, and so much at stake. Greece, austerity, the eurozone, Spain, the coalition, Syria, Egypt, Syriza, Gramsci, Lenin, Althusser, Chinese capitalism, Bolivarianism, the unions, the parties, the bosses, the state, revolution and imperialism. Come. My meeting, you should know, is this Friday at 11.45am, on 'Imperialism and Anti-Imperialism in the Liberal Tradition'. I'll be your badchen for an hour or so, then sign books or talk politics if you want.

Labels: althusser, american anti-imperialism, capitalist state, class, egypt, feminism, gramsci, greece, imperialism, lenin, liberal imperialism, marx, marxism, marxism 2012, race, revolution, socialism, trade unions

Friday, April 13, 2012

Tahrir: "the revolution is not over" posted by Richard Seymour

Tahrir Square April 2012

Labels: dictatorship, egypt, imperialism, mubarak, occupation, revolution, socialism, tahrir square, US imperialism

Monday, February 27, 2012

The antiwar movement's dilemma posted by Richard Seymour

My article in The Guardian, drawing on some of the research I did for American Insurgents:

The war on Libya produced a strange effect in British politics. The majority of the public opposed the war, but very little of this opposition was expressed on the streets. Nor is the possibility of intervention in Syria producing sizeable protests as yet.
The first and most obvious reason for this abstention is that behind a general scepticism about war lies a more conflicted sentiment, as people overwhelmingly sympathise with the democratic uprisings in both Syria and Libya. In a situation like this, the ideological relics of "humanitarian intervention" can be reactivated, as they were when the government packaged its bombing of Libya as a limited venture in support of human rights. But this is not the only factor. In the US, the election of Barack Obama took tens of thousands of Democrat-supporting activists off the streets. It would be mistaken to discount an extension of this effect to the UK. The stabilisation of the occupation of Iraq and the subsequent withdrawal of troops has also contributed...

Labels: anti-imperialism, antiwar, egypt, imperialism, iran, libya, middle east, revolution, syria, US imperialism

Monday, January 30, 2012

Syria's revolution, and imperialism posted by Richard Seymour

The Syrian regime is fighting for its survival. I have no sympathy for it, and will welcome its consumption in a revolutionary overthrow. The struggle in Syria is fundamentally - not exclusively, and not in a crude, unmediated fashion - a class struggle. It is an open war of movement between, for the most part, the most advanced sections of the popular classes and a narrow state capitalist oligopoly which has always dealt with the surplus of political opposition by jailing it or killing it. In that struggle, inasmuch as it matters what I think, I situate myself on the side of the popular opposition. Not in an undifferentiated manner, and not without confronting the political problems (of eg sectarianism, pro-imperialism etc) that will tend to recur amid sections of the opposition to any of these regimes. But without conditions or prevarication.

Yet imperialism has its own reasons, of which reason knows a little, for seeking a different kind of ending to the regime: one which does not empower the currently mobilised masses. And I really think the chances of an armed 'intervention' in Syria under the rubric of the UN have noticeably increased. And how we orient ourselves to that situation politically is, I suspect, going to be an important problem in the coming months. The following pleonastic stream of head-scratching and arm-waving is my contribution to securing that orientation.

***

For what it's worth, this is how I read the international situation with respect to Syria at present. The revolutionary wave that was unleashed over one year ago has reverberated through every major social formation in the Middle East. Because it broke the Mubarak regime, which was a regional lynchpin of a chain of pro-US dictatorships, its effects could not be localised. The response of the US was one of confusion and fright, followed by the bolstering of some of the ancient regimes and simultaneously a very cautious 'tilt' toward some mildly reformist forces (in general the most right-wing and pro-capitalist forces). The Saudi intervention in Bahrain was an instance of the former. The invasion of Libya was an improvised policy along the latter lines. And the position within Yemen has been somewhere between these two, with the US attempting to manage a replacement of the leadership without empowering the actual popular forces calling for its downfall, some of whom were conveniently vaporised by US bombing raids.

In general, I think the liberal imperialists have won the ideological argument that the US must be seen to be on the side of reform, because today's insurgent forces are potentially tomorrow's regimes, and the US will have to deal with them on oil, Israel, and so on. However, the political argument as to what concretely to do about it is much more in the balance. The realpolitikers have dominant positions in the Pentagon, while the lib imps seem to have a strong voice in the State Department. It's schematic, but nonetheless a reasonable approximation of the truth to say that the former are very cautious about any Middle East wars, especially wars fought on a liberal (rather than securitarian) basis, while the latter are much more bellicose. Obama's 'state of the union' address, which undoubtedly had its share of theatrical sabre-rattling, made it clear that he would see the overthrow of the Syrian regime as a logical corollary to the overthrow of Qadhafi, which he boasted was made possible by ending the occupation of Iraq. Moreover, his administration has continued to ratchet up pressure on Iran, through sanctions, and we are beginning to hear serious arguments in the bourgeois media in favour of a war. I am not saying that an attack on Iran is likely in the short or medium term. But any escalation regarding Syria could not but be linked to the escalation against Iran.

Obama and Clinton are also highly responsive to pressure from the European Union and particularly France. Sarkozy is naturally leading the EU's response to the Middle East crisis. He may not have a triple A credit rating, but he does have nuclear weapons, a large army with extensive imperialist experience, and a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. (Merkel, who has none of these, is taking a much more passive role.) And since the Sarkozy administration has been embarrassed and damaged by the extent of its relations with dictatorships in the Middle East, its 'tilt' toward potentially pro-EU reformist forces has been all the more pronounced. Britain, consistent with its imperial past in the Middle East, its adjusted but continuing role as a subordinate partner of the US, and the warmed over 'liberal interventionism' embraced by Cameron and Hague, has tended to align with France over both Libya and Syria.

***

Another important actor is the Arab League, and within it the prominent figure of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). In the latest Socialist Register, Adam Hanieh points out the strategic centrality of the GCC to the region as far as imperialism is concerned, due to its pivotal role in the region's capitalist development, its hold of enormous oil resources (a quarter of future production), and its articulation with the world economy. Three GCC states have experienced their own uprisings - Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Oman - all of which have been repressed with military force and marginalised in the ideological apparatuses. Even so, it is the GCC monarchies which have been most stable in the context of the global recession, and the most active in managing the fall-out. So, while the Arab League has not adopted a single, coherent policy response to the regional uprisings, GCC states have played a key role in manouevering the League to support selective interventions, monitoring missions, sanctions and so on against regionally awkward regimes. The League's support for the intervention in Libya was a decisive factor in enabling it to come about. Saudi Arabia, which has coordinated many policy initiatives to contain the region-wide uprisings, has involved itself deeply in the Syrian context. The involvement of Arab League monitors, received with some scepticism by the Syrian local co-ordination committees, was driven by Saudi Arabia; their recent withdrawal has also been triggered by Saudi Arabia. The subsequent lobbying for a UN resolution calling for the Assad regime to step down and supporting some form of UN intervention, has been led by Britain and France, but strongly supported by the Arab League. Russia is at present the only obstacle to the resolution, due to its long-standing relationship with Assad.

Finally, there is the Syrian opposition. The pro-imperialist bloc, the Syrian National Council (SNC), largely led by exiles based in France and Turkey, has not thus far been representative of the sentiment among the rank and file of Syrian opposition members. There is a left and nationalist contingent to the revolt, moreover, that complicates any attempt to simply annexe the revolt to the wider regional strategies of imperialism. Further, even in Libya, where no left or labour movement existed prior to the overthrow of Qadhafi, and where the revolt was quickly disfigured by a racist component, the opening of the political space subsequent to that overthrow has created a window in which germinal popular forces have been able to assert themselves. A political strike in the oil industry took out a pro-Qadhafi chairman, while unrest in Benghazi has resulted in a serious rift with the governing 'transitional council'. The ongoing struggles in Egypt, which is strategically central to the whole region, can also swiftly make calculations made on an ad hoc basis, moot. Nonetheless, complications and problems in a line of development do not necessarily mean that the line will be impeded. Were the Syrian opposition sufficiently crushed, I think it would be more likely that a pro-intervention 'line' could gain ground, and this would tend to divide the left-nationalist contingent. This has to be the assumption because, as Bassam Hassad has pointed out in his critique of the SNC and various pro-Assad types, the existing support for imperialist intervention is itself already the result of brutalisation, mediated by certain types of politics, (generally both liberal and Islamist).

There is also the problem of sectarianism. As far as I can tell, the majority reject any explicit political appeal along sectarian lines. The banners saying 'no to sectarianism' reflect a popular sentiment. The local co-ordination committees have explicitly opposed sectarianism in the movement. Every substantial report I have encountered indicates the strength of the determination to overcome sectarian politics. Nonetheless, the regime has a sectarian basis and has reinforced sectarian divisions as a technique of statecraft - not fundamentally dissimilar to a protection racket. Even though many of the Christians and Alawites supposedly protected by the regime are among the protesters, it would be astonishing if some sections of the opposition were not themselves driven by sectarian politics. It is noticeable that commentators dismissing the revolt as mere sectarian intrigue tend to focus on the role of the salafists. They exist as a subordinate stratum in the revolt, and they are among a number of forces which are against the regime on sectarian grounds. Far from constituting the main political current in the uprising, they nevertheless represent a problem and a weakness for the opposition. Such divisions are, moreover, always manipulated and amplified whenever imperialism is involved - Iraq, anyone?

Finally, there are divisions over the use of armed force against the regime. The Free Syrian Army (FSA) is a large army of defectors from the regime's armed forces, perhaps including tens of thousands of soldiers - at least 15,000 on recent estimates. This exists, to put it crudely, because the Israeli occupation exists. These soldiers, trained to defend Syria from Israeli aggression, are now defending Syrians from state aggression. But their remit has expanded. While their initial rationale was to defend communities against the security forces, they have consistently engaged in military attacks on the regime's infrastructure. The risk of doing so, of course, is that it brings down the regime's repressive apparatus. There is gossip and speculation to the effect that the FSA represents an imperialist conspiracy. I see little proof of this. Despite representing a layer of military defectors, it looks to have gained real support among the oppressed and exploited. The problem is that most of the movement's organised core has insisted on keeping it peaceful, on tactical grounds: the terrain of violent struggle is not where the regime is weakest. Yet, in some parts of the country, particularly the poorest, the regime is not leaving that option open. So, tactical divisions underpinned by geographical disparities and the regime's tactics of selectively striking out at opposition strongholds, are also a potential weakness. Now since the FSA is loyal to the Syrian National Council, which supports an imperialist intervention, there's an obvious dynamic that could come into play here. That is that in the event of the popular movement being crushed or at least severely set back, the armed component comes to the fore and substitutes for the masses; and in the event of a UN-sanctioned intervention, the FSA becomes an auxiliary of NATO, and alongside the SNC forms the nucleus of a post-Assad regime that is not representative of Syrians.

There is not an immediate move to bomb or invade Syria. There is, however, mounting external pressure to create the conditions that would allow this to happen fairly quickly and expediently. It would be a mistake to assume that because such a path would be riddled with problems, it would not be pursued.

***

With all that said, I intend to elaborate further in an abstract manner before coming up for air. From a marxist perspective, the most fundamental antagonism in the capitalist world system is class antagonism. These, of course, cut through the dominated regimes in the imperialist hierarchy just as much as they do in the dominant regimes. As such, in a popular struggle against these regimes, marxists start from the position of supporting those struggles. To be more specific, in various direct and indirect ways, these antagonisms are amplified by imperialism, inasmuch as the ruling classes of the imperialist chain benefit from the exploitation of workers and popular classes in the dominated societies. This is a fundamental cleavage which, arising from the outward extension of capitalist productive relations from the core, separates the dominant from the dominated formations. As a consequence, marxists also start from an axiomatic position of opposing imperialism. It is not simply that imperialism retards the social development of these societies, but that it constitutes an additional axis of exploitation and oppression.

Within the class and state structures of such societies, moreover, the domination of imperialism is reproduced in various ways, such that the modes of domination within those states cannot be extricated from the question of imperialism. As a consequence, popular movements arising against them will tend to have two targets: a domestic and international opponent. Their struggles will also have a tendency to be internationalized, and to have global effects. By the same token, where you have a national bourgeoisie that has developed in resistance to imperialism, that resistance will also be inscribed in its forms of class rule and in the state through which its political domination is secured. Its legitimacy will depend in part on the national bourgeoisie's promise to organise the society in its self-defence. It follows that where there is a break-up of the regime's social control, the issue of imperialism will be to the fore in its ideological and political strategies for retaining its dominant position. This isn't merely manipulation, nor can it be wished away. It poses a particular challenge to popular movements aiming to depose the regime, which is why the role of the anti-imperialist pole in the Syrian uprising is so critical.

But the reality is that these dying regimes can't effectively resist imperialism. The republics organised under the rubric of Arab nationalism have rarely, even in the rudest health, fared much better against Israeli aggression than the old monarchies, and have often been available for opportunistic or long-term alliances with imperialism. This is even true of partially resistant regimes. Hafez al-Assad's support for Falangists against the Palestinians provided the occasion for Syria's initial invasion of Lebanon. Assad senior was also a participant in the Gulf War alliance against Iraq. His son, Bashar al-Assad, has always notched up plaudits from Washington as a neoliberal reformer - the liberalisation of the economy along lines prescribed by the IMF has been one of the causes of the polarisation of Syrian society, and the narrowing of the regime's social base - and leased some of his jails to Washington during the 'war on terror' to facilitate the torture of suspects. The Islamic Republic has a similarly chequered record with regard to imperialism. So, if the regime's raison d'etre is partially that it is an anti-imperialist bulwark, the obvious answer is that it isn't even very good at this.

So how do we orient to this situation, politically? It seems obvious enough that the greatest bulwark against imperialist intervention in societies like Syria is the fullest and most active mobilisation of the masses themselves. Their defeat at the hands of their regime would represent a green light to those pressing for intervention. This is not the main reason why I think marxists should support these rebellions, but it is a very strong reason for doing so. Second, the organised opposition are for the most part, the most politically advanced sections of the popular classes in both Syria and Iran. They are the ones who, however they represent it, are responding to the class antagonism in a way that we would want the most radical workers in Europe, the United States and beyond to do. For this reason, arguments along the lines that both regimes continue to have a popular base and shouldn't be written off are fundamentally wrong. They do have a popular base, but it is not predominantly organised around any claims or values that the left, especially the revolutionary left, has a stake in. So, one must hope for that base to erode, and rapidly. Third, the same basic political grounds on which one opposes an undemocratic capitalist regime and supports its downfall are those on which one must oppose the regime of US imperialism, and work toward its downfall. Anti-imperialism is an indispensable and not merely occasional aspect of emancipatory politics.

These problems cannot, of course, be resolved with such abstract formulae: but such formulae have a role in reminding us of our political coordinates. In concrete struggles, socialists in the imperialist societies would be trying to maintain relations with the opposition to these regimes, linking with exile groups and supporting their protests. But at the same time, they would be the first to oppose military intervention, and would try to assemble the broadest coalition of forces to stop it. Even if the deep political logic of events suggests that there is a confluence of these positions, in the real time in which such practices are developed it means negotiating some potentially fraught alliances. Serious disagreements over the issue of imperialism are bound to emerge in any solidarity campaign; just as there will be sharp disagreements over the regime in any anti-imperialist campaign. Socialists would have to manage these tensions carefully, while being the ones to consistently argue that the two goals are mutually necessary, rather than opposed.

Labels: anti-imperialism, class struggle, david cameron, iran, Israel, middle east, obama, revolution, ruling class, sarkozy, syria, US imperialism, working class

Sunday, January 15, 2012

Another humanitarian intervention. posted by Richard Seymour

I mentioned the divisions in Syria's opposition a while ago, principally over the question of imperialist intervention and armed insurgency. These divisions have recently frustrated unity talks between the different opposition factions. The fact that Syria has an organised left, and a strong anti-imperialist pole in its opposition, makes intervention for the US (and EU) a much more difficult proposition than the light blitz of Libya. It turns out that this may not be sufficient to prevent an intervention, however. A recent Salon article describes how a coalition of lib imps and neocons is organising around the possibility of a quick, flighty regime-change in Syria - not just in the US, but in Europe.

As has become the pattern in the Obama executive, the main vector for this kind of 'humanitarian intervention' in the administration is Clinton's State Department. It was by persuading Clinton of the virtues of intervention in Libya that the lib imps - people like Samantha Power, Susan Rice and Anne-Marie Slaughter - won the case for war against its Realist opponents. Beyond the US, France is once again leading the drive for war within the EU. This may represent (the culmination of) a shift from the old Gaullist policy of independence from Washington, but it has a certain logic. France is the original home of the doctrine of droit de l'ingerence, a concept it put to use in interventions in Chad, the Ivory Coast, Yugoslavia and elsewhere. More generally, France's political dominance within an EU that has no centralised military authority would tend to give it a leading role where European interests in the Middle East are concerned. The more intriguing factor here is Turkey. Ankara's elites aren't too fond of the idea of releasing their grip on Cyprus to please the EU, and have in recent years slowed down a spate of reforms intended to ease membership of the Union. Nonetheless, their hostility to the Syrian regime is plain enough in their decision to allow exiles and the 'Free Syria Army' to operate from within Turkey. Could it be that the Turkish regime will this time allow itself to be used as a launch pad for an imperialist intervention?

That, of course, would still leave the question of how the Syrian terrain can be negotiated by any imperial coalition of the willing. This is critical both for the warmongers and for the antiwar-mongers. Those waging the intervention will need to be assured of having some sort of social base for a post-Assad regime once they've created it. As for the antiwar-mongers. Well, I don't wish to be rude, but I can already imagine the divisions and recriminations - some defending Assad, others plugging humanitarian intervention, the balkanization of opinion among anti-imperialists, the hair-splitting. All that, unless there was actually a powerful Syrian revolt against intervention. The pro-imperialist position within the Syrian opposition is occupied by the Syrian National Council (SNC), comprising liberals and conservative Islamists, mostly led by emigres with little basis in the domestic grassroots. The SNC is calling for the establishment of "safe zones" Predictably, but not accurately, pro-war politicians and diplomats deem the SNC a more representative organisation than its rivals. The National Committee for Democratic Change, as well as the local coordination bodies, have warned against seeking intervention. Despite vicious repression, they have also resisted moves toward an armed insurgency, perhaps fearing a repeat of the Libyan situation where early gains were quickly reversed by a far better organised state.

Perhaps the greatest problem for any intervention is the resilence of the opposition, despite the killing which the opposition estimates has claimed 5,000 people. The regime doesn't look as if it is about to collapse, but at the same time the opposition continues to draw enormous crowds and inflict damaging strikes. Libya was a veritable cakewalk for NATO because the opposition was being defeated rapidly, its emancipatory impulse was being snuffed out, and a leadership comprising dissident bourgeois factions had filled the vacuum left by the masses when the latter began to retreat under Qadhafi's assault. Syria's opposition has not experienced anything like this yet, and is thus no easy meat for co-optation.

Labels: 'humanitarian intervention', air strikes, dictatorship, imperialism, libya, middle east, NATO, revolution, syria, US imperialism

Monday, December 12, 2011

Fear of a red planet posted by Richard Seymour

“Whether it was a question of the right of petition or the tax on wine, freedom of the press or free trade, the clubs or the municipal charter, protection of personal liberty or regulation of the state budget, the watchword constantly recurs, the theme remains always the same, the verdict is ever ready and invariably reads: "Socialism!" Even bourgeois liberalism is declared socialistic, bourgeois enlightenment socialistic, bourgeois financial reform socialistic. It was socialistic to build a railway where a canal already existed, and it was socialistic to defend oneself with a cane when one was attacked with a rapier.

“This was not merely a figure of speech, fashion, or party tactics. The bourgeoisie had a true insight into the fact that all the weapons it had forged against feudalism turned their points against itself, that all the means of education it had produced rebelled against its own civilization, that all the gods it had created had fallen away from it. It understood that all the so-called bourgeois liberties and organs of progress attacked and menaced its class rule at its social foundation and its political summit simultaneously, and had therefore become "socialistic."” – Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte

Labels: 'socialism', anticommunism, capitalism, marx, marxism, revolution, ruling class, socialism, working class

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Egyptian revolution posted by Richard Seymour

Some salient developments in Egypt today: The Muslim Brothers asked their supporters not to attend the protest in Tahrir Square today. This is causing a serious rift in the organisation, especially given the scale of the protests. Hundreds of thousands have demonstrated today, including about 100,000 in Tahrir Square (remarkable given the scale of army repression designed to keep people away), a further 100,000 in Alexandria. Despite the enormous amount of powerful and toxic tear gas being used, and the dozens killed and thousands wounded, "huge crowds" are reportedly still making their way into Tahrir. Watch the live feed for yourself:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The army is starting to hesitate. Field Marshal Tantawi has accepted the resignation of the cabinet and offered to speed up the transition to civilian rule - though without naming a date and without addressing the substance of popular grievances, it was similar to many of the speeches Mubarak made before his overthrow. The protesters aren't buying it. It's an open question whether others, who are not at the centre of the revolutionary movement, will. And some notable defections have occured. Here an army officer splits from the military leadership and joins the protesters:

It is not helpful to overstate the significance of such defections. But recall that an important condition for the overthrow of Mubarak was the disintegration of his police force and the refusal of the army leadership to support him. At the time, the army accumulated moral capital for not supporting the main attacks on protesters. Since then, their conduct - worse than Mubarak, says Amnesty - has turned that black into red. The military itself is now the clear problem; and presumably what is needed is a breakdown in military command.

Last thing, the US has made it clear that it is backing the military to the finish. It has to. Because if the military regime collapses in Egypt, then the US-led attempts to take control of the situation in the Middle East will be in tatters. The initiative would be in the hands of the revolutionary masses, not just in Egypt - the centre of gravity - but also in Syria and Yemen. Israel's regional power would be further weakened. Even the straightforward, low cost victory in Libya - whose new regime excludes both the Islamists and the Berbers - could begin to unravel.

Labels: dictatorship, egypt, libya, middle east, revolution, syria, US imperialism

Monday, November 21, 2011

Occupy Tahrir Square posted by Richard Seymour

Speaking of bungled acts of repression, the Egyptian military's assault on protesters after last Friday's mass protest has revived the country's revolutionary movement and (so I hear) put a general strike on the agenda. Tahrir Square has been retaken. This image (left) shows what the square looked like on Friday. Following the protest, which was against the military council's usurpation of dictatorial power, dozens of people decided to stay on in the square overnight. They were assaulted by troops using tear gas and rubber bullets in a bid to clear the square. The resulting uproar saw tens of thousands drawn back out onto the square. Repeated assaults seem only to have broadened the array of groups willing to stand against the military. Beyond Tahrir, there have been mass protests in Alexandria and Suez, among other places. The assembly of forces looks remarkably similar to that in February - trade unionists, liberals, socialists, Nasserists and Islamists, all out against the regime. There are now calls for international solidarity as the revolutionary movement, in tens of thousands not dozens, faces down rubber bullets and tear gas. The country's trade unions are calling for their 1.4m members to join protesters in the Tahrir Square sit-in. The struggle is still 'in the balance', as it were, but what a turnaround.

For a time, it seemed as if the armed forces would control the tempo of events. Elections would proceed in the manner prescribed by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), and most significant forces would participate. The army would incite sectarianism against coptic Christians, and murder them with impunity. The leadership of the Muslim Brothers - expecting to do well in any prospective elections under the banner of the Freedom and Justice Party - would tend to side with the army in maintaining 'order' against those leftists, liberals and Islamists who antagonised the new ruling order. Indeed, at a crucial moment in July, a mass Islamist rally in Tahrir appeared to show that the alliance between the military and sections of the Islamists was being consolidated. Salafists, jihadis and Muslim Brothers chanted slogans in favour of national unity, while speakers defended the SCAF. The mobilisations of liberals and leftists against the regime, by contrast, looked small. Shortly after the rally, armed thugs were sent by the army to assault opposition supporters camped in Tahrir Square.

Some, in response to this situation, went so far as to declare the revolutionary process at an end. Others descended into indiscriminate rants about Islamists, and enjoined us to remember Iran, 1979. Here was a case of Islamist counter-revolution if ever there was one. Since many of the people I am referring to (I'm being deliberately vague, not to avoid giving offence, but to ensure that the offence is taken widely) are marxists, it is odd that their mistakes were so liberal. They began and ended their assessment of the forces assembled in Egypt on the basis of an ascribed ideology, with little or no reference to class or other political determinants. Whether or not ideology plays the dominant role in situating actors in a given struggle surely depends on the circumstances, but the imperative to be concrete was blithely evaded. Abstraction governed their responses. Relatedly, even while restricting the discussion to ideology, their discussion of that level of struggle was curiously flattened: Islamism was treated not as a complex, incoherent and frequently antagonistic combination of elements, but as a spiritual totality reducible to an incorrigible reactionary essence.

So, it is of more than passing interest that the current mobilisation has drawn support from salafists and detachments from the Muslim Brothers. We needn't deceive ourselves about the role that such forces play. They enjoy mass support, and the Brothers in particular have the infrastructure for a viable political organisation. But, where they have supported progressive political struggles - for democratic and human rights, for Palestine, against the dictatorship - they have tailed, rather than led, secular formations. The responsibility of marxists, however, is to look for the dominant line of political division in any given situation. In this situation, the struggle is between the armed forces, who have murdered and injured several people over the weekend, and the revolutionaries, who include thousands of Islamist activists. The political logic of demonising Islamism in these circumstances would either be a purist abstentionism, or worse, support for SCAF as a bulwark of secular power against the Islamists.

Thirty three people have been killed by armed forces in Tahrir Square since Friday. The level of brutality is shocking. I understand that the military opened fire with live rounds on protesters as they attempted to storm the Interior Ministry. Yet, as you can see, the response from the revolutionaries continues to be defiant:

The military appears to be producing a situation from which there can be no return. Either they will consolidate their power as a new despotism with a slender democratic facade - and elections are now in doubt - or they will be decisively weakened, and a new alignment of democratic forces will have the initiative. As the revolutionaries of Egypt say, Glory to the martyrs, Victory to the revolution, Power and wealth to the people.

Labels: army, dictatorship, egypt, islamism, mubarak, muslim brothers, occupation, revolution, socialism, tahrir square, US imperialism

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Revolutionary crisis posted by Richard Seymour

"And Professor Pouthas added that when the 1848 revolutions broke out, "its leaders and instigators were intellectuals devoid of political experience, not men of action". This amateur aspect of the protesters of 1848 is repeated today. A description wouldn't be very different from Professor Pouthas'. In 2011 one would say the "leaders and instigators" of the protests are women's rights organisers, self-employed IT consultants, middle-class, jobless squatters, unemployed music teachers, freelance artists, charity volunteers, social workers and media studies students, all of whom, like their predecessors in 1848, are "devoid of political experience, not men and women of action". Surely, one might reflect, there is nothing to fear from such a group.

"On Sunday, some 500 of them held an assembly and agreed on nine points. The process is likely to have been laborious. For participants were reminded that deliberation takes time, that eloquent and confident speakers are not necessarily right and that conditions will not favour the merely quick-witted. ...

"Nonetheless, what the men devoid of political experience did in 1848, and the inexperienced protesters in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt did, is simply to endure, to keep the spark burning. There are two characteristics of a pre-revolutionary situation – a valuable insight widely shared and the endurance of those who hold it. We have the first, but it is not yet clear whether we have the second." (Andreas Whittam Smith, 'Western nations are now ripe for revolution', The Independent, 20th October 2011)

Labels: capitalist crisis, class struggle, media, recession, revolution

Friday, September 30, 2011

Syria's opposition and 'intervention' posted by Richard Seymour

There has been some talk in the broadsheets of Syrian intellectuals supporting a US-led 'intervention'. I've seen recently that the opposition has formed a Syrian National Council from exile to represent all the domestic opposition groups. Initially it was reported in the Telegraph that the group opposed foreign intervention. Now it is reported that they are discussing sanctions and a no-fly zone with overseas powers. According to the Syrian activist and writer Michael Kilo, this pro-imperialist stance is one reason why the council isn't supported within Syria:

Anti-regime activists inside Syria oppose the Syrian National Council, an opposition body formed in Turkey last month, because it favors foreign intervention, prominent activist Michel Kilo said on Thursday.
"The opposition within the national council are in favor of foreign intervention to resolve the crisis in Syria, while those at home are not," Kilo claimed in remarks to Agence France Presse at his home in Damascus.
"If the idea of foreign intervention is accepted, we will head towards a pro-American Syria and not towards a free and sovereign state," he said.
"A request for foreign intervention would aggravate the problem because Syria would descend into armed violence and confessionalism, while we at home are opposed to that."
Kilo, 71, a writer who has opposed the ruling Baath party since it came to power in 1963, was jailed from 1980 to 1983 and from 2006 to 2009.

It's interesting to see how the opposition divides over 'intervention'. While the SNC represents a coalition of liberals and Islamists, the National Committee for Democratic Change (NCDC), of which Kilo is a member, is organised around Arab nationalists, Marxists, independents, Kurds, etc. This represents a broadly left pole that wasn't present in Libya (and still isn't, as far as I know). Also worth noting that the Syrian Revolution General Commission (SRGC), the pro-'intervention' group now working in Washington, supposedly represents the Muslim Brothers among others.

The formation of a pro-imperialist exile lobby is a worrying and potentially dangerous development following on from Libya. While I still have my doubts that such a war is coming, it's only fair to recall I had similar doubts at the beginning of March that Libya would be bombed. In these circumstances, despite the fact that the administration has thus far been very cautious, it makes no sense to rule anything out. And one important condition for any US-led invasion or bombing of Syria would be, I think, the formation of a clear, pro-'intervention' contingent among the opposition. So, I'm just putting it out there: keep your eye on this story, see where it goes.

Update: this remarkable statement, apparently from the Local Coordinating Committees in Syria (the grassroots basis of the revolt), is worth quoting in full:

In an unprecedented move over the past several days, Syrians in Syria and abroad have been calling for Syrians to take up arms, or for international military intervention. This call comes five and a half months of the Syrian regime’s systematic abuse of the Syrian people, whereby tens of thousands of peaceful protesters have been detained and tortured, and more than 2,500 killed. The regime has given every indication that it will continue its brutal approach, while the majority of Syrians feel they are unprotected in their own homeland in the face of the regime’s crimes.
While we understand the motivation to take up arms or call for military intervention, we specifically reject this position as we find it unacceptable politically, nationally, and ethically. Militarizing the revolution would minimize popular support and participation in the revolution. Moreover, militarization would undermine the gravity of the humanitarian catastrophe involved in a confrontation with the regime.
Militarization would put the Revolution in an arena where the regime has a distinct advantage, and would erode the moral superiority that has characterized the Revolution since its beginning.

Our Palestinian brothers are experienced in leading by example. They gained the support of the entire Palestinian community, as well as world sympathy, during the first Intifada (“stones”). The second Intifada, which was militarized, lost public sympathy and participation. It is important to note that the Syrian regime and Israeli enemy used identical measures in the face of the two uprisings.
The objective of Syria's Revolution is not limited to overthrowing the regime. The Revolution also seeks to build a democratic system and national infrastructure that safeguards the freedom and dignity of the Syrian people. Moreover, the Revolution is intended to ensure independence and unity of Syria, its people, and its society.
We believe that the overthrow of the regime is the initial goal of the Revolution, but it is not an end in itself. The end goal is freedom for Syria and all Syrians. The method by which the regime is overthrown is an indication of what Syria will be like post-regime. If we maintain our peaceful demonstrations, which include our cities, towns, and villages; and our men, women, and children, the possibility of democracy in our country is much greater. If an armed confrontation or international military intervention becomes a reality, it will be virtually impossible to establish a legitimate foundation for a proud future Syria.
We call on our people to remain patient as we continue our national Revolution. We will hold the regime fully responsible and accountable for the current situation in the country, the blood of all martyrs – civilian and military, and any risks that may threaten Syria in the future, including the possibility of internal violence or foreign military intervention.
To the victory of our Revolution and to the glory of our martyrs.
The Local Coordinating Committees in Syria

Labels: 'humanitarian intervention', dictatorship, liberal imperialism, revolution, syria, US imperialism

Friday, September 23, 2011

Yemen's revolution and declining US power posted by Richard Seymour

I am sorry not have to kept up to date with the inspiring resistance in Syria and Yemen. I note that David Cameron's speech at the UN used the example of Libya to argue for more interventions, citing both these countries as being in need of 'reform'. For what it's worth, it presently seems unlikely that Britain will be able to drive further military interventions, as the conditions that made a relatively low cost and low commitment intervention in Libya possible aren't likely to be replicated elsewhere. However, the adoption of the language of 'reform' is very interesting, and signals that the strategy of the dominant states has shifted from simply backing the ancient regimes to looking for a managed transition to more liberal societies. The spirit of this was, I think, summed up in Blair's panicked remarks upon the Egyptian revolution:

"All over that region, there is essentially one issue, which is how do they evolve and modernise, both in terms of their economy, their society and their politics.
"All I'm saying is that, in the case of Egypt and in the case in Yemen, because there are other factors in this – not least those who would use any vacuum in order to foment extremism – that you do this in what I would call a stable and ordered way."
Blair said the west should engage with countries such as Egypt in the process of change "so that you weren't left with what is actually the most dangerous problem in the Middle East, which is that an elite that has an open minded attitude but it's out of touch with popular opinion, and popular opinion that can often – because it has not been given popular expression in its politics – end up frankly with the wrong idea and a closed idea."

Cameron would not be as crude as Blair, since he is an opportunist while the latter is an out and out bampot, but I think he shares essentially the same idea. As regards Yemen, it's been obvious for a while now that despite Washington's backing for repression and involvement in killing opposition leaders dubbed 'Al Qaeda', they're no longer content to leave Saleh in charge. The scale and endurance of the resistance, coming as it does from fractured sources and with different motives, combined with internal plotting against Saleh, has forced Washington to change tack (see Obama's UN speech). As Sheila Carapico points out in MERIP, they have done so reluctantly, and with a clear lack of sympathy for the protesters. In April, when they thought a face-saving deal might be reached, the US embassy in Sanaa issued a press release urging "'Yemeni citizens' to show good faith by 'avoiding all provocative demonstrations, marches and speeches in the coming days'."

The ongoing UN negotiations over a power transfer concern the terms of Saleh's departure, and constitute an effort by the US to engineer a settlement it can live with. Meanwhile, as the regime continues to use live rounds, tear gas, sewage water cannons, artillery and tanks to suppress the opposition, it is so important that the opposition has not been demobilised as the Obama administration would like it to be. This is a mass rally in Yemen today following a week of repression:

This suggests that, despite the very intelligent, cautious and successful intervention in Libya, US power has still taken a very significant regional knock, and its ability to control events is in question. Look at what's happening with Palestine. Egypt relaxing Rafah crossing restrictions, and supporting Fatah-Hamas peace talks, the Israeli embassy beseiged, Turkey continuing its historic break with Israel, and now the Palestinian statehood bid which, with all caveats noted, has left the Israeli leadership manifestly rattled. Obama has just sent Israel more weapons, and he will almost certainly instruct his ambassador to the UN to veto the bid. Susan Rice, the administration's uber-humanitarian-interventionist, threatened the UN with the withdrawal of US funding if member states backed Palestinian statehood. Still, a majority of states may approve the bid, and that would be a defeat for the US and Israel. As importantly, the Palestinian leadership has decided to sidestep America as the key mediator in the process. Both the US and Israel insist that there can be no talk of statehood outside the 'peace process'. But Mahmoud Abbas, after all these years, is acting as if he knows that the 'peace process' is intended to suffocate the very possibility of Palestinian statehood, which is not a small thing.

Labels: gaza, Israel, libya, middle east, palestine, revolution, US imperialism, yemen