Tension increases in Venezuela

Venezuelanalysis carries two very important articles today. One is about a CIA plot named Operation Pliers, involving a number of prominent opposition groups, leaders, media outlets and students which came to light after the Venezuelan counterintelligence service intercepted a CIA memorandum, dated November 20th. The memorandum predicts a clear Yes mandate for the constitutional referendum taking place on Sunday and goes on to propose a plan of action for the opposition after the referendum, including challenging its authenticity, inciting unrest and distabilisation with the purpose of throwing the country into a state of ungovernability preparing the way for another attempt to violently overthrow the Bolivarian government; textbook imperialist tactics that is, from Mozambique to Vietnam. Importantly, the memorandum also confirms the large scale clandestine campaign against Bolivarianism that has been conducted by the CIA for some time:

Officer Steere emphasizes the importance and success of the public relations and propaganda campaign that the CIA has been funding with more than $8 million during the past month - funds that the CIA confirms are transfered through the USAID contracted company, Development Alternatives, Inc., which set up operations in June 2002 to run the USAID Office for Transition Initiatives that funds and advises opposition NGOs and political parties in Venezuela. The CIA memo specifically refers to these propaganda initiatives as "psychological operations" (PSYOPS), that include contracting polling companies to create fraudulent polls that show the NO vote with an advantage over the SI vote, which is false. The CIA also confirms in the memo that it is working with international press agencies to distort the data and information about the referendum, and that it coordinates in Venezuela with a team of journalists and media organized and directed by the President of Globovision, Alberto Federico Ravell.

The other article reports on the murder of José Anibal Oliveros Yépez, a Chavez supporter, by a group of anti-reform protesters on Monday. After documenting the entirely unprovoked attack, the article goes on to mention that violence by opposition group is not a collection of isolated incidents but instead, a consistent part of a quasi fascist campaign of bullying that is typical of middle class mobilisation:

National Assembly Deputy Francisco Ameliach and the Mayor of Guacara, José Manuel Flores, who visited the neighborhood to pay their respects to the Oliveros' family, reported that opposition groups in Ciudad Alianza that claim to represent "civil society" have marked the houses of Chavez supporters, or those they believe to be Chavez supporters, with red paint and "have said they are going to kill them."

What this goes to show is that the Bolivarian process is one powered by irreconcilable class contradictions within Venezuelan society, rather than merely a national bourgeois project. As the reforms instituted by Chavez increasingly weaken the power of global capital and its domestic crutches, we can only expect an intensification of the struggle as the bourgeoisie tries to overturn the process while it still has some political power left. As the heat rises, class contradictions will be laid in increasingly more stark terms as bourgeois and petty-bourgeois ideology will be unable to provide a satisfactory explanatory framework for the rapidly developing (and thus changing) circumstances in Venezuela. Chavez himself demonstrated this shift when, addressing a pro-amendment work place representatives' meeting Caracas, he explicitly stated that "the working class has to be the vanguard of the revolutionary process for socialist power.", cautioning against the dangers of bureaucratic degeneration as happened in the Soviet Union. Chavez also went on to speak about the irreconcilable conflict of interests between the working class on the one hand, and capitalism and the bourgeois state on the other. From the IMT website:

The Cuban revolution has lasted a long time due to a deep relationship with the masses. In Nicaragua the road of reformism led to tragic results. You cannot adapt to capitalism. It doesn't work. No to reformism, No to Bureaucracy! [...]He emphasized again and again that the working class is the vanguard but he also castigated many trade unions for not being able to rise above the arena of purely trade union demands. If this does not happen then the political level of the working class won't rise to the level needed to carry out the task of being the motor force of the revolution. This process will determine the timing and direction of the revolution. We should pass onto the offensive as under capitalism we use defensive actions to protect conditions. The only way to guarantee Popular Power is if the working class plays the leading role.

Under the constitutional changes, he continues, the workers councils in the factories will establish relations with peasant, student and community councils [in effect setting up embryonic soviets - DC]. If this happens then what happened in the Soviet Union and Nicaragua won't happen. The aim of all of this is to establish Socialism in the country of Bolivar and - in response to a cry from the audience - in all of the Americas.

Yet the devil is in the detail. On the one hand Chavez sees the councils in different areas as alternative organs of power more closely related to the people and therefore theoretically more responsive. This is also a way to bypass the cumbersome and obstructive State bureaucracy. As he stated, "...workers councils will come into being in the factories, in the workplaces, but they should reach out to the communities and be fused into other councils of popular power: community councils, students councils, etc... What for? To shout slogans? To go around shouting long live Chavez? No!... To change the relationships in the workplace, to plan production, to take over piece by piece the functions of the government and to finish up by destroying the bourgeois state."

The current stage of the class struggle in Venezuela will have to come to a decisive political outcome one way or another sooner than later; this dual-poweresque fragile balance of class powers is not a sustainable social equilibrium. The division and increasing weakness of the bourgeoisie makes it ever more difficult for them to defend against the advancing working class, but it should be kept in mind that the proletariat too does not yet have a unified political leadership with a clear programme, ready to seize power and embark on the construction of socialism. The PSUV might come to play that role, but that will depend upon the programme and the organisational structure that will be adopted by its coming founding conference. We can only hope that the majority of principled socialists in Venezuela have joined the party and have not been carried away by the calls for ideological purity by the WRP clones of this world.

Until the foundation of the PSUV however, it is imperative that the Bolivarian movement takes whatever measures necessary to safeguard itself from reaction. Extreme attention must be paid to the tactics of the opposition and resources of all kinds will have to be mobilised to ensure that Operation Pliers does not come to fruition. This will necessarily include state crackdowns (although I am sure that those who lamented the suppression of RCTV's "democratic" right to support fascist coups will cry "authoritarianism" here as well) but it is of crucial importance that there is also grassroots working class political organisation in the form of demos, counter demos and patrols among other things. As Chavez (and Lenin) said, the workers (to the last cook) must gradually take over the functions of the state.

An Interview with FARC Commander Simón Trinidad

FARC is an organisation about which not many people know a lot or even a bit. It is old enough (it's been almost 40 years since the armed struggle in Colombia started) to have receded from the spotlight, but it is still active and thus cannot be studied in a standard academic historical manner. What is more, its case is quite interesting in that it creates much division amongst the left over whether it should be supported or not with accusations of it being a drug trafficking cartel without any politics left after four decades of guerilla warfare often thrown around. With the opportunity provided by the Colombian government's decision to terminate Venezuela's role as a mediator in hostage exchange negotiations, the Lair republishes the following interview with FARC commander Simón Trinidad, originally published in Columbia Report. It is an interesting read and provides some counterbalance to the First World's narrative about the organisation.

An Interview with FARC Commander Simón Trinidad

by Garry Leech

In January 1999, newly elected Colombian president Andres Pastrana ceded an area of southern Colombia the size of Switzerland to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas as part of an agreement to begin peace talks. Although there is no cease-fire agreement while the talks are being carried out, the Colombian Armed Forces and the National Police have withdrawn all their forces from the region known as the Zona de Despeje (Clearance Zone).

The FARC's headquarters in Los Pozos, a small village located 18 miles from San Vicente del Caguan in the Zona de Despeje, has been host to the peace talks as well as public conferences where all sectors of Colombian society can come to participate in discussions about Colombia's future. On June 14, 2000, I traveled to Los Pozos to interview Simón Trinidad, a FARC commander and a spokesman for the guerrilla organization. Trinidad was a professor of economics and a banker before joining the FARC 16 years ago.

Q. What is the current status of the ongoing peace process?

A. In May 1999, the FARC and the Colombian government established a common agenda consisting of twelve points. This agenda was created with an agreement that both parties would bring their proposals to the negotiating table--things that they considered important in the discussion and in the search for a resolution to the conflict and to make the changes that Colombia needs.

At the moment, they are only discussing one item: unemployment. There have been 13 or 14 public conferences here in Los Pozos about this topic featuring businessmen, workers, university students, teachers and rectors. This Friday there will be a conference with the African-Colombian communities. On June 25 there will be a conference with unemployed women and on June 29 there will be one on illicit crops and the environment. The FARC and the government are discussing all these items that they consider important in the search for a political solution to the social conflict in Colombia.

Q. Why do you think the United States is focusing on the FARC and campesinos that cultivate coca here in southern Colombia instead of the paramilitaries and the narco-traffickers?

A. That's a good question. Because the FARC is the only political organization that is in opposition to the Colombian oligarchy that keeps Colombians in poverty, misery and a state of underdevelopment. We are fighting for a change in the Colombian economic model and for a new state. For a state that has at its center the men and women of Colombia and to provide a better life and social justice for Colombians. With the riches in this country and after 180 years of republic living, Colombians must live better. We'll make better use of the natural resources and provide jobs, healthcare, education and housing so that 40 million Colombians can live well.

Who are those that are opposed to these social, economic and political changes? They are the people who monopolize the riches and resources in Colombia. A small group that monopolizes the banks, the industries, the mines, agriculture and international commerce, including some foreign companies, especially North Americans. For these reasons we are the principal target in the war against narco-traffickers. But we aren't narco-traffickers and the campesinos aren't narco-traffickers, they are using it as an excuse for fighting against us.

If the United States government really intends to combat narco-traffickers, all the people in Colombia know where the narco-traffickers live. They live in Bogotá, Medellín, Cali and Barranquilla. Therefore, to seize the narco-traffickers the police have to do certain things. They have to leave their houses and search for them in order to put them in prison. But no, they confront the poor campesino with repression that not only hurts the illicit crops, but also legal crops like yucca, bananas, and chickens and pigs because the fumigation kills everything. It damages the earth, the vegetation, the water and the animals.

Those responsible for making Colombia a producer of narcotics are the people who have become rich from this business: the narco-traffickers, and they are happy. Who else benefits from narco-trafficking? The bankers and those who distribute the drugs in the cities, universities, high schools and discos of North America, Europe and Asia, the greatest consumers of marijuana, cocaine and heroin. Who else benefits? The companies that make the chemicals for processing cocaine and heroin. These companies are German and North American. They are industries in the developed countries. It's a great business for the chemical companies.

The poor campesino has lived in misery for many years and will continue to do so. The war is for them and for us. We are planning a different solution for the problem of narco-trafficking. It consists of providing a better life for the poor campesino through agrarian reform, by giving them good lands, technical assistance and low-interest loans to change from growing illicit crops to legal crops; such as, coffee, yucca, bananas, sugarcane and ranching. An alternative development that facilitates commercialization for these products. But it's a slow process to change them, it´s not just destroying the illicit crops and then telling them to grow different ones. We have to educate the campesinos about how to produce them. Give them tools, credits and time so they can make a living from these crops and become a different kind of campesino.

Q. Last year, FARC spokesman Raul Reyes claimed that the FARC could eradicate coca cultivation in the regions it controls in five years. However, there have been accusations that the FARC is forcing campesinos to grow more coca here in the Zona de Despeje.

A. This is the story of the police, the army and the narco-traffickers. We live in the country, and it is in the country that the coca, marijuana and the poppy have been grown for thirty years. We know that the campesinos grow illicit crops out of necessity. It is specifically a socio-economic situation. They are obligated to cultivate illicit crops because of a government that has neglected them for many years. We have made it clear that we will not take the food out of the mouth of the poor campesino. We will not leave them without jobs. They work with the marijuana and coca leaf because they don't have any other work. This problem is caused by the economic model of the Colombian state, and it is the state that has to fix the problem. We are the state's enemy, not their anti-narcotics police. The state has to offer people employment, honest work, and social justice to improve their lives.

Q. The FARC has introduced its own system of justice in the Zona de Despeje. What are the codes of justice and how are they implemented?

A. It's not true! We haven't introduced a justice system in the Zona de Despeje. For 36 years we have been working to solve the social problems of the campesinos that have a relationship with us. For many years the state hasn't been present in many regions. There have been no state judges, no justice system and no public administration in many regions of the country. The society has had to resolve their own problems because they don't believe in the ministry of work, they don't believe in Colombian justice, they don't believe in the Colombian army and police. They came to us and we were there for them in the country.

For example, there was a conflict between two people regarding land and cows. The cows belonging to one of them entered the other person's land and destroyed his crops. He came to us looking for a solution to this problem. They don't go looking for a state functionary because they don't come to the country. So we told him to come here tomorrow with his neighbor to talk about the problem. We listened to both versions and we asked them for a solution. If they don't find a solution, we propose some solutions in an attempt to apply justice. We want to see that they can resolve their own problems. We are a witness to their agreements.

Another example is a bad marriage. When the husband drinks all the money, hits the wife and leaves his wife and children. They don't have the money to travel to a city where the family court is located in order to resolve this problem. The process takes one, two or three years before he is told to provide milk for his children. We call the mother and father and tell them that he has to give part of his salary to his wife and children and that he can't drink too much anymore. We come to an agreement.

Workers in factories in the cities that were dismissed from their job without reason and without severance benefits go to the jungle in search of the guerrillas to resolve this problem. We send a note to the administrator, boss or owner telling them they have to come and talk with the guerrillas to resolve the problem. Some don't come, but others do come and we listen to them. We don't always believe the workers, we listen to the businessmen because maybe the worker is lazy, or a drunk, or a liar, or irresponsible. We resolve these kinds of problems for people who live in the country and the cities. We do this in other regions of the country where the guerrillas are.

Here in San Vicente del Caguan, when we created the Zona de Despeje, the campesinos stopped the guerrillas in the street for solutions to their problems. Now, people have to go to the Oficina de quejas y reclamos (Office of Claims and Complaints) and we listen to both sides of the problem. We didn't create this system now in the Zona de Despeje, historically the FARC has done this where the state has lacked a system of justice and where a majority of people don't believe in the Colombian justice system. We are doing it in the Zona de Despeje in an office. The people come and the guerrillas listen to them and find a solution. It is not only about money.

For example, who gets custody of the children when parents get separated? If the mother is a prostitute, doesn't care about her children and consumes drugs, then the care of the children is given to the father. These are the types of problems we resolve. This office also resolves problems concerning guerrillas when they are bad. For example, if they go out and get drunk. Sometimes we make mistakes and we like it when other people tell us where we failed.

Q. What will happen if the United States Congress authorizes increased military aid to the Colombian Armed Forces and they launch an offensive against the FARC here in southern Colombia?

A. I don't want to think about it. I don't want to think about it. We have more faith in a peace process with dialogue. I don't want to think about a war in this region of the country. The war won't resolve Colombia's problems. Colombia has 18 million people living in absolute poverty. These people don't have electricity, water, jobs, land, education and healthcare. Another 18 million Colombians are poor with a salary that doesn't cover all their necessities. They live restricted lives. In many cases the mother, father and one or two sons have to work to provide transport, housing and clothes.

We are 36 million Colombians living poorly out of a total of 40 million Colombians. Of the other four million Colombians, some are rich and others have a good life working in industries, businesses and farms. They have a solution to their problems of healthcare, education, vacation, work and social benefits. Is the war going to resolve these problems?

If this is about the narco-trafficker problem then you know where the narco-traffickers are. For example, the governor of the department of Cesar, Lucas, is a narco-trafficker and he is governor for the second time. His brother is a senator in the National Congress and is in alliance with the president of the Congressional Assembly, Pomanico, who is being investigated for stealing $4.5 million from congress. There is an alliance between narco-traffickers and common politicians, both Liberals and Conservatives. Also, between paramilitaries and the narco-traffickers, everybody knows this.

If you go to Barranquilla the people will tell you where the narco-traffickers are. The police and the commanders of the army battalions and brigades know this. Will the war waged against poor campesinos solve these problems? The war won't resolve the problems for the hungry and unemployed in Colombia.

Q. How will the FARC effectively implement its new political front, the Bolivariano Movement, if its members remain anonymous?

A. The idea of the Bolivariano Movement is not ours, it doesn't come from us. It was born with many Colombians 16 years ago when the members of the Patriotic Union were assassinated. It was a legal movement, a democratic movement that participated in the presidential, congressional and municipal elections. And then they began to get assassinated.

When the armed forces, police and paramilitaries began to kill the members of the Patriotic Union they came to us and said, 'We want to work with you, we like the FARC's policies. But because of this they will kill us.' They wanted to work with us, but alone. But the FARC said, 'No, you can't work alone. You have to work with your father, your mother, your brother, your neighbor, your girlfriend, your wife, your co-workers, and your classmates. You have to organize, because if we are divided we can't win.'

But to work in secret? They are right. At this moment was born the idea for the political movement. A political movement that works to recover Colombian society in secret, a movement that's militant and clandestine. There will be campesinos, students, workers, women and intellectuals who will fight the political confrontation without saying they belong to the Bolivariano Movement. They will not participate in elections because there are no guarantees and conditions that they will not be killed.

First we have to change many customs in this country, like the oligarchy killing political contradictors. This is Colombian history. The world doesn't know of another country where political contradictors are killed like in Colombia. All of them since we gained independence from Spain. They assassinated Sucre, they tried to assassinate Bolivar, and they assassinated many leaders of the nineteenth century in civil wars. They killed Rafael Uribe Uribe. They assassinated Jorge Eliecer Gaitan, Jaime Pardo Leal, and the Liberal guerrillas that laid down their arms under the government of the dictator Rojas Pinilla. They assassinated 4,000 members of the Patriotic Union, cleansed the Patriotic Union with bullets, and they have followed this practice to kill labor leaders, student leaders, campesino leaders, everybody that has opposed this tyrannic regime. For this reason the Bolivariano Movement remains clandestine.

Q. Many international human rights organizations have demanded that the FARC stop recruiting children. Where does the FARC stand on this issue?

A. In our statutes we have decided that we can recruit 15 year-olds and up. In some fronts there may have been some younger, but a short time ago we decided to send them back home. But what is the cost? In the last year a girl arrived at the office in San Vicente, 14 years-old and wanting to join the guerrillas. When the mother found out that she had joined she contacted the guerrillas and cried and said her daughter is only 14 years-old. In March she was sent back home because the FARC's Central Command said they would return to their parents all those younger than fifteen. Two weeks ago I met this girl and asked her what she was doing. She said she was working in a bar from 6pm until sunrise. I asked what she was doing in this bar and she said, 'I attend to the customers.' When I asked in what way does she attend to the customers, she lowered her head and started to cry. She is a whore. She is 14 years old. A child prostitute. She was better in the guerrillas. In the guerrillas we have dignity, respect and we provide them with clothes, food and education.

And there are millions of others like this girl in Colombia that are exploited in the coal mines, the gold mines, the emerald mines, in the coca and poppy fields. They prefer that children work in the coca and poppy fields because they pay them less and they work more. It sounds beautiful when you say that children shouldn't be guerrillas, but the children are in the streets of the cities doing drugs, inhaling gasoline and glue. They are highly exploited.

According to the United Nations: 41% of Colombians are children; 6.5 million children live in conditions of poverty, add to this 1.2 million children living in absolute poverty; 30,000 children live in the streets without mothers, fathers and brothers; 47% of children are abused by their parents; and 2.5 million work in high risk jobs. These children meet the guerrillas and they don't have parents because the military or the paramilitaries killed them and they ask the guerrillas to let them join. We are executing the norm that no children younger than 15 years of age join.

Q. How many women are there in the FARC and what happens when they become pregnant?

A. Aproximately 30% of the guerrillas are women and the number is increasing all the time. The women guerillas are treated the same as the men. Some FARC units have female commandantes and the FARC office in San Vicente is run by a female guerrilla named Nora. Some of the women have relationships with male guerrillas and we provide contraceptives because we do not want pregnant women in the guerrillas. But some do get pregnant and if they don't have an abortion it is necessary that they leave the guerrillas.

Q. What does the government have to do for the FARC to agree to a cease-fire during negotiations?

A. Stop the fighting on both sides. This cease-fire must be established for a specific time: a month or two months. And besides, it must be verified for both sides. This we understand to be a cease-fire. It was tried many times. Seventeen years ago with Belasario Betancur's government, when we signed a cease-fire Manuel Marulanda Velez gave the order to all guerrilla fronts to suspend fighting on May 28, 1984, and the president did the same. But the next day, there was an opposing order from the Commander of the Army, General Vega Uribe, saying they won't comply with the cease-fire order because they have to abide by the Constitution.

We have many times during this presidential period called unilateral cease-fires for Christmas, Easter, elections, many times. The most recent unilateral cease-fire was December 20, 1999 until January 5, 2000. But if we are going to discuss this theme it would be under bilateral proposals with defined times and mechanisms of control and verification. To verify who broke the agreement and why.

This article originally appeared in Colombia Report, an online journal that was published by the Information Network of the Americas (INOTA).

Foxy letter

The following is a letter to Socialist Worker by SSP National Convenor Colin Fox. As an SSP member, I have extracted many lulz from the SWP's theoretical "analysis" of what's happening in RESPECT, given their behaviour in the SSP during the whole Sheridan debacle. Cheers to Colin for pointing the irony out.

Is it any wonder that anyone watching the tragic unfolding collapse of Respect is confused about the issues when the article ‘What’s behind the crisis in Respect?’
published in Socialist Worker online Tuesday 6th November tries to compare the situation with circumstances in other left parties ‘right across Europe’.

But it is the particular nonsense contained in Alex Callinicos’s pious wishful thinking ‘the Scottish Socialist Party has effectively collapsed since the leadership decided to drive Tommy Sheridan out’ with which I wish to take issue.
Let’s leave aside the fact that the Scottish Socialist Party has in the period since the May elections been on every picket line in the country, first of all supporting the Tesco lorry drivers in Livingston, then the Royal Mail postal workers the length and breadth of Scotland and the Glasgow care workers. Let’s also leave aside the role that I and other SSP members played in defeating Edinburgh City Council’s plans to close 22 primary schools in the city. Lets also set aside our hugely successful party conference held last month in Dundee wherein hundreds of delegates showed their continuing commitment to the party and the confidence that it will survive recent horrific events when those who were keener to split the left have not. And let’s leave aside our presence, as the Scottish SWP at least were forced to recognise at last weekends anti Trident demonstration through Edinburgh.

What cannot be ignored however is the contrast in attitude of the Socialist Worker who today condemn George Galloway for splitting RESPECT, for ignoring the will of the majority, of setting up a rival party and of not staying in the party to argue his position. Because last year Socialist Worker was on the other side of this argument. Indeed, were it not for the SWP, Tommy Sheridan would have been forced to stay in the Scottish Socialist Party, justify his lunatic libel action and try to wrestle back the leadership. He knew of course, just as George Galloway knows now, that he would have lost the vote of party members and he did what all ‘mavericks’ do in such circumstances, he tried to justify, citing high principles, the formation of yet another insignificant wee group on the left.
If anyone drove Tommy Sheridan out of the SSP it was the SWP – you could say they supplied the getaway car!

So when the Socialist Worker gets all pious about internal party democracy, left unity and the crisis in left parties across Europe I suggest members best start by looking at their own record. As they say, ‘people in glass houses…..’
Socialist Worker will convince very few people outside their own party of their case in the disunification of Respect if their explanations of events and their role in them are as flimsy as those they offer up in relation to their actions in Scotland these past two years.

Comradely yours
Colin Fox
Scottish Socialist Party National Convenor
Edinburgh

Historical Materialism Conference - Part 2

Wow. Apparently my notes on the fisrt plenary session were pretty long. The notes for the next session 'Islam and American Imperialism' are a bit less so. Not becuase the talks weren't interesting, but because I'd already sat through one long session and the lecture theatre was rather sophorific, owing to the temperature and layout.

The backdrop to the talks is the increasing resistance to American imperialism and the lack of a clear socialist alternative to it. This leads - on the part of the Socialist Register, who organised the plenary - to a crisis of agency. It therefore becomes necessary to analyse the new movements that have arisen so as to conceptualise the current conjuncture.

Gilbert Achar - Imperial Uses of Islam
Achar began his talk by examining the 'clash of civilisations' paradigm, one which he described as pervasive on both a conscious and unconscious level. This view basically suggests that Islam and the West are engaged in a clash of civilisation and there can be no middle ground between them. This view is common to both Western Islamophobes and Islamic fundamentalists - who tend to characterise Islam and 'the West' is implacably in conflcit with one and other, and view this conflict as defining our current age.

But Achar notes that this is not the view of Western governments. Western governments tend to differentiate (in their rhetoric) between 'good' Muslims and 'bad' Muslims, they don't view things as a clash with Islam but a clash within Islam. Achar also argues that Huntington himself doesn't hold with the way in which his theory has been interpreted. Achar argued that Huntington is in fact a 'global multiculturalist', insofar as he thinks it's a good thing to have different 'civlisations' existing worldwide, he opposes mutliculturalism nationally because he wants to preserve Western culture in its heartlands. Furthermore, Huntington dismisses universalism as imperialism (in the perjorative sense) and argues that a project of imposing Western values will end in disaster. In other words Huntington appears as a traditional realist.

Achar argued that it is this realist Huntington that has informed US policy towards Islam. His first (and very good) example is the United States' alliance with Saudi Arabia, a state which is in fact the US' oldest ally in the Middle East. It has historically (and still does) served as the cornerstone in the US global stratey, particularly in combatting anti-imperialist nationalism. But of course Saudi Arabia is probably the most 'fundamentalist' state in the whole of the middle-east. In fact the US supported Saudi fundamentalism in Afghanistan. He further notes that plenty of fundamentalists were willing to colloborate with the US invasion of Iraq.

The point for Achar is that the US has used fundamentalism for its own ends and fundamentalism has often been (and is still) willing to colloborate with US imperialism when they had the chance. He then listed the examples of the Muslim Brotherhood and assorted other instances.

Achar's basic point here was that at best we can call Islamic fundamentalism 'anti-Western' but it is only sporadically and inconsistently 'anti-imperialist'. This of course has implications for how Marxists should approach Islamist resistance to US imperialism. At the very least when struggling with them it is necessary to view them with 'distrust' and attempt to spread our own ideas within their ranks.

One person's attempt to critique Achar's approach was based on the argument that notwithstanding our 'subjective' opposition to the domestic policies of the fundamentalists, they might nonetheless be 'objectively' anti-imperialist, since they are fighting imperialism. I wasn't there was the response, but surely Achar's argument is not about the political programme's of Islamists, it's about their record of supporting imperialists when they think it is to their advantage. Such a position of course means that while they may be 'objectively anti-imperialist' in a given instance the question is whether they will consistently hold this position. Achar's analysis seems to suggest they won't (and also that the imperialists won't consistently target them either) so this has to be the position to proceed from.

Bashir Abu-Manneh
For my money Abu-Manneh's speech was probably the most interesting of the lot, particulary because he engaged in some interesting theoretical anaylsis. Abu-Manneh's speech was composed of three arguments:

• The Palestinians have been in a state of seige since 1991
• The Palestinian elite has collaborated with the Israeli state
• The above two factors have led to the emergence of a specific form of resistance, one which has entrenched militarisation and depoliticisation

The first thesis is simple enough to understand. Israel has continuously interevened in the occupied territory, denying the right of freedom of movement throughout the West Bank and Gaza strip and within Israel itself. This process has culminated in the creation of the apartheid wall, which has formalised the process by physically closing off vast swathes of the West Bank. This - of couse - is all very uncontroversial stuff. But Abu-Manneh further argued that this has destroyed any meaningful sense of spontaneity amongst the Palestinians. It has tended to eliminate any proper sense of the Palestinians as a collecitive entity who are capable of collective action. Palestinians have been alienated into individuals, families etc.

The second thesis is another one which I think is uncontroversial. It seem incontrovertable by now that the Palestinian Authority has collaborated with and legitimated the occupation - corrupting and nearly destroying the Palestinian's national aspirations. Abu-Manneh related an anecdote whereby the PA would always be there to stop attacks on settlers but would be mysteriously absent when there was an Israeli attack in the occupied territory. In line with this Abu-Manneh argued that the PA has consciously undermined any attempts to organise outside of the PA. To top it all off, when the PA did stop collaborating it was attacked by the Israeli authorities.

The combination of the two above factors leads to Abu-Manneh's third argument. The point of these factors is that they have pushed Palestinian strategy towards militarisation. Firstly, this is because any meaningful political resistance seems impossible. The Palestinian's traditional representation - Fatah - has been collaborating since Oslo. Furthermore, it is difficult - if not impossible - to develop political positions and mobilisation when freedom of movement is physically restricted. Furthermore, political action seems so difficult precisely because the Palestinians have lost their faith in their own capability for collective action. This depoliticisation means that solutions based on mass action seem impossible, which naturally seems to lend support to the idea that small acts of military resistance are necessary.

But it is not just the content (military acts) that are shaped by these social conditions, it is also the form. This is because the small military action per se is - in some respects - a collective political act. This would certainly seem to be the case when one considers the links between militants and political parties. The ultimate culmination of the tendency towards atomisation is the emergence of the suicide bomber as a 'weapon' in the struggle against of Israel. This of course makes a lot of sense, because the suicide bomber is the precisely opposite of a collective political struggle. Thus, the tendency towards atomisation and depoliticisation, combined with the concomitant process of militarisation tends to produce the ultimate individualist military act - the suicide bomber. Although, as Abu-Manneh points out, we shouldn't exaggerate the degree to which suicide bombing has become the norm, and ultimately as a tactic it has proved counter-productive, since it tended to fit the Palestianian struggle into the discourse of terror.

What I really like about this analysis is the way in which it traces the particular configuration of Palestinian resistance back to the social conditions in which it operates. This is a much better position to take than just 'condemning' particular forms of resistance without understanding why they gain popularity or the opposite but related one of just saying 'it's understandable because they endure so much'. It's therefore good to see someone take a materialist position on this issue. What's also interesting is the degree to which Abu-Manneh's position dovetails with Lukacs in History and Class Consciousness. This is because capitalism itself has a natural tendency towards depoliticisation (reification), alienation and fragmentation, of course these tendencies are often counteracted.

I think invoking Lukacs is useful for another reason. Abu-Manneh's preferred solution to the problem is to replace this strategy of individualised militarisation with one of collective self-mobilisation. Well, this is fine in practice, but the whole point is that the situation Abu-Manneh outlined has already shown precisely why this collective self-moblisation is going to happen, and certainly not spontaneously. This is where Lukacs is especially relevant. Because Lukacs core insight is that the proletariat can't just spontaneously organise against capitalism. What is needed is something that can take the viewpoint of the proletariat but do so in a way that transcends the reifying tendencies of capitalism. That is to say a vanguard party. In the Gramscian analysis this Party is composed of the organic intellectuals who arise from the class in the midst of struggle. And this is what Abu-Manneh's analysis really seems to lack - the need for a conscious organising element of the Palestinian people able to mobilise them against the Israelis. But of course the other problem is that the people who you would expect to be able to fulfil this role in Palestinian society are - as Abu-Manneh argued - completely compromised. This - perhaps - is why he didn't delve into this question, as it is one to which there doesn't seem to be much of an answer.

Unfortunately I missed the last talk because I needed to get home, so I can't comment on that. More stuff will follow over the rest of the week. This will reveal how horribly theory-obsessed I am, however, and no doubt I will be much looked down-upon for it.

Historical Materialism Conference 2007

As you probably already know, this weekend was the annual Historical Materialism Conference, which I had the good fortune to attend. Unfortunately I missed Friday's sessions (prior commitments) which meant I didn't get to see Zizek (damn, damn, damn, damn) but the rest of the Conference was pretty damn good. The first thing to say is that despite the current poisonous climate on the left (and particularly as between the SWP and everyone else) the atmosphere at the Conference was really good (bearing in mind there was a mix of people from different traditions there), everything felt very comradely (although of course the interventions were occasionally slightly cutting) and everyone seemed to get along well enough. So, as is usual in the old blogosphere I thought I'd give a [not so brief] summation of those sessions which I did attend.

Saturday

I rolled in a bit late on Saturday, so I missed the first session of the day. Not that I would really have listened to it much. The next session I attended was on 'Marxism, Pashukanis and the Law'. In this session I actually 'presented a paper' on Pashukanis, Legal Nihilism and Legal Strategy, which I will probably put up here at some time (once I've cleaned it up a bit - the notes were really only intended for my consumption only). There weren't too many people here (although there were a few), which was kind of predictable, as law is not a particularly glamorous topic for Marxist analysis. There were two other contributors aside from me - Andreas Harms presented a paper on 'Commodity Form and Legal Form' and Bill Bowring presented a paper on 'International Law, Lenin and Self-Determination'. Both of the papers were of high quality and we got some good discussion in as well. It feels kind of weird summarising this session, so I'll leave it for the atendees to do so (hopefully some of them blog).

There weren't any more 'sessions' for the day, as it extended into a 'meet the editors' session and a lunchbreak, I did have some pretty interesting conversation during this period, so it was all to the good.

The next 'session' was a plenary one, featuring some rather big hitters, the talk was on 'Neo-liberalism and Neo-imperialism' and the speakers were Alex Callinicos, Robert Brenner and David McNally.

Robert Brenner
The central thrust of Brenner's argument was the relationship between the war in Iraq and the US' geopolitical strategy. Brenner argued that the Iraq war was a puzzling phenomenon which represented a real rupture with previous US strategy in content if not form. Brenner argued that during the 2000 election no one would have predicted that the Iraq war would come around in the time that it did. The Republicans seemed to have a fairly low-key foreign policy, certainly not the type of messianism that seemed to characterise them post-9/11. Furthermore, it was argued that the US had fulfilled its three key strategic aims (which it had held since World War 2); these aims were

1. To freeze and weaken 'communism', third world statist nationalism and statism more generally so as to allow the free movement of [US] capital throughout the globe.
2. Consolidate US hegemony in Japan and Europe - depriving them of their ability to disrupt the framework of international capitalism; key to this aim was depriving them of their military power and compensate them for this by providing them with security.
3. As a consequence of the above two aims the US intended to implement a neo-liberal agenda throughout the world, with all the consequences thereof

Brenner argued that the US was willing to do this since US capital was so powerful that it didn't require the formal protection of the US state. So on this reading the US had - according to Brenner - recognised the essential validity of the Leninist critique of imperialism - namely that monopoly-capital imperialist states vying for domination of the world's resources inevitably culminated in war, which was not conducive to the continued position of the US and global capitalism. To combat this the US entered into a 'radical Kautskyite' project of restructuring the global situation as above - the only question was whether the US was disciplined enough to continue enforcing the consensus.

All of this was encapsulated in the term 'New World Order' as used by Bush et al. This meant that there was a new approach to the international use of force:

• Don't use force unless you can use massive amounts of force
• Other conflicts should just be 'policing' or assymetrical conflict
• Avoid committing ground troops if you can - use cruise missiles, bombs etc.
  

All of ths as summarised in a phrase by Madeline Allbright that 'military force' but not war should be used (which got a big laugh from the audience, but really the distinction isn't as ridicoulous as it first, certainly international law tends to distinguish between the use of military force and an armed attack or war). This was basically a neo-liberal form of imperialism and one in which generally states toed the line (the thrid world accepted the neo-liberal consensus the [not yet] axis of evil was going to the table, etc.).

So US policy in Iraq has to be understood in relation to this. It is therefore necessary to view US policy towards Iraq in this context. What the context what seem to suggest is that no US adminstration would really want regime change in Iraq, as this would be internationally counterproductive - it would be costly, destabilising and could whip up Arab resistance across the Middle East. Futhermore, the Shia could not be trusted to serve as a counterweight to Iran. This is why Saddam was not overthrown following the first Gulf War and a policy of 'containment' was pursued in relation to Iraq.

Against this backdrop the recent war in Iraq does seem to be a break (and to a lesser extent so does Afghanistan). Brenner's next task is to explain how this could happen. Brenner traces the strategic rupture to the ascendence of the neo-conservative movement within the American state apparatus and their huge influence within the State Department. It was only with 9/11 that they were able to gain control over foreign policy.

Brenner then gave an internal examination of this movement. According to Brenner the key theoretical position for the neo-conservatives is the 'fungibility of force'. By this they mean that American military domination can be used to do anything, and the neo-conservatives were interested in 'harvesting the fruits of military dominance'.

It is then necessary to understand how the neo-conservatives gained this power. Brenner roots the neo-conservative movement in the Republican far-right, who had taken over Congress in 1994. They had always had trouble gaining power and were only able to do so by pushing the foreign policy aspect. Once they had gained power they acted as a 'Shadow Cabinet' that pushed Clinton into all sort of things (like passing the Iraq Liberation Act) but they could only achieve limited success and certainly couldn't impose their domestic agenda. But 9/11 changed all of this and gave the neo-conservatives the pre-text they needed to actualise both their domestic and international agenda.

Brenner's analysis was pretty damn interesting (he's also a very good speaker). I quite liked his focus on concrete, 'micro' US politics and the way in which they interact with the global sphere, a Gramsci quote seems particularly relevant here:

Do international relations precede or follow (logically) fundamental social relations? There can be no doubt that they follow. Any organic innovation in the social structure, through its technical-military expressions, modifies organically absolute and relative relations in the international field too. Even the geographical position of a national State does not precede but follows (logically) structural changes, although it also reacts back upon them to a certain extent (to the extent precisely to which superstructures react back upon the structure, politics on economics, etc.). However, international relations react both passively and actively on political relations (of hegemony among the parties). The more the immediate economic life of a nation is subordinated to international relations, the more a particular party will come to represent this situation and to exploit it, with the aim of preventing rival parties gaining the upper hand (recall Nitti's famous speech on the technical impossibility of revolution in Italy).
Gramsci, The Modern Prince

So I actually thought that Brenner's analysis was a niecly dialectical one, similar in the way that Gramsci presented it. I also see nothing a priori wrong with the ascription of such a decisive role to a 'subjective' factors. Especially as these subjective factors are in a dialectical relationship with the objective situation (Lukacs comes immediately to mind on this point). This isn't to say that I think Brenner is entirely right, but I don't think we dismiss his analysis out of hand.

Alex Callinicos
Callinicos delivered another pretty awesome speech (you will hear this a lot, because I thought the quality of this session was absolutely stellar, even if the sweltering heat of the lecture theatre left much to be desired!). Alex presented his argument as one diametrically opposed to Brenner's. He argued that Brenner had only given us description, but no analysis - we can't just see Iraq as a random event we need a larger perpective and so must look at the historical connection between liberalism and imperialism.

Callinicos noted that the US has always eschewed formal imperialism - and continuously legitimated itself with reference to this. He looks back to the 'imperialism of the open door' - in which the role of military power was only to enforce the conditions of a liberal world economy, this of course should not - as a rule - involve the use of ground troops. The predecessor of this type of imperialism was the 'imperialism of free trade' practiced by the British Empire in the 19th century and Britain relied heavily on informal empire in Canada and China. The US has a consistent, radical version of this.

Following World War 2 the US dominated the advanced capitalist world and built up a series of institutions, but this liberalism was only ever transnational. After the collapse of the Soviet Union the US was able to convert this transnationalism into global liberalism. This means that for Callinicos there was no fundamental break in the project - and it was one vigorously pursued by the Clinton administration. For Callinicos therefore, Clinton was the true pioneer of the fungibility of military power.

But of course hegemony is always about force and consent, and they are always combined in different ways. The manner in which these methods are combined is what differentiates the neo-cons from Clinton. Thus, for Callinicos this is a matter of quantity not quality there is no rupture. Callinicos further argues that the Bush administration was radicalised post-9/11 and that in this context the neo-cons cannot be considered 'mad'. He argues that in the face of the increasing threat of China's economic power a rational argument could certainly be made out for the US using its only comparative advantage in this conjuncture that of military force. Iraq was therefore important because rising captialist powers were dependent on its oil and the US needed to assert this.

The question Callinicos thinks we need to ask is 'what are the interests of US imperialism'? When we do this we understand that the US ruling class is complex and the best strategy is always a contested question - we have to look at te question of the imposition of ideology on a world scale, and the geo-political is central to this.

All well and good - but I think Brenner responded pretty well by saying 'we don't really disagree on much'. I think this is probably the case - all they really disagree is whether there is a qualitative or quantitiative difference between Clinton and Bush (which sounds big but - meh - scales). Brenner just helps us to understand why it is that one side won the argument. But I'd actually go further than this. Callinicos seems to argue two contradictory things. On the one hand he argues that there is no rupture between Clinton and Bush, but on the other hand he seems to argue that China posed a qualitatively new threat to the US. Because of course post-WW2 there has been no capitalist power that posed a threat to the US in the way China has (although I guess the state-cap people would argue the USSR was a rival capitalist power, so maybe change the reference to post-1989?), since every other 'threat' was pretty damn friendly to the US, and were happy to allow the US maintain Pax Americana. So, on this reading, Alex seems to be arguing that the emergence of China has disrupted the 'radical-Kautskyism' of the US, since it doesn't accept the US' managerial role. But surely this would indicate a rupture, in line with Brenner.

David McNally
Although I really liked the first two talks David McNally's was far and away my favourite (I think much of the audience agreed with this too). In contradistinction to the first two McNally's position was to start from a general theoretical analysis and proceed from there. So for McNally the central point of depature was that of Marxist value theory. We need to begin from this perspective - so McNally argues - because we live in a world of alienated social relations and theory must de-fetishise them.

McNally's talk revolved around 5 arguments:

• Neo-liberalism involves radically extending and intensifying the commodity form
• This is achieved through 'monetarising' more and more aspects of human life
• This involves the extension of primitive accumulation
• This occurs on a variety of levels and entails imperialism
• World money becomes decisive

So McNally's basic argument is that the phenomenon we call 'neo-liberalism' must be understood as the extension of the commodity form - not a conscious project of the capitalist class but a result of the value form itself. It is fundamentally connected to new forms of discipline, and is primarily exercised through the discipline of money - the IMF, the World Bank etc. This leads to a reversal of the partial decommodification of labour.

Dispossession is also fundamental to this (hence the importance of primitive accumulation) because land has to be converted into capital. But since this land is occupied by other people, they have to be turfed off. For this reason there is a nexus of land, violence and dispossession - which gives rise to new enclosures and modalities of class struggle arise against this. Furthermore, ecological disaster is incorporated into this, so disasters which displace people are taken advantage off (Hurricane Mitch was used to get rid of the Honduran indigenous population).

McNally further linked this process to militarisation - war is of course central in 'clearing out' areas of land, be that through death or fleeing. All of this has also led to a great rise in the industrial reserve army, which has grown massively as people have been forced out of their land in the process of dispossession.

McNally went on to criticise the approaches of David Harvey and Rosa Luxemborg, who he thinks failed to properly elaborate the 'laws' of this economic process - meaning they cannot properly theorise it. Instead they often remain at the level of (very powerful) description. [He also made a really interesting point about dialectics and subjects positing their own presuppositions - but I'll ignore that]. Further, his problem with Rosa's approach is that she assumes this form of imperialism requires permanent occupation, which is clearly not the case, as the discipline of money suffices to compel national elites to implement dispossesion.

McNally then went on to focus heavily on what he called 'world money'. By this he means the currency which serves as the 'global' medium for exchange. He argues that there has beeen an intensification of unequal currecny exchange, with the global South losing out on this. But the concept has been under theorised, and it is important, because the state that issues 'world money' will get the surplus on exchange, and so can appropriate value. This means that different nation states struggle over who is to issue world money.

McNally argues that this can be illustrated by the Euro project in the European Union, where the states of the European Union have tried to create a currency with all the characteristics of world money. McNally describes this as a form of inter-imperialist rivalry and denies that such rivalry need be militarised.

McNally ended with the argument that we need to emphasise anti-neo-liberalism and anti-imperialism highlight the need for a de-commodification of labour - that is to say the socialist revolution (which earnt him a rousing cheer).

What I really liked about McNally's talk was the way that he was able to articulate linkages between his theoretical paradigm and our practical trajectory. His analysis does explain rather well a lot of contemporary phenomena in a basic theoretical way, and I think this is to be welcomed.

Ultimately, I think all of these talks worked well, and frankly if we could have combined them all into one big talk it would have been awesome. So David sets the economic-theoretical scene for us, Alex embedded it in a broader historical context and Bob examined the specific way in which ruling classes responded to the broader need for the expansion of value. Each therefore had the merit of contributing to a totalising perspective, and with a little work we could trace the analysis of value directly into Alex's and Bob's talk. Of course this is the inherent weakness of the short talk format, but nonetheless I was impressed by this session.

OK, I've clearly gone on long enough, so I'll stop now, and do something else. Tomorrow (maybe?) I want to at least outline the talk on 'Global Flashpoints' that was also on Saturday, particualrly as I felt it offered a really interesting perspective on the Palestinian resistance.