A-Infos (en) Perspectives on Anarchist Theory - Vol. 6, No. 1 2002 - Imperialism and Anti-authoritarian resistance after 9-11: Some Crucial Questions - by Mark Lance

[Worker <a-infos-en@ainfos.ca>]

 ________________________________________________
      A - I N F O S  N E W S  S E R V I C E
            http://www.ainfos.ca/
        http://ainfos.ca/index24.html
 ________________________________________________

A great deal of activist attention is now focused on the
Middle East and Central Asia.  This is a good thing, but not
primarily because the US is fighting a war in Afghanistan.
On the contrary, while there were many civilian deaths as a
direct result of that war, and likely worse humanitarian
consequences to follow, there are far more important
geopolitical trends at work, and far more dangerous
developments taking place, developments which are
obscured by an excessive focus on the war. Indeed, the
primary function of the "War on Terror" - whether against
Afghanistan, against the "axis of evil" (to use the
caricature-proof language of our president), or against as yet
undisclosed enemies - is precisely to obscure these other
political developments.

It was, I think, clear from the beginning, that the US "War
on Terror" marked a rapid acceleration of  a process which is
functioning to create a new imperial regime in Central Asia,
one built on a model currently in place across the Middle
East.  Its outlines are as follows. One, the US will support
brutal authoritarian governments in small states throughout
the region. Two, these states will be kept dependent on the
US through a process of militarizing their relations to their
people.  (That is, none of these governments will have broad
popular support, most will face active insurgencies, and all
will thereby depend for their survival on US military support.
Of course the usual global capitalist mechanisms of control
will also be extended wherever possible.) Meanwhile the US
will establish permanent military installations throughout the
region. Eventually natural gas and oil deposits in Central
Asia will be exploited with the help of these regimes, as oil is
now in the Middle East.

With significant but for our purposes unimportant variations,
this is the situation currently with Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the
small gulf states, Egypt, Pakistan, and others.  Current US
actions are leading in the same direction for Uzbekistan
(where a new permanent US base at Khanabad houses 1,500
personnel), Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan (where the
US is currently building a transportation hub capable of
handling thousands of troops) and Afghanistan.  In terms of
new aid, Simon Tisdall reports in the Guardian that under
new economic aid packages "Uzbekistan received $64m in
US assistance and $136m in US Export-Import Bank credits
in 2001. In 2002, the Bush administration plans to hand over
$52m in assistance to Kazakhstan, some partly for military
equipment."

Israel is slightly different as it is not merely militarized, but a
country with a nuclear capable, highly effective modern
military, and with a popular government. And of course
levels of US aid to Israel dwarf those to other countries.
Further, it has traditionally been useful for different reasons.
But Israel remains partially dependent on the US, given its
complete isolation in the region, and largely subservient to
US interests.  States like Iraq, which do not function well in
the US imperial scheme are effectively destroyed, though still
held out as threats to justify further imperial actions.  (This
function - serving as a constant "threat" that can be tossed
out to the press and public whenever an imperial project is in
need of justification - is being taken over by the "war on
terrorism," leaving one to wonder whether the complete
destruction of Iraq isn't now on the agenda.)

There is nothing subtle about any of this, and it is not hard to
see the pattern.  The US now has military bases across the
globe, in well over 100 countries, in virtually every major
region of every continent. It has recently built bases in 13
locations in nine countries in Central Asia, bases that Deputy
Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz recently said would
involve a long-term commitment.  In addition, the US now
excercises substantial control over the economies of the
majority of states in the world and effective veto power over
political decisions taken by small countries throughout the
world.  This is an empire, the largest and most powerful in
human history. And the forefront of expansion is the Middle
East and Central Asia.

Neither the empire nor the strategy of managing that empire
through militarized insecure states is new, but the level of
commitment to the strategy, the rate of expansion, and the
sheer recklessness of its implementation have all risen
enormously since 9-11.  The danger inherent in this strategy
is significant for the people of the world. Most of the
countries in the Middle East and Central Asia are so weak
that their collapse is a real possibility.  The crisis is
particularly frightening in countries like Saudi Arabia and
Pakistan.  Nor would the likely successor regimes be
palatable.  In most cases the principle insurgency is a
repressive religiously focused movement  and no
anti-authoritarian can hope for such a change.  As significant
would be the immediate human cost of widespread civil war
in the region. At least Israel, Pakistan, and India are nuclear
powers.  Other countries have nuclear reactors, and many
have stockpiles of advanced weapons.  So the potential
human cost of a regional meltdown are staggering.

I don't think there can be any question of whether
anti-authoritarians need to confront the advancement of an
imperial project that threatens millions of lives (not to
mention one that is providing cover for a massive increase in
police and state power in the US and Europe).  I don't think
there can be any question that this must be at the center of
our work. The question, of course, is how to confront it.
What would an anti-authoritarian movement against US
imperialism in the Middle East and Central Asia look like?
How would such a movement differ if it were to be built with
an eye toward our eventual goal of an anti-authoritarian
world, marked by mutual aid and solidarity?

These are hard questions. My goal in what follows is to
impart a sense of urgency upon questions that arise for
anti-authoritarian activists in light of these features of the
current political situation.  While I have a few modest
suggestions regarding answers, I have no settled views.
Those we need to seek together.

Certainly anti-capitalist, anti-authoritarians should continue
to work for the global justice movement, continue pushing
for an anti-authoritarian agenda and anti-authoritarian
structures within it, and try to do a much better job than they
have in the past of integrating an opposition to militarism,
war, and military support of repressive states into that
movement.  The hard part, it seems to me, is the
internationalism.

We absolutely must reach out to the people of the region.
Not only is it arrogant and contrary to principles of mutual
aid to think that we can just organize among ourselves on
behalf of people half a planet away, but it is also clearly a
losing strategy.  Another effect of the whole process of power
extension since 9-11 is a massive polarization in the
populations of the Middle East and Central Asia.  In
Pakistan, for example, secular resistance to the current
military regime has all but disappeared, while repressive
Islamic opposition is increasing.   The reason is quite simple:
any opposition to Islamic groups is effectively portrayed as
pro-US, a portrayal that radically discredits the group in
question.  Thus, any group with a progressive or liberal
agenda of any sort is finding itself less and less able to play a
role in the political development of the region while power
splits into a horrifying binary opposition of authoritarian
clients of US imperialism, and fundamentalism.

Clearly this is a process we must try to confront by way of
international solidarity.  We cannot simply organize at the
center of empire while a whole region of the Earth spirals
into disaster that could have profound effects on us all.  If the
ideals of anarchism mean anything, they require of us
solidarity and mutual aid with people in the midst of such a
situation. But how, and with whom?

These, as I see it, are the hard questions we must now face.
More specifically:

    *

      How do we find groups, organizations, movements, and
individuals interested in working in solidarity with an
anti-authoritarian, anti-imperialist movement?  (In the
extreme case, what if there are none? What if, say, the
Palestinians simply opt for Jihad against Israel, and turn their
backs on secular solidarity?

    *

      How do we navigate the deep problems that will arise
from the profound political differences between our own
groups and any movements we ally ourselves with?

    *

      How do we work collaboratively with these movements,
without trying to dictate our own theories and techniques
into contexts in which they are unfamiliar?

    *

      How do we navigate the very different security and safety
issues in these countries?  How can we make political work
safer for comrades in such regions of the world.

    *

      How do we make ourselves more open a range of issues
that we prefer not to engage with?

I'll close with some brief remarks on the ways these
questions arise in two contexts: Lebanon and Palestine.  (I
use these examples because they are the two cases in the
region with which I'm most familiar.)

In Palestine, there are many obstacles to international
solidarity.  One is obviously Israel and the devastating
destruction of Palestinian society that it has wrought.  The
Occupied Territories are divided by an occupying military
into an array of bantustans; the Palestinian economy is near
collapse; human rights are non-existent in the territories.
Another obstacle, unfortunately, is the Palestinian National
Authority.  Arafat's government has proven itself to be
corrupt, directionless, and more than willing to serve as a
client of the US, even to the extent of shooting unarmed
protestors of the US war in Afghanistan.  If he thought the
population would allow him to get away with it, Arafat
would, it seems to me, be happy to rule over an economically
dependent and militarily threatened apartheid state.  Finally,
one must deal with the various Arab states which try to use
the Palestinian cause for their own ends, and various
religious movements such as Hamas.  The latter, though
easy to criticize from a non-authoritarian perspective, must
be understood in terms of the role it plays in Gaza.  Hamas
provides the majority of social services to the people of this
oppressed and overpopulated strip of land.  Brutalized by
Israel, and neglected by the PNA, Hamas has been the only
group to take up the slack. Thus, organizing that rejects
them out of hand or in all respects is simply impossible.

This applies even more to the role of Hizbullah in the south
of Lebanon.  They provide  medical, pension, and most other
social services there.  As a result, they are treated as the de
facto government by the vast majority of people.  They, as
well as a deep commitment to religion, are a fact of life in the
area.

I recently spent a week in Beirut meeting with numerous
activists who are trying to put together a non-religious,
non-aligned progressive movement in the country.  All were
eager to build connections with the Global Justice
Movement and the Palestinian solidarity movement in the
west.  But the obstacles are enormous.  Direct and open
protest can result in immediate arrest.  Communication is
always subject to surveillance.  It is enormously difficult to
remain independent of dominant political parties, which are
generally tied to particular religious groups.  Thus, some
students at American University in Beirut told me of trying to
start a small weekly student paper.  Within a week of
meeting, before publishing any copies, they were contacted
by three national parties trying to pressure them to affiliate.

The main point is to give a sense of just how different activist
politics are in the Middle East and Central Asia.  The threats,
opportunities, factional lines, assumptions, etc. are very
different from what we are used to. Above all, and before
anything, we need to learn about this. We must send
delegations to countries at the front lines of US imperialism,
simply to learn from local activists, and to hear their ideas
about how we can work together for liberation. We need to
be open to forms of discourse - especially religious ones -
that are uncomfortable for many western anarchists.  We
need to think creatively, openly, and together, about ways to
connect our work, for our mutual liberation.  What the
results of that thinking will be, I cannot predict.  I have no
easy answers to any of this, but I know that much rests on
our ability to make progress on these issues.




*******
                       ********
       ****** The A-Infos News Service ******
      News about and of interest to anarchists
                       ******
  COMMANDS: lists@ainfos.ca
  REPLIES: a-infos-d@ainfos.ca
  HELP: a-infos-org@ainfos.ca
  WWW: http://www.ainfos.ca/
  INFO: http://www.ainfos.ca/org

-To receive a-infos in one language only mail lists@ainfos.ca the message:
                unsubscribe a-infos
                subscribe a-infos-X
 where X = en, ca, de, fr, etc. (i.e. the language code)