A-Infos (en) Italy, FDCA: AGAINST IMPERIALISM, WAR AND MILITARIZATION OF SOCIETY (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

Two years have passed since the armed forces of the Russian Federation 
attacked Ukraine on 24 February 2022, giving rise to a dramatic 
escalation of the conflict already underway since 2014. In addition to 
those already underway, other bloody conflicts would also have occurred 
successions raging across the planet: in Africa, in the Middle East and 
in the China Sea the main powers clash for control of the world market, 
rekindling latent conflicts, and the war also reoccurs in the heart of 
imperialist Europe.
All states are rearming: the increase in military spending is not only a 
characteristic of the main imperialist powers (United States, the 
European Union, Russia and China), but also of those in the area such as 
Turkey, and the arms race also concerns the nations that emerged 
defeated by the Second World War: Germany and Japan invested 
considerable resources in the arms race. In the US, "Biden's military 
budget for 2024 breaks all records, reaching at least $1.5 trillion in 
spending for the Pentagon, CIA, homeland security, non-Pentagon nuclear 
weapons programs, unsubsidized foreign arms sales, other expenses 
related to the military sector and payment of interest on previous 
war-related debts".(1)

Throughout the world, war is therefore not only blood, destruction, 
hunger and tragedy for our class but, above all, it is the creation and 
accumulation of new profits for capital, whose interests are now firmly 
established in the state institutions of the various countries. On an 
international level, the beginning of 2024 reconfirms an alarming 
scenario for the future: imperialist competition for control of the 
world market has caused a dramatic increase in conflicts and their 
intensity; in many parts of the world the radical right continues to 
reap electoral successes; the average increase in the temperature of our 
planet in 2023 recorded an increase very close to that limit of 1.5° C 
beyond which global warming will have its worst effects.

After the brutal and bloody attack by Hamas on 7 October 2023 on the 
military forces of Israel and its civilian population, the retaliation 
unleashed by the state of Israel against the population of Gaza has now 
exceeded 25,000 victims, recording a dramatic escalation that does not 
seems to be finding positive outlets at the moment and which has 
completely overshadowed the other theaters of war: in particular the 
inter-imperialist conflict between Russia and Ukraine seems to be 
overshadowed, a war which continues to claim victims and to destroy and 
heavily pollute those territories.

The massacre in Gaza is taking place in the absolute silence of the 
European media, with the evident complicity of the EU, the USA and NATO. 
Hamas' attacks have for years oscillated between a helpless reaction in 
the face of ruthless Israeli repression and an attempt to maintain 
itself as the defenders of the Palestinian people; the bloody Israeli 
retaliation against the civilian population is unlikely to lead to the 
disappearance of Hamas and in any case the Palestinians will have to 
decide on their political representation. Israel has provided and 
implemented the final solution for Gaza: once again in history the 
institutional uniform is needed to cover up these horrible crimes.

And if the Israeli government now invites us to consider Hamas the new 
ISIS by loading its militaristic and warmongering propaganda with 
falsehoods, how can we forget that Hamas was originally supported by the 
Israeli state to weaken the more secular Palestine Liberation 
Organization (PLO)? There are now thousands of civilian victims of this 
war whose consequences are increasingly atrocious and the large-scale 
invasion of Gaza has generated waves of refugees that no Arab 
government, outside of increasingly empty declarations of solidarity, is 
willing to welcome . Hamas is a reactionary political-military force, 
proponent of a fundamentalist and anti-Semitic vision, financed by 
regional powers that have objectives other than those of the 
self-determination of the Palestinian people, just as Netanyahu is today 
an expression of the most extreme nationalistic impulses. Both are 
wallowing in the blood of the victims of recent months.

Together with the war between Russia and Ukraine, the conflict between 
Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh and the growing tensions 
between China, Taiwan and the United States in the Pacific, the possible 
widening of the Israel-Palestine conflict, for example in Lebanon with 
Hezbollah, it constitutes yet another piece of global instability that 
threatens us all. What emerges unequivocally is the totally subordinate 
role of the European Union to the dictates arriving from the other side 
of the Atlantic, as well as its inability to develop its own foreign and 
military policy and to thus fully establish itself as an autonomous 
imperialist power at the world.

But the world at war is very good for weapons producers: military 
spending is growing rapidly all over the planet; already last year the 
highest value in terms of military spending was reached in Europe, and 
the forecasts for the closing year are no different. Russia has 
predicted for the three-year period 2024-2026 a worrying 70% increase in

military expenditure compared to 2023, which will constitute 29% of 
total expenditure. Even in China, military spending continues its upward 
trend, with an increase of around 7% for 2023, more than the recent GDP 
growth values which now stand at 5%. At the same time as the expansion 
of military arsenals, we are also witnessing, and certainly not by 
chance, the polarization of the sides, with the countries of the Global 
South uniting behind the banner of the BRICS, positioning themselves as 
an alternative and autonomous subject to the Western bloc.

It is therefore necessary to completely clear the field of all those 
deviations that would make the BRICS champions of anti-imperialism, 
remembering that this is a project with clear imperialist connotations. 
In this difficult situation, however, mass and radical opposition to the 
bourgeoisie's offensive is struggling to emerge, while a growing wave of 
reaction is manifesting itself which is consolidated in the affirmation 
of right-wing and far-right formations which are returning to the 
forefront of politics of many European and American countries: in Brazil 
with Bolsonaro, in Argentina with Milei, in the United States with Trump 
(who risks re-election!) and in Europe with the Orban government, the 
successes of the AfD in Germany, Le Pen in France and Vox in Spain, as 
well as our own Fratelli d'Italia and Lega. Beyond their electoral 
successes and their consolidation as leading political forces, what is a 
great source of concern is that these alignments involve substantial 
parts of the oppressed classes everywhere. The recipe adopted by them 
certainly does not shine in originality: identifying an external enemy 
to whom to attribute responsibility for the nation's misfortunes.

It is a choice that proves to be extremely effective also because it can 
count on the almost total subordination of the reformist left, in their 
political and trade union components, to the compatibility policies 
imposed by capital. In this regard, it is worth remembering that the 
shreds of what remains of the left have aligned themselves with the 
military policies imposed by NATO without any sign of opposition. But 
there is much more: it is the definition of a new ideological paradigm 
in which there is room for racism; for the stigmatization of those 
living in conditions of poverty caused by the same policies of 
destruction of labor rights and social protection measures; for the 
onset of militarization processes in society; for the re-emergence of 
patriarchy and homophobia, of violence against women even in its 
homicidal configurations; for climate denial theories; for even violent 
attacks on sexual minorities, all seasoned with aggressive and direct 
language, a pervasive presence on social media and the promotion of a 
"Western" lifestyle in the worst sense of the term, which absolutely 
cannot be questioned .

All this to mask the substance of these policies, that is, an 
unprecedented attack on the gains that the working class has worked hard 
to achieve over the decades. Against a backdrop of a decline in work in 
many parts of the planet, the predicted failure of Cop28 is taking 
place. In Dubai, in the heart of the Arab petro-monarchies, it was 
established that it is important to act against climate change and limit 
the rise in temperature to 1.5 °C compared to pre-industrial levels, but 
the substance is unfortunately very different: it will be done as 
everyone pleases, possibly also making use of so-called "transition 
fuels" (read natural gas). Furthermore, some change will be made to 
finance mitigation and adaptation interventions and the damage and loss 
repair fund, while recognizing that several trillion dollars would be 
needed for this type of intervention.

Capitalism has no scruples about increasing the destruction of the 
planet, beyond "green" propaganda. The varied movement, which has taken 
to the streets of much of the world against the wars of capital and 
which also sees the presence and participation of the Israeli 
anti-Zionist opposition to Netanyahu's government, firmly calls for the 
immediate suspension of the bombings and war crimes currently ongoing 
and the end of the embargo on Gaza; respect for international 
resolutions and a political solution for Palestine. We make our own what 
was supported by our Israeli comrades, who for almost twenty years 
fought the Wall in the West Bank by building popular committees with the 
inhabitants of Palestinian villages and supported the Refusniks, against 
the military occupation. Because the solution to the conflict can 
ultimately only be a common society, classless and stateless, in which 
different religious, atheist and ethnic backgrounds can coexist peacefully.

We are aware that if the priority is the end of hostilities in all war 
areas for the protection of civilian populations, the only real 
long-term political solution consists in strengthening the united and 
internationalist social struggle against capitalism and its wars, which 
leads to the overcoming of nationalist, fundamentalist and statist 
logic. The way to achieve this goal can only be through class struggle 
alongside workers who unite on both sides to improve their living 
conditions and thus overcome long-standing resentments. It is up to us, 
anarchist communist militants, libertarian and class activists, to give 
our contribution, today as yesterday, to those who support the 
possibility of a free and equal society, of a just peace, of coexistence 
beyond borders, beyond religions and nationalities.

https://alternativalibertaria.fdca.it/wpAL/blog/2024/02/04/contro-limperialismo-la-guerra-e-la-militarizzazione-della-societa/
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