France has already committed its troops, and started bombing Mali. Britain is today adding its imperialist weight, by providing military logistical support for France. What exactly is it they are providing military support to? How does the government in Mali differ from the government of say Gaddafi, or Assad? The answer is not that it is more democratic. If anything it is less so. The answer is that the government in Mali poses no problems for Imperialism as Gaddafi and Assad do. Imperialism is once again showing the true nature of its policy of intervention. It has nothing to do with promoting democracy, or preventing atrocities. It has everything to do with simply promoting Imperialist interests.
The Government in Mali has less democratic credentials than either Gaddafi or Assad. It lacks any kind of popular support, and like most Malian Governments in the past rests only on the weakness of any kind of organised social forces in the country, and the relative strength of the military. Even that is only relative strength. The military itself is particularly inept, corrupt and weak. Part of the reason for that is that the military has spent most of its time not providing defence for the country, but plotting within its own ranks the next coup! It was during the last of these coups that the Islamists linked to Al Qaeda took the opportunity, along with their new base and weapons in Libya, following the imperialist ousting of Gaddafi, to take control of a huge swathe of the country in the North.
The Sunni Islamist fighters have played an increasingly useful role for Imperialism in the Middle East North Africa (MENA). Just as they were used to fight the USSR in Afghanistan, so they have been used to do Imperialism's dirty work in Libya, and in Syria, financed by Imperialism's allies within the feudal Gulf Monarchies, which also provide a channel for the latest weapons, and which also provide through the Madrassas the ideological weaponry and training required by the mercenaries. The Gulf Monarchies do that for their own reasons. Firstly, it strengthens the position of Sunni Islam in the region against Shia Islam, and thereby strengthens their position as against the position of their main regional competitor, Iran. Secondly, they have as a long term strategic goal the establishment once again of an Islamic Caliphate across the region.
The consequences of that are being felt across the region. Jihadists have power in Libya, and in Northern Mali. They have no interest in bending the knee to their former Imperialist backers who disposed of their former enemy Gaddafi, for them. That was shown by the atatck on the US Embassy in Benghazi. They have an increasing control over much of Syria, and have begun a new offensive against the Shia Government in Iraq, and a new sectarian war against the Shia population of the country. At the same time, the Muslim Brotherhood government in Egypt, trapped on one side by the continued power of the military, and the potential for that military to win the support of liberal and secular sections of the population, and more extreme Islamist forces on the other, has increasingly been led, as all such regimes are, to move further towards its own extreme, which in turn has further strengthened the position of the Salafists.
In the meantime, the forces in these countries such as the Secularists, Liberals, Christians, Shia, Alawites etc. look on with increasing alarm at the prospect of the establishment of Sunni dominated Islamist regimes, which will lead to them being imprisoned in states that oppress them far worse than even their current vile regimes. Into this mix, is also thrown Turkey, the former Colonial Power, whose economic rise, and large military has led it to see itself once again as a sub-imperialist power with eyes itself on exerting dominance. The increasingly Islamist nature of the Turkish regime, as Turkey was shunned and pushed away by the EU, and its need to deal with its own religious and ethnic divide, plays further into the longer term strategy of an Islamic Caliphate.
None of that is in Imperialism's longer term interest. It certainly is not in Israel's even short term interest, because it is already in the firing line of these forces. But, Imperialism clearly thinks that once the jihadists have removed Assad, undermined the Shia regime in Iraq, and thereby weakened or destroyed the regime in Iran, it will then be able to turn off the tap, and the flow of jihadism will cease. The experience in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere does not bode well for that happening. But, the intervention in Mali, together with increasing concern about who the advanced weapons are getting to in Syria, shows that Imperialism is beginning to understand the dangers of the Pandora's Box it has opened.
The intervention of French and British Imperialism in Mali, to support a thoroughly corrupt and undemocratic government, is no different to the kind of intervention seen in the past by Imperialism to support such regimes, for example in Vietnam, and numerous Latin American countries. Its reported that Russia has now positioned ships in the Mediterranean. Its unlikely to do so, but if now Russia sends its forces to support the equally corrupt and undemocratic regime of Assad, against the attacks of the same jihadists, on what basis would Imperialism then complain?
12 comments:
Boffy, I was discussing this matter with an American comrade and, somewhat naturally, the question of what the Marxist response should be came up. I was wondering what you thought?
Obviously under ideal conditions we would be talking of a working class intervention against the Islamists, one which wouldn't seek to prop up the military regime and would remain independent of both it and any other capitalist state. We would defend the interests of Mali's workers against both the Islamists and imperialism. But we don't get to choose under what conditions we act. The international working class is far to weak to perform such an intervention today and Mali's working class is infinitely weaker.
In short, we are powerless to truly act and no amount of haughty phrasemongering will change that.
Yet the comrade with whom I was discussing the situation suggested that we should oppose the intervention of the European capitalists on anti-imperialist grounds.
I disagree with that assessment. While it would obviously be wrong for us to support or call for intervention by the capitalists state, I think it would be equally wrong for us to oppose it outright. Mali is a backward and undeveloped state, the working class in Mali would have the best conditions for the development of their own independent strength under a bonapartist regime of international capital than they would if the country falls to the forces of barbarism.
Essentially I think the Stolypin rule, as it were, applies. In as far as imperialism secures the development of capitalism in Mali it is progressive. While we cannot support it, because international capital does not act in the interests of the workers and their long term interests are necessarily opposed, it would be wrong to oppose it. Rather, we should limit ourselves to advancing the interests of the working class within the intervention.
"In short, we are powerless to truly act and no amount of haughty phrasemongering will change that."
Simon,
I think you have answered your own question with this phrase. I f we truly are powerless to act, then we should accept that fact rather than beating ourselves up about trying to provide a solution we cannot provide! That applies just as much to refusing to oppose Imperialist intervention as it does to calling for it as a solution. We know that Imperialist intervention does not is not the solution, so we should oppose it, and set out what our solution would be if we were strong enough to bring it about. That is the only way you eventually do become strong enough.
The Stolypin argument is a false argument as I set out several years ago against the AWL, who put forward that position. I've set out more recently what is wrong with using Trotsky's analysis of the Balkan Wars, and his specific opposition to the Stolypin argument.
He commented that although we want these tasks of liberation achieved, we are by no means indifferent to the MEANS by which that is achieved. Opposing intervention in the Balkans, he goes on,
"on the contrary, only a struggle against the usurpation of history's tasks by the present masters of the situation will educate the Balkan peoples to play the role of superseding not only Turkish despotism but also those who, for their own reactionary purposes, are, by their own barbarous methods, now destroying that despotism...
Our agitation, on the contrary, against the way that history's problems are at present being solved, goes hand in hand with the work of the Balkan Social Democrats. And when we denounce the bloody deeds of the Balkan 'liberation' from above we carry forward the struggle not only against liberal deception of the Russian masses but also against enslavement of the Balkan masses.” (p 293-4)
Warning of the unintended consequences of not opposing imperialist intervention in such cases he goes on,
"We too can say today: If the leading parties of the Balkans, after all their sad experience of European intervention, can see no other way of settling the fate of the Balkans but a fresh European intervention, the results of which no one can foreordain, then their political plans are indeed not worth the bones of a single infantryman from Kursk. That may sound harsh, but it is the only way that this tragic question can be seen by any honest democratic politician who thinks not only of today but also of tomorrow.” (pp 153-4)"
See my posts Lessons Of the Balkans, and Trotsky v The Interventionists
Correction:
It should read "I've set out more recently what is wrong with it, using Trotsky's analysis of the Balkan Wars.."
Incidentally, I don't think there is any question of an Imperialist intervention developing Capitalism in Mali under a Bonapartist or Colonial Regime. Advanced Capitalism abandoned Colonialism as a means of development overseas in the middle of the last century. If it adopts a Colonialist approach today it is only to advance some geo-strategic political objective not to bring about economic development. Imperialism develops Capitalism only where it has already been provided with a strong economic base to do so i.e. where those costs have already been borne.
Trotsky was accused of being doctrinaire for holding the position of opposing intervention by the Liberal Kirrillovic. Trotsky responded,
"The emancipation of the Macedonian peasantry from feudal landlord bondage was undoubtedly something necessary and historically progressive. But this task was undertaken by forces that had in view not the interests of the Macedonian peasantry but their own covetous interests as dynastic conquerors and bourgeois predators. A usurpation of historical tasks such as this is not at all an exceptional happening. The emancipation of the Russian peasant from the fetters of the village community of the epoch of police rule and serfdom is a progressive task. But, it is not at all a matter of indifference who undertakes this task and how. Stolypin's agrarian reform does not solve the problems set by history, it merely exploits these problems in the interests of the gentry and the kulaks. No, there is consequently no need to idealise the Turkish regime or the regime of Russia's village community in order to express at the same time one's uncompromising distrust of the uninvited 'liberators' and to refuse any solidarity with them.” (p 325)
Just to summarise my argument from several years ago against the actual Stolypin argument its this. Martin Thomas writing as Chris Reynolds wrote what was a generally good piece setting out why Imperialism in bringing about economic development cannot be defined as wholly reactionary. In so far as this is Imperialism acting in the way I have described above i.e. investment of capital by multinational companies in NIC's, I agree with that. It isn't something we would raise as a demand, but because it brings development, increases the size of the working class, and provides the opportunity for workers and socialists to organise, why would we oppose it.
The example here given is Stolypin's Russian reforms. Lenin as Trotsky above pointed out that these were not socialist measures, so we could not call for them, but they were a progressive move so we shouldn't outright oppose them either.
But, it is not at all rational to extend this argument to refuse to oppose an imperialist military intervention! The former creates conditions, which strengthen workers position, and allow socialists to intervene in the process of development it entails to push through the limitations of the actual solutions being offered. The latter does not!
How on Earth are socialists either in developed economies or in the country being invaded to intervene to push that invasion beyond the limitations it has? They cannot. If they were strong enough to do that there would be no basis for the intervention to begin with.
The only way that such an intervention could occur would be if the international working class were strong enough that within the ranks of the armed forces there were organised socialist cells, there was democratic rights for soldiers, so that during any such intervention, socialists could raise demands for the socialists only to provide weapons, support for revolutionary forces. But, we clearly do not have anything like such a situation, and again, if we did, why would we be talking about whether to oppose an imperialist intervention or not. We would be calling instad for that powerful international labour movement to intervene itself!
cont'd
here Trotsky sets out what is wrong with the kind of AWL/Glotzer, Moral Socialism approach that "something must be done" when it was put forward by the Palestinian Trotskyists. As he says, the first thing is to tell ourselves the truth about what we can do, and not to run around like headless chickes trying to provide solutions for things we do not have the power to do.
"That policy which attempts to place upon the proletariat the unsolvable task of warding off all dangers engendered by the bourgeoisie and its policy of war is vain, false, mortally dangerous. “But fascism might be victorious!” “But the USSR is menaced!” “But Hitler’s invasion would signify the slaughter of workers!” And so on, without end. Of course, the dangers are many, very many. It is impossible not only to ward them all off, but even to foresee all of them. Should the proletariat attempt at the expense of the clarity and irreconcilability of its fundamental policy to chase after each episodic danger separately, it will unfailingly prove itself a bankrupt. In time of war, the frontiers will be altered, military victories and defeats will alternate with each other, political regimes will shift. The workers will be able to profit to the full from this monstrous chaos only if they occupy themselves not with acting as supervisors of the historical process but by engaging in the class struggle. Only the growth of their international offensive will put an end not alone to episodic “dangers” but also to their main source: the class society."
That is consistent with his approach in relation to intervention in the Balkans. The main struggle for Socialism is in the advanced capitalist countries. It is a struggle of the workers against Imperialism/Capitalism. Giving credibility to Imperialism by not opposing its free reign across the globe in order to possibly gain some possible (but unlikely as Libya et al demonstrates) respite for a few workers, is far too big a price to pay for the global working class and the struggle for Socialism.
The Moral Socialists and Third Campists unfortunately fail to base themselves on dialectics and a wider picture, and instead base themselves on the syllogism and providing some solution (they actually have no power to bring about) for each individual case.
I am not suggesting we can in anyway finetune or steer this imperialist intervention, on the contrary I started out by stating that we need to start from by recognising our own impotence.
You say the imperialists are not looking to develop Mali, that's certainly the case as far as the purpose of the intervention goes but that's not it as far as its effects go. Capitalism has a fertile touch and when allowed to develop as it will be under the pro-capital military it has a tendency to grow until it meets resistance. Let me be clear that I am not suggesting that capitalist development necessarily follows from imperialism, it does not, that much is clear from how many bourgeois-democratic regimes have fallen to imperialism which makes all kinds of allies in the name of international security, regional stability or whatever other euphemism they are using. Indeed, the imperialists could just as easily be supporting the Islamist rebels as they do elsewhere, but they are not.
I take your, or rather Trotsky's point about not being indifferent to the means of liberation, but equally we are not indifferent to whether such liberations occur or not. The imperialist regime offers better conditions for the independent political development of the proletariat than Islamist barbarism does. As such, knowing the victory of the imperialists will leave the proletariat in a stronger position than the victory of the Islamists, we can't very well call for it's defeat safe in the knowledge of our impotence to effect that defeat.
Actually, there is no reason to believe that a military intervention in Mali or similarly undeveloped states would lead to Capitalist development. When Colonialism took root in India, America, China etc. it did so as Merchant and Money Capital, alongside the Landlord Class seeking profits.
In order to extract those profits it was forced to undertake a certain amount of development - creation of infrastructure, building of railways, ports etc. That provided a certain basis for Capitalist development. But, set against it was the destructive effect of those forms of Capital, which suck Surplus Value away from the producers.
But, any Colonialist i.e. military intervention/occupation today has no such objectives. It is for geo-political/strategic reasons. There is no dynamic here for Capitalist development. On the contrary, most examples of such intervention have shown the consequence being huge devastation of people and property, usually followed by the re-emergence of some kind of regional strongman at best or as in Somalia/Afghanistan a descent into chaos and gangsterism.
Its not clear that an Imperialist intervention would create better conditions for workers as Iraq, Libya and elsewhere demonstrate. Marxists want to help bring about liberation and so on, but that doesn't mean supporting Imperialism hijacking that historical task.
Rather we should as an organised Labour Movement be asking why it is that large numbers of individually motivated jihadists can form themselves into a global force capable of fighting for their ideology across the globe, but the hundreds of millions of workers organised in the global labour movement are not!
"Rather we should as an organised Labour Movement be asking why it is that large numbers of individually motivated jihadists can form themselves into a global force capable of fighting for their ideology across the globe, but the hundreds of millions of workers organised in the global labour movement are not!"
On that point, at least, we can agree.
Could you clear one thing up for me? Are you of the view that capitalism is unlikely to develop the largely pre-capitalist sub-Saharan Africa?
I am actually working on a comprehensive analysis of Africa - or trying to when I have the time from other things. I have felt for about ten years now, that Africa was about to experience a similar period of industrialisation that Asia experienced in the 1980's.
That view has been justified by the subsequent events. A number of African "Lion" economies have arisen that are clearly industrialising, and have high growth rates. Nor is this entirely due to the fact that some of these economies are mineral rich, and so their development is rent based - which is the case with for example, the Gulf economies.
However, the process is one of combined and uneven development. That was true also of Asian development, and of Latin America. Some sub-saharan economies are extremely poor and primitive. They have not even benefited from the effects of 19th Century Colonialism, as some economies did in providing elements of a capitalist economy, and superstructure.
The process of primary accumulation in these economies will be very difficult. That process is easier in those economies that are mineral rich in some ways, but more difficult in others. For example, in the Gulf, it means the feudal rulers are able to avoid real industrial development. They live off rent as always, and use some of the wealth to buy off dissent, or to buy sufficient force to put it down. In Saudi Arabia, most of the working class - indeed population - is imported to work in the oil industry. Where development is occurring in those economies it is in similar types of economic activity i.e. banking and finance.
Yet, in parts of Africa e.g. Angola, DRC, Nigeria those resources are being used for primary capital accumulation.
My view I suppose is similar to that put forward by Marx and Engels in respect of countries still dominated by the AMP, in his day. They may skip the capitalist stage, IF there is a socialist revolution in several advanced economies that comes to their aid. If that does not happen, these economies will have to go through all the agonies of Capitalism, along with all the agonies they currently suffer from their late development.
However, I have no doubt that short of such a revolution, these economies would eventually be developed by Capital. Those where Capital can achieve that more easily and more quickly will be its first target. That is why I do not see Imperialism acting to develop countries like Mali, Afghanistan, Somalia any time soon. They will only undertake military action/establish bases in these countries for strategic purposes, and that will not lead to any kind of development.
On the other hand as in the past, where development does occur in the Lion economies, it is likely to be much faster even than the development of the Asian Tigers.
Interesting.
I think Nigeria, having been a target of investment in resource extraction consistently for many years (despite political instability), aptly demonstrates both the drawbacks and advantages of mineral wealth.
On the one hand a large service industry has grown up around the well-waged oil workers (both domestic and foreign), employing more than twice the number employed in industry (which is still almost entirely oil based). This includes the highly successful entertainment industry and an emerging communications industry, both of which have taken off in their own right. This demonstrates how investment in mineral extraction, even if the revenues are based on economic rent, can have a trickle-out effect and fuel the growth of capitalist accumulation.
On the downside is the corruption and inefficient government that it cushions. Nigeria's gradual transition from bonapartist state to highly deformed bourgeois democracy has been impaired the dominance of the industry. Bureaucratic state apparatuses, being self-perpetuating in the way that they are, are most responsive to broader economic concerns when their revenues are threatened by them. Having a large guaranteed revenue from oil (almost all of state revenue) limits the bureaucracy's dependence on tax and hence its interest in the development of (taxable) capitalist industry within the country, blunting its responsiveness to say the least.
Another, and more direct way that resource exports have hindered capitalist investment in the country is by creating an unfavourable exchange rate which adds to the comparative cost of exports and of labour, making direct foreign investment in manufacturing and agriculture for export highly undesirable. This had resulted in low labour productivity, under investment and uncompetitive agriculture (and would do the same to manufacturing, if they really had any). Agricultural output has declined drastically as oil exports have risen.
What I would take from all this is that while resource extraction in African “Lions” has great potential for jump starting capitalist accumulation, any such development will (in the early days) take a radically different form what was seen in the Asian Tigers, where the basis for their rapid development was cheap manufactured exports. Although it remains to be seen to what extent rapidly increasing wages in Asia will offset this and make Africa more attractive as a market for cheap, unskilled labour.
Quite right. As I said combined and uneven development rules. But here is another aspect of that. In places like Nigeria, it may well be those kinds of high value areas of production/economic activity that act as the spearhead of development, thereby jumping over a stage of development based on low wage/low value production. Or at least the latter developing to meet the needs of the domestic market, around and subordinated to these higher value industries. For example, you can easily see why rather than railway production, it will be the creation of a high speed Broadband network that will create the potential for new industries developing around it.
But, Marx in Capital, discussing what causes development in one place faster than another, makes the point that where Nature gives up its bounty to easily, this is a drawback to initial development. Its where humans have to develop their own capabilities to deal with varying climes etc. that new methods and so on arise.
I'd also recommend Walmart, India and Child labour
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