USA: GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN – AGAIN!

Posted on October 6, 2013 by stutteringsteps

The closing of some US government facilities during early October 2013 and the sending home of government workers reveals a number of things about bourgeois democracy and the capitalist mode of production. The most obvious thing is that the elite members of the political class cannot even agree on how to save the economic and political system from its own internal contradictions. Their self-interested posturing and bickering – as they jostle to keep their places at the states luxurious feeding trough – make them appear ridiculous. And indeed, their disagreements are something of a phoney war, for the real war is against the US working people (white-collar and blue) and the poor. It is not the first time this shut-down spectacle has happened in the USA – and it will not be the last.

Despite the much publicised delegate tomfoolery in the media and the organs of government, the underlying problem at the moment is not to be found in the White House, Congress or Senate, but in the profound crisis of the capitalist mode of production. This political ‘theatre of the absurd’ in the US is only one symptomatic aspect of the developing crisis and is likely to be repeated elsewhere. The 21st century capitalist system world-wide faces a structural crisis covering at least the following five broad areas – economic, financial, moral, ecological and fiscal. In the US, it is disagreement over the growing fiscal crisis and the ‘Affordable Care Act’ (Obama-care) which is currently energising the tempers of the political elite, but these aspects of the crisis are themselves only symptoms of something more profound.

a) The neo-liberal fiscal crisis.

The fact that state expenditure in the US (as elsewhere) exceeds state income – an issue soon to be debated by the political elite in all advanced capitalist countries – is merely a fundamental symptom of the latest neo-liberal crisis phase of capitalism. In all capitalist countries, a shrinking tax base and increasing state expenditure has long been causing a discrepancy in the accounting books of nation states. This discrepancy has now reached astronomical crisis levels, particularly in the US and Europe. The export of production away from these previously high waged economies, has reduced government tax receipts from employment and profits. Late 20th and early 21st century tax reductions for the wealthy has also added to the negative side of this sovereign accounting imbalance.

At the same time as this reduction in income, governments in the west have continued to incrementally increase their expenditures on arms production and their delivery systems. Technological sophistication in warfare has developed at a rapid pace and this has certainly been taken to the most extreme forms by the military industrial complex in the USA. Modern armies, navies and air forces – required to ensure capitalist control of markets and essential raw materials – now come at an enormous cost. This burden, together with the costs of supporting those citizens made redundant, retired or unable to find employment, has been met by years of excessive government borrowing. The US alone now needs a borrowing ceiling of over $17 trillion to continue to ‘balance’ the federal books.

The interest payments alone on such enormous debts are an unnecessary and suffocating burden upon the citizens of the country, but more than that, these and the actual loan repayments are unsustainable. Western governments are for all intents and purposes – bankrupt, but for the moment still allowed to continue functioning because there is no other outside power to close them down. The rest of the finance sector is being kept afloat by the $85 billion per month bond-buying activity in the US and similar measures in Europe. So once again it is the case that one part of the capitalist mode of production – the financial sector – has the rest of society in a complete strangle-hold. Or as Obama put it;

“Ultimately, what matters is: What do the people buying Treasury Bills think” (October 2013)

In another words relatively small group among the financial elite in this sector – big-banks and bond-holders – currently have a firm grip upon the finances of private individuals, most of industry and national governments.

b) The domination of Finance-capital.

In addition the representatives of finance and big-business now dominate much of government and determine, if not actually dictate, what should happen to the rest of us. What they have decided to do is use their positions and influence to extract their accumulated pounds of flesh – interest and loan repayments – from the bodies of most of the rest of us. Particularly vulnerable in this respect are those who are least able to avoid their vampire-like attentions. The draining of the life-blood of communities has already begun by the current austerity measures, increased prices, lower wages and pensions and far fewer benefits. Their mantra includes an appeal for smaller and less expensive government, but the reductions in state expenditure will be predominantly targeted at those state institutions which benefit the low-paid and poor.

They and their political representatives, ’left’ and ‘right’ wing will still force the rest of us to fund world-class armies, navies and air-forces, which they need for their world dominance of markets and materials, and which the rest of us do not. They will continue to demand that we fund their bloated salaries and expenses, even while they shut-down and furlough the lower paid government workers and posture and prattle about the welfare of the ‘country’. They will still wield the publicly-funded armed bodies of men to prevent opposition and protest against their vampire coven. They will still try to hood-wink us into dreaming about some future ‘pie in the sky’ delivered by further stimulated economic growth, when it is clear that unprecedented 20th and 21st century economic growth has caused the still unresolved economic crisis in the first place.

c) An uncontrollable fetish for growth.

Not only that, but these unprecedented levels of economic production and growth are already causing disastrous climatic changes, dangerous levels of pollution, irreparable ecological destruction and large-scale resource depletion. Further economic growth under the present unequal and profit-driven mode of production is a recipe for future wholesale disasters ‘cooked-up’ by those are prepared to turn a blind-eye. In contrast, the planet and the bulk of its inhabitants would benefit from scaled-back and equalised economic activity along with a drastically reduced – or better still – totally eliminated arms production. Of course none of this can happen as long as the present system continues, for those who produce for profit have an insatiable appetite for the monetary form of wealth.

And of course monetary wealth can only be accumulated by the incessant creation and sale of commodities which contain more value than they cost to produce. However, the very motivation for production and circulation under the capitalist mode which is to create profits for those who own capital, stands in the way of further production. When there is more production than can be profitably sold there is a crisis of relative overproduction. That is to say more commodities and services are created than can be sold at a profit. When this occurs, production is scaled back, workers are put on short time or are made redundant and this represents even less demand for the existing goods and services.

That is the fundamental economic basis of the current crisis in all spheres of the capitalist system. The recent flooding of the financial markets by government printed money has created some wishful-thinking optimism amongst many pundits and economic ‘experts’. As this money makes its way around the various money-making merry-go-rounds and registers its activity on various statistical tables, it appears that there is increased economic activity, when it is only increased financial activity. Also given the size of the world economy there will always be some level of continuing economic activity, particularly for basic essentials. There will also be some new start-up economic activity as well as some collapses. Yet crunch all these numbers together (as some are doing) and it is easy to fool oneself that things are generally improving – when in fact they are not.

d) Barriers to further growth.

     1. Steadily reducing purchasing power.

Unemployment, part-time working, money inflation during crises of relative overproduction, all operate to further reduce the amount of commodities and services which the bulk of the population can consume. Simply looking at the employment figures as do many politicians and economists is insufficient. Job figures may be rising but if the new jobs are low paid, zero-hour and part time then they do not make up for the purchasing power of full-time well-paid jobs which are generally being destroyed in the private and public sectors.

     2. Lower workforce participation.

Another current factor is the growing numbers of citizens who have now absented themselves from the job market but are not classified among the unemployed figures, because they are retired, early retired, students, domestic and black economy workers. All of these citizens are victims of the overproduction downturn and resulting credit-derived financial collapse. Their purchasing power has been further reduced and so there is less available for other than necessary purchases.

      3. Deleveraging.

The banking and finance sectors are the ones who utilise ‘leveraging’ (borrowing against assets) to the greatest degree, in order to increase their profitable investments, however, they are not the only ones. The finance sector stimulation of credit has meant that ordinary people as well as small and medium businesses have been able to borrow to an unprecedented degree over many years. The level of personal and business debt has increased by many times since the post-2nd World War period and over far a wider range of people.

The financial collapse of 2008 has meant that many ordinary people have fell victim to essentially the same problem – taking on more debt than they could continue to service particularly under the new conditions. This has meant that vast numbers of people are no longer taking on new loans to purchase goods and some of their current purchasing power is being used to pay down previous debt levels. The combined effects of this personal and business de-leveraging means a reduction in the amounts of cash which can be used for purchasing non-essential existing production in general and new production in particular.

e) The ‘wisdom’ of bourgeois pundits.

The recent scaling down of expected (estimated) growth figures by the US Federal Reserve is a recognition of this complex problem and it is why they have also continued with the above noted $85 billion per month bond-buying programme in the USA and a similar ECB programme in Europe. However, what these vested interests have in common is that they all – as elite beneficiaries of the existing system – cannot envisage any fundamental alteration to the current situation. Whether the economy shrinks or grows their positions in the elite and relative wealth advantages are protected, so why should they?

Only a few of the bourgeois elite have realised that the current programmes for printing money and releasing it into the finance sector is simply fuelling another set of asset bubbles which sooner or later will collapse as the housing market did in 2008. Fewer still recognise that the complex economic circuits of production and consumption under the capitalist mode are so contradictory and connected to the social, environmental and financial sectors that they are manifesting themselves in numerous secondary symptoms, such as the banking crises, sovereign debt crisis, permanent and precarious unemployment, social poverty, environmental catastrophes and political atrophy.

When the next collapse occurs there will be even more bankruptcies and shut-downs of local businesses and local government services as well as more national government collapses, this time prior to or in the wake of social and political unrest. Meanwhile the current elite will continue to prey upon our communities with economic and military means as long as the majority of us allow them to do so. This is because the current systemic crisis cannot be corrected without either a savage war against the standards of living of the majority of people – on the one hand, or a revolutionary change in the mode of production – on the other.

[See also; ‘The five-fold crisis of Capitalism’ , ‘Austerity: Its another word for War.’ or ‘Workers and others in the 21st century’.

Roy Ratcliffe (October 2013.)

Posted in Critique, Economics, Finance, neo-liberalism | Tagged , | 3 Comments

KILLING IN THE NAME OF GOD!

Posted on September 25, 2013 by stutteringsteps

The recent events in Kenya, in which as yet an unknown number of shoppers have been summarily executed, demonstrates once again that the urge to kill in the name of religion and god is on the increase. When those shoppers who were identified by the fundamentalist al-Shabaab sect, as good Muslims were set free and others who were not executed, a situation reminiscent of the middle-ages was played out. That is to say that when the opportunity arose, armed groups belonging to one religious sect were visibly and openly intent on physically harming or eliminating those who in some way represented a different way of life – or in some cases just a different interpretation of religious ideology.

In the middle-ages fundamentalist Puritans persecuted and executed Catholic fundamentalists, whilst Catholic fundamentalists did the same to non-conforming communities, whether they were Cathars or Muslims. The systematic, imprisonment, torture and burning of all obvious heretics, including females specialising in folk medicine, preceded the more ambitious military invasions of foreign lands and conquest of wealth by Catholic, Islamic and Protestant elites. Killing in the name of God is as old as the invention of a monotheistic God. In all such cases, the tenets of the religious texts – which each religious denomination inherited from the ancient past – were utilised to justify, theft of land, resources and discriminating slaughter. In the 21st century, religious fundamentalism is once again on the increase and once again its tap-roots are to be found embodied in religious ideologies and their supposedly god-given patriarchal texts.

For groups of people to overcome any natural and socially reinforced inhibitions about systematically killing other human beings there needs to be a shared ideology – a higher cause – both to bind them together and which rationalises and justifies their inhuman practices. Angry, frustrated, oppressed, unemployed people etc. – of which under the present mode of production there are many – generally respond by one of the following; individual criminality, black economic activity, political activism or even suicide. They do not usually form armed groups and set about systematically torturing and assassinating others. Frustration, oppression, discrimination, injustice, unemployment and lack of opportunity are by themselves insufficient for such organised and orchestrated acts of savagery.

In addition, human beings are not born with such inclinations or self-justifying ideologies, these have to be socially learned and socially reinforced. The male-dominated religions, particularly the Abrahamic religions have had centuries to perfect the methods of convincing people of the existence of an invisible and all-powerful ‘male’ entity who authorises their elite existence and has provided textual guidance to this effect. This ideological saturation of the human intellect begins at childhood. The childhood trust of children for the adults in their lives is systematically abused as fantasy ‘stories’ (fairies, goblins, Father Xmas etc.) are asserted as being ‘true’ until most of these concoctions fall apart at the internally contradictory narrative seams. The exception to the ignominious collapse of this ubiquitous fantasy parade in childhood is with regard to God – and for good reason.

The ideology of a male God and god-given authority in hierarchical societies is extremely useful to the elites who govern societies and communities for they can and do use this ideology to support their patriarchal rule. Hence Aristocratic, political, military and religious elites have always had a vested interest in promoting and perpetuating such ancient and unscientific fictions. Their jobs depended upon it. Indeed, they still do! The 21st century jobs, status and actions of all the worlds elite rulers depend almost entirely upon the rest of us believing one version or other of these un-enlightened two-thousand year old fictional creations. Hence religion, politics and military might are everywhere hand in hand if not actually hand in glove.

Even so-called secular leaders in the west are keen to project – and be protected by – an image of their sincere (or insincere) belief in an unknowable, unseen, male super-being who wrote or dictated some ancient, cobbled together instructions for how communities should live and be governed. Regular attendance at church, chapel, cathedral, mosque, synagogue by ‘leaders’ of nations – before, during or after ordering wars or massacres – are publicised as visual indicators of their sincerity, reliability and acceptability. But this obscene charade only continues because much of the world’s population has not yet thrown off their initial child-like trust in these self-serving religious fictions delivered to them during their infancy and later kept alive by peer group habit and ‘official’ social pressure.

In this way all ‘believers’ unwittingly perpetuate the very ideological and textual foundations of a brutal form of patriarchy upon which the fundamentalists who shoot and kill in the name of god depend for their unity and justifications. To repeat what was mentioned briefly above. To get together with other like-minded individuals in order to systematically kill requires not just anger, frustration or injustice, but an existing and unifying ideology. And these pre-requisites come ready made in the form of religious ideology and the so-called sacred texts. Christian Fundamentalists and Christian Zionists, Jewish Zionists, and Islamic fundamentalists, who all in one way or another, support and/or fund the killing of those not belonging to their own sect – all use their supposedly god-given religious texts as foundations for their inhuman actions.

When pro-abortion doctors and feminist activists set up abortion clinics the Christian fundamentalists who kill have no compunction in killing those who operate them. Why? Because by reading their so-called ‘authorised’ scriptures they find passages which allow and justify such actions. When Jewish Zionists kill or order the mass killing of Palestinians, they are guided by their fully authorised scriptures which among numerous bloodthirsty verses states that god gave them the land on which Palestinians have lived for generations. When Islamists shoot schoolgirls wishing to be educated or others who wish to vaccinate children, they undoubtedly could quote the Qur’an or an appropriate Hadith to justify this or that action. All these fundamentalist activists are doing actions suggested and authorised by their antique scriptures.

When on Saturday 21st September 2013 the al-Shabaab fighters lined people up in the Nairobi Westgate Shopping Mall before letting them go or assassinating them there and then – you can be sure they had been previously guided by the groups religious leader or Imam. The fact that the questions they asked in order to decide how to process their victims unequivocally demonstrates the fact of their absolute religious motivation. The questions they asked were religious ones to establish whether the shoppers were Muslim or not. If it is true that one of the killers said; “We are not monsters” and “The Muslim faith is not a bad one.”, then they were merely expressing what many uncritical Muslims would also take for granted. Yet the teaching of this faith – as with Christianity and Judaism – has not eradicated the desire, the actual practice and textual justification for killing in the name of god.

For this reason I suggest it is inadequate and insufficient for believers to distance themselves from such acts yet not distance themselves from their respective ‘authorised’ histories and texts which clearly justify such acts. A climate of self-criticism and radical re-thinking of their religious beliefs needs to be encouraged among all ‘believers’ if the world is to progress, beyond the current degenerative slide into religious, tribal and sectarian violence. In order to encourage critical reflection and to avoid such a regression it is insufficient for those on the left to ‘tolerate’ religious belief in an ill-thought out effort at ‘political correctness’, or in some muddled ‘moral equivalence’ posture or simply in order to the gain electoral votes from constituents who are religious.

This is because ‘liberal’ do-gooding neutrality or even lukewarm support for such patriarchal religious belief systems, not only leaves open the door for a further erosion of women’s rights – bad enough in itself – but much else is at stake. Religious beliefs of this kind are not only antiquated, childish and mistaken but are extremely dangerous. They have been so in the past and are again proving to be so in the present.

The re-assertion of religious forms of governance is a retrograde step in the progress of humanity, which has become internationally co-operative in economic terms and needs to be so in social terms. Such dysfunctional beliefs need serious and sustained challenge from all humanist inspired activists. It needs to be recognised that a section of the new generation of activist youth have embraced Islamism rather than anti-capitalism. Their vision of the future is for servile women along with continued capitalist exploitation rather than of equal partners under a post-capitalist egalitarian system.

Only such a serious challenge can hope to erode the present hold of fundamentalist ideologies on growing numbers of the youth of today and safeguard future generations from this sectarian dead end. This is because many of the recruits to Islamic jihad are quite rightly disgusted with the capitalist/imperialist and state-capitalist (communist) modes of production but mistakenly seek a better life under a future Islamic caliphate. This is an imaginary project which is as unrealistic, self-defeating and inhumane as one desiring an apartheid Jews-only state stretching from the Euphrates to the Nile, or one requiring indifference to this world whilst awaiting some fictional ‘rapture’ and the supposed ’gathering’ of the Christian elect. A consistent onslaught against such fictional projections and sectarian violence is necessary as well as broad-based non-sectarian community self-defence measures.

For the immediate future, the material frustrations, inequalities and injustices which are now universal due to the universality of the capitalist mode of production will remain. These can only be eradicated by a revolutionary transformation of this now reactionary and self-destructive mode of production. However, an economic transformation of this scale and magnitude cannot come about in the 21st century unless a majority of humanity are able to elevate the status of their humanity above that of their present religious or party political beliefs.

The sloughing off or at least a significant reduction in the importance of reactionary religious and political ideologies, is a necessary part of the process facing humanity in order to move on and not to be driven backwards. This transcendence will be necessary in order to overthrow the capitalist mode of production and end its persistent and uncontrollable economic, political, military and ecological destruction. Meanwhile there is an ideological battle for revolutionary-humanists to attend to. Killing in any form is a practice devised by insecure elites, not by humane communities of equality and justice. Killing in the name of God belongs where it was first advocated two millennia ago and should now be relegated to the antique section of the dustbin of history.

Roy Ratcliffe (September 2013)

[See also Religion versus Women’s rights’ ; ‘Religion is Politics ; Patriarchy and Terror ; and ‘Woolwich: Elites in Denial’.

Posted in Patriarchy, Religion, Sectarianism | Tagged , | 1 Comment

EGYPT: THE JUNTA HELPS STRANGLE GAZA.

Posted on September 20, 2013 by stutteringsteps

The reactionary nature of the Military Junta in Egypt has already been amply demonstrated by its savage treatment of those who protest against its arbitrary rule. Arrests, detentions and brutal treatment of oppositionists and news reporters has been attested and well documented by activists and various human-rights organisations. Crimes against humanity are being committed daily upon internationals and the citizens of Egypt. But there are also another set of victims as a result of this summers seizure of power by the elite members of the Egyptian military. These are the citizens of Gaza.

It is internationally recognised that the Zionist state of Israel has committed various large-scale atrocities against the ‘locked-in’ inhabitants of Gaza. Over the past few years there have been numerous Israeli military incursions into Gaza using weapons which have caused mass destruction of infrastructure and human life. The object of such indiscriminate brutality is to terrorise the people of Gaza into officially recognising the state of Israel and accepting any future fate the Zionist elite and its supporters wish to dish out to them.

But even without such intermittent savagery and destruction, there has been a virtual uninterrupted siege by Israel upon Gaza for many years. The Zionist and pro-Zionist political and military elite of Israel have for decades locked in the citizens of Gaza and subjected them to a calculated restriction in human rights for food, water, homes, health care and education. Gaza has for many years been the world’s largest prison in which the Israeli guards, periodically enter fully armed and savagely beat up on the inhabitants.

The one feeble corridor of relief in this unremitting and inhuman siege has been through the underground tunnels to Egypt along with restricted access to the Rafah border crossing. However, since the seizure of power by the US backed military elite in Egypt, that meagre corridor has been further restricted – this time on the orders of the Egyptian Military Junta. In the past, over 300 tunnels and the Rafah crossing allowed a tiny fraction of the much needed commodities and materials to be transported into Gaza. In addition the Rafah crossing – when opened – allowed a few students and some medical services such as doctors to come and go.

However, since June 2013 even this feeble flow has practically ceased. Tunnels have been recently destroyed and the Rafah crossing has been closed for an extended period – by none other than the Egyptian military forces. This has had the effect of further tightening the economic and social noose around the necks of the people of Gaza. It amounts to a collusion with Israel in the virtual garrotting of the citizens Gaza. The class-nature of the military and political elite currently in power in Egypt is in this way demonstrated to be essentially the same as the military and political elite in Israel and elsewhere.

The capitalist inspired military-industrial complex in the US and Europe along with its elite controllers and beneficiaries stretches its tentacles across national boundaries and by the use of lucrative inducements, bribes and rewards it smoothes over any religious or national differences. So Muslim elites, Jewish elites and Christian elites can unite – not only to distribute the spoils of their continual exploitation – but also to prevent any opposition to their parasitic existence. This collusion is clearly revealed by the many formal and informal liaisons between these respective elites at the diplomatic and military levels.

Unsurprisingly, therefore, the reason proffered by the Egyptian military elite for all their ruthlessness is very much the same as the rationale of Israel, the US and Europe – it is part of the ‘war against terror’. Yet it should be obvious by now that the biggest and most prolific sources of terror are those orchestrated by the state officials and their armed bodies of men. This is despite the fact that military orchestrated terror is the principle begetter of revengeful terror among increasing numbers of those effected by their repeated bombings, assassinations and invasions.

When the Egyptian army officers recently ordered the bulldozing and blowing up of houses on the Egyptian side of the border and when the Egyptian navy officers recently authorised firing on Gaza fishermen another tightening of the screw took place. Not only will hardship be increased for the people of Gaza, but so too will anger and frustration. These actions will undoubtedly cause more individuals in Gaza and Egypt to become desperate enough to try to hit back. For the capitalistic political and military elites this self-fulfilling cycle is useful, because the more terrorists they provoke in this way – the more need it appears there is for their services. In actual fact, the capitalist and pro-capitalist military and political elites are part of the problem not part of any solution.

Only an anti-capitalist revolution with a core of humanist values can break humanity out of the present capitalist inspired cycle of economic collapse, war, poverty, injustice, climate change and ecological destruction currently being visited upon many communities throughout the world. Until that holistic recognition gains universal acceptance and creates its own wide-spread international activism there is still the need to protest against the most horrific examples of brutality inflicted upon our human community. In that context the plight of the Palestinians in the West Bank and particularly in Gaza urgently need our support.

See also International Campaign to #OpenRafahBorder

Roy Ratcliffe (September 2013.) ;

Posted in Arab Spring, Critique, Egypt, Palestine | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

UPRISINGS AND REVOLUTIONS – 2.

Posted on September 6, 2013 by stutteringsteps

In Uprisings and Revolutions – 1, I attempted to condense my own research on the development of uprisings and revolutionary processes along with the general stages they pass through on their way to either defeat or success. That research was prompted by a growing realisation that, despite our frequent use of the word, many of us on the revolutionary anti-capitalist left, had no clear understanding of the processes or stages involved in such epoch-making socio-economic changes. It now appears that there is also only a vague understanding of the socio-economic content of such changes. Hence this second article.

The above noted encounters also convinced me that the majority of those classifying themselves as revolutionary anti-capitalists were, to a greater or lesser extent, also sectarian dogmatists. Their lack of understanding of ‘revolution’ was therefore only one of the characteristics of their sectarianism. Namely the characteristic of operating by means of idealised abstractions and being satisfied by logical deductions – irrespective of whether these deductions corresponded to the actual events considered – or not. A characteristic which continues in the 21st century. [See Sectarianism Parts, 1, 2, and 3.]

The sectarian view of unfolding reality is always adjusted to make sure – as far as possible – that their dogma (often misrepresented as principles) prestige and self-esteem remains untarnished. Since reality is always complex it is possible for sectarians to select from it so as to confirm their pre-existing views. Rarely are their views seriously questioned or checked to establish whether they still correspond to reality as it unfolds. In other words an ideological method of reasoning is adopted. This involves  separating ideas from the material foundations upon which they arise and then transforming them into superior ideas that the sectarian considers are the most ‘advanced’.

Reading recent articles and statements by some revolutionary anti-capitalists of the situation in Egypt and Syria, it has become obvious that this mode of operations still characterises much of the left. Since real ‘revolutionary transformations are infrequent events and there have been none since the early 20th century, it has become too easy to operate using such abstractions derived from previous ones. Some on the left have witnessed the mass uprisings in the ‘Arab Spring’ countries and based primarily upon the large numbers involved, have drawn the conclusion that actual revolutions have taken place.

This then becomes a serious problem. Having classified them as such everything else they describe about the situation in these countries flows logically from that primary (and as we shall see mistaken) assertion. Any serious or temporary fluctuations in the struggle between the contending political formations in these countries of uprising must then be dualistically interpreted as ‘revolutionary’ or ‘counter-revolutionary’ without any regard to their specific content – or even lack of it. Their reliance on second-hand abstract formulations allow them to mistake the ‘form’ – initial mass uprisings – as being sufficient ‘content’ in itself to make it a revolution.

Distinguishing form from content.

Yet a study of historical cases, suggests there is a marked difference between an uprising which is predominantly motivated by being against something and one which is also clearly motivated for something. If it is only against something, then an uprising is unlikely to attract and sustain sufficient numbers to support it. Any absent, undeveloped or counter-productive content of an uprising does not bode well for its future success. Even if the uprising obtains popular support and succeeds in temporarily defeating the object against which it is directed, without a some kind of positive alternative and future focussing and unifying perspective, it can immediately begin to flounder and become, aimless, bogged down, or subverted.

All three of these possible effects have been clearly demonstrated by the 21st century uprisings in the Middle East and the Nagreb. In Tunisia the massively popular uprising against Ben Ali, became bogged down and subverted into sectarian electoral politics. In Egypt, the protests against the Mubarak regime, also became deflected (or subverted) into sectarian political channels and is now almost back to before (Tahir) square one with arbitrary military rule dominating Egyptian society. In Libya the popular uprising against Gaddafi, was also subverted and after the sadistic bombing by Europe and the USA, has become bogged down in sectarian, internal and regional conflict.

In Syria, the initial uprising against Assad has also become subverted and bogged down in what amounts to a tri-party civil war between government, secularists and Islamists for control of the state – or at least a break-away slice of it. And in this case again – as with Libya – with the neo-liberal west once more poised to dump its surplus weapons production on innocent and guilty alike. In Bahrain protest was brutally crushed and elsewhere in the region protests were bought off with force and huge tranches of accumulated petrochemical super-profits.

In each of these cases there was little or no systematic development of a positive content to the popularity of the uprisings even though the potential for this content was visible from the outset. The young graduate, who set fire to himself in Tunisia, which provided the spark to set the Arab Spring ablaze, epitomised the growing regional dissatisfaction in the economic and social conditions of the bulk of their respective populations. In Egypt it was the slogan ‘peace, bread and justice’ which summed up – albeit in an abstract form – the real potential revolutionary content of the uprising there and elsewhere.

Yet in these two countries this positive and potential revolutionary content does not appear to have been developed into a consistent, wide-spread and high-profile message with practical measures and suggestions attached to it. Nor does such a perspective appear to have materialised in any other of the countries involved in the Arab Spring Uprisings. This initial unifying ember among the tinder of resentment and anger seems to have been neglected, rather than being fanned into a roaring blaze. There has been no modern widespread unifying slogan transcending differences of class, politics, religion and region, such as – ‘Peace, Bread and Land’ – that emerged in 20th century Russia. Nor is there any positive vision of a future post-capitalist form of economic and social reconstruction.

A revolutionary content is essential.

Yet a positive content is required for all successful revolutions. It is true that the English revolution of 1641 – 50, was highly motivated by anger against the king continually exercising his dictatorial prerogative. However, anger with the king was not what sustained participants through the years and harsh winters of the English civil war. The Parliamentary leaders and their followers were also motivated by their desire to pursue freedom to sustain and develop bourgeois economic relations as well as religious alternatives to the existing dominant ones. Another socio-economic form had been proven to be possible and worth fighting for. The same (or very similar) can be said of the motivations behind the French Revolution and the American Revolution of the 18th century. That is to say economic reasons underpinned all the religious, moral, legalistic and political rhetoric the contending parties articulated.

It is also true, to some extent of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the 1930’s Maoist Revolution in China – before both became fatally transformed into totalitarian forms of state-capitalism. What sustains an uprising beyond its initial flash-point and the consequent short-lived momentum of being against this or that ’system’, is an evolving idea (its growing revolutionary content) of what life should be – and could now be – and what is needed to transcend the underlying cause of the popular unrest. Indeed, both types of motivation (for and against) can coexist, but if an angry uprising is to be transformed into a determined revolutionary movement then sooner or later, there needs to be a clear and popular understanding of what the positive aspects of the protests are and what they are aimed at achieving.

It is clear that in the growing systemic crisis of the capitalist mode of production, there is a rising tide of anger and frustration against capitalism. Every country in the world is dominated by the neo-liberal phase of capitalism and consequently in every country there is visible large-scale, structural unemployment, insitutionalised poverty alongside obscene levels of wealth and plenty. At the same time there is awareness of wide-spread corruption at every level of government and civil society institutions – including the financial sectors. Paralleled with these obscenities are catastrophic levels of atmospheric, land and ocean pollution. Yet the machinery, technology and scientific know-how exists for sustainable production which could ensure a satisfactory level of well-being for everyone on the planet.

Finally, there is increasing oppression by the elite controllers of capitalist states against their own citizens as well as those of other countries. The world is awash with capitalist produced armaments being used to fight over the capitalist produced conditions of poverty, exploitation and oppression. In the 21st century, there are multiple reasons to be against the capitalist mode of production and potentially astronomical numbers of people wanting something different from the current unsustainable corruption and chaos from the domination of capital. The potential for revolution is therefore global. But here is the rub. There is also a huge crisis on the left and not just in terms of its extraordinarily low numbers. There is now a dearth of unified, inclusive anti-capitalist ideas and associated economic system vision to replace the present out-dated and self-destructive one. There is no positive example of a large-scale alternative. This possibility was negated by the vanguard elitism of a previous generation of anti-capitalists.

Revolutions Betrayed.

So it cannot be surprising that – as yet in the 21st century – there is no positive and clear content to the existing and any future uprisings against the system. Given the outcomes of previous attempts by anti-capitalists to transcend the capitalist mode of production, the anti-capitalist project has been rejected by all but a few. On the one hand, the numerous examples of reformist ‘socialist’ experiments in Britain and Europe, have only succeeded in maintaining the capitalist mode of production with a few patronising charitable ‘benefit systems’ for capitalisms human rejects – now after several decades to be taken away. During that period of Social Democracy the rich got richer, the poor got poorer and the capitalists successfully corrupted the so-called ‘representatives’ of the working and oppressed classes. Labour and Democratic Socialist reformism, metaphorically and literally has proved a dead end – particularly in their support for wars.

On the other hand, the ‘communist’ examples of Russia, China, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, North Korea etc., stand as massive negative examples of what can become of the lives and welfare of those who followed the 20th century ideas and practices of those who classed themselves as ‘communists’. This has proved itself yet another tragic and brutal cul-de-sac rather than a positive way forward. Truly revolutions – betrayed. These two generic examples of what a post-capitalist society would look like – epitomised by 1945 Britain on the one hand and the Soviet Union on the other – offer no convincing or appealing potential ‘content’ to any present or future uprisings in the middle east, Europe, North America or elsewhere. To pretend otherwise or ignore this glaringly obvious fact is to emulate an ostrich.

We now have a capitalist system again in world-wide terminal melt-down and, as noted, not even a partial vision of what could positively transcend it to enthuse the majority of earths humanity – who sooner or later will be compelled to rise up against it! But for what?. Indeed, there is not even an attempt to come up with an accepted version of what form a post-capitalist mode of production might take among those few remaining elements within the Leninist and Trotskyist anti-capitalist tradition. Split into competing sects and bogged down in sterile polemics over whom has the ‘correct’ understanding of Leninism or Trotskyism, there is nothing but confusion and dogmatic pettiness among much of this section of the anti-capitalist left.

Worse still, having classified the uprising of 2011 in Egypt as a revolution, many such self-certified revolutionaries have now had to classify the recent military coup as a ‘counter-revolution’, when in fact it is just a re-imposition of a naked military rule. The military had never left the economic, political or financial seats of power in business or the state. They had merely assumed a posture of tolerance, donned a form of democratic camouflage and retreated slightly into the background. The reality is that despite the sacrifices made in Egypt, there has never been a revolution. And any potential revolutionary content has been sidelined by a focus on politics and political outcomes. Have some on the left contributed to this focus on political solutions? You bet.

A 21st century content-less and vision-less ‘left‘?

Indeed, there has never been a full development of the uprisings, based upon their original socio-economic motives, which started in 2011. There was no general recognition among those who assembled in Tahir square to protest, that changes in who governs the system would be insufficient to solve the problems of food, housing and justice, facing the population now or in the future. If there where any voices which articulated this aspiration and warned of the danger of illusions in bourgeois democracy, they were drowned out by those who thought differently. Otherwise, the masses would not have been deflected for so long into the sterile cul-de-sac of bourgeois electoral politics or into internecine, self-defeating sectarian violence .

Does this lack of understanding and consequent mistaken classification really matter or is it just being unnecessarily pedantic to point out this dismal fact? I suggest it does matter. I further suggest careful analysis and accurate classification is a pre-requisite for those active in relationship to large-scale uprisings and civil-disorders. If those who count themselves as revolutionaries do not understand revolutionary processes and make such fundamental mistakes it is likely that they will misunderstand many other things – and worse still – pass these misunderstandings onto others. This is exactly what many are currently doing.

A similar confusion arises over the difference between a civil-war and a revolution. The fact that in both cases (civil-war and revolution) citizens of the same state are struggling violently against each other for some particular outcome, does not exhaust the question for revolutionary anti-capitalists. A civil war can be a contest between one party or faction and another – over control of the state – under the existing mode of production. In this case the contest is over who has power to govern. The form may be a militarised civil-war but the content is political. These are not revolutions in the sense revolutionary-humanists and other anti-capitalists define them.

The necessary content of anti-capitalist revolutions.

Since the time of Marx and other anti-capitalists, a revolution requires a different purpose and content for the struggle against the ruling capitalist and pro-capitalist elite. Uprisings, demonstrations, petitions and changes in government personnel will not solve the basic problems for the bulk of humanity. Due to the degenerate nature of the capitalist system, modern revolutions are required to be epoch changing and radically alter the present mode of production. The task is not to replace one entrenched ruling elite with another by means of an uprising or even a civil-war, but to change the entire mode of economic production and along with it the mode of social relationships. The means of struggle for this end may initially take the form of a civil uprising and possible/probable civil war between the states elites, their supporters and the majority of the population, but the content – and even the form – is indisputably different.

In other words the ‘form’ and ‘content’ of an anti-capitalist revolution is a protracted struggle to overcome the existing dominant ideas and economic practices along with the ruling class who control these ideas and practices and transform the entire mode of production. This includes eliminating the class structure and transforming the form of governance of populations into self-governing communities, jointly controlling the means of production and producing for ecologically sustainable human needs. The ‘form’ of a revolutionary movement to achieve this as a consequence needs also to match the content. The revolutionary form needs to be fully participative, truly democratic and inclusive, non-sectarian, and inspired by revolutionary-humanist values.

In contrast the ‘content’ of a non-revolutionary civil war has a more politically limited purpose and a more political form. To achieve its purpose ‘civil-war’ only requires charismatic leaders and an obedient and energetic led in both the political and military arena’s. There are of course other, more nuanced, differences also between a civil-war and a revolution but the above is an important and fundamental difference. It is interesting in this regard, that the pro-capitalist elite in Europe and North America have colluded in the description of the Arab Spring uprisings as revolutions.

Knowing that revolutions are legitimate – their predecessors having come to power by these means – the pro-capitalist elites in the west and elsewhere can then adopt a somewhat positive attitude toward these. Effectively saying; ‘you’ve had your revolution so now get back to work and we will help you to re-construct your politics, infrastructures and economies to get them back on their feet’. Colludion with this terminological confusion, by the left therefore, serves the neo-liberal capitalist elite well. However, elite and media false characterisations of reality and potential are not the only problem. So too is the sloppy thinking by some on the left, for it means there is no serious voice to contradict this naive or deliberately engineered neo-liberal misperception.

How to avoid being part of the problem.

Those on the left who automatically classify large-scale uprisings and vicious civil-wars as revolutions also sow confusion amongst themselves and the working class. To avoid this they should seriously study past revolutions and uprisings. If they do not the workers and oppressed can be ‘led’ by them into thinking that they have done enough if they have massed in uprisings and offered themselves as martyrs for an imagined revolution, which has brought them nothing. Disillusionment can then set in when their misdirected efforts and huge sacrifices produce little or no positive results.

Alternatively, they can be sucked into the ranks of those who are engaged in a civil-war struggle thinking it a revolution and become naive shock troops drawn behind one or other competing faction in a struggle for control of an existing country or state. For example, thousands of working people who thought themselves ‘socialists’ in the 20th century, fell for this and joined the Bolsheviks in Russia and the National Socialists in Germany. Look where it got them! They became the exploited wage slaves of totalitarian states. Others calling themselves ‘communists’ stood aside in the struggles against the Nazis – thinking their time would come. It did in Hitlers concentration camps. There are countless other examples of the left being part of the problem and not part of the solution.

In the complex, shifting, confusing events which swirl around any large-scale civil unrest, it is important that those engaged in support of the anti-capitalist perspective are clear about what ‘content’ is present, absent or what pseudo-content is being projected into those struggles to deflect them into dead ends. In the context of an uprising or potential civil-war, the anti-capitalist ‘content’ of any struggle – if it does not dominate spontaneously – needs to be introduced by the revolutionary anti-capitalists. Even huge events are not potentially revolutionary if they do not gain such a content or produce one in the developing process.

Even if any ‘revolutionary’ content is drowned out by more powerful voices then it still needs to be persistently promoted and become a pole of attraction for those engaged in the struggle at whatever level they entered it. And who is to do this if not the revolutionary anti-capitalists, if they are not to become part of the problem? It is clear that in the case of the Arab Spring uprisings and those demonstrations now occurring in Europe, the real revolutionary content is socio-economic and not political. The focus should be on this socio-economic content, together with the non-sectarian self-activity of the workers and oppressed. It should not be on the construction and conduct of formal politics involving political parties and bourgeois elections.

Attempts to obscure, deflect or subvert that socio-economic content in favour of a political content, can only aid the cause of the ruling elites and those reactionary forces which have an elitist agenda. Any failure by the anti-capitalist left to leave out the full implications of the capitalist mode of production and its current five-fold crisis, is to assist the reactionary elements within society and to misdirect the efforts of those struggling against this or that aspect of oppression or exploitation. Any clinging onto dogma, any failure to admit mistakes, any continued use of outmoded and discredited organisational forms and any defence of half understood abstractions by the left will be a barrier which workers and the oppressed will need – sooner or later – to pass round or dismantle and climb over.

Roy Ratcliffe (September 2013)

Posted in Arab Spring, Critique, Egypt, neo-liberalism, Sectarianism | Tagged , , , | 7 Comments

LEFT UNITY – The Three Platforms.

Posted on August 28, 2013 by stutteringsteps

After a number of years of gradual decline in the living and working conditions of the working and oppressed classes in the UK, the process was accelerated by the financial crisis erupting in 2008. This intensified crisis has finally energised some of the political forces of the UK left to do something different. The recent Left Unity initiative is an attempt to draw together all those seriously opposed to the current economic and social crisis into one large political party. The purpose is to gain access to parliament in order to defend workers (and others) welfare and work-place rights and challenge the current neo-liberal policy direction of all mainstream parties.

In one sense this is an attempt within a UK setting to plot a parallel and similarly transformative course to that already originated by the Syriza coalition in Greece. As such it has (at least by previous left standards) attracted considerable numbers of individuals and some groups – all to some degree radicalised or rejuvenated by the current austerity programme of mainstream political parties. A London conference has been arranged for 14 November 2013 in order to attempt to agree to a ‘platform’ (ie a set of ideas, principles and objectives) which will ‘unify’ those attending so they will become an active part of this new initiative. Talk of unity and the possibility of solidarity on the left is an important breakthrough, but do the proposals recently suggested represent a possible way forward?

So far (August 2013) three platforms have been proposed by various tendencies supporting and promoting this initiative. One is proposed in the form of a ‘Left Platform’ located at (http://leftunity.org/left-party-platform-statement/); a second in the form of a ‘Socialist Platform’ located at (http://leftunity.org/socialist-platform-statement-of-aims-and-principles/) and a third as ‘The Class Struggle Platform’ located at ( http://leftunity.org/the-class-struggle-platform/) These can be accessed by locating the appropriate http address. Since collectively they amount to a number of pages I will just give my general impressions after reading a summery by Felicity Dowling published in Links, (at http://links.org.au/node/3473) and then reading all three platforms individually.

Politics and Platforms.
The three platforms are by definition brief statements of political positions drawn up by three different groups. As such they can be defined by what they fail to mention as much as by what they do include and how it is included. Such platforms cannot afford to be overly lengthy and expect to be read by even moderate numbers of people. However, in drawing up ‘left’ platforms, the essential elements chosen for inclusion still require a sufficiently clear description so as to be unambiguous to those reading them. Otherwise the ‘left’ political communicators will be no different in form than the ‘liberal’ and the ‘right-wing’ political communicators. All of whom are deliberately and consistently ambiguous in order to attract the widest electoral support but leave them able to compromise their promises and free to pursue different, undisclosed agendas.

Unfortunately, in this case, all three of these Left Unity platforms are not sufficiently clear on a number of the points they do include. Concepts such as ‘socialism’, ‘public ownership’, ‘democratisation’, ‘social gains’, ‘replacement of state institutions’ ‘common ownership’, ‘women’s liberation’, ‘the working class’, ‘the interests of the majority’, ‘win political power to end capitalism’ ‘defend all past gains’, ‘the organisation of a general strike’; are used repeatedly, but only as meaningless abstractions. This is a serious fault because all of these terms have been used in the past to describe practices that either catastrophically failed, were reversed later or have just remained meaningless clichés. If for reasons of brevity, these generalities could not be tackled sufficiently in these platforms, then at least that fact should have been mentioned. It could have been stated that – as they stand – these concepts are abstract, problematic and in need of much further qualification.

Some of these previously noted abstract generalisations invite a question as to what is also completely left out of these platforms. For example, left out of all these platforms is even brief indications of the episodic and structural nature of the present five-fold current crisis of the capitalist mode of production. Missing also is a recognition of the changes in the socio-economic structure of the working class which has matured in the 21st century. In particular no mention is made of the change in proportions under capitalism between the productive workers generating surplus-value and those not generating surplus-value. In other words, between those employed by capital and those employed by realised surplus-value transformed into revenue.

These latter transformations cannot be ignored for these proportions have a direct relevance and importance for the continuation of a welfare ‘state’ under the capitalist mode of production as well as for the suggested ‘states’ existence under any supposedly post-capitalist economic organisation. What is also left out of these platforms – where the question of women in society is mentioned – is a recognition of the firm hold of patriarchal economic, social and political forms within male dominated society as a whole – and the symptoms of this within the ‘left’ itself. What is also a further glaring omission is a recognition of the problem of politics and the politic problems attached to large-scale institutionalised organisations within modern, mass social communities. As Marx long ago noted;

“The political mind is a political mind precisely because it thinks within the framework of politics. The keener and more lively it is, the more incapable is it of understanding social ills.” (Marx. Marx/Engels Collected Works. Volume 3 page 199. emphasis added. RR)

The political mind-set.
The shortcomings of these platforms arise primarily from the fact that they are written from positions firmly anchored in what Marx described as the ‘political mind set’. For every generic issue the three platforms mention, the solution is viewed as being the realm of politics and require political solutions – even though these ‘political solutions’ differ slightly in detail across all three ‘platforms’. For this reason, the contemporary economic situation, the social situation, environmental problems, patriarchy, racism and internationalism are all seen as being solvable by the application of appropriate political solutions. In this case, these solutions in turn needing to be implemented by the state under the control of a new group of politicians – who will remain faithful and reliable leaders guiding the masses!!! Masses who are required to energetically, consistently and tirelessly campaign on behalf of these new ‘Left Unity’ politicians and themselves – once called upon to do so by the new party!

Because it is the political mind-set which is informing each of the platforms, the platforms have much in common and, as noted above, comprise mainly of abstract ‘generalisations’. Some of them sweeping generalisations at that. There is no attempt to make clear what needs to be made absolutely clear if their proposals are to ever gain credibility and get beyond wishful thinking. ‘Socialism’ and ‘Public Ownership’, for example are prominently mentioned without any reference to the previous catalogue of failed examples of precisely these so-called ‘solutions’ to the problems posed by the capitalist mode of production. No recognition that the term ‘socialism’ for example has been used to describe the states governed by Mao, Stalin, Gaddafi, elsewhere and the post-war Labour Government in the UK. No mention of any difference or of past ‘left’ mistakes nor any indication of how to avoid a repetition of previous ‘left’ errors in attempting to overcoming capitalism.

The three platforms also appear to have been formulated as if the economic analysis of the capitalist mode of production by Marx has either had no existence or has no serious relevance to the present crisis of capitalism. The platforms authors have similarly disregarded even mentioning in passing, the following; the totalitarian development of Bolshevik anti-capitalism and its full crystallisation into the horrors of Stalinist socialism; the Maoist trajectory of socialism leading to a combination of morbid back-street capitalism and ruthless state industrialisation. In addition all the platforms seem to have been written with no real regard to the implications of structural changes the capitalist industrial, commercial and financial system has undergone during the 20th and 21st centuries. The self-destructive contradictions in the application of technology, automation and computerisation, to these spheres of the present economic system are not even flagged up as problems needing urgent solution.

A Parliamentary road to Socialism?
All three platforms make clear their wish to create a party which seeks election to Parliament with sufficient electoral support to block future implementations of austerity measures or to advance reforms beneficial to the working and oppressed sections of society. Yet a further failure of the platforms is to recognise and make clear to readers what exactly this will involve. Huge amounts of money will have to be obtained, for example, to run an electoral machine with any chance of returning sufficient numbers of voters to make any noticeable effect. Where is that money to come from? Dodgy sources, with the influence that will openly or covertly come with that – or membership subscriptions – or both? Also not only money but large numbers of leafleting activists and thousands of membership meetings will be required, where are these dedicated activists to come from?

And are the poor and oppressed to be eventually asked to curb their future militant actions and defensive struggles so as not to damage some future electoral potential? And just as importantly, are the masses going to allow themselves, to be directed by the pro-bourgeois and liberal ‘left’ into an impossible electoral project which only wants to restore a 1950’s version of capitalism by calling it 21st century ‘socialism’? And are we to imagine that the controllers of a powerful capitalist state such as Britain allow any reforms not in their own interests – if such Left Unity‘ electoral day dreams did come true?

Highly unlikely! The pro-capitalist Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson in 1968 and again in 1974 triggered elite talk of a secret military-state coup when he temporarily adopted a morsel of ‘left’ sounding rhetoric. Would things be any different today? In any part of the world? Is the example of anti-elite electoral success any different than in Egypt – where the military have decided to brutally overrule it? Or do the originators of the platforms know this project of a new party being swept into Parliament to achieve what they think is real ‘socialism’ is unrealisable – but don’t want to say so openly?

Is their main undisclosed object to just simply gather recruits for their own particular sectarian group project? Either way encouraging others to pursue such electoral based platforms will possibly only serve to confuse and dis-empower the masses self-activity, whilst claiming – as some of the platforms do – to be in favour of clarity and empowerment. And it must be said that the parliamentary roads to socialism in the past as well as the present, involve a large measure of political self-delusion for being active in politics presupposes an unfolding of its own internal logic.

“Where political parties exist, each party sees the root of every evil in the fact that instead of itself an opposing party stands at the helm of the state. Even radical and revolutionary politicians seek the root of the evil not in the essential nature of the state, but in the definite state form, which they wish to replace by a different state form. (Marx. ibid page 197.)

The suggestion of a replacement of the existing state form by another state form administered by a different political party, is what is common to all three platforms.

Support struggles but oppose illusions.
It is perhaps inevitable that the UK political left would come up with a political programme seeking to solve the socio-economic and environmental crisis of the capitalist mode of production, by the creation of a vehicle (the party) for their own elevation to power. It is perhaps also inevitable that they will need to use the working class (and possibly their trade union funds) as their sources of gifts, cheap loans and cheap labour in order to attempt a restoration of that worn out corroded vehicle. Just as in fact the originators and activists of the Labour Party did before them. Many of whom only later became aware of the unintended or intended consequences of the parliamentary road to socialism – the inevitable creation of a party elite and its equally inevitable incorporation and corruption. To paraphrase an often used saying; to keep doing the same thing and expecting a completely different result is the stuff of religion and prayer, not rational modes of thought and action.

In my opinion, it is not possible for revolutionary-humanist anti-capitalists to subscribe to such reformist and illusory platforms or to stay mute in the face of such outmoded and self-defeating ideas and programmes. Nor is it sensible to turn a blind eye to serious omissions nor the studied programmatic avoidance of problematic issues. This does not mean, however, that we should stay aloof from the practical struggles against the state, the employers and the pro-capitalist political class, which supporters of these platforms will hopefully engage in. It is the same with regard to religious ideologies and the oppressed believers in them, Christians, Jews or Muslims etc. We struggle alongside them against their oppression and exploitation as human beings, but we do not collude or stay silent in relationship to the religious ideologies which also serve to enslave them – particularly in the case of women.

Adopting what I suggest is a revolutionary-humanist position means engaging in solidarity and support for all the practical struggles of the working and oppressed classes – providing they are not against or at the expense of another section of the oppressed and exploited classes. The latter being an important proviso. However, we should defend vigorously those intellectual and practical understandings – which have retained their validity – and expose and criticise ideas and practices which seek to undermine or counteract these gains. Bourgeois and liberal forms of ‘socialism‘, illusions in religion and parliamentary democracy being three of the latter.

For most people, if not all of us, it is experience which is the great teacher. Experience is also the corrector of invalid ideas and practices, providing of course we are open to be so corrected. In other words, providing our ideas are not fixed for eternity like those of religion. This will be the case for many of those now convinced of the need and practicality for creating a new party and currently attached to one or other of the three platforms. It cannot be ruled out that many activists hoping for electoral success over the next months and years will be able to critically evaluate the reality of this project as it unfolds – or fails to unfold.

One of many gains attained by Marx and which I suggest is still relevant and valid in 21st century social and scientific life is the following sentence from the 11 Theses on Feuerbach, which reads;

“All mysteries which lead theory to mysticism find their rational solution in human practice and in the comprehension of this practice.”

Of course comprehension of our practice needs to be open, honest and thorough, something the entrenched political mind-set, with its eyes firmly fixed on parliamentary election and power, is more often than not extremely loath to do. Lets hope that the activists in and around the Left Unity initiative are willing to do this and share the experience with others.

Roy Ratcliffe. (August 2013.)

Posted in Critique, Left Unity, Politics, Reformism | Tagged , | Leave a comment

EGYPT: CONFLICTING NARRATIVES.

Posted on August 19, 2013 by stutteringsteps

The purpose of narratives.

It is clear that the first casualty of conflict, war and politics is the truth. What happens is that the parties to any serious struggle construct a narrative of events which serves to support their particular side and is put forward as the truth. These narratives present a one-sided picture in which the side producing them have right on their side, have done nothing wrong and that the other side has done bad things and even committed crimes. However, just because both sides are at it, does not mean that one side is not more guilty than another or that both sides are equally guilty.

The difficulty for those who are not directly involved in a serious dispute or war is to try to assemble from the evidence available to their eyes and ears and based on experience which of the competing narratives is closest to the truth and which side, if any, bears the bulk of any offences or crimes. This is the actual case in any civilian dispute, whether or not it arrives at a tribunal or court. If it does then it is up to those who sit on the tribunal or the judge/jury in a court case – if they are honest – to weigh the evidence and decide which narrative is most trustworthy before reaching any conclusion.

In the case of uprisings, civil wars and revolutions the stakes are even higher, the narratives are even more forcefully made and the situation becomes even more complex. In such cases, it should be remembered that states facing unrest have the greatest resources and power to create their own narratives and to ensure as far as possible that these dominate mainstream dialogue. It can do this by banning alternative media outlets, flooding existing media outlets and controlling the streets. The state has also the power, the resources and the ability to conduct what are known as black ops. That is to say they can employ people as agent provocateurs, carry out covert actions and blame these on the opposition.

Anyone who thinks that some official sections of state organisations do not get up to such Machiavellian and nefarious acts is naive. But so to do some sections of religious and political groupings. However, the latter are usually less powerful and capable of conducting extensive black ops and provocations. Take for example, the US and UK states narratives on the war on Terror in Iraq and Afghanistan. Take the domestic narratives of the British state over inner city riots in 2011 or the US states domestic narrative over the ’Occupy’ activists, compared to that of the rioters or the occupiers. There are countless other examples – to numerous to list. The Egyptian state is no different and in many cases has been worse in creating negative narratives for those opposed to it and positive ones for its own conduct.

The narratives in Egypt.

In the case of Egypt, the current narrative of the state is broadly that the Muslim Brotherhood are undemocratic, sectarian, weapon-bearing activists and terrorists wishing to destabilise the Egyptian Government and economy. They therefore deserve all they get – including a brutal massacre of their supporters. Those who support this narrative also point to the fact that some Muslim Brotherhood activists do carry guns and other weapons. There is also a publicised suspicion that some Brotherhood activist are guilty of burning churches and of brutalising people not belonging to their religious denomination. The latter also point out that the Muslim Brotherhood, elected to power used that power to pursue its own agenda and was not inclusive. Other charges have been made concerning corruption and unconstitutional economic investments.

The Muslim Brotherhoods pro-Mursi narrative is different. It is that there has been an unconstitutional coup and a return to brutal military rule. Their narrative includes the assertion that a massacre of protestors against this alleged coup occurred and that further outrages have been conducted against unarmed protestors. Further they insist that they are all peaceful, democratic and desirous of social and political inclusion for all Egyptian people. More than that, Brotherhood representatives assert that their previous election to governance was legitimate, constitutional and beneficial for the future welfare of Egyptian society.

It is clear that there are many problems with both narratives. Both are partial and one-sided. However, concerning recent events there is also an asymmetric imbalance. Even if one accepts completely, as I do, that the Morsi government was one-sided and not beneficial for the general population of Egypt; even if one accepts that some of their members are gun toting activists – even terrorists – and that some or even all of their leaders are corrupt and self-serving; even if one accepts that all the churches burned down were set alight by Islamists and not pro-government agents; and even if one objects to the imposition of Shariah law and any future restrictions for women and non-Muslims, again as I do, there is still a problem with what transpired on August 13th and since. With this in mind, the following pertinent questions arise.

Important questions.

Do these transgressions, some as yet unproven, deserve the indiscriminate punishments which were inflicted upon protestors – most of whom may well have been innocent of such crimes? Was not the correct procedure to investigate the church burnings and bring to justice those who perpetrated these acts. Was the correct procedure not to arrest and prosecute those who carried weapons in pro-Morsi sit-ins and demonstrations? Was not the correct procedure to investigate and impeach any corrupt Muslim government officials? Furthermore was it correct for the military to allow a gathering of stick and other weapon-bearing individuals to surround a mosque and stay there threatening the inhabitants of the mosque?

If one is truly against demonstrators being armed would the correct procedure not have been to, disarm these opposing activists and disperse them? If those in the mosque were armed with guns why was no-one outside taking cover? Why were some unarmed besiegers keen to get in to use their fists and sticks against those inside if those inside had guns? Why are government supporters assaulting western press reporters for carrying the possibility of an alternative narrative?

Whilst there is much to criticise, campaign against and even condemn concerning many Islamist supporters, the massacre and group demonisation of vast numbers of Egyptians is absolutely inhumane and counter-productive. Indiscriminate individual brutality only begets individual retaliatory brutality. Mass indiscriminate brutality, invites mass retaliatory brutality. The indiscriminate war on terror elsewhere as been the most fertile ground for incubating terrorist cells. Since the Bush and Blair state war on terror is there not more sectarian terror? Is the situation in Egypt likely to be different than elsewhere in the middle east? Lets hope so.

One needn’t take the religious or political side of the Muslim Brotherhood or extremist Islamists to take a position of opposition to the brutality of the military regime. One needn’t defend the Muslim Brotherhood’s Islamic vision for Egypt to condemn the recent massacres. Humanist values trump political posturing. If one wishes to campaign for and promote a more humane form of society, than a theocratic Islamist one, one doesn’t forward that desire or project by perpetrating or supporting brutality against those who wish for a theocracy. One leads by example, and the example set by the military is to mercilessly crush those who disagree with them or challenge their right to power. Its an example no one really wishing peace, bread and justice in Egypt should support physically or intellectually.

Secondary narratives.

In any big issue such as this in which sides become polarised and which existential concerns drive the two sides to desperate measures, it is inevitable that onlookers also take sides. This often creates a secondary tier of narratives which on the basis of accepting some sources of evidence over other sources, justifies support for one side or the other – or even justifies a distancing from both sides. Conserving this initial position can also have a momentum of its own. Once more facts are revealed and one primary narrative seems more problematic than the other, then a face-saving, or credibility-saving supplementary narrative is often constructed. This is likely to occur in Egypt as it has in other similar tragic events in other regime changes.

The main culprits in these retrospective secondary narrative rationalisations are the bourgeois media and state media outlets themselves. But the left often falls into this trap also. Rushing into accepting evidence, which has not been sufficiently verified, can lead to positions which later become potentially embarrassing and problematic. Attempts can then be urgently made to cover up or rationalise the position earlier adopted in order to save face or credibility. The most notorious anti-capitalist example of this phenomena was the disastrous classification of social democrats in 1930’s Germany as ‘social fascists’ by Stalinists only to reverse this position in the Spanish Civil War a few years later. However, were this occurs it reveals the bankruptcy of those, who like every other consummate politician, wriggle and squirm at being caught out in this way.

In uprisings, civil wars and revolutions this potential to naively or prematurely adopt a narrative or choose a side is frequently an invitation too tempting for many to resist. But the lessons of history for those opposed to the capitalist mode of production and the state, is to be extremely cautious and careful before accepting narratives promoted by the official organisational representatives of political parties or a state, particularly when that state authority is being seriously challenged as is the case in Egypt.

Hedging bets by sitting on the fence when states massacre citizens with whom we disagree is not really a revolutionary or a humanist position, let alone a revolutionary-humanist one. The primary litmus test of adopting a revolutionary working class position in such conflicts is the question of safe-guarding all human rights – not just those of the bourgeoisie. If there is ever to be a workers revolution against the capitalist mode of production, workers will have to overcome, religious, gender, age, ethnicity and other differences, not make these lesser ‘identities’ a basis for indifference or what amounts to total disdain for the massacre of others. We need to begin as we intend to continue.

Roy Ratcliffe (August 2013.)

[see Egypt: The gloves are off – Again!]

Posted in Arab Spring, Critique, Egypt | Tagged | Leave a comment

EGYPT: THE GLOVES ARE OFF – AGAIN!

Posted on August 16, 2013 by stutteringsteps

A massacre in the morning!

The military decision on August 14 2013 to brutally clear the anti-military and pro-Morsi forces from their peaceful demonstrations in Cairo and elsewhere has finally ended the charade of progress to democracy in Egypt. The brutal actions of snipers and other state armed men killing un-armed men women and children has also exploded the myth of the military machine being a defender and a champion of the Egyptian ‘people’. The exact number of injuries and deaths will probably never be known, but what is known is that men in control of states who conduct terror against their own citizens find it absolutely necessary to hide the true facts and under estimate the exact numbers.

We also know that those effected by such brutal attacks may tend to over-estimate the numbers assassinated by the state armed bodies of men. So the government figure of over 600 will undoubtedly be far too low, whilst the pro-Morso figures of many thousands killed may be somewhat exaggerated. However, a true figure of probably well over a thousand, together with the horrific means chosen to execute these peaceful demonstrators, amount to an enormous catalogue of domestically committed war crimes. For this reason, there can be no peace and no justice in Egypt – even in a bourgeois sense – whilst the military elite are able perpetrate such large-scale nihilistic outrages against their own civilian population.

Of course we know how this outcome was justified to the troops and the general ‘public’ before ‘operation innocent slaughter’ or whatever innocuous term was chosen to designate this vicious and despicable action. Using the states PR agents, and pro-capitalist elements such as private media outlets, time and resources were used to mis-label and demonise the majority of protestors. A negative stereotype was steadily manufactured during the lead up to the military incursion, by which it became possible both before and after the slaughter to ‘blame the victims’. We know from experience how it was done.

Blaming the victims.

A link between sectarian Islamic terrorism and the ordinary Muslim Brotherhood members, was made and the presence of non-Islamic anti-coup protestors at the various camps was ignored. This way the protest against the previous military coup overthrowing an elected but unpopular government, was transformed into a threat to national security. Also in this way the peaceful protestors, men, women and children, were transformed into terrorists and disrupters of peace and constitutional governance by those who had overthrown a constitutionally elected government .

Then either before, during and after this process, they undoubtedly planted weapons, inserted agent provocateurs among the opposition, created false-flag operations (committing atrocities dressed as Morsi supporters)  they moved in to clear the sit-ins with as much lethal force as was necessary to terrorise them into fleeing – in the almost certain knowledge that these non-armed victims will in actual fact continue to be blamed as the perpetrators.

We know this is the most likely process because it is the way all modern states operate and we know that the Egyptian state forces have operated in that way before. Blaming the victim is the way all elites create a climate of support for, or indifference toward, those they choose as their targets for inhuman treatment. And this process was made easier because there are some Muslim extremists in Egypt as elsewhere, who are sectarian terrorists who commit atrocities and wish to introduce oppressive Islamic law.

However, the majority of pro-Morsi and anti-military forces camped out in the various sit-ins were not Islamic extremists, but peaceful defenders of bourgeois democracy. Yet it was these who were brutally targeted. The lessons this outrage will teach the Egyptian people cannot not fail to be drawn. They have now been drawn in blood – again! Bourgeois democracy is a sham! Unless it produces the results the elites in power wish for themselves, it will be destroyed mercilessly. Food, justice and dignity can never be achieved in Egypt or elsewhere by the means of bourgeois elections and parliaments. The military machine controlled by the Egyptian elite is their tool of terror, as it is elsewhere, to be used against the economic and social aspirations of the citizens of Egypt, but it is also a tool with strong links to the USA.

The military machine.

The military machine in Egypt has a long history of political and economic involvement within Egypt and the Middle East. All the previous unelected leaders of Egypt during the 20th century have been from the military and many senior governmental figures are from a military background. The military have been the backbone of the Egyptian state and remain so. It should be understood that for many years, the Egyptian military elite has been trained and its armaments supplied by the United States of America.

For decades, the Egyptian military have been in receipt of billions of dollars of advanced armaments yearly from the USA government. However, that is not the only aspect of close relationship between with the upper echelons of the military and the north American elite. For decades the upper echelons of the Egyptian military have been graduates of the American military colleges and training courses. During their military training they have made close reciprocal relationships with the military elite in the USA. They will have been taught ‘black-ops’ tactics as well as crowd control by the US military ‘experts’.

However, the Egyptian Governmental elite in general receive substantial ‘aid’ from Saudi Arabia and other gulf state sources. The military elite cannot fail to be beneficiaries of much of this inward ‘investment’. In this way the military in Egypt has military, social, economic and financial strings to a variety of other external actors. All of whom in one way or another will be securing their hold on these strings if not exactly tugging firmly upon them. When politicians in other countries, such as the USA and other countries feign neutrality and distance from the events in Egypt, that is of course just the usual political spin. All these external players have provided, training, equipment, intelligence, tactics, perspectives and opinions.

The weakness in the military machine is at the same time its strength. This strength and weakness lies in its rank and file base. Rank and file soldiers are essentially working class citizens recruited on the basis of offering secure employment for the defence of the ’nation’. However, they are low-paid workers who are treated badly and forced to do all the dirty work of the military elite. Many, if not most of the rank and file soldiers, despite the demonising of the ‘victims’ will not be proud of their days work on 14 August 2013 – a day of infamy! Nor will they be happy that the communities from which they are drawn and the general population over the next weeks, will view them as neo-fascists and consider them the enemy within Egypt, rather than the champions of their communities.

The immediate implications.

The situation now has reached an impasse. The States armed men must defeat the street or the street must defeat the states armed men. If the Egyptian people allow the military elite to split the population and win, the state of emergency will be upheld and extended and any protest by whoever, will be violently put down. In addition many thousands will be imprisoned, tortured and murdered. If possible the military elite after a period of time, will put forward a figurehead to take part in future biased elections.

The military elite know that if they lose this struggle now many of them will be put on trial for crimes against humanity and crimes against a constitutional government and elected officials. For this reason the military leaders will do all they can to divide and rule the Egyptian people and they will press on regardless urging the police and special troops on to further atrocities. The crimes of the militarised crack-down should be used to cause splits in the military ranks themselves. A truth and honesty inquiry covering the events, should be proposed along with support and an amnesty offered to those soldiers refusing to continue this internecine destruction.

Yet after the many deaths by sniper fire and massacres by other weapons, there can be no early forgiveness by those effected and there can be nothing but outraged condemnations by all humane thinking people. There is now no chance of reconciliation between a substantial section of the Egyptian people and the military elite and its supporters. This means that for the immediate future there is now no possibility of peaceful resolution or development within Egypt. It is now war – a civil war – between the people and the state.

The implications are clear. The situation will continue to deteriorate fuelled by anger and desperation against the economic conditions and now by the outrage at the recent atrocities. There are now only two possibilities. The first is a descent into a debilitating and unequal sectarian civil war in which, like Syria, the population will be split into those against the present state and those for it. The second is that the anti-military secularists and the Muslim Brotherhood will both meet this challenge by making serious and sustained overtures to each other. The Egyptian people – as a whole – need to subvert, resist and overcome the imposition of this naked military rule.

First in the form of a defensive pact and calling for mass civil disobedience and subversion – a regular Intifada a ‘shaking off’ of this internal occupation. Next, if the Muslim Brotherhood and their supporters can abandon their goal of Shariah law and any other sectarian restrictive practices and with the secularists draw up an economic and social programme, then a degree of unity could eventually be achieved. It would need to be a programme which would address the needs of the overwhelming majority of the population; Muslim, Christian, secular and others such as the rank and file soldiers. This would transform the uprisings and protests from mass opposition against what is not wanted toward mass organisation for what people actually need and want.

The revolutionary implications.

Given the general economic crisis and the sovereign dept crisis of the Egyptian state, the pay and job security of the rank and file soldier, will sooner rather than later, be downgraded and for many their services terminated. The disintegrating economic condition of Egypt will now accelerate further after this and subsequent events. Even without such a deterioration, there is a task to be undertaken which is to immediately conduct a campaign aimed at the rank and file soldier. They should be made to face the shame and horror of what they have done or has been done in their name. A split between the rank and file soldiers and the military elite should be sought in as many ways as possible. The situation in Egypt is now about much more than the existence of the Muslim Brotherhood in power it is about the military verses civil society. It is now a descent into civil war or moving forward to revolution.

The size and determination of those on the Egyptian street can be such that nothing, not even the army can prevail against it – if it is successfully unified and mobilised now or later. A new consciousness and determination to struggle for basic human rights has been born throughout the region. The fear of the beatings, torture and killings has finally surmounted as the pressure of the need for jobs, food and justice built up to bursting point. Now outrage and anger at the recent fascist style shock-troop intervention will hopefully fuel some much needed non-sectarian solidarity. Undoubtedly the greater War crimes have been committed by Egypt’s military forces. Those who ordered this action and those who carried it out must be held accountable for these atrocities, by all who have the power to do so both in Egypt and internationally.

Roy Ratcliffe (August 2003.)

[See also ‘Egypt: Workers and Soldiers’.]

Posted in Arab Spring, Critique, Politics | Tagged , | 6 Comments

PATRIARCHY AND TERROR.

Posted on August 14, 2013 by stutteringsteps

It is clear that in the 20th and 21st centuries, terror has taken many forms. The most frequently publicised forms of terrorism in the western media are those in which guns and bombs are used by against civilian and military targets. However, roadside bombs, suicide bombers, armed attacks upon defenceless victims by organised male-dominated gangs, groups or sects are but one kind of mechanised form of terror inflicted upon numerous communities throughout the world. But we should not overlook the fact there is undoubtedly another form of organised terror which is far more sophisticated and widespread and is equally as ruthless as the former.

This second form is state organised terror. Using special state-funded armed bodies of men (overt and covert) and wielding the most sophisticated armaments available, the men in charge of state forces – of practically every modern state in existence – routinely conduct acts of terror. They do so on all those (internally or externally) who they define as being against the states (ie their own elite ) interests. This constitutes a huge global industry of terror. Then there is a third form of terror which is not necessarily an organised form, but of course it can be. This latter is the personal terror socially or domestically inflicted – mainly upon women – by individual men or groups of men.

It is clear that if we critically consider all three sources and forms of terror we find they all emanate from men in positions of power or seeking to achieve power over others. In other words, all three sources of terror are simply the ultimate demonstration of embedded patriarchal cultural forms and the associated assumptions emanating from these. Viewed holistically it is clear that male ‘terror’ and ‘terrorism’ is not just a peripheral or exceptional manifestation on the fringes of modern society, as many like to claim.

On the contrary, patriarchal oppression and terror still permeate the entire fabric of the modern world. Inflicting acts of terror are merely the extreme manifestations of the patriarchal mode of social control inherited from earlier modes of production. Yet strangely, patriarchy – as a whole – and its attendant assumptions and actions (the actual source of terror) remains largely unchallenged by men and sadly – as yet – by the majority of women. The last challenge against patriarchy, the feminist movement of the 20th century, was marginalised and rejected by the left and mainly restricted itself to equal opportunities reforms.

1. State organisational forms of patriarchal oppression and terror.

It is a recorded fact that all states past and present, have been dominated by men, even when the occasional female figurehead has been selected by the ‘king-making’ or ‘president choosing’ male oligarchs. The occasional Queen or female Prime Minister, has not so much as ruffled a miniscule feather on the elite patriarchal birds of prey which circle a wide range of communities in search of their next victims. In order to maintain this ‘unnatural’ state of affairs, these elite men have been forced to recruit and employ specialist armed bodies of men in order to protect their lives and their systems.

An integral part of the job description of these armed bodies of men is to threaten to inflict physical harm upon those individuals and communities who say they will not conform and to actually inflict it when they do not. In extreme cases the harm they inflict is intentionally disproportional to any infringement committed, so as to be a vivid and horrifying ‘lesson’ to obey in future. History is littered with garrotting, crucifying, impaling, burning, drowning, chopping off heads and limbs. Modernity has its own new forms of terror.

Public and private forms of extreme torture have all been used by elite males to inflict terror upon their communities – and against non-conforming women in particular. Hence these forms along with large-scale wars and massacres dating from the Persian and Greek periods of antiquity, have continued throughout the ages. Continuing through the Empires of Rome and Islam, the Crusades of the Middle Ages, and on to the colonialist and Imperialist wars, and invasions of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, patriarchy has wielded the sword and the stick.

All such acts of war and terror were motivated and conducted by oligarchies of elite men and all had as their purpose, domination in order to acquire wealth and privilege. The modern invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan motivated and organised by modern elite males and conducted largely by armed men are just continuations of that centuries old cultural invention of patriarchy – physical domination by a hierarchy composed of men.

Whether invading countries with ‘boots’, assassination teams, aircraft or now by ‘drones’, the instructions and implementations of these activities are conducted by men and the intended or collateral victims always include innocent males, females and children. This is terror on an industrial scale. Yet the inflicting of terror by a state is not confined to foreign people and their lands, but extends to the internal civilian population of their own countries, especially if these should publicise (or directly challenge) the ruling elites nefarious activities.

Hence the 21st century pepper-spraying and incarceration of ‘Occupy’ activists and many other opposition activists; the inhuman treatment of Bradley Manning and the inmates of Guantanamo, or the hounding of whistle-blowers such as Julian Assange and Edward Snowden. [As I write this the military elite in Egypt have ordered the brutal dispersal of peaceful protestors against what they see as the recent military coup.] At the same time deaths in police custody are no rarity in every country of the world and torture continues to be an instrument of male elite sanctioned terror – wherever there is a state.

And it makes no difference which kind of state the male hierarchy controls. It can be capitalist (too many to mention) or non-capitalist states such as the former Soviet Union, China, Cambodia, East Germany, North Korea etc. The ’state’ can be led by left-leaning, liberal or right-leaning men, it makes little difference to the existence of terror. This recurring and wide-spread patriarchal reality serves to demonstrate the full spectrum range of male conducted state terror and oppression. Not surprisingly, it is also manifested in the new theocratic states such as Iran and neo theocracies such as Saudi Arabia.

It is a common mistake for those on the left to assume that it is the capitalist mode of production which generates such deforming characteristics as patriarchal state oppression and terror, but it is clearly not only capitalist states which do so. It is an undeniable fact that the capitalist mode of production has come to dominate the entire globe and therefore there are more secular capitalist states than theocratic and even fewer with self-proclaimed pretensions to being anti-capitalist. But even in the latter, patriarchy (ie hierarchies with men sat at the summit and dominating the higher slopes of economic and political life) are the universal patterns adopted. But neither is patriarchy simply a product of state formation, it merely manifests itself there more vigorously, organisationally and powerfully. In fact if we look carefully enough, patriarchy penetrates everything.

2. Non-state organisational forms of patriarchal oppression and terror.

When we consider non-state forms of organised patriarchal oppression and terror we find that there two main types of group. The first are religious groups such as the many religious fundamentalist sects predominantly within the Abrahamic religious fold. Islamic terrorist groups are the most focussed upon in the western media, but there are also Jewish Zionist terrorist groups and Christian Zionist cells. These are all not only male dominated and oppressive to women but also to those of the competing religions (and none) and those of their ‘own’ who they consider traitors. Zionist terrorism, both state and none-state is conducted most visibly in Israel and the occupied territories of Palestine, but it exists within North America and elsewhere in various forms.

Interestingly and alarmingly, the state organised forms of terror can and does initiate and perpetuate the non-state forms. The continued use of state organised terror can stimulate anger and resentment in targeted communities which breed cells of resistance and retaliation. It is these extremely disaffected and radicalised individuals who organise and then also begin their own reign of terror aimed not only at the direct oppressors but on those innocent of such activities. They even begin to terrorise their own communities when they consider these are not conforming to the wishes of those so recently radicalised.

The range of terror and oppression exhibited by these organised groups of men stretches along a continuum, from grooming for child sexual labour, through shooting (ie Malala Yousafzai), deforming (including the recent teenage acid attacks in Zanzibar), bombing and assassination of families and family members (at offices, schools, markets, funerals, weddings, churches and mosques – in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere). These attacks are not only against the invaders, but also against those indigenous people not conforming to their wishes.

It should be remembered that not all such groups of men are religiously based or inspired, for there are secular versions of group organised terror. Almost exclusively such groups of men have justified their activities by reference to some form of ideology. Religious sects and other such groups obviously base and justify their action upon some allegedly sacred texts associated to their particular denomination, but secular groups also like to justify their existence by means of a chosen ideology.

Frequently, non-religious groups of males inflicting oppression and terror have claimed to be acting in accordance with the following higher causes; Nationalism, Fascism, Marxism, Leninism, Trotskyism, Stalinism. Maoism or some other set of ideas. These secular ideas, as with religious, have an instrumental purpose, for they are used to justify whatever the organisations wish to do and whatever, terror they intend to perpetrate.

Male dominated groups from these type of non-religious groupings have all, at one time or another, killed, tortured and maimed. These being the extreme end of the spectrum of male-dominated oppression. At the less extreme end of the patriarchal spectrum, such groups have also routinely used, abused, groomed and sexually and domestically exploited women and men from the lower ranks of their particular group hierarchy.

Even on the anti-capitalist left, patriarchal oppression and exploitation is a practice of recent as well as past public knowledge. It should be obvious from these generic examples – the specifics of which can be supplemented by the readers own knowledge or research – that patriarchy is a constant within all these state, sectarian group or other organised forms of oppression and terror. And of course, patriarchy permeates even more levels of society – even down to the most atomised and intimate levels of individuality and family.

3. Social and domestic forms of patriarchal oppression and terror.

At the un-organised levels of society such as social and family relationships patriarchy with its oppressive and terror inducing characteristics are also endemic and universal. The relationships between men and women are overwhelmingly warped and distorted by the inherited cultural manifestations of patriarchy. Rape, sexual harassment, threats, beatings, abductions, torture and killing are the extreme ends of the un-organised societal spectrum of patriarchy, but the visible spectrum of this cultural pattern, extends far beyond that extreme to the more subtle forms of exploitation and oppression. Women are marginalised and viewed as domestic slaves, providers cheap labour and sexual gratification, by the majority of men.

Despite the fact that in a few places the formation of equal rights for women has provided a restricted legal basis for equality, women are not really treated as equal anywhere – period!. Such laws, where they exist, are resented, largely ignored or subverted everywhere in the advanced capitalist countries. And, importantly, outside of these so-called ’advanced’ countries women remain in a condition little better than outright chattel slavery.

In such cases, they are not allowed to determine what happens to their own bodies, with regard to pregnancies, the retention of sexual organs or which male shall take over ownership of their entire being. This patriarchal practice reaches down right into childhood where in some places even a female child’s very existence can be threatened with termination and ownership of those allowed to live can be bought and sold – just like any other disposable commodity.

But the patriarchal right of men to assert their attitudes and power over others extends beyond the family kitchen, living room and bedroom. It extends to other women and children in society in the form of grooming, abduction into prostitution, harassment, innuendo, verbal abuse, intimidation and indecent assault – and also to other men. Fascistic levels of physical harassment and assault by men against non-conforming men, particularly gay men, are manifested in all countries.

So too are discrimination, intimidation, racial innuendo, verbal abuse and threats against non-indigenous (non-white in Europe and the west) males by patriarchal supremacists. Just how widespread the underlying cultural aspects of males attempting to assert their power over others (another aspect of patriarchy) is revealed by the frequent clashes between rival football fans in which severe injury is the minimum level required to obtain satisfaction.

4. Revolutionary-humanism and the struggle against Patriarchy.

Of course even where patriarchy cloaks its terrorist face and assumes a more benign expression for extended levels of time this does not mean that this mask will not be cast aside when and where male dominance is threatened. And even in its less aggressive expressions the problem of patriarchy still exists. Male attitudes of dominance still oppress and threaten the well-being of all those not of the male gender or not of a dominant or dominating disposition. Male power and the attendant attitudes and threats – open or hidden – are a seamless continuum in politics, religion, finance, industry, commerce, education, media, entertainment, sport and family life.

Fascism was the 20th centuries un-nuanced reassertion of extreme Patriarchy under the extended Fuehrer principle. It was a systematic reassertion of extreme male domination in which women by state ‘dictat’ would be firmly under the control of men – at all levels of the social and family hierarchy. In Nazi Germany, this patriarchal control was exerted even to the extent of ’selected’ women being the state organised breeders of the next generation of the so-called Aryan ’master race’. Fascism eventually became the state organised face of a 20th century militant tribal patriarchy bent on world supremacy and the totalitarian domination of society by powerful elite males.

The other 20th century secular face of militant patriarchy – with similar world domination pretensions – came in the form of Stalinism. Stalinism replicated practically all the horrors of Fascism, from state-organised terror of its citizens to the assassination of rivals among the elite. An all-male, sectarian elite coercively and unquestionably dominated all aspects of soviet life from the period of Lenin and Trotsky through to that of Stalin and his successors. All soviet citizens, during the early period, were persuaded or induced to have a reverential regard for, if not to an attitude of worship for the ‘leader’. Fascist and Stalinist, concentration camps, work-camps and ‘death camps’ were the patriarchal mirror image of each other – even whilst both patriarchies were locked in mortal combat during the Second World War – itself the most organised form of patriarchal barbarism of the 20th century.

With the almost total death of these two extreme forms of secular patriarchy – Bolshevism and Fascism – the baton, or rather the cudgel – has been taken over by neo-liberalism on the one-hand, and a renewed religious form of extreme patriarchy – Islamism, on the other. The supporters of neo-liberal capitalism and Islamism represent the 21st century faces of extreme patriarchy all of whom are more than happy to dominate and oppress women in the home, the workplace and throughout social life. The respective hierarchical forms they champion also seek to dominate and control all those below them and to oppress all non-conforming men, whether religious or secular. Modern Islamism, like its ancient forerunners and like the neo-liberal capitalist mode of production, openly seeks to dominate the world.

For this reason the struggle against Capitalism runs parallel with the struggle against Islamism, because both are deeply entrenched forms of patriarchy. The struggle against the domination of the capitalist mode of production is in itself – simultaneously – a struggle against patriarchy. There can be no equality or justice for anyone unless there is simultaneously real equality and justice for women and all self-organising communities.

The struggle against patriarchy – as with the struggle against all hierarchy – is not something which must wait until the capitalist mode of production is superseded, and then be granted by some future (imaginary) beneficent male elites. It is part of the everyday struggle against that entire mode. If it hasn’t started already, then the struggle against patriarchy should start now in our everyday practice and ideas. It is part and parcel of the revolutionary struggle.

So it should be clear that state terror, sectarian terror and domestic terror are not completely different species, even though they may manifest themselves somewhat variably. They are all manifestations of patriarchy – the actions of men ruling over communities and asserting or defending that rule – in the ways they choose. The creation of a humane humanity, the only general and sustainable inspiration for a revolutionary transformation of the present mode of production, means overcoming patriarchy in all its forms; religious, secular and yes in revolutionary organisation too.

Patriarchy is organically woven into the structure of the capitalist mode of production. To be fully revolutionary and anti-capitalist, therefore, means being thoroughly against patriarchy in theory and practice – at the same time! To be really revolutionary in action and not just in words, during the 20th and 21st centuries means rejecting this accumulated and still accumulating ‘muck of ages’ wherever it continues to flourish and wherever it still lurks.

Roy Ratcliffe (August 2013.)

[See ‘Clinging onto Patriarchy’ and ‘Religion versus Women’s rights’. at http://www.critical-mass.net. See also Femen at http://femen.org/en]

Posted in Critique, Patriarchy, Politics | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments

THE STATE OR REVOLUTION. (Introduction)

Posted on August 5, 2013 by stutteringsteps

The State and Revolution, (Lenin’s pamphlet – a polemic against Kautsky, Plekhanov and the Anarchists) was an apt title in the light of his view of the relationship between a revolution and the nature of a post-capitalist society. He and the Bolsheviks undoubtedly believed in Revolution, at least up to the overthrow of the Duma, the rejection of Constituent Assembly idea and achieving ‘all power to the soviets’. However, they also firmly believed in the need for a strong State.

The workers, soldiers and peasants, from 1905 to 1917, progressively initiated uprisings and revolutionary episodes and then, riding an exceptionally high wave of activity and protest in October 1917, the Bolsheviks convinced workers, soldiers and peasants that for their own good, it was necessary to create a strong state apparatus. They created a state institution which they protected and strengthened by employing special bodies of (predominantly) armed men. As the effective head of that state, Lenin in 1919 declared the following;

“This new state organisation is being born in travail …” (Lenin. Complete Works. Volume 29. page 375.)

Later he added;

“The dictatorship of the proletariat does not fear any resort to compulsion and to the most severe, decisive and ruthless forms of coercion by the state.” (Lenin. Complete Works. Volume 31. page 497.)

Later still:

“We took over the old machinery of the state, and that was our misfortune. Very often this machinery operates against us…here at the top, where we exercise political power, the machine functions somehow…Down below, however, there are hundreds of thousands of old officials whom we got from the Tsar and from bourgeois society, and who partly deliberately and partly unwittingly, work against us.” (Lenin. Complete Works. Volume 33 page 428/429.)

This institution of ‘ruthless coercion’ (Lenin’s own words) was progressively directed against workers and peasants and anyone else who disagreed with the Bolsheviks sectarian project. However, well before the workers, peasants and soldiers could be convinced of the need for such a separate institution over and above them, the ranks of the Bolsheviks had first to be convinced – for it was by no means the opinion of all anti-capitalists at the time.

As the dominant political figure within the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Party, it was down to Lenin to provide sufficient evidence for his belief in the necessity of a strong post-capitalist state. This task was crucially important in order to persuade the party and its supporters that those who opposed a post-capitalist state were entirely wrong. The evidence was carefully gathered, collated and then later presented to the party members in the above-noted pamphlet ‘State and Revolution’. Lenin, in writing this document, selected and assembled a comprehensive series of extracts from Marx and Engels, to support and back up his firm belief in the ‘instrumentality’ of a state after a workers’ revolution.

Lenin was able to interpret and mediate the thoughts and writings of these two revolutionary-humanists in order to confirm conclusions he already held. It is my contention that these were conclusions that – had they been alive – both Marx and Engels, would have disassociated themselves from. I have also no doubt they would have also been vigorously scathing about the reality of the post-capitalist social and economic forms promoted and defended by all Bolsheviks, and subsequent communists. For Marx it was; ‘State or Revolution; whilst for Lenin it really was ‘State and Revolution’. The material the latter used in that pamphlet and how he used it to justify his position is examined in the extended version of this article at ‘State or Revolution’.

Roy Ratcliffe (August 2013)

Posted in Critique, Marx, Politics | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

EGYPT: A MANDATE TO KILL!

Posted on July 29, 2013 by stutteringsteps

The recent request by Army General Abdul Fattah al-Sisi for Egyptian people to assemble in their masses on the Streets of Cairo and elsewhere is in one sense a 180 degree turn. Previously army regimes have at best been neutral on such mass street demonstrations or have more often than not tried to disperse them. This time however, the army leadership urged people to take to the streets in order to give them a mandate to prosecute what they classed as a ‘war against terror’.

Now where have we heard that rationale used before? Oh yes Bush and Blair; Netanyahu and Assad; Mubarak and Putin; Obama and Cameron, etc., etc. In other words if an authoritarian regime – of any political complexion – wishes to ruthlessly defend its elite self-interests against opposition, then starting a ‘war against terror’ provides an excellent form of camouflage. Since the vast majority of people are against terrorism it easy to gain popular assent to tough action against this phenomena, leaving the elites to decide just who it needs to defend itself from.

After such a level popular assent anyone who opposes that elite and its system – in any way – needs only to be labelled a threat to ‘stability’ or ‘security’ and evidence (fabricated or real) suggested, for the regime to swing into action. Ruthless measures then become routine. Not only people peacefully opposed to a system can be targeted by the states forces, framed, incarcerated and tortured, but people innocent of any anti-regime crime, opinion or activity can be drawn into the clutches of a lethal state organisation with license to kill – and one with no accountability. Isn’t that how many people finished up in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib and millions killed in Iraq etc.?

In this particular case of obtaining a popular mandate to pursue, arrest, torture and kill, in the name of a ‘war against terror’ and ‘stability’ the Egyptian state and its military controllers have gained the ’streets’ permission to defend itself and its own vested interests. That – despite a variety of motives of those on the ‘street’ demonstrating – is the real content of the mandate given. In future only a united population will be able to counter the newly ‘mandated’ military machine and that potential unity has now been severely jeopardised if not completely sabotaged. At the moment the elite military and the ex Mubarak supporters consider they need to defend themselves from the Muslim Brotherhood and the encroaching Islamist ideology in the Middle East.

It is true the danger of Islamism to liberal, secular, women and left elements is very real and they should be opposed by these forces. But in this way? It will be highly improbable that these anti-Morsi sectors will be protected by this state orchestrated attack upon those ordinary Muslim’s still attached to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. This course of action is more likely to create retaliation by Muslim extremists against all and sundry. Additionally, consent given now to the military elite will have its own momentum. It will be undoubtedly be used against the left, secularists and women sooner or later. When the military feel threatened from this latter quarter – as they must if workers and the poor are to pursue their original demands – it is then the military elite will invoke this popular mandate and use it as they see fit.

So reaction gains ground.

This request for a mandate against ‘terror’ and ‘instability’ by the militarised state is yet another clear indicator that what is taking place in Egypt is not a revolution – at least not yet. Instead of a concerted insurrectionary war against poverty, discrimination and injustice by a united people against the business, military, judiciary, police, and political elites – which would prepare the ground for a real revolution – there is preparation for a reactionary war to defend precisely these same elites. This creates yet another substantive distraction and deflection from focussing on the fundamental needs of ordinary people. Almost from its inception, the Egyptian Uprising was turned aside from its initial demands and directed into a political cul-de-sac.

So after mass unity in Tahir Square in pursuit of jobs, food, housing and justice, the Egyptian people are faced with (and split between) scores of political parties all seeking their own place at the feeding trough of the state. And all of which seek followers and financial subscribers in order to get there. The Muslim Brotherhood having gained a firm hand on the trough were not really addressing the streets basic concerns – hence the demonstrations. These mass uprisings, after becoming bogged down in this political blind alley for a year or so, have not got one step nearer to removing privileged access to the fruits of their various forms of labour. Instead they have opened a probable path for the return of military rule – disguised or naked – which will again become the gate-keepers of who gets to feed at the states banquet table.

Nevertheless, it would be wrong to conclude that the apparent failure of the left in Egypt to stand against this state orchestrated sectarian violence is a product of Egypt alone. Any left failure to make a difference in Egypt is a consequence of the general failure of the left throughout the world. The reformist left everywhere has been successfully seduced into becoming a political support mechanism for the capitalist system. To expect anything from these activists and posers is wishful thinking in Egypt as elsewhere. But the fact that there is not a sufficiently strong anti-capitalist left to make a serious impact on the situation in Egypt is a direct consequence of the global crisis condition of this sector.

People in glass houses….!

It is no accident that the world-wide – five-fold – crisis of the capitalist mode of production is at the same time serving to reveal the fifty-year old global crisis in the anti-capitalist movement itself. Discredited, communist style state-capitalist modes of production have mutated into rampant neo-liberal capitalist forms as in China and Russia and their rank and file ‘party’ champions have all but disappeared. For the rest of the anti-capitalist left, they are split into disrespectful, feuding and competing sects. The Trotskyist and Leninist left now greets the impending collapse of the capitalist mode of production still atomised, issuing conflicting advice and exhibiting a penchant for sowing divisions between workers.

The arrogance of anti-capitalist revolutionary groups in Europe and North America recently criticising the failures of the left in Egypt is just another facet of the remaining Orientalist cultural mentality of Europe. In Europe and North America, the anti-capitalist left cannot haul themselves out of the sectarian ruts they have been digging away in for the last 50 years. They have failed to challenge their own patriarchal assumptions with regard to women in the movement and they have failed to honestly evaluate their own historical tradition. Against the onslaught of neo-liberalism, they have failed to create anything themselves within their own spheres of influence except several competing anti-austerity movements.

The real reason there is not a strong healthy anti-capitalist movement in Egypt, the Middle East and elsewhere is a product of the failure of the anti-capitalist movement globally. This is a fault particularly reprehensible and open to self-critical discussion in Europe and North America. For in these countries, there has been a standard of living and education which created the time, the resources and means for a remedy which were lacking in many other countries. To criticise those involved in Egypt and the Arab Spring countries, whilst bogged down in our own massive contradictions, inconsistencies and divisions, is just another form of white European male arrogance.

A Global crisis needs a global resistance.

It is true that there is a need for a more organised anti-capitalist left in Egypt with a revolutionary-humanist economic and social programme which will attract support from across many layers of Egyptian Society. But that same need goes for Europe and the rest of the world also. The best thing for the rest of the world’s anti-capitalists to do in order to assist those in Egypt and elsewhere is to provide a practical example themselves of a healthy, non-sectarian anti-capitalist movement and anti-austerity movement.

Of course, it is much easier for some to hunker down in the comfort and absolute certainty of their own sectarian tradition and pour forth, as Marx noted, “platitudes and sectarian crochets in the oracular tone of scientific infallibility”. Indeed, criticising others is much easier than critically engaging with the distorted reality of our own intellectual tradition and changing our practice for the better. Yet the latter is vitally necessary if anti-capitalism is to be a positive, rather than a negative influence within the struggle against the capitalist mode of production.

The uprisings in Egypt, the middle east are the more advanced tremors of the coming inter-continental social earthquake as the global foundations of the capitalist mode of production continue to crumble and collapse. There is much to study from attention to these events and the twists and turns of activity and its reflection in consciousness. But similar processes are also at work in Europe, North America and elsewhere. As such working people everywhere, white-collar and blue have much to learn from each other and at the moment the left in general has very little to teach.

This also applies to us on the revolutionary anti-capitalist left as much as anybody else. It is time to learn from events and to act in accordance with proven principles not simply engage in rhetorical platitudes and defend sectarian positions. Revolutionary sounding phrases are very easy to compile against the defenders of capital, but concerted non-sectarian action is also what is needed. As Marx noted concerning revolutionaries of the phrase;

“They forget, however, that they are opposing nothing but phrases to these phrases, and they are in no way combating the real existing world when they are merely combating phrases.” (Marx. German Ideology. Section 1 Feuerbach.)

Roy Ratcliffe. (July 2013.)

[See also ‘The Five Fold Crisis of Capitalism’ ; ‘Anti-Capitalist Sectarianism (parts 1, 2 and 3.)’; ‘Clinging onto Patriarchy’. ‘Egypt: Workers and Soldiers’ and ‘Egypt: Insurrection or Interregnum’ ]

 

 

 

 

 

 

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