MARX AND REVOLUTIONARY-HUMANISM

Posted on July 25, 2013 by stutteringsteps

All kinds of inhumanity and violence have been perpetrated by people calling themselves ‘Marxists’. Perhaps the most extreme expression of this inhumane disrespect and sectarian violence in the name of ‘Marxism’ was manifest in the Soviet Union under the leadership of Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin. But that was not the only instance. Many other socialists and communists who have acknowledged an intellectual debt to Marx, have also committed numerous acts of inhumanity.

The combined effects of these atrocities and general unpleasantness have been to unfairly discredit Marx and obscure the real humanist essence of his revolutionary ideas. This humanist essence flowed from his concern to understand the alienating and deforming social and cultural varieties developed in the long economic evolution of social forms of labour. By his own industrious efforts – research, writing and activism – he sought to reveal the source of this self-alienation and in doing so, point to the way the human species can transcend it.

Marx on Humanism.

In most of Marx’s writing it is possible to detect a humanist wrath against the exploitation and injustices of the capitalist mode of production and the bourgeoisie who benefit from it. Even in the midst of the detailed economic analysis in his major publication ’Das Kapital’ we can read striking views such as the following;

“Capital is dead labour, that, vampire-like, only lives by sucking living labour, and lives the more, the more labour it sucks.” (Marx. Capital Volume 1. Chapter 10.)

And in another work;

“The bourgeois order, which at the beginning of the century set the state to stand guard over the newly arisen small-holding and manured it with laurels, has become a vampire that sucks out its blood and brains and throws them into the alchemist’s cauldron of capital.” (Marx. Eighteenth Brumaire… Section 7)

Although the abstract economic categories of labour and capital are often being used in his extensive works, Marx still has the human being and the nature of the relationship between human beings clearly in mind. However, the most comprehensive outline of Marx’s thought on the essence of humanity and humanism is contained in the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. In these notebooks, Marx considered the estrangement of humanity from its natural social and productive essence. That is to say social forms of production have been developed during which the products of labour no longer belong to those who produce them. In such class-based societies, a ruling class, exploits the labour of a working population and accumulates all the wealth.

In this way human labour and the products of labour are alienated or ‘estranged’ from those who produce. The workers become virtual strangers to their work processes and what they produce. They no longer organise and produce for themselves but are organised by (and produce for) others. Marx designates this development within humanity as a form of ‘self-estrangement’. After dealing with the alienating character of wage-labour under the capitalist mode of production, Marx turns to the question of how to transcend the self-estrangement of all previous distorted forms of social labour. It is at this point he drives straight to the root of the natural/social essence of humanity. He writes:

“In the relationship with woman, as the prey and handmaid of communal lust, is expressed the infinite degradation in which man exists for himself — for the secret of this relationship has its unambiguous, decisive, open and revealed expression in the relationship of man to woman and in the manner in which the direct, natural species- relationship is conceived. The immediate, natural, necessary relation of human being to human being is the relationship of man to woman.”

And;

“It is possible to judge from this relationship the entire level of development of mankind.”

It is no accident that Marx in tearing away the accumulated layers of socio-economic forms introduces the issue of gender and the way the female part of the species is treated. The species and each community whatever their socio-economic mode of production relies for its future existence upon the relationship between the sexes. Marx suggests that the nature of that relationship between man and woman can be a sort of litmus test for judging the general developmental level of mankind. In other words, where women are the domestic slaves (wives) or subordinate citizens to men, the humanist level of humanity has been driven below its original natural essence.

Over long periods of time, humanities natural and original essence has become distorted and not just in the case of male and female relationships, but also in male/male relationships. Marx makes the point that capitalism makes wage-slaves out of a subordinate labouring class (male and female) and zero-wage slaves out of women. He comments that both in different ways have to prostitute themselves – ie sell their bodily labour for a period – in exchange for money.

A female or male, forced into prostitution by needs, sell the use of their bodies on the street. Workers forced to work by needs sell the use of their bodies at the factory or shop. He also noted in 1844 that marriage under the domination of bourgeois culture amounts to a form of domestic slavery for the female gender. The nature of this essential gender relationship, he continues;

“.. therefore demonstrates the extent to which man’s natural behavior has become human or the extent to which his human essence has become a natural essence for him, the extent to which his human nature has become nature for him. This relationship also demonstrates the extent to which man’s needs have become human needs, hence the extent to which the other, as a human being, has become a need for him, the extent to which in his most individual existence he is at the same time a communal being.”

Within class-based societies, the extent to which behaviour has become human or overwhelmingly humane is sadly not very far. Under such estranged forms of social interaction, the ‘other’ ceases to be viewed as a human being with whom we are connected by many (often invisible) strands, and assumes the form of a subject or object. For example; other human beings become a subject or object of desire (a sexual conquest); a subject or object which fulfils useful work (a worker or slave); a subject or object which consumes a product or service (a consumer or punter). As such the actual needs of the ‘other’ become largely irrelevant for us. Only ‘our’ own needs are recognised as having full legitimacy, frantic urgency or special priority. Even on the left, this still occurs!!!

So as workers (white or blue-collar) we are estranged, not only from our own labour and the products of that labour, but estranged from the whole network of workers upon whom we ultimately depend. Class, race and religious ideology has also served to split humanity into further non-inclusive segments. The black worker who picks our bananas is too often perceived as a distant despicable, lazy, or even devious heathen; the utilities worker who provides our water, gas, electricity has for all intents and purposes ceased to exist for us except when in dispute he or she inconveniences us; the immigrant displaced from his or her homeland and replaced by European capital and technology instead of a victim becomes perceived as a hated and much abused immigrant intruder or potential perpetrator.

This de-humanisation of the ‘other’ takes on its most extreme form during periods of colonial and imperial war or economic crisis, but in essence it is the same de-humanisation as that which takes place in the home. There, since the onset of patriarchy, the wife has been a chattel and she and the children belong – body and soul – to the patriarch – owned like a piece of property. In modernity, too often the female partner is used and abused as a cleaner, cook and personal sex worker. The historic processes set in motion by class-based modes of production allow and promote societies in which a denial of the full humanity of the ‘other’ becomes the default position in their cultures. This is despite the obvious fact that societies – no matter how badly distorted – at root, are also an expression of the essence of humanity. Marx again;

“Society is therefore the perfected unity in essence of man with nature, the true resurrection of nature, the realized naturalism of man and the realized humanism of nature.”

Individuality and social being.

Given that these 1844 notebooks and the extracts used here were Marx’s own notes to himself, the sentences may not always be easy for us modern readers to assimilate. Nevertheless, it is clear that in the above extract Marx is saying that human society – however, currently deformed – represents the unity of humanity with nature and that this is ‘the realized humanism of nature’. Humanity is a conscious product of nature – a product of nature which has become ‘humanised’ by its consciousness and collective forms of labour. Stressing this collective essence he goes on to write; “Man’s individual and species-life are not two distinct things”. Further;

“It is, above all, necessary to avoid once more establishing “society” as an abstraction over against the individual. The individual is the social being.”

In other words the common dualistic notion that there is society on the one hand and the individual on the other is an illusion created by the division of labour and its modern complexity. In reality they are inseparable. To repeat: The individual is a social being. Marx gives himself as an example;

“But also when I am active scientifically, etc. – an activity which I can seldom perform in direct community with others – then my activity is social, because I perform it as a man. Not only is the material of my activity given to me as a social product (as is even the language in which the thinker is active): my own existence is social activity, and therefore that which I make of myself, I make of myself for society and with the consciousness of myself as a social being.”

In other words there is no real individuality except the social individual who owes his or her being to the current and past social form of existence. The exaggerated claim of unique individuality expressed as achieved – in spite of society – is a distorted bourgeois view. It is a view that wishes to discount all the human beings who contribute to this or that individual social being. The artist or actor, for example, could not become so if thousands of others did not labour in teaching, creating the artistic instruments, supplying the electricity, disposing the rubbish, making clothes to wear, transporting them around, providing the means to eat, sleep and enjoy life. Similarly the uniquely wealthy could not become wealthy without the exploited labour of thousands of others.

On top of this it is the community which provides the workforce and audience – without which there could be no production, performance, no exhibition and no reason to embark upon a career leading toward such a privileged statuses. Then of course – in addition – there is the whole historical contribution of any particular branch of human activity which went before and upon which foundation the current practices are based. The whole egotistical self-indulgence of the entrepreneur, artist, sport and celebrity elite – aren’t I great – is in so many self-serving ways a denial of the total human support team past and present. All of whom enabled this or that individual to produce or perform to their current level of ability.

It is a clear recognition of this complete social dependence and inter-dependence of humanity which corrects the distorting lens of bourgeois individualism, its cultural assumptions and reveals the real social essence of all humanity. And of course, this complete social essence and dependence pivots around the fundamental natural relationship between men and women. The female of the species not only carries each new individual in her womb, but gives to that developing neonate important elements of DNA as well as nutrients until its birth. Even after that, nurture, protection and nutritional sustenance are predominantly administered by the female.

We need to ask what sort of human societies and ideologies keep women as second class, subservient and doubly oppressed people for thousands of years? The answer is societies split into classes and dominated by patriarchal ideologies – the latter most thoroughly embodied in the Abrahamic religions. What sort of societies and ideologies for thousands of years relegate one section of humanity into workhorses in the form of slaves or wage-slaves, whilst an elite appropriates all the wealth and leisure? More recently: What kind of societies dump their unwanted workers on the scrap heap and starve them by austerity, while they gorge themselves on the very best? The answer is the same. It could only happen in societies split into classes and dominated by patriarchal ideologies. Yet it was the transformation of these conditions, that Marx proposed could and should follow an anti-capitalist revolution brought about by its own internal crisis.

Marx the Revolutionary.

All Marx’s work is infused with the need for an anti-capitalist revolution to solve the dire economic inequalities and the rampant over-production for profit. However what he was suggesting was a revolution which would go well beyond economic factors. The post-capitalist mode of production introduced after a successful anti-capitalist revolution would need and want to abolish economic classes and accelerate the conditions for a return to social equality in regard to gender, race, ethnicity and religion – ‘the muck of ages’ – as he elsewhere described it. He noted that such ideas were already nascent in various types of suggested socialism or communism. An early form was the radical proposal to level everybody down to the status of wage worker.

In this crude model (Marx’s term) there would be no economically derived class divisions and the state would act as the communal capitalist. Work would still not be self-determined or self-directed. It would still be wage-labour and people would still be living in order to work. In a second more refined version the state would have been abolished but people would still be dominated by the desire to work in order to ‘possess’ things – a muted continuation of commodity fetishism. Only ownership of some form of private property would perhaps inspire them to work and make them feel secure. In this way an exaggerated dependence on ‘things‘ would continue. The transcendence of the former self-estrangement would still be incomplete.

Writing of a more developed form of communal organisation, Marx argued that the real wealth of a person and a community would be in the full realisation and recognition of the social bonds of humanity. Humanity would cease to live in order to work and work only as much as is necessary in order to live. The human need would be for the enjoyment of treasured relationships and fully rounded experiences, rather than enjoyment of treasured and fetishised objects. In other words a reliance upon the quantity and quality of social bonds would replace dependence upon the quantity and quality of material possessions. This would be the real re-appropriation of ‘the human essence’ – a complete return of people to themselves as fully ‘social’ beings. Of this kind of socio-economic community Marx commented;

“This communism, as fully developed naturalism, equals humanism, and as fully developed humanism equals naturalism; it is the genuine resolution of the conflict between man and nature and man and man – the true resolution of the strife between existence and essence…..Communism is the riddle of history solved.”

Of course the language is somewhat dated with the term ‘man’ being used to include all of humanity. Dated also is the term ‘communism’ since that term is now indelibly linked with the Soviet Union, The People’s Republic of China and other hierarchical and brutal state-capitalist forms. The instigators of these modes of production didn’t even put Marx’s suggestions on their agendas, let alone in any of their practices. However, this only negates the term we use, not the content of the meaning originally assigned to them.

The purpose of revolution against the capitalist mode of production and the creation of a communal alternative, according to Marx, would be to institute a ‘fully developed humanism’ – a humanity at peace with itself and at peace with nature – which would be ‘the riddle of history solved‘. For this reason I suggest if a descriptive label needs to be attached to Marx, then Marx was a revolutionary-humanist. That is also the first reason why I have adopted the term to describe myself.

In view of the extracts above, it is perhaps not surprising that in the ‘Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844’ by Marx, the term ‘human’ appears 250 times, ‘nature’ 224 times and ‘essence’ on 84 occasions – often linked together. Since any transcendence of humanities self-estrangement, requires ‘a fully developed humanism’ it will also require a revolution in the mode of production. It makes logical sense, therefore to describe the intellectual recognition of the means and purpose of this entire process as – revolutionary-humanism.

There have of course been many humanists before Marx and also many revolutionaries since, but few have linked the two aspects so meticulously and thoroughly as Karl Marx. The essence of Marx’s ideas is therefore best described as Revolutionary-Humanism, not Marxism. The term ‘Marxist’ as with ‘communist’ and ‘socialist’, has been used and systematically abused by sectarians and opportunist politicians to justify inhumanity, barbarity and sectarian divisions. These terms are all well past their sell-by-date for they no longer describe sufficient positive content. In my view they are no longer fit for purpose. That is the second reason why I  continue to call myself a Revolutionary-Humanist.

Roy Ratcliffe (July 2013.)

Posted in Critique, Marx, Politics, Revolutionary-Humanism | Tagged , | 8 Comments

ZERO-HOUR CONTRACTS!

Posted on July 18, 2013 by stutteringsteps

Beware! A zero-hour contract is coming to job near you. A zero-hour contract is a contract to be ‘on-call’ to work for an employer at the employers discretion. No actual work – no actual pay! No matter what the reason! The employer does not need to stipulate or guarantee any hours of work and can demand as few or as many hours as he or she requires. The recent increased use of zero hour contracts has been heralded by the business class as a new and important development in the present crisis. Even Trade union leaders have appeared on TV to discuss the benefits of such ‘flexible’ modes of employment. But how new is it?

This so-called ‘innovation’ has led to workers turning up at premises and having to wait (unpaid) outside of the shop until customers arrive, or outside the factory until a delivery arrives – or sent home if neither appear. The worker on a zero-hour contract waits until something to do arrives and then works as long as the employer needs him or her. This could mean very long shifts some days and no shifts on others. Zero-hour contracts unsurprisingly have none of the usual requirements for sick-pay, pensions, meal breaks, training, maternity leave and a host of other basic human rights at work.

More recently zero-hour contracts have crept into skilled occupations such as teaching and social work and no doubt into many other forms of occupation before too long – because it is a logical expression of the capitalist mode of production. Under the capitalist mode of production an employer only ‘needs’ a worker in order to exploit their labour so as to extract a profit from them. And workers can only be exploited as long as they are productively employed either making commodities or fulfilling services.

Any ‘down-time’ or waiting time, for whatever reason, (accident, management cock-ups, machine breakages etc.) is therefore not ‘productive’ for the employer. So pay for such non-working time amounts to a deduction from the profits of the employer, a deduction they are no longer prepared to tolerate. Yet in fact zero-hour contracts are nothing really new, they represent a return to the original ‘casual’ conditions of labour when the capitalist mode of production first began to dominate societies.

So its ‘Back to the Future‘.

In order for the capitalist mode of production to dominate over the feudal mode of production its representatives had to remove existing rights of the ordinary people in Europe and elsewhere. For example in the UK an original right of 4 acres to each cottage and free access to the common-land had to be permanently removed – for as long as this right existed it made the labouring population too independent and choosy. Ordinary people invariable chose not to work in factories or for capitalist farmers. Since they could live off their own labour and resources, they more often than not preferred to do so.

The English enclosure movements were used to confiscate both these traditions of self-sufficiency. That process together with the confiscation of state land allowed economies of scale and thus capitalism to be developed in agriculture. The people who had been robbed of their livelihoods therefore became known as vagabonds, sturdy beggars and voluntary criminals. At this point it should be remembered that this development created the need for charity and poor rates – the old terms for unemployment and housing benefits. The forced removal of all self-sufficiency required that alternatives had to be introduced or riot might ensue. Poor rates, the notorious workhouse and various forms of state aid were therefore the capitalist fore-runners of the present benefits system.

Another solution, introduced by the early capitalists, was to pass governmental laws enforced by the bourgeois state compelling people to work almost as slaves. During the capitalist period of Colonialism and Imperialism in particular, this allowed and condoned whipping, cutting off body parts and branding. Slavery and zero-wage slavery were the engineered norm. All this was for the purpose of forcing people to work at any rate of payment offered and at any form of work demanded. (ala modern Workfare!) It was also accompanied by using the state to outlaw high wages and authorise low-pay and industriousness – as defined by the elite – to be established.

Religious education and later state education were cleverly used during these periods to inculcate a belief that working for ‘others’ for low pay was a ’normal’, even ’natural’ state of affairs, not one socially engineered by the rising capitalist class. UK education in the 19th century was created in order for British capital to ‘compete’ internationally. The term ‘competition’ in this case should be interpreted as ‘education to work for the huge profits of the capitalist class’. Essentially the same message was delivered to the workers of Europe, North America and wherever capitalism took hold. Not surprisingly the same message is still being delivered in the 21st century.

So casual, unregulated, zero-hour wage-labour was the original form of employment under the early period of the capitalist mode of production. Commencing in capitalist agriculture with workers taken on at harvest time working 12 + hour shifts and then let go to fend for themselves when the harvest finished, it spread to other industrial and commercial occupations. It took titanic struggles by workers for well over a hundred years to gain the employment rights taken for granted over the last 60 years in the west.

They were rights which were reluctantly increased by the capitalist class in Europe after the Second World War (1939-45). The recurrent crises over the last 30 years, culminating in the financial crisis of 2008, has been progressively used by the pro-capitalist establishment to erode every one of the hard-won employment and social gains granted to workers in Europe and North America. The zero-hour contract is just the latest buzz-word dressing up – and hoping to hide – a return to the original form of capitalist work – the casualisation of labour.

The zero-hour Industrial reserve army.

It has long been the case that the capitalist mode of production has removed the means of production from ownership and control of those who work them. It has also been the case that as that means of production has increased in efficiency, the capitalist employers have sought to rationalise the number of workers employed by them. The active proportion of workers has decreased with the increase in complexity, efficiency and productivity of the means of production. Therefore a constant transformation of a section of workers into unemployed or semi-employed has occurred. This rationalisation has led to a permanent state of unemployment for large numbers of working people and lower wages. Or as Marx put it;

“…..that monstrosity, an industrial reserve army, kept in misery in order to be always at the disposal of capital;” (Marx. Capital Volume 1.)

The resulting surplus population – the reserve army – acts as a reservoir of labour to be siphoned off when business is brisk or booming and returning it to the labour-market when a downturn occurs. Unemployment and precarious employment also act as a threat to those in work and creates a vulnerability to pressure to work harder, longer and for less pay. In this way under capitalism workers are unwittingly being forced to create the conditions for other workers to be made redundant.

For example: The harder one group of workers in an industry work the less need there is for other workers in that industry. Similarly, the less pay workers get in one sector, the less they have to spend on purchases of products and services provided by other workers. So future redundancies in that sector also. The complexity of the capitalist mode of production and the number of inter-dependent transitions and dislocations of these mean that ‘effects’ become ’causes’ and ’causes’ can become effects. A downward spiral then ensues – as it is doing now.

In general, the greater the social wealth of a capitalist country and thus the size of its capital accumulation, the greater the number of workers. This together with their productiveness gradually increases the industrial reserve army. However, in times of relative over-production and crisis (as now) that greater number of once employed are suddenly propelled into the reserve army which consequently grows even greater. It is now growing at such a rate that in Europe, for example, concentration camps for poor workers, are about to appear in Greece and no doubt similar plans are afoot elsewhere.

According to the bloggers at the ‘Scriptonite Daily’ blog (www.http://scriptonitedaily.wordpress.com) the present Greek parliament is considering legislation to turn a military camp into a prison for poor Greeks.  They report;

“Since last February, any Greek falling more that €5000 in debt to the state can be imprisoned to work off their debt. The government is now planning to roll this out more systematically, with a specific prison camp dedicated to holding poor Greeks while they work for free for the state.  This would conventionally be referred to as a Labour Camp – the tool of many a totalitarian state, including Stalinist Russia and Nazi Germany.”

So not just zero-hour but zero-freedom approaches for capitalisms victims in Greece! The connection with unemployment, poverty, authoritarianism and totalitarianism is well spotted and it is no accident. The last great periods of a collapse of the capitalist mode of production after the 1929 financial crash, produced huge quantities of workers rejected and ejected from factories and workplaces. Mass unemployment ensued and was only ‘mopped up’ by the destruction of millions of human beings and means of production in the Second World War – a real zero-hour for over 6 million people. Concentration camps and work-camps prior to that human destruction were large-scale modern versions of earlier ‘workhouses’ and are the last desperate resort of a system which puts wealth above humanity. Soon there may be work-camp near you!

The past and present zero-hour victims.

The relative surplus-population – the industrial reserve army – the zero-hour victims created by the accumulation of capital consists of 4 basic forms.

1. Floating. (casual or precarious): Those workers who are generally in and out of work depending upon the state of the economy, growing or contracting, booming or collapsing.

2. Migrant: (itinerant) Those workers made unemployed in their own communities or countries, who in order to seek employment migrate or emigrate.

3. Latent. (embryonic): Those workers who are being or about to be shed due to changes in one industry or another. (agricultural workers, cotton, coal miners, engineers, ship-builders, teachers, soldiers, police, social workers etc)

4. Stagnant. (permanent). Those who never find work. (originally paupers, now often called the long-term unemployed or the under-class.)

Under the present crisis of 21st century capital, all these casualties of the present mode of production are increasing. All the above categories are under direct or indirect attack by employers, or one or other sections of the capitalist state. Under pressure from the deteriorating capitalist economic situation, the pro-capitalists and their agents in the proto-fascist movements hope that these four categories can be urged to scapegoat each other. These victims of the system are being persuaded to turn on each other by politicians and press alike.

If this insidious process is successful it will allow further authoritarian measures to be taken. They hope that those still in work (Floating and Latent victims) through fear of job loss will blame those out of work – migrant and stagnant worker victims – for the systems problems, rather than the system itself. This type of policy was made to work in the 1930’s in Europe – with the poor Jews used as scapegoats in Germany and elsewhere. They hope it will work again! This time it will be non-whites and those from eastern Europe who will be offered up as sacrificial victims to those who fail to see the big-picture and the crisis in the entire system.

Zero-hour for humanity.

For millions of years of evolution the adults of human communities have woken up each the morning with a days work in front of them by which to feed, cloth and house themselves. No one stood in their way, whether they hunted, gathered, fished or farmed. If the local resources were insufficient, all or a part of the community, could move on and find food, shelter and clothing in a new suitable environment. That possibility no longer exists for the poor and unemployed. But an alternative does exist.

Instead of changing location humanity needs to change its mode of production. The mode of production developed during the last 100 years has created the ‘means’ by which everyone could be fed, clothed, housed and educated at a relatively high standard. What stands in the way is the ownership and control of that means. The present control by a relatively small capitalist and pro-capitalist elite allows them to use those means not for the general good, but for their own wealth accumulation – and that wealth is now obscenely huge.

This for them means production for profits above all else. And the greed for profits mean the mass production of soon-outdated commodities and weapons of war along with the mass production of waste products, pollution and ecological degradation. The planet and its species in one sense is crying out for the capitalist mode of production to be ended; and for its sustained exploitation to be given a substantial rest in order to recover. Over 4 million years of evolution humanity has lived and worked and caused little environmental damage which could not be quickly recovered.

For that amount of time, humanity has fed, clothed, housed and educated itself without causing irreparable damage to the entire planet. The capitalist mode of production has changed all that. It now not only severely damages the planet but the vast majority of living members of the human family, through engineered poverty, wars, pollution and ecological destruction. It is time for more people to understand the wider picture of a system in multiple crisis and also cry out and organise for a wholesale change to the mode of production. Zero-hour contracts represent an approaching zero hour for humanity if they do not herald a zero-hour for the capitalist mode of production.

[See also ‘The Five-Fold Crisis of Capitalism‘ ; ‘Austerity: Its another word for War!

Roy Ratcliffe (July 2013.)

Posted in Critique, Economics, Politics, Reformism | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments

EGYPT: INSURRECTION or INTERREGNUM?

Posted on July 7, 2013 by stutteringsteps

Bourgeois hypocrisy.

The champions of bourgeois democracy everywhere have been quick to denounce the toppling of President Morsi in Egypt as a blow against democracy. This cannot be surprising. Manipulation and control of the party political, electoral process is something they have long perfected. This form of electoral democracy renders the masses passive and leaves the political representatives open to direct and indirect influence. Their fear of mass street participation to determine what happens in society is therefore palpable. Accordingly they have invariably described the events of 2-3 July 2013 in Egypt, as an unconstitutional ‘coup d’ etat‘. The Muslim Brotherhood have also claimed this is so and the action as unconstitutional. It is a familiar cry of every ruling elite who are overthrown by mass uprisings or insurrections. Indeed, Mubarak made exactly the same criticism before his ouster.

These various condemnations by heads of state, are also a most hypocritical form of denunciation. The bourgeois governments of all European and North American states regularly do unconstitutional things; spying of innocent citizens, pepper spraying demonstrators, arrest and incarceration of innocents, deaths in custody, torture, invasions of foreign countries, falsifying expenses – forcing down diplomatic planes!; even a much abbreviated list could fill this entire page. Be this as it may, superficial talk of coup’s and unconstitutional actions does not get us any clearer to understand the complex situation currently taking place in Egypt.

Very few mainstream commentators have bothered to study the way pre-revolutionary situations develop and pass through various developmental stages, including reversals, mood swings and political detours. But given the depth and breadth of the world economic crisis – initiated by neo-liberal capitalism – ‘normal’ politics has outlived its ability to control either the economic, the social or political spheres of life. For this reason there is growing discontent and unrest throughout the world. And given the elitist and corrupt nature of politics, this popular unrest has nowhere else to go to express itself but on the street.

The street.

It should now be absolutely clear that the ‘street’ has been ‘the’ determining factor in Egyptian politics since the uprising of 2010. It was not the Military and it was not the Brotherhood but the popular masses who eventually turned up in Tahir Square. It was therefore the emergence of mass participation in a concerted uprising which led to the overthrow of Mubarak. It is a further instance of mass assembly and participation in the recent second uprising on June 30th in which people campaigned and assembled to call for Morsi to resign. Instead of accepting the previous months of criticism and modifying the brotherhood stance, Morsi and his colleagues decided to carry on regardless and  to hide behind their so-called democratic election.

What they and the bourgeois elsewhere, have failed to adequately grasp is that the mass movement in Egypt – as it is everywhere – is not entirely powered by political disagreement or constitutional discourse. Despite the corruption and incompetence of the political class, ordinary people are more interested in their future welfare than simply waiting for politics to ‘clean’ itself up. The turn out of such huge numbers is driven by the deteriorating socio-economic condition of the mass of working class humanity. To those removed from the direct experiences of blue and white-collar humanity and the poor, the protests may appear to be just a question of disappointment with Muslim Brotherhood politics and a search for an alternative, but of course it is much more than this.

Historically, when masses of people have suffered hardship and oppression for long enough they frequently explode and go beyond any constitution, particularly when the constitution stands in their way. Indeed, that is how all potential revolutions commence. In periods of systemic crisis, the broad (but uneven) process is as follows. First, popular mass uprisings; second, unifying demands are created; third, military support sides with the insurgents; fourth, the masses become armed; fifth a dual seat of power is established; sixth the oppressors are overthrown, their state dismantled; seventh, a new and developing socio-economic system is released or created.

And in the 21st century, uprisings and precursors of revolutions are occurring on practically every continent. A few obvious questions make the reasons clear! Is it not the case that everywhere the capitalist mode of production is dominant, the class divide between the wealthy beneficiaries and the working poor has increased astronomically? Is it not the case that vast numbers of blue and white-collar workers are being pushed toward and some held below the level of relative poverty? Is it not the case that the poor and working people in country after country are stirring?

The common underlying problem.

Since before 2010 workers had become so desperate in Egypt that they regularly took to the streets calling for jobs, food and an end to regime oppression. This developing unrest led to the mass demonstrations that eventually persuaded the military to assist in bringing down Mubarak. Elected with the task of improving economic and social conditions, the new government of Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood, were clearly not pursuing policies to make Egypt more equal or fairer.

Nor was he or his ministers beginning to tackle the major social and economic problems facing the population. Indeed, they were preparing to get the Egyptian people into further debt by negotiating IMF loans and accepting the conditions attached to these loans. Also the Brotherhood were appointing religious representatives to regional political posts, irrespective of their ability or suitability.

It may not yet be obvious to some that the future for Egypt – as for humanity in general – does not lie in more capitalism and IMF domination along with restrictions to the rights of women and young people. The future for Egypt as with the rest of humanity does not lie in large-scale unemployment, long hours and low pay for those who manage to obtain a job and Shariah law.

During these current and coming struggles, more and more people will become aware that it is not just a question of appropriate politics and suitable figureheads but a question of who owns and controls the main means of production. Only social control of the means of production can solve the question of large-scale unemployment, equitable economic distribution, tolerance and ecological sustainability.

An insurrection-urged coup?

As yet the situation in Egypt is fluid and complex but the latest events are clearly best described initially as a mass insurrection or further uprising against the elected political regime, which then urged a military-led coup. The insurrectionists were aware that the elections returning the Brotherhood, were both premature and flawed, as was the formation of the new constitution. A coup, on the other hand, is normally conducted by a tiny group who on their own initiative topples a clique at the head of a government. In fact that is exactly what occurred when the ‘Association of Free Officers’ led by Gamel Abdel Nasser toppled a previous British supported regime. That was in the nature of a definitive coup d etat. This latest event, although sharing some characteristics, is not entirely of that type.

Let us be clear about the process which took place. Fuelled by continued unemployment and poverty along with little action except unfulfilled promises and restrictions from their government, discontent reached another high. After weeks of activist campaigning with petitions and street demonstrations the masses – for various reasons – turned out once again in huge numbers to protest and insist that Morsi resign. Once again Morsi and the Brotherhood ignored this mass protest and later requests by the military establishment. Instead, they fell back on their dubiously formed constitutional rights. So an apparent impasse was reached.

The anti-Morsi forces with patience worn out and still with illusions in a bourgeois democratic process, had to accept what was going on or look to the military to solve the problem of throwing out the government and instituting new elections. Yet, the request to the military to oust Morsi and the Brotherhood, has all the makings of a double-edged sword. Pre-emptive arrests and closing organisations down are as draconian as anything the previous Mubarak regime sanctioned and can in due time be turned elsewhere. From now on if the anti-Morsi activists do not do all they can to attract the ordinary soldiers firmly to their side and make overtures to the Muslim rank and file, this repeated relying on the US influenced military elite is a policy they may eventually come to regret.

The three prime movers in Egypt.

It needs to be recognised that there are at least three prime movers or active forces for change in the post – Mubarak Egyptian situation. The first is the loose coalition of left-secular and working class anti-establishment forces. What motivates these activists and their supporters, from before 2010 and on, are food, employment and freedom from military and religious oppression. The second force is the military establishment and the previous regime supporters. What motivates these is to retain or regain their present or previous positions and status.

The third is the Muslim Brotherhood and their supporters. What motivates them in addition to their bourgeois form of economic development is a return to Shariah law and religious conservatism. The rest of the Egyptian people are either neutral or allied with one or other of these strong social forces within Egyptian society. At the current state of the developing situation none of these three sectors – on their own – can obtain a settlement satisfactory to their needs and none are ready or able to compromise.

The Muslim Brotherhood could clearly not take the rest of the countries population with them in order to govern. Indeed, by their sectarian actions in government they helped to divide the working class as well as others. The military, tainted as it is from collusion with the Mubarak era governance and with many strings attached to the USA, are not able at this stage to assume a form of popular governance. Another factor of utmost impoertance is that neither of these two conservative (pro-neo/liberal) forces can solve the economic and financial problems facing Egypt. The left secular forces, although numerous are themselves not yet organised or unified around a platform of economic and social demands capable of taking a majority of the population with them. For this reason the current divisions and unrest will continue.

The evening of the 5th July saw the pro-Morsi forces march through Cairo and later fought pitched battles with those anti-Morsi activists assembled in Tahir square. In other words, sadly, large numbers of religiously motivated working people and large numbers of secular motivated working people were trying to beat each other into submission or ignominious retreat. This clash if continued represents a set-back for a class-based movement and does not bode well for solving the crisis in favour of the working masses and poor. Indeed, the pitched battles took on the character of a small-scale, self-destructive civil war.

The future.

It is in the senior military leaders and the remnant of the previous regime interests to allow the pro-Morsi and anti-Morsi to fight themselves to a standstill. This way once both sides are so exhausted and discredited it may become possible for the military to take power once again and push forward an acceptable puppet leader. Alternatively they may side with the anti-Morsi forces until the Muslim Brotherhood and their working class supporters are totally defeated and then later deal with the left secularists and liberals when they have become fully isolated. Either outcome would suit the military elite and neo-liberal west.

For this reason the left and secularists among the anti-Morsi forces should not automatically treat all Muslim Brotherhood workers as Islamist extremists. Indeed to do so will drive many into the arms of extremists. Instead, of unilateral condemnation, a clear platform of economic and social demands for the employment and security of the poor, white and blue-collar workers, men and women should be created and support for it championed among all sections of the workers, Muslim, Christian, secular, liberal and rank and file soldier. The workers of Egypt are the only sector that can fully champion the rights of all the poor and oppressed of their country.

Such a platform should be counter-posed to the purely political/constitutional and religious sectarian arrangements and arguments of the political and military elites of all persuasions. The situation of hunger, exploitation, unemployment and oppression is not going to be improved by the current focus on politics, nor by an Islamic, military or bourgeois government. In Egypt as elsewhere, a crucial question still remains: Are the mass uprisings to become part of an ongoing insurrection, leading to a real revolution, or merely part of a vicious  interregnum in a process leading to the establishment of yet another form of bourgeois government? Alternatively are the masses to be divided and drawn into what could become destructive episodes of yet another internicine civil-war? Time will tell.

[See ‘Egypt: Workers and Soldiers’. ]

Roy Ratcliffe (July 2013.)

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EGYPT: WORKERS AND SOLDIERS.

Posted on July 3, 2013 by stutteringsteps

At a time when the military are once again being drawn into the conflict in Egypt, it is worth considering the socio-economic situation of the ordinary soldier in times of internal crisis – particularly during periods involving historically profound contradictions. The uprisings that became popularly known as the ‘Arab Spring’ were triggered by serious economic problems in the Middle East and North Africa, as the systemic economic crisis of capital rippled around the world. All the five elements of the current crisis; economic, financial, political, moral and environmental are being played out in Egypt and the Middle East as they are elsewhere in the globe. However, in Egypt some aspects (economic and political) are perhaps more clearly distinguishable than elsewhere.

The current contest in July 2013 is between bourgeois democracy and mass street democracy. The Muslim Brotherhood, as is predictable, are standing up for a bourgeois form of democracy, which is always corrupt and never represents more than a small percentage of the population who are unduly influenced by TV adverts, dubious sources of funding and back-stairs deals etc. Standing against this are the masses who are still attempting to pursue bread, jobs and freedom. The majority massing in the streets evidently do not want a religious form of dictatorial governance any more than they wanted a secular Mubarak form of dictatorship. They want a solution to their fundamental problems and these are not being addressed by Morsi and the Brotherhood.

In the past the military have frequently played a prominent role in Egyptian affairs, both for the good and the bad. In the 1950’s struggle against European and US colonial oppression a group in the Egyptian army adopted the name ‘Association of Free Officers’ and aimed at ‘freedom’ from western control and the restoration of their countries dignity. When former army colonel Gamel Abdel Nasser assumed control a series of major welfare measures were eventually promoted. Useful reforms in education, family law, universal health care, women’s rights and housing provision were then introduced. It was a top-down but popular and progressive overthrow of the previous regime.

This time, however, the senior military figures are tied to the American political and military establishment to the extent of billions of dollars per year. So this time in Egypt, as the situation develops, tensions will probably develop between the ordinary soldier and the senior command. It should be obvious that the ordinary Egyptian soldiers future lies not with American neo-liberal elite and its collaborators in their own officer class, but with the ordinary people of Egypt. And in order to be a pole of attraction for the ordinary soldier the ordinary people need to rise above religious and other forms of sectarianism and work toward realising basic human rights of employment, housing, women’s rights and justice for all Egypt’s citizens.

What follows applies to rank and file soldiers in most countries of the world, but applies particularly clearly to the armed forces of Egypt. These soldiers and soldiers elsewhere, will not have heard the following points from their senior commanders or officers for it is in the military, political and economic elites interests everywhere to hide the real facts about the soldiers true position. They will have been told that their duty is to their ‘regiment’, their ‘officers’ or their ‘nation’. Their real class position is hidden behind such deceptive abstractions in order for them to be used as a versatile tool of the reactionary ruling elite in each country. Yet if we consider the ordinary soldiers real economic and social position we cannot avoid concluding and explaining to them the following.

The actual socio-economic position of soldiers.

1. They are predominantly recruited from the working class often because the economic system is so unjust and distorted that they would be unemployed or under-employed if they did not join up.

2. They are trained to a high level of skill in various trades including wounding and killing people – and are paid various skill-level wages or salaries.

3. Even though they to not make a profit for their employer, (their labour is unproductive of capital) economically speaking they are in fact a special case of the category of skilled, public-sector worker.

4. What is more, their skills, training, wages and equipment are paid out of the taxes (monetised surplus-value) extracted from the majority of the population – who just happen to be – the working people of their country.

5. Just as other workers they are often humiliated, abused and brutalised by their immediate managers (officers) – particularly during training – and sent to work into situations that are dangerous – often for dubious and/or illegal reasons.

6. Just like other workers they have no say in what operations they are required to carry out or how these actions are to be conducted. And like many other workers they are often required to work long hours in atrocious conditions.

7. However, unlike ordinary workers they are not allowed to belong to a trade union and are sometimes required to be exceptionally brutal against unarmed protestors in their own country – ie those who pay their wages and salaries.

8. Just like other workers, when they are injured at work and can no longer function effectively they are frequently sacked and find themselves back among the working class, from which they came.

9. Unlike other workers they are often treated as guinea pigs for new medicines and equipment and cannot refuse to carry out orders that may not be well thought out. These orders may also involve acts of deliberate brutality and abuse of human-rights.

10. When they return from such ill-thought out (often illegal) high command ’actions’ they may have faced hatred and suffered such trauma that their peace of mind or health is permanently effected.

11. Indeed, many soldiers returning from military assignments suffer nightmares, sleep loss, relationship breakdown and much else. Many become reliant on alcohol, drugs and many commit suicide. These along with severed limbs are among the many occupational hazards of this destructive line of work.

12. Just like other workers, the loyalty to the elite – which they are required to commit, too – is not returned. When considerations of finance come up for review among the elite, like many other workers, they are not only issued with sub-standard equipment but many will have their services terminated.

Historical splits within military forces.

In the history of their battalions ordinary soldiers will only have been told about specific battles and heroism, they will never be told about any atrocities their battalions have been previously ordered to commit. Nor, in the case of western armies, the real reason they were sent to invade foreign lands. In general, (Egypt being perhaps one of a few exceptions) they will not be informed of the instances when soldiers have joined the working people and assisted in the overthrow of reactionary regimes.

Whilst it is true that any armed force will attract those easily influenced, by pomp, ceremony and bullsh–t, along with those needing an outlet for aggressive tendencies, not all can be tarred with these same brushes. For in every clearly progressive revolutionary development of societies throughout history, at a crucial juncture, many thousands of ordinary soldiers and sailors have sided with revolutionary forces working to improve the socio-economic situation for the majority.

Of course, soldiers in such revolutionary circumstances, have needed to be sure that the cause which appealed to them for support was transparently for the benefit of the majority and not just some elite clique. This possibility – based upon the obvious facts noted in the previous twelve points – constantly haunts the minds of the ruling military and political elites. For this reason they take all possible measures to separate this special category of skilled worker, physically and emotionally from their roots in their respective communities.

However, as the crisis deepens and popular unrest increases in country after country, as it has again in Egypt, once again soldiers will, sooner or later, be invited to consider the question of who to ultimately obey – the elite via their officers – or those who pay their wages. In a revolutionary crisis, they will also be faced with either taking the side of an outmoded system, which is fuelled by greed, impoverishing the majority of people and is terminally polluting the planet – or taking the side of working class communities in order to create a better future.

It is obvious that the present capitalist system exploits soldiers as it does all workers and after using them as dispensable ‘cannon fodder’, casts them aside when they are no longer needed. The pro-capitalist elite callously use them to maintain their wealth and they hope to use them to prevent the changes necessary for the future of humanity. This issue of ‘who and what is an ordinary soldier’ has again become immediately important for the activists in Egypt and elsewhere. It will also become an important one for other anti-capitalist to consider, the more critical the crisis becomes and as protests continue to escalate in scale and intensity.

A future without armed aggression.

Of course, in any post-capitalist society informed by revolutionary-humanist views, there would be no ‘special forces’ divorced from their communities and controlled only by an elite. All adult community members would be able to bear arms but only in defence of their communities. And unlike most capitalist-formed armed forces this defence would be informed and tempered by humanitarian concerns and strictly uphold the human rights of friends and any future foes alike. As Engels noted with regard to the revolutionary circumstances of the 1871 Paris Commune;

“From the very outset the Commune was compelled to recognise that the working class, once come to power, could not go on managing with the old state machine; that in order not to lose again its only just conquered supremacy, this working class must on the one hand, do away with all the old oppressive machinery used against itself, and on the other safeguard itself against its own deputies and officials, by declaring them all, without exception, subject to recall at any moment.” (Introduction to Marx’s ‘Civil War in France’. Peking edition. Page 15.)

And Marx:

The communal organisation once firmly established on a national scale, the catastrophes it might still have to undergo would be sporadic slaveholders insurrections, which, while for a moment interrupting the work of peaceful progress, would only accelerate the movement, by putting the sword into the hand of social revolution. (Marx. First Draft ‘Civil War in France’. in First International and After. Penguin. Page 253.)

Roy Ratcliffe (July 2013.)

[See also ‘Egypt and Tunisia: The failure of reforms’ ; ‘The Egyptian Elections’; ‘Military control in Egypt’ and ‘The Five-Fold Crisis of Capitalism’..]

 

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AN ‘ASSEMBLY’ OF ILLUSIONS?

Posted on June 30, 2013 by stutteringsteps

The form and content of the recent People’s Assembly meeting in London was in many ways predictable. Rousing speeches of how bad the UK situation has become, how bad the nasty Con/Lib/Dem government leaders are. This together with some tokenistic nods to gender balance and audience participation was the main substance. However, the inclusion of the word ‘people’ in the title and the lack of any real anti-capitalist pre-amble prior to it, should have served as a warning as to what was designed and intended.

A top-table dominated by well-paid trade union executives and ‘left-leaning’ Labour Party supporters could not be expected to have any greater vision than the restoration of a form of welfare capitalism with which they have always felt comfortable. Accordingly, despite the variety of contributions made from platform or floor, a return to a supposedly gentler, golden age of welfare capitalism is exactly the core content of the message which permeated the proceedings. The same message will continue to be broadcast during any further progress for this initiative. But then how could it be otherwise?

Since the end of the Second World War, the capitalist mode of production has been good for these so-called representatives of the working class. It still is. They have achieved unprecedented levels of individual and family wealth, influence and prestige. Many of their predecessors have been elevated to the top of ‘establishment’ UK as government ministers. Many more have retired on very ‘comfortable’ pensions and others have been elevated to the peerage. Would they really not want to retain the same future possibilities for themselves? No prizes for guessing the answer to that one.

However, unlike right-wing heirs to the capitalist system, the left-wing beneficiaries of it like to have a clear conscience. They know system is corrupt, they know it is unfair – but they also know which side their bread is buttered. For this reason they prefer a version of capitalism which provides them with rich pickings, but also looks after the poor, the sick, the unemployed and which has safeguards against excessive exploitation. In other words capitalism in – ‘The Spirit of 45’. Nor should we forget that so far they have not been seriously effected by the crisis. Their life continues as it was and consequently so does their consciousness. For as Marx put it;

“Life is not determined by consciousness, but consciousness by life.” (Marx. German Ideology.)

The way these ‘left’ elites live determines their consciousness and the way they live is by the formal and informal political networks established under the capitalist mode of production. In other words they live by getting ‘people’ to assemble and vote them or appoint them into an established hierarchical elite. The formal means of achieving this outcome are open Conferences, Meetings and of course – Assemblies. The informal means are closed caucuses, liaisons, and behind-the-scenes private discussions. Once elected, an integral part of how they then live is by gaining ‘acceptance’ from the dominant establishment forces – civil-servants, bankers, bond-holders etc. – who are of course also a section of the ‘people‘.

These are the two overriding and dominating modes of existence which determine how they think and how they act. In the division of labour, between workers and capital, and workers and their representatives, they live an intermediate life which is fundamentally dependent upon the capitalist mode of production for all the advantages and benefits it brings. Hence they predominantly view society as comprising of ‘people’ rather than fundamentally irreconcilable classes. So how can they be expected to entertain a revolutionary perspective?

Their way of life, like the right-wing beneficiaries of the capitalist mode of production, also depends upon the existence of capitalism. Their high salaries and status, depends upon the existence of a class of surplus-value creating workers along with the industrial, commercial and financial exploitation of the entire world to underwrite their privileges. Under such working/earning circumstances they, like their predecessors in 1945, are at best reformists – but without the post-war potential for reforms.

This is because given the current systemic crisis of world capitalism, reforms aimed at preventing further attacks upon the working classes, the poor and oppressed under this system, are nothing more than a wishful thinking fantasy, one comfortably reinforced by their position, habits and opinions.

Nevertheless, it is a impression which the vast majority of the ‘people’ as yet share – and this includes many working people. It is the case that the life experiences of most working people in Europ, the UK and to a lesser extent the US; white collar and blue, unemployed, sick and retired, have been accumulated during a unique period of tax-deducted, capitalist-state provided, social welfare. Based upon that lengthy, common experience, the role of the self-deluded left trade union and political elite is to rationalise and perpetuate such hopes and illusions among workers. Their task is to promote wishful thinking well beyond the point where it has become completely out of touch with the unfolding reality of world-wide crisis.

The awakening masses need to be lulled to sleep, and for this, bourgeois anthems of discord and disharmony will not suffice. It is the ‘left’ reformists who invariably step forward to provide performances and recitals of easy listening lullaby’s.

Since life determines consciousness we can anticipate that very many workers in the so-called advanced capitalist countries will continue for some time to expect and want the state to maintain that pattern of economic, social and financial involvement. Hence the current embryonic campaigns among many to defend the welfare state will continue. As the 21st century bourgeois states shed their patronising welfare function and continue to attack the systems victims, they will not necessarily jump to revolutionary conclusions. Most will at first assume that the state is merely in the wrong hands. Hence also, a search will commence – or continue – for an alternative political party – as some of those involved in the ‘People’s Assembly’ are currently embarked upon. In this case an illusory hope will be promoted that a new ‘party’ will be willing and able to deliver a new age of welfare capitalism – or ‘socialism’ as some call it.

It will therefore take lengthy, new and different experiences for the majority of people to radically change their consciousness and reach the conclusion – already reached in anti-capitalist theory – that the capitalist mode of production, official politics and the state – all states – are the fundamental problem, not the solution. Part of those necessary radicalising experiences will be gained during the failure of such present and future defensive campaigns and the failure of alternative political party’s. Such battles ‘for the state’ and ‘against the state’ are unavoidable and contradictory, but as they progress they will be the fertile ground for revolutionary-humanist and anti-capitalist ideas and understandings to be introduced.

During the coming skirmishes and struggles there will also be a tendency for many militant workers to castigate those workers who do not support this or that tactic and fail to act – or even act against – a particular form of action. Any such sectarian tendency needs to be combated for it is based upon two counter-productive errors. First, the illusion that in the present systemic crisis, short-term and emotionally-led actions can get generally successful results. Second, that certain individuals or trade union oligarchs have the ‘answers’ which others ‘must’ follow. Neither are valid.

It should be remembered that not all the past tactics which many activists will mechanistically continue to advocate – petitions, demonstrations, strikes – will succeed in the new circumstances and the fear of unemployment or victimisation may prevent many workers from taking part. Creating and acerbating divisions among workers by advocating and acting upon an ill-conceived tactic – or one which the majority are not yet ready to support – is playing into the hands of the ruling elite. To condemn cautious and sceptical members of the working class as ’betrayers’ or ’enemies’ ahead of huge battles is to set back the progress of the needed solidarity and unity which will only fully develop in new and permanently changed circumstances.

The coming struggles are the prelude to a class war in which the future welfare of the majority of humanity and the health of the planet depends upon the abolition of the capitalist mode of production. That struggle is more important than the outcome of any skirmishes which precede such epoch changing events. Challenging the illusions and delusions of the left-reformists, providing the long-view along with a full analysis of the capitalist mode of production is a task for those who genuinely follow the revolutionary-humanist tradition of Karl Marx and champion the self-organisation and self-activity of the working class.

Roy Ratcliffe (June 2013.)

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ANTI-CAPITALIST SECTARIANISM (Part 3)

Posted on June 26, 2013 by stutteringsteps

We have seen from the combined analysis of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky, in Anti-Capitalist Sectarianism, parts 1 and 2, that sectarianism is an egocentric pattern of behaviour. It is a pattern which displays arrogance and an unshakeable belief in the correctness of a particular set of views – often in the form of ‘abstractions’ and political ‘trade marks’. In its political form it is a deep-seated and long lasting tendency within and around left wing revolutionary, anti-capitalist and even nationalist politics. As with religious sectarianism, it is parasitic on the humanist aspirations of those suffering exploitation and oppression and wishing to end it. It is parasitic because sectarians feed off this humanistic aspiration, in order to justify their existence, whilst they simultaneously destroy it by their inhuman practices. This much can be verified from direct experience. However, it is also possible to extract from the opinions gathered so far, at least the following ten characteristics;

Ten characteristics of Sectarianism.

Sectarians maintain they have the solution, the ‘key’ to problems in their doctrines or principles. (From Marx and Engels)

The reason for their existence is some ‘special’ criteria which sets them apart from the rest.(From Marx and Engels)

Sectarians have a religious-type unshakeable belief in their correctness and humanities ‘need’ for their guidance. (From Marx, Engels, Trotsky)

Sectarians carry out serious struggle against each other even in the face of common danger.(From Engels)

Sectarians often elevate trivialities to the level of principles in order to keep themselves separate or to engineer a split. (From Lenin)

Sectarians often shout loudest for unity, whilst continuing to undermine it by their actions.(From Engels)

Sectarians are often extremely bitter polemicists and frequently poison the atmosphere of debate. (From Trotsky)

Sectarians are often boastful and arrogant, in their actions and their certainty of being ‘correct’.(From Marx and Engels)

Sectarians are generally satisfied by logical deductions and the use of abstractions.(From Trotsky)

10. Sectarians, explicitly or implicitly demand that the whole anti-capitalist movement should follow them. (From Marx.)

We need only ask ourselves a few simple but searching questions at this point. What would be the result of giving such sectarian individuals or groups of individuals considerable power? If religious or anti-capitalist sectarians were ever to succeed in their quest to have the working class put them in power, what would happen? If, as a result of an anti-capitalist or anti-imperialist revolution they found at their disposal armed forces of coercion with the power and authority to implement their ideas, how would they go about it?

The ten characteristics above provide us with an indication of how these questions might be answered. The reader need only go back over these ten points one by one and ask themselves how sectarians with full control of state power would conduct themselves; with power to implement their policies with an unshakeable belief in their correctness. Men of arrogance and extreme bitterness in control of weapons of oppression and destruction. Even before that nightmare possibility sectarianism has destructive effects.

Six effects of Sectarianism.

1. It repels serious working people. (Trotsky)

2. Sectarianism is essentially reactionary. (Marx)

3. Sectarians do not create leaders among working people. (Lenin)

4. Where they exist they infect or adulterate the workers movement. (Engels.)

5. Sectarians transform theory into dogma. (Marx/Engels/Lenin.)

6. Sectarianism is a pernicious menace. (Lenin)

It becomes clear from this analysis of political sectarianism that with one or two changed words, the characteristics and effects also perfectly fit the phenomena of religious sectarianism as personified in the actions of the Taliban, Christian and Jewish Zionists and other Islamist sectarians. This realisation is not too surprising once it is recognised that religion in its fundamental and historical basis was conceived as a form of politics and retains this ambition within its sacred texts. Further direct evidence for this assertion is presented in the article ‘Religion – is – Politics’ which uses material drawn from the scriptural texts of Judaism, Christianity and Islam to indicate their origins in, and intentions for, the establishment of a hierarchical, male, governing-elite –  using physical force.

Some sectarians even without state power can be dangerous enough in unleashing indiscriminate acts of vengeance and terror, it makes one shudder to contemplate their control of even greater forces. Can we really expect such people to lead humanity into a non-oppressive future? To see the effects of these political sectarian characteristics when displayed by men with unlimited power to back them up, we need only examine the history as it unfolded in Cambodia under Pol Pot, in the Soviet Union under Stalin, under Mao in China and the patriarchal mirror image under the various Fascist and proto-fascist dictatorships. In the case of religious sectrianism, there are a number of contemporary examples which demonstrate these characteristics.

Although it is quite correct to apply the term ‘sectarian’ to small groupings which display divisive and bigoted behaviour by sectarian ‘leaders’ and ‘followers’, these characteristics are not necessarily exclusive to small groups. They are merely more frequently found there. The characteristics of sectarianism, since they arise from the actions of individuals, singly and in groups, can arise within large political movements as well as small ones.

It should be noted, therefore, that sectarian behaviour takes place wherever the mixture of the above characteristics is strong enough to organise as a distinct political or religious tendency or manifest itself within one. It is essential to recognise the full range of sectarian characteristics, identified and not just the most extreme or bizarre. Otherwise, groups or individuals, who are thoroughly sectarian, yet do not manifest the more extreme symptoms, can mask their sectarianism, for long periods of time. Long enough to do important damage to the anti-capitalist, the anti-imperialist and the revolutionary-humanist struggles.

All the characteristics noted above are important, but in one sense it is more important that the subtle and hidden characteristics of sectarianism are given serious consideration. It is obvious that the more bizarre aspects are easily identifiable, whilst other aspects can go on almost unnoticed – until it is too late! Once in existence sectarianism is divisive, corrosive and leads to disgust and disillusionment amongst working people and others in the anti-capitalist struggle and in other struggles against oppression. It could not be otherwise in movements with a humanist purpose, because sectarianism so clearly contradicts that purpose.

This much could perhaps have been established by a study of existing sectarian organisations and without recourse to the works of Marx, Engels, Lenin or Trotsky. However, the response of sectarians, claiming orthodoxy with Marx, Engels, Lenin or Trotsky, may have led to attempts to rebuff such challenges. They would undoubtedly claim that their ready-made answers and ‘unshakeable beliefs’ derive from a superior knowledge of their leader’s (or in religious cases God’s) thoughts. Sectarian defensive rationalisation often attempts to represent its bitterness and poison as revolutionary or religious zeal and political steel; their use of logical deductions and abstractions as flowing from their advanced theoretical or scriptural grasp. Now at least, in order to rationalise any continued sectarianism, anti-capitalist sectarians will have to take into account their own ideological forerunners.

To sum up.

It can no longer escape the notice of anyone but the most dogmatic and blind sectarian, that sectarianism is not just a minor aberration, but cuts to the very heart of the opposition to the capitalist system. In all its forms, religious and political it focuses on differences and exacerbates divisions. It is capable of turning materialist dialectics into fixed categories or dogma. As a political tendency it invariably repels serious working people and other potential anti-capitalists. Marx considered sectarianism as quite simply reactionary! There can be no greater verbal indictments than those encountered so far. The implications of these combined observations are clear. Sectarianism, within the ranks of those opposed to the capitalist or imperialist system, can undermine that opposition to such a degree that it becomes a significant factor – if not the most significant factor – in preventing unity of the anti-capitalist forces. In the 21st century it is no longer enough simply to be part of the anti-capitalist struggle: in order to further that struggle, we need also to seriously combat sectarianism.

As we have already seen, sectarianism, is not just a mild, irritating and occasional syndrome, it represents a thoroughgoing revision of revolutionary anti-capitalist understanding and it flies directly in the face of the combined experience of working class and anti-capitalist struggle. If we are able to find sectarianism or even traces of it within the ranks of the anti-capitalist movement today, (and this task is not hard) we are close to understanding an important factor in any fragmented and dissipated condition of the present opposition to capitalist exploitation and oppression. We will also be able to use the analysis presented here to identify the carriers of the sectarian disease within the anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist and workers’ movements and hopefully cure them or isolate them before they do further damage.

Roy Ratcliffe (June 2013.)

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ANTI-CAPITALIST SECTARIANISM (Part 2)

Posted on June 17, 2013 by stutteringsteps

In part 1 of the evidence base for the full characteristics of sectarianism the opinions of Marx and Engels on the phenomena were presented. In this second part I will present the views of Lenin and Trotsky. Given that both Lenin and Trotsky were themselves extremely sectarian on many occasions their views on the question may seem a strange inclusion. However, sectarians often recognise the phenomena in others, whilst remaining blind to its manifestation in themselves.

The views of Lenin and Trotsky on this issue are therefore well worth consideration, particularly as the contemporary followers of Lenin and Trotsky frequently emulate them in this regard. They too use the term sectarian to describe people or groups they disagree with whilst manifesting many of the characteristics themselves. A careful reader will certainly recognise this fact.

Lenin on sectarianism.

In a letter responding to `The Socialist Propaganda League’ of the USA, Lenin made a point in relationship to ‘immediate demands’;

“We preach always that a socialist party not uniting this struggle for reforms with the revolutionary methods of the working class movement can become a sect, can be severed from the masses , and that is the most pernicious menace to the success of the clear-cut revolutionary socialism.” (Lenin, Letter to the Secretary of the Socialist Propaganda League’ published in ‘Lenin on Britain.’ Pub. Moscow. 1959 page 254)

Skip over the evangelical term ‘preach’ for a moment and focus on; ‘Anti-capitalist groups can become sectarian and this is a pernicious menace!’ We should note a further point which is stressed here by Lenin. In the case of reform or revolution it is not a question of either/or. According to Lenin, this kind of dualistic contrast is falsely put. Rather, it is a question of addressing both.

Without raising the question of the need for revolutionary transformation within reformist struggles those involved accommodate to reformist moods. Without engaging in struggles for reforms the group becomes an idealistic sect. Without such a synthesis, Lenin concluded, the danger – indeed the pernicious menace! – of sectarianism would be ever present. To overcome the dangers of this circle mentality Lenin suggested;

“There can be no dogmatism where the supreme and sole criterion of a doctrine is it’s conformity to the actual process of social and economic development; there can be no sectarianism when the task is that of promoting the organisation of the proletariat, and when therefore, the role of the ‘intelligentsia’ is to make special leaders from among the intelligentsia unnecessary. ” (Lenin, Selected Works. Moscow. Vol. 1. page 298.)

The use of the term ‘doctrine’, as with the previous term ‘preach’, is somewhat suspect for it does not coincide with the view of Marx or Engels concerning the non-dogmatic theory they espoused. This represents one of many fundamental contradictions in Lenin, which I have dealt with in other articles. [see Marxists versus Marx: and ‘The Party; Help or Hindrance‘.] Nonetheless, the point he makes concerning sectarianism is accurate and quite clear.

Along with stating the need for theory to conform to the ‘actual social and economic process’ – the only insurance against idealism and dogma – no simple task, one requiring patience – we find a suggestion for an antidote to sectarianism. It is the task of an anti-capitalist intelligentsia, to promote the self-organisation of working people, and in the process make themselves redundant. In a letter to Iskra arguing for `openness’ and the discussion of differences to safeguard party unity, Lenin took up the anti-circle theme once again.

“Indeed, it is high time to make a clean sweep of the traditions of circle sectarianism and – in a party which rests on the masses – resolutely advance the slogan: MORE LIGHT! – let the Party know EVERYTHING, let it have ALL, ABSOLUTELY ALL THE MATERIAL required for a judgement of all and sundry differences, reversions to revisionism, departures from discipline, etc. More confidence in the judgement of the whole body of party workers! – they, and they alone, will be able to curb the excessive hot-headedness of grouplets inclined to splits; will be able, by their slow, imperceptible but persistent influence, to imbue them with the `good will’ to observe party discipline, will be able to cool the ardour of anarchistic individualism and, by the very fact of their indifference, document, prove and demonstrate the triviality of differences exaggerated by the elements tending toward a split.” (Lenin. Complete Works. Volume 7 page 116. Emphasis added R.R.)

Also ignore for the moment Lenin’s emphasis on ‘party discipline’ the imposition of which caused many party members to commit genocidal atrocities at the behest of Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin. Within this quotation there is much that is specifically addressed to the Russian situation but there is also a considerable amount which has a wider geographic and historical significance.

For example:- ‘more light’ – ‘transparency’ – as the modern idiom would describe it. Think of the recent cover-ups of all political groups including those on the left; the need to cool the ardour of extreme individuals; (these individuals of ‘force and ability’ again), hot-headed grouplets inclined to splits needing curbing. There is more – much more. In the preface to a collection of letters published in 1907, for example, Lenin added:

“Marx and Engels taught the socialists to rid themselves AT ALL COST of narrow sectarianism, and TO JOIN with the working class movement so as TO SHAKE UP the proletariat politically.” (Lenin. Complete Works. Volume. 12 page 373. Emphasis added. RR)

Lenin in this passage used the prestige of Marx and Engels among the Russian anti-capitalists, in order to bring their weight, as well as his own, to bear upon the struggle against Russian sectarianism. He makes the case that anti-capitalist sectarianism should be got rid of – AT ALL COSTS! How many contemporary anti-capitalist groups are doing this? They haven’t even begun systematically analysing the phenomena.

In spite of the views of Marx and Engels; in spite of the experiences of working class struggles; in spite of all this, Lenin, with all his authority within the revolutionary movement of Russia, was still having to argue forcefully against sectarianism – only ten years before the successful Bolshevik involvement in the Russian revolution! Lenin was able for a time to counter some aspects of this sectarian tendency within a narrow faction, but as I describe elsewhere, he was not able to eliminate entirely its influence within Bolshevism.

Trotsky on sectarianism.

Leon Trotsky, is probably the most maligned revolutionary thinker of the 20th century. It was a situation which occurred because he had the misfortune to be the outstanding Soviet oppositional figure during the reign of Joseph Stalin. This made certain that Trotsky’s role would be distorted and reviled as far as it was in the power of Stalin to do so, and for a time that power was considerable. With the death of Lenin a struggle opened up for who should take his place as leader of the Party. Suffice to say for the purposes of this article that Stalin won, and Trotsky lost in the struggle for power and influence.

Trotsky, both before his expulsion, and after settling outside the Soviet Union, began to try to rally those individuals and organisations who were able to see that the Soviet Union was going drastically wrong. The organisational framework which Trotsky and his supporters initially chose to try to rally that opposition to Stalin, was known as the International Left Opposition. It was at this time that he decided to again describe the phenomenon of sectarianism. It was in connection with problems encountered by the German section of the Left Opposition, Trotsky noted that;

“…the Opposition is developing under the conditions of a continuing revolutionary ebb that breeds sectarianism and ‘circle’ sentiments.” (Trotsky. Writings 1930/31 Pub. Pathfinder. page 140)

Aware of the dangers of isolation, and the lack of understanding of the methods and principles of Marx and of course, Bolshevism, Trotsky wrote extensively of the need to overcome them within the ranks of the Left Opposition. Well aware that sectarian characteristics were already developing within the group he led, Trotsky wrote;

“Whether we are a sect or not will be determined not by the quantity of the elements who are at present grouped around our banner, nor even by the quality of these elements (for we are very far from the point where all are of the highest quality), but rather by the totality of the ideas, the program, the tactics, and organisation our particular group can bring to the movement.” (Trotsky. Writings 1930-31 Pub. Pathfinder. page 252. emphasis added RR)

For those who have studied the full range of sectarian characteristics it will be obvious that the ‘totality of the ideas, the programme, the tactics and organisation’, Trotsky refers to was itself steeped in sectarianism. Yet even with his considerable ability and standing within this grouping, Trotsky did not rule out the possibility of the organisation to which he belonged becoming what he considered a sect. Indeed, he outlined a few of the factors upon which such an outcome would depend.

In the above noted volume and its supplement, Trotsky wrote of the sickness within the newly formed Left Opposition and of the danger of looking foolish before the working people of the world. He also wrote of the need for honesty and openness including an honest attitude to one’s own mistakes. How often do we come across that? These themes continued in the later Volume of 1933-34 for, as problems, they continued to flourish. In writing on the conditions under which the French League was founded after the disintegration and decomposition of the French Communist Party, Trotsky noted:

“..its inner life represented a series of crises that never reached the level of principles but distinguished themselves by extreme bitterness and poisoned the atmosphere of the organisation, repelling serious workers despite their sympathy for the ideas of the Opposition.” (Trotsky. Writings 1933-34 Pub. Pathfinder. page 88)

Ring any bells? Although this quotation does not specifically mention the word sectarianism, Trotsky is certainly describing many of the effects and symptoms of this phenomenon. The quote identifies the clear symptom of bitter internal crises which never reach the level of principles. It notes they are self-destructive and more often than not are ultimately revealed to be based on defence of leadership status or competing leadership bids. Later, in response to what he considered a mistaken use of the term ‘sectarian’, Trotsky offered the following pertinent description:

“Sectarianism presupposes a narrow, homogeneous group, bound internally by deep and unshakeable conviction, despite the contradictions between this conviction and historical development.” (Trotsky. Writings. 1933-34 Pub. Pathfinder. page 296)

A ‘narrow’ group bound together by an ‘unshakeable conviction’. Such is the clear verdict of Leon Trotsky. It is a verdict which is in line with that of Marx, Engels and Lenin. The volumes of Trotsky’s writings contain a comprehensive insight into the problems caused by the reverses in the international situation right up to and beyond crucial developments in Germany. It was in the 1930’s that the conduct of the German Communist Party, under direction from the Stalin-dominated Comintern, effectively split the opposition to Hitler.

The results of this split removed the possibility of effective and sustained opposition to the development and success of German Fascism. It is precisely during this critical period that Trotsky returned to the subject of sectarianism. Prompted by an article in an American publication called ‘The Marxist’, Trotsky took the author to task for writing – “If the workers carry through…”. Trotsky pointed out that:

“The sectarian is satisfied with logical deduction from a victorious revolution supposedly already achieved. But for a revolutionist the nub of the question lies precisely in how to render an approach to revolution easier for the masses…. “If the workers carry through…” a victorious revolution, everything will of course be fine. But just now there is no victorious revolution; instead there is a victorious reaction.” (Trotsky. Writings 1939-40 Pub. Pathfinder. page 50)

Of course everything had been far from fine after the ‘victorious’ Russian revolution – another blind spot for Trotsky – but Trotsky, and at this point, was still concerned to help anti-capitalist working people negotiate the bridge, the path, the complex road, between where things were then and where they could eventually lead.

Yet this ‘good shepherd’ leading the helpless working class sheep to revolution was already a concept imbued with sectarian characteristics and it was this form of leadership which Trotsky considered essential for those opposed to the capitalist system. Trotsky explained that this was the importance of a Transitional Programme accepted at the founding conference of the Fourth International in 1938. However, in relation to that programme he went on to note another characteristics of sectarianism:

“Small wonder that the sectarians of all shadings fail to understand its meaning. They operate by means of abstractions – an abstraction of imperialism and an abstraction of the socialist revolution.” (ibid. page 50/51)

Trotsky had identified a further characteristic which is of the utmost importance. It is the interesting observation that anti-capitalist sectarians are prone to operate by means of abstractions, – “shibboleths and panaceas” in Marx’s terms. Thus, they can fail to understand the meaning of their ‘own programme’. This observation is worth repeating, for it seems unlikely at first reading. Sectarians can actually fail to understand the meaning of their own programme!

Ask most sectarian group members about their detailed programme and then sit back and listen to the subsequent waffle. As we have noted previously, Engels considered they can also turn the anti-capitalist critique of Marx into dogma – and most of them have done so! Trotsky’s observations on these aspects of sectarianism were also in line with Lenin’s warning not to separate or otherwise confuse ‘immediate demands’ from a revolutionary perspective.

The issues and views considered so far have given us sufficient material to begin to understand the problem of sectarianism in some detail. We have noted evidence of Marx and Engels combating sectarianism in Germany, Britain and America in the second half of the 19th century and we have studied a selection of Lenin’s contributions opposing the phenomenon in Russia in the first quarter of the 20th century. We have also indicated that Trotsky found aspects of sectarianism a serious and critical problem in France, Germany, Britain and America in the period 1920-1940. We also know it is alive and well in the 21st century. We would be naive, foolish or both not to give it lengthy and serious consideration.

Roy Ratcliffe (June 2013.)

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ANTI-CAPITALIST SECTARIANISM (Part – 1)

Posted on June 6, 2013 by stutteringsteps

Previous articles I have published concerning sectarianism have been in the form of summaries of the basic characteristics of this trend. For this reason they have lacked the evidence from which these summaries have been drawn. Despite this obvious lack the articles have received a considerable number of views from visitors to this site. For these reasons and because it continues to be a persistent problem within the anti-capitalist movement (not to mention the Abrahamic religions of the world) critical-mass will contain articles focussing upon the evidence from which the previous articles are derived. This first part will consider the contributions of Marx and Engels on the question.

Marx and Engels on anti-capitalist sectarianism.

Although a great deal of the work of Marx and Engels was given over to theoretical and analytical works, it was a fundamental principle of their lives that when possible they also engaged in practical and organisational issues. The famous 11th thesis on Feuerbach, by Marx, announced an important conclusion – the point was not to just interpret the world but to change it. This was a conclusion to which both Marx and Engels, adhered. Indeed, it was Marx’s contention that every `step of real movement’ gained by the working and oppressed peoples – provided it was not at the expense of another section of workers within the world – was, ‘worth more than a dozen programmes’. The term ‘real’ requiring further qualification. This view led Marx and Engels to engage in supporting the practical anti-capitalist struggles of the working classes for solidarity throughout the world.

The importance of practical association led them, among other things, to support the foundation of the first International Working Men’s Association. These practical struggles and organisational problems within working class politics brought them into contact with many forms of sectarianism, and the effects this had upon the working class anti-capitalist struggle. Referring to one, Ferdinand Lassalle (a prominent German socialist of the mid 19th century), but applying it to other sectarians, Marx noted:

“Moreover, like everyone who maintains that he has a panacea for the sufferings of the masses in his pocket, he gave his agitation from the outset a religious and sectarian character. Every sect is in fact religious.” (Marx/Engels Selected Correspondence. Pub. Progress Publishers. page 201)

Every sect is in fact religious! The link between religious sectarianism and political sectarianism was strong enough for Marx to draw the conclusion that the nature of sectarianism always contains a religious element. This is because sects, even political sects, are largely based upon various forms of ‘belief’. Sectarians consider they have the solution, the ‘key’, the ‘cure’ – or panacea as Marx termed it – for the problems of the working people. These solutions are usually in the form of doctrines, principles or guidelines which they insist working people need to follow. Sectarians are usually extreme individualists, who feel themselves to be intellectually superior to those around them.

As a consequence the sectarian ‘elect’, whether religious or political, have an exaggerated view of their own importance and value, an exaggeration which arrogantly equates themselves with the ‘guardians’ and oracles of the needs and humanist aspirations of the whole of society. Interestingly, it is an arrogant self-importance and fanaticism which rarely originates from within the working and oppressed classes, even if on occasion it takes root there. Such sectarians have the answers in their bible’s, pockets (or pamphlets) – if only ordinary people would take notice! Marx contributed a further comment on the characteristics of political sectarianism:

“…The sect sees its raison d’être and it’s point of honour not in what it has in COMMON with the class movement but in the particular shibboleth which distinguishes it from the movement.” (Ibid. Marx to Schweitzer 13/10/1868. Marx/Engels Selected Correspondence page 201)

This is an important point when considering the problem of solidarity of working and oppressed people in struggle against the capitalist system. The point of honour of the political sect and its reason for existence is not what it has in common with the workers and the broader anti-capitalist movement, but what ‘trade mark’ or shibboleth distinguishes it from the movement. These trade marks also serve to distinguish between sects themselves. Thus when political sectarians urge solidarity and unity among the working classes (or among other groups) they invariably mean unity in accordance with their own sectarian principles. Useful solidarity with and among the working class is seen by the sect as ultimately dependent upon the working class and the anti-capitalist struggle accepting and following their ‘party line’. This, for them, is the only solidarity worth having.

Working people, particularly those organised in trade unions, and community groups are treated as just so much raw material to be moulded and shaped by resolutions and demands. From the exaggerated importance of their own ideas and policies it will come as no surprise that sectarians are highly motivated to define, not only differences between themselves, other groups and ordinary working people, but also to define and discover ‘superior’ intellectual positions for themselves. To them such dogmatic distinctions are important.

So sectarians are not just out to be different – but superior! Consequently they are usually intolerant of alternative viewpoints. Thus, these highly motivated and often talented individuals, who aspire to leadership of the rank and file, cannot resist the temptation to utilise their energies and talents to discover and expose shortcomings and ‘weakness’ in other people, particularly rival leaders. The targets for such destruction, are not just those belonging to the classes of oppressors, but include other political groups ostensibly fighting for the same thing. They also manifest the same destructive intolerance to potential rivals within their own group and, of course, any solidarity of the working and oppressed masses, with other groups.

Marx went on to point out that where sects developed in the early stages of the workers’ struggles, it was usual for them to merge, and enrich the general anti-capitalist movement, but he made a clear distinction between those early stages and later ones. In the case of Lassalle, what was actually being demanded was the opposite of merging; that the class movement:..’should subordinate itself to the movement of a particular sect.’ Marx then stated positively that:

“The INTERNATIONAL was founded in order to replace the socialist or semi-socialist sects by a really militant organisation of the working class……The development of socialist sectarianism and that of the real working-class movement always stand in inverse proportion to each other. Sects are (historically) justified so long as the working class is not yet ripe for an independent historical movement. As soon as it has attained this maturity all sects are essentially reactionary.” (Ibid. page 253.)

It couldn’t be stated any clearer than that. The first International was founded in order to be rid of sectarianism, to replace sectarian groupings with a real organisation of the anti-capitalist working class. Further, in Marx’s opinion, anti-capitalist sectarianism and the real working class movement always stand in inverse proportion to each other and all sects are essentially reactionary!

These are the considered judgements of Marx on the question of sectarianism in 1868. The date is important. This was no impatient or youthful dismissal of sectarianism by Marx. It occurred after the research, drafting and publication of Capital Volume 1. Nor, as we have seen, was this an isolated condemnation. Even twenty years earlier, Marx and Engels had asserted in the Communist Manifesto that anti-capitalists;

“…. do not set up any sectarian principles of their own, by which to shape and mould the proletarian movement.” (Communist Manifesto. Peking edition page 49)

For over two decades, Marx and Engels had identified sectarianism as a problem. They argued that anti-capitalists should not try to shape and mould the proletarian movement; they shouldn’t set up sectarian principles of their own and demand that everyone else agrees to them. We have read that Marx argued that after a given stage of the working class movement, sects were essentially reactionary and that stage had been clearly passed by the publication of the Communist Manifesto. Marx was not alone in spearheading this attack upon sectarianism. Engels frequently characterised sectarians as either ‘narrow-minded people’ who want to stir everything into one ‘non-descript brew’, or on the other hand those who want to ‘adulterate’ the workers’ movement. In a circular from the General Council of the First International, Marx and Engels described the effects of sectarianism.

“Individual thinkers provide a critique of social antagonisms, and put forward fantastic solutions which the mass of workers can only accept, pass on, and put into practice. By their very nature, the sects established by these initiators are abstentionist, strangers to all genuine action, to politics, to strikes, to coalitions, in brief, to any unified movement.” (Marx. The First International. and After’. Pub. Penguin. page 298)

‘Strangers…..to any unified movement’! In addition to putting forward fantastic or ideal solutions to the mass of workers, sectarians of that period were also strangers to all genuine action. Marx here clearly uses the term genuine action and unified movement to differentiate between those actions urged by sectarians, in pursuit of their own fantastic solutions, and those undertaken by workers struggling against capital. This characteristic arises because these thinkers are convinced of the correctness of their ‘ideal’ solutions and see the real struggle of workers as muddle-headed, mundane or full of compromises.

When workers start to struggle independently, the sectarians always exert much energy in attempting to gain acceptance of their own particular analysis. They stubbornly (dogmatically) insist on the ‘correctness’ of their line. The language of sectarians is often revealing. They promote strategies which the working class or anti-capitalists ‘must’ follow (for theirs are superior strategies to the ones ordinary people could come up with) in order to succeed. The tactics they outline are the ones which workers ‘need’ to adopt (for they are the only realistic ones) in order to win the struggle or achieve the allotted task.

The respective roles of sectarian groups and working people are clear in the language contained in the slogans brought to each and every struggle. The leaders will lead, and the workers will follow. Each group’s sectarian line, no matter how fantastic, has to be fought for and followed, either openly or covertly, in each and every struggle of the working class or anti-capitalist movement. Sectarian groups will compete fiercely with each other at meetings of workers in order to have their particular line adopted. Meetings called to arrange solidarity become bogged down, and get nowhere, as representatives of sectarian groups compete to shape and mould the policies of those in attendance. The group’s line becomes paramount, the actual anti-capitalist struggle becomes secondary.

When a sectarian group is successful in getting workers to adopt their particular line or strategy, then there is much inner group rejoicing, self-congratulation and even gloating. The effects of the ‘line’ on the workers’ struggle, or the end result of the particular dispute or issue, matters little in comparison to this. The particular workers’ struggle could fail, but if the line of the sect had been accepted, then the outcome would be seen as positive. What matters to these would-be leaders of the working masses is evidence of increasing influence over workers, not the progress of the workers’ anti-capitalist struggle itself. Marx and Engels also accurately noted that sectarians tend to be ‘noisy’, ‘self-glorifying’, ‘boastful’ ‘arrogant’ ‘repulsive’, ‘bigoted’ and ‘capricious’. Sectarians come in for some more severe criticism by Engels in connection with inappropriate calls for unity. Thus he noted that:

“It is for this reason that the biggest sectarians and the biggest brawlers and rogues shout loudest for unity at certain times…..The movement of the proletariat is bound to pass through various stages of development; at every stage part of the people get stuck and do not join in the further advance; and even this alone is sufficient to explain why the `solidarity of the proletariat’ is in reality everywhere being realised in different party groupings, which carry on life and death feuds with one another, as the Christian sects in the Roman Empire did amidst the worst persecutions.” (Selected Correspondence. page 266/268)

So, according to Marx and Engels, sectarians were also frequently ‘brawlers’ and ‘rogues’. Again the link is made between religious tendencies within political forms of sectarianism. Engels also made clear that he had experienced sectarians shouting the loudest for unity at certain times, only to undermine it later. In a reference to English sectarianism and their theory, Engels also noted that :

“Anglo-Saxon sectarianism prevails in the labour movement, too. The Social Democratic Federation, just like your German Socialist Workers’ Party, has managed to transform our theory into the rigid dogma of an orthodox sect; ” (lbid page 449.)

Yet another aspect of anti-capitalist sectarianism is identified: the characteristic of transforming the flexible guidelines of revolutionary theory into a rigid dogma. In other words, sectarians, even those who call themselves Marxists, are quite capable of transforming the effective method espoused by Marx and Engels into a useless dogma. In particular we can note that according to Marx and Engels, sectarians justify their existence by the use of particular slogans or `positions’ (shibboleths) and they turn theory into dogma. They are essentially religious, and as soon as the working class is capable of independent movement, sectarians become profoundly reactionary.

Anyone who has come into contact with modern sectarians cannot fail to recognise that modern day 21st century sectarians and the groups to which they belong replicate to a greater or lesser extent the characteristics identified by Marx and Engel’s in the 19th century. It cannot escape the considered attention of those who try to understand the current wave of religious sectarianism in many parts of the world, that they share many of the characteristics and motivations that are manifested in the political variety. Characteristics which are listed in the article; ‘Sectarianism and the question of a general strike.’  

See also ‘The subtle characteristics of sectarianism’.

Roy Ratcliffe (June 2013.)

 

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WOOLWICH! ELITES IN DENIAL.

Posted on May 31, 2013 by stutteringsteps

Being ‘in denial’ is a concept I first encountered in regard to a friends developing alcoholism. In that particular form it refers to a persons denial of their excessive and out of control drinking. They deny what is obvious to all. However, once encountered as more than a simple noun, this behavioural concept is immediately recognisable as applicable to other experiences and other areas of social and political life. Denying an unpleasant characteristic or unfolding situation is also the province of those who cannot (or wish not to) own up to being centrally or tangentially involved in any unpleasantness, particularly when this unpleasantness is extreme. The aftermath of the recent horrific events at Woolwich has illustrated this phenomenon and once again ramped up the level of denial.

There must be therefore at least fifty shades of denial currently leaving the mouths or pens of the economic, financial, political and military elites. Very few if any of the bourgeois elite spokespersons or commentators can utter what more and more people are starting to realise – that the capitalist mode of production and the system of patriarchy are fundamental problems facing humanity. For the purposes of this article I wish to draw attention to two obvious states of denial that have intersected over the recent brutal incident on the streets of the UK. The incident in question was the recent horrific killing of a soldier by radicalised followers of Islam. It has become clear that the events leading up to this atrocity are not simple but complex. However, almost immediately following it, the two forms of denial were projected into the public domain.

The first form arose from comments emanating from the neo-liberal political elite in the UK and the US. This ‘official’ political source was anxious to disconnect this barbaric act from the West’s barbaric attacks upon innocent citizens of other countries (Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen etc.) committed during the so-called war on terror. The second form of denial came from the UK elite within the religion of Islam who wished to disconnect this barbaric act from their religion. Both sources quickly dismissed out of hand crucial pieces of evidence. The unequivocal public utterances of the perpetrators of this heinous event made clear that a) it was retaliation against the West’s actions in the east, and; b) was conducted in the name of Islam and Allah.

The ‘war on terror’ is actually – a ‘war of terror‘.

On being briefed about the horrific incident, David Cameron, the British Prime Minister on May 23 (2013) declared that the blame for it:

“..lies purely with the sickening individuals who carried out the attack.”

“This afternoons attack in Woolwich is a sickening, deluded and unforgivable act of violence. (Boris Johnson.)

These two extracts are enough to encapsulate a substantial part of the entire UK political elites (Left, Right and Centre) responses to these events. The key word in the first quote is ‘purely’. Of course the individuals are to blame for the attack, but the insertion of purely, clearly signals the political elites denial strategy. So does the lack of any reference to the possible motives for such an ‘ unforgivable act of violence’ – in the mayor of London’s comment which follows it. What other unforgivable acts of UK and US violence does he and his leader avoid mentioning?

The so-called war on terror could be more accurately designated as a ‘war of terror’ since the numbers and volume of personnel and armaments used against the targets and the communities they live among are astronomical in comparison. They far exceed the resources and casualties wielded against, and inflicted upon, those of us in the west. Massive shock and awe, is the Western elites default position when it goes after those who dare to oppose it, and shock and awe is what these defenceless communities regularly get.

The justified horror we feel when innocent citizens are killed and maimed on our streets in the UK and the US has been felt nearly everyday over the last decade in Iraq, Afghanistan and more recently in Libya, Yemen and Pakistan. In fact, sometimes the innocent citizens of these countries feel justified horror more than once per day. For this reason only the most bigoted or unthinking people can fail to recognise that such a war of targeted extermination would not create feelings of anger, resentment and eventual retaliation. Particularly when the West’s violence includes a circle of ‘collateral damage’ and a second, minutes-later strike, to eliminate those who rush to help. How sickening is that?.

Indeed, the UK governments security chiefs have more than once, recognised this very fact of revenge in copious documents readily available to the government. So Cameron, Johnson. Clegg, Miliband. Obama and the rest of the elite know this is the case. Indeed, after the terrible slaying of the soldier Lee Rigby, the perpetrators stayed at the scene of the crime and announced their motives. They stood around and spoke to passers by and asked their words to be filmed and recorded. Here a couple of crucial sentences.

“..because David Cameron (the) British Government sent troops to an Arabic country……I apologise that women had to witness this today but in our lands our women have to see the same. Remove your governments – they don’t care about you.” (Michael Adebolwale and Michael Adebolajo. 22 May 2013.)

So the link between the West’s atrocities in the Middle East, North Africa etc., and the killing was unmistakably in the minds of the perpetrators of this brutal act. Now let us consider whether there is any connection between Islam and the Woolwich killing.

Islam, killing and holy war.

There have been many claims from politicians and Islamic representatives during the past weeks, that violence and killing has nothing to do with the religion of Islam. Here are just two examples.

“There is nothing in Islam that justifies this truly dreadful act.” (David Cameron.)

“…The actions of the perpetrators are totally against the religion of Islam and the example of the prophet Muhammad.” (Sheikh Abdul Qayum. 24 May 2013.)

Elsewhere, (‘Religion – is – Politics’) I have demonstrated that all the three Abrahamic religions commenced as forms of political governance and have retained the textual instructions and thus the original ideologically based political ambitions in their scriptures. Islam is not alone in having violent textual directives at the very core of its ideology. Nor is it the only religion advocating killing members of other religions. It is a verifiable fact, that the sacred texts of Christianity and Judaism are littered with examples of killing in the name of God and numerous threats of barbaric punishments. However, since the Woolwich events it is Islam that is currently under the microscope again, so here are a few extracts from the Qur’an.

“The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His apostle and strive to make mischief in the land is only this, that they should be murdered or crucified of their hands and their feet should be cut off on the opposite sides…..” (Surah 5 v 33.)

If a devout believer considers that there are those who ‘wage war’ against Islam and are making mischief in the land’ then a choice of punishments are allowed by the Qur’an. This and many other such directives are the scriptural basis for the Islamist clerical pronouncements concerning the permissiveness of atrocities against those they perceive as making war against them. It is also the Islamic textual basis of those who carry out these acts, whether against British and American soldiers or young school children such as Malala Yousafzai. Within the Qur’an, there are over a dozen such direct courses of action on killing, almost 100 on various forms of hurting, harming and fighting and over 200 advocating retribution. Another example;

“Permission (to fight) is given to those upon whom war is made because they are oppressed, and most surely Allah is well able to assist them.” (Surah 22 v 39.)

We can see from this that the right to resist war and oppression, which is now embedded in International secular Law, is also found in the Qur’an in the form of a justification for ‘holy-war‘. This again is undoubtedly a Surah which will be imprinted upon a resolute believers consciousness. Note that it doesn’t specify what kind of fighting is allowed in such ‘war’ and so it is up to the believing reader and/or cleric to fill in this blank space. This next example introduces a ‘just cause’ permission to kill and this is granted to any surviving heirs of someone killed unjustly.

“And do not kill any one whom Allah has forbidden, except for a just cause, and whoever is killed unjustly. We have indeed given to his heir authority, so let him not exceed the just limits in slaying; surely he is aided.” ( Surah 17. v 33.)

So when we witness members of the Islamic religious community saying or writing that Islam does not condone murder of revenge killing, they are in a state of denial about the basis of their religion – if not about themselves. What they should say and what many undoubtedly mean – is that they are against murder and revenge killing! If they openly said this it should be genuinely applauded. However, this of course should cause them to question the foundations of their religion. Like it or not, a religion based solidly upon the complete sacredness of the Qur’an, does advocate, allow and justify murder along with revenge killing. So when one of the perpetrators of this attack declared;

“We swear by the almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you.”

He was merely expressing what both perpetrators knew from their studies of the Qur’an. Studies, no less, which were gained by attendance at circles organised by one Imam or another. In other words they and Imams who support them were merely echoing the spirit and letter of numerous sections of the Qur’an. To deny the connections in both cases is deny the obvious – it is to be in denial!

Defend Muslims but not Islam.

Many on the left have failed to distinguish between defending a human being and defending an ideology. Revolutionary-humanist anti-capitalists cannot condone this failure to rise above bourgeois ‘identity’ politics. It may sound an irreconcilable contradiction to argue for defending Muslim working men and women, yet rigorously and vigorously criticising their religion of Islam, but it is not. The contradiction is reconciled by recognising that human beings are not identical with any ideology they may have been indoctrinated with. It is also clearly possible to recognise that ideologies (religious or not) are forms of mental and frequently physical forms of enslavement.

As human beings those workers and poor currently attached to the religion of Islam are oppressed, exploited and marginalised by the capitalist mode of production. But they are also oppressed and exploited and marginalised by a religion and a religious elite, which demand submission to religious authority and denies many human rights to its members. At its roots and in much of its practice, Islam is a fiercely patriarchal religion which dominates and exploits at all levels the womenfolk, the children and the ordinary members attached to it.

Such religious domination and oppression may be administered lightly in some cases and violently in others – but oppression and exploitation is always at its core – as it is in all religions. So too is its flagrant hostility to other religions and those of no faith. This aggressive hostility and control may have diminished for a time, and even for considerable periods as with the Umayyad Caliphate in southern Spain etc. But muted or open, hostility and competition for the patriarchal governance of communities remains an essential part of Judaism’s, Christianity and Islam’s ideological foundations.

For this reason, we should defend Muslim communities against the attacks of state and the neo-fascists of all persuasions but make it clear (to them and others) we are defending them as oppressed and exploited members of the human family and are definitely not defending Islam or any other such archaic ideology. For it is an ideology which seeks to keep women as second-class citizens, promotes child marriages, violently discriminates against gays and lesbians, issues death Fatwa’s against those who criticise and promotes governance by ‘belief’ in an invisible, unknowable, therefore for all intents and purposes a non-existent male.

Finally. It is has become clear that many Muslims, particularly young Muslim’s have celebrated acts such as this and other such revenge attacks upon the UK and the US over the last decade. However, they should understand this is not the way to end their oppression or the capitalist mode of production which is economically, financially, politically and militarily at the root of their and other peoples oppression. Indeed, such despicable and inhuman acts only weaken organised opposition against the capitalist mode of production and allows the pro-capitalist political and military elite to brandish their weapons of death even more vigorously. There is a need for oppressed and exploited everywhere to elevate their human identity over any religious, national, cultural, gender, age forms of identity and unite to work toward a post-capitalist future where all human beings have sufficient necessaries to live a contented and fulfilled life.

Roy Ratcliffe (May 2013.)

[See also Religion and violence’  ‘The Shooting of Malalah Yousafzai ‘Religion versus Women’s Rights’ and ‘Humanity at a cross-roads’.]

 

Posted in Arab Spring, Critique, neo-liberalism, Politics | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

GUANTANAMO: A pinnacle of depravity!

Posted on May 24, 2013 by stutteringsteps

Over the past 100 years there have been many examples of how brutal, heartless and depraved some members of the human species can become. It seems there are no extremes to which some of our citizens will go if they can be persuaded it is to support a higher cause – such as my ‘nation‘; ‘religion‘ or ‘race‘.

The totalitarian horrors of Stalinism and the KGB gulag mentality, the concentration-camp tortures of the Nazis along with the Nakba and slow genocide  against the Palestinians by Israel are notable examples. They are evidence that the ruthless 19th century Imperialist ambitions of the capitalist and state-capitalist elite had not diminished one iota. With the destruction of institutionalised Stalinism and Fascism, the pinnacles of organised depravity are now being scaled by the often opposed elites of neo-liberal capitalism, Zionism and fundamentalist religion.

On the one hand we have the targeting of civilians by the patriarchal agents of religion who car-bomb cafes, schools and places of worship and on the other the patriarchal agents of capital and colonialism who bomb and drone-target civilians from a mile or so high. Among these multiple Himalayan-scale peaks of inhumanity and depravity stands the prison at Guantanamo Bay. It is a peak which only just manages to overshadow the ugly escarpment of Abu Ghraib.

Both instances shine a light on the inhuman persona of the armed agents of control paid for by the neo-liberal representatives of capital.  Of course, driving a bomb-loaded vehicle into a crowd and detonating it with scarce regard for young, old, women or men is one form of organised depravity.  Sitting at a computer console on one side of the world whilst guiding an armed drone to drop lethal weapons on far-away wedding parties or shoppers is nevertheless another.

Both activities take the development of a high degree of calculated inhumanity which many would class as evil, but these cases are not forced to confront face to face what they have done. The suicide bomber does not have to witness the deaths and disfigurements his or her act has caused. Nor does the gung-ho ‘space-invader’ cavalier sat in a darkened room triggering the weapons of his drones. They are far removed from the sight of shattered and disfigured bodies of the innocent men. women, and children who they have just cut to pieces and who then lie dead or wounded at the scene.

Not so those state agents of industrial capitalism at Guantanamo.  At Guantanamo the US states armed men and women daily face those they have water-boarded, sleep-deprived, shot and beaten. In this factory, at the end of each shift, they purposefully keep them alive and shackled so they can do it all again to them the very next day. In Guantanamo, therefore, evil takes a slightly more banal form.

The banality of evil.

The banality of evil is a term which has often been used to describe institutionalised acts of barbarity and depravity which have become routine.  That is to say those forms of barbarity which through repetition and mass-production are no longer exceptional but have become mechanised and methodical.  Guantanamo is only a small, but significant part of a huge neo-liberal military enterprise designed to kill on an industrial scale. Guantanamo is a small production sub-unit of this industry of death and has been designed and constructed to manufacture a particular end-product.

The stages and processes set into motion by this industrialised military sub-unit were designed to obtain just one commodity – information. The production process chosen for this particular information extraction process involves inflicting harm, pain, discomfort and fear which is applied to the raw material from which this information is drawn. The admitted tools or ‘instruments’ (the means of production) used in this manufacturing process are leg-chains, handcuffs, tables, stools, chairs, towels, water, numerous blunt objects, sleep deprivation and incessant noise.

Like any other manufacturing establishment there is at Guantanamo a well developed division of labour in its production process. Thus there are those who do the torturing, those who cook their meals, those who do the paper work, those who guard the base, those who do the cleaning, the maintenance and repairs. Most of the personnel involved can therefore distance themselves somewhat from the routine acts of torture. They can just focus on their small function in the system without accepting that they are a necessary part of a depraved production process.

Whilst all such cogs in this ‘factory of torture’ can use the rationalisation that they are just ‘following orders’, those not involved in applying the instruments can also comfort themselves with ‘I am only doing the; cooking, repairing, record-filing, driving etc‘. However, there are two job specifications in this unit of conveyor belt torture which are at the blunt – or sharp – end of this manufacturing ‘system’.

The two sets of ‘skilled’ workers in this disgusting and barbaric production process are first; those who turn the raw material of humanity into the final product of information, and second; the medical staff who salvage the raw material when it has been ‘worked-over’ to total exhaustion. Using the above-noted instruments of production the torturers apply them to their chosen captured human beings and after an appropriate period of production, the medical staff ensure that the raw material is sufficiently recovered to be ‘prepared’ to start the next shift.

The detainees in this way are no different than ‘slaves’ in this forced production process – they have no choice. The fact that these human subjects may be innocent of any wrong-doing is of no interest to those who work at the factory, their job is simply to obtain information.  Just like the capitalist mode of production they imitate, the senior military managers are also unconcerned as to the authenticity of the source of their captured raw material supplies. Nor are they concerned with the pollution – in the form of disgust and anger – which spills out of this nefarious industry and percolates around the world.

The skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled workers in this military factory of torture are often presented as being the modern part of a heroic tradition of courageous principled defenders of their respective communities.  But this is far from the truth. Modern combatants in this neo-liberal industry of death prefer to confront unarmed or lightly armed opponents with all the advantages of superior weaponry, superior armour and multi-dimensional back-up. One-to-one equal combat such as duelling or boxing is shunned like the plague.

At Guantanamo this disproportion is displayed in malignant detail. Detainees are doubly shackled, individually outnumbered and utterly powerless, whilst their torturers and their assistants ‘process’ this human material in well-armed, well-equipped, well-fed, well-rested teams. The inhumanity and cowardice displayed by this disproportional relationship between detainee and guards; between oppressor and oppressed at Guantanamo extends even to the latest developments at this nefarious production unit.

Forced feeding.

After years of abusive treatment many of the detainees in Guantanamo have resorted to one of the few methods of protest open to them. Unlike other enslaved persons, they cannot escape so they have gone on hunger strike.  Some having given up hope of any chance of release and with nothing to live for have decided it is best to die – in one of the only ways open to them. Others, hoping to stimulate world-wide protest against the inhumanity of Guantanamo, have joined them.

The response to this decision by the managers of this information processing factory has been typically cruel and banal. Although they have no further use for them – all the possible information has been wrung out of them – they have ordered the ‘work-force’ to force feed these unwilling victims. The work-force has duly obliged.  Since the victims have chosen not to eat, force feeding amounts to further torture. They have to be tackled and held down by several healthy strong guards, strapped securely to a chair so they cannot move, a rubber tube forced up their noses and down into their stomachs while a liquid is poured down the tube.

Such is the banality of this evil that although the detainees are of no further use in the information extraction process, the ’industry’ owners will not release them, nor let them die. The reason is not hard to grasp. They know what they do is despicable and are afraid of released prisoners publicising what has happened and taking legal action. They are also afraid of them dying because they will have to be released for burial and a public enquiry into the circumstances of death would be likely.

In either event the Nuremberg defence of ‘we were only following orders’ will be challenged and full disclosure of orders and practices at the Guantanamo torture factory will undoubtedly be required. As a result, such evil must be hidden away from view as much as possible and what is known must be rationalised as eloquently as can be achieved.  For this reason – in the twisted minds of those who staff the unit and oversee it from afar – torture must be continued – but now for a different purpose! And as a further consequence it must be excused by the usual sickening political-style ‘spin’.

Under the impact of the spreading knowledge of the hunger strike the managers of this torture industry have recently employed spokesmen to field public and media questions concerning the circumstances of forced feeding. Aping the political spin-doctoring mode, one such military spin-doctor explained not long ago that the forced feeding was a ‘humane act which was necessary to save lives which they were bound by their humanity to do’ (that is my own paraphrase).

What a bare-faced cheek! What gall to dress up illegal capture, enslavement and torture in the terminological clothing of caring humanity. What a bicameral state of mind these apologists for and executioners of depravity must be in. One cannot help wondering if such workers ever take this particular rationale home. Eg. “What did you do today/this month daddy? “Oh I helped to save the life of someone who wanted to die?” “Why did he want to die daddy? “Mm. Lets watch TV son.”

An interesting twist.

What a noble profession these death industry workers are engaged in. It must take some slick rationalisation and well-hewn double standards to kill and torture in the name of peace and justice and then go to sleep at night. But there is a further twist to this particular US pinnacle of banality and depravity. The President of the United States is the senior military commander of this industry of death. As such he can order the killing of foreign or domestic citizens without any due process of law.

So he could if he so wished order the ending of torture and the closure of Guantanamo. But he hasn’t. Of course as the first black president he would risk condemnation from many people who opposed this (along with other things) and might even dent his future career prospects a little so this may be bothering his mind somewhat. However, what isn’t bothering his mind is the following. What is going on at Guantanamo – under his watch – is many of the things that happened to his black brethren slaves in America not very long ago.

Black slaves in America in the 18th and 19th centuries were also captured illegally, double-shackled, transported, beaten, tortured, force-fed, kept in pens, humiliated, separated from their partners, children and friends and forced to produce – in that case cotton, tobacco and sugar. Yet isn’t that exactly what a black President is allowing to happen to brown-skinned Arab men in the 20th and 21st centuries in order to produce a different product – information?

The process is remarkably the same; capture them by force from afar, transport them in shackles, pen them up and then brutally force them to produce what the neo-liberals want. To end the torture and depravity of slavery in Europe and America it took many years of campaigning and changes in the means of production. Sadly it seems it will take as long for this new form of depravity to be ended. Guantanamo is just one pinnacle, Abu Ghraib, the war in Iraq and Afghanistan are others – a full list would be a long one.

Guantanamo also demonstrates the fact that just because one section of humanity has been brutally treated as raw material for another, it does not mean that all members of that section will learn humanity or humility. Obama, a fortunate member of a previous oppressed people, shows the same lack of humanitarian concern for the enslaved inmates of Guantanamo as do the Israeli Jews for the Palestinians.

The ruling elites – from wherever they are drawn – can see no further than their own immediate interests. In the case of Guantanamo, it is in the immediate interests of the North American neo-liberal elite, of which Obama is now part, to keep open this publicly funded information processing unit. This is despite the fact that the fall-out from its existence fuels anger, resentment and (along with other atrocities such as  invasions, occupations and drone strikes) equally depraved acts of revenge.

Memories are long and because oppression, exploitation and such barbaric depravity have become the norm it will consequently take a long time for forgiveness and peace to enter this world.  The results of this elite-led inhumanity is something we all have to presently live with and because of this hopefully more of us will come together to work against it.

Roy Ratcliffe (May 2013)

Posted in Critique, neo-liberalism, Politics, US military atrocities | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments