From: "Dave Coull" <d.y.coull-AT-dundee.ac.uk>
Date: Tue, 13 Apr 1999 13:01:36 GMT
Subject: Re: anarchism and the international system



Next to the Macmanus Galleries, near the centre of Dundee,
there is a small monument to the 16 men from Dundee
who died fighting against fascism in Spain. Of course
the sixteen names listed on that monument are not
the sum total of Dundee's contribution to the Spanish 
Civil War   -   a lot more than sixteen went from 
this town to fight in Spain , but the monument 
just lists the ones who died fighting fascism there. 

But of course, they weren't  _just_  fighting fascism.
Most of them were socialists or communists with
illusions about state socialism which we anarchists
would not share. Nevertheless, they were idealists
who believed that they were fighting for a better world.
They  _had_  to be idealists. They certainly didn't 
fight for financial gain. Nor did they fight for patriotism
    -    the British state did everything it could to put
obstacles in their way to prevent them from going
to Spain. 

It was Roger who first made a comparison between
the Spanish Civil War and the situation in Kosovo.
In response to Roger, I pointed out some of the obvious
differences between these two situations. Now Roger says

>the fight of the kosovars will not pass the Coull test 
>and fails to qualify for anarchist support.  sorry, lads.

Roger, it isn't "the Coull test" . What you inaccurately
call "the fight of the kosovars" (you mean the KLA)
fails to rouse the kind of support that Spain did,
not because of some mythical "Coull test", but
because of the test of reality. The reality is that
for large numbers of people to be prepared 
to fight, and possibly to die, not as mercenaries
who will earn good money if they survive,
but as impoverished idealists, in a foreign
country, they need something to fight  FOR ,
not just something to fight  AGAINST. That
isn't  "the Coull test". That is just reality.

It is also  _your_  reality , Roger.  _You_
haven't volunteered to fight in Kosovo.

Many Muslim fundamentalists went from
many different countries to fight in Afghanistan,
because they believed in an Islamic revolution.
We may be horrified by the results, but let's
recognise that, so far as they were concerned,
they had something to fight  FOR .

But so far as anarchists are concerned, Roger,
the reality is that the only situation which will
inspire lots of anarchists to go and fight in 
a foreign land is if that situation contains 
a significant anarchist element and appears
(at least to us) to offer the possibility of spreading
a libertarian socialist revolution. This seems
so obvious to me that the surprising thing
is that it even needs saying.


Dave