From: "Harald Beyer-Arnesen" <haraldba-AT-online.no>
Subject: Re: AUT: Reply to Harald, 7th Iteration
Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2001 11:32:25 +0200


Tahir writes:
"... what is precisely required is a non-nationalist position on the
national question.
I think if any theoretical question can be described as urgent, then it is
this one.


Very well put.

To answer this all too briefly, I  think it appropriate to turn it into
two questions (I am not sure that national is in fact the right word,
but that is of less importance here):

1. Forms of discrimination and oppression within the borders of
a state, as for instance Kurds in Turkey.

As I see it it , this should be posed as a civil rights issue (which
btw mostly have been the way the Kurds within Iraq have posed it,
even if often armed). Ideally (though not at all realistic that such
a view would have gained many follwers at the time) I also believe
that Algerians would have been much better off today had they
fought a battle for full and equal rights as French citizens (and not
only on paper.)

2. The second question relates to the uneven distribution of
wealth on a global level, as well as globalised policing.

The only real answer to that is globalised worker-to worker
solidarity.

This is all too simplistic but I think none the less essentially
correct.  The real question to me is how to bring this from a
stage of abstract theory to concrete reality. How do we for instance
answer the all to frequent bloody struggles between christans
and muslims in Nigeria? And how to organise in the "the North"
to create direct links of workers solidarity with waged and
unwaged workers in "the South," in particular in a time with a
high level of atomisation within the working classes.

Harald








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