File spoon-archives/bhaskar.archive/bhaskar_1999/bhaskar.9904, message 36


From: "Jonathan Pratschke" <jonpr-AT-energy.it>
Subject: Re: BHA:International law a subset of critical morality
Date: Sat, 17 Apr 1999 12:56:04 +0200


Tobin Nellhaus wrote:

> Well, shit (I'm speaking as Guy on the Street), being a capitalist
running dog
> doesn't sound very good, so I guess I'll reject that one.  So what's the
> other side got to offer?  Opposition to imperialism.  Which consists of
..
> what?  So far as I can see, political debate, a protest or two, maybe
some
> "letters to the editor"?  All of which achieves ... well, you tell me.

> Meanwhile, the Kosovo crisis.  What the hell does yelling about
imperialism
> *do* for these people?  Sure, you explain that there's a bigger pattern
out
> there, but it's like you're seeing the forest but oblivious to the trees,
> which happen to be burning.  So, I ask you, what do you think we should
do
> that will address *their* needs at this awful moment?  These are real
> people!

This message provides an opportunity to analyse one set of responses to the
NATO bombing of Serbia and Kosovo which have emerged from the Left. The
ex-Stalinist left and social democrats across Europe have supported NATO,
giving precisely the justification which Tobin offers as the view of 'the
man in the street'. This combines a (justifiable) sense of outrage about
the treatment of Albanians in Kosovo with a pessimisim about the organised
working class which I think is questionable.

Because these groups of (ex) left-wingers no longer believe in any
alternative to capitalism, they have flipped over completely into
cheerleading for the super-powers. The recent NATO bombing is not the first
example of this phenomenon, which also characterised some responses to the
war in the Gulf among ex-CP members in Britain, France and Italy. Because
they have 'written off' the working class, they are now in a situation of
individual despair as they witness the horrors of contemporary capitalism,
and end up rowing in behind the media's demonisation of Milosevic, Saddam
etc. and backing NATO, the UN etc. "Somebody do something, make it stop!"
Meanwhile, there is a collective amnesia in relation to the last half
century and what it may have taught us about the motives and effects of the
intervention of the super-powers in different parts of the globe.

> And you fail to answer, or to even suggest anything that *somebody*
> (me, NATO, the UN, my labor union, whatever) could do that would help
them.
> Basically you say that the issue is imperialism, which seems like (and to
an
> important extent *is*) a non sequitur, since it doesn't address the
> immediate need.

> Small wonder I find
> myself sliding toward NATO, which at least is trying to do something
about
> the crisis, no matter how clumsily, stupidly, invasively, or
> counterproductively.

The point is that capitalism continually produces problems (let's just call
them that) which either cannot be resolved under capitalism or which can
only be resolved at enormous human cost. This stretches from the
devastating effects of economic crisis, through various nasty forms of
nationalist and fundamentalist politics to environmental disaster. It may
be difficult for people to accept this point and continue to believe that
capitalism 'is the best system available'. It is difficult to stare these
contradictions straight in the face, so therefore we see hysterical appeals
for more intervention, more bombs, ground troops etc. precisely from those
ex-leftists who previously looked to Russia as an alternative. For me, it
is just another example of how rotten their politics were in the first
place. I am sorry, but there are no quick-fix solutions which leave all the
structures intact, which merely intervene in Kosovo and elsewhere to patch
things up on the surface. The kind of agency that Tobin appears to defend
is individual, not collective, and highly constrained.

> The problem isn't that I'm cynical about the possibilities of action
> from below (and as one who co-started a successful union drive, among
other
> types of collective action, I find the charge amusing): the problem is
that
> you present me with literally no way to be an agent.

I think that Tobin is highly cynical about the possibilities of action from
below, despite what he may have done in his union, and his abstract
discussion of 'agency' replaces any concrete consideration of the existing
possibilities for influencing events in the Balkans. He asks for somebody
to spell out the alternative to the NATO intervention, so I will do so.
Ordinary people, in the US and in Europe, by getting out into the streets,
by arguing with their work-mates and fellow students, by occupying their
schools and offices, by pushing for work stoppages against the bombings,
and by demonstrating, can heighten the contradictions within Serbian
nationalism as well as forcing their own governments to pull out of the
war. This is the best way to ameliorate the situation in the Balkans.

Any form of nationalism is based on massive contradictions - particularly
between what it promises for the 'chosen few' and what it actually
delivers. Think about what this means for Serb workers, whose living
standards have inversely reflected the rising tones of Milosevic's
nationalism. For one thing, this meant massive demonstrations and strikes
against his regime in Serbia just a few years ago. It is no accident that
the first world war was brought to an end by a wave of revolutionary
struggles across the world which saw millions of workers fighting against
the nationalist leaders who just a few years earlier they had gone to war
to defend. The only thing that could have saved Milosevic from increasing
mobilisations from below was... foreign intervention.

Perhaps Tobin will say "well, where are all these people who should be
demonstrating and going on strike?". Pessimists will always use the absence
of 'more radical action' as an excuse for doing nothing. Perhaps in the US
they say "well, if more than 100,000 people were marching every week
against the war, then perhaps we could do something". In Italy that is
precisely what is happening, but still the ex-Communists follow the
Americans into war. In fact, there is an enormous potential for
mobilisation against this war. Just as there are contradictions in Serbian
nationalism, we in the West are being asked to pay for an enormously
expensive military intervention just as a global recession is creeping over
the horizon! And who do you think NATO will rely on as cannon fodder if
they eventually decide to send in troops on the ground?

The real value of demonstrations and working-class self-activity in the
West is that it offers Serb workers an alternative to nationalism and shows
them that working-class solidarity can win. The effect of a general strike
against the war would be electrifying in Serbia. The one thing that
Milosevic, Clinton, Blair etc. all fear the most is that ordinary people
might start to take their fate into their own hands. This is a very general
argument which is about fighting capitalism, not just about stopping the
war in the Balkans. The role of the left is to generalise the lessons of
the past and lead those who are ready to fight in an expanding, class-based
fight-back. In the course of finding out who are enemies are (i.e. Clinton,
Milosevic, D'Alema), we will also gain an understanding of who our allies
are (the Serbian working class).

> The Guy on the Street is quite
> right to have a gut reaction against your position.  Because (to take up
the
> role once more) as a person horrified by the events in Yugoslavia, I want
a
> way to be an agent--I need a way to *act*.  Which (role off again) is
where
> my being in theater studies figures in the argument we're having. 
Because,
> while I don't think a lot about international relations, I *do* think
about
> how people do and (so to speak) achieve politics.  The red thread through
my
> work is, how do people perform political acts?

People perform political acts when they stop talking in small groups and
start getting organised. If a movement emerges which looks serious and
offers convincing answers to the real problems people face in their lives,
then it will attract much wider support. This is why we should start with
the existing possibilities of building a concrete opposition to the war.

Jonathan Pratschke
Via Giordano Bruno 47
Rome, Italy
jonpr-AT-energy.it





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