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 --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
Display software: ArchTracker © Malgosia Askanas, 2000-2005