File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1998/marxism-international.9803, message 44


From: jbm7-AT-tutor.open.ac.uk (Jim Monaghan)
Date: Tue, 3 Mar 1998 11:47:00 -0000
Subject: M-I: Nation Building


I have always though that many have a static concept of national
liberation struggles.Oppression though usually class based is sometimes
disguised as on race, ethnic , religious, caste etc grounds.On many
occassions pre capitalist forms of oppression continue on and
accentuate class oppression.
Puerto Rican struggles. This is two fold, the national liberation
struggle in Puerto Rico proper and the struggle for national rights (eg
language) by the Puerto Rican minority in the USA.
The position of other minority nationalities in the USA is similar,
chicanos, native Americans, African Americans.Th old American SWP had
some interesting insights to the role of national struggles in the
American revolution.The imposition of English as a state language must
be opposed by democrats (not members of the party of that name) and
socialists. In New Zealand the striuggle of the Maori people must be
integrated into the programme of any socialist party worh the name.
There is also a national element in the struggle of Turkish people in
Germany for their democratic rights.Besides the legitimate claims of
emigrant national groups such as th Turks and Kurds in Germany there
are also the rights of old nationalities such as the Bretons,
Corsicans, etc. How firs the Wends in the united capitalist Germany 
In Ireland a part of the national territory was sundered with the
maximum land area that could provide a secure majority. The extremist
Africaans were plotting the same manouvre in South Africa.This had a
crippling effect on both parts of the country ushering in Connolly`s
prediction of a carnival of reaction.It is interesting that the small
groups of progressive people of a protestant background usually have a
pro nationalist outlook. The dominance of the Republican movement which
with all it`s faults is a consciously secular movement gives hope for
the future. An explicitely catholic reaction to oppression has failed
to develope Republican Socialists consider that a nation has not yet
been built due to the failure to complete the democratic tasks of the
national struggle.In contrast in Palestine the capitulation of the
secular nationalists of the Arafat group has strengened the islamists.
I feel that it is necessary to give attention as well to questions of
regional oppression caused by amongst other things the anarchic
developments of capitalism, eg no land for housing in the large urban
centres while an exodus occurs elsewhere.


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