Should the left call for Taliban victory?
Socialist Worker
AS SOCIALISTS, we support the right of oppressed peoples to fight for
self-determination unreservedly, just as we oppose imperialism, without
caveat.
This perspective is generally accepted by the left without question in
contexts such as Latin America or Africa, where bitter fights against
U.S. and European imperialism have been fought and, in some cases, won.
Yet, when it comes to the Middle East and Afghanistan today there is
suddenly much less clarity about what radicals and Marxists should be
saying. Nowhere is that more evident than in the case of Afghanistan,
which has suffered under the yoke of U.S. imperialism since 2001 (with
active U.S. interference in the country since at least the 1970s).
The idea that the Taliban, as a movement fighting against U.S.
occupation, is a force we should be supporting is, unfortunately, a
somewhat controversial position to hold, even on the far left. This is a
serious mistake and speaks both to the extent to which Islamophobia has
penetrated the left, as well as to the lack of understanding of the
social dynamics of an oppressed and devastated country like Afghanistan.
We are all familiar with the lies and excuses used to justify the
invasion and occupation of Afghanistan in the wake of the September 11
attacks. Bush and his coterie of crooks and warmongers told us that only
a military invasion could liberate the people, and especially the women,
of Afghanistan from the brutal, misogynistic and "medieval" Taliban
movement.
There was no mention, of course, of the substantial support offered to
the Taliban regime in the late 1990s when Clinton was president and in
the early days of the Bush presidency, nor of the long and ugly history
of U.S. intervention in Central and South Asia, which was an important
precondition for the rise of Islamism.
We should condemn unreservedly the oppression of women and the general
social conservatism of the pre-2001 Taliban regime, as well, of course,
as their efforts to cut deals with regional and global superpowers
against the interests of the vast majority of Afghans. However, we must
also unreservedly condemn the racism and Islamophobia used as an
ideological fig leaf to justify invasion and imperialism, and it is the
left's weakness on this issue, which has blinded many to the new
realities on the ground in Afghanistan.
Before addressing the important question of who the Taliban actually
are, it is important to understand the material conditions Afghans face.
Afghanistan is a devastated country. It is ranked at or near the bottom
of a broad range of social indicators, such as levels of poverty, infant
mortality, literacy, per capita income, prevalence of easily preventable
diseases and so forth. Most major cities in Afghanistan, including the
capital Kabul, are in ruins (despite claims of "reconstruction" by NATO
imperialists) and decent roads, electricity, clean water, sanitation and
basic social services are unheard of for most of the population,
especially in the rural areas. The majority of the population ekes out a
living on a subsistence basis, and the struggle for survival is the
overarching concern for most Afghans.
In a nutshell, there is no Afghan working class or progressive petit
bourgeoisie to speak of, and the major social classes (aside from the
puppet regime and it's assortment of bandits and thugs) are the poor
peasantry and the Islamic clergy.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
THE SIGNIFICANCE of this to a discussion of anti-imperialist resistance
in Afghanistan should be obvious to any serious historical materialist.
This question cannot be thought about in the abstract, it must be
considered in light of the material realities on the ground. Such
realities necessarily shape the kinds of social forces and the character
of class struggle in that country and make it highly likely that any
grassroots resistance will have a strongly religious character, given
that the rural clergy are the only force capable of uniting the
peasantry against the comprador ruling class.
The following point cannot be stressed enough; whilst the U.S. remains
in Afghanistan, economic and social development will not occur much
beyond current levels. This in turn means that the Taliban, as a
broad-based movement of poor farmers and lower clergy, is the face of
anti-imperialist resistance in Afghanistan for the foreseeable future.
To put it another way, if we, as avowed anti-imperialists, intend to
wait around for a resistance movement that agrees with us on every
issue, including the need to fight the oppression of women, gays, racial
and religious minorities, etc., we'll be waiting a long time. The
Taliban is the resistance in Afghanistan and we must support it,
critically, but unreservedly.
The Taliban that ruled Afghanistan prior to the U.S. invasion no longer
exists. The U.S. and NATO routinely refer to any act of resistance as
the work of the "Taliban" (meaning the followers of Mullah Omar), much
as every act of resistance in Iraq was the work of "Baath loyalists."
To be sure, there are attacks being carried out by people who support
the former regime, but many, perhaps most, resistance fighters have no
particular loyalty to the former leadership and some are actively
hostile to it.
Anand Gopal, one of the few independent journalists actively trying to
find out what is actually happening in Afghanistan has written some very
useful and insightful work on this, and as he points out, the ranks of
the Taliban have been swelled in recent years by rural peasants who have
been radicalized as a result of US/NATO brutality, including the
indiscriminate air attacks which have killed thousands of Afghans.
The Taliban are increasingly espousing a strong nationalist message and,
in some cases, have substantially moderated their social conservatism in
order to build a more broad-based and effective resistance movement.
It is also the case that the "Taliban" is effectively a blanket term for
a coalition of groups, some drawn from the tiny strata of educated
middle class Afghans, which aim to eject foreign troops from their
country. In short, when the U.S. and its allies use the term "Taliban"
they want us to think of public stonings, music bans and
ultra-conservative clerics--and if we follow their lead we do a grave
disservice to the Afghan resistance and only help to perpetuate
Islamophobic caricatures of "crazed, bearded extremists."
There is no fundamental difference between the liberation theology
movements in South America and the popular Islamist resistance movements
in the Middle East and Asia, movements such as Hezbollah, Hamas and the
Taliban. To be sure, the former were less socially conservative, but as
religiously colored grassroots resistance movements they are essentially
the same kind of manifestation of class resistance.
The left needs to ask itself why it is much more critical of Muslims
expressing class anger in a religious form than of South American
Christians; to my mind, unexamined Islamophobia explains much of this
discrepancy.
Every U.S. and NATO tank that the Taliban destroy, every
Karzai-appointed stooge they assassinate and every town or village they
liberate is a victory for our side and a grievous blow to U.S.
imperialism--we would do well to remember that and to offer our
solidarity and support for a Taliban victory in Afghanistan.
Nick K., from the Internet
Link: http://www.uruknet.de/?s1=1&p=57087&s2=19
<http://www.uruknet.de/?s1=1&p=57087&s2=19>.
--
Linda
*http://freedetainees.org <http://freedetainees.org/>
"If we shadows have offended, Think but this,
and all is mended, That you have but slumber'd
here While these visions did appear..."
- William Shakespeare
*
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