The previous post from "Green Left Parramatta" (on the marxism list) showed
that the DSP contradicts itself. In the case of the occupation of East
Timor, one of the gains is that "East Timor will be allowed to become
formally independant and the East Timorese will be able to choose their own
government and policies...."
How touching that the DSP believes that the Aussie army et al will alow them
such complete democratic rights. Obviously the best solution to put forward
then is that Imperialist armies occupy the whole planet- then we will all
get "our own governments and policies". As strange as this notion is, it has
a complete contradiction inside the DSP itself- their line on Kosovo.
Forgetting for a moment that I don't believe Kosovo was in even the same
hemisphere as East Timor as far as oppressed nations are concerned, the line
was that the war unleashed by NATO was designed to halt true independance
for the KLA led insurgents. Now, considering that the DSP likens both
Milosevic and Suharto to pretty much the same thing, both are "servants and
collaborators with Imperialism", etc, there is a mite of a problem here.
Again, I will forget how strange a notion it is that Milosevic's Yugoslavia
is in the same camp as Indonesia. This "explanation" of the East Timor
sitation begs the following set up:
(Purely because I would like to reinterate my distance from the line on
Kosovo, I do it now..)
1. The DSP has us believe that the KLA and Falintil are both leaders of
genuine national liberational movements.
2. The DSP has told us that the governments of Yugoslavia and Indonesia are
both out to once and for all crush these movements.
3. The DSP has expressed how important it is to oppose military intervention
on the part of Imperialism in Yugoslavia, but not to oppose "peacekeepers"
(read- military intervention) in East Timor.
The occupation of Kosovo (despite the "reverse" ethnic cleansing) has
produced a de-facto seperate state for the Kosovars. We are told that the
war was to stop a "truly independant" Kosovo from emerging. That the KLA
were underway in overthrowing the horrid Yugoslav state and about to set up
a new republic. The current "peace" is an occupation that is designed to
hold back real independance from the virtuous Kosovars (ie-the KLA!). So, in
this case we have administrators and others who are working with/for the KLA
but no matter- this is simply not good enough. This has been the line, with
my embellishments, of course. The point they raise over and over again was
that the Imperialists will never allow true independance, even if they hand
it over on paper. Even if they stop "ethnic cleansing", it is never
permissable to have Imperialism sticking its nose in the affairs of other
countries/nations. Despite the fact that we were all treated to watching KLA
representatives nighty denounce the "Totalitarian Stalinist regime" of
Milosevic and expressing that the bombing must continue, we were told that
this was not enough, the KLA didn't know what they were getting into, was
the inferrance.
Then we have East Timor, a situation where there was a campaign of "ethnic
cleansing" of a truly brutal and massive scale. For the time being, the idea
of Imperialist armies being worse than the problems they profess to solve
has been tossed out. As well, now they have gone one step further and stated
as I reposted at the top of the post, that within the Imperialist occupied
territory indeed true democracy (of a bourgeois type) can blossom. That
formal independane and choosing the course of history for the East Timorese
themselves can now begin. That, sometimes, in fact IT IS permissable to have
a little faith in the Imperialists ability to work out better arrangements
for oppressed peoples than previously existed. How strange, I feel, that in
the first case the DSP demanded the arming of the KLA, but in this case the
idea of arming the East Timorese independance movement is not a worthwhile
call. I wonder since we are now in the habit of making seperate demands of
Imperialism other than to get out, we cannot arm this movement, but it would
be good to do it in Kosovo.
Perhaps it is not a loss of Marxism, but rather a loss of confidence that is
at work here. It seems as if giving advice on how to live up to
"humanitarian" pretensions is the order of the day for the DSP. In all
countries that are under the weight of CNN and the like, we get handed
different issues, and then we are given two or three different frameworks
for what the debate will be. I could use the word "opportunism", but that
would imply that this is something deliberately being done on the part of
our comrades in Australia. Rather, I fear what is going on is that the CC no
longer believes in the original premises of Marxism, without even
recognizing their own doubts. The frameworks that are posed by CNN are taken
at face value by the DSP these days, so the positions they take are merely
the logical final outcome of trying to piece together the most leftward of
all options. It is also a way to participate in mass rallies within
Imperialist countries and not end up just shrieking at them about
"compromise", etc. Unfortunately, DSP comrades, this strategy, conscious or
otherwise, is something we are all too familiar with. It is the slow
watering down of true revolutionary thinking, done in the name of building
the mass movement/party. It is why all social democratic parties are doomed
to just be "also rans". It is how we end up "defending the motherland" in
times of conflict. It is the death knell of true, fighting revolutionary
spirit- the one designed to build a new revolutionary world- not the one
where we take credit for accomplishing the great feat of "forcing"
imperialism to tame the nasty savages.
Macdonald
***************************
How many times have I wondered if it really possible to forge links with a
mass of people when one has never had strong feelings for anyone, not even
one's own parents; if it is possible to have a collectivity when one has not
been deeply loved oneself by individual human creatures. Hasn't this had
some effect on my life as a militant- has it not tended to make me sterile
and reduce my quality as a revolutionary by making everything a matter of
pure intellect, of pure mathematical calculation?
---Antonio Gramsci, 1926.
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