Re: [A-List] Kurds

["Christopher Black" <bar@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Henry,

Correct. The left made the same mistake in supporting the destruction of
what remained of socialism in Yugoslavia by supporting the KLA terrorists,
the proxy army of the US imperialists, as some sort of national liberation
front. In doing so they supported imperialism and the cutting of the throats
of the working class of Yugoslavia, Albanians included. Does the US give a
damn about the Albanians now? They were used. That's it.  While the Kurds
may have aspirations to idependence, to take advantage of and support
imperialism to get it is a betrayal of the international working class. And
this is clear from the fact that many Kurds, that is the members of the
Kurdish workers party, perhaps the largest and best-armed, stated they would
not fight the Iraqis but instead would fight American and Turkish troops if
they entered their territory. They got it right. They also recognized that
if they fought with the US against the central Iraq government, they would
in the end be slaughtered by the US as, lest we forget, they are all
communists.  It seems that this conversation re the Kurds has gone on in a
vacuum as the PKK is never mentioned though they are the most important of
the Kurdish groups.

Further, one can bet your boots that right now the US is hunting down all
members of the Iraqi Communist Party and trade union leaders to eliminate
them as the ICP has a lot of influence in Iraq and can be counted on to form
a resistance against the occupation. This will be done under cover of
continuing hostilities and one can only hope the ICP, continually hunted
down by Saddam in his role as CIA agent, "Mr. Yes" as he was known in Iraq,
has taken the necessary precautions.

One can also hope the Iraqi and Kurdish communists agree on a common program
of resistance.

Chris

It is only the capitalist Kurdish groups that make noises about assisting
the US and there influence is highly over-rated.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Henry C.K. Liu" <hliu@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <a-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sunday, April 13, 2003 2:44 PM
Subject: Re: [A-List] Kurds


> The Kurd leader just announced on CNN that the Kurds will remain part of
> "democratic" Iraq and they want only "semi-autonomy".
>
> So much for the Western Left's support for Kurdish independence as a
> pretext in their giving help to imperialist invaders.
>
> The Western Left is not only powerless, they repeatedly allow themselves
> to play into the hand of imperialism.
>
> It you support democracy, you support capitalism.  It's that simple.
>
> Henry C.K. Liu
>
> Henry C.K. Liu wrote:
> > Nestors is correct.  Concepts such as liberation, democracy,
> > independence, freedom, etc. do not have meaning outside of political
> > context.
> >
> > One cannot be liberated from national libeeration. One cannot be free to
> > commit crimes. Kurdish struggle for autonomy should receive sympathy,
> > but their siding with imperialist invasion is despicable.
> >
> > Tom Friedman defined in today's NY Times Saddamism: an entrenched Arab
> > mindset, born of years of colonialism and humiliation that insists that
> > upholding Arab dignity and nationalism by defying the West is more
> > important than freedom, dmocracy and modernization.  And he identtifies
> > Saddamism as the real enemy.
> >
> > Saddamism will now form the new basis of pan Arabism. I don't know why
> > Saddam did not put up a fight, as expected by everyone, Arabs and the
> > imperialist alike.  Perhaps this is his new unconventation tactic, to
> > trun the fight into a protracted guerilla struggle, perhpas not, that he
> > merely failed to answer to the call of history. Prhaps he was killed.
> > But if he did not intend to fight, he should give up before the war
> > started.  The entire Arab world is disappointed by his behavior. But the
> > potential of Saddamism is alive.
> >
> > The US will succeed in establish a "democratic" regime in Iraq, just as
> > it did in Japan , German, South Korea, the Phillipines and elsewhere.
> > These "democracies" all voted against socialism. Those counting for the
> > US to fail in setting up "demcractic" regimes around the world are
> > merely dreaming. The US neo-liberal empire is a "democractic" empire.
> > That is why "democracy" is counterrevolutionary, a point many First
> > World Western Marxts always fail to grasp.
> >
> > You support democracy, you get capitalsim. It's that simple.
> >
> > Henry C.K. Liu
> >
> >
> >
> > Nestor Gorojovsky wrote:
> >
> >> Bob Enoch asks whether "the Kurds don't have a right to be
> >> nationalists".  From the point of view of bourgeois ideology, they
> >> have all the right on Earth. Not from the point of view of socialism.
> >>
> >> History is a terrible Goddess, all of us Marxists know that, etc.
> >>
> >> The problem with the minor nationalities in the age of imperialism is
> >> that _not every national struggle is, by itself, revolutionary_. The
> >> ultimate goal of national struggles is to generate the conditions for
> >> national independence and the constitution of a self-centered economy
> >> that can survive in the global scenario.
> >>
> >> Thus, in the end, any national struggle seeks "independence". Not
> >> every "independence", however, operates in the sense of the struggle
> >> for socialism.
> >>
> >> I will begin by some obvious examples, such as US independence, or
> >> German independence. The condition for their independence is the
> >> colonization of others ("Why is it that our oil lies under Iraqi
> >> soil"). For such nationalities, the only way to keep faithful to
> >> themselves _and_ to the general advancement of humanity is to trascend
> >> capitalism, step ahead, and become socialist states.
> >>
> >> A second kind of example, which I broach now because it has to do with
> >> the Kurdish question, is what I would term "enclave" national
> >> questions. Israel is the most appropiate case here. Whatever many on
> >> the Left may believe, pro-imperialist, Zionist, Israelis are
> >> definitely NOT a Western outpost without qualifications. Whether we
> >> Marxists like it or not, there exists an Israeli nationality, a child
> >> of both imperialist expansion on the Middle East and the barbarian
> >> massacre of Jews in Europe during World War II. The problem with this
> >> kind of "national struggles" is that they can only achieve
> >> "independence" through support from and active promotion of the
> >> general interest of the imperialist powers in the area where they are
> >> implanted. These enclaves, just like the peoples in the First World
> >> great powers, need to revolutionize their capitalist structures and
> >> step ahead towards socialism, which will be the only way they can
> >> survive without murdering everyone around them.
> >>
> >> A third, and more complex case, is that of peoples and countries which
> >> have been victimized by imperialism in the periphery. Iraq, says Bob,
> >> has been "invented" by the British while the Kurds are much older.
> >> True enough. But it does not follow that the right to "independence"
> >> of a Kurd nation has the same (or even a higher) level than the right
> >> to independence of the Iraqi nation.
> >>
> >> While an eventual Kurdish "independent" state would most probably
> >> become some kind of Kurdish Kuwait (40% of Iraqi oil reserves lie
> >> around Kirkuk), would depend on imperialist support and funding, and
> >> would become a permanent menace to its neighbors, an independent Iraq
> >> would depend on the revolutionary unification of the Arab world, thus
> >> stabbing imperialism at its very heart.
> >>
> >> It is very meaningful, in this sense, that the first movements of the
> >> still inchoate but rising Iraqi resistence stress the necessity of
> >> Arab national unity.
> >>
> >> It has been a very old imperialist practice to put "minor
> >> nationalities'" rights across the road to national independence in the
> >> Third World. What about the Meo poppy traffickers in Laos, for
> >> example? What about the Tibetan "oppressed" national theocracy?
> >>
> >> The golden rule, here as elsewhere, is that laid by the Bolsheviks: if
> >> it strengthens imperialists it is not good.
> >>
> >> Peoples such as the Kurds (not the only case) are entitled to national
> >> autonomy not to national independence. And full national autonomy, of
> >> course, is completely linked to the socialist construction of
> >> independence in the Third World. Not easy, but nobody told us that
> >> making history would ever be.
> >>
> >> Néstor Miguel Gorojovsky
> >> nestorgoro@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> >>
> >> _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ "Sí, una
> >> sola debe ser la patria de los sudamericanos".
> >> Simón Bolívar al gobierno secesionista y disgregador de Buenos Aires,
> >> 1822
> >> _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>
>