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WP of Belgium, On The Fight Against Imperialism In The Middle East

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From: Workers? Party of Belgium, Wednesday, June 04, 2003

http://www.wpb.be , mailto:wpb@xxxxxx

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Workers Party of Belgium

www.wpb.be

30 May 2003

Antwerp (Belgium), August 23 and 24

a two-day Seminar on the fight against imperialism in the Middle East

In the introduction to the latest issue of Etudes marxistes (www.marx.be) I wrote that the Arab world was a "powder-keg", ready to explode any minute. Afro-Arab Marxist Mohamed Hassan has very decided views on the subject and will give a course at the Marxist University this summer. The course, which will be in English, is entitled Marxists and their Allies in the Struggle against Imperialism and War.

Maria McGavigan
30-05-2003

Arabs are not the only people involved in the struggle against imperialism and war. Why will you be dealing specially with the Arab world in your course ?

Mohamed Hassan. Because of the objective situation of US imperialism. The US wants to take over the whole Middle East and set up an economic zone there which will be linked only to the US. To succeed in that goal, all resistance in the Arab world must be crushed. This is the first time the Arab world has faced this type of extremely aggressive imperialist policy. The US is deliberately trying to bring back a kind of feudal régime in the Middle East : they want to destroy the modern state in all its forms, to reestablish the clan structure, to destroy achievements in education and women?s rights. Sanctions already had that effect to a certain extent in Iraq.

Another important US aim is crushing the Palestinian movement. Why do you think they are agreeing not to allow the return of Palestinian refugees ? because they want to use the Palestinian Camps as coolie reserves for their own purposes (e.g. in Iraq). A third factor is that petrodollars from the Middle East (Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States?) are largely what?s keeping the US economy afloat. I?ve just been reading an extremely interesting and extremely right-wing book called Reagan?s War. The « war » in question was the war on communism, and the author shows, among other things, how important a role Saudi Arabia played in the downfall of the Soviet Union, not only by making the price of crude oil plummet and thus depriving the USSR of much-needed hard currency but also by supplying arms to the Afghan rebels. And all that in close contact with the United States. The Saudis agreed to greatly increase their output of crude, thus leading to the virtual collapse of OPEC. And today, the feudal classes who rule Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States are still cooperating with the US and with its aggressive imperialist policy.

Who are the people fighting imperialism in the region ?

Mohamed Hassan. Well, let?s put it this way : the US has 3 main enemies in the Middle East: the communists of course, Arab nationalists and the Islamic movements, and Iran

Is the Marxist tradition strong in the Middle East? and the Arab world in general

Mohamed Hassan. It used to be, in particular in Egypt, Syria, Palestine, Sudan, Iraq, Iran and South Yemen. But that?s no longer the case, except perhaps in Syria.

What happened ?

Mohamed Hassan. In a nutshell, you could say that it was repression, revisionism and also the question of how communists came to terms with Arab nationalism. I?m going to talk about this last bit in my course, so I?ll give only a few hints now. The first blows fell on the communists during the struggle for national liberation, when they were attacked by both sides (the nationalists and the feudal classes). More important was the distorted view of Marxism held by Brezhnev, the Soviet leader of the seventies: according to this view, since the USSR was the vanguard of world revolution, in countries struggling to free themselves from Western domination, revolutionary intellectuals and army officers could work together for a new type of regime, which could then count on the support of the Soviet state. There was thus, according to this theory, no real need for a vanguard party. So, in most Arab countries a strong Leninist party structure was the first casualty of revisionism. I should add that many Arab communist parties were influenced at the time of their foundation not so much by the USSR or China but by Western CPs. They recruited primarily in cities, among students and in the Trade Union movement and were not very present in the countryside. There was a different tradition in South Yemen, where Marxist ideas came from the Communist « troublemakers » the British sent there from India !

Neither the communists nor the nationalists realised that the Cold War was a war against them, that the USSR was objectivley a bulwark. There was no conscience among them either that an alliance with the USSR would be profitable to both. There is the curious fact that probably 300.000 Arabs from Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Egypt, South Yemen? studied in the USSR. How come they didn?t influence the people ? There is no direct answer to that question.

There were other factors too : the Arab-Israeli conflict consumed a lot of energy. And in spite of the latter, there was no conception of pan-Arab nationalism and no attempt to merge forces between communist parties even of neighbouring countries. It must be said that whenever there were attempts at rapprochement between communists and nationalists, the CIA and the Mossad were always quick to intervene.

The most radically anti-US movements in the Arab world today seem to derive their inspiration more from Islam than from Arab nationalism. Why is that so ?

Arab nationalism was destroyed by local Arab regimes and by imperialism itself. After Nasser (1970) it took a decade and a half to destroy Arab nationalism. In Algeria after Boumedienne it was the same : Islam was favoured from above to distract people from the economic situation. An Arab proverb says : Poverty teaches you to pray? I was in Cairo University in 1977. There were 95.000 students from all over the Arab world and the student movement was dominated by Nasserite and communist forces. It was impossible for Islamic fundamentalism to get so much as a foothold. In Cairo, every nationality had its student movement and there were debates all the time. So, the cultural level was very high. In 1978, when Sadat, the Egyptian president, announced he was going to Israel, there was a huge debate with Egyptian and foreign students taking part. Sadat deported the foreign leaders. That was the first time there was government interference in the student movement. Sadat released the fundamentalists from prison and began being seen on TV opening mosques, creating conflict with the Coptic Christians, etc.

The Islamic movement was financed by Saudi Arabia, so you would expect it to be very reactionary. However, these people have their own agenda. During the Soviet war in Afghanistan, many members of the Muslim Brotherhood and other fundamentalist organisations went there to fight communism. In doing so, they strengthened their movement, which gave them more leeway with regard to their Saudi masters. Now that communism has been destroyed they have turned against their second most important enemy, US imperialism. Today, there is no one Islamic movement : there are anti-iimperialist and pro-imperialist ones. But the influence of the latter is declining because of all the contradictions within the Arab world.

What unites Arabs today is the struggle for self-determination, to be masters of their own destiny. The question is : can communists work together with other anti-imperialists to bring this about ?

Why is that important for us Westerners ?

Mohamed Hassan. For working people in Europe, it?s important because US imperialism is economically weakened but militarily strong. The US has said it wants no more 50 year cold wars and no parity with anyone. That means Europe has to decline. Today, however, the European economy is the stronger. The US wants to make problems for Europe, stop its growth, threaten it?

So that could have consequences for unemployment and so on ?

Mohamed Hassan. Yes of course.

So is it going to be a course on current affairs ?

Mohamed Hassan. Partly, but we?re also going to study some Marxist works that we think are particularly relevant. It?s not the first time in history communists have had some strange bedfellows, so let?s see what we can learn from them.

Marxists and their allies in the struggle against imperialism and war : a Marxist University course given by Mohamed Hassan and Frank Sonck : 23-24 August, Antwerp, Belgium

Information and Registration : www.marx.be ; inem@xxxxxxx ; 32 (0)25 04 01 44

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