Re: AUT: Re: Colonisation

[Ilan Shalif <gshalif@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi list members.
To disagree with a friend whom you usually agree with you it is
a bit embracing.
In a way it points to a flaw in the way the point was stated.

Harald Beyer-Arnesen wrote:

> Ilan, George and others,
>
> Ilan, you wrote in reference to the piece George Pennefather wrote
> by the name Colonisation and the Celtic Tiger:
>
>         The analysis seems clear and eye opener to those not
>         in intimate relations to the relevant facts.
>
> Ilan I have to disagree with you. If I were to be rude I would
> have to ask, what was George's point beyond superimposing the term
> colonisation on a description of a reality which apart from a
> few particularities would fit just about every European
> country, U.K. not excluded, or just about every country in the
> world for that sake.

It point to the struggles between the main capitalist countries
that for many are beneath the surface. The term colonization
is directing people to see the overwhelming of the influence of
US even in few developed countries. With the new WTO round
as US want, US rule of Ireland will be more similar to the old
colonialism.

> you continue:
>
>         However, the article do not point to the relevance of
>         the described processes for the workslaves of Ireland
>         and for the class war there.
>
> No, it does not. But its tendency is nationalistic in my eyes, and
> where does that bring us except to a defense of capitalism.

In a way the struggle against the MAI and WTO could be interpreted
as nationalistic tendency... and many really join it for that.
However, anarchists and many of direct action people who joined
the struggle regard it as the fight against capitalist system and its
more and more ugly inclinations.

> One of
> the many problems with the term "imperialism" is that every capitalist
> state is imperialistic by definition, that's part of the rules of
> the game.

No word is as precise as a mathematical equation. However,
some people use few terms with a common agreement on
the content. Among the capitalist countries, there are few who
are strong enough to be imperialists and the majority are the
weaker that are subordinate to them.

> There is no reason to believe that Irishness is any remedy
> against that. And I am quite sure that George is not proposing that
> we should agitate for an Irish capitalist island, some sort of Celtic
> Albania.

The only remedy is revolution, but being the only remedy for many
problems does not eliminate the differences between them and the need
to understand them.

> So what is the substance of the piece apart from pointing
> out a few banalities. I could just as easy written an "analysis"
> concluding that Norway is a "colony", alternatively about Norway as
> an imperialistic state, both being essentially true, except for the
> misleading term colony.

As a person interested in world economy and currents, and one who
see in this knowledge means to convince people, it cleared for me
things. You have to be with a question in order to find the answer to it
as contributing.

I doubt that the ownership of US TNCs of Norway capital is in
any way of similar proportions... and if the power which goes with it
to intervene in that country's class struggle is so strong.

May be some Marxist autonomists are obsessed too much in the
analyses of the undercurrents of the dynamics of capitalist system...
and over do it, but for sure class war social anarchists tend to lean
more heavily to the opposite direction.

The more we understand the intricacy of the enemy, the more
successful will be our struggle.
Ilan





     --- from list aut-op-sy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---