Re: AUT: Re: Palestione, Israel and other ghettoes

["Harald Beyer-Arnesen" <haraldba@xxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "cwright" <cwright@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <aut-op-sy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: 27. oktober 2002 07.41
Subject: Re: AUT: Re: Palestine, Israel and other ghettoes


Chris, I think Lenin, Trostky or Spain (1936-39) have  very
little to tell us about the current situation of the East
Mediterranean.

Neither you nor Scott seem to have even given a thought
to the possibility that when I say East Mediterranean, I
mean precisely an East Mediterranean perspective, and
not a narrow, stupefying, and hopeless,  Israeli-Palestini
one. We are not talking about an island.

With viable I mean precisely viable, as something with
a possible future other than self-destructive. Which
perspectives being promoted makes a difference.
When you write; "I assume viability is an issue since we
are thinking of an achievable demand less than
immediate workers' power," you assume wrong. Certainly
not in  that actually achiving something is a point , and not
in that "immediate workers' power" not being on the agenda
(there exists nothing even close to ripe social revolutionary
conditions) but in speaking as if the demand in itself,
taken in isolation, was the crucial, and not the radically
different perspective in entails, and the possibilities it
opens for. It could easily be extended and put within the
context of an advocacy of direct democracy, and not
only in words but in organizational forms. And even
if far less than this is accomplished, it none the less
has the potential of preparing the ground.

Nor is it a perspective necessarily so foreign to many
Palestinians and other Arabs in the region, even if such
voices do not get much coverage, and tend also to be
beyond the compreshension of not only mainstream
journalist but also "leftist" in "the West" and other
consumers of images of "third world heroes and martyrs".

"Our task," (as you phrase it) to me is simple saying what
seems to make sense, nothing more spectacular than that.
Libertarian communism makes sense to me, and acting
in ways and promoting ideas that are compatible with
such and end, likewise.

Scott writes:

"The Palestinians clearly do want national
independence, and just by fighting for it they have
arguably created some of the elements of dual power
and a pre-revolutionary siutation. This is why it is
so reprehensible for anarchists to be going around
advocating that they abandon the desire for national
independence and fight for civil rights inside the
state of Israel."

Why are you sure that "the Palestinians"  desire "national
independence". Could it not be that more and more of them
at this point simple don't give a damn about "national
independence," and what they desire far more is to be
treated with dignity and to live "normal lives". That this for
historically reasons, capitalist world conquest, "cultural imperialism"
reasons of internal power structures, and blind alleys,
still tend to be expressed in nationalist or religious terms,
in itself may hide more than it reveals.
        The "pre-revolutionary siutation" you are talking about
is a phantasy product as for now.
        And who are talking about "civil rights" just "inside the
state of Israel". What about for instance in Lebanon and
Europe?

The nationalist road in all circumstances remains a counter-
revolutionary road.
    And as for the "Intifadha," as far as I can see it died long
ago. A more radical perpspective very likely would give it a
new life and new forms, and migh even grow to include
Israelis of Jewish origins, as well as spread to the region
as a whole.

At last to Thiago, who writes;

"Hmm... I agree that that is a very good demand, but seeing that it is
highly
unlikely to eventuate, I would support Palestinian nationalism as a stopgap
measure. The alternative means basically condemning a lot of people who pin
their hopes on the project of national liberation, who have very real
nationalist cravings. If the choice is to condemn them to oppression in this
world by Israel or to eternal hellfire, I suppose hellfire is the better
alternative. I am not a nationalist, but I would not couch my critique of
nationalism on the basis of the impurity of people's desires"

That is where you in my opinion are very wrong. Nationalism,
followed by the religious fundamentalism of Hamas and
Islamic Jihad,  have in deed very much worked to make this
"stopgap measure" less not more likely, and "condemn[ed]
them to oppression in this world by Israel"  for longet than
what otherwise might be the case. A short term result of an
alternative road would very likely be "national
independence," however much I might regret it.

Harald










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