Re: Justice and taking sides

[Paul Flewers <paul.flewers@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Nestor Miguel Gorojovsky wrote: < When a big bully is hitting a little
boy, one should say "Ojo que al pibe lo defiendo yo" ("Be careful, I am
> defending the kid"), or shut up. This is what I understand as the position a
>revolutionary must take. >

Since when has Marxism been reduced to this banality? Relations between
two people are of a different nature to those between factions in a
civil war or states in an international war. One adopts a position in
such wars after making an analysis of the forces concerned.

I did not oppose Britain's war against Argentina or its participation in
the wars against Iraq and Serbia merely because Britain was a bigger
bully, I did so because Britain is an imperialist power, and the main
enemy of the British working class is its own bourgeoisie and state.

There was nothing progressive about Argentina's attempt to take the
Malvinas, it was merely an opportunist venture on the part of the ruling
military clique. Similarly, there was nothing progressive about Iraq's
invasion of Kuwait, nor in Serbia's military activities in the former
Yugoslavia. I have no reason to support the Iraqi military dictatorship,
or the Red-Brown alliance running Serbia, any more than I have in
supporting any anti-working class regimes -- for that is what they are
-- anywhere in the world. Just because I think that the imperialist
bourgeoisies are the main enemy of the working class doesn't mean that I
want to become an apologist for any lesser ruling class or clique
anywhere else.

As for LM, back in the early 1990s, when I used to sell Living Marxism,
I was often asked by people: 'Why do you lot support Serbia?' I used to
reply: 'No we don't, we don't support any of the warring factions.' I
then asked myself why I was asked this question so many times, and came
to the conclusion that if one merely responds to the biases of the
liberal press without developing a broader analysis of the social forces
involved -- as LM came to do -- one is going to look like an apologist
for those whom the press attacks, even though that isn't one's actual
intention. That's what happened with LM, not least over the Trnopolje
episode.

Paul F