Re: israelian attack

["sevag " <sev@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dear Gary:
        I salute and thank you, and lets hope the day will come.
        I see your point more clearly, and tell you that i do not have more
knowledge on the Arab world than you do, i'm just a citizen, a person who
lived here for 21 years now. it seems that you have much more superior
knowledge on this issue than i do.
        However, as you pointed out, the Arab worker is different than the 
Jewish
or the Irish, i mean the culrtural aspect plays its role. The most
important of the cultural ingredients is the religion. And we all know that
most of the Arab World, maybe even more than the 99% of it are Muslims, and
we also know that Islam is not only a religion, it is what we should call a
government or a set of rules by which the state, humans, nature, God
,...everything is governed.
        We cannot deny that this is a huge advantage for the struggle against 
the
imperialist, for if the Huzbollah (the party of God) were not so extremist,
they would have not fough for so long. but ofcourse there's another aspect
to it, and that is the implementation of an Islamic republic like that in
Iran. this is the highest aim.
        My point is that under such a belief and such a strong sentiments 
towards
Islam and religosity, it becomes hard for the worker or the peasent to gain
consciousness. Actually, it becomes impossible.
        It seems the superstructure plays a huge role, and the times have 
changed
alot. In the past the most prominent of the Muslim religous leaders called
for coalition of the Arab world with the USSR, true they said that
communism is by no means in harmony with the Islamic verses, however, it
was and they knew it, they're only salvation. And we all know, this was
interpreted by the creation of the Radical Islamic movements like that of
Iran. ie Islamic Communists. But it seems the glory days are fading away
        You see Gary, while you are being an optimist about the issue, i'm to a
large extent being a pessimist.
        Its raining and rainging and no hope for the sun.

----------
> From: Gary MacLennan <g.maclennan@xxxxxxxxxx>
> To: marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: israelian attack
> Date: Saturday, February 12, 2000 11:52 AM
>
> Dear Sevaq (?),
>
> I am far from an expert on the 'Middle East' but I am extremely
sympathetic
> to the plight of the Arabs as is surely the totality of the subscribers
on
> this list.  I also did some solidarity work here in Brisbane in the 80s
> with Iraqi students and the local Palestinian community and so I do have
> some first hand experience of how the Arab people view what is being done

> to them in such a horrifying manner.
>
> You raised my point about the key role that might be played by the
Egyptian
> working class. I bow to your superior knowledge of course but my point
> about the Egyptian working class is I think an example of something more
> than my vulgar Marxism at work. It is my conviction that we can somewhere

> somehow repeat the experience of 1917 - the decisive breakthrough of the
> proletariat in an important nation state. I am also convinced that this
> will galvanize the working class of the world in a way which now does not

> seem possible.
>
> What is most important is that we have hope in what Trotsky termed the
> 'clear bright socialist future of humankind'. I have been reading again
> Walter Benjamin's Thesis on History No 18B especially since the recent
> Michael Sprinker discussion of it in the New Left Review.
>
> Benjamin writes that for the Jews the future was not 'homogeneous empty
> time' but rather 'the strait gate through which the Messiah might enter'.

> Sprinker detects in these lines the revolutionary politics of a
Luxembourg
> rather than a Lenin but that is something we might discuss another
> day.  For me the Benjamin theses are a great source of hope for the
> future.  It will not be like the present.
>
> Dies Irae will come and we will sit in judgement on the butchers of
today.
>
> The Irish have been sustained for years in their long struggle against
> British Imperialism by the slogan 'Tiocaidh ar la' - Our day will come.
I
> commend it to you and your comrades.
>
> warm regards
>
> Gary
>
>
>
>
>
> At 09:18  12/02/00 +0200, you wrote:
> >Dear Comrades:
> >         Lebanon has been facing this brutal savagery for so many years
> > now. Its
> >not simply a sturggle between 2 countries on a piece of land. It is a
> >struggle of a third world country against imperialist beliefs and
actions.
> >The imperialist is not an unkown, the imperialist is the Zionist world
> >movement.
> >         It makes me wonder if this isn't what we leftisits should fight

> > against,
> >if this wasn't one of the main struggles of the dependecy school. At
least
> >we can condemn it, at least we can say or write something about it, but
we
> >waited Riad to post something on it so that we'll write something in
> >return. Lets hope that will be the case. For it seems that nobody is
> >interested on what's going on here in the middle east. Latin America, or
> >Russia or sometimes the far east are the topics that is dealt with here
all
> >the time. I wonder why!!!!
> >         I hardly see the point Gary made on the Egyptian working
> > class.What if a
> >sudden miracle happened and they regianed class consciousness, what
would
> >that change? Well nothing, the issue does not depend on workers. The
issue
> >has passed that stage. The party or the group who's destroying and
> >targeting civilian areas is no one else but the Labor party of Israel!
> >
> >----------
> > > From: Gary MacLennan <g.maclennan@xxxxxxxxxx>
> > > To: marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > > Subject: Re: israelian attack
> > > Date: Saturday, February 12, 2000 6:39 AM
> > >
> > > Thank you for this post Riad.  Good luck with the struggle.  Your
enemy
> >is
> > > a brutal one but it can and will be beaten.  The key I believe is
still
> >the
> > > Egyptian working class.  If they can overthrow their corrupt rulers,
then
> >
> > > we may have a very different scenario in the 'Middle East'.
> > >
> > > regards
> > >
> > > Gary