Re: On behalf of the people (some divergence between Patrick and me)

["Alan Bradley" <alanb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> From: "Nestor Miguel Gorojovsky"
> And, last but not least, if we agree (and this of course is still to be
> put in clear) in that the DRC is still in the throes of one of the most
> protracted anti-colonial wars in African history,

I don't really want to buy into this debate, but...

Is it the case that this is an anti-colonial war?  It certainly was in the
beginning, of course, but now it looks increasingly more like a struggle
between depoliticised comprador factions.  Behind them, of course, there
might be a bit of inter-imperialist rivalry, although still probably mostly
below the level of the state.  But I really don't know, and probably
shouldn't have bothered to publicly guess.

Anyway, that's not my main point.  What I really wanted to note was that
when I forwarded the articles on the Philippines from the Green Left
archives, my selection was influenced by the possibility that I might need
to answer questions of this sort, so I intentionally included material that
showed that Estrada was indeed corrupt (state contracts issued without a
tender process!) and an unsupportable murderous pig.  This was to
discourage any tendency on the part of our "anti-imperialist" left
nationalists to try to turn him into some hero defending the Philippines
against imperialism.

Now I've done it.

What got Estrada thrown out?  He broke the Eleventh Commandment:  Thou
shalt not get caught.  Basically he was just too damned embarrasingly
rapacious for even the ever delightful Philippines bourgeoisie.  Worse, I
am not sure that he was even strictly a 'trapo' ('traditional politician').
 So he may well have been a bit of an outsider muscling in on somebody
else's turf. Clearly, he had to go!

Should the working class have defended him?  No.  There was no reason at
all to prefer that particular thief over the new thief.  Should the new
thief be kicked out in her turn?  Definitely.

But this is all just my impression, and I'm probably wrong.

What has this to do with DRC/Zimbabwe/etc?  I don't know, but with luck the
left nationalists and the rest might actually agree for once on the
Philippines.  : )

Alan Bradley
alanb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx