Don't put all your Timor eggs in one basket ;-)

[Ben Courtice <benj@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Further to my last post on this topic:

Replying to Tom, I agree the comparison with Brest-Litovsk is silly if
it's comparing the overall political situation. On the other hand the
gravity of the split/disagreement was, in my view, of a similar degree
to Brest-Litovsk: a disagreement over revolutionary tactics, not a split
between opportunists and revolutionaries.

I'm sorry that my snipe, i.e. "the lefts of 1918 were at least willing
to do the fighting (and presumably the dying)."  may have obscured the
point I was trying to make.

The argument I'm criticising is that which says the DSP et al are
irreparably lost to revolutionary politics due to our errors on East
Timor, real or imagined. In varying degrees, some on this list (or
sometimes off-list) have implied that. E.g. Jeff Sparrow listing it as
one of the major political disagreements which mean the Socialist
Alliance can never last. Of course the only people (that I'm aware of)
who are so crude as to directly compare with 1914 are the Spartacist
league; but sometimes their positions are (unfortunately) merely the
_reductio ad absurdum_ of positions held by entirely rational "lefts".
For example a certain individual on this list suggested to me in a
private (and otherwise cordial) email that the DSP had "crossed the
rubicon" with our position on East Timor.


On the significance of Ramos Horta's statement: I've met the guy and
he's an arrogant, pompous buffoon in some regards, but quite an astute
politician in some others. For example when we organised a public
meeting in Melbourne with him and a PRD comrade, he agreed to match
every dollar the crowd donated, all of which were going to the PRD. He
decided, at least on that occasion, that the enemy of his enemy was his
friend. It was certainly useful to us and to the PRD. And the overthrow
of Suharto largely created the situation in which East Timor became
independent: I think he could see that.

Obviously his latest statement lends much undue credibility to the war
drive and he should be roundly condemned. But does this say very much
about the actual process by which East Timor became independent? Perhaps
by comparison with South Africa it will become more clear. Thabo Mbeki
is a part of the imperialist world order; at the Non-Aligned summit I
believe he was putting the US line. Mandela was hardly much better
(although I think he's against the war on Iraq?). The ANC is corrupt and
neo-liberal. Does this mean that the left should not have supported the
1994 elections, or before that the struggle against apartheid? After
all, the elections were not entirely democratic (a party needed 65% to
govern in it's own right); and the ANC, which largely led the liberation
struggle (at least from the perspective of the outside world) was far
from being a revolutionary socialist vanguard, or even consistent
anti-imperialists.

Then again this may just muddy the waters further or even open a whole
new can of worms -- but the comparison seems relevant to me.

Ben Courtice



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