[Marxism] Attitude towards the Iraq CP

["Jurriaan Bendien" <andromeda246@xxxxxxxxx>]

Brian wrote:

Revolutionists should call on the Iraq CP to leave the provisional council,
not imply that resistant fighters direct any attack towards a secular reform
political organization with roots, however feeble, in the Iraqi working
class. In other words, the Iraq CP SHOULD be lectured to and "condemned and
repudiated."

I personally think this is not correct at all. A consistent anti-imperialist
stance insists on the right and responsibility of a sovereign state to sort
out its own politics without in situ foreign subversion, and insists on the
withdrawal of foreign personnel, military and non-military, which is not in
the country in response to negotiation with, and invitation by, the local
people and their elected representatives. Advising Iraqi people from behind
your PC somewhere far removed from the scene assumes that the would-be
advisor has better knowledge of what to do, than the people on the ground, a
pretty tenuous assumption. Moreover, it is unlikely that such advice would
be effectual or taken seriously anyway.

What anti-imperialist activists in the West should be concerned with, is the
policy of their own governments, and the collusion of those governments with
other governments, in a way which is contrary to the interests of the
working class and its allies at home and abroad. Telling people in other
countries unilaterally "how to conduct their politics" is itself an
adaptation, a concession to imperialism and imperialist ideology. A real
mandate for such "advice" would exist only, if the local people themselves
have specifically requested it.

Jurriaan



_______________________________________________
Marxism mailing list
Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism