Re: [Marxism] Disjunction between antiwar sentiment and size of protest

[Marvin Gandall <marvgandall@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The political character of the Iraqi forces engaging the Americans is
another factor which may help explain why masses of people have not been
roused to go beyond the ballot box and the internet to register their
protest to an imperialist war this time round. While we may have a more
nuanced view of the Iraqi resistance and are able to set its backward
features aside, many others aren't and it has had a demobilizing effect.

The NLF in Vietnam was internationalist, secular, the sole representative of
a united movement in which women played a visible role as front line
fighters. It was also very conscious of the need to forge links with the
antiwar movement abroad  - all of which won it the good will of many
liberals and the passionate support of socialists in the capitalist
countries. It was a period when the left was growing and confidently on the
offensive everywhere and people saw solidarity with Vietnam as a natural
extension of their own struggles at home, in much the same way the previous
generation had viewed Spain.

The global political context, as we know, is unfortunately very different
today. The socialist left no longer has a mass following in the working
class and campuses so the motor which generated active movements of
solidarity with Spain and Vietnam is missing. The Iraqi resistance, though
it's cause is just, is largely faceless, fragmented, sectarian, religious,
patriarchal, and insular - more likely to alienate rather than to attract
the support of the predominantly liberal urban populations abroad who are
the base of any antiwar movement.

The inability to stop the war was partly responsible for the subsequent
disillusionment and fall in mass action, as others have noted. But if the
above two conditions were still present - a vibrant international left
rooted in the working class, and an armed anti-occupation resistance
recognized as belonging to that community - there would undoubtedly continue
to be a high level of worldwide mass action, the successful US invasion and
the lack of a draft and body bags notwithstanding.

All the more reason why blaming the inability to build an active antiwar
movement on the political deficiencies of one or another small opposing
groups of left activists is to lose sight of the forest for the trees.



________________________________________________
YOU MUST clip all extraneous text before replying to a message.
Send list submissions to: Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism