Re: [Marxism] The Left and Support For Islamic Resistance

[Waistline2@xxxxxxx]

>> Why has the US/European left been so unable/unwilling to forge  strong 
ties to an oppressed and combative segment of its population - a natural  ally? 
 
Is this related to the notorious inability of the US left to become  more 
Black/Brown? 
 
I ask comrades to read or re-read the original speech. << 
 
Comment 
 
For the better part of 40 years, many on this list have "demanded" the end  
to Israeli aggression. 
 
Revolutionaries in America remain perpetually off balance given our status  
in the most imperial of all imperialist states in the earth. Add to this our  
tendency to nitpick, critique and offer suggestions for every single  
revolutionary hot spot, under the banner of internationalism; without regard to 
 actual 
stages and phases of the social process in a locale, continuously gets us  in 
trouble . . . . all the time.  Did not Marx write something to the  effect 
that's ones true internationalism consists in settling the score with  ones own 
bourgeoisie? 
 
The eagerness to critique and criticize every regime on earth is the living  
imperialist ideology . . . from the left. More often than not, thoughtful  
silence on non essential issues has its rewards, especially in a political 
world  
where there are no international organizations that would make ones opinion a 
 well thought out proposal of action. Principled opposition to imperial  
aggression need not have attached to it all kinds of amendments, as if such  
principle opposition is a piece of legislation. If one is having bombs dropped  
on 
their heads, the issue is the bombs, rather than "other issues." 
 
Every  utterance has to be prefaced with a renouncing of our imperial  
heritage. No problem. 
 
Still, historical issues need be treated in a historical manner. In the  
sense of America this means our specific history as a nation of immigrants  
rather 
than the concept of a "white settlers regime," or arbitrary concepts of  
Black/Brown peoples and endless allegations summed up as,   "the  notorious 
inability of the US left to become more  Black/Brown."  What  if in fact, as a 
percentage of the population, the "left" is more black, than  white and more 
black/brown than just black? 
 
How does one quantify such things? 
 
Allow me the mandatory statement of intention. 
 
Modernity or  the "modern world," or the so-called clash of  civilizations 
put forth in "modern terms," by Samuel Huntington serving as  "neo-liberal" 
intellectual architect,  (The Clash of Civilizations and the  Remaking of World 
Order) argues that the collapse of the Soviet Union and the  end of the Cold 
War 
will bring neither peace nor worldwide acceptance of liberal  democracy, but 
"civilization clashes" between the old - Islam, and the new  Christianity, and 
their cultural traditions. This imperial "civilization  clashes" is nothing 
but the voice of our decrepit bourgeoisie. 
 
Those who embrace some ideological concept of world revolution, tend to  
place all the current social clashes and strife in the context of the world  
revolutionary leap - transition, being fought for/over.  . . . as the  
individual 
understands social process. If one is not part of an organization  with 
reserves and political muscle, one is only an internationalists in  ideology. 
Without 
an international network and the possibility of organization  to organization 
relations, we Americans tend to keep our foot securely lodged in  our mouth. 
 
"Your country oppresses such and such grouping," without regard to how a  
country is evolving its history is the hall marks of imperialist snobbery and  
the refusal to stop the bombs and protest this action. And of course this does  
nothing but turn even more sections of the population, through its leaders,  
against the imperialist snobs. Trying to make a movement against imperialist  
aggression into anything other than what it is, means one has not learnt much  
from history. A resistance movement is by definition a quality and no human 
will  power can transform one qualitative definition into another on the basis 
of  slogans or anything else. 
 
It is simply not possible. 
 
Many of us learnt this lesson over the course of decades; ergo trying to  
make the antiwar movement a revolutionary movement or trying to make the Civil  
Rights Movement a revolutionary movement or the women's movement something it  
was not. 
 
Suffice it to say that "modernity," and its ideological/cultural  expressions 
can be viewed as a brief aberration on the long path of history  formation; a 
brief period of a few centuries when our Western imperialist  ideologues 
mistakenly took technological development as moral progress; the  Alpha and 
Omega 
in human culture/civilization, as capitalist exploitation. Many  barbaric 
notions embodied in/as Christianity and white supremacy being the most  
obvious, 
appear under the label of modernity, rationalized by a barbaric  doctrine of 
pseudo-science. 
 
Complicated forms of struggle against financial imperial entrapment and  more 
recent fascist Israel aggression, merges with and is part of the rising  
curve of suppression of world revolution. 
 
Every single person in America stands accused and can be charged with  
historical wrongs, if not outright crimes. The point of departure as the most  
privileged sector of the world proletariat is a willingness to fight for a new  
line of history where our historical status becomes a monument to peace and  
progress rather than naked imperial aggression. 
 
The issue of unity means looking at our own imperial history and  
acknowledging that our proletariat increasingly resembles a world proletarian  
class. 
 
That is to say the ethnic layering  or the evolution of the ethnic  
neighborhoods as class and the subsequent proletarianization of these  
neighborhoods 
cannot be dismissed. Here the question of the living movement  towards unity of 
our proletariat, at least its fighting section, and blocks to  this unity can 
be disclosed. 
 
Breaking into any point in history is a tricky business. 
 
Letâs examine an outline of the migration of blacks from South to North.  
Letâ
s take away the color factor. Blacks have basically improved their economic  
status in the North at the same rate as any other immigrants, and probably a  
little better than the Italian immigrant first arriving in the US. The  
improvement of the economic and then the social conditions of these blacks has  
proceeding in a pretty normal way consistent with our history. At certain point 
 
of Irish immigration, suddenly there was Irish domination of politics in their  
areas of concentration. Similarly for the Italian, the Norwegian, the Polish, 
 Mexicans and the process is taking place in real time with the "Arab"  
immigrants. 
 
Likewise, there was an emergence of black politics as the blacks moved into  
the slums previously occupied by various white ethics at the bottom of the  
industrial social ladder. The difference is that the black politicianâs  
influence and electability was limited to the so-called "Black ghetto," while  
the 
ethnic white influence merged into the exiting nationwide ideological and  
political sphere or more importantly the nationwide political infrastructure.  
American politics call this "going national." 
 
This basic dynamic of immigration has played itself out in cyclical fashion  
in the same manner that cyclical crisis of capital manifest itself as a law  
system. It is no different with the "Arab" population, whose early point of  
concentration was Detroit's industrial hub, anchored by Ford Rouge complex 
where 
 Detroit borders Dearborn Michigan. 
 
One can go back further in American history when the communists and  
socialist movement was anchored in the immigrant neighborhoods with distinct  
language 
presses, which in our English and Spanish speaking country, literally  
blocked the English speaking workers from a broader unity cutting across  
nationality and ethnicity.  The point being it is better to treat all  issues 
as 
historical processes with a self contained logic. 
 
The color factor far to often dull our sensibility. During the 1920's and  
1930's for instance the unskilled fighting section of our proletariat was not  
simply "white," but tended to have the Slavic workers at its core, due to the  
difference between Western and Easter Europe and the formation of the 
so-called  National Question in Europe. These economic, social and political 
relations 
was  transferred to America with increasing waves of immigrants. However, 
after  several generations these immigrants merged into the melting pot that is 
America  assimilating that which is specifically Anglo American. 
 
The concentration of blacks, or rather "Arabs," in the proletarian slums  was 
the condition for the rise of black politics and black politicians, and the  
meaning of the âBlack Power Movement,â or rather "Arab politics," in the 
belt 
 that spans from Detroit through Ohio or along the industrial belt of 
automotive  production. In the 1980s the Arab immigrants became concentrated in 
areas 
of  California. 
 
The material problem is that unity can only be forged where the ethnic  
neighborhoods intersect, on the basis of third and four generation immigrants,  
or 
on the basis of common work places.  It is of course easy to speak of  the 
blocks to unity of the fighting section of our working class, as the color  
factor, and forget that at various points in our history, the black masses were 
 
not located at strategic points in the industrial production process. Likewise  
with the various "Arab" populations. Then of course the shop keepers mentality 
 is a material block to class unity. 
 
What appears in history as exclusively the color factor was in fact the  
impossibility of uniting divergent class interest. Nevertheless, things would  
slowly change inside America in the 1960's and 1970's and a shift in 
immigration  
policy would causes shifts in who would begin to populate America. However, 
the  ethnic dynamic would remain with different players and different forms of  
"difference." 
 
In Detroit this "difference," played itself out in the late 1960's and  
1970's on the basis of the factory system. "Arabs" are of course various ethnic 
 
groupings, if such a term and concept is to be used, with strong tribal like  
family lies. In the 1970's Detroit the attempt and drive towards unity was 
based 
 on raising the Palestinian Question as an issue and creation of "Arab 
language"  literature, although English and Spanish remains the primary 
languages. . 
 
The "Arab" population bring with them not only distinct cultural attributes  
but a different collective internal strife based on their imperial 
colonization  and their own history.  For instance enormous strife based in 
religious  
lines exists between the Roman Catholics and Muslims, amongst the "Arabs" is no 
 
small matter. Then another complex of strife emerges that is second and third 
 generation "Arabs" who assimilate a combination of the "Anglo" and black 
nexus  of American culture, in the context of their neighborhoods retaining the 
 
character of ethnic communities due to continuous immigration. 
 
Imperialism combines and simultaneously disperses nations and national  
grouping as the curve of its exploitation. 
 
The article suggested for reading points out some interesting matters,  
however, there was more resistance and intolerance toward Islam in 1960's and  
1970's America than today. 
 
Really. 
 
Fourth and fifth generation "Arabs" in America provides an even broader  
basis for our fight for the unity of the fighting section of our working class, 
 
in the same way that the Irish immigrant community has always been the material 
 base for material support of "the Irish," in Ireland. Here the network hubs 
of  such support was centered to a large degree in Chicago and New York going 
into  the 1980s. Support of the IRA was not mandatory. 
 
Bottom line, one can support revolution and oppose imperialism without a  
mandatory demand to support a state or even a political organization. Opposing  
aggression, no matter who happens to be in power in the state suffering from  
aggression just makes sense. In fact, one need not have an opinion on the  
internal political of a state ones government is aggressing against. 
 
WL. 
 
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