They cannot govern the world in the old way

[Chris Burford <cburford@xxxxxxxxxx>]

The shocking terrorist acts were designed to shock. And have succeeded. Yes
in the short term there will be attacks on the civil liberties of muslims.
There must be some people in the US military contemplating a nucear attack
on Afghanistan. More sophisticatedly, commentators on the BBC are noting
that the US is likely to put considerable pressure on Pakistan to
pressurise Afghanistan to hand over Bin Ladin.

In the short term  there will be a strengthening of the movement to
interfere in the internal affairs of other countries against terrorism. The
Hague court has been relatively successful in getting its victims and that
will probably be held out as the right response.

In the short term the US hawks will want to go on the offensive like the
Zionists in Israel: exacerbating the cycle of terror. But they cannot win.

The commendable Guardian has unfortunately just taken off its web-site an
item pointing out that the attack disproves the argument for the missile
defence shield. If enemies can be so effective at such low altitude it
would be better to ring all important buildings with anti-aircraft guns.

Terrorism is not revolutionary. It is excitatory, demobilising mass
struggle by subsituting for it. One effect is to deflate the momentum for
the confrontation with the World Bank and IMF in Washington at the end of
the month. But shrewd activists will actually intensify their efforts even
if they will be more subdued.

On a technical military front, this sort of terrorism is extremely hard to
prevent. It can only be prevented by a forward policy that does not allow
social violence to develop to the point where it can fuel such impassioned
sacrifices. Tens of thousand of murders, but also, critically to prevent
this happening again, at least a dozen suicides.

The events are designed to shock and stun. But they are explicable and have
got to be explained. Our progressive left wing lists are not good at
understanding radical Arab opinion and why it turns to radical islam. (Yes
I am making an assumption but whoever did this must have a very high level
of ideological conviction and cohesion.) Radical Islam is an ideological
and political response which expresses the national and democratic
opposition to imperialism. It is significant that the islamic countries
form a crescent on the edge of the developed world, and are among the
countries caught in the sharpest economic contradictions by global
capitalism. Always disrupted by the pull of the global capital, but seldom
able to accumulate enough surplus within their own borders to establish a
more developed civil society.

So there is an economic base beneath the ideological superstructure that
has produced the events of today. That economic base must be addressed.
Behind the dramatic and theatrical military attack on the symbols of US
might, there is also an economic agenda. If the World Trade Building can be
destroyed, what cannot be destroyed. The obvious parallel that is being
made is with Pearl Harbour. But that could be redeemed by an bloody war
against Japanese expansionism. The other parallel is the bombing of the
Baltic Exchange. Towards the end of the IRA attacks on the British
government they evolved such effective economic warfare that Britain had to
negotiate, for reasons it has never revealed.

The only safe way to govern the world, and the capitalists have not given
up yet, is consensual. Perhaps 20,000 people died today. But they were
additional to the 20,000 children who died today, and yesterday and the day
before, because of the inhumanly cruel division of wealth in the world. But
Bush says, America comes first.

It is even more urgent to press ahead with an alternative programme of
global economic development that helps to develop and restore economic
stability for large parts of the globe, even if it means stagnating a bit
in Europe and the USA, while we learn to live rewarding lives more frugally
and enjoyably in real terms.

The US government may thrash around now, and others unfortunately will be
diverted into terrorist games. Someone is bound to contemplate getting
nuclear weapons into their chosen target. But for political for economic
reasons, it is urgent that progressive left wingers point out that the
world can no longer be governed in the old way. It must be a world for
people, with genuine internationalism, not a world for capital and its
emblems.

The thousands who tragically died in the World Trade Tower today are not
capitalism. they were overwhelmingly working people. The World Trade Tower
is not global capital as such. Capitalism cannot be defeated by bombs. But
they can give a pretext for crushing bourgeois democracy.

Unfortunately terrorism today is playing the game of mystification that is
inherent in the capitalist system, and may well be diversionary unless
progressive forces step forward with a stronger lead for peace and
progressive world development.

With condemnation of the acts, we must understand why they came about and
give a lead which allows working people to unite on a world basis, that
capitalism can never give.

We must intensify criticism of the bankruptcy of global capitalism. One
option is to call on the IMF and the World Bank to call their meeting off
altogether at the end of the month. But that would let them off the hook.
Better to insist it continues to take place, and they have a genuine
dialogue about whether they have any policies that can benefit and unite
the people of the world. We should meet both terrorism and repression with
internationalism.

Chris Burford

London