I see what you are saying, PeterHL, but I feel like
you are splitting hairs. Maybe it would have
been better if she had said "put people first and
abolish profit", but I can hardly read her
words as an endorsement of capitalism.
Can you imagine any member of the Democratic
or Republican party saying the same thing?
Even under socialism, in its early stages,
it's likely that small enterprises would
continue to exist. I don't think the ICFI
calls for immediate nationalisation of *all*
businesses, big and small.
I've not read the Green platform, but I imagine
it does not call for socialism. It shouldn't have
been hard for the author to find genuine evidence
of their reformist nature if he had tried.
In any case, my main point was that the Green
campaign is having some positive effects, because it's reaching far more people than
the wsws.
Both the positive and negative should be assessed. Otherwise the critique just
comes off as a sectarian attack.
_____________________________
rosa roja лидия 19 hours ago
yes Wahhabis were an insignificant sect within Islam
until promoted directly and indirectly (via Saudi) by
western imperialism, which they aid in many ways,
starting with war against the USSR in Afganistan.
They also serve to channel anti-imperialist struggle in
a reactionary direction and they provide a perfect
excuse for the "war on terrorism"
Incidentally, the term "Islamist" should be avoided,
since it feeds anti-Muslim stereotypes.
We don't speak of "Christianist violence" or "Jewishist terrorism" in Gaza, or the "Hinduist pogrom" in Gujarat, etc.
_________________________
rosa roja
Thanks for the very useful information on the rise of Jim Crow. But I'm sure you didn't mean to imply that racism began only in 1890.
The racial oppression and genocide embodied in slavery and the slave trade, and the racist genocide against indigenous Americans both began much earlier. The point that some of us have been stressing is that neither of these fit the description, "political issues arising from the conflict of class forces."
_________________________
"They were conquered cause they had something, in this case they occupied
a land base, which was coveted by those who did the conquering."
Correct. That's exactly what I said: geographical location. Non-european also
was important. my main point was
that this was not an example of "class struggle". It was an event of fundamental
importance, nonetheless. If the narrow concept of class struggle cannot explain
an event of the highest imporance, then
it needs to be supplemented by another concept. Racism,
as part and parcel of imperialsm, is this further concept.
-Rosa Roja
______________________
rosa roja
I agree that more theoretical work is
needed, but I do not think we need to
overturn any conclusions of
classical marxism. Both Lenin and Luxemburg were classical marxists, and
both provided valuable first steps in extending it theoretically.
We need to remember that
Marx's work was never finished. His
only completed mature book was volume
I of Das Kapital. In the true scientific spirit
he took a simplified situation as a starting
point. But he never meant that book
as more than a point of theoretical
departure. It's up to us and others
to carry the work further.
But what is to be done now? Here a good starting point is the collection I quoted from:
https://www.marxists.org/archi...
Some of it is of course out of date, but
a lot is still very relevant. Anyone reading it, will see immediately that Trotsky would
*never* have belittled the explicit
struggle against racism in the way
that the wsws often does.
_________________________
annihilation of the native population is not class
exploitation, no matter how you try to spin it.
the indigenous people in the u.s. did not die because
they were used as slave labor (even if in a few cases
this did happen). they were systematically exterminated. extermination is not an example of
class struggle.
it's interesting that no one seems to want to answer
the quotations from lenin and trotsky
that i have presented...
True. But don't omit genocide of native populations and
*continuing* imperial plunder.
Capitalism is a system of (at least) *dual* exploitation and
oppression by the rulers of the core capitalist countries. Oppression based on domestic class distinctions and on global geographical distinctions.
-Rosa Roja
____________________
Same old analysis, same old errors and same failure to think
dialectically. *Systemic* racial oppression (not personal
prejudice) is a basic factor *alongside* of class. It is in
the DNA of the *system*, not the individual people. Racism
is part of capitalism itself from its earliest days. To
pretend to analyze it within a purely local, American
context is inadequate.
Just give a little thought to the genocide and enslavement
perpetrated by the Europeans in both North and South
America. Were the original Americans destroyed for
"cultural" reasons? Could you view the European conquest as
a struggle between capitalist and worker? Obviously not!
If you avoid a reflexive sectarian reaction and think
seriously, you will have to admit that narrowly conceived
class struggle cannot explain these world historical
events (which you don't even mention!!) Nor can it explain
the genocide and enslavement of Africans. You just cannot
analyze these events if your conceptual framework recognizes
only capitalist, proletarian, peasant, and serf within a
(supposedly) isolated economy like England or France!
You are not even faithful to your own founder. "But today
the white workers [NB] in relation to the Negroes are the
oppressors, scoundrels, who persecute the black and the
yellow, hold them in contempt and lynch them."
--L. Trotsky, 1933, Feb. 28. (And I'm just quoting T. I'm
not saying white workers are the main oppressors, so don't
try to pretend that i am.)
-Rosa Roja
___________________________
"this international crisis, whose origins lie in the private ownership of
the means of production and the division of the world into rival nation
states"
You have omitted the most important cause: the exploitation and
plundering of one region of the world by another! Calling it simply
"private ownership" obscures the reality. Unfortunately, this same
distortion appears commonly in WSWS, marring an otherwise reasonable
analysis.
-Rosa Roja
____________________
the author's analysis in this article is BRILLIANT in its
positive aspect --- explaining the connection to state violence,
imperial wars, and attacks on the working class --- but
it is DISGUSTING in what it carefully avoids acknowledging --- the
depth of structural racism in the u.s. in this respect, the bourgeois
media are actually closer to the truth than the wsws.
-Rosa Roja
___________________
bravo! you have said what i have been trying to say
in innumerable posts. (i wish the wsws would take it to heart, but i know from experience that they will either ignore it or dismiss it with a shallow response)
my only disagreement with you is
over the term "geo-racism". this already has a name
and it's called imperialism. as you point out,
domestic racism in the usa is part and parcel of
imperialism. in fact it is a main pillar of imperialism.
marxists, especially lenin and luxemburg, have long understood this structural aspect of capitalism. unfortunately the sep, which claims
to continue their tradition, makes itself blind to the connection, and pretends that racism is a mere
secondary aspect of the domestic class struggle without global significance. sigh....
what's needed, i believe, is not a diluted conception of the working class, as you seem to suggest, but the recognition of a dual form of exploitation:
not only capitalist vs worker, but imperial capitalist vs
"third world" toiler. lenin laid the basis for this analysis,
but only in a sketch. it needs to be developed and deepened. maybe some readers of this web site
will contribute to the task.
-Rosa Roja
___________________
The betrayal of the ANC is beyond question, but it also needs to be
pointed out that when they took power they were in a very weak position.
The
Soviet Union had collapsed and the liberation movement was basically
unarmed. With the best of intentions there was little that the
"tripartite alliance" could have done. But at least they could have
told their supporters the truth and resisted as much as possible,
building for the future. Instead, they embraced "neo-liberalism" and
enlisted as loyal servants of imperialism.
-Rosa Roja
-
______________________________________
Of course police kill people of all races, and of course class plays a
big part in it. That should go without saying, and WSWS does well to
emphasize it. But the following quotation is typical of how WSWS plays
down the significance of racism: "Certainly police racism is a
contributing factor in this disproportionality, but even here IT IS NOT THE PRIMARY FACTOR." There's a grudging admission that racism (but only
by the police, not the ruling class or government!) is relevant followed
by a largely unsupported assertion about what the "primary factor" is.
It's important to notice that
the statistics given seem to miss about half the police
killings, and equally importantly, they seem to have only two categories,
Black and White, whereas racism is not limited to people of African
origin (as Aaron pointed out).0 The honest interpretation of the data would be that it shows a
clear racial bias, whose extent could only be quantified if we had
better data. Incidentally, the recent high profile killings did not
occur "in connection with allegations of felony crime".
-Rosa Roja
_____________________
The following concerns the Burundi article adjacent to this one. It does not seem to be accepting comments.
--------------------------------------------------
The article speaks of ETHNIC tensions between Hutu and Tutsi,
but this promotes the false (and racist) narrative of tribal wars propagated
by the imperialists. From what I've read, Hutu and Tutsi are not
different tribes or national groups. They speak the same
language and intermarry and have the same culture. The
distinction between them is one of CLASS, and seems to have been
largely manufactured by the Belgian and German
colonialists (making the Watutsi the administrators).
-Rosa Roja
________________
To "prove" that racism is not involved
(or only minimally involved) because the
police and politicians are Black is to
misunderstand completely the structure
of oppression. The police (directly)
and the politicians (indirectly) are
paid to do what they do. I'm frankly
suprised to see such an erroneous form
of reasoning in a WSWS article. (It
verges on falling into "identity
politics" itself.)
The *ideology* of racism is part of the
"superstructure". The *facts* of
slavery, colonial plunder, and
super-exploitation are not. They were
not "invented" either!
I do not deny that class conflict is
fundamental. Can you show me where I've
ever written anything like that? The
problem (and I'm getting really sick of
having to repeat this over and over) is
that the SEP fails to understand the
deep connection between racism and
capitalism as it really exists, not as
they imagine it in some lifeless and
superficial caricature of Marxism.
-Rosa Roja
________________________
If the workers in Sandtown-Winchester are saying
that "this is an issue of poverty and class, not
simply racism", they are saying the same thing
I've been saying! It's not SIMPLY racism, and
it's not SIMPLY class. It's BOTH. Why is it so
hard for some people to understand simple logic?
It's not either-or, it's both-and.
Anyone who denies the depth of systematic racism
in the United States is, for me, living on another
planet. The SEP does deny it, as in the sentence
I quoted from this article. Can you point me to
any article on this web site analyzing and
denouncing racial oppression in the U.S? Maybe
there was one that I missed, but it's impossible
to miss the articles belittling the struggles
against racism as merely identity politics.
There's a bigger issue here. The SEP claims to be
internationalists and to pay special attention to
history. In many ways they are, which is why I
read this web site. But when it comes to racism,
they fail utterly to think historically and
globally. Modern racial ideology was invented to
justify the slave trade and the colonial plunder
of Africa, the Americas, and parts of Asia. It
still plays this role. Malcolm X had to be killed
because he was making this connection (just as
Martin King had to be killed because he was making the connection to exploitation of the domestic working class).
-Rosa Roja
_______________________________________
Do you not see that the color of the police proves
nothing? History is overflowing with examples
where members of an oppressed group collaborate
with the oppressors. If that never happened,
empires would be impossible.
When the army is used to break a strike, members
of the working class are attacking their class
brothers and sisters. Does that mean the class
issues in the strike are only of secondary
importance?
-Rosa Roja
_________________
"The relentless police violence in Baltimore stems not from
racism but from class oppression". Wrong: IT STEMS FROM BOTH!
It is easy to understand why the bourgeois media tries to
ignore class. It's impossible for me to understand why the
WSWS so predictably plays down racism. I read your website
regularly, because when I read other sources I feel they
must be living on another planet than the one I know. But
when you make statements like the above, I get the same
feeling about you. This borders on tragedy, because your
message needs to be spread widely, and you are discrediting
it with statements like the above.
I wonder if your writers have ever read what Trotsky had to
say about the "Negro Question" in
https://www.marxists.org/archi...
where he was giving advice to his U.S. comrades. It's true
that things have changed since then, and that Trotsky
admitted he was only proceeding from general considerations,
not detailed knowledge. But his basic attitude comes across
clearly. It's impossible to appreciate it fully without
reading the whole conversation, but here are two extracts.
(1) ...we are ready to do everything possible for the
self-determination of the Negroes if they want it
themselves... We are ready to help them if they want
it... We cannot say it will be reactionary. It is not
reactionary... We cannot say to them, `Stay here, even at
the price of economic progress'. We can say, `It is for you
to decide. If you wish to take a part of the country, it is
all right, but we do not wish to make the decision for you.'
(2) We can and we should find a way to the consciousness of
the Negro workers, of the Chinese workers, of the Hindu
workers, all these oppressed colored races of the human
ocean to whom belongs the decisive word in the development
of humanity.
-Rosa Roja
______________________
To Kaline: Racism is more than an ideological construct. It
is a systematized structure of oppression. In my view it
springs not from class society in the abstract, but from
*imperialism*, of which it is a part. In this sense it is
also a "root" that needs to be attacked. (I don't know
whether you've read any of my earlier posts, but I've been
saying this over and over.)
Capitalism and imperialism have always been inseparable.
(Read Marx on the "primitive accumulation" and Lenin on
imperialism.) To combat them workers must unite across
racial lines and across national boundaries. The struggle
for socialism requires a struggle against
racism/imperialism. It's not an either-or, it's a both-and.
The two struggles need each other and reinforce each other.
-Rosa Roja
_
"the president, the city's mayor, police chief, half of the
Baltimore Police Department...are African American." Is
this supposed to be a serious argument? They also had
Jewish guards in concentration camps. If Clinton is elected
will that be the end of gender oppression?
"He claimed that the wave of police killings was due to
racism, not the class division of society."
Why must it be either or? The police violence expresses
oppression based on BOTH race and class. I don't understand
how any serious observer could deny this.
___________________
The thread on which I tried to post this final RESPONSE TO
SANDY ENGLISH was closed, so I'm posting it with this
article, which also concerns the police murder in
Baltimore.
It's not easy to avoid misunderstandings in this sort of
forum, but I will try, because clarification is sorely
needed. You seem to think I am advocating support of
bourgeois parties, like the disastrous alliance with the
Kuomintang in China in 1927.
I am not advocating that! In fact I'm not advocating
anything at all, except that socialists should associate
themselves with the struggle against racism and imperial
domination, and not dismiss it as bourgeois nationalism or
"identity politics". I don't know how to make this any
clearer than I've tried to do, but I can at least comment on
the concrete examples of national oppression you cited: Sri
Lanka, Palestine, and the U.S. (I've already answered your
claim, farfetched in my opinion, that in effect, the
imperialist division of the world no longer exists.)
From, what little I know of the Tamil struggle for justice,
it is not directly relevant. Both India and Sri Lanka are
equally part of the "third world". Whatever the LTTE may
have been, its fight was not against imperialism.
Palestine is more relevant, but the anti-colonial aspect is
only one part of a more complicated reality. Zionism
represents three different things: simple Jewish
nationalism, European imperialism, and a defensive reaction
against the Nazi "final solution". It cannot be understood
simply on the basis of the second aspect.
Do I expect the PLO to end the oppression of the Palestinian
masses? Of course not. If there were a regional or global
working class upsurge, or a regional or global
anti-imperialist upsurge, many things would become possible,
especially since the two struggles would complement each
other. A different sort of Palestinian leadership might
emerge then, and Arab and Jewish workers might even unite.
For the USA you asked me what "black nationalist program"
I'm offering. What does that mean? When black nationalists
*did* have a voice, there were those like Malcom X, who were
linking up with anti-colonial movements in Africa. No
liberation movement exists today in the USA or Africa. But
if one were to emerge, I believe that it would lead
inevitably to more unity within the American proletariat
(not less!), as we started to see with DRUM and the Chicago
Panthers.
We have to take the world as it is. Do you know anywhere
where revolutionary socialism has even token strength at
present? Even social democracy is everywhere in retreat.
The anti-imperialist currents are also submerged, but that
doesn't mean they are dead, any more than the labour
movement is dead. My main point is -- and always has been
-- that these two things are related. If the one current
will gain strength, so will the other. They are
intrinsically linked. To view them as antagonistic is a key
error.
- Rosa Roja
_
I agree with you in large part. People like Jesse Jackson (or Obama) play a despicable role. (And we have, today, no leaders like Malcolm X, who as you know, was rapidly evolving toward socialism.) But it's going too far to say "There is...no other political content to black consciousness". It has in general an important anti-imperialist content.
-Rosa Roja
______________________
Hi Sandy. I cannot agree with you. If it had no progressive content, how could it have given birth to organizations like the Panthers or DRUM (detroit revolutionary union movement)? Why did the state have to murder Fred Hampton, or Malcolm X?
However, my main point was point 4. (I'm curious how you interpret the quotation I posted.)
-Rosa Roja
______________
Thanks for your answer, Hector.
1. Black nationalism, like most
nationalisms, has always had two wings,
the revolutionary one and the bourgeois
one.
2. what you say about the 1960's is
perfectly true. Not only the black
"comprador" layer, but prisons and
fascist police are part of the response
of the state.
3. What the writer did NOT "clearly
state" is that the defeat of racism "is
inseparable from the struggle to
overthrow this corrupt and brutal social
order". In fact he didn't state it at all.
This omission is unfortunately no accident,
and it was the point of my comment.
4. The struggle against racism (a pillar
of imperialism) is part and parcel of
the global class struggle. Lenin
understood this clearly, as in my
quotation below. The WSWS seems not to
get it, and I don't understand why.
-Rosa Roja
__________________
I had to stop and read the name several times before I could believe
that a statue of Rhodes is the first thing that greets a visitor to
the UCT campus. It's as if Zimbabwe had kept the name "Rhodesia" or
Kinshasa "Leopoldville".
But of course there are far more serious problems than symbolic ones
in South Africa, and I'm afraid that the analysis in this article is
rather superficial (unlike some other articles by the same author).
The most important error, in my opinion, is the implication that
we'd have socialism now in southern Africa if not for the betrayals
by the SACP. This is simply not true. At the time that Apartheid
ended, the USSR had just disappeared, and the worldwide balance of
forces was extremely unfavorable. I doubt that any party, no matter
how wise, could have achieved a very different outcome. Any
analysis must take that as its starting point.
An honest revolutionary party would have explained that to its
members and followers and fought to the extent possible for an
independent working class politics and an end to white minority
rule. The "tripartite alliance" did the opposite. That is where
they can be faulted. You can denounce them 'til the cows come home for abandoning the Freedom Charter and embracing neoliberalism, but you cannot criticize them for not doing what was impossible. A much more
serious and concrete analysis is needed of what exactly took place
in that transition period.
Absolutely correct! The struggle against
racism naturally turns into a struggle
against capitalism as such. Which makes
it doubly dangerous to the bourgeoisie.
It's a shame that the WSWS doesn't
understand this, because otherwise their
website is much better than anything else
out there.
Incidentally, Fred Hampton was also
reaching out to white workers in Chicago.
But none of these leaders ever advocated
giving up the fight against racism. For
Malcolm X, especially, it remained
paramount until his death.
I don't know what you mean by that, but a genuine
struggle against racism is very much of a threat to
the ruling class. Why else did they have to murder
Malcolm X, Martin King, Fred Hampton...?
-Rosa Roja
_____________________________
Yes, the capitalist system is the ultimate source of racism and
police violence. But that system, considered globally, is not
homogeneous. The capitalist-dominated world has always been
divided into "centre" and "periphery", and it is this *specific
feature* of capitalism which is the source of racism. From the
beginnings of colonialism and the slave trade up to the present
day, racism has always served to buttress the pillage of the
periphery by the centre. By overlooking this key fact, the WSWS
makes a serious error. It seems to think that racism is no more
than a device to divide the working class in the United States or
any single country. But its true significance is much more
basic. Racism needs to be combated, not just as an aspect of
what the WSWS disparagingly calls "identity politics", but as an
absolutely essential part of the struggle for socialism.
Both of your points are very true, Lidiya,
but in South Africa the ANC and its allies
would seem to have embraced "neo-liberal"
capitalism even more than the U.S. and
British imperialists demanded of them. Only
a tiny handful of their members are, like
Ronnie Kasrils, on record as criticising the
wholesale desertion of their stated
principles. It would be worth understanding
the mechanism by which such a radical change
was engineered.
-Rosa Roja
__________________
Do you not see that the color of the police proves
nothing? History is overflowing with examples
where members of an oppressed group collaborate
with the oppressors. If that never happened,
empires would be impossible.
When the army is used to break a strike, members
of the working class are attacking their class
brothers and sisters. Does that mean the class
issues in the strike are only of secondary
importance?
-Rosa Roja
_________________
"The relentless police violence in Baltimore stems not from
racism but from class oppression". Wrong: IT STEMS FROM BOTH!
It is easy to understand why the bourgeois media tries to
ignore class. It's impossible for me to understand why the
WSWS so predictably plays down racism. I read your website
regularly, because when I read other sources I feel they
must be living on another planet than the one I know. But
when you make statements like the above, I get the same
feeling about you. This borders on tragedy, because your
message needs to be spread widely, and you are discrediting
it with statements like the above.
I wonder if your writers have ever read what Trotsky had to
say about the "Negro Question" in
https://www.marxists.org/archi...
where he was giving advice to his U.S. comrades. It's true
that things have changed since then, and that Trotsky
admitted he was only proceeding from general considerations,
not detailed knowledge. But his basic attitude comes across
clearly. It's impossible to appreciate it fully without
reading the whole conversation, but here are two extracts.
(1) ...we are ready to do everything possible for the
self-determination of the Negroes if they want it
themselves... We are ready to help them if they want
it... We cannot say it will be reactionary. It is not
reactionary... We cannot say to them, `Stay here, even at
the price of economic progress'. We can say, `It is for you
to decide. If you wish to take a part of the country, it is
all right, but we do not wish to make the decision for you.'
(2) We can and we should find a way to the consciousness of
the Negro workers, of the Chinese workers, of the Hindu
workers, all these oppressed colored races of the human
ocean to whom belongs the decisive word in the development
of humanity.
-Rosa Roja
______________________
To Kaline: Racism is more than an ideological construct. It
is a systematized structure of oppression. In my view it
springs not from class society in the abstract, but from
*imperialism*, of which it is a part. In this sense it is
also a "root" that needs to be attacked. (I don't know
whether you've read any of my earlier posts, but I've been
saying this over and over.)
Capitalism and imperialism have always been inseparable.
(Read Marx on the "primitive accumulation" and Lenin on
imperialism.) To combat them workers must unite across
racial lines and across national boundaries. The struggle
for socialism requires a struggle against
racism/imperialism. It's not an either-or, it's a both-and.
The two struggles need each other and reinforce each other.
-Rosa Roja
_
"the president, the city's mayor, police chief, half of the
Baltimore Police Department...are African American." Is
this supposed to be a serious argument? They also had
Jewish guards in concentration camps. If Clinton is elected
will that be the end of gender oppression?
"He claimed that the wave of police killings was due to
racism, not the class division of society."
Why must it be either or? The police violence expresses
oppression based on BOTH race and class. I don't understand
how any serious observer could deny this.
___________________
The thread on which I tried to post this final RESPONSE TO
SANDY ENGLISH was closed, so I'm posting it with this
article, which also concerns the police murder in
Baltimore.
It's not easy to avoid misunderstandings in this sort of
forum, but I will try, because clarification is sorely
needed. You seem to think I am advocating support of
bourgeois parties, like the disastrous alliance with the
Kuomintang in China in 1927.
I am not advocating that! In fact I'm not advocating
anything at all, except that socialists should associate
themselves with the struggle against racism and imperial
domination, and not dismiss it as bourgeois nationalism or
"identity politics". I don't know how to make this any
clearer than I've tried to do, but I can at least comment on
the concrete examples of national oppression you cited: Sri
Lanka, Palestine, and the U.S. (I've already answered your
claim, farfetched in my opinion, that in effect, the
imperialist division of the world no longer exists.)
From, what little I know of the Tamil struggle for justice,
it is not directly relevant. Both India and Sri Lanka are
equally part of the "third world". Whatever the LTTE may
have been, its fight was not against imperialism.
Palestine is more relevant, but the anti-colonial aspect is
only one part of a more complicated reality. Zionism
represents three different things: simple Jewish
nationalism, European imperialism, and a defensive reaction
against the Nazi "final solution". It cannot be understood
simply on the basis of the second aspect.
Do I expect the PLO to end the oppression of the Palestinian
masses? Of course not. If there were a regional or global
working class upsurge, or a regional or global
anti-imperialist upsurge, many things would become possible,
especially since the two struggles would complement each
other. A different sort of Palestinian leadership might
emerge then, and Arab and Jewish workers might even unite.
For the USA you asked me what "black nationalist program"
I'm offering. What does that mean? When black nationalists
*did* have a voice, there were those like Malcom X, who were
linking up with anti-colonial movements in Africa. No
liberation movement exists today in the USA or Africa. But
if one were to emerge, I believe that it would lead
inevitably to more unity within the American proletariat
(not less!), as we started to see with DRUM and the Chicago
Panthers.
We have to take the world as it is. Do you know anywhere
where revolutionary socialism has even token strength at
present? Even social democracy is everywhere in retreat.
The anti-imperialist currents are also submerged, but that
doesn't mean they are dead, any more than the labour
movement is dead. My main point is -- and always has been
-- that these two things are related. If the one current
will gain strength, so will the other. They are
intrinsically linked. To view them as antagonistic is a key
error.
- Rosa Roja
_
I agree with you in large part. People like Jesse Jackson (or Obama) play a despicable role. (And we have, today, no leaders like Malcolm X, who as you know, was rapidly evolving toward socialism.) But it's going too far to say "There is...no other political content to black consciousness". It has in general an important anti-imperialist content.
-Rosa Roja
______________________
Hi Sandy. I cannot agree with you. If it had no progressive content, how could it have given birth to organizations like the Panthers or DRUM (detroit revolutionary union movement)? Why did the state have to murder Fred Hampton, or Malcolm X?
However, my main point was point 4. (I'm curious how you interpret the quotation I posted.)
-Rosa Roja
______________
Thanks for your answer, Hector.
1. Black nationalism, like most
nationalisms, has always had two wings,
the revolutionary one and the bourgeois
one.
2. what you say about the 1960's is
perfectly true. Not only the black
"comprador" layer, but prisons and
fascist police are part of the response
of the state.
3. What the writer did NOT "clearly
state" is that the defeat of racism "is
inseparable from the struggle to
overthrow this corrupt and brutal social
order". In fact he didn't state it at all.
This omission is unfortunately no accident,
and it was the point of my comment.
4. The struggle against racism (a pillar
of imperialism) is part and parcel of
the global class struggle. Lenin
understood this clearly, as in my
quotation below. The WSWS seems not to
get it, and I don't understand why.
-Rosa Roja
__________________
I had to stop and read the name several times before I could believe
that a statue of Rhodes is the first thing that greets a visitor to
the UCT campus. It's as if Zimbabwe had kept the name "Rhodesia" or
Kinshasa "Leopoldville".
But of course there are far more serious problems than symbolic ones
in South Africa, and I'm afraid that the analysis in this article is
rather superficial (unlike some other articles by the same author).
The most important error, in my opinion, is the implication that
we'd have socialism now in southern Africa if not for the betrayals
by the SACP. This is simply not true. At the time that Apartheid
ended, the USSR had just disappeared, and the worldwide balance of
forces was extremely unfavorable. I doubt that any party, no matter
how wise, could have achieved a very different outcome. Any
analysis must take that as its starting point.
An honest revolutionary party would have explained that to its
members and followers and fought to the extent possible for an
independent working class politics and an end to white minority
rule. The "tripartite alliance" did the opposite. That is where
they can be faulted. You can denounce them 'til the cows come home for abandoning the Freedom Charter and embracing neoliberalism, but you cannot criticize them for not doing what was impossible. A much more
serious and concrete analysis is needed of what exactly took place
in that transition period.
Absolutely correct! The struggle against
racism naturally turns into a struggle
against capitalism as such. Which makes
it doubly dangerous to the bourgeoisie.
It's a shame that the WSWS doesn't
understand this, because otherwise their
website is much better than anything else
out there.
Incidentally, Fred Hampton was also
reaching out to white workers in Chicago.
But none of these leaders ever advocated
giving up the fight against racism. For
Malcolm X, especially, it remained
paramount until his death.
I don't know what you mean by that, but a genuine
struggle against racism is very much of a threat to
the ruling class. Why else did they have to murder
Malcolm X, Martin King, Fred Hampton...?
-Rosa Roja
_____________________________
Yes, the capitalist system is the ultimate source of racism and
police violence. But that system, considered globally, is not
homogeneous. The capitalist-dominated world has always been
divided into "centre" and "periphery", and it is this *specific
feature* of capitalism which is the source of racism. From the
beginnings of colonialism and the slave trade up to the present
day, racism has always served to buttress the pillage of the
periphery by the centre. By overlooking this key fact, the WSWS
makes a serious error. It seems to think that racism is no more
than a device to divide the working class in the United States or
any single country. But its true significance is much more
basic. Racism needs to be combated, not just as an aspect of
what the WSWS disparagingly calls "identity politics", but as an
absolutely essential part of the struggle for socialism.
Both of your points are very true, Lidiya,
but in South Africa the ANC and its allies
would seem to have embraced "neo-liberal"
capitalism even more than the U.S. and
British imperialists demanded of them. Only
a tiny handful of their members are, like
Ronnie Kasrils, on record as criticising the
wholesale desertion of their stated
principles. It would be worth understanding
the mechanism by which such a radical change
was engineered.
-Rosa Roja
__________________
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