On the Settler Question
Vngelis
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> On Apr 27, 2:44 pm, Vngelis <meberr...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > Someone may be brought there initially as a slave but then if they
> > become the foreman they cease to be a slave.
> > It happens amongst workers every so often when they seek management
> > positions. The cease to be in the class they started out in or were
> > born into.
> > vngelis- Hide quoted text -
> > - Show quoted text -
> I had missed this posting, which largely answers my last question. I
> think you are saying they become settlers upon their integration into
> the settler social stratum. That makes more sense than others are
> ready to grant, although it requires that there _be_ a distinct
> settler stratum, as in South Africa.
> srd
It makes no sense what so ever. YOu are letting V use his "settler
smoke and mirrors" on you and you are falling for it. First, the
overwhelming majority of Indian immigrants became working class. There
was a small stratum that became..."foreman" as V puts it, mostly this
stratum were petty-bourgeois and at not point in S. Africa were they
ever 'ruling class', which is the real issue, like the Boers, who
became grafted onto the Anglo ruling class with the rise of the
national party after WWII.
The idea that you are brought over, a whole people, as workers, then
you 'become a settler' defies logic and history.
David
Vngelis
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> On Apr 27, 2:41 pm, Vngelis <meberr...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > On Apr 25, 10:43 am, nada <dwalters...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > On Apr 25, 2:35 am, Vngelis <meberr...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > > > Each state which has been created out of settlers except the USA eg
> > > > Bolivia, S.Africa, Zimbabwe etc will naturally go through an
> > > > indigenous phase ie the settlers will at some point in time either be
> > > > thrown out or victimised. Once that happens they can then return if
> > > > they do under different conditions.
> > > > This can be seen to have occurred in a series of African countries,
> > > > from Egypt, to Uganda now in Zimbabwe.
> > > > Settlers by their very nature are alien to the weak nation states they
> > > > live in. They dont stop being settlers because they have been there
> > > > for centuries. An indian in South Africa remains an indian despite and
> > > > against all those who profess he isn't one in order to justify
> > > > 'multicultural' settler states.
> > > > That is why eg the Sparts do not seek the independence and separation
> > > > of the Blacks in the USA. They see this as undermining US imperialism
> > > > and do not want to go down that route. After all they are the ones who
> > > > characterise resistance based on what comes next not what is occurring
> > > > now. As if the future determined the present and not the other way
> > > > round.
> > > Well that was interesting. Hmmm....so...you see Indians in S. Africa
> > > as "settlers"?
> > > If they were brought as indentured servants (as they were in places
> > > like S. Africa, Fiji, etc) how can they be settlers?
> > > David
> > You need to explain how third generation Indians were expelled with
> > such ease and with such popular support in Uganda under Idi Amin Dada.
> > They left with only a suitcase. But then again I assume because they
> > were third generation they now became indigenous?
> > So in Bolivia today the European descendants who want to break the
> > country up shouldn't be expelled back to Europe?
> > vngelis- Hide quoted text -
> > - Show quoted text -
> Is the issue here merely the factual one as to whether the Indians
> came as indentured servants, which David says every political person
> knows, but you challenge, and I know nothing about. (Then, I probably
> don't count as 'political.') This should be easy enough to resolve. Or
> are you saying that regardless of how the Indians got there, expelling
> them was justified, based on mass support for the expulsions?
> srd
The problem is that 'nationality' tends to be fluid. Combine with this
the idea that of Vngelis that anyone not native, in his view, having
*evolved* indigenously, is a "settler". In fact, the Turks were very
late comers to the area they now occupy, as Vngelis knows full well.
The Trojans were *Greeks*, not Turks...Turks didn't even exist this
side of Armenia. So who is the "settler" and why is relevant...or does
Vs definition include the original ionians who settled Greece...before
Greece? At what point do people stop being "settlers" and start being
a member of the nation (ALL of whom are only few hundred years old)?
John H. pointed out (I think it was him) that even now one can argue
that all the descendent's of Europeans/Asia/Africa in the Western
Hemisphere were "settlers"...what does this mean in terms present day
politics and how does this help us organize the class?
He argues (as NO ONE else does) that the 100% Europeans (there are
none, actually, but let's step into Vngelis fantasy for shits and
giggles) in the eastern prefectures of Boliva (Santa Cruz) should be
expelled "back to Europe". [Does this include people like Guillermo
Lora, the founder of Bolivian Trotskyism?].
The left in Bolivia, the working class and peasantry specifically,
understands the absurd *distraction* that someone the likes of Vngelis
would play in Bolivia today. They know, as they have expressed it,
that the issue is *control* by the indigenous majority over the mixed-
and "blanco" oligarchy. Of course for V to *seriously* raise it, which
he does not, except in the virtual reality world of APST, he would
play the role of AGENT for the Oligarchy which would love to try to
incite race-hatred against them so they can try to capture the moral
high ground as an argument to bring in peace-keepers and to raise the
cry of "autonomy" but backed up by international sentiment (or,
rather, excuses).
To my knowledge, no whites have been "expelled' from South Africa,
period. Why should they? They still run the place but with cronies
from the ANC in their stead. Even here, the Black Consciousness
movement in AZAPO, PAC and SAPO do not call for anyone to be
"expelled" to my knowledge, rather again, it's "Black majority rule"
something they still don't have because of the Meach Lake Accords that
granted "privileges" to the white minority.
D/
Vngelis
Vngelis
I gave an example of two-three countries in Africa none of which were
mentioned in any counterreply apart from S. Africa.
The post-colonial period which went from direct colonialism to
indirect led to the expulsion of settlers in countries ranging from
Egypt, Zimbabwe, Congo, Algeria etc. This is a natural evolutionary
process whereby the newly independent state seeks to survive in
hostile conditions whereby the old rules of control and rule have
changed. When the British left Africa directly (not indirectly) a
vacuum was created and the Indians became defacto prominent in many
roles. Idi Amin following on from Kemal, Nasser expelled them. That is
the correct thing to do as they played the role of the transmission
belt for imperialist control.
If Morales means anything he has to expel the Santa Cruz descendants
of Europeans, send them to Argentina at least if not back to Europe.
They have to leave the political scene.
Now the PAC used to have a slogan One Settler One Bullet. This will
eventually be actualised as whites will end up leaving S Africa as
they have been Zimbabwe. They aint African even if they have been
there 10 generations. Black Athena is a book it aint real, like Rambo
and one cant justify their presence because we allegedly all descend
from ...Africa hence we are all Africans. Masking over the class role
of settlers and their descendants is justifying the role of 'divide
and rule' which creates pseudo-nations ie Prots in N. Ireland and then
all the left does is spend time justifying their continued presence in
those areas. A boat, a ship, a plane can move any descendant anywhere
on earth to anywhere again and back again if so desired. But they have
to go. Like the zionists in Israel have to leave, the Arabs have to
unite for any problems to be solved. These are necessary steps which
all oppressed countries have to go through, if the revolution doesn't
occur prior to it. How many Brits, French, Portuguese remained in
China after WW2? Waiting for the numbers? They were there for around
100 years, 2/3 less than their presence in S Africa. They were given
the boot though. Anyone who defends their presence in these ex-
colonial countries, is an imperialist lapdog, ie Sparts, Walters, SWP-
UK etc.
nada
>
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First, thanks for reposting this stuff under a different thread.
Well, to start with your last rather upsurd, a-historical explative is
quite unique. To discuss this means departing from standard Marxist
and workers methodology which of course, rejects this. I can't say it
rejects this "specifically" but it's never been a demand of any
revolutionary movement, at least not as generally expressed by Vngels'
disive and non-Marxist view. Also, this perspective would leave the
tiny "Group Vngelis" as a group of 1 or 2 in entire world.
Generally, the reason "expusulions" are not carried out is because it
has little to do with the Democratic revolution or democratic demands,
let alone class demands. Perhaps Vngelis can square this with either
Permenent Revolution or the Transitional Program, or, perhaps, with
the either the 1st, 2nd, 3rd or 4th Internationals. I'm saying this
out of curiosity because I know this is going to be his unique
cotnribution to some discusion someplace (although probably just
here).
The big issue of course is his definition of "settler" which he's now
using transparently as a standy-in for "immigrant", his real bugaboo.
But, on the history. First, WHAT settlers were expelled from Egypt? I
really don't know or didn't know that it was settler-targeted by
either the French or the British. Algeria: the French colons, who
viewed themselvs as *French* and not Algerian were
expelled...except...the small minority that opted for Algerian
citizenship. Same is true in Morocco.(itself an interesting example
as, per Vngelis, ALL Arabs in the Meghrab are "settlers" over the
indigenous berber majorities--Morocco/Tunisia and minorities--
Algeria).
In S. Africa there hasn't been any expulsions. There is not such nice
tidy bourgeois term as "indirect expulsion" of whites there. Many left
because the *refused* to live under the aborted form of Black rule,
others are going no place, for now. The PAC's slogan was quite sort
lived, and, please note, no longer in usage. The slogan divided AZAPO
(Steve Biko's party) and hasn't been taken up again since Marxists (as
in the case of SAPO) are interested in the REAL issues, which are
Black Majority Rule, Land to the peasant, factories to the workers and
socialism. If anyone agrees with this they are can be members of
either SAPO or AZAPO. Correctly IMO.
The Palestinians have forever accepted Jews who ditch their Zionism as
acceptable to stay in Palestine. The history of the FI was one of
unity between Jewish and Arab workers against colonialism and
settlerism. "Settlerism" is NOT the same as immigration: it is a form
of foreign *conquest* designed to give *power* over the lives,
property and politics of the (reletively) more indigenous people of a
region.
It makes a lot of sense for Vngelis' anti-immigration pov to suggest
anyone ever who has moved from one place to another is a 'settler' for
"10 generations". My view, the anti-imperialism one, rejects this
point of view as racially reductionist and, politically irrelevant.
For example, he cites Uganda when Amin expelled the Ugandans of Indian
decent. What made the Indian's at least partially "settlers" was that
they continued, after independence, to hold UK passports. As such,
they were in a way described by Vngelis as 'transmission' belts for
imperialism. But this was not *really* the case. The real transmission
belts are often NOT the 'richest' ethnic or religeous group...the
*ruling class* was often the native Blacks in an ex-colonial country.
This is true, for example, historically in places like the English
speaking Carribean...decendents of Indians often (but not always) the
'richest groups' in these islands. But this was based often on narrow
trading and import businesses...the real capitalists were the land
owners and tranportion owners, most of whom were Black. (and of
course, Blacks are "settlers" too per his definition) Thus there was a
huge 'fake' Black Power movement against Indians by the Black
bourgeoisie who were quite jealous of the wealth accumulated by a
minority of Indians (or Chinese) in these islands.
Of course in places like Guyana, half the working class is Indian, the
other half Black. It was, historically, the Indians (brought there
like their S. African cousins to farm the land) were the most anti-
imperialist and any repository of Marxism in the independence movement
found it's strongest calling among Indian "settlers". And of course
Indians only arrived shortly after the Blacks did.
David
Mr. Green Jeans
yourself to women on the tube.
I've spent the last few months liftin major weights, studying the most
advanced forms of kung fu around. My fists are like fucking thunder.
I'm fuckin harder than before and ready to teach you clowns a lesson.
And I'm gonna start with you fuck face.
I'll be at the next Labor Black League Reader circle. Will you?
Labor Black League Readers Circle
Mumia Abu-Jamal Is Innocent! Free Him Now! Abolish the Racist Death
Penalty!
Presentation on Mumia’s case and a report back on the
international demonstrations of April 19-26
Come to our Workers Vanguard Readers Circle discussion
on the article on Mumia Abu-Jamal in this issue.
Tuesday, April 29, 6 p.m.
299 Broadway, Suite 318
(north of Chambers Street)
Time to rock and roll homeboy.
> D/- Hide quoted text -
Vngelis
> First, thanks for reposting this stuff under a different thread.
>
> Well, to start with your last rather upsurd, a-historical explative is
> quite unique. To discuss this means departing from standard Marxist
> and workers methodology which of course, rejects this. I can't say it
> rejects this "specifically" but it's never been a demand of any
> revolutionary movement, at least not as generally expressed by Vngels'
> disive and non-Marxist view. Also, this perspective would leave the
> tiny "Group Vngelis" as a group of 1 or 2 in entire world.
>
If size were an issue in discussing politics then marxism would have
had no chance in its history as I dont recall it ever being a mass
movement apart from a few brief periods in history and for a short
time as well. Although this obsession you have with size is unhealthy
living in LA as well...
> Generally, the reason "expusulions" are not carried out is because it
> has little to do with the Democratic revolution or democratic demands,
> let alone class demands. Perhaps Vngelis can square this with either
> Permenent Revolution or the Transitional Program, or, perhaps, with
> the either the 1st, 2nd, 3rd or 4th Internationals. I'm saying this
> out of curiosity because I know this is going to be his unique
> cotnribution to some discusion someplace (although probably just
> here).
>
> The big issue of course is his definition of "settler" which he's now
> using transparently as a standy-in for "immigrant", his real bugaboo.
>
> But, on the history. First, WHAT settlers were expelled from Egypt?
Jews (your favorite topic and you didn't even know!) as well as Greeks
were chucked out by Nasser
http://www.country-studies.com/egypt/nasser-and-arab-socialism.html
I met people who were booted out years ago...
I
> really don't know or didn't know that it was settler-targeted by
> either the French or the British. Algeria: the French colons, who
> viewed themselvs as *French* and not Algerian were
> expelled...except...the small minority that opted for Algerian
> citizenship. Same is true in Morocco.(itself an interesting example
> as, per Vngelis, ALL Arabs in the Meghrab are "settlers" over the
> indigenous berber majorities--Morocco/Tunisia and minorities--
> Algeria).
Weren't the Vietnamese boat people essentially collaborators of US
imperialism?
Wont Iraquis be expelled when the Yanks lose totally?
White French citizens who lived in Algeria were expelled weren't they?
> In S. Africa there hasn't been any expulsions. There is not such nice
> tidy bourgeois term as "indirect expulsion" of whites there. Many left
> because the *refused* to live under the aborted form of Black rule,
> others are going no place, for now. The PAC's slogan was quite sort
> lived, and, please note, no longer in usage. The slogan divided AZAPO
> (Steve Biko's party) and hasn't been taken up again since Marxists (as
> in the case of SAPO) are interested in the REAL issues, which are
> Black Majority Rule, Land to the peasant, factories to the workers and
> socialism. If anyone agrees with this they are can be members of
> either SAPO or AZAPO. Correctly IMO.
White farmers in S Africa are attacked daily. More than a million
white youth have left.
The law which states indiginous have to be given jobs is leading to
white flight.
What has happened in Zimbabwe that you ignore will happen in S Africa,
is happening in S. Africa hence the interest of the West in Zimbabwe.
History though will go through its black phase for the South African
continent.
The slogan 'One Settler One Bullet' is being implemented on the ground
irrespective what the politicians are doing or what they dream will
happen in the so-called 'Rainbow Nation'.
Whatever you say is that the Indians were expelled from Uganda. You
cant square the circle explaining to us why they were expelled if they
were not settlers but indentured slaves. Their role was to run the
country on behalf of the British who departed. They did. Idi Amin
wasn't naturally anti-Indian after all his CV was fighting the Mau Mau
in Kenyas war of independece on behalf of the British much in the same
way as Saddam fought Iran on behalf of the Yanks. He was forced to
expel them because of the pressure from below.
> Of course in places like Guyana, half the working class is Indian, the
> other half Black. It was, historically, the Indians (brought there
> like their S. African cousins to farm the land) were the most anti-
> imperialist and any repository of Marxism in the independence movement
> found it's strongest calling among Indian "settlers". And of course
> Indians only arrived shortly after the Blacks did.
>
> David
Guyana like Argentina if populated by all races other than indigenous
are special cases. The settler issue does not apply internally but
from the outside in, much in the same was as in the USA as the true
Americans have been wiped out and are left on some casino
reservations...
Vngelis
By K Gajendra Singh
"We studied history at school that taught us to say freedom or death.
I think you know well that we as a people have our experience with the
colonialists." - US ambassador April Glaspie to Saddam Hussein in
Baghdad on July 25, 1990.
While formulating foreign policy options, political leaders also look
to history for guidance. Unfortunately, the United State's history is
only two centuries old, and to meet the challenge of terrorism,
Frankenstein monsters partly of its own creation, the mujahideen,
jihadis, the Taliban and al-Qaeda , the US can only recall a long
genocidal war against its native Americans.
Those who resisted were called "terrorists" for defending their native
land and way of life against foreign invaders. There are Hollywood
films galore that depict the "American Indians" as savages to be
hunted down by the US cavalry.
The same cavalry units now force Iraqis daily to lie face down in the
land of their ancestors and describe those fighting to free their
country from the occupying forces as "terrorists". The Iraqis, other
Arabs and Iranians are the new "American Indians", and those who
collaborate with the Bush administration are like the good Indians who
helped the Americans fight and defeat bad Indians.
So the display of a seemingly drugged and unwashed Saddam Hussein was
to assert white Christian supremacy over the natives. US policy in
Iraq and the region is pure and simple, blatant neo-colonization.
After Vietnam and Afghanistan, the Middle East is the new American
West. The US administration, scared of Islamic fundamentalism and
religious fanatics, has yet to evolve a coherent policy to counter it.
But it is turning occupied Iraq into an oligarchy of crony capitalism,
after an ill-advised and illegal war on Iraq, set off and egged on by
Christian fundamentalists at the core of the administration.
The idea of nationalism - developed by the West - socialism, rule of
law, fraternity and equality, have been abolished in the discourse
since September 11. But the sturdy plant of nationalism in Iraq cannot
be eliminated by going into denial mode. According to Iraqi opposition
and other sources, there are perhaps more than 50 different resistance
organizations, including Ba'athists, communists, nationalists,
cashiered soldiers discarded by the occupation, and Sunni and Shi'ite
religious groups, as well as foreign elements. In reality, almost
everyone is opposed to foreign occupation.
In an era of nation states based on patriotism and shared history,
people just hate occupying powers. While Vietnam's example and its
people's fight for freedom and making it a quagmire for US forces has
been talked about, Iraq's comparison with post World War 2 Germany and
Japan shows little historic understanding. The ground situation and
the evolution of the war for independence in Muslim, Arab, and till
now secular Iraq, is closer to the wars of independence in Algeria and
Turkey.
In a November 2003 report by MEDACT, the London-based affiliate of
International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War and
Physicians for Social Responsibility, it was estimated that the number
of Iraqis killed since the invasion in March was between 20,000 and
55,000, including at least 8,000 civilians, with upwards of 20,000
civilian casualties.
The Algerian war of independence lasted from 1954 to 1962, in which
almost every family lost a member, a son, a cousin, a nephew,
willingly or unwillingly sacrificed at the alter of freedom, self
respect and dignity. After its defeat in World War 1, when the Ottoman
empire lay supine under the heels of Allied power in its capital
Istanbul with the Sultan Caliph a captive, the national leadership,
led by Mustapha Kemal and his comrades, mostly former Ottoman
soldiers, aroused the masses of Anatolia to make yet another supreme
effort to expel the Greeks and other occupying powers.
Algerian case study
When I arrived in Algeria in 1964 from Egypt as a young diplomat, one
saw very few young men between the ages of 14 and 40 years in the
streets of Algiers, its capital . One million Algerians out of a
population of 11 million had been killed in the war for independence
against France. When president Ahmed Ben Bella was ousted by his
defense minister Colonel Houari Boumedienne in June 1965, there was
almost no violence. Algerians had had enough bloodletting. Ben Bella
was quietly taken away from the president's palace, just across from
my 4th floor apartment. The Battle of Algiers, now being screened for
the benefit of US decision makers, was filmed in 1965.
Like Operation Iraqi Freedom and other US claims to usher democracy
into Iraq and the Middle East now, during World War 2, Allied and Axis
powers in their Arabic radio broadcasts promised freedom and a new
world for the natives. Ferhat Abbas drafted an Algerian manifesto in
December 1942 for presentation to Allied and French authorities for
political autonomy for Algeria. Following General Charles de Gaulle's
promise in 1943 for their loyalty, some categories of Muslims in North
Africa were granted French citizenship, but this did not go far enough
to satisfy Algerian aspirations. When Algerian nationalist flags were
displayed at Sitif in May 1945, French authorities fired on
demonstrators. In a spontaneous uprising, 84 European settlers were
massacred. The violence and suppression that followed resulted in the
death of about 8,000 Muslims (according to French sources) or as many
as 45,000 (according to Algerian sources). That laid the foundations
for the Algerian War of Independence, which began in earnest 10 years
later.
A number of nationalist groups and parties were organized in Algeria
even before World War 2, which became increasingly radicalized when
peaceful means failed to obtain freedom. A radical paramilitary group,
the Special Organization (Organization Spiciale; OS) formed in the mid
1940s was discovered in 1950 and many of its leaders imprisoned. In
1954, a group of former OS members formed the Revolutionary Committee
of Unity and Action (Comiti Rivolutionaire d'Uniti et d'Action; CRUA).
This organization, later to become the FLN, made preparations for
military action. The leading members of the CRUA became the so-called
chefs historiques (historical leaders) of the Algerian War of
Independence: Hocine Aot-Ahmed, Larbi Ben M'Hidi, Moustapha Ben
Boulaid, Mohamed Boudiaf, Mourad Didouche, Belkacem Krim, Mohamed
Khider, Rabah Bitat, and Ahmed Ben Bella. They organized and led
several hundred men in the first armed confrontations.
The Algerian war of Independence was ignited in 1954 in the Aures
mountains. It was at first dismissed as just colonial trouble. The
armed uprising soon intensified and spread, gradually affecting larger
parts of the country, and some regions - notably the northeastern
parts of Little Kabylia and parts of the Aurhs Mountains - became
guerrilla strongholds that were beyond French control. France became
more involved in the conflict, drafting some 2 million conscripts over
the course of the war. To counter the spread of the uprising, the
French National Assembly declared a state of emergency.
Jacques Soustelle arrived in Algiers as the new governor-general in
February 1955, but his new plan was ineffective. Soon the situation
developed into a full-scale war with French military rule, censorship
and terrorism and torture. White French and European settlers known as
pied noires (black feet) thrice challenged the central government in
Paris.
The white European settler population was part of Algeria for
generations, perhaps much longer than any other settler community in
Africa, with the mother country just across the Mediterranean. The
French were almost as numerous as the Muslim Algerians in the main
cities and had rendered conspicuous services to Algeria.
A decisive turn in the war for independence took place in August 1955,
when a widespread armed outbreak in Skikda, north of the Constantine
region, led to the killings of nearly 100 Europeans and Muslim
officials. Countermeasures by both the French army and settlers
claimed the lives of somewhere between 1,200 (according to French
sources) and 12,000 (according to Algerian sources) Algerians. A
French army of 500,000 troops was sent to Algeria to counter the rebel
strongholds in the more distant portions of the country, while the
rebels collected money for their cause and took reprisals against
fellow Muslims who would not cooperate with them. By the spring of
1956 a majority of previously non-committed political leaders, such as
Ferhat Abbas and Tawfiq al-Madani, joined FLN leaders in Cairo, where
the group established its headquarters.
The first FLN congress took place in August-September 1956 in the
Soummam Valley between Great and Little Kabylia and brought together
the FLN leadership in an appraisal of the war and its objectives.
Algeria was divided into six autonomous zones (wilayat ), each led by
guerrilla commanders who later played key political roles in the
country. The congress also produced a written program on the aims and
objectives of the war and set up the National Council for the Algerian
Revolution (Conseil National de la Rivolution Algirienne) and the
Committee of Coordination and Enforcement (Comiti de Coordination et
d'Exicution), the latter acting as the executive branch of the FLN.
Externally, the major event of 1956 was the French decision to grant
full independence to Morocco and Tunisia and to concentrate on
retaining "French Algeria". The Moroccan sultan and premier Habib
Bourguiba of Tunisia, hoping to find an acceptable solution to the
Algerian problem, called for a meeting in Tunis with important
Algerian leaders (including Ben Bella, Boudiaf, Khider and Aot-Ahmed)
who were the guests of the sultan in Rabat. French intelligence
officers, however, hijacked the plane chartered by the Moroccan
government to Oran instead of Tunis. The Algerian leaders were
arrested and imprisoned in France for the rest of the war. This act
hardened the resolve of the Algerian leadership and provoked an attack
on Meknhs, Morocco, that cost the lives of 40 French settlers before
the Moroccan government could restore order.
After the meeting with the Moroccan sultan at Rabat at the end of
1957, Bourguiba again offered to mediate, but the French, deceived
into optimism by some recent successes in the field, declined.
Bourguiba wanted a peaceful solution, because of growing links between
the FLN and Egypt. A Maghrib federation to include an independent
Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia was also discussed.
From the beginning of 1956 and lasting until the summer of the
following year, the FLN tried to paralyze the administration of
Algiers through what has come to be known as the Battle of Algiers.
Attacks by the FLN against both military and civilian European targets
were countered by paratroopers led by General Jacques Massu. To stem
the tide of FLN attacks, the French military resorted to the torture
and summary execution of hundreds of suspects. The entire leadership
of the FLN was eventually eliminated or forced to flee. The French
also cut Algeria off from independent Tunisia and Morocco by erecting
barbed wire fences that were illuminated at night by searchlights.
This separated the Algerian resistance bands within the country from
some 30,000 armed Algerians on the frontiers of Tunisia and Morocco.
Constitutionally declared a part of metropolitan France, the Frenchmen
maintained a stubborn belief that Algeria was French, while others
wondered why the French were unable to see that their days as rulers
in Algeria were numbered. Like other colonists, the sudden descent
from the first rank world colonial power was too much. The British in
the Middle East after the retreat from India also made the mistake by
hanging on to Egypt and even invaded it along with France and Israel
in 1956. It ended in disaster.
After their retreat from Indo-China, senior French officers in Algeria
took their role with a sense of mission which distorted their sense of
proportion and led them in the end to jettison their oaths of
allegiance and violation of human rights.
The settler French community arrogated to itself an authority which
belonged rightly to Paris. The weaknesses and divisions of the
governments of the Fourth Republic in Paris allowed this authority to
be enhanced and exercised in Algiers recklessly until the return of
General de Gaulle in 1958. Some French governor-generals in Algeria
did try to alleviate their repression of nationalism with some
economic developments and reforms, but the nationalists' aim was full
independence.
In the first phase of the revolt after the defeat of the Faure
government in November 1955, a fresh general election installed a
minority government led by Guy Mollet. Mollet went to Algiers where he
was pelted with garbage by pied noirs, while talks with the FLN
leaders remained totally unproductive. A widely respected and liberal
General Catroux appointed governor general by Mollet resigned his
office without even leaving France.
By May 1956, Mollet felt that he had taken enough risks and in a trial
of strength between Paris and the Europeans in Algeria, and Paris
might not win. During the next 18 months political attitudes remained
rigid, the French army and the FLN established positions in which
neither could defeat the other. Terrorism mounted on both sides and
even spread to Paris and other cities in France. Torture became a
regular instrument of government, with retaliation by the FLN. The
impasse seemed to be complete, politically and militarily. The
European community's preoccupation with repression left little room
for anything else.
On May 28, 1958, Pierre Pflimlin, the last prime minister of the
Fourth French Republic, resigned, becoming the sixth victim of the
Algerian war. On May 13, Algiers had rebelled against Paris planning
to seize power in Paris by a coup on May 30. Most of Corsica had
accepted the rebel regime and half the commanders of the military
regions in France were believed to be disloyal. Then on June 1 emerged
General de Gaulle, World War 2 hero of the French resistance who was
invested with full powers. He flew to Algiers on June 4, but kept his
cards close to his chest, but he probably saw the inevitable.
By a mixture of authority and ambiguity, he imposed his will and
gradually acquired the power to impose a solution. It was a masterly
performance, but it took him nearly four years. He did enough to
retain the initiative, but would not reveal his plans, thus preventing
potentially hostile groups from acting against him until it was too
late. He normalized relations with Tunisia and Morocco, agreeing to
withdraw French forces from both countries (except from the Tunisian
naval base at Bizerta). He transferred from Algeria many senior
officers who could not disobey the general. General Salan, a prime
rallying point for rebels and leader of the May putsch, temporarily
retained his command, but was relieved of his civilian duties.
After preliminary moves and with cautious deliberation, de Gaulle
delivered his first major statement on the future status of Algeria in
September 1959. He offered a choice (similar to France's colonies in
western and central Africa in 1958)between independence, integration
with France and association with France. The choice was to be made
within four years from the end of hostilities, defined as any year in
which fewer than 200 people were killed in fighting or by terrorism.
It was followed by another pied noires revolt on January 24, 1960 when
the European community opposed even de Gaulle. The revolt was a
failure because the French government acted quickly in Algeria and at
home. But to Algerians, de Gaulle's offer was no more than a half-way
house. The FLN wanted full independence. Support for de Gaulle in
France was more widespread in 1960 than in 1958. People felt that the
war had gone on for too long and they were opposed to the violent
means used.
Henri Alleg's book La Question focused on the use of torture by units
of the French army. The trial of Alleg in 1960, followed by the
disappearance and murder of the French communist and university
lecturer Maurice Audin, the trial in 1961 of the Algerian girl Djamila
Boupacha, protests by Roman Catholic cardinals occupying French sees
and a manifesto signed by 121 leading intellectuals all contributed to
turn French opinion against the settler French community and the
French army in Algeria.
Toward the end of 1960 the leaders of the January revolt were
themselves put on trial. But still one more settler rebellion
occurred, in April 1961, led by four generals, which lasted for four
days. Two of the four generals, Salan and Jouhaud, were subsequently
sentenced to death in absentia and the other two, Challe and Zeller,
who surrendered, were given 15 years imprisonment - all sentences were
eventually reduced.
Out of the failed rebellion rose the Organization de l'Armee Secrete
(OAS) which resorted to terrorism and by creating among the European
population fears of reprisals by an independent Algerian government,
provoked (as independence became inevitable ) an exodus which deprived
the country of much-needed skills in administration, education and
other public services. The lesson was well learnt by leaders in South
Africa when it became independent at the end of an apartheid regime.
De Gaulle's efforts in Algeria did not improve relations with the
nationalist forces. In September 1959, the FLN proclaimed a
provisional Algerian government with Ferhat Abbas as prime minister
and the imprisoned Ben Bella as his deputy. It then turned for help to
Moscow and Beijing. During 1960 it became apparent that the non-
combatant Algerians favored the FLN and its unequivocal demand for
independence, which made de Gaulle turn to negotiations with the FLN.
In July de Gaulle, in a televised speech, unequivocally accepted
Algerian independence, but the FLN adopted a more assertive line when
Yusuf Ben Khedda succeeded a moderate Ferhat Abbas as the head of the
provisional Algerian government. In the same month the OAS made an
unsuccessful attempt on de Gaulle's life as its activities increased
throughout France and Algeria, with rumors of the proclamation of a
dissident French republic under General Salan in northern Algeria.
The first secret negotiations held at Melun in June were a failure,
but after discussions between de Gaulle and Bourguiba, between FLN
leaders and Georges Pompidou (then a private banker) and between the
FLN and Moroccans, Tunisians and Egyptians, a conference was called at
Evian in Switzerland .The problems were the FLN's claim to be
recognized as a government, the right of the imprisoned Ben Bella to
attend the conference, guarantees for the French who might wish to
remain in Algeria, continuing French rights in the naval base at Mers-
el-Kebir, Saharan oil, and the conditions under which the proposed
referendum on the status of Algeria would be held.
Negotiations were opened in France with representatives of the
Algerian provisional government ( GPRA) in May 1961. GPRA had long
been recognized by the Arab and communist states, from which it
received aid, though it (communism) was never been able to establish
itself on Algerian soil. Negotiations were broken off in July, after
which Abbas was replaced as premier by the much younger Ben Youssef
Ben Khedda. Settler opposition around the OAS began to employ random
acts of terror to disrupt peace negotiations.
The second Evian conference took place in March 1962. On March 18, a
ceasefire agreement was signed. The conference also agreed on the
terms for the referendum and presuming that the result would favor
independence, further agreed (among other things), that French troops
would be withdrawn progressively over three years, except from Mers-el-
Kebir. France might continue its nuclear tests in the Sahara and
retain its airfields there for five years and would continue its
economic activities in the Saharan oilfields. France also agreed to
continue technical and financial aid to Algeria for at least three
years.
This announcement produced a violent outburst of OAS terrorism, but in
May it subsided as it became obvious that such actions were futile. A
referendum held in Algeria in July 1962 recorded some 6 million votes
in favor of independence and only 16,000 against it. After three days
of continuous Algerian rejoicing, the GPRA entered Algiers in triumph,
as settler Europeans began to depart.
Algeria becomes Independent
On July 3, 1962 Algeria became an independent sovereign state. But its
leaders could not remain together. Ben Bella returned to Algiers after
six years' absence in prison and joined hands with army chief Colonel
Houari Boumedienne to become the first president . But perhaps he
alienated colleagues and followers by trying to reorganize the FLN on
communist lines and playing a leading role in African and Afro-Asian
affairs to the neglect of urgent domestic problems. In June 1965 Ben
Bella tried to sideline conservative Boumedienne, now defense
minister, but was himself overthrown, with the latter becoming the
president. Ben Bella was imprisoned until 1978 and remained under
house arrest until 1990. But Algeria remains a violent place and in
the bloody confrontation between FLN/army and radical Islamic groups
100,000 Algerians were killed during the 1990s.
Civil wars and Turkey's war of Independence
After the Allied powers' victory in World War 1, the Ottoman
government in Istanbul under the 36th and last Ottoman Sultan Caliph
Mehmed VI Vahideddin (1918-22) decided that resistance to Allied
demands was futile, but there remained many pockets of resistance in
Anatolia. These consisted of bands of irregulars and deserters, a
number of intact Ottoman units and various societies for the "defense
of rights".
At this time, Mustafa Kemal (he became Ataturk "Father of Turks"
later ), a hero of the Gallipoli front in the war was sent as
Inspector of the army to eastern Turkey. Landing at Samsun on May 19,
1919, he immediately began to organize resistance and was soon joined
by other military leaders like Ali Fuat Cebesoy, Kasim Karabekir, Ruaf
Orbay, Refet Bele and others with their troops. The Association for
the Defense of the Rights of Eastern Anatolia was founded and a
congress at Erzurum (July-August) summoned. It was followed by a
second congress at Sivas with delegates representing the whole
country. A new Association for the Defense of the Rights of Anatolia
and Rumelia elected Mustafa Kemal as the chairman of its executive
committee to organize national resistance.
But the fire of resistance really flared up when the hated Greeks,
with British encouragement, occupied Izmir (May 15, 1919). The Allied
plans imposed in the Treaty of Sevres, which the Ottoman
representative signed, would have created an independent Armenia, an
autonomous Kurdish region, demilitarization and international control
over the Straits and Istanbul, with the rest of the country parceled
to the Greeks, the French and the Italians. Only a barren northeast
rump of Anatolia would have remained with the Turks.
Negotiations were arranged between the Istanbul government and the
Kemalists. A new parliament was elected, which met in Istanbul in
January 1920. Kemal was against the meeting in Istanbul and stayed
back in Ankara. The new parliament passed the National Pact,
formulated at Erzurum and Sivas, which called for independence roughly
within the October 1918 armistice lines. In response the Allies
enlarged the area of occupation in Istanbul (March 16, 1920), arrested
and deported many deputies and set out to crush the Kemalists. Most
deputies escaped to Ankara and the die was cast.
To establish a legitimate basis of action the Grand National Assembly
(parliament) met at Ankara on April 23 and asserted that the Sultan's
government was under infidel control. It was the duty of Muslims to
resist foreign encroachment. In the Fundamental Law of January 20,
1921, the assembly declared that sovereignty belonged to the nation
and that the assembly was the "true and only representative of the
nation". The name of the state was declared to be Turkey, and
executive power was entrusted to an executive council, headed by
Mustafa Kemal, who could now concentrate on the war of independence.
Soon the Kemalists were faced with local uprisings, official Ottoman
forces and Greek hostility supported by the Allies.
In response to the declarations of the Grand National Assembly in
Ankara, the Istanbul government appointed its own extraordinary
Anatolian general inspector and a new Security Army, later called the
Caliphal Army, in 1920 to enforce its rule and fight the nationalists
with British support. The Istanbul and Ankara governments issued
fatwas against each other, specially against Kemal. Thus the stage was
set for a full civil war. The situation was similar to the chaos in
Anatolia in the early 15th century after Bayezit's defeat by
Tamerlane, when rival Ottoman governments in Europe and Ankara
contested control over Anatolia. The empire was threatened by foreign
invasion and the land was infested by local rebellions and roaming
bands. And in both cases it was the heartland of Turkish life and
tradition, Anatolia, that produced the victor.
In this chaotic and lawless situation, many bands rose to seek wealth
and power for themselves, in alliance with one or the other of the
governments, sometimes at the instigation of the Greeks, the British,
or even the communists. Sometimes the bands represented large
landowners who were seeking to regain their power. Most degenerated
into little more than bandit forces, manned by a motley assortment of
dispossessed peasants, Tatars from the Crimea and Central Asia and
Turkish and Kurdish nomads, always ready for a good fight against
whoever was in power. These armies became so powerful that on April
29, 1920, the Grand National Assembly passed a law that prohibited
"crimes against the nation" and set up independence courts (Istiklal
Mahkemeleri) to try and execute on the spot. These courts became a
major instrument of the Ankara government to suppress opposition long
after independence was achieved.
Most famous of the private armies operating in Anatolia during the
civil war was the Green Army (Yesil Ordu), which posed a major threat
to all sides. It was organized during the winter of 1920 "to evict
from Asia the penetration and occupation of European imperialism". Its
members were former unionists, known to and respected by Mustafa
Kemal, including its secretary general, Hakki Behic, Bey and Yunus
Nadi, an influential Istanbul journalist, whose journal Yeni Gun (New
Day) had just been closed by the British. Nadi in 1924 founded the
leading newspaper of republican Turkey, Cumhuriyet (The Republic). Its
objective was to counter the reactionary propaganda spread in Anatolia
by agents of the Istanbul government and the Allies and to popularize
the national movement and mobilize the Turkish peasants' support.
So the Green Army was supported and encouraged by Kemal. But many of
its members wished to combine unionism, Pan-Islam and socialism and
"establish a socialist union in the world of Islam by modifying the
Russian Revolution". Soon it attracted a number of groups opposed to
the Ankara government, including not only supporters of the Istanbul
government but also anti-Kemalist unionists and communists connected
with the Third International. This led Kemal to get Hakki Behic to
disband the organization late in 1920, though its various anti-
Kemalist elements continued to act on their own during the next two
years.
There were two other independent armies, both led by Circassians,
which were very active. They were mostly formed of Tatar and
Circassian refugees driven into Anatolia by the Russians. A left-
leaning guerrilla movement led by Cerkes Ethem was at first quite
successful against the Greeks near Izmir in 1919. It supported the
national movement for some time against the reactionary Caliphal army
and the anti-Ankara movements that were active in the eastern Marmara
region in 1920.
The other Circassian, Ahmet Anzavur, led a more conservative movement
and force with money and arms provided by the Istanbul government and
the British. He led two major revolts against the nationalists in the
areas of Baliksir and Gonen in October-December 1919 and again from
February to June 1920. For a time he even led the Caliphal army and
his bands began to ravage the countryside. Kemal chose Cerkes Ethem,
who was still with him to defeat and send Aznur on the run in April
1920. Anzavur soon raised a new army, but was defeated and killed and
his army dispersed by the nationalists in May, 1920.
Ultimately, Cerkes Ethem became too big for his boots and increasingly
rapacious towards the civilian population, Muslim and non-Muslim
alike. He had allied with the Green Army, sometimes he supported
various communist manifestos being circulated. And he was not inclined
to follow Ankara's plans so essential for the success of the new
nationalist army being raised. Finally, Kemal sent a major force to
destroy Cerkes Ethem's army in January 1921, forcing him to flee to
the Greeks and eventually to Italy into exile.
There were also strong local rebellions around Bolu, Yozgat, and
Duzce, (halfway between Ankara and Istanbul). The last was led by the
Capanoglu Derebey family, which tried to restore its old power. He and
his followers were hunted down and dispersed by the nationalists. Its
leading members were hanged in Amasya in August 1920. Such movements
and revolts did not subside, even after the establishment of the
republic. It took time to reduce the old family and tribal forces that
were revived by the civil wars.
And finally there were the communists, with Russia sending propaganda
literature into Anatolia. Kemal was opposed in principle but took
little action initially as he needed the Bolsheviks' help. He even
tolerated a number of communist activities during 1920, including a
new joint communist-unionist organization in Ankara called the
People's Communist Party (Tiirkiye Halk Istirakiyun Firkasi), which
enabled the communists to come out publicly in Turkey for the first
time.
It had some connection with the Green Army. On October 18, 1920, to
please the Russians, Ataturk even allowed the formation of a separate
Turkish Communist Party (Tiirkiye Komiinist Firkasi). But it was
manned mainly by some of his close associates from the assembly. It
was less radical than the first group and was used by the government
as a tool to divide and confuse the communist movement and its
supporters.
But when the former became too active it was suppressed. It had issued
a joint declaration with the Green Army and Cerkes Ethem that they had
"approved the Bolshevik party program passed by the Third
International ... and joined to unite all the social revolutionary
movements in the country", and adopted the name Turkish People's
Collectivist Bolshevik Party. Communist agents became active around
Ankara and Eskisehir and cooperated with unionist groups in Erzurum
and Trabzon, which were centers of Enver Pasha's supporters throughout
the war for independence.
This forced Ataturk to criticize the communists for working outside
the organ of the people, the Grand National Assembly. After crushing
the Green Army and chasing out Cerkes Ethem, he now turned on the
communists. Their leaders were tried, but the final sentences were
suspended until after a treaty was signed with Moscow in March 1921.
As Russian support was important, the sentences were relatively light.
The only violent action against the Turkish communists came when
communist Mustafa Suphi and others entered Anatolia via Kars in
December 1920. Though they met with top nationalist leaders like Ali
Fuat and Kazim Karabekir at Kars in January 1921, they were arrested
soon and sent by boat to Erzurum for trial. On the way they were
assassinated by a group of pro-Enver supporters from Trabzon,
apparently because of the fear that Suphi might expose Enver's plans.
As for the dashing Enver Pasha and his colleagues Cemal and Talat, who
had led the Ottoman empire into World War 1, they fled from Istanbul
on November 2, 1918, on a German freighter going to Odessa. Then they
went over to Berlin, but lived under assumed names, since the victors
had demanded their extradition for the "crimes" of their regime. Soon
they were invited by Karl Radek to continue their work in Moscow, with
full Bolshevik support for the "Turkish national struggle". Talat, who
remained in Germany, was killed by an Armenian assassin on March 15,
1921. Cemal and Enver went to Moscow and later to Central Asia, where
they undertook a series of political activities with the ultimate
intention of using the Bolsheviks to regain power in Turkey once the
nationalists were defeated.
With Bolshevik encouragement, Enver proclaimed the organization of the
Union of Islamic Revolutionary Societies (Islam Ihtilal Cemiyetleri
Ittihadi) and an affiliated Party of People's Councils (Halk 'uralar
Firkasi), the former as the international Muslim revolutionary
organization, the latter as its Turkish branch.
In early September 1920, he attended the Congress of the Peoples of
the East at Baku. But while Ataturk generally encouraged Enver, hoping
to use him to get Bolshevik aid, he never trusted him. Enver had some
groups of supporters in Anatolia, including about 40 secret unionists
in the assembly, working to install Enver in Ataturk's place at an
opportune moment. Enver moved from Moscow to Batum in the summer of
1921 when the Greek offensive began, hoping to enter Anatolia if
Ataturk nationalist forces were defeated. But following Kemal's
victory over the Greeks at Sakarya (September 1921), Enver abandoned
Turkey and went into Central Asia to lead its Muslims against both the
British and the Russians. He was killed in a battle with Russian
forces near Ceken while pursuing his pan-Turanian mission.
What was the role of the Sultan in the conflict? According to Sir
Horace Rumbold, British ambassador in Istanbul, the Sultan did not
understand the nationalists or their movement. He thought a handful of
brigands had established complete ascendancy and stranglehold on the
people as a whole. The Ankara leaders were men without any real stake
in the country, with which they had no connection of blood or anything
else. Kemal was a Macedonian revolutionary of unknown origins. Bekir
Sami was a Circassian. They were all the same, Albanians, Circassians,
anything but Turks. There was not a real Turk among them. The real
Turks were loyal to the Sultan, who had been hoodwinked by fantastic
misrepresentations, like his own captivity. They looked for external
support and found it in the Bolsheviks. The Angora leaders might
discover and regret too late that they would bring on Turkey the fate
of Azerbaijan.(which was taken over by the Bolsheviks).
In the meantime, Kemal organized his national army to fight for
Anatolia's independence, trained, disciplined and armed at a new
officers' school established in Ankara. Russian arms and ammunition
began to flow across the Black Sea in increasing amounts. In Istanbul
after the Allied occupation a new and well-spread group was organized
among the remaining civil servants and officers and called the
National Defense Organization (Mudafaa-i Milliye Tefkildtt) to send
information, arms and equipment to the nationalists.
During 1920-1921, the Greeks had made major advances, almost to
Ankara, but were defeated at the Battle of the Sakarya River (August
24, 1921) and began a long and hasty retreat that ended in the Turks
regaining Izmir (September 9, 1922) and the expulsion of Greek forces
from Anatolia. The total dead in the war was; for Turks, 10,000 dead
in fighting and 22,000 from disease. Greek dead and wounded were
estimated at 100,000. During World War 1, with the front with Russian
forces shifting in northeast Anatolia where Armenians were encouraged
and hopeful of an independent state, terrible killings took place
involving all sides. It continued even after wars. In the World War
580,000 Ottoman soldiers died, half from disease. Turkish official
history calculates that 300,000 Armenians were killed. An Ottoman war
crimes tribunal set up by the victors gives a figure of 800,000. But
Armenian historians allege that 1.5 million died, practically the
entire Armenian population in Anatolia.
The Kemalists had already begun to gain European recognition. On March
16, 1921, the Soviet-Turkish Treaty gave Turkey a favorable settlement
of its eastern frontier by restoring Kars and Ardahan. Problems at
home induced Italy to withdraw from the territory it occupied; and by
the Treaty of Ankara (Franklin-Bouillon Agreement, October 20, 1921),
France agreed to evacuate Cilicia (Adana region). Finally, by the
Armistice of Mudanya, the Allies agreed to Turkish reoccupation of
Istanbul and eastern Thrace.
A comprehensive settlement was eventually achieved at the Lausanne
Conference (November 1922 - July 1923) which negated the Treaty of
Sevres. The Turkish frontier in Thrace was established on the Maritsa
River and Greece returned the islands of Gokge and Bozca. A compulsory
exchange of populations was arranged, as a result of which an
estimated 1,300,000 Greeks left Turkey in return for 400,000 Turks.
The question of oil rich Mosul was left to the League of Nations,
which in 1925 recommended its retention by Iraq. But Turks have never
been reconciled to the loss of Mosul. The Lausanne Treaty also
provided for the apportionment of the Ottoman public debt, for the
gradual abolition of the Capitulations (Turkey regained tariff
autonomy in 1929), and for an international regime for the Straits.
Turkey recovered complete control of the Straits by the 1936 Montreux
Convention.
On October 29, 1923, Turkey was declared to be a republic and elected
Mustafa Kemal as its first president. The Caliphate was finally
abolished on March 3, 1924, and all members of the Ottoman dynasty
were expelled from Turkey. A full republican constitution was adopted
on April 20, 1924; it retained Islam as the state religion, but in
April 1928 this clause was removed and Turkey became a laic (secular)
republic.
K Gajendra Singh, Indian ambassador (retired), served as ambassador to
Turkey from August 1992 to April 1996. Prior to that, he served terms
as ambassador to Jordan, Romania and Senegal. He is currently chairman
of the Foundation for Indo-Turkic Studies. Email
Gaje...@hotmail.com
nada
revolutionary movement, at least not as generally expressed by
Vngels'
> > disive and non-Marxist view. Also, this perspective would leave the
> > tiny "Group Vngelis" as a group of 1 or 2 in entire world.
>
> If size were an issue in discussing politics then marxism would have
> had no chance in its history as I dont recall it ever being a mass
> movement apart from a few brief periods in history and for a short
> time as well. Although this obsession you have with size is unhealthy
> living in LA as well...
In this case though, you are totally at odds with all things Marxist.
I agree that size doesn't matter in terms of being right or
wrong...but Marxism achieving a mass influence is something based on
"size"...size of the section of the working class seeing Marxists as
leaders. You "program" has never been adopted by *any* section of the
working class subscribing to Marxism and that is what I meant "forever
1 or 2" people.
> Jews (your favorite topic and you didn't even know!) as well as Greeks
> were chucked out by Nasserhttp://www.country-studies.com/egypt/nasser-and-arab-socialism.html. I met people who were booted out years ago...
Here is what the article YOU cite states:
" The position of some minority groups changed during this period.
Most Jews left Egypt, the last large group being several thousand who
did not have Egyptian citizenship and who were expelled during the
Suez crisis. The Greek community also decreased considerably because
many Greeks who did not like socialism returned to Greece."
The word "forced" "expulsion" "driven out" not used or even implied.
People without passports are always open to victimization by the
ruling...bourgeoisie. At any rate, Greeks were in Egypt WAY before the
Arabs were. Who were the settlers again? Morocan Jews were expelled
WITH the conivance of the Morcocan gov't on two occasions...first to
go were Moroccan Jewish communists and unionists. Jews were part of
the Berber comunity for 1500 years, arriving as Arab Jews with the
Muslim Jews. These are settlers? BTW...they were ALL Moroccan citizens
but the Monarchist/Zionist collaboration achieved what they wanted.
Same with Yemenite Jews. ALL were indigenous. Of course V can't be
seen defending Jews, anywhere, even against Nazis or Arab
monarchists...
> Weren't the Vietnamese boat people essentially collaborators of US
> imperialism?
Yes, the Vietnamese tried to KEEP them there for re-education. They
were not "settlers". Car to try again?
> Wont Iraquis be expelled when the Yanks lose totally?
??? Wouldn't it be the Iraqis who would be victorius against the
Yankees?
> White French citizens who lived in Algeria were expelled weren't they?
Covered that. Those that refused Algerian citizenship and refused to
pledge to build the Algerian nation. But in this case, obviously, as I
stated previously, they *never* considered themselves Algerian. In
fact they mostly considered Algeria to be part of France and this is
who Algeria was colonized explicilty by French imperialism.
> White farmers in S Africa are attacked daily. More than a million
> white youth have left.
Not a political strategy. Part of the decay of S. African capitalism,
still controlled by whites. No "expulsions", period.
> The law which states indiginous have to be given jobs is leading to
> white flight.
In S. Africa? Hmmm...didn't know that (and in fact doubt it but I
suppose it could be true). Still, no expulsions.
> What has happened in Zimbabwe that you ignore will happen in S Africa,
> is happening in S. Africa hence the interest of the West in Zimbabwe.
Hyper inflation and collapse of agruculture? Whites were never
expelled from Zimbabwe. Land reform (or even the bizarre form it takes
in Zim.) equals expropriation of settlers. What's the point? Who is
against this?
> History though will go through its black phase for the South African
> continent.
????
> The slogan 'One Settler One Bullet' is being implemented on the ground
> irrespective what the politicians are doing or what they dream will
> happen in the so-called 'Rainbow Nation'.
No, it's not. There crime...robbery's etc. Uncoordinated and a product
of the massive impovershment caused by S. African's structural
adjustment programs and the legacy of Apartheid. Again, victims tend
to be Black, not white. Newsmedia hypes the whites being attacked but
Blacks are overwhelmingly the ones victimized by lumpen proletariat.
If you want to discuss politics in S. Africa, by all means...
> Whatever you say is that the Indians were expelled from Uganda. You
> cant square the circle explaining to us why they were expelled if they
> were not settlers but indentured slaves.
I gave you a defintion of "settler". Some one who
*voluntarily*...settles another's land. You offer no definition.
> Their role was to run the
> country on behalf of the British who departed. They did. Idi Amin
> wasn't naturally anti-Indian after all his CV was fighting the Mau Mau
> in Kenyas war of independece on behalf of the British much in the same
> way as Saddam fought Iran on behalf of the Yanks. He was forced to
> expel them because of the pressure from below.
Pressure from below? There was little "pressure" as Amin permitted
none. He was a tyrant, plane and simpe, which is why when he was
overthrown, there was dancing in the streets. When Indians were
invited BACK, there was no opposition.
> Guyana like Argentina if populated by all races other than indigenous
> are special cases. The settler issue does not apply internally but
> from the outside in, much in the same was as in the USA as the true
> Americans have been wiped out and are left on some casino
> reservations...
My point is that all nations are "settled" in one way or another.
There are STILL native Americans with claims to land. In Canada where
the first peoples were not wiped out to the degree they were in the
US, they are a bigger minority and their claims are...naturally bigger
to what they consider the "settlers" in Ontario and the plains.
In Bolivia no one considers the whites to be 'settlers' but Oligarchs
and racist exploiters, to be expropriated. Your view is would have
sections of the working class fighting each other. You play into the
hands of imperialism by diverting the class from a serious defense of
their interests, you seek to divide nations based on something as
flaky as "origin".
David
stephen
> I gave you a defintion of "settler". Some one who
>*voluntarily*...settles another's land.
This definition seems to exclude all but the first-generation
settlers.
srd
stephen
> These are necessary steps which
> all oppressed countries have to go through, if the revolution doesn't
> occur prior to it.
This is an incongruous formula for someone who accepts the theory of
permanent revolution. I would put it this way: Unless the national
revolution goes forward to socialist revolution, the nationalist
bourgeoisie has no choice but to expel or exterminate settler
populations, if it is to assert even the most limited national
sovereignty.
You accept this nationalist program, while I would oppose it, because
the program of expulsion is the nationalist bourgeois _alternative_ to
socialism.
srd
nada
I think he said "going back 10 generations". Seems he doesn't have
real definition. Or t least one that doesn't apply to everyone in the
world at some point except some Africans and Native Americans.
David
Mr. Green Jeans
literally -- for tonights Labor Black League readers cricle. It's only
a half-hour away. Once I'm done with Vngelis, I'll show you what's
what. You man enough?
Vngelis
Lets start from back to front. Sections of the working class of course
have to fight each other.
What are strikes, pickets etc? I assume one section of workers giving
flowers to another?
In the post-modernist world you lot promote on MIA with imperialist
academics like Rorty and Zisek of course the class struggle has been
dead decades ago, in the meantime in the real world of living social
forces workers have to battle it out to survive. In your daydream
world not only do settlers not exist but they have an a priori right
to existence.
You say the Vietnamese boat people weren't settlers. By becoming
quislings to the US occupation they became defacto foreigners to their
own people, ethnic traitors who would be penalised once the revolution
was victorious. The French were in Algeria for how many generations?
Was it 1 only? I cant see how the French aren't settlers because they
considered that Algeria was French whilst the Boers aren't settlers or
the whites in Zim? You have the logic of a rat always twisting and
turning to justify any stupidty. None of them are African. Everybody
knows what African is like everybody knows what Chinese is or Indian.
SRD argues I accept the 'nationalist programme' of expulsion of
settler populations. My point was that forces outside the control of
both the settlers (whom Walters tries to pretend perpetually dont
exist) and the indigenous populations are working for a clash and a
settling of accounts. Once they are booted out when they do return
like in this article
http://tinyurl.com/5koz76
they are much reduced and their role is secondary to what it once was.
Whether the slogan One Settler One Bullet (I mean hey why do they use
the word settler when they have been there more than 1 generation ie
33 years?) is being implemented via crime is an irrelevance to the
debate. It is being implemented nevertheless and on accounts I have
read hundreds of thousands of white youth have left S Africa.
Indeed the area around Cape Town asked for what Sucre is asking in
Bolivia to be made independent from the central government.
Vngelis
wrote:
> If blacks certain blacks were elevated into the Boer caste--almost
> oxymoronic, but consider the point--those blacks would properly be treated
> as if they were Boers. You could say, "How ridiculous. Members of the
> indigenous people suddenly become settlers." That would be an
> ideologically nationalist argument.
> srd
But Boers were classic "Settlers" in a way, as were white N. Americans
and Zionists, who even called their members "settlers". Of course they
were not Dutch after a hundred years because of cultural drift, but
they viewed themselves for a long long time as "Europeans".
My point is that no segment I'm aware of in the nationalist Left in S.
Africa calls for their expulsion. They want an end to their power and
exploitation, they want Black majority rule. V is hung up on
collective punishment and creating...more immigration.
David
Who coined the phrase One Settler One Bullet? The leftist PAC didn't
it?
Now did that mean everyone APART from the Boers? I think not.
Whether they call for it now is another issue. The issue was that it
was raised by sections of the black liberation movement. Now the
nonsense that 'whites' still run S Africa therefore they will never be
expelled is like arguing capitalism is eternal as it has been around
for 3 odd centuries.
For young nations to develop they have to develop within their own
specific socio-cultural space hence the experience of modern Turkey
under Ataturk and Algeria under the FLN are the examples which all
countries at that level of economic development are destined to
follow.
Vngelis
> Diamond, what rock did you crawl from under? I getting pumped --
Can you keep the dating issues on another forum?
vngelis
nada
So...in your rodent way of twisting what your opponent says, you now
see that I do cal Boers settlers, and N. Americans (which you rodent
like, ignore) and the Zionist settler population in occupied
Palestine.
But your definition for Vietnamese boat people, most of whom left
because the didn't want to live under the unified Vietnamese gov't,
could traitors, could be anti-communists, but we now agree, finally,
that they are not "settlers". The rat comes out from under his putrid
rock.
Nations do not develop mono-racially...or even mono-culturally. They
get created through a process of uniting different peoples, often.
China is an example of that. Even though no one language is dominant
(Manderin, Cantonese, Korean, Tibetan, Shangauese, etc etc) through
the process of the fight for *national* liberation they forged one
nation. Usually this occurs via class society, sometimes in the above
way like China. Some nations are simply not: there are no "Spanish".
There are Basques and Catalan and Galicanos, etc. That is why the left
in the "Spanish state" says "state", recognizing as they have since
the 1930s that the state encompasses many nations. Regardless, no one
is a 'settler' there.
The process of struggle by the PAC (which was a minority of the
liberation forces in S. Africa) used for while the "One Settler, One
Bullet". They never really engaged the Settler regime this way but i
can understand their "perpsective". They never tried to seriously
implement it. Now, the struggle is against the ANC regime, and it's
diffuse, centrifugal and for the moment it's somewhat stagnant. This,
of course, is the legacy of Stalnism, IMO, but it's another
discussion.
But the bullet context was one of "Armed Struggle". Something no group
that I'm aware of seriously projects this anymore except some Maoists
who got lost someplace. But the slogan was never a strategy. If is,
or rather was, I'd be interested in your source on this. The struggle
there was one of mass action, organizing strikes, assaults on township
police stations, etc. The attacks were organized by the Black masses
to overthrow the racist white settler gov't. In the program of the BC
groups I never saw a mentioned of expelling the settlers. Even in
their *program* the one bullet concept was used more as a haiku to sow
terror into the mostly rural Afrikanner settlers. But it had little to
do with state power.
When you write: "Now the nonsense that 'whites' still run S Africa
therefore they will never be expelled is like arguing capitalism is
eternal as it has been around
for 3 odd centuries."
Whites still don't run S. Africa? You better look again and see what
corporations are the biggest. Some token black ANcers have worked
their way up the white corporate ladder and some ANC officers were
incorporated into the Apartheid era army (which still exists) but
white capitlalist STILL run the country. I did also didn't write that
they wouldn't be expelled. I think in the coming revolution a lot of
people will FLEE...because the class enemy always flee...when haven't
they? And I suspect the Anglo and Afrikaner S. Africans will flee was
well as their power it permanently disenfranchised. I think most
Asians (Indians and Pakistanies will stay) as they ARE S. Africans and
generally were involved in the anti-racist struggle. We'll see.
D
Mr. Green Jeans
instead showing enough balls to show up at the tonight's Labor Black
League's reader circle. I told the LBLers to let me know if they see
you scurrying around.
They knew I meant business after I flipped a Workers Vanguard lit
table. Soon you will too. Watch for it chump.
Vngelis
> So...in your rodent way of twisting what your opponent says, you now
> see that I do cal Boers settlers, and N. Americans (which you rodent
> like, ignore) and the Zionist settler population in occupied
> Palestine.
>
> But your definition for Vietnamese boat people, most of whom left
> because the didn't want to live under the unified Vietnamese gov't,
> could traitors, could be anti-communists, but we now agree, finally,
> that they are not "settlers". The rat comes out from under his putrid
> rock.
>
> Nations do not develop mono-racially...or even mono-culturally. They
> get created through a process of uniting different peoples, often.
> China is an example of that. Even though no one language is dominant
> (Manderin, Cantonese, Korean, Tibetan, Shangauese, etc etc) through
> the process of the fight for *national* liberation they forged one
> nation. Usually this occurs via class society, sometimes in the above
> way like China. Some nations are simply not: there are no "Spanish".
> There are Basques and Catalan and Galicanos, etc. That is why the left
> in the "Spanish state" says "state", recognizing as they have since
> the 1930s that the state encompasses many nations. Regardless, no one
> is a 'settler' there.
>
A much larger response occurred further up which you must have
missed...
Nations may not develop mono-racially or mono-culturally but when they
mature that is what they become.
There is no multi-cultural nation. Language which is centralised,
consciousness which becomes socialised by living and existing in a
specific nation implies that the Chinese for instance are a specific
race of people with a language and a common history. China hasn't as
yet matured to have one language to be dominant like Russia or Germany
or France.
You would like to state alongside the Sparts and the New World Order
crowd that there was no Iraq it is made of of Sunnis and Shias or
Yugoslavia as it is made up of Croats and Serbs when in reality the
distinction between the different peoples is a technicality much in
the same was as Cretans consider themselves different to Athenians and
vice versa. But their history is common and their break-up is
engineered. Their nation is under attack by the forces of globalist
imperialism which seeks the pre-history of nations in its ideological
arsenal to attack them using the remnants of the left which adopted
the mantra of no borders at the same time as the emergence of the
transnationals as a specific form of economic development.
Thus you seek to override the role of settlers and their specific
history with imperialism. History though has no such qualms.
Historical wrongs will be put right if nations want to exist with a
modicum of independence and territorial integrity. That means
specifically as the crisis of imperialism gets worse the settlers or
their descendants the world over will be ejected from the body politic
of the societies they are in, whether you like it or not, whether you
want to describe it as 'ethnic cleansing' or any other such new world
order speak.
Fleeing or being expelled are two sides of the same coin much in the
same way that a white farmer being shot by a lumpenised hoodlum is
part of the class struggle whether it is political or not as it is
economic, the economics of mass impoverishment amidst splendour.Class
conflict isn't suspended because the ANC is in power. It may be
temporarily arrested but 'crime' takes its place. The class doesn't
wait for parties to get their act together in a neat revolution prior
to taking direct action. Zimbabwe is currently the future of S Africa.
But because S Africa is semi-industrialised it will be better
organised there and more worker orientated to its core and the 4
million white settlers will have a hard time as many are doing now. As
far as I am concerned the white farmers are good game literally just
like the blacks were for them for over a few centuries.
nada
OK...let us examine these assertions...
> A much larger response occurred further up which you must have
> missed...
Uh...can't find it. My fault probably.
> Nations may not develop mono-racially or mono-culturally but when they
> mature that is what they become.
> There is no multi-cultural nation. Language which is centralised,
> consciousness which becomes socialised by living and existing in a
> specific nation implies that the Chinese for instance are a specific
> race of people with a language and a common history. China hasn't as
> yet matured to have one language to be dominant like Russia or Germany
> or France.
So...according to your definition, China is NOT a nation. My
definition...it is. You definition then would argue that Northern
Ireland is part of some made up articifical "British" nationality? If
China hasn't 'matured' to have on dominant language..it's not a
nation? Interesting. Yet, we have economy that is certainly something
that ties the country together. We probably agree on this fact. Yet
the languages are completely different (spoken, not completely
written). Mandarin is the strongest language, the language of business
(capitalist and state) and gov't. All other languages are legal and
spoken officially.
> You would like to state alongside the Sparts and the New World Order
> crowd that there was no Iraq it is made of of Sunnis and Shias or
> Yugoslavia as it is made up of Croats and Serbs when in reality the
> distinction between the different peoples is a technicality much in
> the same was as Cretans consider themselves different to Athenians and
> vice versa.
I'll just speak to Iraq. I don't know of any left group that supports
breaking up Iraq into religious sub-catagories. 80% of the people are
ARAB. Even more so if you include Kuwait, pulled from Iraq by the
Brits decades ago. One can argue that "Iraq" as such was created
during the first waves of nation-splitting by imperialism, first after
WWI then in the post WWII period. There is ONE Arab nation. All Arabs
oppose splitting up Iraq.
> But their history is common and their break-up is
> engineered. Their nation is under attack by the forces of globalist
> imperialism which seeks the pre-history of nations in its ideological
> arsenal to attack them using the remnants of the left which adopted
> the mantra of no borders at the same time as the emergence of the
> transnationals as a specific form of economic development.
You really gotta read the Lambertist stuff on this. They explain it
much better.
> Thus you seek to override the role of settlers and their specific
> history with imperialism. History though has no such qualms.
> Historical wrongs will be put right if nations want to exist with a
> modicum of independence and territorial integrity. That means
> specifically as the crisis of imperialism gets worse the settlers or
> their descendants the world over will be ejected from the body politic
> of the societies they are in, whether you like it or not, whether you
> want to describe it as 'ethnic cleansing' or any other such new world
> order speak.
You and I disagree what a 'settler' is. You think it goes out 10
generations. If I said it goes out 200 generations you'd have to pack
you bags for Africa. At a certain point nations are BUILT from all
those who inhabit a region, regardless of how they got there. In your
definition then MOST American workers are what exactly?
> Fleeing or being expelled are two sides of the same coin much in the
> same way that a white farmer being shot by a lumpenised hoodlum is
> part of the class struggle whether it is political or not as it is
> economic, the economics of mass impoverishment amidst splendour.
So you are a "settler" in London? There were 1 million refugees from
Franco's Spain who 'settled' in France. I've met them (basically the
2nd generation are French in every way, but not all, add Catalan to
the southern French culture), fit you definition of "Fleeing =
settlers". The 900,000 Germans who fled Hitler? Do you understand why
the vanguard of the Mexican working class and peasantry are demanding
a right NOT emigrate because they are being forced out of Mexico?
> Class conflict isn't suspended because the ANC is in power. It may be
> temporarily arrested but 'crime' takes its place. The class doesn't
> wait for parties to get their act together in a neat revolution prior
> to taking direct action. Zimbabwe is currently the future of S Africa.
??? You ought to read what Marx wrote about crime. The class on acts
when it's a CLASS...lumpenized criminal elements represents a
degeneration of the class struggle. What "revolution" is going on is
S. Africa? Since when have Marxists *ever* defended "Crime"? 99% of
crime in SA is urban. 99% of the victims are Black. Crime is 100%
economic brought on by the ANC policies of capitalism.
> But because S Africa is semi-industrialised it will be better
> organised there and more worker orientated to its core and the 4
> million white settlers will have a hard time as many are doing now. As
> far as I am concerned the white farmers are good game literally just
> like the blacks were for them for over a few centuries.
I wonder if the bushman of S. AFrica have claims over the Xosha and
Zulu "SETTLERS" who came into displace them while the Dutch were
arriving? Just curios. BTW...do you want to see the 1 million
Zimbabweans expelled from S. Africa? How about the Nambians who habite
the western region of SA who have lived there forever? BTW...What does
the PAC think, actually?
Here the view of the PAC on what a "settler" is:
"In the ideological terminology of the Africanist PAC during its fight
against apartheid, a settler was defined as a white person
participating in the oppression of indigenous people, and did
therefore not include white South Africans in general. White South
Africans whose "sole allegiance was to Africa" were considered part of
the African nation and therefore excluded from the settler category"
In other words...settlers are those who *identify* as such and/or who
*ACT* as settlers. These are the only "settlers" there are. Period.
Anyone who says different is essentially playing into the hands of
imperialism.
D.
Vngelis
Black Zimbabweans are African and they are in their own continent.
White and Indian settlers do not originate from there and never did.
Now the whites have declared for autonomy in Bolivia is it time to
expel them?
Or should we keep them all in in order to ensure 'ethnic cleansing'
does not develop...
vngelis
Vngelis
then argued there were using as a point of reference what I stated
about the PAC in S Africa (in other words backpeddling like a slimy
politician) seems to assume that what characterises a settler is what
others believe they are. In other words when I stated that despite the
whites being in S Africa for 3 centuries makes them no more African
than an Albanian becomes Greek because he is in Greece for one and a
half decades. The whites in Bolivia consider the indigenous to be
Indian and seek to distance themselves from them in a racialist
manner. Why shouldn't they be expelled by the indigenous Indian
nationalists? A revolutionary movement would seek their expulsion and
expropriation without compensation of their wealth.
Crisis in Bolivia after vote for autonomy
· Santa Cruz distances itself from capital and Morales
· Poll echoes hostility to indigenous communities
* Rory Carroll in Santa Cruz
* The Guardian,
* Tuesday May 6 2008
* Article history
About this article
Close
This article appeared in the Guardian on Tuesday May 06 2008 on p15 of
the International section. It was last updated at 09:55 on May 06
2008.
Bolivia was locked in political crisis yesterday after Santa Cruz
province declared autonomy and renounced the leftwing policies of
President Evo Morales.
Another three provinces are expected to follow suit over the coming
weeks in an open but so far peaceful rebellion which could cripple the
federal government, a leading member of South America's so-called pink
tide.
Santa Cruz, the richest province in the continent's poorest country,
voted overwhelmingly to distance itself from the capital, La Paz, in a
referendum yesterday. The indigenous majority based in the western
highlands still supports the government.
Link to this audio
Rory Carroll: 'Lynchings here are very, very common'
Complete results were not expected for several more days, but early
official tallies from Santa Cruz, an opposition stronghold, said more
than 84% had voted for autonomy, underlining the polarisation. Turnout
was put at 64%.
"Today we begin in Santa Cruz a new republic, a new state," the
prefect, Rubén Costas, told a victory rally. "Today in Santa Cruz
democracy has triumphed. With your vote, we have begun the most
transcendental reform in national memory."
Pro-autonomy supporters draped in the province's green-and-white flag
celebrated under palm trees into the night. The province stopped short
of secession, but demanded the right to raise taxes, run a police
force, protect land rights and control some revenues from its gas
fields.
The vote also expressed hostility to the government's championing of
indigenous communities which scrabble for survival in the highlands, a
very different Bolivia to Santa Cruz and the relatively prosperous
eastern lowlands.
Morales, the country's first indigenous president, used to be a llama
herder, coca farmer and trade union leader.
"My family is voting for autonomy because the Indians want to dominate
us," said Olga Tordolla, a woman in a largely indigenous quarter of
Santa Cruz city known as Plan Tres Mil. "They are racist, they hate
white people."
The federal government rejected the referendum as an "illegal survey"
and an attempt by greedy, paler-skinned Bolivians to continue the
social and economic exclusion of indigenous people which dates back to
the Spanish conquest.
In a televised address Morales, who had urged a boycott, said
abstentions and reported incidents of fraud rendered the result
illegitimate. "The referendum failed completely," he said.
The president thanked indigenous communities for sporadic protests
yesterday, some of which turned violent, reportedly leaving one dead
and 25 injured.
"I want to express my respect for the people of Santa Cruz for their
resistance against this separatist referendum. The people are wise to
defend legality, constitutionality and the struggle for equality
between Bolivians."
With another three eastern states - Beni, Pando and Tarija - due to
hold autonomy votes next month the scene would seem to be set for
serious convulsions which could split the country.
dave.w...@comcast.net
This question, of course, is not poised by anyone historically in
Bolivia. So it's sort of an academic question being poised.
"Expelling" anyone is totally irrelevant and avoids the question of
political power. The key issue in the democratic revolution *as poised
by the OLIGARCHY* is holding the Bolivian nation together. The masses
of the country have responded with a resounding YES TO BOLIVIA. So it
is now poised, like Permanent Revolution programmatically calls for,
the working class to take power as the head of the revolution and
assume control of the entire nation. The Oligarchs and their followers
can stay or go but the Dictatorship of the Proletariat implies *class*
rule over the bosses class. That's all that is being poised.
But poising proletarian, and therefore democratic control over the
country, such a state passed power *POWER* the indigenous majority
excluded from power. Thus, the "settler" question is not even raised
since Bolivia claims all of it's borders (and then some with Chile)
*and it's inhabitants* as Bolivian.
David
Vngelis
"My family is voting for autonomy because the Indians want to dominate
us," said Olga Tordolla, a woman in a largely indigenous quarter of
Santa Cruz city known as Plan Tres Mil. "They are racist, they hate
white people."
The above passage is from the above article.
So one assumes the Indians aren't racist as they dont hate white
people?
They hate white people and aren't racist?
They are racist as they hate white people?
Which one is it? Those seeking autonomy will do it under the banner of
'anti-racism'.
This aims to split Bolivia up. For Bolivia to remain united they have
to be expropriated.
The process of expropriation will lead to expulsions/voluntary
departure.
Either which way the decendants of white settlers if they want to
reside in Bolivia will have to do so on new terms.
vngelis
nada
>
> - Show quoted text -
First, the aim is to split of Bolivia. That's imperialism's little ace-
in-whole. The whole "autonomy" game was initiated originally by the
"left", with support from the European Union and NGOs. It was only
under pressure from the unions and the army that Morales came out
*against* the fake autonomy clauses.
The Oligarchy ran with this. Never denied that instutional racism was
one of the very big reasons Morales WON the election. In fact, it was
a huge celebration by the *majoirty* indigenous population when the
MAS won.
So...race is tied up with Oligarchic rule...where have you been V?
Just NOW started to read up on this? Still, do tell me when you see
the word "settler" used for the whites in Santa Cruz or ANY mention of
"expelling" them.
David
Daniele Futtorovic
> The racialist Walters who originally argued there were no settlers
> then argued there were using as a point of reference what I stated
> about the PAC in S Africa (in other words backpeddling like a slimy
> politician) seems to assume that what characterises a settler is what
> others believe they are. In other words when I stated that despite
> the whites being in S Africa for 3 centuries makes them no more
> African than an Albanian becomes Greek because he is in Greece for
> one and a half decades. The whites in Bolivia consider the indigenous
> to be Indian and seek to distance themselves from them in a racialist
> manner. Why shouldn't they be expelled by the indigenous Indian
> nationalists?
Because it would be their (the indigenous nationalists') undoing.
A racist with a gun is dangerous. A racist without a gun is just a
pathetic loonie.
Racism is an ideology. You should know as well as I do that ideologies
don't drive the world. Economics (and their more sophisticated form,
class struggle) do. A racist ideology can at best ever be a tool to
provide moral justification for an existing social inequality. Remove
the inequality (expropriation), the ideology will fart itself out.
--
DF.
nada
DF, you are trying to give a rational(ist) argument with a
fundementally irrational person, someone who isn't even political. For
example, he *projects* onto the PAC a "throw the settlers out"
position they never had. The irrationality of his view...that
"settlers" (as only defined by himself) have to leave every country
they reside in even if the masses don't call for this shows how such
irrationality (and a bizzare form of racialism) he's sunk to.
Further he delibertly falsifies my position by a false reductionist
argument "The racialist Walters who originally argued there were no
settlers..." rather a pathedic lie. He further lies when he writes
"...what characterises a settler is what
others believe they are." He refuses to look at the totality of a
discussion to draw conclusions. That the PAC defines what a settlers
is is good enough for me. For V, who now casts himself as the
consiousness (I know, a joke if there ever was one) of the PAC (and
other BC groups I suppose) by seeking to be the arbritor of
"settlerism". Irrational.
I accept the PLO Charter version as well: Jews who accept Palestinian
rule and stop seeking Jewish exclusiveness can stay, those that
percist in Zionist practices are to leave.
So...DF, "settlerism" is not what they say, but the way they ACT.
(something I've stated about a dozen times now).
An Albanian who lives in Greece for 15 years (or a Greek who lives in
Albania for the same period) is still Albanian, but he's part of the
Greek working class, whether British and Greek Citizen Vngelis
believes it or not. Same is true for the Polish worker in London.
Niether are "Settlers" because they are not trying to colonize the
country to the exclusion of the "native" populations. That portends a
"settler state" mentality.
Vngelis
Lets start from back to front once more.
If a working class is overrun by a majority of 50% by overseas workers
whose aims are foreign to the nation they are living in then they
become setters de facto. You seem to freeze the process to a point in
time not what it leads to as always. A worker is a worker but a worker
may also be a scab. Workers aren't workers solely because they are
workers but they are judged to be so on the basis of what they are
engaged in when the time comes.
I aint PAC or PLO both bourgeois/stalinist outfits. They dont
represent my line. I would expel the white Bolivians and then allow
them to return if they renounced their past and worked for a better
Bolivia against Wall Street and the Multinationals. Above you said no
one has raised the issue of the white settlers of Bolivia...
Even bourgeois liberals writing in the Guardian no the difference...
PS
I may have changed it after all that is Holmes latest 'big' issue...
Latin America is preparing to settle accounts with its white settler
elite
The political movements and protests sweeping the continent - from
Bolivia to Venezuela - are as much about race as class
* Richard Gott
* The Guardian,
* Wednesday November 15 2006
* Article history
About this article
Close
This article appeared in the Guardian on Wednesday November 15 2006 on
p33 of the Debate & comment section. It was last updated at 00:13 on
January 12 2008.
The recent explosion of indigenous protest in Latin America,
culminating in the election this year of Evo Morales, an Aymara
indian, as president of Bolivia, has highlighted the precarious
position of the white-settler elite that has dominated the continent
for so many centuries. Although the term "white settler" is familiar
in the history of most European colonies, and comes with a pejorative
ring, the whites in Latin America (as in the US) are not usually
described in this way, and never use the expression themselves. No
Spanish or Portuguese word exists that can adequately translate the
English term.
Latin America is traditionally seen as a continent set apart from
colonial projects elsewhere, the outcome of its long experience of
settlement since the 16th century. Yet it truly belongs in the history
of the global expansion of white-settler populations from Europe in
the more recent period. Today's elites are largely the product of the
immigrant European culture that has developed during the two centuries
since independence.
The characteristics of the European empires' white-settler states in
the 19th and 20th centuries are well known. The settlers expropriated
the land and evicted or exterminated the existing population; they
exploited the surviving indigenous labour force on the land; they
secured for themselves a European standard of living; and they treated
the surviving indigenous peoples with extreme prejudice, drafting laws
to ensure they remained largely without rights, as second- or third-
class citizens.
Latin America shares these characteristics of "settler colonialism",
an evocative term used in discussions about the British empire.
Together with the Caribbean and the US, it has a further
characteristic not shared by Europe's colonies elsewhere: the legacy
of a non-indigenous slave class. Although slavery had been abolished
in much of the world by the 1830s, the practice continued in Latin
America (and the US) for several decades. The white settlers were
unique in oppressing two different groups, seizing the land of the
indigenous peoples and appropriating the labour of their imported
slaves.
A feature of all "settler colonialist" societies has been the
ingrained racist fear and hatred of the settlers, who are permanently
alarmed by the presence of an expropriated underclass. Yet the race
hatred of Latin America's settlers has only had a minor part in our
customary understanding of the continent's history and society. Even
politicians and historians on the left have preferred to discuss class
rather than race.
In Venezuela, elections in December will produce another win for Hugo
Chávez, a man of black and Indian origin. Much of the virulent dislike
shown towards him by the opposition has been clearly motivated by race
hatred, and similar hatred was aroused the 1970s towards Salvador
Allende in Chile and Juan Perón in Argentina. Allende's unforgivable
crime, in the eyes of the white-settler elite, was to mobilise the
rotos, the "broken ones" - the patronising and derisory name given to
the vast Chilean underclass. The indigenous origins of the rotos were
obvious at Allende's political demonstrations. Dressed in Indian
clothes, their affinity with their indigenous neighbours would have
been apparent. The same could be said of the cabezas negras - "black
heads" - who came out to support Perón.
This unexplored parallel has become more apparent as indigenous
organisations have come to the fore, arousing the whites' ancient
fears. A settler spokesman, Mario Vargas Llosa, the Peruvian-now-
Spanish novelist, has accused the indigenous movements of generating
"social and political disorder", echoing the cry of 19th-century
racist intellectuals such as Colonel Domingo Sarmiento of Argentina,
who warned of a choice between "civilisation and barbarism".
Latin America's settler elites after independence were obsessed with
all things European. They travelled to Europe in search of political
models, ignoring their own countries beyond the capital cities, and
excluding the majority from their nation-building project. Along with
their imported liberal ideology came the racialist ideas common among
settlers elsewhere in Europe's colonial world. This racist outlook led
to the downgrading and non-recognition of the black population, and,
in many countries, to the physical extermination of indigenous
peoples. In their place came millions of fresh settlers from Europe.
Yet for a brief moment during the anti-colonial revolts of the 19th
century, radical voices took up the Indian cause. A revolutionary
junta in Buenos Aires in 1810 declared that Indians and Spaniards were
equal. The Indian past was celebrated as the common heritage of all
Americans, and children dressed as Indians sang at popular festivals.
Guns cast in the city were christened in honour of Tupac Amaru and
Mangoré, famous leaders of Indian resistance. In Cuba, early
independence movements recalled the name of Hatuey, the 16th-century
cacique, and devised a flag with an Indian woman entwined with a
tobacco leaf. Independence supporters in Chile evoked the Araucanian
rebels of earlier centuries and used Arauco symbols on their flags.
Independence in Brazil in 1822 brought similar displays, with the
white elite rejoicing in its Indian ancestry and suggesting that Tupi,
spoken by many Indians, might replace Portuguese as the official
language.
The radicals' inclusive agenda sought to incorporate the Indian
majority into settler society. Yet almost immediately this strain of
progressive thought disappears from the record. Political leaders who
sought to be friendly with the indigenous peoples were replaced by
those anxious to participate in the global campaign to exterminate
indigenous peoples. The British had already embarked on that task in
Australia and South Africa, and the French took part after 1830 when
they invaded Algeria.
Latin America soon joined in. The purposeful extermination of
indigenous peoples in the 19th century may well have been on a larger
scale than anything attempted by the Spanish and the Portuguese in the
earlier colonial period. Millions of Indians died because of a lack of
immunity to European diseases, yet the early colonists needed the
Indians to grow food and to provide labourers. They did not have the
same economic necessity to make the land free from Indians that would
provoke the extermination campaigns on other continents in the same
era. The true Latin American holocaust occurred in the 19th century.
The slaughter of Indians made more land available for settlement, and
between 1870 and 1914 five million Europeans migrated to Brazil and
Argentina. In many countries the immigration campaigns continued well
into the 20th century, sustaining the hegemonic white-settler culture
that has lasted to this day.
Yet change is at last on the agenda. Recent election results have been
described, with some truth, as a move to the left, since several new
governments have revived progressive themes from the 1960s. Yet from a
longer perspective these developments look more like a repudiation of
Latin America's white-settler culture, and a revival of that radical
tradition of inclusion attempted two centuries ago. The outline of a
fresh struggle, with a final settling of accounts, can now be
discerned.
· This article is based on the third annual SLAS lecture, given to the
Society for Latin American Studies in October. Richard Gott is the
author of Cuba: A New History (Yale University Press)
Daniele Futtorovic
David,
I pretty much agree with the definition of "settler" you have elaborated
throughout this thread, that the decisive criteria is whether they
consider themselves part of a foreign nation, or instead of the nation
they're dwelling in. I don't necessarily agree with the practical
consequences you've spoken of, but neither do I disagree -- in my view
they're essentially dependent on the specific situations and my
knowledge of those which were discussed is too limited for me to take
any specific position.
At any rate, in my opinion the aspect of settler or not is mostly
irrelevant, or rather ought to be from a point of view of class
struggle. What in this context matters is not whither some person came
but whether his an exploiteur or not. In the same way, while I hold the
view that control of immigration (meaning, in practice, a stop to
immigration) would be in the interest of workers in developed industrial
countries, I hold it that such a policy should involve accepting,
integrating those who've already immigrated into such a country.
I also agree that Vngelis' posts, in this thread as well as in the "MIA"
thread, are a far cry from rational for the most of them, and that he
seems to be frantically aiming, or should I say "throwing dirt" at you
personally. I've been off a while, but reading up some of the post of
the last months, I found myself more often than not wondering, and not
being able to decide, whether I was drunk or the posters (not limited to
Vngelis).
Still, there have been enough situations where I was agreeing with
Vngelis, seeing more truth/sense in his positions than in his
contendents', for me to know that he is not "fundementally irrational",
even least "not even political". So I could probably spend my time
pondering whether he popped a fuse or got replaced by an MI6 bot -- only
that I won't, simply taking what's written as it is written, regardless
of the author, to some extent at least.
In that sense, please allow me to counter rationally (according to your
qualification) such arguments as I deem fit to be countered. After all,
there isn't like an oversupply of rationality in our world, so it
shouldn't hurt too much.
--
DF.
nada
The description in the Guardian is interesting, a little overdrawn on
the race question, IMO. Racism, like racism in the US, is tied to
class. Without meaning to, this is the lesson the Guardian draws. And
it's true. Little has to do with 'expelling' anyone, this is beyond
the pale of Marxism, something you travelled a long time ago. It is
wholly your own creation..."What I'd do" (which I applaud for your
honesty in stating this, once and for all)..."You'd do", but Marxists
would do, and have, done something else, and that's organize the
working class against the mostly white, rich, oligarchies of Latin
America.
Venezuela is interesting because, like Argentina, only a small single
digit percentage is "Indigenous", the 'racial composition' which so
infatuates both yourself and the Oligarchy, is relevant ONLY because
the working class and peasantry, proud of their AFRICAN and indiginous
roots BUT who are also totally mixed with the original white settlers
from Spain, represent a non-indineous but sythesis of white, Indian
and Black blood...essentially what all Andean peoples are. So...who is
the settler? Chavez poises it correctly: those that are with the
Revolution, *regardless of their racial background* who fight for
Venezuela against Imperialism are "Bolivarian", the oligarchy, mostly
white, but not all, are the *class* enemy. I agree 100% with this.
Chavez is particularly proud of his Black/African mixture and I don'
blame him since it's a slap in the face for the Euro-oriented rich
fucks who've robbed Venezuela for the last 200 years. The issue then
is REMOVING the power of the oligarchy, not "expelling them". But of
course you are a one-man band on this.
David
nada
>
> - Show quoted text -
Sure, of course I wasn't really respondng to you Daniele, but to
Vngelis, perhaps unfairly treating you as a 'foil' against Vngel's non-
Marxist world view. Like you I place the class struggle first and
couldn't care less what someones 'race' is...I suppose this Vngelis'
latest incantation as a demigogich 'red-brown' cadre he dreams of
becoming.
It would be interesting, from afar, to see a group develop around his
ideas, as politically scatological as they appear. I have yet to see
him, for example, address the issue of the class struggle in Mexico
and how to stop emigration (as opposed to stopping immigration) to the
US. He seems not to support, by ignoring, the most advanced layers of
the Mexican working class who are demanding the right NOT to emigrate,
seeing as NAFTA has made the decision for them.
I think, having said that, that this issue of "settlerism" may be the
first time he's even addressed developing countries under globalizing
capitalism.
Ah..he did ask what it meant for workers to increase 50% their numbers
from other countries. My response is that this represents a
*disaster*...I say this generally, )it would have to mean an increasin
of 100 million in the US to make this a fact) of great proportion. But
how to address it. He chimes in with "Close the borders" (meaning
tighter immigration laws). The Marxist and Trotskyist perspective
would be to organize on both sides of the border to address the social
crisis that PUSHES these workers out of their country. It's the only
internationalist perspective.
David
Vngelis
First you said no one poses the issue as white settlers in Latin
America and I found an article which clearly states preciselyt that.
So instead of admitting you are bullshitting as usual you proceed as
if nothing happened.
Then after using the bourgeois/stalinist PLO and PAC you now praise
Chavez on the issue. You seek at every angle to find a justification
to state
a) there are no settlers
b) all settlers are of mixed race heritage
c) only I argue in the fashion I do and I dont have numbers on your
side...
Point c is patently absurd as an argument isn't based on numbers if it
was flat earthers would always be right.
That there are mixed race heritage or that there are no indigenous
left in Argentina is neither here nor there. In the whole of Latin
America the descendants of the white settlers are more or less
depending on the extermination programme they were involved in or
whether the area they inhabited had any indigenous in the first place.
The point is that the Oligarchic elites in Latin America are of
European descent. I have lived there so I have seen them in action.
Their military infrastructure was set up by Yankee imperialism in
alliance with German imperialism at the end of WW2. This is the
history of these areas which Andy Blunden praises when he writes
eulogies on MIA to cold war pigs like Rorty. Dont think you can hide
behind your numbers or the organisations they represent.
vngelis
There are Cape Malays in South Africa as well who are of mixed
heritage. You seem to argue
Vngelis
Praising Cold Warriors Rorty or current gangsters like Zisek on MIA I
assume and having a person in charge of the Lenin archive who openly
loathes ...bolshevism are part of your world Danielle. They aren't
part of mine.
I also note on your lectures on 'racism' you parrot standard 'left'
tripe. Good for student audiences irrelevant in the real world. A
nationalist who refuses to expel white settlers who call for autonomy
is toothless and pointless and will suffer whatever fate awaits him.
Those who want to split up countries should be expelled back to the
USA where they come from. This is a tradition in Latin America. If you
dont know it learn about it.
vngelis
Stephen R. Diamond
> The Marxist and Trotskyist perspective
> would be to organize on both sides of the border to address the social
> crisis that PUSHES these workers out of their country. It's the only
> internationalist perspective.
I once advanced this position here, without your customary ecumenicalness.
The thesis, to be exact, was that when immigration became a threat to the
receiving country, that meant social contradictions were objectively
centered in the countries emigrated from. The response, I contended,
required more international centralization, so that revolutionary
resources could be shifted globally, in response to the globalist
resources of imperialism.
This is a distinct perspective from vngelis's, and I don't immediately see
a way of resolving which of the two, if either, is correct. Mine is the
more orthodox, which all else equal, counts in its favor, but all else
isn't equal. Lacking knowledge of the countries involved in sufficient
depth, I think this position entails that Mexico and Albania should
present revolutionary opportunities, and 50% isn't' good enough.
Vngelis's perspective and this one are in tension but not mutually
exclusive. In fact, they two positions are in broad consistency, because
it is easier to argue for eliminating forced emigration if you start from
the premise that voluntary emigration is not an option meriting
consideration. For reasons of class solidarity, the labor movement in the
backward country should affirm as principle that its workers should eschew
emigration to countries where the laboring masses don't want to receive
them.
srd
dusty
> The description in the Guardian is interesting, a little overdrawn on
> the race question, IMO. Racism, like racism in the US, is tied to
> class. Without meaning to, this is the lesson the Guardian draws. And
> it's true. Little has to do with 'expelling' anyone, this is beyond
> the pale of Marxism, something you travelled a long time ago. It is
> wholly your own creation..."What I'd do" (which I applaud for your
> honesty in stating this, once and for all)..."You'd do", but Marxists
> would do, and have, done something else, and that's organize the
> working class against the mostly white, rich, oligarchies of Latin
> America.
Yes, but the truth is that history shows that many of the lower orders
of white or mixed (metizo) origin politically cohere to the wealthier
predominantly white oligarchs. The more white and privileged eastern
provinces of Bolivia don’t want any change, that interferes with those
historically determined privileges, let alone a “Permanent
Revolution”. And so there is a vote for secession in Santa Cruz
province – and the other three will likely follow, notwithstanding a
very large boycott. In countries like Bolivia there is a significant
resistance to progressive change based on the remnants of colonial
conquest (the Christian mestizo element).
So, because of the relative and glaring importance of the national
question in Latin America, particularly in Bolivia, the question will
then be posed, in spite of Morales present declarations, as to who
will prevail. If the military moves in under orders from the central
government and strong political measures are taken against the
separatists, seizure of the property of rebels, in the best
revolutionary traditions, then you will have a chicken run and
expulsions, violent displacement of peoples reflecting the fact that
they are out of phase with this phase of historical progress (the
national question) in that country.
The same as in South Africa and Rhodesia. And they expel themselves
when the time comes. We can witness the large numbers of thickly
accented South African and Rhodesians in Australia and by-the-way an
increasing number of Israelis taking up select real estate in parts of
Australia – the beginnings of a larger chicken run perhaps? And not to
forget the “boat people” either compradors or ethnic Chinese who had
no identity with the national Vietnamese revolution and might have
been a thorn in the side of the revolution had the Chinese not been
thoroughly thrashed when they invaded Vietnam. And the day will likely
come when the same phenomenon happens to corresponding social classes
in Latin America – the main point of the excellent Guardian article.
Granted that this cannot be determined in advance of events, but
history makes it seem likely.
> Venezuela is interesting because, like Argentina, only a small single
> digit percentage is "Indigenous", the 'racial composition' which so
> infatuates both yourself and the Oligarchy, is relevant ONLY because
> the working class and peasantry, proud of their AFRICAN and indiginous
> roots BUT who are also totally mixed with the original white settlers
> from Spain, represent a non-indineous but sythesis of white, Indian
> and Black blood
Very little African ethnicity at all in Argentina. You seem to want it
– but it is minute. There is a significant mestizo population mainly
in the north, though a large proportion of the population of the
villes miseria around the cities from Buenos Ares south.
...essentially what all Andean peoples are.
That isn’t so. Depends what you mean by "Andean people". The majority
of Andean people in the higher areas have very little or no mixed
blood – no Spanish and certainly no African.
So...who is
> the settler? Chavez poises it correctly: those that are with the
> Revolution, *regardless of their racial background* who fight for
> Venezuela against Imperialism are "Bolivarian", the oligarchy, mostly
> white, but not all, are the *class* enemy. I agree 100% with this.
> Chavez is particularly proud of his Black/African mixture and I don'
> blame him since it's a slap in the face for the Euro-oriented rich
> fucks who've robbed Venezuela for the last 200 years. The issue then
> is REMOVING the power of the oligarchy, not "expelling them". But of
> course you are a one-man band on this.
> David
“The issue” is not just set by Chavez (as wise as it may be for
political purposes), but the whole logic of the process of the
democratic revolution.
Vngelis has made clear the real history of the creation of modern
Greece and Turkey – mass expulsions – and resettlement - continuing to
the present time. The Greeks proved to be a thorn in the side of the
formation and consolidation of the Kemalist post Ottoman national
venture and Turks in the territory of the new Greece the same.
There was no scope for a class solution to this question. The foremost
question in those predominantly agrarian societies was the national
question. No amount of idealist meandering about “beyond the pale of
Marxism” can change that. It appears that (with exceptions, in
exceptional circumstances) this aspect of the national question
requires such population movements – a stage separated by some time
from most certain later developments.
dave.w...@comcast.net
I assume you mean Lenin and Trotsky who would of rejected such crap as
yours. Yours is the petty-bourgeois dilitantism of an isolated
sectarian. When you find a current or even an *individual* who thinks
this is *Marxism*, please, get back with us.
The point of Marxism, and the workers struggle to achieve state power.
Period. Find where Marx or Lenin or Trotsky talked about "expelling"
anyone. Please. You can quote the bourgois academics in The Guardian
all you want, it's totally irrelevant to what is going on in Latin
America.
David
dave.w...@comcast.net
I agree with much of what you described above. But it will be a class
expropriation of the "Oligarchy". If they 'run' or hide in other
countries, it is 100% irrelevant. The Bolivian working class and
peasantry want to keep the country whole, and they want socialism.
They are opposed to the obviously white, Euro-decended (and MOST of
them are mixed but it's who THEY view themselves as you describe
meztito populatons correctly: Europeans). My point is their 'staying'
or 'going' is wholly a political question of being economically and
politically disenfranchised by the revolution which is growing
everyday. My point is that when th POR was leading the Miners in
1948-1953, they pointed to the obvious racism of the oligarchy and US
puppets then. But the issue again, and I repeat, again and again, was
one of power. You find no descriptions in Lora's The History of the
Working Class in Bolivia of people demanding "expulsion". Its a
totally a-political distraction to even raise this (although it may
sound good). It is not even a "tactic".
> The same as in South Africa and Rhodesia. And they expel themselves
> when the time comes. We can witness the large numbers of thickly
> accented South African and Rhodesians in Australia and by-the-way an
> increasing number of Israelis taking up select real estate in parts of
> Australia – the beginnings of a larger chicken run perhaps? And not to
> forget the “boat people” either compradors or ethnic Chinese who had
> no identity with the national Vietnamese revolution and might have
> been a thorn in the side of the revolution had the Chinese not been
> thoroughly thrashed when they invaded Vietnam. And the day will likely
> come when the same phenomenon happens to corresponding social classes
> in Latin America – the main point of the excellent Guardian article.
> Granted that this cannot be determined in advance of events, but
> history makes it seem likely.
Yes, but in Cuba, for example, the only succesful socialist
revolution, the white oligarchs for the most part ran (most Whites did
not). No expulsions. Expropriations. But what of the "boat people".
Was it the *position of the Vietnamese govt*? No. In fact they tried
to stop MOST "boat people" often because they were running with their
wealth. Most of the people who ran did so way after the air-lift. Most
actually left in the intervening years. This has nothing to do, either
with the Guardian article you praise nor the issue of "settlers".
Also, the Vietnamese gov't was also a technical experitese the gov't
wanted to keep. It was totally a secondary issue with regards to
tackling imperialism AND their cronies. Dusty, do you know of any
current, anywhere, that *advocated* "boat people"?
The it is actually quite a slander on the Chochin Chinese and other
Vietnamese-Chinese thousands of whom participated in the revolution
and who were NOT comprador at all...they were far too poor to being
Comrador, which belonged to Vietnamese. Many Chinese were expelled to
China as well as to the US. It was a fit of racism on the Vietnamese
part, IMO, that the expulsions took place. Again, the Chinese there
were not 'settlers' since they "settled" nothing but were immigrants
like the millions of immigrants in Indonesia (where were the victims
of Vengel's "anti-immigrant" friend in the Indnoesian gov't massacre
of the KDP in 1965). This class of Chinese were SAME as the ones in
Vietnam.
> Very little African ethnicity at all in Argentina. You seem to want it
> – but it is minute. There is a significant mestizo population mainly
> in the north, though a large proportion of the population of the
> villes miseria around the cities from Buenos Ares south.
I probably overwrote this. I don't claim there is *any* non-European
descendents left in Argentina (some Mapuche, but not a lot). My point
was that in Venezuelan there is a very strong Afro-Venezuelan mix
there. Something repeatedly noted by the left against the mixed and
euro-capitalists.
> ...essentially what all Andean peoples are.
>
> That isn’t so. Depends what you mean by "Andean people". The majority
> of Andean people in the higher areas have very little or no mixed
> blood – no Spanish and certainly no African.
Yes, it depends where. In Peru/Ecuador/Bolivia over half. IN Colombia/
Venezuela, not nearly as much (only 3% officially in Venezuela in
fact) I think it's interesting from an ethnic point of view but from a
class POV, the working class of all these countries is going after
their enemy *as a class*. The class enemy will flee or not based on
the how the battle is won, that's it. That it is "expelled", only
Vengelis advocates this, for some bizarro reason probably associated
with his politically immaturity.
> political purposes), but the whole logic of the process of the
> democratic revolution.
>
> Vngelis has made clear the real history of the creation of modern
> Greece and Turkey – mass expulsions – and resettlement - continuing to
> the present time. The Greeks proved to be a thorn in the side of the
> formation and consolidation of the Kemalist post Ottoman national
> venture and Turks in the territory of the new Greece the same.
>
> There was no scope for a class solution to this question. The foremost
> question in those predominantly agrarian societies was the national
> question. No amount of idealist meandering about “beyond the pale of
> Marxism” can change that. It appears that (with exceptions, in
> exceptional circumstances) this aspect of the national question
> requires such population movements – a stage separated by some time
> from most certain later developments.
What ties "White" Argentina together with the 70% indigenous Bolivia
is the common enemy of US imperialism and the struggle for workers
power. This is the program, all-the-way back of the Fourth
International. It is a program I stand on. I reject the fake-leftism
and, for that matter the fake nationalism of Vngelis.
David
dave.w...@comcast.net
Dusty,
other than me playing the cat to Vngelis' mouse, seriously...what are
we arguing about. We agree that the democratic tasks have, for the
most part, not been met. We know that only the working class in
leadership of the revolution can lead such a revolution and carry it
to fruition. We probably also agree that imperialism and their cronies
in the local capitalist class are the main enemy, as can be seen
everywhere, especially vividly in places like Mexico (which I know far
more personally), Bolivia, etc.
Debates then inside the workers movement stem over how to relate to
the so-called "Bolivarian" leaderships such as Morales, Chavez, Correa
in Ecuador, etc, to what degree they hinder or push the revolution
forward, how to build and maintain independent workers organizations,
how to build a revolutionary leadership. Basically the same debates
the workers movement has had since forever.
What is new? Nothing. The class forces and, colonialism in it's neo-
colonial form have been around forever. The USSR is gone, which means
a huge material loss for the workers movement. Ideological confusion,
capitalist restoration in Eastern Europe, etc etc. So Fourth
Internationalists have been dealing with this since the movement for
the FI first got organized in the early 1930s.
So the "settler" question has been delth with by the FI for this long
a period. You'll notice that in few sections of the FI historically
have ever raised the issue of "expelling" anyone, even in homogeneous
nations like German, Poland, etc. Dustry why has your comrade Vngelis
raised this to the position of principal? Why do you think this is. He
slanders the PAC as "Stalinist" (which it never was). He argues that
the movement called for "one bullet one settler" in S. Africa...which
was only raised by the PAC, which he against distances himself from.
What do you think is behind this invectitude over this question?
David
Stephen R. Diamond
countries doesn't say necessarily that the rate of emigration predicts
revolutionary opportunity. The economic pressures for emigration roughly
predicts it, but the actual rate of emigration responds also to a
countervailing factor. If as I suggest an unwillingness to emigrate
expresses class consciousness--not merely for the reason given--the actual
emigration rate is an inverted function of class consciousness. I could be
wrong, but it looks to me that today Albanians, for example, are pretty
generally reactionary.
--
srd
Daniele Futtorovic
I understand what you mean, but I think your radicalism misplaced. It's
a bloody archive, what could go wrong? There should be enough means to
control these people.
Sometimes you have to cope with what means you have. Especially in this
case, that of an archive, I think judgement should be made according to
the result. There's a good deal of pragmatism that can be learned from
Lenin, more so even than from Trotsky.
(And try to spell my forename with one 'L' only, please. Sorry to be
touchy, but it's a bit of an issue when you carry such a name into an
English-glotted context)
> I also note on your lectures on 'racism' you parrot standard 'left'
> tripe. Good for student audiences irrelevant in the real world.
That's as it may be, but since I have my own reasons for my opinions,
I'm fine with that. If you have any subtsantial argument against them,
feel free to come forth with it.
> A nationalist who refuses to expel white settlers who call for
> autonomy is toothless and pointless and will suffer whatever fate
> awaits him. Those who want to split up countries should be expelled
> back to the USA where they come from.
Expel them? No, not at all. Why not rather shoot them (since we already
are in the business of telling other people what they ought to do with
their country, anyway).
Expelling, in my opinion, is wrong in this case, especially if taken as
the sole measure. The important point with such splitters is to render
them powerless. As I said in my racism allegory before, once they are
powerless it don't matter squat what they think. And the reason I think
they shouldn't be expelled ever after having been rendered powerless is
that they're much easier to control if they're still under your legislation.
Take the examples of the cuban exiles in the US. They're a powerful
pressure group against Cuba. Wouldn't it be much better for the Cuban
regime if they could lay their hands on them?
The best solution IMO would be to strip the exploiteurs, whether
settlers or not, white or black or yellow or red or pink or green (but
especially the green ones: you can't trust'em), of their power, get them
into the rank and file, and let civil legislation deal with any further
attempt for unrest. That's what it's for, after all.
But you might also simply shoot them all. Although it's not necessarily
as simple, and it might be harder to get a consensus for it. But ah,
there you go.
Expelling would be a wrong and very dangerous policy, IMO. Deal with
problems, don't hide them under the carpet. They'll breed there.
--
DF.
Daniele Futtorovic
Indeed (and I do mean that without prejudice).
> I have yet to see him, for example, address the issue of the class
> struggle in Mexico and how to stop emigration (as opposed to stopping
> immigration) to the US. He seems not to support, by ignoring, the
> most advanced layers of the Mexican working class who are demanding
> the right NOT to emigrate, seeing as NAFTA has made the decision for
> them.
That's a very interesting issue. Could you maybe give a short overview,
or point me to an appropriate document (you may have mentioned one
before and me missed it -- if that's the case, sorry) describing what
kind of policies pressure workers to emigrate, other than basic economic
ones? Or maybe I should ask before that, are there ANY policies
pressuring them to leave on a vector other than the economic one?
> I think, having said that, that this issue of "settlerism" may be the
> first time he's even addressed developing countries under
> globalizing capitalism.
>
> Ah..he did ask what it meant for workers to increase 50% their
> numbers from other countries.
I meant to address that earlier, but didn't in the end.
This example is contrived to a point where it's unrealistic. If, say one
hundred million workers came to the US, they surely wouldn't be
"settlers". They'd be seeking lunches from garbage bins, like a great
deal of the former US-workers.
For an immigrant population to establish itself as a distinct settler
population, there needs to be a significant gradient, that is a
difference in height, of productivity, of culture (there is such a thing
-- though it's not necessarily good) between the nation they come from
and the destination in the first place (or they'd all have to be loaded
with cash, but why would they leave, then?). That's not a thing which
happens to ever-so-slightly developped and reasonably populated
countries. It surely is something which HAS happened, but I don't think
it's something for which one would have to have a political policy
ready, today.
> My response is that this represents a *disaster*...I say this
> generally, )it would have to mean an increasin of 100 million in the
> US to make this a fact) of great proportion. But how to address it.
> He chimes in with "Close the borders" (meaning tighter immigration
> laws). The Marxist and Trotskyist perspective would be to organize on
> both sides of the border to address the social crisis that PUSHES
> these workers out of their country. It's the only internationalist
> perspective.
Nevertheless I think it's a bit fairytaleish. Emigration these days
happens in poor, overpopulated (that a synonym), underdeveloped
countries, towards richer, less-overpopulated countries. This difference
in national developement which is at the root of the
emigration/immigration will also be reflected in the state of workers'
organizations and parties etc. on each side. Consequently, while
workers' representatives on both sides will probably be able to AGREE to
address social crisis, the organisation on the emigrating side will most
probably be too weak to do anything much about it.
Or let me state this differently. To single most important reason why
poor countries are poor, or remain poor, is the rich countries'
pressure. Consequently, to address the social crisis in the poor
countries, you'd have to get rid of the rich countries' pressure. This
would presuppose socialist or communist rule in those latter countries.
Which we are quite far from. But: which we are ever FARTHER from BECAUSE
OF immigration.
So it's kind of a vicious circle, and surely the internationalist
perspective you drew is of no help in the short term. I agree that it
would be the right thing in the (very) long term, or rather in a world
of federated socialist republics. But that's not the world we live in.
--
DF.
dave.w...@comcast.net
> Contrary to what I wrote below, the perspective focusing on the sending
> countries doesn't say necessarily that the rate of emigration predicts
> revolutionary opportunity. The economic pressures for emigration roughly
> predicts it, but the actual rate of emigration responds also to a
> countervailing factor. If as I suggest an unwillingness to emigrate
> expresses class consciousness--not merely for the reason given--the actual
> emigration rate is an inverted function of class consciousness. I could be
> wrong, but it looks to me that today Albanians, for example, are pretty
> generally reactionary.
>
> On Wed, 07 May 2008 16:37:07 -0700, Stephen R. Diamond
>
>
>
Stephen, there is no evidence to support your statement. You view:
"For reasons of class solidarity, the labor movement in the backward
country should affirm as principle that its workers should eschew
emigration to countries where the laboring masses don't want to
receive them"
... is a-historical and never was a position of the workers movement.
So how do you justifiy it now and why is the situation different for
workers leaving one region, one city, one country now as in the past
that you justifiy your abandoning an internationalist position?
The fact that the higher level of class consciousness among immigrant
workers in the US attests to the contrary position you state.
Secondly, and more importantly, it was never the position in the lat
150 years or longer of any section of the workers movement that
workers should "eschew emigration". It's just not there. The reason
workers emigrate is to avoid absolute impoverishment in the immediate
sense. Impovershiment brought on by globalizing capitalisms chase for
profits and control.
You ought to rethink this.
D.
dave.w...@comcast.net
Daniele gives of course the truncated and correct Marxist
understanding of class and workers power. My sentiments exactly, like
Che did with the worst of the Batista criminals (true, not the actual
class, but their cronies in the police and army). What was the number?
20,000? Even then, Trotsky argued in the case of Ameria's "60
Families" that the victorius American proletariat would give them a
small island in the Pacific to live out their lives. I believe "to the
wall" would also be as appropriate. But again, V mixes his hatred of
"immigrants" which is his standin for "settlers" and wants ALL of them
expelled. Basically psychotic.
David
dave.w...@comcast.net
Of course, without politcially weakening the Metropolis, the success
of the neo-colonial country to free itself...to address the social
problems caused by imperialism, is that much harder. No argument from
me on this.
david
Stephen R. Diamond
> Stephen, there is no evidence to support your statement. You view:
> "For reasons of class solidarity, the labor movement in the backward
> country should affirm as principle that its workers should eschew
> emigration to countries where the laboring masses don't want to
> receive them"
> ... is a-historical and never was a position of the workers movement.
Nor was its opposite--that workers should be free to emigrate wherever
they wish--ever a position of the workers movement. I think it ahistorical
to apply traditional socialist positions to circumstances that were never
contemplated, i.e., where the laboring masses unequivocally oppose the
pace of immigration. Without claiming that this describes labor's position
today, unlike the past, it is no longer a bare hypothetical.
As to whether the Mexican workers are the most militant, I have met many
with no interest whatsoever in the U.S. labor movement. They see
themselves as Mexican, and if they have any political
consciousness--usually not--it is vested in Mexican affairs. If you could
get them to speak openly, you would learn that they see California as
stolen from Mexico, and see themselves as the vanguard of its reconquest.
I wouldn't put it this way to a broader audience, as the critique too
readily panders to U.S. patriotism, but the outlook of the Mexicon
immigrants must be assessed objectively, in developing a revolutionary
perspective.
> So how do you justifiy it now and why is the situation different for
> workers leaving one region, one city, one country now as in the past
> that you justifiy your abandoning an internationalist position?
It expresses an aspect of the right of the receiving nation to
self-determination. Hence, it doesn't apply within a nation. I agree with
the *logic* of a much-detested icl position, where it held that
immigration could undermine the self-determination of an imperialist
country. It restricted the application to small imperialist countries,
such as Belgium, and subsequently the icl backed off, without renouncing,
this position, so unpopular on the left that even the Landyites got in on
the smears. I agree with the logic, but not the limited scope of
application, which I see it as much broader than the icl imagined for the
coming period. Surely the Albanian emigration has compromised Greek
self-determination. Has Mexican immigration compromised the right to
self-determination, as applied to American workers in the S.W? My position
doesn't reach that question (yet). But I maintain it is for the workers to
decide, and that they might well decide that Mexican immigration threatens
their right of national self-determination.
> The fact that the higher level of class consciousness among immigrant
> workers in the US attests to the contrary position you state.
> Secondly, and more importantly, it was never the position in the lat
> 150 years or longer of any section of the workers movement that
> workers should "eschew emigration". It's just not there. The reason
> workers emigrate is to avoid absolute impoverishment in the immediate
> sense. Impovershiment brought on by globalizing capitalisms chase for
> profits and control.
As I have said, but I think you have ignored in previous posts, neither
this position NOR yours is orthodox. The revolutionary workers movement
has never called for limits on immigration NOR has it called for "Open
Borders." To avoid this obvious unorthodoxy, you now carp about the
rhetor, while raising no principled arguments against the Open-Borders
position. I don't think you changed your position, per John Holmes, but
only your jargon.
> You ought to rethink this.
Perhaps you should rethink--or at least consider for the first time, since
it is yet hypothetical--whether you think class conscious immigrants would
enter a country, when the workers unequivocally express their
unwillingness to receive the immigrants. They are forced to by conditions
of want? Would you afford this excuse to a scab? Then why to immigration
against the express sentiments of the laboring masses?
--
srd
dave.w...@comcast.net
wrote:
> On Thu, 08 May 2008 09:27:45 -0700, <dave.walt...@comcast.net> wrote:
> > Stephen, there is no evidence to support your statement. You view:
> > "For reasons of class solidarity, the labor movement in the backward
> > country should affirm as principle that its workers should eschew
> > emigration to countries where the laboring masses don't want to
> > receive them"
> > ... is a-historical and never was a position of the workers movement.
>
> Nor was its opposite--that workers should be free to emigrate wherever
> they wish--ever a position of the workers movement. I think it ahistorical
> to apply traditional socialist positions to circumstances that were never
> contemplated, i.e., where the laboring masses unequivocally oppose the
> pace of immigration. Without claiming that this describes labor's position
> today, unlike the past, it is no longer a bare hypothetical.
I think I have answered this over and over again. Immigration to the
US in the early 20th Century was HIGHER then per-capita than it is
today and capitalism had already shrunk except for the first 2 years
of WWI. At no time was the working class every MORE composed on
foreign born workers than this period.
> As to whether the Mexican workers are the most militant, I have met many
> with no interest whatsoever in the U.S. labor movement. They see
> themselves as Mexican, and if they have any political
> consciousness--usually not--it is vested in Mexican affairs. If you could
> get them to speak openly, you would learn that they see California as
> stolen from Mexico, and see themselves as the vanguard of its reconquest.
> I wouldn't put it this way to a broader audience, as the critique too
> readily panders to U.S. patriotism, but the outlook of the Mexicon
> immigrants must be assessed objectively, in developing a revolutionary
> perspective.
Stephen, I don't htink you've been paying attention to what's going
on. Where are the union organizing drives going on? Who is
participating. Who shutdown the economy May 1, 2006? Mexican immigrant
workers today have the highest level of class consiousness in the US
today *as part of the US working class*. Most do pay attention to what
is happening in Mexico, that's is true, but more and more since they
*can't go back* without being stuck there, more and more at seeing as
living here as the main perspective for their lives. I talk and work
with immigrant workers all the time. Most would like to have stayed in
Mexico, but with no land, no work, etc they are forced to come here.
And they generally resent it, albeit they seem resigned to it.
As to who owns the US SW? Really...this is barely raised accept in the
very accurate "We didn't cross the border, the border crossed us". I
actually reject any Mexican claims to US territory now because in fact
there were actually very FEW "Mexicans" living in this area west of
the Mississippi River in 1848 (15,000 is the high number I saw
once)...it was mostly Native American with the Mexicans playing the
role as settler-populations. However, this doesn't mean that a NEW
developing Chicano nationality didn't develop that had legitmate
demands for self-determination. I think this isn't a serious
perspective anymore as native born Mexicans have overwhelmed the
Chicano/Mexican-American population.
> > So how do you justifiy it now and why is the situation different for
> > workers leaving one region, one city, one country now as in the past
> > that you justifiy your abandoning an internationalist position?
>
> It expresses an aspect of the right of the receiving nation to
> self-determination. Hence, it doesn't apply within a nation. I agree with
> the *logic* of a much-detested icl position, where it held that
> immigration could undermine the self-determination of an imperialist
> country. It restricted the application to small imperialist countries,
> such as Belgium, and subsequently the icl backed off, without renouncing,
> this position, so unpopular on the left that even the Landyites got in on
> the smears. I agree with the logic, but not the limited scope of
> application, which I see it as much broader than the icl imagined for the
> coming period. Surely the Albanian emigration has compromised Greek
> self-determination. Has Mexican immigration compromised the right to
> self-determination, as applied to American workers in the S.W? My position
> doesn't reach that question (yet). But I maintain it is for the workers to
> decide, and that they might well decide that Mexican immigration threatens
> their right of national self-determination.
Call it 'revisionism' but I don't defend "Imperialist Self-
Determination", no in relation to oppressed nationalities within it's
artificially constructed borders. Anymore than Lenin would of "defend
Russia" against Armenians during the time of the Czars. I also don't
believe that because the nature of the Greek nationality has CHANGED
that it's somehow a violation of "self-determination". If you look at
the workforce in California today, you see a working-CLASS that is
simply multi-national and multi-lingual. That is the way it is. You
can spend time wishing for some socialist-realist (and white-centric)
view of the strong, male, white-worker in coveralls...but that's not
the US working class today at all.
> > The fact that the higher level of class consciousness among immigrant
> > workers in the US attests to the contrary position you state.
> > Secondly, and more importantly, it was never the position in the lat
> > 150 years or longer of any section of the workers movement that
> > workers should "eschew emigration". It's just not there. The reason
> > workers emigrate is to avoid absolute impoverishment in the immediate
> > sense. Impovershiment brought on by globalizing capitalisms chase for
> > profits and control.
>
> As I have said, but I think you have ignored in previous posts, neither
> this position NOR yours is orthodox. The revolutionary workers movement
> has never called for limits on immigration NOR has it called for "Open
> Borders." To avoid this obvious unorthodoxy, you now carp about the
> rhetor, while raising no principled arguments against the Open-Borders
> position. I don't think you changed your position, per John Holmes, but
> only your jargon.
I've answered this in another post. I think I've proved that Marxists
position are that from a starting point, workers have no country, even
when engaged in a fight for national liberation. While gains are made
almost exclusively on the national (capitalist) level our class is
international and we know that workers emigration to other countries
is for reasons that capitalism imposes, not because workers "want to
try living in Chicago for the hell of it".
> > You ought to rethink this.
>
> Perhaps you should rethink--or at least consider for the first time, since
> it is yet hypothetical--whether you think class conscious immigrants would
> enter a country, when the workers unequivocally express their
> unwillingness to receive the immigrants. They are forced to by conditions
> of want? Would you afford this excuse to a scab? Then why to immigration
> against the express sentiments of the laboring masses?
I don't think workers have "unequivocally" expressed anything. I think
the majority of people in general want no more immigration. I don't
doubt that. I also think this the most un-class conscious segment of
the US working class and wholly unorganized (not that this sentiment
isn't also strong among union workers). I think you will find in US
history the SAME opposition by white industrial workers to the
"importation" of Black farmer workers to work in Defense plants in
WWII. I don't accept that "well, it's the same country so it's OK"
crap and so that past racism is bad, but the current hatred of
immigrant (meaning *exclusively brown skinned Spanish workers) is
"OK". It is really is motivated by the same forces that seek to divide
us: the capitalists.
When white workers, *members of the UAW* would walk out in MASSIVE
wild-cat strikes in reaction to the companies hiring Black workers,
the CP, SP and SWP members *stayed at their machines* to BREAK these
walk-outs which were totally reactionary and racist. White workers
wanted to enforce previous Jim Crow segregation customs or exclude
Blacks altogether.
For me there is no difference between the 1940-1942 "worker boycotts"
of Black workers and the generally jingoistic "Patriotic defense of
the US".
David
> srd
Stephen R. Diamond
> On May 8, 12:05 pm, "Stephen R. Diamond" <srdiam...@verizon.net>
> wrote:
>>
>> Nor was its opposite--that workers should be free to emigrate wherever
>> they wish--ever a position of the workers movement. I think it
>> ahistorical
>> to apply traditional socialist positions to circumstances that were
>> never
>> contemplated, i.e., where the laboring masses unequivocally oppose the
>> pace of immigration. Without claiming that this describes labor's
>> position
>> today, unlike the past, it is no longer a bare hypothetical.
>
> I think I have answered this over and over again. Immigration to the
> US in the early 20th Century was HIGHER then per-capita than it is
> today and capitalism had already shrunk except for the first 2 years
> of WWI. At no time was the working class every MORE composed on
> foreign born workers than this period.
Different question. Immigration is fundamentally a national question. It
isn't just about the favorability of conditions of labor power's sale.
Greater opposition to immigration, based on a sense of cultural threat,
may exist despite a lesser numerical preponderance or even economic effect.
>
>> As to whether the Mexican workers are the most militant, I have met many
>> with no interest whatsoever in the U.S. labor movement. They see
>> themselves as Mexican, and if they have any political
>> consciousness--usually not--it is vested in Mexican affairs. If you
>> could
>> get them to speak openly, you would learn that they see California as
>> stolen from Mexico, and see themselves as the vanguard of its
>> reconquest.
>> I wouldn't put it this way to a broader audience, as the critique too
>> readily panders to U.S. patriotism, but the outlook of the Mexicon
>> immigrants must be assessed objectively, in developing a revolutionary
>> perspective.
>
> Stephen, I don't htink you've been paying attention to what's going
> on. Where are the union organizing drives going on? Who is
> participating. Who shutdown the economy May 1, 2006? Mexican immigrant
> workers today have the highest level of class consiousness in the US
> today *as part of the US working class*. Most do pay attention to what
> is happening in Mexico, that's is true, but more and more since they
> *can't go back* without being stuck there, more and more at seeing as
> living here as the main perspective for their lives. I talk and work
> with immigrant workers all the time. Most would like to have stayed in
> Mexico, but with no land, no work, etc they are forced to come here.
> And they generally resent it, albeit they seem resigned to it.
I think our observations may pertain to different chronological sections
of Mexican immigrants. As vngelis said, some of the immigrants bear the
same relationship to newer immigrants as native workers bear to immigrants.
Once an immigrant is ensconced in a real job--as opposed to inflating the
industrial reserve army's ranks--I think the correct position must defend
the workers as if they were native. Their conscious then will follow their
social position.
But let's go back to why we're discussing relative militancy, about which
I suspect you are correct. You said this challenged my appraisal that the
least class conscious workers emigrate. So this information doesn't bear
on our question. The correct analysis compares the consciousness of the
emigrating *Mexican* workers, not the Americans.
Well, is your position revisionist or not? You're the archivist. I have to
think about this artificially-constructed-borders argument, but it seems
that probably everything follows from this, that is form your apparent
revisionism on this subject. I'll look into the Armenian business.
srd
--
srd
dave.w...@comcast.net
On one aspect of this. Generally Central American and Mexican
immigrant labor do NOT directly sell the ranks of the unemployed. It's
almost an a different economy in a way. As more established immigrants
and native born labor actually turns down (and always have turned
down) the jobs most immigrants (legal and illegal) take immigrants are
not "unemployed" they fill these jobs. We might see many immigrant men
standing outside Home Depots or in front on paint stores, but this is
a very very small percentage. The reserve army of the unemployed,
generally, are people MADE redundant and laid off, overwhelmingly
legal immigrants and native born, especially the later.
Interesting questions anyway.
D.
Stephen R. Diamond
> On one aspect of this. Generally Central American and Mexican
> immigrant labor do NOT directly sell the ranks of the unemployed.
If a worker takes a job in an open shop, taking work no American worker
wants, because the remuneration and work standards fall so far below the
U.S. norm--that worker is unemployed for many practical purposes. Bluntly,
the Mexican is doing a job that NO ONE SHOULD BE DOING.
A Mexican building "contractor" gathers together his brothers,
half-brothers, and cousins, "fixes" the stairway on the Slavic landowner's
rental property--receiving less pay, using inferior materials and
skill--on which stairway the Slavic landlord's black tenant breaks his
neck because of the shoddiness of the work. That sort of thing--I'd
wager--forms a large part of this "different economy."
Doing work that nobody else wants to do is NOT necessarily to do ANYONE a
favor.
srd
nada
This is analysis by antedocte, not by a serious study of "value". You
can probably argue that for most of capitalist history for all
comodities and services. The stairs get fixed. Not well, let's say,
but it works. The food gets cooked. The food gets harvested. Etc etc.
Capitalism makes it 'work' because at evey step some value is added,
even if quantititvly or qualitatively it's "less" by some standard.
Generally I'd doubt you could prove the immigrant does more shoddy
work than the native. I doubt the materials are any worse...everyone
buys from the same Home Depot or Lowes. The tools are the same. etc.
88% of all work in the US is non-union. 'things' as well as
'services'.
David
Vngelis
>
> - Show quoted text -
So because 88% is non-union we should turn it into 100% so we have
equality.
If an immigrant does the same job as an indegenous therefore there is
no disticntion between the immigrant and the indigenous. They are
exactly the same as they are workers...
Now where have I heard that before? NWO manuals from government
agencies that promote the open shop and endless waves of immigration?
The individual work of an immigrant may even be superior to an
indigenous worker. That by its very nature has nothing to do with the
process of mass immigration which has other aims and another agenda.
Each successive wave seeks to lower the standards from the previous
one, not solely due to the people involved but due to the lowering
rates of profit. One process complements the other. SInce the EU has
been open there has been no mass wave of German workers to the UK.
They wont work themselves into low paid jobs...neither will British
workers.
Stephen R. Diamond
Consider it hypothetical if you wish. My point is, this category of
labor--which I haven't proven the prevalence of, but neither have you
*excluded* based on your abstract statistics--does not belong in
productive labor. Where the externalities are greater than the value
created (hypothetically if you wish) and this employment arises from the
very nature of the labor power applied--substandard for its
objectives--value is diminished rather than increased by its application.
There has been little done theoretically that I'm aware of on this
problem. But you can't turn a blind eye to, by sticking to an obtuse,
scientistic refusal even to see the problem. The anecdote is designed to
highlight the problem. This could also be done by counter-example to your
"theory of value." On your theory, EVERY DRUG DEALER is a worker who adds
to the mass of economic value. I present that as a reduction to the absurd
of your immigration apologia. After all, "Capitalism makes it 'work.'"
The laws licensing contractors can probably be classed as capitalist
*reforms*. Maybe not; haven't thought about it much. If so, however, it
would follow that the huge number of unlicensed contractors who are also
illegal immigrants should be counted as a negative, not a plus. If you
disagree there are many, I can't prove you wrong, but you are. If you
disagree that these unlicensed contractors produce almost uniformly shoddy
work, you either aren't in a position to know or, more likely, don't want
to.
srd
srd
--
srd
nada
wrote:
> Consider it hypothetical if you wish. My point is, this category of
> labor--which I haven't proven the prevalence of, but neither have you
> *excluded* based on your abstract statistics--does not belong in
> productive labor. Where the externalities are greater than the value
> created (hypothetically if you wish) and this employment arises from the
> very nature of the labor power applied--substandard for its
> objectives--value is diminished rather than increased by its application.
OK, fine. What does this have to do with the question at hand?
> There has been little done theoretically that I'm aware of on this
> problem. But you can't turn a blind eye to, by sticking to an obtuse,
> scientistic refusal even to see the problem. The anecdote is designed to
> highlight the problem. This could also be done by counter-example to your
> "theory of value." On your theory, EVERY DRUG DEALER is a worker who adds
> to the mass of economic value. I present that as a reduction to the absurd
> of your immigration apologia. After all, "Capitalism makes it 'work.'"
No, what I'm saying is that you can't bring up prejudicial metaphors
like "immigrant work=bad" "native work=good". That was my only point.
I don't "appologise" about my view of defending the non-native born
section of the US working class. I'm for unity. Anything that works
against this unity is reactionary. Get it? I consider immigrant labor
to be part of the US working class. I consider those that see it as
bad as reactionary. I consider those that ignore WHY immigration, or
rather emigration, occurs to be fools, really along the lines of CNN's
Lou Dobbs and other right-wing jingoistic fake-"populists".
> The laws licensing contractors can probably be classed as capitalist
> *reforms*. Maybe not; haven't thought about it much.
Your right, neither have I but I'll go along with it...
> If so, however, it
> would follow that the huge number of unlicensed contractors who are also
> illegal immigrants should be counted as a negative, not a plus. If you
> disagree there are many, I can't prove you wrong, but you are. If you
> disagree that these unlicensed contractors produce almost uniformly shoddy
> work, you either aren't in a position to know or, more likely, don't want
> to.
I agree 100%. In urban areas this is very true. The people who redid
my hardwood floors was a Vietnamese contractor. Licensed but
completely family run. I actually tried to find out if there were
Carpenter Union organized floor firms in my area: none, and in fact,
never were. But I agree...unlicensed contractors almost by definition
are non-union. I want to see 100% unionization in things like
residential construction and maintence. AT one point, I was told,
about 60% of all of this in big urban areas were union, before I was
born. Not any more. It was also mostly immigrigrant back then, but new
immigrants replaces the older ones (Vietnamese replacng Italian/Greek
for example).
So...we demand licensing...or whatever. What is the problem?
David
nada
No, that would be poverty and atomization. We oppose this.
> If an immigrant does the same job as an indegenous therefore there is
> no disticntion between the immigrant and the indigenous. They are
> exactly the same as they are workers...
Uh...yup. Especially if rates are decided by union shop situations.
> Now where have I heard that before? NWO manuals from government
> agencies that promote the open shop and endless waves of immigration?
Uh..nope.
> The individual work of an immigrant may even be superior to an
> indigenous worker. That by its very nature has nothing to do with the
> process of mass immigration which has other aims and another agenda.
I agree. It's irrelevant. I didn't bring this up, SRD did.
> Each successive wave seeks to lower the standards from the previous
> one, not solely due to the people involved but due to the lowering
> rates of profit.
You mean...possibly...the capitalists are to blame? Astounding.
> One process complements the other. SInce the EU has
> been open there has been no mass wave of German workers to the UK.
> They wont work themselves into low paid jobs...neither will British
> workers.-
So...British workers would rather remain unemployed? Or, the union
bureacracy has chosen to *ignore* the situation and refused to attempt
to address the issue either through raising the minimum wage or,
better, (or both) demanding and organizing unions. Sounds somewhat
like the US but I suspect unionization is somewhat more dynamic here
rather than there. Only my impression. What do you suggest to address
the situation?
David
Stephen R. Diamond
> On May 10, 10:47 am, "Stephen R. Diamond" <srdiam...@verizon.net>
> wrote:
>
>> Consider it hypothetical if you wish. My point is, this category of
>> labor--which I haven't proven the prevalence of, but neither have you
>> *excluded* based on your abstract statistics--does not belong in
>> productive labor. Where the externalities are greater than the value
>> created (hypothetically if you wish) and this employment arises from
>> the
>> very nature of the labor power applied--substandard for its
>> objectives--value is diminished rather than increased by its
>> application.
>
> OK, fine. What does this have to do with the question at hand?
It puts a question mark over your claim that immigrants do not swell the
industrial reserve army. (The term in inexact. I should probably say, the
lumpen proletariat.) You are not justified in assuming that workers who do
work no one else wants to do are not driving down the wages of workers.
If, per above, they create no value, they function as a pool that
decreases the bargaining power of workers. That is to say, it is the same
as though the were never employed. Worse, actually, if the sum of "value"
and externalities is negative.
Licensing laws have proven almost unenforceable. But if they were
enforceable, and hungry, unskilled immigrants crossed the border looking
for work from which the law effectively excluded them, I can't see how why
an Open Borderist like yourself could then favor the licensing laws. Your
case seems to rest on your contention that the work done by this
immigrants is work that ought to be done.
Yes, I think immigrant labor, by and large, is inferior. I think you admit
as much by saying they do work no one else wants to do. Why isn't that a
"prejudicial" generalization?
srd
>
> David
--
srd
nada
wrote:
are saying that as compared to the SAME labor done by native born in
the same area or because the 'value' of that labor by immigrants, say,
janitorial work, is somehow less valuable than that done by a native
born legal sect'y? What are you comparing?
Secondly, you keep impling I'm FOR immigration. I'm not. I'm against
it. It's just that I undersand WHY it occurs...something you time and
again refuse to address accept to come up with cockamamie ideas like
"class consious workers ought not emigrate" and other a-materialist
ideas, SRD.
I think lisencing of contractors is a good thing. When we had our
kitchen redon, it was done by a licensed, native born American
contractor employing Mexican labor (I don't know their legal status,
nor do I care). It was non-union since there is no union shops that
do this kind of work anymore. These guys were paid well by non-union
standards (about $20/hr). Being "Licensed contractor" only assures
legal business practices (skills and knowledge of the contractor,
insurance, etc etc). None of this has to do with who them employ.
Now, lets say that all labor had to be union. This would be almost a
transitional demand these days, for sure, but let's say the unions
were strong enough to enforce this. It would *make on difference* in
terms of the immigrant status of their membership. Nor should it as
Marxists would fight against *capitalist* legal status for workers.
There is a capitalist law on the books that is increasingly being
enforced that requires the boss to check the legal status of all
workers. Marxists oppose this. If you can't figure out why, you need
to go back to school.
DAvid
Vngelis
Why do we have 8 million on social security payments.
You cannot work if single on minimum wage. You would become homeless
literally.
Hence no one does it. So the supporters of endless waves of immgration
aka SWP-UK know full well that these vacancies will be taken by
immigrants. They aren't in direct competition for their jobs as such
so dont worry about this competition.
When any clown goes round stating they can come here and take our jobs
the direct opposite of all foreigners leave, they show they are the
twin side of pseudofascism. They work in negatives putting a minus
where all others put a plus.
vngelis
Vngelis
Although recently I must add the SWP-England has dropped the slogan
Open Borders as most people realise they are as open as they can be to
the 27 nations of the EU and more and more middle class jobs are up
for grabs. The other day I heard of Latvian English teachers in a
rough secondary schools from a concerned Labour Party grandmother,
Polish doctors are already widespread and soon other 'controlled'
professions will go the way of working class ones. There have been
issues of course with Bangladeshi cooks in recent times and they have
protested in central london. When a journalist stated why not try to
get the 90% of Bangladeshi women out of their kitchen into the
workplace it was lost on deaf ears. We cant have them coming off
social security to work now can we, we require Bangladesh to relocate
here in the name of not discriminating against ...cooks and their
ethnic 'rights'.
vngelis
nada
>
> - Show quoted text -
Minimum wages in the US would be also impovershing. What the unions
have raised, succesfully in San Francisco and some other cities, is
something called a "living wage", about 3 times that of minium wage.
This requires all contractors with the city of SF to pay their workers
about $15/hrs. STill not 'living' but also not 'homeless'.
D.
Vngelis
A day of violence, fraud and a "grand rebellion" against the Santa
Cruz oligarchy.
This is how Bolivian president, Evo Morales Ayma, described the result
of the unconstitutional May 4 "autonomy" referendum organised by the
authorities in Santa Cruz — which many feared was aimed at dividing
Bolivia.
The referendum was the first in a series of proposed referendums to be
held in the departments of the so-called Half Moon — Santa Cruz plus
Pando, Beni and Tarija, resource-rich departments in Bolivia's east.
The Half Moon remains dominated by the white oligarchy despite the
coming to power nationally of Morales, Bolivia's first indigenous
president, on the back of a mass movement against neoliberalism led by
the indigenous majority.
Illegal vote
While the National Electoral Court had ruled that the autonomy
referendum — which the government had proposed be held simultaneously
with a referendum to approve the new constitution — could not go ahead
on May 4 due to lack of time and suitable political conditions, the
prefecture and civic committee of Santa Cruz, backed by the Santa Cruz
Electoral Court, decided to go ahead with what was an illegal
referendum.
The referendum revolved around proposed autonomy statutes, drafted by
the oligarchy without any discussion, and which less than 15% of
crucenos (Santa Cruz residents) had read before May 4. The statutes
hand enormous power over to the opposition-controlled prefectures,
including control over natural resources, distribution of land titles,
the right to sign international treaties and its own police force and
judicial system.
On the day, the Yes vote received 483,925 votes, representing around
85% of the votes cast, against 85,399 No votes. However, calls by the
social movements and the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS — Morales's
party) national government to abstain led non-participation to rise to
39%, or 366,839 registered voters — more than double the usual
abstention rate.
This result was obtained in the face of threats and intimidation by
bosses who told workers they would loss their jobs if they did not
vote and the menacing patrols of the fascist Union Juvenil Crucenista
(UJC) — renowned for carrying out violent, racist attacks on
indigenous people.
Oppressed mobilise
However, in the "other Santa Cruz" — such as the popular urban area of
Plan Tres Mil and the rural areas of San Julian and Yacapani —
organised resistance by the popular civic committee and indigenous
campesino (peasant) organisations ensured the non-installation of
voting tables.
Despite physical attacks by the UJC, which left more than 20 injured
and one dead, in these areas abstention was almost total.
Across the country, massive mobilisations were organised by the
powerful indigenous campesino organisations, together with trade
unions and urban popular organisations. A week before, Morales had
called for demonstrations in all capital cities, except Santa Cruz in
order to avoid violence, behind the banner of national unity.
Underlying these events is an intense class struggle, infused with
strong ethnic and regional components. The ruling elites are fighting
to restore the political power they have begun to lose.
The election of Morales came on the back of five years of intense
social struggle by the combative indigenous and campesino movements,
which gave birth to an alternative national project based on the
demands of nationalisation of gas and a constituent assembly to
refound Bolivia.
In December of 2005, unified behind its "political instrument" — MAS —
this movement propelled former coca growers' union leader Morales into
the presidential palace.
Since then, Morales has initiated a process of returning Bolivia's gas
to state hands, begun implementing an agrarian reform and organised
elections for a constituent assembly that has prepared a new draft
constitution to be submitted to a national referendum.
For the oligarchy, particularly those with interests tied to the gas
transnationals and agribusiness, these changes are intolerable.
Forced to retreat to its trenches in the east, the elite has run a
propaganda line that combines rallying against "La Paz centralism",
tapping into the long held sentiments of a "crucenista identity" and
outright racism to regroup and mobilise a section of the white
population of the east against the government — whose stronghold is in
the impoverished and largely indigenous west. This campaign is
receiving heavy funding from the US government.
While it can not be ruled out that the oligarchy could use these
social base to move to divide Bolivia through secession, its main plan
at the moment is to put a halt on the process unfolding since Morales'
election — aiming to wear down popular support for the government by
forcing concessions from the government at the negotiating table and
paving the way towards ultimately getting rid of him, via a coup or
elections.
Post-referendum struggle
In this context, the results of the May 4 referendum were clearly not
a victory for the oligarchy. Forced to rely on fraud and intimidation,
the right was unable to get the resounding vote they would have
required to turn the results of their illegal referendum into a
legitimate mandate.
Yet nor was it a complete defeat — the large Yes vote showed that an
important section of Santa Cruz continues to back the oligarchy.
For the popular movements, the important resistance of the "other
Santa Cruz" represents a new phase in their struggle.< This was
reflected in the high abstention and the emergence of an important
middle-class layer grouped around Santa Cruz Somos Todos, who,
although not part of the MAS project, called for a No vote and support
autonomy within the framework of the new constitution.
The actions of the counterrevolution have pushed those forces in
favour of change towards greater unity. This was demonstrated in the
May Day rallies where, importantly, the Bolivian Workers' Central
(COB), which had until now been very critical of the government, was
on the main stage promoting a united front.
The oligarchy, claiming victory from the May 4 vote, will undoubtedly
be calling for a return to the negotiating table to force concessions
out of the government to water down the new constitution and insert
its autonomy statutes.
However, these two projects are incompatible. The government needs to
shift the debate back to the draft constitution by calling the
referendum for its approval as soon as possible — as the social
movements are demanding.
Any autonomy must be within the framework of what has been
democratically decided by the constituent assembly. In this way, the
movements can counterpose their autonomy based on social justice and
solidarity to that of the Santa Cruz elites and win support among the
Santa Cruz population.
Moreover, the government needs to continue to implement its economic
program of nationalisations — such as those announced on May 1, which
included recuperating majority control of four gas transnationals and
total control over ENTEL, Bolivia's largest telecommunications
company.
These moves can demonstrate the role of a strong national state and
build the confidence and dignity of the popular movements and middle
classes to continue pushing the democratic revolution forward.
These nationalisations, along with agrarian reform and wealth
redistribution, are not only crucial to give further momentum to the
popular movements — together with a strong campaign to win the hearts
and minds of soldiers and officials in the armed forces, it is a vital
to strengthen the nationalist wing of the military against those right-
wing elements conspiring to overthrow Morales.
In a sign of the battles to come in the near future, on May 8, Cuban
newspaper Granma reported that the Senate, controlled by the right,
had passed a motion Morales has been pushing since last year to hold a
recall referendum for the presidency as well as the nine regional
governors.
To ensure that the result of May 4 can become a real victory for the
popular forces, it is necessary to continue to develop the unity that
has been built over the last few weeks to continue the mobilisation of
the masses and deepen the revolutionary process through decisive
economic and political measures.
Federico Fuentes is the editor of http://boliviarising.blogspot.com.Co-author
of forecoming book (in spanish) MAS-IPSP de Bolivia
nada
for Green Left Weekly. Why did you post this?
David