All political movements are built on
certain points of unity, implicit or explicit, which bring together
disparate organizations and individuals for a common cause. Although
the imperialist bombing of Libya has entered its fourth month, the
anti-war movement appears to be mainly passive and confused about its
role. We hope that an explicit articulation of our points of unity
can help bring clarity to the situation, and stimulate the level of
mass activity that the moment requires.
Last week, the ANSWER Coalition (Act
Now to Stop War and End Racism,) of which the Party for Socialism and
Liberation is a leading part, sponsored a highly successful speaking
tour with former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney. Other speakers on
the tour included Akbar Muhammad, international representative of the
Nation of Islam, former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, and Brian
Becker, National Coordinator of the ANSWER Coalition.
McKinney had just returned from a
fact-finding delegation to Libya, and reported on the devastating
impact of the U.S./NATO bombing. Delivering the other side of the
corporate media’s story, she identified Libya’s enormous oil
reserves as a key motivation of the foreign intervention. She further
reported that the government of Muammar Gaddafi maintains strong
support among significant sections of the population. Although the
speaking tour was not an anti-war protest in the conventional sense,
it was in many ways the first significant anti-war mobilization with
respect to Libya, drawing around 1,500 people across the country.
The speakers came from a variety of
ideological, philosophical, and political traditions. On important
political and social questions, they would in fact be quite far
apart, and even on the situation in Libya they did not necessarily
share an identical view. But that does not mean that their unity was
artificial or accidental. In fact, we believe the unity displayed in
the ‘Eyewitness Libya’ speaking tour can serve as a foundation
for the broader anti-war movement.
These points of unity are:
-
Opposition to U.S./NATO
intervention, bombing and sanctions. The former colonizers and
enslavers of Africa have no genuine “humanitarian” concerns;
they seek profit and control. As in Iraq and Afghanistan, they are
imposing a savage human cost in pursuit of these goals. -
Respect for Libyan sovereignty.
No imperialist power has the right to intervene in Libyan internal
conflicts and attempt to assassinate its government leaders. -
No participation in the
war-makers’ demonization campaign. In every war hysteria and
so-called “humanitarian intervention,” the preferred tactic of
the war-makers is to portray the leader of the targeted nation as
the devil, an embodiment of pure evil. Politicians and the corporate
media repeat this singular message, which always includes outright
fabrication and usually a large dose of racism, minute-by-minute,
until it is accepted as truth. If our anti-war literature can
momentarily recapture the public’s attention amid the war
hysteria, our slogans and key message should counter the corporate
media, not participate in their demonization campaign.
So as to be explicit: these points of
unity do not require a particular position on Muammar Gaddafi. On the
‘Eyewitness Libya’ tour, some speakers expressed admiration for
Gaddafi’s support of the African Union, or the development of the
Libyan welfare state. We do not have to have an identical view of
Gaddafi to whole-heartedly organize alongside one another.
The anti-war movement’s united front
must include those Libyans resisting U.S./NATO aggression. On June
17, and then again on July 1, hundreds of thousands rallied in
Tripoli against the bombing. Many waved Libya’s green flag, and
carried pictures of Gaddafi. Others, we can assume, are critics of
Gaddafi, but mobilized in defense of Libya’s sovereignty. They have
united with Gaddafi supporters, and Gaddafi himself, for that common
cause.
Abandoning the people rallying in
Tripoli against imperialist intervention, some in the U.S. anti-war
movement insist that opposition to Gaddafi, and solidarity with the
Libyan rebels, must be the starting point for unity. In some cases
this manifests into open support for the U.S./NATO intervention. In
other cases it results in the hopelessly confused slogan of “Yes to
the rebels, no to the intervention!” The Transitional National
Council—the only rebel leadership to have arisen—has been the
loudest supporters of the NATO bombers. They have supplied the
stories to justify intervention, have lobbied for more aggressive
bombing, and served as constant apologists for NATO’s destruction.
The western governments, the Libyan government, those rallying in
Tripoli, and the rebels themselves all understand that the rebellion
based in Benghazi is tactically and strategically linked to the
intervention; we cannot afford to pretend otherwise. Advocating for
the rebels now is advocating for NATO.
A slogan is more than a headline. It is
a political intervention around which agitational (i.e. mass
outreach) work and a united front, will be organized. The
imperialists too have slogans around which they unite, and at present
theirs is “Down with Gaddafi.” To effectively combat their
agitation, ours must be of an entirely different nature. That a group
of opportunist leftists attached to the “Down with Gaddafi”
slogan has done nothing to organize against the war is perhaps the
most telling indictment of the slogan.
It is much easier to advocate for the
progressive thing when significant sections of the ruling class are
openly divided—on gay marriage, collective bargaining rights, the
Iraq war, cutbacks, etc. The left can stake out a distinct position
from the bourgeois parties, but comfortably swim in the larger sea of
“acceptable” opposition. When the ruling class unites to pump out
the same message—in this case, that Gaddafi is the devil and must
be removed—it requires more backbone to resist the combined
pressure.
Writing during World War I, Russian
revolutionary leader V.I. Lenin differentiated the socialist movement
into three sections: the revolutionary left, the social-imperialists
(socialist in name, but openly pro-imperialist), and the “centrists.”
He focused most of his polemical writing against the “center”
group, represented by German socialist Karl Kautsky, who advocated
radical positions in theory, but refused to take actions that would
risk isolation from the pro-imperialist left. Lenin argued that
regardless of their radical pretenses, the “centrists” were
“accomplices” of imperialism.
This relates directly to the present
situation. Far too many “leftist” and “anti-war” groups have
nothing visible on their websites about Libya. Far too few have
passed out a single leaflet against the war. This is unfortunate
because many young people joined such organizations in recent years
precisely because of their hatred for imperialist wars. But as the
bombs rain down on Tripoli, some groups have issued statements that
are as anti-Gaddafi as they are anti-intervention. Some have instead
spent much of their time writing vitriolic and dishonest articles
against those of us who have been out in front denouncing the
intervention. For such “centrist” groups, their top priority is
keeping their own politics acceptable to bourgeois public opinion.
These “balanced” statements serve only for self-definition—a
registering of one’s “position on Libya”—but are not designed
to fight the imperialists’ agitation. Their extreme opportunism
does nothing to rebuild the anti-war movement, but allows them to
join with the capitalist media to say, “We too condemn the enemy.”
These so-called socialists and the capitalist ruling class share a
common enemy: the Libyan government. Both want regime change in
Libya. Both want the rebels to win.
What we need now are straight-forward
slogans against the bombing of Libya, and a message that exposes the
corporate demonization of Gaddafi as nothing more than a war tactic.
We have put forward our points of unity
for the anti-war movement to oppose the war on Libya. We will be
rallying at the White House on July 9 with a clear message: “Stop
the bombing of Libya!” The speakers may have different perspectives
on a range of issues, but because we understand what has brought us
together, this unity will not be broken. We call on all genuine
anti-war forces to join us.
