Following is a talk
given in the Opening Plenary of the Nov. 13-14, 2010, National Conference on
Socialism sponsored by the Party for Socialism and Liberation.
It is great to see you this morning comrades. I have seen
many of you before. Usually, it is in the streets demonstrating, as we have as
part of the ANSWER Coalition, in major, sustained and massive mobilizations
against the war and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. I have seen you stand in
solidarity with the Palestinian people. I have seen you stand in opposition to
the blockade of Cuba, and I have seen you stand in opposition to all
manifestations of racism and bigotry here in the United States.
I am particularly proud that our organization, the PSL,
plays a major role inside of the ANSWER Coalition, which stands for Act Now to
Stop War and End Racism.
The leaders of our Party have been principal leaders and
organizers of the ANSWER Coalition since its formation three days after the
Sept. 11, 2001, attack. It would be hard to believe now, but at that time
George W. Bush had an approval rating of 90 percent. The country seemed to be
united behind the Bush administration as it used the Sept. 11 attacks as a
pretext to prepare for new invasions, wars and occupations. The country was
gripped with fear and rage, and the bourgeoisie generated a patriotic and
pro-war hysteria.
It was under those difficult circumstances nine years ago
that the ANSWER Coalition was born. And in the last nine years, the ANSWER
Coalition has played a particular role within the U.S. anti-war and peace movement.
Unlike bourgeois pacifism, which denounces war because war connotes the absence
of peace, the ANSWER Coalition is distinctive in that it opposes imperialist
war because it deprives the targeted people of their right to
self-determination. It denounces imperialist war because it is the application
of extreme violence in the pursuit of the agenda of the corporations and banks
to dominate, loot and plunder the land, labor and resources of the targeted
countries, especially those in the oil-rich Middle East.
The ANSWER Coalition, unlike others in the anti-war and peace
movement, has always and everywhere elevated the struggle against racism as a
central feature of its anti-war organizing. The ANSWER Coalition is distinctive
because it recognizes that the war against the Arab and Muslim people in the
Middle East and South Asia has a domestic component – a war at home against
Arab American, Muslim and South Asian people, and all of those engaged in the
fight for civil rights and civil liberties.
As an African, as someone born out of the liberation
struggle for Zambia, it was critical for me, as it has been for many of you,
that our struggle against war be understood to be part of and not separate from
the struggle of oppressed people on all continents to win their liberation.
Today and tomorrow, I hope all of us will join together in
deepening our discussions, our analysis and our strategy so we can again be with
the ANSWER Coalition in the streets of cities and towns throughout the country
in the coming period.
U.S. out of Iraq
and Afghanistan!
Free Palestine!
Long live international solidarity!
