Protest against the Bombing

[Chris Burford]

At 15:20 25/03/99 -0500, you wrote:
>At 01:41 PM 3/25/99 -0500, you wrote:
>>Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu>) wrote:
>>
>>>In Columbus, Ohio, we had a protest against the US/NATO bombing of Serbia &
>>>Kosovo today.
>>
>>I'm curious.  I hardly ever these days play the
>>apologist for US imperialism, but the attacks on Serbia
>>-- regardless of true motivation! -- seem at least to
>>be directed at the right target.  Too often in the
>>past, as Alinsky and Chomsky among others have pointed
>>out, we would have almost mindlessly supported the
>>status quo instead, no matter how disgusting.
>>
>>If we actually do think self-determination is a Good
>>Idea, and if we agree that Kosovo is ethnically
>>albanian, and if we agree that the Serbs are using
>>their superior military strength to suppress the desire
>>for self-determination ...then why would we want to
>>protest the US bombing of the Serbs? 
>
>
>What the fuck are you talking about?  What self-determination?  The
>Kosovars are used in the same way as the Kurds were - as a human shield for
>the Pentagon demonstration projects.  
>
>Besides, what does "ethnically albanian" mean.  US is ethnically Native
>American - does that mean that all the yanks should be kicked out (although
>bombing Washington DC does not seem as a bad idea)?
>
>With all due respect, you have to clear your thinking of all the
>media-implanted liberal shit.
>
>Best,
>
>Wojtek

The right of nations to self-determination is a bourgeois democratic right,
so it is not suprising Wojtek calls it liberal shit, although his contempt
is invalid.  It is unmarxist to think that is is just implanted by the
media. Bourgeois democratic rights are determined by the economic
development of society. Their defence, particular the right of nations to
self-determination, was defended by Lenin. It is not conditional on the
political purity of those who are asserting that right.

The length of Barkley's analysis is interesting, but the matter is simpler:
marxists should have a prejudice in favour of the right of nations to
self-determination. Even if sometimes the devil has the same tune. That is
because it is related to an even more basic principle: the building of the
unity of the working class and of working people. That cannot be done
without a principled opposition to any form of national oppression. 

Chris Burford

London