[PEN-L:7163] Congo

[Chris Burford]

At 10:01 21/01/01 -0800, you wrote:
>Heh, add the editors of NLR for publishing an excerpt from the Gott book a
>few yrs. ago to the counter-revolutionary dustbin. ;-)
>What did Che say. Something like Kabila was wasting money in nightclubs and
>showed little dedication to the struggle. Now if only he had said something
>like what Lenin said in his "Final Testament" about Stalin being rude to
>Krupskaya...
>Kabila, just like Mobuto grew fantastically rich at the expense of his
>people. The former had CIA backing, natch, the latter, not. Moralist, socdem
>me, will never understand the fight the primary enemy even if they are shits
>line of my leninist comrades.
>                                                                 Michael
>Pugliese, gloater.
>P.S. What next a defense of anti-imperialist Erap Estada? Come on, I think
>you can draw the line somewhere! Methinks, I'm being too harsh, skirting the
>11 mark on the flammage meter...

That does not seem particularly inflammatory to me, but it might to some.

We cannot assume that every movement that says it is nationalist and 
opposed to imperialism, is progressive.

The difficult question that leftists have to address is that there are 
times when the nationalist resistance to imperialism is not sufficiently 
progressive for it to outweigh the damage to formal democracy and to the 
possibility of unity between international working people. That is 
particularly important when there is a risk of fanning religious divisions 
between Christians and Muslims and promoting fascism in new forms.

The neo-liberal agenda of civil rights presents some complex choices. 
Although it is creditable for citizens of an imperialist country in the 
first place to oppose their bourgeoisie, there will be times when 
international finance capital is more progressive than local capital for 
the purposes of building popular world  unity.

Thus it was progressive for Chomsky and other leftists to call for the USA 
and the IMF to intervene in East Timor, and to send a military force. (It 
was preferable that that force did not include US military, and did not use 
high level cluster bombs or depleted uranium). But it was certainly both a) 
imperialist and b) progressive (that is, progressive from the point of view 
of the development of the unity of the people of the world.

However the IMF's economic oppression of the people of Indonesia has 
greatly stimulated reactionary forces.

Chris Burford

London