NO WAR BUT THE CLASS WAR
Against capitalism - Against the US government - Against state and
fundamentalist terrorism
_________________________________________________________________
SOUTH AFRICAN ANARCHIST STATEMENT ON THE NEW YORK/ WASHINGTON DC
SEPTEMBER 2001
THE WTC ATTACKS
The September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Centre (WTC) and the
Pentagon by suicide bombers, leading to over 6, 500 deaths have
grabbed world attention.
We revolutionary anarchists condemn the attacks and extend our
condolences to the families of those injured or killed. The death of
thousands of ordinary civilians - including many ordinary workers - is
not acceptable. The use of civilian aircraft for such an operation is
authoritarian and coercive and shows the contempt of terrorists for
human life. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
It also shows that the terrorists are anti-working class: attacking
people just because they are "American" regardless of their class
position is reactionary and xenophobic. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
After all, US workers are also victims of US capitalism. Bill Gates
personally has more wealth than the bottom 45% of US households. In
1999, top executives earned 419 times the wage of a blue-collar
worker, up from a difference of 42 to 1 in 1980. This is directly due
to the vicious implementation (and often racist) of neo-liberal /
privatisation policies within the US itself.
DOWN WITH US TERRORISM
At the same time as we oppose the terrorism of the bombers, we oppose
equally the terrorism of all states, especially the US government This
capitalist military-industrial machine has been involved in more than
216 armed interventions against other countries and regions.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
These range from wars of extermination against the indigenous people
of the US, to the installation of puppet regimes that repressed
anarchists and socialists in countries like Cuba, Nicaragua and Chile,
to the use of nuclear weapons against Japanese workers in Hiroshima
and Nagasaki (which killed more than 192,500 people in a few seconds).
BUSH'S AGENDA FOR WAR
The US government is thus the single biggest terrorist organisation in
the world.
This means that Bush's threat to launch a "war against terrorism"
conceals a hidden agenda. He is using the so-called "threat of
terrorism" to radically INCREASE his ability to repress workers in the
US and extend US power across the world by:
· Extending police powers of arrest and surveillance · Increasing
military spending · Increasing spending on intelligence services such
as the CIA · Building a US-led global military force against
"terrorism"
It is true to say that the governments and states are the biggest
terrorist organisations in the world today, their monstrous social and
military crimes against working class people (in the interests of
capitalism) vastly overshadowing the suicide bombings of tiny groups
of fanatics.
DID THE ATTACKS "WEAKEN" OR "PUNISH" THE US STATE?
Therefore it is not correct to say that the US has been "weakened" by
the attacks. Instead, the terrorism has given Bush a golden
opportunity to promote US imperialism, deepen racial divisions in the
working class, and develop an apparatus to crush the
anti-globalisation movement. The US state - the most powerful armed
terrorist group in the world - cannot be militarily weakened by a few
explosions.
ARE THE FUNDAMENTALISTS ANTI-CAPITALIST?
Others have argued that the attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon are a
response to US imperialism. Others go further, seeing the attacks as
part of the international anti-capitalist "anti-globalisation"
movement.
This is not accurate. There are millions of poor Muslim people around
the world who are forced by local robber-baron capitalist ruling
classes to work themselves to death for a pittance of the wealth they
generate for these bosses.
The local elites in these countries manipulate religion, replacing any
sense of the solidarity of humanity with a violent, xenophobic and
conservative nationalism that divides and suppresses the working
class. Those who preach this anti-worker message are misnamed by the
media "Muslim fundamentalists."
The right-wing project of these local capitalist classes project is to
establish repressive capitalist states that ban workers'
organisations, encourage racism, preach propaganda instead of teaching
education, encourage leadership cults, repress women and gays, promote
sectarianism and violence instead of solidarity and peace, all
supposedly in the name of "Islam."
The aim of these "fundamentalists" is to generate higher profits for
local ruling classes through, in particular, oil exports based on
cheap labour. To win credibility, they pose as opponents of US
imperialism - guilty of ongoing crimes in the Middle East such as 1991
Gulf War, the ongoing starvation blockade of Iraqi, and support for
the Israeli state's war on the Palestinians- to win support for their
own sinister project.
Thus, the right-wing capitalist regime under the Ayatollah Khomeini
crushed the workers' rising in Iran in 1979, including workers'
councils and communist guerrilla groups, and today, the Iranian regime
is repressing the Worker-Communist Party of Iran, whilst in Indonesia,
fundamentalists collaborated with the CIA and the Suharto regime in
the mid-1960s to murder almost 1-million communists and ethnic
Chinese.
The Taliban in Afghanistan is a fascist organisation, forcing
non-Muslims to wear yellow tags, just as the Nazis forced anarchist
and communist political prisoners to wear red triangles, banning girls
from attending school and women from earning a living, murdering
people who choose their own sexual partners, and killing worker
activists, left-revolutionaries and anti-capitalists.
The left must not ignore this history and bury itself in a nebulous
anti-worker third world nationalism that serves to give the third
world bourgeoisie a false appearance of having worker interests at
heart.
Time and again these regimes have shown their hostility to the working
class and poor. In other words, these regimes also practice terrorism
against their own people in order to make profits and defend
capitalism. We do not support them and we stand with the ordinary
people of these countries in the struggle for anarchism, otherwise
known as libertarian communism.
ARE THE FUNDAMENTALISTS ANTI-IMPERIALIST?
The so-called "Muslim fundamentalists" are not, in fact,
anti-imperialist. At present they have conflicts with America over
Iraq and Palestine, but they have repeatedly shown themselves willing
to collaborate with US and British imperialism in the past.
Bin-Laden and the Jehadi groups received training and weapons from the
US CIA to fight the Soviet Union in Afghanistan at the exact same time
that the US funded Saddam Hussein against fundamentalist-ruled Iran.
The Israeli secret police originally funded Hamas to undermine secular
and socialist-influenced Palestinian movements such as the PLO. In
earlier years British imperialism used the Muslim Brotherhoods against
the independence movements in Egypt and India, leading in the second
case to massive communal conflicts during Independence in 1949.
In other words, the issue raised by the WTC is not "war between East
and West" but a growing confrontation between different groups of
capitalists who are, however, UNITED against the working class and
agreed on the need for capitalism to survive. That is why
fundamentalists use the elitist method of terrorism rather than the
methods of the working class: strikes, occupations, reconnections,
demonstrations, land invasions etc.
They are not anti-imperialist - they are anti-worker!
Therefore we stand with the Arab, North African, Central Asian and
Indonesian working class and peasantry against the capitalist regimes
of the Middle East, North Africa, Central Asia and Indonesia. AT THE
SAME TIME stand with Western workers against their own ruling classes
and against Bush's war mania.
NO TO BUSH'S WAR
We condemn any and all attempts by the Bush regime to use the attacks
as an excuse for war against Afghanistan. The main victims of such a
war will be ordinary people, workers and peasants; the ruling elite
organised in the Taliban will be mostly unaffected because they have
the money to hide and to protect themselves. Bush and the US elite
were hardly affected by the WTC attacks; equally, the Jehadi and
Taliban groups will also be unaffected.
We are also totally opposed to any attempt by the US capitalist class
to build a global "anti-terror" coalition or to increase their
repressive powers. We know it will be the left's turn next.
OUR AIMS
The main tasks of left-revolutionaries in this period are to stop the
war drive and growing political repression, and to fight racism
against ordinary Muslims, Arabs and others who are wrongly blamed for
the attacks.
We ALSO call for support for Middle Eastern, North African, Central
Asian and Indonesian workers against the fundamentalists. These goals
can only be accomplished through mass action by the working class
itself.
OUR DEMANDS:
* We call on US soldiers - particularly those from the oppressed
minorities in the US - to refuse to fight Bush's imperialist and
capitalist war
* We call for a campaign of rolling mass action - in both East and
West -against Bush's war
* We call for proletarian risings in the Muslim world against
capitalism, fundamentalism, terrorism and the US attacks
* Freedom and democracy for Palestine/ Israel and withdrawal of all
US forces from the Middle East
* We call on SA workers and revolutionaries to mobilise against the
war
For revolutionary working class action and working class autonomy!
For peace and anarchism!
ENDORSED BY
Bikisha Media Collective
Postnet suite 153, Private Bag X 42, Braamfontein, 2017,
Johannesburg, South Africa bikisha at mail.com
Anarchist Union
Postnet Suite 244, Private bag X10, Musgrave, 4062, Durban, South
Africa
Tel: 073-167-4581 (SA only)
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