Ramsey Clark & the right to counsel

[Michael Pugliese]

<URL: http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/408/defend_taliban.html >
Weekly Worker 408 Thursday November 15 2001
Should we defend the  Taliban?
Ian Donovan takes up the arguments of two socialists who believe that it is 
a duty to defend the Taliban ‘against imperialism’. The first is Bob Pitt, 
a Labour Party member and editor of What Next?The other is a ‘orthodox’ 
Trotskyist Liz Hoskins
Turning the Taliban into the 1930s Ethopians
Bob Pitt’s main argument contained in his article written for this paper 
wrests on biblical quotes from Leon Trotsky - culled from his 1930s 
writings on Ethopia. He tries might and main to defend his political 
softness on islamic fundamentalism and the Taliban by avoiding concrete 
analysis. It is actually amusing to note the various traps he falls into in 
attempting to deny the reactionary character of the ‘anti-imperialism’ of 
the Taliban  (November 8).
Comrade Pitt, of course, vehemently denies being a biblicist, and foolishly 
tries to turn the accusation around by pointing with pride to his 
disagreements with Trotsky on the character of the ex-USSR and on the 
Transitional programme, as well as, more relevantly, to his support for 
popular frontism in Spain, as evidence of his freethinking and iconoclastic 
bent in politics. He could have added a whole number of other increasingly 
‘soft left’ positions he has adopted - from ‘tactical’ support for the 
Green Party, to virtually uncritically cheering Ken Livingstone’s popular- 
frontist evolution, to his dogmatic support for New Labour in elections, 
even though no-one with any political acumen believes that it even 
pretendsto be a party that stands for the interests of the working class.
Of course, comrade Pitt is as entitled to his own views as any other 
individual socialist. However, he is quite an influential person in some 
spheres of the Labour left and his outlook probably has currency among some 
elements in that milieu - an exchange with him therefore has a wider 
utility. In any case, his apparent fondness for ‘progressive’ Taliban/Bin 
Laden-style ‘anti-imperialism’ is hardly that different from some of his 
other positions. What they tend to have in common is the subordination of 
independent class politics to non-proletarian forces.
It seems rather odd when a softy-lefty like comrade Pitt comes at you 
tooled up with rock-hard quotations from communist leaders of the past 
about the need to support the enemies of one’s own government in a war, but 
really it is more of a sentimental attachment than a fighting perspective. 
Comrade Pitt replies to my previous observation that he has no intention of 
fighting for his oh-so-revolutionary views to be adopted by the anti-war 
movement - something which he actually boastedabout in his original article 
- by rather sadly pointing out that at a recent anti-war meeting he had 
briefly mentioned his own pro-Taliban opinions.
Comrade Pitt says that he stated his position at this meeting “in order to 
underline the point that we all held political views which others in the 
campaign would not necessarily accept and that it was therefore necessary 
to find common ground in our opposition to the war”. Enough said - no 
accusation that the others who “would not necessarily accept” his pro- 
Taliban views were motivated by ‘racist arrogance’, as comrade Pitt says of 
revolutionaries who disagree with his position. Merely a polite agreement 
to disagree, in keeping with comrade Pitt’s expressed wish that the anti- 
war movement should notadopt his views. In which case his views become … an 
irrelevance: purely platonic.
And yet, when he writes about such matters, he still sounds like a 
biblicist. Indeed, around half of his article consists of the discussion of 
old quotations, and the remainder contains precious little concrete 
analysis. Once again, he manfully tries to drag Trotsky to the defence of 
the Taliban, as if they were the forces of Ethiopia (then Abyssinia) 
fighting against colonisation at the hands of Mussolini’s Italy in 1934-5.
Such a comparison is pretty strange - rather like comparing Nelson Mandela 
with Anton Pavelic (the leader of the Croatian fascist Ustashe movement in 
World War II) - both were leaders of nationalist movements in countries 
that were dominated for long periods by colonialists and occupiers. The 
fact that one led a struggle that had a democratic content, whereas the 
other led a movement that had a profoundly anti-democratic, indeed 
genocidal, character, would make such a comparison sickening and bizarre. 
But in comparing Haile Selassie, the emperor of Abyssinia, whose forces in 
1935 fought a gallant battle against a fascist colonial invasion, with the 
Taliban, comrade Pitt is making an equally bizarre comparison.
It is a fact that in the 1930s, the prestige of Haile Selassie, among 
socialists and liberals and other progressively-minded people, as a fighter 
against oppression, was comparable to that of Mandela today, or perhaps of 
Garibaldi in the mid-19th century. Probably only Gandhi had a similar 
esteem at the time - not just among politicos, but also among ordinary 
working people.
Comrade Pitt says: “Whereas Lenin argued in a polemic against Piatakov that 
it was impermissible to side with ‘reactionary classes’ in a struggle 
against imperialism, Trotsky, with his support for the Abyssinian feudal 
emperor against Italy and his backing for the ‘barbarian’ monarch of Tunis 
in a hypothetical conflict with French imperialism, evidently did not share 
Lenin’s position on this issue.
“This difference of opinion was not related to the existence or non- 
existence of colonialism. Lenin was writing in 1915, at which time - in 
case it has escaped Ian’s attention - the major imperialist powers were in 
possession of formal colonial empires on a large scale.
“The obvious conclusion is that, in endorsing Lenin’s view, Ian 
fundamentally disagrees with Trotsky’s. But Ian cannot bring himself to 
admit it. And this from a man who accuses meof being a ‘biblicist’!”
Well, it would perhaps surprise comrade Pitt to find out that, no, I do not 
fundamentally disagree with Trotsky’s views on the defence of Abyssinia 
(his hypothetical defence of Tunis, or Brazil, is another matter - 
hypothetical cases, as opposed to actual concrete events, in my view are 
much less useful and prone to major political errors and misunderstandings - 

 but more of that later).
What kind of a social and political figure was Haile Selassie, and was he 
remotely comparable to the Taliban, or indeed islamic fundamentalists in 
general? That is one very important question when concretely analysing, 
from the point of view of historical materialism and Marxist theory, the 
days of the great colonial empires, and comparing them to today’s very 
different world.
Comrade Pitt, quoting Trotsky parrot-fashion, says that Selassie is 
comparable to the Taliban because he was a ‘feudal monarch’ and so, if the 
Taliban are reactionary opponents of imperialism, then so must have been 
Selassie. Therefore, since Trotsky supported the Negus against Mussolini’s 
forces in 1935, it is correct for Marxists to support the Taliban today. 
QED. We have a pretty straightforward case of pure syllogism here - from 
someone who criticises Lenin’s warning of the dangers of supporting 
‘reactionary anti- imperialism’ as being ‘undialectical’. A is equal to A. 
Selassie is equal to the Taliban.
In reality, nothing can be more superficial and contrary to the whole 
method of Marxism than to substitute the repetition of quotes for concrete 
examination of the subject matter. The first rule of dialectics, as Lenin 
was wont to point out, is that the truth is always concrete. Comrade Pitt 
makes no effort to demonstrate that the historical phenomenon of Haile 
Selassie was comparable to the Taliban: he simply takes it as read.
What kind of regime was Haile Selassie’s? The fact that Trotsky 
characterised him as a ‘feudal monarch’, of course, is an important 
pointer. However, there have been other ‘feudal monarchs’ in history who 
have not exactly acted the way such figures are supposed to behave. One 
thinks, for instance, of the 19th century regime of Kaiser Wilhelm I of 
Prussia/Germany, and his chancellor, the Prussian aristocrat Count Otto von 
Bismarck. In 19th century Europe, under the pressure of competition from 
other, already capitalist, rival powers such as Britain and France, the 
German aristocracy carried out a bourgeois social transformation of their 
essentially pre- capitalist society from above, in the process constituting 
Germany as a unified bourgeois nation. Of course, 19th century Europe is 
different from mid-20th century east Africa, but nevertheless the point is 
the same. Just being led by a ‘feudal monarch’ does not in itself make a 
regime a reactionary opponent of capitalism.
The following description of Selassie’s regime comes from a prominent 
bourgeois scholar: “By 1932, Haile Selassie enjoyed unchallenged ascendancy 
in Ethiopia. He had constructed a central government totally reliant on the 
crown for policy and direction ...
“Throughout, Haile Selassie maintained himself as the country’s sole fount 
of authority, effective enough - so the Italians often observed - to lead 
his backward empire to modernity and international legitimacy.
“During 1931-1934, the emperor was busy implementing schemes that augured 
well for the future. There was a whirlwind of activity: projects and 
planning fell into place for roads, schools, hospitals, communications, 
administration, and public services. Given Ethiopia’s limited resources and 
educated manpower, projects were mostly privately financed: the emperor, 
the royal family, the aristocracy, the national and foreign bourgeoisie all 
profited from investments in transport companies or toll road construction 
consortia. By mid-1934, the Addis Ababa-Jima road had passed the Omo River 
and was growing daily; Harer-Jijiga was completed; and Mojo-Sidamo was 
finished and being extended to Mega. The government was laying down a 
strategic network of tracks in Ogaden; and Ras Desta Demtew had completed 
rough tracks from Sidamo to Moyale via Mega, making it possible for trucks 
to travel from Addis Ababa to Nairobi.
“The combined effect was to open the country to the world economy: by 1932, 
revenues were pouring into Addis Ababa from export taxes applied to 25,000 
tons of coffee - triple the amount shipped in 1928, but, given the 
depression, only one-third more in money terms; from the recently opened 
provincial offices of the ministry of finance; and from reorganised customs 
stations that applied new, higher tariffs. In response to the growing 
national economy, the government replaced the Maria Theresa dollar with 
paper currency and coins issued by the Bank of Ethiopia. Since the modern 
sector was largely located in towns, the government could effectively force 
traders to use the money” (Harold G Marcus, ‘Haile Selassie vs Mussolini’ 
One World Magazinewww.webstories.co.nz/focus/etiopia/musso.html).
It could not be clearer: this, far from being a programme of reactionary 
anti- capitalism, was a classic programme of bourgeois modernisation, 
carried out from above by a monarchy of pre-capitalist origins, in a manner 
that bears a considerable similarity to the example of Wilhelm I/Bismarck. 
What Trotsky wrote about China was equally true of Abyssinia, albeit in a 
different way: “China is an oppressed semi-colonial country. The 
development of the productive forces of China, which is proceeding in 
capitalist forms, demands the shaking off of the imperialist yoke. The war 
of China for its independence is a progressive war, because if flows from 
the necessities of the economic and cultural development of China itself, 
as well as because it facilitates the revolution of the British proletariat 
and indeed the entire world proletariat” (L Trotsky The Chinese revolution 
and the theses of comrade Stalin1927).
Contrast this with the Taliban. As Eddie Ford listed in his review of a 
recent bourgeois account of the rise of the Taliban, “… within days of 
taking Kabul in September 1996, the Taliban’s war against ‘sin’ viciously 
targeted women … Organised gynophobia. As well as being banned from 
receiving healthcare or education, women were forced to wear the dreaded 
burqa- a stifling garment that totally encompasses the body … At a stroke, 
the once cosmopolitan and Persian-speaking Kabul had reverted to its pre- 
1959 days, when the government … announced the voluntary end of seclusion 
for women and the wearing of the veil.”
Comrade Ford then goes on to generalise about the Taliban’s whole ethos: 
“Yes, of course, you can label them as ‘traditionalists’ who are exacting 
the revenge of the countryside over the cities. Yes, the Taliban want to 
impose ‘rural’ values. But these so-called ‘traditional’ values are not 
what they seem to be. When dealing with the Taliban we are talking about 
the ongoing inventionof tradition through the creation of an imaginary 
past.”
The contrast could not be greater. Selassie built hospitals and schools. 
The Taliban ban healthcare and education for half the population. The Negus 
systematically sought to promote industrialisation and economic growth 
behind tariff walls, to “lead his backward empire to modernity and 
international legitimacy”. The Taliban seek to impose an imaginary, 
mythologised version of pre-capitalist village life upon previously 
cosmopolitan cities. Yes, the contrast between the two could not be more 
clear, and frankly the attempt to equate the Taliban with the progressive 
struggle of Selassie for national liberation against Italian imperialism is 
an historical absurdity.
Trotsky was obviously correct to back Selassie’s regime in its struggle for 
national independence against Italian colonialism, because Selassie was the 
leader of a progressive, national struggle, despitehis social origins. 
Selassie’s struggle had a democratic content, and was no different in 
essence from any other of the anti-colonial struggles for nationhood and 
independence that were characteristic of that period.
However, when Trotsky started making analogies about hypothetical events, 
he was on much shakier ground. Comrade Pitt, as a biblicist, is not only 
content to uncritically accept one version of why Trotsky supported 
Selassie, without bothering to investigate the actual history beyond what 
is written in the Pathfinder-published Writings of Leon Trotsky. He also 
accepts as holy writ every tentative, hypothetical point Trotsky makes, 
without bothering to think. In conjuring up the possibility of a war 
between the French empire and a ‘barbarian’ monarch of Tunis, he was 
obviously simply envisaging a case similar to Abyssinia.
<SNIP>
Michael Pugliese

-- 
Michael Pugliese

"Without knowing that we knew nothing, we went on talking without listening to 

 each other. Sometimes we flattered and praised each other, understanding that 

 we would be flattered and praised in return. Other times we abused and shouted 

 at each other, as if we were in a madhouse."
-Tolstoy