[lbo-talk] Iraqi communists on "resistance"

John Lacny jlacny at earthlink.net
Sat Feb 14 07:48:15 PST 2004


Charles Brown and Steve Philion:


> CB: What were the main activities of the French resistance?
> Wasn't their sabotage considered heroic ?
>
> --well, yeah, but they were white.
> steve

Yet more entries in the funny-ha-ha point-scoring contest where Steve Philion, Carrol Cox, and others are enthusiastic participants. Yoshie is further trying to tease out the moral sentiments of various listmembers on the ethics of violent resistance. Forive me for finding none of this very interesting. All of them are sidestepping an important issue, which is that the armed actions in Iraq appear to be drawing very little popular support, and it's not unreasonable to wonder why that is so. Contrary to Steve's snide cracks, there are plenty of us here who have supported and continue to support resistance movements among "nonwhite" peoples that include an armed component, even considering that individual violent operations occasionally produce ghastly horrors: the Vietnamese, the Algerians, or South Africans in days past; the Palestinians, (and for some of us) the Colombians and Filipinos today. And since Yoshie seems so interested in it, I will say forthrightly that I have nothing in principle against the right of Iraqis to mount an armed resistance to the occupation of their country, even considering that there will inevitably be an occasional operation gone wrong. But what good does it do us to not recognize that there is no armed "people's war" going on in Iraq, apart from scattered armed bands who appear to have little popular support especially nationwide and indeed may be at eachother's throats? The majority of Iraqis, and the oppressed ethnic majority in particular, are lending their support to other forms of struggle, particularly the call for direct democratic elections; the progressive forces are also engaged in forms of popular organizing that by and large do not use armed struggle (apart perhaps from isolated incidents of self-defense that we do not hear about -- it's the height of folly to imagine that these people are not realists), such as organizing the unemployed and the trade union movement.

So forgive me, indeed, for preferring to take my lead from the people on the ground when it comes to international solidarity, but that's the way it has to be. I will also note that Carrol Cox, who has been the most rhetorically vocal about the need to let Iraqis sort things out among themselves, has felt no need to suggest concrete ways for US activists to contact and support Iraqis on the ground who are actually engaged in struggle, nor has he even responded to my own concrete suggestions.

Finally, there's the attempt on the attempt on their apart to engage in grade-school moralizing about how the Iraqi armed actors are no less repugnant than John Kerry. Chiefly because Doug has asked people to refrain from desist from discussing the elections, I will not say much on this, save that it's further indication that these people are too far out of touch with the problems of their OWN people in THIS country -- something which is a prerequisite for effective international solidarity, of the kind that takes people as they are and does not romanticize struggle either here or anywhere else. I should say that I have not encountered a single organizer engaged in base work among the oppressed and exploited in this country -- poor people's organizing and advocacy, union organizing, what-have-you -- who denies the absolute necessity of defeating the current regime. So my question to the people who DO deny it is, isn't it possible that the people are the real heroes, and that we "revolutionaries" are often foolish and ignorant? Shouldn't we at least sometimes take the lead from them, particularly when the sentiments they express are so overwhelming? Are they perhaps trying to tell us something?

- - - - - John Lacny

People of the US, unite and defeat the Bush regime and all its running dogs!



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