Charles said:
"The U.S. war on Iraq is racist."
I think we need to distinguish between racism as a strategy and racism as a tactic. As a student of the "materialist theory of history", and as I have said before on this list, I do not believe that every atrocity inflicted on large groups of people are necessarily racist crimes; on the contrary, I think these are more often motivated by surplus extraction. (Racist crimes being associated with primitive accumulation rather than the more typical and "mundane" forms of capitalist accumulation.)
^^^^^^ CB: I'd go so far as to say that every genocide has been both racist and motivated by surplus extraction/resource extraction. So, the fact that imperialist exploitation is a motive for an atrocity inflicted on large groups of people does not foreclose that it is at the same time racist and genocidal. In the case of Iraq , it is both.
I subscribe to the materialist theory of history too :>) Racism is a sine qua non of historical capitalism, from the primitive accumulation to the 21 Century.
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My belief is that the colonisation of Iraq was primarily motivated by several items on the political agenda of international capital such as the need to justify continued/new defence expenditure/contracts, the global oil market, the opening of Iraq as a market/investment site, etc. To a lesser degree, I can see that the war also served to take pressure off Israel in the region and to remove one of the best known figures of Arab nationalism, i.e. Saddam Hussein. I don't believe that the latter two motivations combined were sufficient motives/incentives for the ruling classes in terms of accumulation. Therefore, I don't believe that -- in a strategic sense -- the war was primarily racism. Of course, racism was and is useful as a tactic in pursuing the above motives.
^^^^ CB: Oh, we agree. The war is racist, not "primarily" racist.
Was the US Confederacies war on the North primarily racist ? No ,primarily it was to retain the surplus extraction from the slaves. However, it was racist too.
Was the war on Viet Nam primarily racist ? No, "primarily" anti-communist. But it was racist too.
In the history of capitalism, racism and surplus extraction go together like a horse and carriage.
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"As per this thread, the anti-racist character of the armed resistance to the U.S. invasion and occupation contributes to its definition as a national liberation and "resistance" (in the sense of politically correct) struggle."
I think one has to bear in mind the objective similarities among the ideologies of the invaders _and_the_resistance_, i.e. nationalism (if not xenophobia), religious fanaticism, particularism, etc. In that sense I don't believe that the resistance is more progressive; i.e. I believe the forces of global capital are more likely to enlarge the Iraqi proletariat and enhance class consciousness within it, a "role" which - as Marx noted - is better suited to imperial/international capital, than to national/petty bourgeois (allegedly "socialist") political forces such as the Ba'athists, Shia Islamists and other forms of nationalism, religious ideology, etc.
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CB: Here's an update on Marx: See Lenin,et al., right up to Fidel Castro on colonialism, national liberation and self-determination. The main victory of humanity in the 20th Century was in successful anti-racist, anti-colonialist , anti-imperial/international capital struggles. This has been the main success of Marxism, period. These were and are class struggles.
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"It is not at all beyond appropriate discussion to consider whether sensitivity to racism in the US war on Iraq is greater in people of color!"
Leaving aside the issues of what the original debate was about - and it had little to do with US domestic politics - and Yoshie's reasoning regarding those who disagreed with her,
^^^^^ CB: Lets not leave that aside. What was the original debate about ?
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_if_ I believed that one had to _be_ a particular kind of individual in order to comment on particular kinds of issues, or to only agree with the relevant individuals (assuming that they really share a point of view) on those issues, I wouldn't comment on them.
^^^^^^^ CB: I believe this is a canard ( one that has given rise to a whole strawman subthread here). It is not that you have to be a particular kind of individual in order to comment on particular kinds of issues. It is that people of color ( speak to Dennis Perrin for understanding of this concept - not )tend to be more sensitive to the existence of racism on any given subject. Not absolutely , but statistically, a tendency. So, all the discussions about how, say, all Black people don't think alike are "missing the point". All the discussions of "diversity" within races really belong on some , I don't know, liberal-centrist, t-group list. I bet it is difficult to find an opinion poll on many issues that don't show differences based on race in the U.S. (Doug ?). But I know there is a difference in opinions of Blacks and whites in the U.S. on whether racism is factor in just about anything that it could be, including the war on Iraq ( well there probably isn't a poll on the latter, since repression of discussion of racism defines this period in the U.S.)
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I don't accept that. For example I am not, at the moment, badly affected personally by pollution or environmental destruction - am I less able to comment than those who are? I am not a US citizen and have never been to the USA - does this automatically make me less-informed than US subjects on the matter of US foreign policy? I am a wage-earner and I feel able to make observations about the causes and best interests of the international working class, including the Iraqi working class, without regard to myopic, short-term, localised and/or purely ideological considerations.
^^^^^^ CB: No comment. I'm commenting on race as discussed above and elsewhere.
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"And there doesn't have to be a perfect correlation just like there doesn't have to be in any other statistical analysis."
I wouldn't insult the discipline of statistics by privileging Yoshie's observation with the name "statistics" - e.g. I strongly suspect there are "non-white" list members who do not agree with her "correlation" - but that' s just my opinion.
^^^^^^ CB: It's ok to show disrespect for the discipline of statistics. There are lies, damn lies and statistics. At any rate, this is the type of comment that seems right. Challenge the correlations. Don't get phony indignant , like Wojtek ( the list's kneejerk critic of any criticism of racism), et al.,
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"For a white person to accuse a person of color of racebaiting for same is, in my opinion, racism itself."
Personally, I never accused Yoshie of racebaiting and I don't believe that was what caused her to posit that correlation.
^^^^^^ CB: So I wasn't talking about you (!). Did you notice that somebody else used the racist term "racebaiting" ?
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"It is the typical racism of this period in the U.S. - Reaganite or new racism, which denies that racism still exists (including on the left)."
I take no responsibility for the views of US liberals, since I have little in common with them. If, however, you were alleging similarities between (various international) conservative views on race and the views of some contemporary Marxists or historical materialists, I would want to hear some precise reasons and/or examples.
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CB: Here's the interesting thing here ( What's the "Freudian"/Shakes term for it ? " Methinks ye doth protest too much " ): No, I wasn't thinking about any contemporary Marxists or historical materialists, but how come you _thought_ I was ? Oh , I know, if the shoe fits, wear it.
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"The repression of raising racism is one of the main forms of racist repression today."
And conversely - in bourgeois societies - as I said to Yoshie, race (and other aspects of identity) are all too often raised by capitalists and/or other members of the bourgeoisie who happen to be from ethnic/national/religious/other minorities, in the interests of networking, marketing and obtaining state assistance. None of which IMO is less objectionable than capitalist politics in general.
^^^^^^ CB: No, Yoshie and I are not capitalists or bourgeoisie of color, nor do we represent their point of view in this thread.
No, I don't think the problem you mention has come to equal that of racism, nor is it a reason to stop protesting and opposing and criticizing racism, particularly with respect to the war on Iraq.
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"To act indignant when a person of color ( especially one who has demonstrated over a period of years that she does not make careless or flippant sames ) speculates that it might be is ...racist."
I disagree and I think it was careless and insulting for Yoshie to raise the issue in the context of a debate on the Iraqi resistance.
^^^^^^^^ CB: We can go round and round, but getting insulted at somebody ( it doesn't really even have to be a person of color; in fact, it would be better if , on a left list, it wasn't a person of color, and that the "correlation" didn't work out, i.e. that just as many white people as of color marked the racism of the Iraq war) criticising racism is no less racist than bringing up the racist idea of racebaiting.
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"This might have been much better understood by white leftists in the "sixties" than now. We have lost that consciousness among many white leftists, maybe. Practice of criticism /self-criticism might help."
I certainly hope _all_ leftists have lost or are losing the 20th Century Marxist habit of simply supporting any cause which happens to appeal to subjective/popular opinion within definitely oppressed/colonised nationalities and ethnic groups. That is _not_ critical, it is populist/opportunist.
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CB: Clearly you articulate the opportunist position on this issue. Failure to criticize racism is one of the marks of an opportunist "socialist" in the U.S.
Your statement here is also a gross slander of 20th Century Marxists , because the 20th Century Marxist alliance with anti-racist, anti-colonialist struggles is historic height of critical thinking ,putting to shame the liberal "thinking" you articulate here. Nor did or do Marxists simply support any cause which happens to appeal to subjective/popular opinion within definitely oppressed/colonised nationalities and ethnic groups. That's false.
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IMO a real self-criticism is not something which refers dogmatically to ideas formed in quite different and often-inappropriate historical and social contexts - self-criticism needs to focus on the long term interests of the class struggle by the international working class.
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CB: Yes, but the criticism of racism here is not dogmatic, but cogent and currently valid. Racism "do" still exist, as that Marxist Coleman Young said at a MLK celebration.
Put it this way, Marx and Engels focussed your attention on the unity of the world working class -Workers of the World , Unite !- The main division of the world working class in world history and still is due to racism. The struggle against racism is the central struggle of the communist movement. After that great Marxist, W.E.B. Dubois, we can say the question of the colorline is the main one of the 20th Century, and now remains for the 21st,unfortunately.