In spite of some contextual problems, I hope I will be forgiven for cross posting this brilliant e-mail from Fred Feldman to Marxmail -- James Daly
Alan Bradley says that Gowans says that the enemy of our enemy is our friend. But isn't that the same position that Bond takes, in effect, about those in Zimbabwe who support imperialist sanctions against their country - their country not just individual targets.
Does Bond have a word to say about the intensifying sanctions regime, or the intervention of the NED. He pledges the independence of "left" forces but really says nothing that demonstrates their independence.
The imperialists are on a broad and varied campaign to tighten their grip in Africa. How many countries are now under various forms of occupation.
The Yugoslavia example is relevant here, and I write as someone who never bought into prettification of Milosevic. But one thing I never did was go into neutral on what the imperialists were doing because they had chosen an unattractive "force of evil" as their target.
The drive against the government of Zimbabwe that the US and British imperialists are escalating is an act of war against the independence of Zimbabwe. Our focus should not be on either apologizing for or demonizing the Mugabe regime. Our stress has to be on the fact that our enemy is at home, not in Harare.
"Mugabe is a monster," says an editorial in the current New Republic. The only reason they don't says he's a Hitler (like Ahmadinejad, Saddam, and so many others) is that he doesn't seem to concern himself much with Israel, Palestine, or Jews.
Isn't this kind of demonization the universal banner of imperialist aggression these days? Don't we recall this as the justification for two wars and a murderous sanctions regime against Iraq?
I have more respect for Gowans than most of those who comment on this. He's the author of a useful if onesided book on the role of US monetary policy in the rise of neoliberalism.
I think he is being one-sided in defending Mugabe. But I think Bond is chronically indifferent to the problem of the complex forms of imperialist domination in the region, despite his studies of "capital accumulation" there, which I am sure are quite valuable.
Partly the views of those who basically align with Bond against Gowans (even if critically) is that imperialist domination consists basically of bad bourgeois nationalist regimes, kleptocracies and so forth. Get rid of the corrupt and brutal bourgeois nationalists and the imperialists will be powerless. It's not true.
Personally, I don't think that opposition to neoliberalism should be raised above the class struggle as a criterion, as I think Gowans somewhat tends to do in general. The key issue in Zimbabwe is not neoliberalism but political independence, and those of us in the imperialist countries have to fight on that central issue. We don't have to be for anyone or anything on the single criteria of are they opposed to neoliberalism. Some countries will go through this, and have to learn for themselves how to respond to it as Venezuela did. I don't think repressive dictatorship is necessarily preferable to the danger of a neoliberal policy shift.
I thought Workers World was wrong in defending Saddam, and it certainly was not necessary to do so in order to oppose the imperialist aggression.
But those who bent in that direction -- the enemy of my enemy is my friend -- ended up in a better place than those who put opposition to Saddam, Milosevic, and so forth first among their priorities.
Bond and his ally Mbeki insist that the opposition to the anti-Mugabe campaign among African states has everything to do with fear of labor movements taking power in their countries, and nothing to do with defendinhg the shreds of independence they have held on to against imperialist pressures. I think his view is one-sided at best. Is this the reason why the South African government has organized a campaign against the sanctions against Iran? Is that why they oppose the sanctions against Cuba?
Also, I think the labor party perspective is too narrow today for the Southern Africa countries. There seems to be an underlying assumption that "class" issues have now REPLACED national-liberation issues at the center of politics. Hence the white landowners protected by the imperialists under the treaty that granted independence to Zimbabwe become merely "citizens" victimized by Mugabe.
Frankly, I don' think the time has come for this kind of "color-blindness" in Africa. I think a labor party that takes this kind of position on the land question in Zimbabwe will be worse than useless.
The day of the national liberation movement is not over yet anywhere in Africa, although the alignment of social forces is sure to change in the developing phases.
Regardless of how the battle goes in Zimbabwe, our slogan HAS TO BE: not "down with Mugabe!" but US, BRITISH HANDS OFF ZIMBABWE. LIFT ALL SANCTIONS! NED OUT OF ZIMBABWE! Fred Feldman