ws:] Indeed, national liberation is a worthy pursuit only inasmuch as it leads to social progress and a better quality of life for most people.
Russell: Nobody can disagree with this. There are however never any guarantees of a positive outcome to national liberation struggle. Most to date were in fact failures. Do we therefore repudiate the whole project? Got any better ideas?
ws:] If it does not, or even if it turns back the clock of social progress and worsens the quality of life, national liberation is unworthy and reactionary.
Russell: Who makes this judgement? Unfortunately setting impossible preconditions for supporting foreign liberation struggles has often been a pretext for instead supporting - or at least tolerating - imperial adventures around the world. The argument runs: "We would support the right to national liberation but not in this case as the politics of the liberation movement are too reactionary for our tastes (they oppress women/are religious fundamentalists/aren't sufficiently socialist/whatever). Instead we're forced - more in sorrow than in anger - to go along with our own country's civilising mission in X country".
ws:] By the same token, if a foreign domination leads to social progress and better quality of life for most people - it is a worthy pursuit.
Russell: National liberation/foreign domination - it's all the same to Woj. Let's have your list of all those countries that benefited thanks to colonial domination/foreign intervention. I know of none in Africa. We do however have a bunch of disaster areas that are the direct consequence of western meddling.
Russell