T
thermate
Dr.Bricmont, We are extremely proud of you for your brilliant analysis
and courage to come out and say it. Your article brings out not one
but several key concepts, worth close reading. The physicists like
myself are proud to have one among us like you who seems to have an
acute sense of humanitarianism ....
=================
January 31, 2007
Resistance to Imperialism
What is the Decisive "Clash" of Our Time?
By JEAN BRICMONT
July 1, 1916, was the opening day of the Battle of the Somme. On that
single day, the British suffered more than 50,000 casualties, of which
20,000 died. The battle went on for four months, leading to about a
million casualties on all sides, and the war itself continued for
another two years.
In the summer of 2006, the Israeli army stopped its attacks on Lebanon
after losing about a hundred soldiers. The majority of the U.S.
population has turned against the Iraq war after less than 3,000 dead.
That indicates a major change in the mentality of the West, and this
reluctance to die in large numbers for "God and Country" is a major
advance in the history of mankind. From the neoconservative point of
view, however, this phenomenon is a sign of decadence; in fact, one of
the positive aspects of the present conflict, from their perspective,
is that it ought to strengthen the moral fiber of the American people,
by making them ready to "die for a cause."
But, so far, it is not working. More realistic people, the planners at
the Pentagon for example, have tried to replace waves of human cannon
fodder by massive "strategic" bombing. This works only rarely -- in
Kosovo and Serbia it did succeed, at least in bringing pro-Western
clients to power in both places. But it clearly is not working
satisfactorily in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine or Lebanon. The only
thing that might succeed, in a very special sense of course, would be
nuclear weapons, and the fact that those weapons are the West's last
military hope is truly frightening.
To put this observation in a more global context, Westerners do not
always appreciate the fact that the major event of the 20th century
was neither the rise and fall of fascism, nor the history of
communism, but decolonization. One should remember that, about a
century ago, the British could forbid access to a park in Shanghai to
"dogs and Chinese." To put it mildly, such provocations are no longer
possible. And, of course, most of Asia and Africa were under European
control. Latin America was formally independent, but under American
and British tutelage and military interventions were routine.
All of this collapsed during the 20th century, through wars and
revolutions; in fact, the main lasting effect of the Russian
revolution is probably the Soviet Union's significant support to the
decolonization process. This process freed hundreds of millions of
people from one of the most brutal forms of oppression. It is a major
progress in the history of mankind, similar to the abolition of
slavery in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Still, it is true that the colonial system gave way to the neocolonial
one and that most decolonized countries have adopted, at least for the
time being, a capitalist form of development. That provides some
consolation to the ex-colonialists (and disappointment to the Western
left that opposed colonialism). But such sentiments may reflect a
misunderstanding of the nature of "socialism" in the 20th century and
of the historical significance of the present period.
Before 1914, all socialist movements, whether libertarian or statist ,
reformist or revolutionary, envisioned socialism, i.e., the
socialization of the means of production, as an historic stage that
was supposed to succeed capitalism in relatively developed Western
societies possessing a democratic state, a functioning education
system, and a basically liberal and secular culture. All this
disappeared with World War I and the Russian Revolution. After that,
the libertarian aspects of socialism withered away, the majority of
the European socialist movement became increasingly incorporated into
the capitalist system and its main radical sector; the Communists
identified socialism with whatever policies were adopted by the Soviet
model.
But that model had almost nothing to do with socialism as it was
generally understood before the First World War. It should rather be
considered as a (rather successful) attempt at rapid economic
development of an underdeveloped country, an attempt to catch up,
culturally, economically, and militarily, by whatever means
necessary , with the West. The same is true of post-Soviet revolutions
and national liberation movements. As a first approximation, one can
say that all over the Third World, people, or rather governments, have
tried to "catch up" either by "socialist" or by "capitalist" means.
But, if one recognizes that aspect, the whole history of the 20th
century can be interpreted very differently from the dominant theme
about the "socialism that was tried and failed everywhere." What was
tried and actually succeeded (almost) everywhere was emancipation from
Western domination. This has inverted a centuries-old process of
European expansion and hegemony over the rest of the world. The 20th
century has not been the one of socialism, but it has been the one of
anti-imperialism. And this inversion is likely to continue during the
21st century. Most of the time, the "South" is strengthening itself,
with some setbacks (the period surrounding the collapse of the Soviet
Union being a time of regression, from that point of view).
This has important consequences for both the Western peace movement
and the old issue of socialism. There is some truth to the Leninist
idea that the benefits of imperialism corrupt the Western working
class not only in purely economic terms (through the exploitation of
the colonies), but also through the feeling of superiority that
imperialism has implanted in the Western mind. However, this is
changing for two reasons. On the one hand, "globalization" means that
the West has become more dependent on the Third World: we do not
simply import raw materials or export capital, but we also depend on
cheap labor, working either here or in export-oriented factories
abroad; we "transfer" capital from the South to the North through
"debt payments" and capital flight, and we import an increasing number
of engineers and scientists. Moreover, "globalization" means that
there is a decrease in linkage between the population of the U.S.A.
and their elites or their capitalists, whose interests are less and
less tied to those of "their" country. Whether the population will
react by adopting some pro-imperialist fantasies such as Christian
Zionism or "the war against terrorism" or whether it will rather
increase its solidarity with the emerging countries of the South, is a
major challenge for the future.
On the other hand, the rise of the South means that there is no longer
a relationship of military force that allows the West to impose its
will, the U.S. defeat in Iraq being the most extraordinary
illustration of that fact. Of course, there are other means of
pressure economic blackmail, boycotts, buying elections, etc. But
countermeasures are increasingly being taken also against those
methods, and one should never forget that a relationship of force is
always ultimately military without it, how does one get people to
pay their debts, for example?
The main error of the Communists is to have conflated two notions of
"socialism": the one that existed before World War I and the rapid
development model of the Soviet Union. But the current situation
raises two different questions to which two different forms of
"socialism" might be the answer. One is to find paths of development
in the Third World, or even a redefinition of what "development"
means, that do not coincide with either the capitalist or the Soviet
model. But that is a problem to be solved in Latin America, Asia or
Africa. In the West, the problem is different: we do not suffer from
the lack of satisfaction of basic needs that exist elsewhere (of
course, many basic needs are not satisfied, but that is a problem of
distribution and of political will). The problem here is to define a
post-imperialist future for the Western societies, meaning a form of
life that would not depend on an unsustainable relation of domination
over the rest of the world. Whether one wants to call that "socialism"
is a matter of definition, but it would have to include reliance on
renewable energy resources, a form of consumption that does not depend
on huge imports and an education system that produces the number of
qualified people that the nation needs. Whether all this is compatible
with the system of private property of the means of production, and a
political system largely controlled by those who own those means,
remains to be seen.
This establishes a link between the struggle for peace and the
struggle for social transformation, because the more we live in peace
with therest of the world, the more we give up our largely illusory
military power and stop our constant "threats", the more we will be
forced to think about and elaborate an alternative economic order. For
the left, the defeat of the U.S.A. in Iraq, tragic as the war is,
should be understood as good news; not only is the U.S. cause unjust,
but the defeat will, or at least should, bring us to ask some
fundamental questions about the structure of our societies and their
addiction to an increasingly unsustainable imperialism.
It is a great tragedy that among Greens, at least among the European
ones, this link has been totally lost during the Kosovo and the
Afghanistan wars, which most of them supported on humanitarian
grounds. It is equally tragic that the opposition to the Iraq war in
the United States has been virtually non-existent and that the
population has turned against the war almost entirely as a result of
the effectiveness of the Iraqi resistance. This is partly due to the
ideological misrepresentations that have spread widely throughout the
left during the period of imperial ideological reconstruction that
followed the end of the Vietnam war, specially concerning the "right"
to "humanitarian intervention." The left must clarify its own ideas
first and then try to explain to the rest of our societies that we
must adapt to an inevitable loss of hegemony. Indeed, there is no real
alternative for the West, except to go back to the spirit of Battle of
the Somme, but this time armed with nuclear weapons.
Jean Bricmont teaches physics in Belgium. He is a member of the
Brussels Tribunal. His new book, Humanitarian Imperialism, will be
published by Monthly Review Press in February 2007. He can be reached
at (e-mail address removed).
and courage to come out and say it. Your article brings out not one
but several key concepts, worth close reading. The physicists like
myself are proud to have one among us like you who seems to have an
acute sense of humanitarianism ....
=================
January 31, 2007
Resistance to Imperialism
What is the Decisive "Clash" of Our Time?
By JEAN BRICMONT
July 1, 1916, was the opening day of the Battle of the Somme. On that
single day, the British suffered more than 50,000 casualties, of which
20,000 died. The battle went on for four months, leading to about a
million casualties on all sides, and the war itself continued for
another two years.
In the summer of 2006, the Israeli army stopped its attacks on Lebanon
after losing about a hundred soldiers. The majority of the U.S.
population has turned against the Iraq war after less than 3,000 dead.
That indicates a major change in the mentality of the West, and this
reluctance to die in large numbers for "God and Country" is a major
advance in the history of mankind. From the neoconservative point of
view, however, this phenomenon is a sign of decadence; in fact, one of
the positive aspects of the present conflict, from their perspective,
is that it ought to strengthen the moral fiber of the American people,
by making them ready to "die for a cause."
But, so far, it is not working. More realistic people, the planners at
the Pentagon for example, have tried to replace waves of human cannon
fodder by massive "strategic" bombing. This works only rarely -- in
Kosovo and Serbia it did succeed, at least in bringing pro-Western
clients to power in both places. But it clearly is not working
satisfactorily in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine or Lebanon. The only
thing that might succeed, in a very special sense of course, would be
nuclear weapons, and the fact that those weapons are the West's last
military hope is truly frightening.
To put this observation in a more global context, Westerners do not
always appreciate the fact that the major event of the 20th century
was neither the rise and fall of fascism, nor the history of
communism, but decolonization. One should remember that, about a
century ago, the British could forbid access to a park in Shanghai to
"dogs and Chinese." To put it mildly, such provocations are no longer
possible. And, of course, most of Asia and Africa were under European
control. Latin America was formally independent, but under American
and British tutelage and military interventions were routine.
All of this collapsed during the 20th century, through wars and
revolutions; in fact, the main lasting effect of the Russian
revolution is probably the Soviet Union's significant support to the
decolonization process. This process freed hundreds of millions of
people from one of the most brutal forms of oppression. It is a major
progress in the history of mankind, similar to the abolition of
slavery in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Still, it is true that the colonial system gave way to the neocolonial
one and that most decolonized countries have adopted, at least for the
time being, a capitalist form of development. That provides some
consolation to the ex-colonialists (and disappointment to the Western
left that opposed colonialism). But such sentiments may reflect a
misunderstanding of the nature of "socialism" in the 20th century and
of the historical significance of the present period.
Before 1914, all socialist movements, whether libertarian or statist ,
reformist or revolutionary, envisioned socialism, i.e., the
socialization of the means of production, as an historic stage that
was supposed to succeed capitalism in relatively developed Western
societies possessing a democratic state, a functioning education
system, and a basically liberal and secular culture. All this
disappeared with World War I and the Russian Revolution. After that,
the libertarian aspects of socialism withered away, the majority of
the European socialist movement became increasingly incorporated into
the capitalist system and its main radical sector; the Communists
identified socialism with whatever policies were adopted by the Soviet
model.
But that model had almost nothing to do with socialism as it was
generally understood before the First World War. It should rather be
considered as a (rather successful) attempt at rapid economic
development of an underdeveloped country, an attempt to catch up,
culturally, economically, and militarily, by whatever means
necessary , with the West. The same is true of post-Soviet revolutions
and national liberation movements. As a first approximation, one can
say that all over the Third World, people, or rather governments, have
tried to "catch up" either by "socialist" or by "capitalist" means.
But, if one recognizes that aspect, the whole history of the 20th
century can be interpreted very differently from the dominant theme
about the "socialism that was tried and failed everywhere." What was
tried and actually succeeded (almost) everywhere was emancipation from
Western domination. This has inverted a centuries-old process of
European expansion and hegemony over the rest of the world. The 20th
century has not been the one of socialism, but it has been the one of
anti-imperialism. And this inversion is likely to continue during the
21st century. Most of the time, the "South" is strengthening itself,
with some setbacks (the period surrounding the collapse of the Soviet
Union being a time of regression, from that point of view).
This has important consequences for both the Western peace movement
and the old issue of socialism. There is some truth to the Leninist
idea that the benefits of imperialism corrupt the Western working
class not only in purely economic terms (through the exploitation of
the colonies), but also through the feeling of superiority that
imperialism has implanted in the Western mind. However, this is
changing for two reasons. On the one hand, "globalization" means that
the West has become more dependent on the Third World: we do not
simply import raw materials or export capital, but we also depend on
cheap labor, working either here or in export-oriented factories
abroad; we "transfer" capital from the South to the North through
"debt payments" and capital flight, and we import an increasing number
of engineers and scientists. Moreover, "globalization" means that
there is a decrease in linkage between the population of the U.S.A.
and their elites or their capitalists, whose interests are less and
less tied to those of "their" country. Whether the population will
react by adopting some pro-imperialist fantasies such as Christian
Zionism or "the war against terrorism" or whether it will rather
increase its solidarity with the emerging countries of the South, is a
major challenge for the future.
On the other hand, the rise of the South means that there is no longer
a relationship of military force that allows the West to impose its
will, the U.S. defeat in Iraq being the most extraordinary
illustration of that fact. Of course, there are other means of
pressure economic blackmail, boycotts, buying elections, etc. But
countermeasures are increasingly being taken also against those
methods, and one should never forget that a relationship of force is
always ultimately military without it, how does one get people to
pay their debts, for example?
The main error of the Communists is to have conflated two notions of
"socialism": the one that existed before World War I and the rapid
development model of the Soviet Union. But the current situation
raises two different questions to which two different forms of
"socialism" might be the answer. One is to find paths of development
in the Third World, or even a redefinition of what "development"
means, that do not coincide with either the capitalist or the Soviet
model. But that is a problem to be solved in Latin America, Asia or
Africa. In the West, the problem is different: we do not suffer from
the lack of satisfaction of basic needs that exist elsewhere (of
course, many basic needs are not satisfied, but that is a problem of
distribution and of political will). The problem here is to define a
post-imperialist future for the Western societies, meaning a form of
life that would not depend on an unsustainable relation of domination
over the rest of the world. Whether one wants to call that "socialism"
is a matter of definition, but it would have to include reliance on
renewable energy resources, a form of consumption that does not depend
on huge imports and an education system that produces the number of
qualified people that the nation needs. Whether all this is compatible
with the system of private property of the means of production, and a
political system largely controlled by those who own those means,
remains to be seen.
This establishes a link between the struggle for peace and the
struggle for social transformation, because the more we live in peace
with therest of the world, the more we give up our largely illusory
military power and stop our constant "threats", the more we will be
forced to think about and elaborate an alternative economic order. For
the left, the defeat of the U.S.A. in Iraq, tragic as the war is,
should be understood as good news; not only is the U.S. cause unjust,
but the defeat will, or at least should, bring us to ask some
fundamental questions about the structure of our societies and their
addiction to an increasingly unsustainable imperialism.
It is a great tragedy that among Greens, at least among the European
ones, this link has been totally lost during the Kosovo and the
Afghanistan wars, which most of them supported on humanitarian
grounds. It is equally tragic that the opposition to the Iraq war in
the United States has been virtually non-existent and that the
population has turned against the war almost entirely as a result of
the effectiveness of the Iraqi resistance. This is partly due to the
ideological misrepresentations that have spread widely throughout the
left during the period of imperial ideological reconstruction that
followed the end of the Vietnam war, specially concerning the "right"
to "humanitarian intervention." The left must clarify its own ideas
first and then try to explain to the rest of our societies that we
must adapt to an inevitable loss of hegemony. Indeed, there is no real
alternative for the West, except to go back to the spirit of Battle of
the Somme, but this time armed with nuclear weapons.
Jean Bricmont teaches physics in Belgium. He is a member of the
Brussels Tribunal. His new book, Humanitarian Imperialism, will be
published by Monthly Review Press in February 2007. He can be reached
at (e-mail address removed).