Yes yes, I know what you're thinking.
On the one hand, there's the purists (and don't you hate those): Israel is a Zionist, capitalist, imperialist state! Even if you could become its head of state, why would you ever do that? How can you want to be a leading figure of a country which is so vile in your eyes? You would be corrupted, you would have to justify the most terrible crimes against humanity for a living, and you would end up not changing anything, seeing as how Presidents are merely ceremonial figureheads.
To these people I say: you are absolutely right. But I dunno, it really sounds like easy money.
More importantly, there's also the pessimists: there's no chance in hell someone like you could ever become President of Israel! First of all, you support having a Palestinian workers' state from the river to the sea, which kinda leaves Israel's existence in question. Plus, nobody likes you and even fewer people know you exist. What makes you think you have any chance of becoming President of a country where you refer to most people through the use of pejoratives?
Ah, but here you are wrong, my friends. Given recent developments, I think I have every chance to win the support of many, many people in this country. Indeed, given recent developments, I anticipate that by 2019, I will become the beloved President of this not-so-great not-really-a-nation.
Why is that? Well, as you may have heard by now, recently our dear President Rivlin gave a speech in Kafr Qasim apologizing for the many wrongs done to the Palestinian people by the Zionist state, including the notorious Kafr Qasim massacre, in which 49 Palestinian citizens were murdered by Zionist savages with all the humane spirit of the Einsatzgruppen, a mere 11 years after the Jewish holocaust. Actually, that might be overselling it. In reality, Rivlin paid some lip service to equality, talking about how maybe Israeli Arabs suffered from discrimination at certain points and he just might do something about it one day, by god. I won't hold my breath, seeing as how this is the man who supported the mass murder of over 2000 Palestinians in Gaza just a few months back and has capitulated to hardline orthodox Rabbis on several issues - most notably, women's rights and the attitude to non-orthodox Jews - but that's not the point.
The point is that the things Rivlin says are so well-received by people from the left, it's just crazy. All it took was for a rather hardline Zionist politician to say a few things about equality, and just like that, an entire army of useful idiots from the Israeli left has dedicated itself to proclaiming Rivlin a great democrat, a true leader and the Messiah, all rolled into one. Things really came to a head in this Haaretz article, where Rivlin is proclaimed "Israel's one-state president" (one Jewish state, it should be said, but who cares? Palestinian self-determination, Palestinian self-shmetermination!), and - not only that - a "lone voice against anti-Arab racism".
Well, fuck you. Lone voice? I don't know if you're noticing, but there are quite a few voices against anti-Arab racism - all of those Arab activists (and also people just walking down the street) who are getting murdered and beaten by Zionist police and military on a daily basis! But don't remind the Zionist liberals about that. Arabs are to neither be seen nor heard. They are to accept our lofty ideals of equality at face value and otherwise remove themselves from our presence. Even among Jews, he is hardly a "lone voice". In fact, during the summer, many Jewish leftists got beaten up by fascist thugs and police for opposing the mass murder which Rivlin supported enthusiastically.
But I'm getting angry again. My apologies. The point is: if Rivlin can get so much support for his pretty moderate views on equality, imagine how enthusiastically the left would accept me! I'm practically a shoe-in.
But now I'm getting a really scary thought. What if - and this is just a thought - what if Israeli leftists don't really want someone who is honest in opposing racism? What if - again, just a thought - all they care about is having someone up there who can talk like a liberal, without really changing anything? Someone who can defend their privileges, but not in a way that would make them feel uncomfortable, that would make them feel weak and exposed in the face of the oppressed masses on the one hand and the reactionary mob on the other? What if all they are looking for is a Christ-figure, to suffer for their sins, to cleanse their souls, so they could put his image in their houses of worship, to put him on a pedestal, an empty idol to distract them from their own emptiness?
Nah. I think I'm good.
Sunday, October 26, 2014
Wednesday, October 1, 2014
A Plague on Both Your Houses: the dead-end of inter-Jewish struggles in Israel - An Introduction / Nationalism in the service of Zionism, and a clarification
It's been a while since the last act of mass-murder in Gaza, and in this time I realized that although it was important to talk about the Zionist extreme-right and its ties to the state, there are some people who got off easy. The attacks on the left from the government and the right-wing were to be expected, but there will always be people who are, for some reason, associated with the left, and yet their only function seems to be to bash leftists in the media and thus implicitly justify persecution and violence towards them. There are plenty of examples: they are the Ari Shavits, Ben-Dror Yeminis and Christopher Hitchens(es?) of our world, bravely fighting those who everyone else dares to fight, speaking lies to the powerless, voices of those who already have plenty of ways of making their voices heard.
For the most part, these people are shunned by leftists, for obvious reasons. Yet the rotten, opportunistic and in general inept Israeli left still mostly identifies with one of the more prominent and more progressive-sounding people in this category, Israeli feminist and Mizrahi activist Ortal Ben-Dayan. During the massacre in Gaza, Ben-Dayan did not find the time to right anything against the horrors committed by the Zionist army against Palestinians in Gaza or the West Bank (although she did condemn the murder of 16-year-old Muhammad Abu Khudair, which makes her a great humanist). She did, however, find the time to write a vicious article in right-wing rag Maariv, attacking leftists who protested against the massacre for being Ashkenazi elitist members of a "members-only club" whose "desire to separate themselves from the... masses is stronger than their desire to change society" and who "turn their backs on Israeli society and their faces to the European community... whose approval they desperately need". In other words, under the cover of opposition to the very real oppression of women and of Mizrahim, Ben-Dayan parroted the government and media line with regards to the protesters, rhetoric and all.
It should be said that Ben-Dayan is absolutely right when she accuses the Israeli left of being mostly Asheknazi and elitist, deeply racist, middle-class, full of prejudice and woefully ineffective. And yet the Shavits, the Yeminis, the Hitchenses (that still doesn't look right) and Ben-Dayans always have some valid underlying point when they criticize the left. We live in a world where there is no genuine revolutionary workers' organization, and the left, as a result, is overwhelmingly dominated by petit-bourgeois elements, who bring into the movement all of their classes' prejudices. It is very easy to find faults in the left - I have indulged in that activity every now and then - but when you only condemn from the reactionary crowd and never find the occasion to show solidarity, to commend flawed organizations and individuals for their bravery, to defend them in those instances from attacks from the reactionaries, then you are many things - a provocateur, a useful idiot, and some would say, a traitor - but you're not any sort of leftist or progressive. It should also be said that the vast majority of the Ashkenazim supported Israel's massacre and would stand behind Ben-Dayan's words.
This is not the first time Ben-Dayan joins a reactionary campaign under the guise of opposing racist oppression. She has also been vocal in her support of measures to remove African laborers and asylum seekers from the neighborhoods of southern Tel-Aviv. When the concentration camp Holot was finally closed, she said that she will do anything to physically prevent Africans from returning to southern Tel-Aviv, because the people there are "collapsing under the [white man's?] burden". Which burden? Ben-Dayan probably knows the statistic that says that Africans commit less crimes than the rest of the population. Is the burden simply having African people living near you?
Ben-Dayan often shares stories of rape and sexual assault that are ignored in the media, a very important act. However, she consistently identifies attackers as Eritreans or Sudanese when that is the case. Not so much when Jews commit the same crimes.
There is an important difference between Ben-Dayan and the other people I mentioned: Ben-Dayan is honest. She is not a bought and paid for journalist, who cynically makes money on the backs of those who are out there fighting. She is a real activist and organizer who does many important things. How, then, does she fall into the same pattern as the hired guns?
Simple. Ben-Dayan, while a Mizrahi woman, is also an Israeli Jew. She lives in a country which gives her significant privileges for that fact alone. Her struggles, as a result, remain within the confines of Zionism: there may be Arab women who join them, and she certainly does not personally hate Arabs, but she refuses to break with Zionism and its racist privilege. As a result, her struggles will always eventually be turned against non-Jews, both Palestinians and Africans. This is the way it has always been in this country - we've seen the same most recently during the 2011 movement - and the way it will always be, until Jewish workers break with Zionism and join the Palestinian struggle against all forms of oppression.
In her Maariv article, Ben-Dayan contrasts the elitist left to the right-wing, which "sees itself as an organic and inseparable part of the Israeli public". Leaving aside the fact that Ben-Dayan buys into the false lofty (and, one should say, equally elitist) self-image of the right, her (false) assertion that the chance to discuss "Kahanism's takeover of the Likud and its effect on the Israeli political map" is worth discussion. As we have seen, when it comes right down to it, the difference between the Kahanists, the Likud and Ortal Ben-Dayan remains cosmetic at best. Some say, some do, but all work toward the same goal and end up serving the same masters, despite their best intentions.
Speaking of which...
For the most part, these people are shunned by leftists, for obvious reasons. Yet the rotten, opportunistic and in general inept Israeli left still mostly identifies with one of the more prominent and more progressive-sounding people in this category, Israeli feminist and Mizrahi activist Ortal Ben-Dayan. During the massacre in Gaza, Ben-Dayan did not find the time to right anything against the horrors committed by the Zionist army against Palestinians in Gaza or the West Bank (although she did condemn the murder of 16-year-old Muhammad Abu Khudair, which makes her a great humanist). She did, however, find the time to write a vicious article in right-wing rag Maariv, attacking leftists who protested against the massacre for being Ashkenazi elitist members of a "members-only club" whose "desire to separate themselves from the... masses is stronger than their desire to change society" and who "turn their backs on Israeli society and their faces to the European community... whose approval they desperately need". In other words, under the cover of opposition to the very real oppression of women and of Mizrahim, Ben-Dayan parroted the government and media line with regards to the protesters, rhetoric and all.
It should be said that Ben-Dayan is absolutely right when she accuses the Israeli left of being mostly Asheknazi and elitist, deeply racist, middle-class, full of prejudice and woefully ineffective. And yet the Shavits, the Yeminis, the Hitchenses (that still doesn't look right) and Ben-Dayans always have some valid underlying point when they criticize the left. We live in a world where there is no genuine revolutionary workers' organization, and the left, as a result, is overwhelmingly dominated by petit-bourgeois elements, who bring into the movement all of their classes' prejudices. It is very easy to find faults in the left - I have indulged in that activity every now and then - but when you only condemn from the reactionary crowd and never find the occasion to show solidarity, to commend flawed organizations and individuals for their bravery, to defend them in those instances from attacks from the reactionaries, then you are many things - a provocateur, a useful idiot, and some would say, a traitor - but you're not any sort of leftist or progressive. It should also be said that the vast majority of the Ashkenazim supported Israel's massacre and would stand behind Ben-Dayan's words.
This is not the first time Ben-Dayan joins a reactionary campaign under the guise of opposing racist oppression. She has also been vocal in her support of measures to remove African laborers and asylum seekers from the neighborhoods of southern Tel-Aviv. When the concentration camp Holot was finally closed, she said that she will do anything to physically prevent Africans from returning to southern Tel-Aviv, because the people there are "collapsing under the [white man's?] burden". Which burden? Ben-Dayan probably knows the statistic that says that Africans commit less crimes than the rest of the population. Is the burden simply having African people living near you?
Ben-Dayan often shares stories of rape and sexual assault that are ignored in the media, a very important act. However, she consistently identifies attackers as Eritreans or Sudanese when that is the case. Not so much when Jews commit the same crimes.
There is an important difference between Ben-Dayan and the other people I mentioned: Ben-Dayan is honest. She is not a bought and paid for journalist, who cynically makes money on the backs of those who are out there fighting. She is a real activist and organizer who does many important things. How, then, does she fall into the same pattern as the hired guns?
Simple. Ben-Dayan, while a Mizrahi woman, is also an Israeli Jew. She lives in a country which gives her significant privileges for that fact alone. Her struggles, as a result, remain within the confines of Zionism: there may be Arab women who join them, and she certainly does not personally hate Arabs, but she refuses to break with Zionism and its racist privilege. As a result, her struggles will always eventually be turned against non-Jews, both Palestinians and Africans. This is the way it has always been in this country - we've seen the same most recently during the 2011 movement - and the way it will always be, until Jewish workers break with Zionism and join the Palestinian struggle against all forms of oppression.
In her Maariv article, Ben-Dayan contrasts the elitist left to the right-wing, which "sees itself as an organic and inseparable part of the Israeli public". Leaving aside the fact that Ben-Dayan buys into the false lofty (and, one should say, equally elitist) self-image of the right, her (false) assertion that the chance to discuss "Kahanism's takeover of the Likud and its effect on the Israeli political map" is worth discussion. As we have seen, when it comes right down to it, the difference between the Kahanists, the Likud and Ortal Ben-Dayan remains cosmetic at best. Some say, some do, but all work toward the same goal and end up serving the same masters, despite their best intentions.
Speaking of which...
I've had some experience with anti-Zionists who believe that Palestinians should reject any cooperation, or even conversation, with Israeli anti-Zionist activists. I have no difficulty understanding why, and if you do, try talking to an Israeli leftist yourself sometime. Chances are you will be met with all sorts of hand wringing and equivocation when it comes to Palestinian rights, Jewish racial privilege and even the question of one or two states. Even I, at times, faced the urge to completely write off all possibility of Israeli activists helping the Palestinian struggle in any way. One of the things that helped me come to a better understanding of how these activists should behave is Linah Alsaafin's excellent article, How obsession with "nonviolence" harms the Palestinian cause, especially the part under "Israeli activists should focus on changing their own society":
Israeli activists must work within their own societies and communities... To Palestinians, that would make the difference, not swamping weekly protests that don’t hold much credibility with Palestinians in the first place, and sometimes even outnumbering the Palestinian participants.
Complaints from some Israeli activists of how horrible they are treated and of the persecution they receive at the hands the army can come off as self-indulgent, especially when arrests or injuries of Israelis and internationals are already far more likely to be widely reported anyway than the routine and horrifying abuses suffered by Palestinians on a far larger scale.
Israeli activists sometimes despair about how pointless and ineffective their efforts are in creating more awareness about the realities of the occupation within their own communities but that should only spur them to be more creative in coming up with strategies to confront and challenge their society...
No one is rejecting Israeli anti-Zionists, but simply calling yourself an anti-Zionist, and even coming to protests is not enough. Israeli activists who do so claim, for the most part, to understand the privileges they enjoy due to being white and Jewish in a colonial situation. But it is not always clear that they understand in practice how these privileges continue to manifest themselves in their interactions with Palestinians.
That really hits the nail on the head there, rightfully condemning the vast majority of Israeli leftists who in effect sabotage Palestinian struggles by attempting to drown out more radical Palestinian voices and trying to take the lead, while offering a way for them to really be helpful to the struggle. Recently, however, Alsaafin has changed her position. Of course, changing one's position is completely legitimate - I have done so every now and then - but it is always sad to see someone's positions take a sharp turn for the worse. I have in mind this article, written by Alsaafin and Budour Hassan.
I realize that Alsaafin and Hassan, much like the rest of the world, do not read what I write, and given their article, would not do so even had they been aware of my existence. But I am not addressing this post to them or to pro-Palestinian activists at large. I am writing here because I feel there are some misconceptions in place that I should address.
There are quite a few issues with the Alsaafin-Hassan article, but also, some very good points. Is it true that many Israeli leftists are fakers, attention-seekers and hypocrites? Of course. Probably the great majority. Should Palestinians reject SA-style Truth and Reconciliation? Certainly. Should Palestinians wait for Israelis to come around and support them? Of course not. But this is where the article's great weaknesses come in - the authors never manage to decide which Israeli leftists they are actually talking about, to the extent that they are talking about real people at all. The lack of sources doesn't help, either.
Indeed, despite the article's headline, it does nothing to "expose" Israeli radical leftists, and there is much to expose. With the exception of the Internationalist Socialist League, there is not a single Israeli left group which does not equivocate on the question of Palestinian liberation in some significant way. Second, I would dare anyone to show me a single example of an Israeli radical leftist who said anything like "Leftists are the new Palestinians". Even they are not so lacking in self-awareness. Third, and finally, there is the claim that the police is defending the leftists - a very popular myth among right-wingers - while for the most part cops actively aided the right-wing attackers.
That's where anyone who's been an activist for a while stops hearing Alsaafin and Hassan speaking, and starts hearing some of the people on the other side of the struggle:
It’s fair to say that dear anti-Zionists, your presence isn’t doing anyone any good. The Israeli society hates you, and the Palestinians don’t care about you. Do not go looking for sympathy, (or empathy, whatever you prefer)... Do not fool yourselves into thinking you are allies or partners for “peace” by virtue of a few token Palestinian acquaintances, because the fact of the matter remains glaringly obvious: you are too insignificant to make a difference...
These words could honestly have been written by any member of the government or any Hasbara troll in the world, especially the part later on, when leftists are told to leave Israel and focus on changing European public opinion. And that really is the bottom line. This rhetoric, falsely touted as some grand radicalism, only serves the Zionist government in its efforts to persecute anti-Zionist activists. It is at that point that nationalism comes full circle and starts serving the imperialist oppressor, as it always inevitably does in our epoch of capitalist decay.
But wait, you'll say - maybe this part is only meant for those equivocating, fake anti-Zionists that I've written about elsewhere? Maybe Alsaafin and Hassan realize that some Israeli anti-Zionists were born here and have nowhere to go, and their attitude towards them is different? Well - kinda, but not really:
With all that said, we are still capable of making the distinction between anti-Zionists who are third-generation settlers and anti-Zionist leftists who made Aliya... We also make the distinction between anti-Zionist Israeli settlers who live in Palestine by choice and those who want to leave but cannot afford it... And to be quite honest, we do not care about the Israeli society.
In other words, Alsaafin and Hassan are capable of making the distinction between different kinds of Israelis, but they just don't care to. To quote myself from the AbuKhalil letter, "...how can someone dedicated to Palestinian liberation not be interested in dividing the base of support of the Zionist state? What sort of general of an army would see divisions among the enemy and not be interested in devising ways to take advantage of them? From a pro-Palestinian nationalist perspective, I think this attitude is irresponsible. From an internationalist perspective, I think it’s even worse."
And yet, for all my criticisms, there is one point that I haven't really addressed, and that is the idea that Israeli leftists view themselves as noble martyrs for the relatively mild consequences that their activism has. This is very true, and to separate myself from such people, let me make a few things very clear: all that I do - to the extent that I do anything, which is not much - I do for me. I do not oppose Zionism for the Palestinians. I do not oppose patriarchy for women. I do not oppose homophobia for LGBTQ people. My opposition to the oppression of others has nothing to do with struggling for or on behalf of the oppressed. To the extent that I have friends and family who suffer from these forms of oppression, I fight for them too. But that's the point: it's all for me. I live in a society I hate and I support those struggles whose victory will help undo it.
So there is no need to moralize me on wanting to fight in the name of others, for others, or instead of others, and there is no point in lecturing me on my privilege. Nor is there really any point to tell me to go live somewhere to help the Palestinian struggle, in as much as I want the Palestinian struggle to win so I can truly live here. I was born here, my family's here, my friends are here, and so, I'm staying right here. The only people who have any real ability of kicking me out of here right now are the Zionist government, and they're not having a lot of luck so far.
*"Blogger" seems like a bit much when you blog only had four posts in it, one of them being a translation of another person's work.
And in the end you see that beyond all the ideologies, beyond all the rhetoric, fancy titles and bloated self-images, enemies are enemies, allies are allies, and the rest is meaningless.
And in the end you see that beyond all the ideologies, beyond all the rhetoric, fancy titles and bloated self-images, enemies are enemies, allies are allies, and the rest is meaningless.
Monday, September 29, 2014
Anarchists in the Ukrainian Revolution - Translation of an article by Unity
[YS: The following is a translation of an article by Israeli Anarchist group Unity on the actions of Ukrainian Anarchists during and since the uprising there against Russian imperialism. Many on the left have treated the uprising as a uniformly reactionary movement due to its admittedly rotten leadership, thus committing the usual falsehood of all middle-class Marxist groups with regards to anti-imperialist struggles. Among those who have taken this position is the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency, including my comrades in its local section, the Internationalist Socialist League.
Thus, due to the importance of this issue, I have decided to translate and share this article. In the past, I have condemned Unity's support of the imperialist attack on Iraq, under the excuse of defending the Yazidis and Christian minorities from ISIS pogroms. I stand by what I said, but while I have disagreements with Unity and with the positions expressed in the article (for instance, I hardly think it would be correct to characterize the uprising as a "bourgeois revolution"), the importance of this article is in my opinion rather obvious.
You can find the Autonomous Workers' Union's website here, and the original article on Unity's website here. Out of respect, I would like to stress again that I have only translated the article, and took no part in researching or writing it. I have endeavored to translate the article as literally as possible, without altering formulations.]
The Anarchists During the 2014 Ukrainian Revolution / Yigal Levin
What do we know about the revolution which took place in Ukraine during the winter of 2013-14? Do we know that a bourgeois-democratic revolution took place? We do. That the twisted government of the pro-Russian oligarchy was toppled? Also true. That Ukraine is now being smothered by a brutal, bloody civil war? Without question. But what do we know about the Ukrainian revolutionaries? Did they accomplish anything in the midst of the struggle between thousands of hostile forces? We will answer these questions in the following paragraphs.
The Autonomous Workers' Union
In Ukraine, there is an Anarcho-Syndicalist organization called the Autonomous Workers' Union (ACT in Ukrainian). The organization is a small workers' union (a syndicate) with about 50 members across Ukraine. The organization takes parts in a variety of struggles, including workplace struggles, creating workers' co-ops, running an informal school, as well as writing and distributing original articles. During the revolution, the organization supported the uprising of the Ukrainian people, with its members often joining first aid groups which took care of the injured (of whom there were quite a few due to the struggle against regime forces - the "Barkut"), but the organization's most meaningful accomplishment was the occupation (or liberation, depends on how you look at it) of a building complex which used to be a factory (closed down due to the breakdown of Ukraine's economy) and its socialization* into a community center and a home for civil war refugees.
The "Autonomy" Community Center
During the revolution, the Kharkov local took advantage of the crumbling government's weakness and the helplessness of the municipal authorities and took over (due in no small part to the help of the organization's students and youth) over a factory complex, where most of the buildings used to serve as offices and workers' housing. In the factory's large halls, the organization set up a movie theater which screens movies dealing with social issues several times a week, a public dining hall, bike repair shops, laundry rooms, public showers and rooms for entire families. Today the center is home for twelve families which fled from the civil war raging in East Ukraine (between the new pro-Western regime and the pro-Russian separatists who wish to secede from Ukraine and join Russia). Many refugees come to the center every week to receive food or medical care, and the showers are also widely used. Every day, dozens of social activists (mostly anarchists) work there to expand the center and prepare it for new families (there are all in all around half a million refugees from the war zones, thousands of them in the city Kharkov), with the potential to make the place into a truly liberated zone (including creating a tent city and taking over several buildings). With winter approaching, this means a wide and thorough preparation, including ovens, water heating instruments, clothing and warm sheets. But not all is perfect in the Anarchist utopia in Kharkov, as the forces of reaction are not sitting idly by either.
The Battle Over "Autonomy"
It did not take long for reaction to show its ugly face, and after a few months of the center's activities, the new government in the city opened up a campaign against the anarchists. At first gangs of pro-Russian neo-Nazis were sent to the center to try and take over it. However, after a few fights from which the anarchists came out on top, the gangs were expelled. At that point, city hall decided the send in the police (which was re-organized after the revolution) to put an end to the center and jail the revolutionary anarchists. But the anarchists were prepared. Together with locals and refugee families, they made the center into a fortress. After a failed attempt at a takeover by police, and in light of the anarchists' local supporters' rage, the police stopped trying to disperse and close down the center. The revolutionaries and the rest of the center's residents learned their lesson, and organized a guard for the center, always ready to make it into a fortress once more.
Theory and Practice
The Ukrainian experience shows us that only organizing within a given structure can be of use. It shows that anarchists have their place in a revolution, even if it is a bourgeois revolution. It shows that a violent struggle and self-defense do lead to important results in practice (and not just in theoretical blabbering). Without a strong organization, without the ability to concentrate the effort, Ukrainian anarchists would never have been successful in any of the initiatives which we have recounted here. As disorganized individuals, they would have been cast to the sidelines, and any activity would at best amount to Facebook "activity" in the vein of "ah... the Nazis are taking over our revolution again, this isn't our revolution". The Ukrainian experience shows us that even a small organization, if it is consolidated and united, can accomplish a lot during a revolution. We must learn for them and adopt only the positive.
*The alternative economic organization put forward by anarchism. The property (factory, workshop, house, school etc.) will belong to the local collective (workers, craftsmen, tenants, students...) as opposed to private property (privatization) or state property (nationalization).
Thus, due to the importance of this issue, I have decided to translate and share this article. In the past, I have condemned Unity's support of the imperialist attack on Iraq, under the excuse of defending the Yazidis and Christian minorities from ISIS pogroms. I stand by what I said, but while I have disagreements with Unity and with the positions expressed in the article (for instance, I hardly think it would be correct to characterize the uprising as a "bourgeois revolution"), the importance of this article is in my opinion rather obvious.
You can find the Autonomous Workers' Union's website here, and the original article on Unity's website here. Out of respect, I would like to stress again that I have only translated the article, and took no part in researching or writing it. I have endeavored to translate the article as literally as possible, without altering formulations.]
The Anarchists During the 2014 Ukrainian Revolution / Yigal Levin
What do we know about the revolution which took place in Ukraine during the winter of 2013-14? Do we know that a bourgeois-democratic revolution took place? We do. That the twisted government of the pro-Russian oligarchy was toppled? Also true. That Ukraine is now being smothered by a brutal, bloody civil war? Without question. But what do we know about the Ukrainian revolutionaries? Did they accomplish anything in the midst of the struggle between thousands of hostile forces? We will answer these questions in the following paragraphs.
The Autonomous Workers' Union
In Ukraine, there is an Anarcho-Syndicalist organization called the Autonomous Workers' Union (ACT in Ukrainian). The organization is a small workers' union (a syndicate) with about 50 members across Ukraine. The organization takes parts in a variety of struggles, including workplace struggles, creating workers' co-ops, running an informal school, as well as writing and distributing original articles. During the revolution, the organization supported the uprising of the Ukrainian people, with its members often joining first aid groups which took care of the injured (of whom there were quite a few due to the struggle against regime forces - the "Barkut"), but the organization's most meaningful accomplishment was the occupation (or liberation, depends on how you look at it) of a building complex which used to be a factory (closed down due to the breakdown of Ukraine's economy) and its socialization* into a community center and a home for civil war refugees.
The "Autonomy" Community Center
During the revolution, the Kharkov local took advantage of the crumbling government's weakness and the helplessness of the municipal authorities and took over (due in no small part to the help of the organization's students and youth) over a factory complex, where most of the buildings used to serve as offices and workers' housing. In the factory's large halls, the organization set up a movie theater which screens movies dealing with social issues several times a week, a public dining hall, bike repair shops, laundry rooms, public showers and rooms for entire families. Today the center is home for twelve families which fled from the civil war raging in East Ukraine (between the new pro-Western regime and the pro-Russian separatists who wish to secede from Ukraine and join Russia). Many refugees come to the center every week to receive food or medical care, and the showers are also widely used. Every day, dozens of social activists (mostly anarchists) work there to expand the center and prepare it for new families (there are all in all around half a million refugees from the war zones, thousands of them in the city Kharkov), with the potential to make the place into a truly liberated zone (including creating a tent city and taking over several buildings). With winter approaching, this means a wide and thorough preparation, including ovens, water heating instruments, clothing and warm sheets. But not all is perfect in the Anarchist utopia in Kharkov, as the forces of reaction are not sitting idly by either.
The Battle Over "Autonomy"
It did not take long for reaction to show its ugly face, and after a few months of the center's activities, the new government in the city opened up a campaign against the anarchists. At first gangs of pro-Russian neo-Nazis were sent to the center to try and take over it. However, after a few fights from which the anarchists came out on top, the gangs were expelled. At that point, city hall decided the send in the police (which was re-organized after the revolution) to put an end to the center and jail the revolutionary anarchists. But the anarchists were prepared. Together with locals and refugee families, they made the center into a fortress. After a failed attempt at a takeover by police, and in light of the anarchists' local supporters' rage, the police stopped trying to disperse and close down the center. The revolutionaries and the rest of the center's residents learned their lesson, and organized a guard for the center, always ready to make it into a fortress once more.
Theory and Practice
The Ukrainian experience shows us that only organizing within a given structure can be of use. It shows that anarchists have their place in a revolution, even if it is a bourgeois revolution. It shows that a violent struggle and self-defense do lead to important results in practice (and not just in theoretical blabbering). Without a strong organization, without the ability to concentrate the effort, Ukrainian anarchists would never have been successful in any of the initiatives which we have recounted here. As disorganized individuals, they would have been cast to the sidelines, and any activity would at best amount to Facebook "activity" in the vein of "ah... the Nazis are taking over our revolution again, this isn't our revolution". The Ukrainian experience shows us that even a small organization, if it is consolidated and united, can accomplish a lot during a revolution. We must learn for them and adopt only the positive.
*The alternative economic organization put forward by anarchism. The property (factory, workshop, house, school etc.) will belong to the local collective (workers, craftsmen, tenants, students...) as opposed to private property (privatization) or state property (nationalization).
Thursday, August 14, 2014
How the Zionist state funds the Israeli extreme-right. Also: Leftists support US aggression in Iraq, revisited.
Every revolutionary has had this debate at some point in his life: some liberal or leftist reacts to something terrible that an extreme-right groups did, and talks about the need the fight the extreme-right by any means necessary, which usually amounts to voting for the slightly-less-extreme right. Democrats against Bush in the US; Labor and Meretz against Sharon and then Nethanyahu in Israel; Chirac against Le Pen in France; there are many examples. Then one has to go and say or write the usual Marxist spiel about how the extreme-right's actions are only an expression of the policies of the more mainstream bourgeois parties, and how to really fight the extreme-right one must fight against capitalism as a whole, etc. The truly dedicated activist already has a response of the sort saved in his draft folder in gmail, ready to be copy-pasted as needed. (Or am I the only one who does that?)
That's all good and well. But I am writing to you from the belly of the beast, from within the Zionist state, where everything that's bad about other imperialist countries finds a way to be slightly worse. And here, not only does incitement against Palestinians, African immigrants and leftists begin from the state, but the hate groups who dance to the tune of the capitalist masters are in many cases actually funded by it.* An Israeli reporter by the name of Shahar Ginosar revealed two years ago that the so-called "price tag" pogroms are funded by the political arm of the West Bank settlers, the Yesha Council, which in turn is funded by the government. This means that the Zionist state is the direct source of all organized violence employed against Palestinians, whether by the army or by settler thugs.
Another example comes to mind, which is more relevant due to recent events. One of the most vile and active racist organizations in Israel today is the Kahanist group Lehava, a Hebrew acronym for "For the Prevention of Assimilation in the Holy Land." As the name suggests, its efforts are dedicated to ensuring that Jewish-Israeli women think of their bodies as nothing more than machines for bringing more Jewish children into this world. This in practice means trying to scare Jewish women with fabricated horror stories about other Jewish women who married Palestinians and were terribly abused. Given that it is much more common for Jewish women to be abused by Jewish men, I have half a mind to start on organization encouraging Jewish women not to marry Jews, but I'm no good at organization-building, so forget about that.
Lehava is funded by an organization called "Khemla" (Compassion), a so-called "welfare association" which provides shelter for young orthodox Jewish women, and in this capacity - or rather, under this pretense - is funded by the welfare ministry. What's a welfare association? Beats me! But according to its own description of itself, it gives food to needy families, provides aid to orphans, and uh... fights against Jewish assimilation and provides aid to the hilltop youth. So, in short: through the welfare ministry and Khemla, the Zionist state funds an organization which spreads the most heinous racist incitement against Palestinians and non-Jews in general, while also finding an additional way to fund Zionist pogromists.
But there's more to the state's support for Lehava than just money. Even today, most Israelis would not vote for a Kahanist party, and the Kahanists have been forced to be a bit more sneaky to get into the Knesset in recent years. This did not stop Zionist politicians from inviting Lehava members to speak in Knesset discussions on various occasions. One was a meeting on how to prevent Jewish assimilation in the Knesset's committee for - get this - the advancement of women. The other, more notorious one, was a meeting to discuss a curious phenomenon: according to the people who called up the meeting, there have been cases of underprivileged Jewish girls who were convinced to marry Arabs, taken to Arab villages, and were then forced to convert to Islam and cut their ties with their families and Jewish friends. I'm saying this phenomenon is curious because according to the police representative at the meeting, this never happened. Not once. When the rest of the members of the committee were questioned about this by the one (!) member of the committee who does not belong to a right-wing party, he was silenced and the police was condemned for not having invented cases of Palestinian men kidnapping Jewish women.
So far, Lehava's attitude to violence against Palestinians was pretty sneaky: it encouraged pogroms against Palestinians, under the excuse that violence is needed to discourage them from courting Jewish women (whether or not Jewish women are actually anywhere near them is beside the point), and supported these attacks in public statements, but it did not have the guts to carry out attacks on its own. However, after the recent massacre in Gaza and the resulting campaign against Palestinians and leftists, the little fascists now feel big and strong, and so, they have called on their gutter-slime followers to try and break up a Palestinian-Jewish wedding in Rishon LeZion.
It should be noted that the couple has no public record of political activity - not that such activity would justify violence, but it does underline the viciousness of the attack by Lehava. All it took was for a Palestinian-Jewish couple to announce their wedding - or rather, a wedding party, seeing as by Israel's racist law system, Jews and non-Jews cannot marry in the country - for Lehava to call for violence.
In case you're wondering, the police has yet to arrest anyone for incitement; if anything, they're more likely to arrest those who want to defend the couple from the Lehava pogromists. This particular action may just be insane enough for the police to do something about it, but I wouldn't hold my breath. There are now people waiting for the couple to decide if they want to call for any outside help, to see if some sort of solidarity event should be organized. As of right now, I have not heard anything either way; what's clear is that the more the left fails to stand up to the fascists, the more it helps embolden them and encourage more violence.
*Although in this regard, the Zionist state still has nothing on the Stalinist regime in the USSR, which actually created its own fascist party, Pamyat, from scratch.
Update: Massive pressure has forced Facebook to take down a few extreme-right pages, including the Lehava page which originally called the protest against the wedding. That's good, but it's still not clear what this means for the wedding or the protest against it. Either way, one should always keep in mind that censorship will always eventually be used against the working class and oppressed: indeed, Facebook has already taken down the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades' page, also for "racist incitement" - another good reason why revolutionaries should only recognize racism against oppressed groups.
I am allowed one Marxist cliche per post, so this time we'll do the one about the tragedy and the farce. Trotskyist organizations have actually been rather good in condemning the US bombing in Iraq, under the thin excuse of protectign Yazidi and Christian minorities from the ISIS scum. However, outside of Trotskyist circles, many are again calling for US intervention. Luckily, unlike 2003, US imperialism finds itself in a world where its influence has been significantly weakened and its own population is increasingly opposed to wide-scale military adventures in the third-world. As such, a full-blown invasion is probably off the table.
Anti-imperialism isn't just an opposition to occupation or pro-imperialist regimes. It is the basic understanding that imperialism is humanity's most dangerous enemy, that it will always act against the interests of the working class and oppressed, and that for that reason, every time the imperialists are beaten, we win, and every time they win, we lose.
This fact is completely lost on the Israeli anarchist group Unity. I had taken an interest in this group because of its courage in speaing out against racism as well as its willingness - in contrast to almost every other left-wing organization in the country - to organize self-defense for left-wing activists against right-wing thugs. However, they have recently published several articles on their facebook page, including posting an article which calls for Western intervention against ISIS, without mentioning the US bombing or criticizing that part of the article.
This shows the emptiness of the misconception that "the left" has learned any lessons from the Iraq War, or that it even has the capacity to learn any lessons from it. The middle-class left will function now, as it has then, as it always has and always will: a left flank of imperialism. The only way to stop imperialist war is by overthrowing imperialism altogether, and for that a new left must be built - a revolutionary communist party, led by the vanguard of the working class. This as opposed to the dominant revolutionary organizations today, whose leaderships are drawn almost exclusively from the petit-bourgeois intelligentsia.
Today's read: I wanted to write more about negotiations with Israel, but this post is long enough and I should probably organize my thoughts a bit more before I write about that. For now, it is important to understand that despite all the horrors inflicted on Gaza - and also on the West Bank, where murder of protesters and bystanders by Zionist soldiers is as common as ever - Israel lost to Hamas. True, Israel murdered almost 2000 Palestinians, and caused untold destruction and suffering. But the ceasefire can only be interpreted as a sign that Israel could not keep going. Again, this is not a defeat in the sense of casualties, or in the sense that Israel is under any sort of risk of having its army crippled or losing territory, but in the sense of being unable to achieve its goals and of further cementing mass, worldwide opposition to its policies. Here, Ali Abunimah said it best.
Monday, July 21, 2014
Zionist Fascism and the Collapse of Israeli Society / How I Became the Bad Leftist
The attacks by fascist groups on left-wing protesters in Israel are one of the most important indications of the implosion of Israeli society. Violence by settlers and other right-wing activists against Palestinians is a constant daily occurrence, but until recently, attacks on leftists were mostly limited to the West Bank. Ever since last Saturday, though, attacks in Tel-Aviv, Haifa and Jerusalem have been on the rise. On the 12th, several dozen right-wingers attacked several hundred people protesting against the attack on Gaza, while the police stood aside. Since then, several similar attacks took place. This violence already claimed the life of 16-year-old Muhammad Abu Khudair, with several others injured and even hospitalized.
Of course, when it comes to murdering Palestinians indiscriminately, these fascist amateurs have nothing on the Israeli army, as has been clearly demonstrated since the latest attack on Gaza began. The death toll for the latest attack is already over 500 at the time when this post is being written. As such, it seems weird to focus a post on the comparatively minor violence employed against left-wing demonstrators. But others have already written extensively on the unfolding massacre in Gaza and, having no eyes or ears there, I don't feel like I have anything to add; but I have yet to see anyone discuss the significance of the rise of Zionist fascism.
Comparing the demo organized by Hadash in Haifa last Friday to the demo organized by Balad and Abnaa al-Balad earlier on the same day the day before, one important difference is evident: while both demonstrations were attacked, the former was attacked by a fascist mob, while the latter was attacked by the police. The fascists only feel confident attacking demonstrations because they know there will be no repercussions. When the first attack took place, the fascists were only a few dozens against a demonstration of hundreds; even according to the fascists, they were no more than 50 against a crowd of 800. That is, despite outnumbering the fascists 16 to 1, the left-wing demonstrators could not handle the attack.
It wasn't a question of organization. The fascist demonstration was organized quite spontaneously, representing rather marginal organizations of Freon-huffing settler youth and other assorted racist scum. No, what allowed the fascists to win, what emboldens them further, is the lack of response from the left. The leaders of the movements which organized the demo are, for the most part, middle-class Ashkenazis, who rely on the power of the state to protect them. Their day-to-day lives teach them to trust the policeman and the soldier to defend them. For many of them, the fascists are misguided brethren with whom there should be some sort of dialogue. What these leftists fail to realize is that the fascist only understands one language, and he is only brave when facing those who are not proficient in it.
The Zionist state's function in our region is to police the Arab masses in the interests of Western imperialism, especially US imperialism. It is useless to its sponsors when it is not engaged in attacks on Palestinians or neighboring countries, and its rulers are painfully aware of that fact. This explains why Israel always finds a way to break ceasefires and peace agreements - for example, in 2012, Israel signed an agreement with Hamas which included, among other things, an Israeli commitment to lift the siege on Gaza. For three months, not a single rocket was fired from Gaza, and yet the siege stayed in place, while Israel continued with its oppressive policies.
However, Israel's ability to be effective in its role depends on its ability to keep its own population in line. This is done by giving privileges to its Jewish citizens, at the expense, of course, of the Palestinian people. This contract between the state and the masses, typical of colonialist-settler states, also meant that Israel's working class is exceedingly passive, and can always be pressured into ceasing industrial action by claiming that such action would harm the state's ability to oppress the Palestinians. This made it very easy for the Zionist ruling class to attack the working class and poor, and indeed, the attacks in Israel started earlier than anywhere else (which is the main reason why the 2007-8 financial crisis was less serious in Israel than in other imperialist countries - there was simply less to cut at that point).
With the growing crisis of the world capitalist system, imperialist countries are increasingly unable to afford the democratic rights that they have accorded to the masses in the past. This is even more true in Israel, a country which relies on its role as an oppressor and which faces the justified hatred of its neighbors and many of those living under its control. The fascist attacks on the left are but another example of the unraveling of the alliance between the state and the masses, a warning to Israeli Jews that both their economic and "democratic" privileges will be severely reduced in the near future.
When I told people in 2012 that Israel only has a decade or two left, I faced a lot of skepticism. Israel seems to be strong; while its army is poorly trained and only really fit for fighting against massively disadvantaged opponents - as well as, of course, unarmed civilians - it remains very well-funded, thanks to US imperialism, and thus there is no prospect of Israel losing a war to any of its neighbors anytime soon. I can never seem to find the quote saying that whatever a petit-bourgeoisie's religion, their god is power, but it holds true here: Israel's military strength blinds many on the middle-class left to its inherent internal contradictions and to its increasingly tenuous alliances with other imperialist countries.
I based my estimation on the hitherto development of the Arab uprisings, which were and still are the only hope for defeating Zionist oppression and the imperialist domination of the region. The Egyptian uprising was especially significant. By 2012, it was clear that this wave of revolutions would not be victorious: the Marxist cliche of the crisis of humanity being the crisis of proletarian leadership had justified its status as a cliche once more, and indeed, neither the Muslim Brotherhood, the Nasserists under Sabahi nor the centrist Revolutionary Socialists could carry out a consistent struggle against the oppressive pro-Western and pro-Zionist Egyptian state; they engaged in various alliances, sometimes with each other, sometimes with the army, never really breaking with the collaborationist ruling class, never attempting a revolutionary policy. Similar developments took place in other countries.
Many took this as a sign that the Arab uprisings were defeated, and that Israel and the regimes holding back the struggle against it will stay in power for many more decades. But the masses, while beaten, have not been defeated; their organizations have not yet been crushed, and they still raise their heads from time to time, a demonstration against the execution of activists here, a rebel attack there, everywhere showing signs of life amidst an atmosphere of despair. These masses, while generally not yet open to a Marxist program, have learned certain lessons from their experiences. It will not be long before a new wave of uprisings sweeps the region.
Since this is my first post, I suppose some sort of introduction is in order. My name is Yehuda Stern, and I spent around a decade as an activist in and around various Marxist organizations, mostly Trotskyist ones. About a year and a half ago, seeing that I had very little to show for my time in organized politics, I decided to retire from activity and let others carry on.
In my time as an activist, I've had a chance to examine pretty much every international Marxist organization, and I rarely saw anything that I liked. There were two international organizations that I was associated with, and while, in times of peace, they knew how to speak like anti-imperialist revolutionaries, both failed the test of resisting imperialism in practice.
When Hamas won the 2006 elections, Israel and the US plotted with Fatah - the secular, bourgeois-nationalist darlings of the European left - to overthrow this new government. I wrote an article explaining the need for revolutionaries to support Hamas against the imperialist-backed Fatah offensive without giving Hamas any political support, and for that, me and another comrade were expelled from the organization we belonged to at the time, the International Marxist Tendency. Years later, my group broke with the League for the Revolutionary Party - with which we were never in a common tendency - over the organization's failure to issue a timely call to action against French imperialism's attack on Mali.
My former collaborators went on to form the local section of the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency. I had faith that, despite feeling uneasy about certain positions the organization took, my comrades would carry on the spirit of true anti-imperialism and build a genuine revolutionary organization in this land. I had come to identify my activities of the last decade as a manifestation of what Trotsky called Souvarinism:
"...a disease combining the paralysis of political will with hypertrophy of rationalizing. Cabinet wit without roots, without an axis, without clear aims, criticism for criticism’s sake, clutching at trifles, straining at gnats while swallowing camels – such are the traits of this type, concerned above all with the preservation of its narrow circle or personal “independence.” A circle of this kind, too irresolute to join the social democrats, but likewise incapable of the politics of Bolshevism, incapable of active politics in general, is primarily inclined to jot notations on the margins of actions and books of others. This spirit, I repeat, is most graphically expressed by Souvarine who has finally found an adequate medium for his tendency in the shape of a bibliographical journal, in which Souvarine subjects to criticism everything and everybody in the universe as if in the name of his own “doctrine.” But the whole secret lies in the fact that Souvarine has no doctrine and, by virtue of his mental makeup, cannot have. In consequence, Souvarine’s spiritual creative work, which lacks neither wit nor resourcefulness, is by its very nature parasitic. In him are combined the calcined residues of communism with the as yet unfolded buds of Menshevism. This precisely constitutes the essence of Souvarinism, insofar as it is at all possible to speak of any essence here..." (A Letter to Albert Treint, 1931)
My faith turned out to be misplaced; the RCIT, no doubt feeling the pressures of Russian imperialism channeled through its new section there, no doubt feeling the pressures of Russian imperialism channeled through its contacts there, supported Russia's annexation of Crimea, meaning supporting the transfer of territory from an oppressed country to an imperialist country, including its minority of Tatars who will now have to suffer racist oppression under the Russian state.
It became quite clear that none of the existing Marxist organizations could be trusted to carry out a consistent struggle against imperialism. In looking to find an explanation to this, my vantage point was the only possible one from a Marxist perspective: their class composition. Despite all of their differences, almost all of their leaders were middle-class. In theory, they were all for the working class liberating itself; in practice, they all sent the message that intellectuals are the ones who should lead the struggle for socialism. That sends a much stronger message than all the theory in the world.
Ever since Trotsky's death and the Fourth International's descent into middle-class politics, no genuine revolutionary working class organization was ever formed. The existing organizations would, from time to time, find some support in the working class, only to divert this support back into electoralism or other forms of politics alien to Marxism. And so, I realize now that a new organization of the working class must be created, but it will not be created by me. It will be created by those working class people who come into political life as the attack on the working class, poor and oppressed intensify in the following years. And me? I'll be right here, jotting my notations, and supplying my criticism to those who might be able to use it for something other than just criticism's sake.
Ever since Trotsky's death and the Fourth International's descent into middle-class politics, no genuine revolutionary working class organization was ever formed. The existing organizations would, from time to time, find some support in the working class, only to divert this support back into electoralism or other forms of politics alien to Marxism. And so, I realize now that a new organization of the working class must be created, but it will not be created by me. It will be created by those working class people who come into political life as the attack on the working class, poor and oppressed intensify in the following years. And me? I'll be right here, jotting my notations, and supplying my criticism to those who might be able to use it for something other than just criticism's sake.
There will be many who will dismiss all I write as worthless, because I am not an activist, because I am not in an organization, and so on, and so on. Who can blame them? I'm very, very bad. I'm the worst.
I'm the Bad Leftist.
Corrections: I have been informed of two factual errors in the text that I have corrected: the Balad demo took place on the day before the one by Hadash, and the RCIT position which I criticize was opposed by its Russian section (as it should have been). I thank Comrade Boris Hammerschlag from the ISL for the corrections.
Further corrections: I have been informed by Comrade Hammerschalg that I was right about the Russian group supporting the Russian annexation of Crimea, and that my mistake only consisted in identifying this group as a section rather than contacts for the RCIT. I thank him for this correction.
Further corrections: I have been informed by Comrade Hammerschalg that I was right about the Russian group supporting the Russian annexation of Crimea, and that my mistake only consisted in identifying this group as a section rather than contacts for the RCIT. I thank him for this correction.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)