Addressing Imperialism
WARNING: This is a first attempt at blogging. I would love comments and criticism.
I believe it is safe to say that the anti-war movement is decaying at an ever increasing rate. The question remains for those of us involved in activism and organizing of what do we do now? Is the movement worth reviving and if so, how do we do that?
The first step in reviving the anti-war movement is addressing what it is exactly that we are “anti.” For too long the movement focused specifically on the occupation of Iraq, while Afghanistan lurked somewhere back in the shadows. Now Afghanistan is the main topic of discussion, and it seems as if we all assume that the Iraq War has ended (it hasn’t). Meanwhile, the arms of US imperialism are reaching elsewhere, in South America, Yemen, Pakistan, and Palestine via Israel, and so on. We need to transform our anti-war movement into a true anti-imperalist movement, one that addressed all of the United States’ exploitative military escapades. Instead, what we have is a changing focal point. Right now the topic is Afghanistan, and murmers of our drone attacks on Pakistan, West Bank settlements, and our involvement in Yemen. In December of 2008 and into 2009 the focus seemed to be on the hot flash of an ongoing war against and occupation of Palestine by the Israeli state funded by the USA. What we need to do is either choose one focal point to organize around with other issues of secondary importance, or allow the focal point to change and remain flexible, while still always addressing the greater issue of imperialism, which in the end, is the cause of all these wars.
What do we mean by addressing the greater issue of imperialism? Well first of all we must define what we mean by imperialism. Lenin claims that imperialism “emerged as the development and direct continuation of the fundamental characteristics of capitalism in general,”[i] and for good reason. Capitalism and imperialism are undeniably interwoven. One major reason for imperialism is the acquisition of markets. Anti-imperialist author Michael Parenti claims that imperialism is “the process whereby the dominant politico-economic interests of one nation expropriate for their own enrichment the land, labor, raw materials, and markets of another people.”[ii] Again this is very true, but it is lacking. Marxist analysis of imperialism lack a holistic approach necessary to truly understand the causes and to truly create a program for a movement to end them.
Imperialism exists without markets, as can be seen in the Soviet Union’s equally brutal Stalinist imperialist strategy in Eastern Europe and places like Afghanistan. It can also be seen in American examples, such as the Vietnam War. There was no real economic reason to be there; we were not looking for markets, labor, or resources. Another aspect of imperialism is the political or ideological. Imperialism is always carried out by authoritarian states, be it Great Britian, Spain, Portugal, the USA or the USSR. And these countries always control the colonized with the same authoritarian rule (and usually a stricter form) as they do their citizens. Vietnam was about stopping the spread of Communism, and securing the dominance of liberal democracy (read Western authoritarian state) and capitalism. In South America, American imperialist strategy of the post-war period was hugely an ideological anti-Communist effort. While there was definite economic interests in these countries (sugar, fruit, and other resources, on top of cheap labor) there was also a constant threat of countries attempting to become Communist, and if that were to happen not only would the US lose those markets, resources, labor, ect, but it would help to delegitimize the dominance of the Western political system. If Communist countries began securing their independence they could begin to rely on each other, and on the Soviets, and possibly could prove not only that they had the capacity to be self-sufficient, but that their alternative political/economic system worked and that the mix of liberal democracy and capitalism was not the only possible way. So imperialism is just as much an effort to maintain the political dominance of liberal democracy and the West as it is about exploiting foreign markets.
Imperialism has a third facet, that being gender. Although this may seem strange, it is not when you accept that we live in a sexist and male supremacist society, and that the military (the actual hand on the arm of imperialism) is a sexist and male supremacist institution. Besides the sexist and homophobic practices of the military within itself (Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and rape/sexual assault of female soldiers[iii]) and the all-too-common cases of soldiers raping innocent civilians, the very act of imperialism can be seen as analogous to the societal male domination of women. The imperialist has placed himself in a dominant position assuming that the colonized cannot protect herself from Communism, terrorism, natural disaster, etc etc etc. He forces her to succumb to him, changing her life to fit his needs, all the while providing and providing and providing while he get rich and fat. And when he is done with her, when she is barren and dry, he will leave on his search for the next colony. It’s no wonder why imperialism is often referred to as “rape” of the Third World.
Fourthly, imperialism contains an aspect of racism. Beginning with early forms of imperialism and colonialism, it has always been dominated the West, namely America and Western Europe. These white “Christian” countries have colonized the Third World, pillaged, and plundered with while using many racist and Eurocentric justifications including “Christianizing” heathens and the argument that the colonized are biologically inferior, often comparing them to animals. Franz Fanon claims in the conclusion of “The Wretched of the Earth” that “Europe undertook the leadership of the world with ardour, cynicism and violence,” that violence being imperialism.[iv] It is the West’s belief that they are destined to lead the world, and that ethnocentrism, the same one that promoted American western expansion and “manifest destiny” leading to the constant relocation and slaughter of Native Americans, is a driving force of imperialism.
Just as our social sphere can be broken into four smaller spheres of economy, polity, kinship, and community, so can our analysis of imperialism. The next step is bringing them back together. We see that imperialism is authoritarian, capitalist, sexist and racist, but how is it all at once? It simply is. The economic exploitation of the Third World is carried out not only for profit but for reasons of spreading the dominant authoritarian ideology and of securing male and white supremacy around the globe. The sexist exploitation of the Third World is carried out because they have a resource we want or are not following our political wishes or because they are biologically inferior and have no real concept of self-governance. The racist exploitation of the Third World is carried out because the “brown people” are trying to secure economic or political independence and we see that as a threat so we try to dominate them similarly to how a rapist would his victim, violently taking what he desires and leaving. The authoritarian exploitation of the Third World is carried out because of the relation between the State and capital, because United Fruit not only has friends in the government but is in the government and because our government is institutionally dominated by straight white men who refuse to allow competition from people they see as inferiors. These are only a few reasons how these are all interrelated and really part of one entity, that being imperialism.
This isn’t a program for the future of the anti-war movement. What this is, is a hope that the anti-war movement will begin to incorporate this holistic approach as a means of galvanizing support and breathing new life into a necessary struggle. For too long has the anti-war movement been clouded with talk of imperialism and capitalism but rarely racism or sexism or authoritarianism. If we are truly going to stop imperialism (and the insane society that fuels it) we need to stop all the causes of it, not just the one that may seem most blatantly obvious.
[i] http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/ch07.htm
[ii] Michael Parenti. Against Empire (San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1995), 1.
[iii] http://www.feministing.com/archives/009855.html
[iv] http://www.marxists.org/subject/africa/fanon/conclusion.htm
Decaying is a nice word for the state of the U.S. peace movement. It doesn’t exist.
First, just some criticisms: I don’t think that race and gender prove to be a useful lens for investigating the imperialist ‘motive’. For sure, racism and sexism contribute to the force behind imperial adventures (and are a result of those same imperial aims), but it is not the primary “force” motivating imperialism itself. That, I believe, can be attributed to the first two items mentioned: the (geo)political and the economic.
We should take care to look at how racism and sexism anticipate and become products of imperialism – but if we are to create a movement that is anti-imperialist, I’m not sure how race and gender can serve as useful frameworks for action. I mean, we didn’t invade Iraq because we’re racist and sexist; we invaded Iraq for very strict geopolitical reasons. Those reasons should be elucidated and utilized to create the backbone for a movement – not peripheral (but still important) explanatory theories, such as race and gender. The goal for a movement should be to target the crux of the problem.
The question becomes, then: what do we do with these tools of analysis? How do we lay the groundwork for a peace movement on their basis? I think there are answers to these questions (I’ve got some tentative ones for which I’ll share at a later time), but I think a good starting place would be building a 21st-century version of J.A. Hobson’s classic work on imperialism. Hobson’s work is outdated, for sure, responding to European colonialism in Africa; but the way he looks at the motivating factors behind the rapaciousness of the ‘strong few’ are both a simple and, to this day, radical lesson for us. Who stands to benefit from unrelenting militarism? Are their interests organized? Can these organized interests exert pressure in the ‘arena of politics’? What is the ‘direct economic outcome’ for these organized interests in particular cases of militarism? Targeting those interests responsible for U.S. militarism would be a good start, I think.
That being said, I do think this post touches upon the crux of the matter for rebuilding a (lasting!) peace movement: do we organize around a single focal point (as, for instance, UFPJ did with Iraq) or do we organize around a value/analysis that is flexible to the whims of D.C. (as a cohesive, intellectually solid, and militant anti-imperialist movement would do)? In short, I think the answer you provided is the right one.
But I do think we have to build that kind of movement conscious of the fact that the ‘building’ becomes a lot more difficult. Take UFPJ (I was on the national staff): it is not anti-imperialist. Lots of folks involved in it are; but not all of them; never enough to get consensus at one of the national conferences. So, for some folks, the decision was whether to build a robust mass-movement opposed to the invasion (and after March 2003, the war in Iraq), even if some of the people were not anti-imperialist but anti-Bush, not opposed to U.S. militarism but opposed to the ‘dumb’ war in Iraq; or whether to create an anti-imperialist outfit with limited numbers at first. The point was that “anti-imperialism” scares a lot of potential allies off (it wasn’t until December 2008 that UFPJ was able to oppose the war in Afghanistan).
We have to be mindful of that fact when building a movement on that basis. Especially in times of urgency, as we faced before the war in Iraq and as face right now with close to 200,000 troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
What do y’all think of this? I wrote it in a different conversation I was having but it’s about roughly the same topics.
Ending the war on terror, and war in general:
1. You have to control the troops to end the war; the troops ARE the war.
2. You can control the troops a few ways but they basically come down to:
-a-Convince the current President to stop the war or be the President yourself and order the war to stop
or
-b-Controlling them in other ways (ideological, for instance) and ordering them to stop fighitng AGAINST the pro-war orders of the President.
3. The first way is easier than the second way. All you have to do to get an anti-war president is get the votes. To get an antiwar movement against a pro-war president, you have to do everything you’d do to get an antiwar president (educate people, etc.) but you’d have to do it to an even greater extent because, if the president is pro-war, that means a lot of americans are pro-war (or at least not anti-war) which means there will be people to suppress any sort of action taken by the military which is against the orders of the president.
4. However, that’s not to say that we should RELY SOLELY on the power of the president. Look at Honduras, Venezuela, Haiti, etc. The rich just kidnap a President if they don’t like his policies. We need to build a movement which is organized and willing enough to fight back against those who would seek to use extra-legal initiatives to thwart the will of the people expressed through their electoral candidates–or to fight their candidates if the candidates don’t deliver. However, getting that Presidency on our side (by convincing him or electing someone new) is crucial because, if we are on the side of the President–even if that president gets kidnapped or something–we are then in a strong position to fight to end the war; even people who don’t care much about the war–but care about democracy and not kidnapping presidents and stuff–will support us.
5. Which brings us to another point: If you can’t convince a pro-war president to be anti-war (and I don’t even set this as my goal because I think (a) it won’t happen and (b) if it can happen, it will only happen through building another party to challenge his support, anyway) how do you get a new president? You cannot do it with an anti-war stance alone. People care about more than one issue. You have to have a broad platform that unites a lot of people behind a single person. (Now, again, I don’t want to unite everyone around a person, I want to unite them around a program; however, the rules are set up now so that we have representatives not direct votes–so we don’t vote on open borders or closed, war or peace, we vote for representatives and then they decide. *Now, we don’t have to play by those rules* However, to change the rules we’ll need so much power to be successful that we’ll have no problem just playing by these rules and them changing the rules through using the existing rules [ammending the Constitution]). So, there you have it, like I said at the start, the world is inter-connected. Just look at the people and how they can get what they want: the people are inter-connected in that they care about a lot of things; and they are also inter-connected in that, to get any of these things done, they have to work with others.
6. And this is why I’ve been thinking about the Green Party a lot. We need a third party. We don’t ONLY need a third electoral party. But we do need it. I don’t know if the Green Party is that party. But it might be. I so wish I could talk to Cynthia Mckinney today; however, part of me thinks I’d be disappointed because, though I love her, I don’t see her as having a completely grass-roots perspective. But I could be wrong.
7. So, that’s looking at one issue and we can already see the need for an expansive program. [And I could go through this strategy stuff and come to the same conclusions with every issue I listed that I want.] But, if you have an expansive program–as opposed to a narrow one–what are the people currently in power going to think? They are going to think (1) they are trying to take away all of our power! and (2) when they were trying to chip away at my power i wasn’t scared because I knew they wouldn’t even get the crumbs they were asking for; but now they will get at least a slice if not the whole loaf! That’s when violence can happen. I don’t know that it will, but I don’t dismiss the possibility–whether it be targeted (kidnapping a president) or general (fascism); though it’s hard to imagine one without the other. So, again, we need more than an electoral party, we need an organization of people ready to take it further. And you certainly can’t get that organization without exposing all these problems–who’s going to fight just for a national health care system? No one. But you can get people to fight for: a national health care system, an end to wars, a better environment, quality food, AND an end to poverty, etc.