Imperialism and Anti-authoritarian resistance
after 9-11: Some Crucial Questions
by Mark Lance
A great deal of
activist attention is now focused on the Middle East and Central
Asia. This is a good thing, but not primarily because the US is
fighting a war in Afghanistan. On the contrary, while there were
many civilian deaths as a direct result of that war, and likely
worse humanitarian consequences to follow, there are far more
important geopolitical trends at work, and far more dangerous
developments taking place, developments which are obscured by an
excessive focus on the war. Indeed, the primary function of the
“War on Terror” – whether against Afghanistan, against the “axis
of evil” (to use the caricature-proof language of our president),
or against as yet undisclosed enemies – is precisely to obscure
these other political developments.
It was, I think, clear from the beginning, that the
US “War on Terror” marked a rapid acceleration of a process which
is functioning to create a new imperial regime in Central Asia,
one built on a model currently in place across the Middle East.
Its outlines are as follows. One, the US will support brutal
authoritarian governments in small states throughout the region.
Two, these states will be kept dependent on the US through a
process of militarizing their relations to their people. (That
is, none of these governments will have broad popular support,
most will face active insurgencies, and all will thereby depend
for their survival on US military support. Of course the usual
global capitalist mechanisms of control will also be extended
wherever possible.) Meanwhile the US will establish permanent
military installations throughout the region. Eventually natural
gas and oil deposits in Central Asia will be exploited with the
help of these regimes, as oil is now in the Middle East.
With significant
but for our purposes unimportant variations, this is the situation
currently with Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the small gulf states, Egypt,
Pakistan, and others. Current US actions are leading in the same
direction for Uzbekistan (where a new permanent US base at
Khanabad houses 1,500 personnel), Turkmenistan, Tajikistan,
Kyrgyzstan (where the US is currently building a transportation
hub capable of handling thousands of troops) and Afghanistan. In
terms of new aid, Simon Tisdall reports in the Guardian that under
new economic aid packages “Uzbekistan received $64m in US
assistance and $136m in US Export-Import Bank credits in 2001. In
2002, the Bush administration plans to hand over $52m in
assistance to Kazakhstan, some partly for military equipment.”
Israel is slightly
different as it is not merely militarized, but a country with a
nuclear capable, highly effective modern military, and with a
popular government. And of course levels of US aid to Israel dwarf
those to other countries. Further, it has traditionally been
useful for different reasons. But Israel remains partially
dependent on the US, given its complete isolation in the region,
and largely subservient to US interests. States like Iraq, which
do not function well in the US imperial scheme are effectively
destroyed, though still held out as threats to justify further
imperial actions. (This function – serving as a constant “threat”
that can be tossed out to the press and public whenever an
imperial project is in need of justification – is being taken over
by the “war on terrorism,” leaving one to wonder whether the
complete destruction of Iraq isn’t now on the agenda.)
There is nothing
subtle about any of this, and it is not hard to see the pattern.
The US now has military bases across the globe, in well over 100
countries, in virtually every major region of every continent. It
has recently built bases in 13 locations in nine countries in
Central Asia, bases that Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul
Wolfowitz recently said would involve a long-term commitment. In
addition, the US now excercises substantial control over the
economies of the majority of states in the world and effective
veto power over political decisions taken by small countries
throughout the world. This is an empire, the largest and most
powerful in human history. And the forefront of expansion is the
Middle East and Central Asia.
Neither the empire
nor the strategy of managing that empire through militarized
insecure states is new, but the level of commitment to the
strategy, the rate of expansion, and the sheer recklessness of its
implementation have all risen enormously since 9-11. The danger
inherent in this strategy is significant for the people of the
world. Most of the countries in the Middle East and Central Asia
are so weak that their collapse is a real possibility. The crisis
is particularly frightening in countries like Saudi Arabia and
Pakistan. Nor would the likely successor regimes be palatable.
In most cases the principle insurgency is a repressive religiously
focused movement and no anti-authoritarian can hope for such a
change. As significant would be the immediate human cost of
widespread civil war in the region. At least Israel, Pakistan, and
India are nuclear powers. Other countries have nuclear reactors,
and many have stockpiles of advanced weapons. So the potential
human cost of a regional meltdown are staggering.
I don’t think
there can be any question of whether anti-authoritarians need to
confront the advancement of an imperial project that threatens
millions of lives (not to mention one that is providing cover for
a massive increase in police and state power in the US and
Europe). I don’t think there can be any question that this must
be at the center of our work. The question, of course, is how to
confront it. What would an anti-authoritarian movement against US
imperialism in the Middle East and Central Asia look like? How
would such a movement differ if it were to be built with an eye
toward our eventual goal of an anti-authoritarian world, marked by
mutual aid and solidarity?
These are hard
questions. My goal in what follows is to impart a sense of urgency
upon questions that arise for anti-authoritarian activists in
light of these features of the current political situation. While
I have a few modest suggestions regarding answers, I have no
settled views. Those we need to seek together.
Certainly
anti-capitalist, anti-authoritarians should continue to work for
the global justice movement, continue pushing for an
anti-authoritarian agenda and anti-authoritarian structures within
it, and try to do a much better job than they have in the past of
integrating an opposition to militarism, war, and military support
of repressive states into that movement. The hard part, it seems
to me, is the internationalism.
We absolutely must
reach out to the people of the region. Not only is it arrogant
and contrary to principles of mutual aid to think that we can just
organize among ourselves on behalf of people half a planet away,
but it is also clearly a losing strategy. Another effect of the
whole process of power extension since 9-11 is a massive
polarization in the populations of the Middle East and Central
Asia. In Pakistan, for example, secular resistance to the current
military regime has all but disappeared, while repressive Islamic
opposition is increasing. The reason is quite simple: any
opposition to Islamic groups is effectively portrayed as pro-US, a
portrayal that radically discredits the group in question. Thus,
any group with a progressive or liberal agenda of any sort is
finding itself less and less able to play a role in the political
development of the region while power splits into a horrifying
binary opposition of authoritarian clients of US imperialism, and
fundamentalism.
Clearly this is a
process we must try to confront by way of international
solidarity. We cannot simply organize at the center of empire
while a whole region of the Earth spirals into disaster that could
have profound effects on us all. If the ideals of anarchism mean
anything, they require of us solidarity and mutual aid with people
in the midst of such a situation. But how, and with whom?
These, as I see
it, are the hard questions we must now face. More specifically:
-
How
do we find groups, organizations, movements, and individuals
interested in working in solidarity with an anti-authoritarian,
anti-imperialist movement? (In the extreme case, what if there
are none? What if, say, the Palestinians simply opt for Jihad
against Israel, and turn their backs on secular solidarity?
-
How
do we navigate the deep problems that will arise from the profound
political differences between our own groups and any movements we
ally ourselves with?
-
How
do we work collaboratively with these movements, without trying to
dictate our own theories and techniques into contexts in which
they are unfamiliar?
-
How do we navigate
the very different security and safety issues in these countries?
How can we make political work safer for comrades in such regions
of the world.
-
How
do we make ourselves more open a range of issues that we prefer
not to engage with?
I’ll close with
some brief remarks on the ways these questions arise in two
contexts: Lebanon and Palestine. (I use these examples because
they are the two cases in the region with which I’m most
familiar.)
In Palestine,
there are many obstacles to international solidarity. One is
obviously Israel and the devastating destruction of Palestinian
society that it has wrought. The Occupied Territories are divided
by an occupying military into an array of bantustans; the
Palestinian economy is near collapse; human rights are
non-existent in the territories. Another obstacle, unfortunately,
is the Palestinian National Authority. Arafat’s government has
proven itself to be corrupt, directionless, and more than willing
to serve as a client of the US, even to the extent of shooting
unarmed protestors of the US war in Afghanistan. If he thought
the population would allow him to get away with it, Arafat would,
it seems to me, be happy to rule over an economically dependent
and militarily threatened apartheid state. Finally, one must deal
with the various Arab states which try to use the Palestinian
cause for their own ends, and various religious movements such as
Hamas. The latter, though easy to criticize from a
non-authoritarian perspective, must be understood in terms of the
role it plays in Gaza. Hamas provides the majority of social
services to the people of this oppressed and overpopulated strip
of land. Brutalized by Israel, and neglected by the PNA, Hamas
has been the only group to take up the slack. Thus, organizing
that rejects them out of hand or in all respects is simply
impossible.
This applies even
more to the role of Hizbullah in the south of Lebanon. They
provide medical, pension, and most other social services there.
As a result, they are treated as the de facto government by the
vast majority of people. They, as well as a deep commitment to
religion, are a fact of life in the area.
I recently spent a
week in Beirut meeting with numerous activists who are trying to
put together a non-religious, non-aligned progressive movement in
the country. All were eager to build connections with the Global
Justice Movement and the Palestinian solidarity movement in the
west. But the obstacles are enormous. Direct and open protest
can result in immediate arrest. Communication is always subject
to surveillance. It is enormously difficult to remain independent
of dominant political parties, which are generally tied to
particular religious groups. Thus, some students at American
University in Beirut told me of trying to start a small weekly
student paper. Within a week of meeting, before publishing any
copies, they were contacted by three national parties trying to
pressure them to affiliate.
The main point is
to give a sense of just how different activist politics are in the
Middle East and Central Asia. The threats, opportunities,
factional lines, assumptions, etc. are very different from what we
are used to. Above all, and before anything, we need to learn
about this. We must send delegations to countries at the front
lines of US imperialism, simply to learn from local activists, and
to hear their ideas about how we can work together for liberation.
We need to be open to forms of discourse – especially religious
ones – that are uncomfortable for many western anarchists. We
need to think creatively, openly, and together, about ways to
connect our work, for our mutual liberation. What the results of
that thinking will be, I cannot predict. I have no easy answers
to any of this, but I know that much rests on our ability to make
progress on these issues.~
Perspectives on Anarchist Theory
- Vol. 6, No. 1 - Spring 2002