Is the Western Left Afraid of Revolution?


by William Bowles
Global Research, August 5, 2009
williambowles.info


Heretical no doubt but the history of the Left in the allegedly developed world is not exactly littered with success stories, worse still is our relationship with the developing world as the confusion surrounding who to support (or not to) in Iran most clearly reveals. And this is not a new phenomenon as the ideological battles, for example over Cuba, reveal, or more recently Venezuela. It seems that in spite of our failure to bring about an end to capitalism in no way impedes our desire to tell everyone else what should be done to bring about social change. The traditional tag (on the left) is chauvinism, that is to say, bigotry and prejudice let alone arrogance, the old ‘we know best’ attitude but from whence does it come?

Most evidently, it’s far easier to pontificate about what ‘they’ should or should not be doing in some far off place rather than dealing with our own issues and most importantly, our own ruling class.

‘One principle that we stress is that the Iranian election was Iranian business, not the business of the Western left, especially the left in a country like the United States, which has been intervening continuously and destructively in Iran for years and which is still, in alliance with Israel, threatening Iran militarily.’ — Iran: Reply to the Campaign for Peace and Democracy By Edward S. Herman and David Peterson The same piece goes on to say,

‘Another principle that we believe important is that the left should be especially active where it can have a clearly positive influence. This is not the case for Iran, where U.S. relations with Iran are poor and the left’s aggressive support of the anti-Ahmadinejad forces could have perverse effects like intensifying internal repression and/or foreign hostility towards the Iranian state. Positive effects of left-campaigning would be much more likely in the case of Honduras, which is the site of U.S. military bases and where the military and government depend on U.S. support. Here, left focus, anger, and pressure on Washington could have a beneficial impact. We point out that the New York Times features Iran with intensity and indignation, but does not do this for the coup and new military dictatorship in Honduras.’

Many years ago, in a far-off galaxy, well Zambia to be exact, I was privileged to be working with the African National Congress whilst it was still a liberation movement in exile, installing computers and training comrades in how to use them. One of the groups (reluctantly) sponsoring me was based in the US. Their background was solidarity work in a Central American country, a country that had overthrown the US-backed dictatorship and importantly, they were working directly with the government. Not so in Zambia, where the ANC was a guest of the Zambian government and under constant threat from the then Apartheid South Africa (bombings were frequent), it was, to put it mildly, a delicate situation. ‘Interfering’ in the internal workings of the ANC wasn’t on my, or our agenda and especially from North Americans who were generally viewed with some suspicion by the comrades. Paranoia? Maybe, but that was the reality, getting caught up in the internal politics was something to be avoided at all costs, not only because it wasn’t our business but also because for the most part, we had no idea what was going on. Thus whatever reservations I had about the way the ANC functioned had to be set aside (though this didn’t stop me getting involved in private discussions with those closest to me, but that’s where it ended).

Not so for my North American companions, who felt it necessary to get involved in the internal political wranglings of the ANC, not a wise move, I can assure you from bitter personal experience. It’s one thing to give freely of your skills and experience without strings and even here, different ways of working, even seeing things differently can make life frustrating for us, but that’s the breaks.

No doubt there is a great deal of idealism and romanticism involved, after all, we were on the ‘front line’, and actually doing something concrete in solidarity with liberation movements is of course important but on whose terms?

I have to return to a theme that I think lies at the heart of the problem, namely racism pure and simple. For five centuries we have been lording it over the planet, our wealth and knowledge, access to all manner of resources eg, our centres of ‘learning’, the sophisticated networks and so forth have created the illusion of superiority. We have collectively benefited from this abundance of wealth, albeit for most, merely the crumbs off the table, but that does not alter the fact that we are citizens of Empire and that includes the UK’s hankering for days of yore, that relies on the complicity or at least the acquiessence of its citizens.

“You are in an intractable contradiction. The western left has been brought to the reality that its very sense of self, its privileges, small but depended on, illusion of superiority, also depended on for sense of self...allow equality of the exploited in all means of life and the destruction of the exploiters follows, the left included. Therefore, they rationalize genocide with suicide because inevitably the reproduction and enlargement of capital is their accepted life force. It's just in their make-up.â€