We must not abandon our brothers The unexpected rebellion Arabs in the Arab world took everyone by surprise. The satrapies the Maghreb and the Middle East were as stunned as their imperial masters by hatching which originated in an incident relativamete marginal, beyond the terrible and painful it was at the individual level: the self-immolation in the town of Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia, Muhammad Al Bouazizi, a college graduate of twenty-six years was not working and decided to surrender to the flames because the police prevented him from selling fruit and vegetables on the street. His family needed his help and Al Bouazizi, a poor boy would not become one in a long line of young unemployed in their country or to migrate to Europe by any means. The terrible slaughter of their protest was the spark that ignited the dry prairie of a region known for the opulence of the secular ruling oligarchies and misery of the masses. Or, in the words of Eduardo Galeano always beautiful, which ignited "the beautiful flame of freedom" that ignited the Arab world and imperialism is on tenterhooks, to continue with fiery metaphors as appropriate for the times. (1)
Rise of the Arab peoples also made it awkward position to experts, analysts and journalists. Mercilessly his bared charlatanism, and role of manipulators of public opinion in the service of capital. A magazine as much experience as The Economist, for example, was unable to anticipate, in its latest issue last year dedicated to presenting the forecasts and what was coming for 2011, the events that would stir a few weeks later the Arab world - and, by extension, the global geopolitical balance, to the ground. This failure repeats yet again the inability of conventional wisdom to predict the great events of our time. Political science was boquiaberta before the fall of the Berlin Wall and, more recently, the Queen herself Inglaterra le preguntó a un selecto núcleo de economistas británicos cómo fue posible que nadie hubiera sido capaz de pronosticar la actual crisis general del capitalismo.Sumidos en el estupor ante tan inesperada pregunta, formulada en lo que se suponía sería una serena velada meramente protocolar, los interpelados se limitaron a solicitar, atónitos ante el reproche, un plazo de seis meses para revisar su instrumental analítico e informarle a Su Majestad las razones por de tan deplorable desempeño profesional.(2)
El impacto sobre América Latina
No es casual, entonces, que los acontecimientos del mundo árabe hayan sumido en la confusión a buena parte Latin American left. Daniel Ortega unqualified support to Qaddafi, the president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, in turn, filed a friend of the ruling but certainly clear that this does not mean, in their own words, "I am in favor or applaud any decision made by a friend of mine anywhere in the world. "Moreover, he continued," We support the government of Libya, Libya's independence. "(3) In their statements Chavez noted the early warning issued by Fidel as soon Libyan crisis erupted: this could be used to justify a "humanitarian intervention" in U.S. and its European allies under the umbrella of NATO, to take over the Libyan oil and gas. But no way this wise warning from the leader of the Cuban revolution could lead to an unqualified endorsement to the regime of Gaddafi. Chavez did not, but it did Ortega. As expected, the blatant manipulation of the media with which the imperialists attack the leftist governments of our region twisted the meaning of the words of Chávez and Fidel making them appear complicit in a government that was unloading bullets on his own people. (4)
In an illuminating article published few days ago in Rebellion Alba Allende Alma Rico and argued persuasively that an erroneous positioning of the Latin American left-and especially the governments of Venezuela and Cuba in the current situation of the Arab world can produce at least three terrible effects: breaking ties with the Arab people's movements , giving legitimacy to the accusations against Venezuela and Cuba and 'represtigiar' severely damaged the democratic discourse of imperialism. A triumph, no doubt, to the imperialist interests in the region. "(5) Hence the gravity of the situation, which requires travel a narrow path flanked by two tremendous depths: one, of pandering to U.S. imperialism and its European partners and facilitate their overt plans to snatch the Libyans its oil, the other out to support an anti-colonialist regime and having been left in its origins, as it was, for example, APRA in Peru-in the last two decades, unscrupulous subordinated to imperialist capital and embraced and implemented, without question, the fateful Washington Consensus policies and precepts of the "war on terror" instituted by George W. Bush.
The Arab World: revolt, revolution, conspiracy?
not stop we needed to explain why be opposed to the option unmitigated interventionist United States and its European partenaires. Now, however, what the arguments to prevent that correct and non-negotiable stance unfortunately leads to an endorsement of a regime against which it has been up in arms most of the population. Some argue that what is happening in Libya is just the "contagion effect" of what happened in Tunisia and Egypt and there are no fundamental reasons that justify the popular uprising. Starting should remember two things: that revolutions are dialectical processes and not metaphysical or lightning events that are downloaded on a clear day. In the genesis of the French revolution is a riot resulted in a bakery near the Bastille. We know what happened next. Second, inevitably, the revolutionary processes are contagious. That is what history teaches. Remember if you do not what happened with the revolutions of independence in Latin America, two centuries ago, or 1848 and which took place also in Europe in the aftermath of the First World War and the outbreak of the Russian Revolution February 1917. But if in some places these processes on and in another it was not because the spread does not operate in a vacuum socio-economic and political, but that depends primarily on internal conditions of each country. (6) If the 1848 revolution triumphed in France but not in the UK was because at first the development of class struggle created the internal conditions to put an abrupt end to the restoration of the monarchy of Orleanist, while none of that happening across the Channel, in the same historical juncture, without any shock could host two political refugees as Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. And if after the First World War, the revolution succeeded in Russia but not in Germany was because the spread of revolutionary fervor, which struck with great force in the past, it was necessary but not sufficient to ensure the triumph of the revolution, which was expressly recognized by Rosa Luxemburg on one of his brilliant operations a few months before his foul murder. In other words, the insurgency is Libya stage was undoubtedly stimulated by the great popular victories in Tunisia and Egypt, but nothing would have happened had it not been the ravages of two decades of neoliberalism occurred in a rich country but in which the classes are just a few crumbs of the colossal oil revenues, young people lack of job prospects and the general crisis of capitalism emigration closed out until a few years ago removed the system pressure to step uplifting Extremely food prices. Finally, the rate of infant mortality, to discuss a very sensitive indicator for measuring the level of welfare of a population fluctuates according to a variety of sources between 20 and 25 per thousand, ie about four or five times higher which is recorded in Cuba and about double that of Brazil.
The same is true about the possibility that what is happening in Libya as agents of imperialism. But how can we forget that until the outbreak of revolution in Tunisia Kadafi was praised by the heads of state of the "capitalist democracies" as a ruling that had stripped their old obsessions, reconciled with neoliberal globalization and made peace with their former enemies from the White House to the Israeli racist regime? However, when they realized that his throne was shaky and felt that Gaddafi could suffer the same fate as their counterparts in Tunisia and Egypt imperialists quickly modified his stance to agree that Libya was not a democracy and that in this country respected the human rights-which they were never worried in the slightest, and demonstrating an unparalleled cynicism placed loud "side of the people" and against the ruling until yesterday suddenly converted reasonable in unacceptable tyrant. But, again, the work of these agents of imperialism could never have triggered an insurrection as impressive as that of Libya, or Tunisia and Egypt, had there been no substantive conditions required for that, defying the repression, the masses go out into the street ready to overthrow the government. That is, as Lenin scored several of his writings, if they did not want below and above could no longer live as before. On the other hand, if the agents of imperialism have in their hands the ability to make and unmake revolutions would have to recognize that our struggle is doomed to failure beforehand. Fortunately not. Nor makes more sense to argue that were the "social networks (Facebook and Twitter) that provoked the revolt, cleverly orchestrated by the CIA and agents of imperialism. To rule out this hypothesis simply a single number: the most recent United Nations statistics Internet users in Libya are just 5.1 percent of the total population. That can hardly explain the massive character of the rebellion of the Arab world because in Egypt and Tunisia in Libya as well as Internet users are a tiny minority of the population. These "social networks" may serve to facilitate communication among activists, but can not trigger the insurgency of the masses, the vast majority never had a computer at your fingertips.
Kadafi and neoliberalism, from yesterday to today.
At this point one must ask who is Kadafi and what it represents. Navarro Vicenc clearly illustrates the contrast between Kadafi "Nasser" in its early years and what is now "a vastly corrupt and repressive dictator." (7) According to Navarro, in 1969 and just 27 years old Colonel Kadafi led a coup inspired by the experience of Nasser in Egypt and overthrew the monarchy imposed by the British Empire after World War II. During those Kadafi early launched an agrarian reform, nationalized the oil and more than two hundred companies (which were reorganized with significant worker participation in management) to step to introduce some improvements in the quality and coverage of health and education. A strong state intervention and nationalization of credit were other features of the policies of those years. "Gaddafi had that experience," Navarro writes "as the third way between capitalism and socialism, then associated to the Soviet Union." (8) Now, that's the Kadafi that persists in the minds of large sections of the left American. The problem is that this is a totally outdated, because from the nineties the Libyan regime shift that starts a few years later, would put the country at odds with where he was in the seventies. The third way degenerated into a "popular capitalism"-the slogan playing late in the eighties made by Margaret Thatcher in the United Kingdom, and nationalizations began to be reversed by a corrupt privatization and opening festival of foreign capital that affected oil industry and the most important branches of the economy. Make no mistake: Gaddafi not only Nasser Mubarak. A keen observer of the scene Maghreb, Ayman El-Kayman, described with precise outlines the itinerary of this involution "(H) ace nearly ten years, Gadhafi has ceased to be for the democratic West unwise individual: that will be taken off the U.S. list of terrorist states recognized the responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing, to normalize its relations with the United Kingdom, gave the names of all Irish republicans who had trained in Libya to normalize the United States, gave all the information had over the Libyans suspected of involvement in jihad with Bin Laden and renounced their 'weapons of mass destruction', as well to call on Syria to do likewise, to normalize relations with the European Union, became the guardian of the concentration camps, where inmates are thousands of Africans bound for Europe, to normalize its relations with its sinister neighbor Ben Ali , gave opponents refugees in Libya. " (9) And when the people of Tunisia and Egypt revolted, Kadafi was aligned with their tormentors, in this position coinciding with the first reactions of the leaders of the "Western democracies" with Obama, Sarkozy, Cameron, Berlusconi, Zapatero and Netanyahu's genocidal regime. But they, seeing that popular uprisings were headed a historic victory in a few weeks spent making calls to his thugs cautious regional constraints to grant a few cosmetic reforms with urgently require them to leave power. When the fire reached Libya imperial bourgeoisie and its political representatives saw the opportunity to take advantage of the predictable collapse of preventing Qaddafi Libyan masses are those who take their future into their hands, whether through a "humanitarian intervention" that allows them to seize Libya on the pretext of stopping the bloodshed that the dictator promises to insurgents or, failing that, encourage your partition, or dismemberment, as they did in the former Yugoslavia and the like, unsuccessfully tried in Bolivia in 2008. As Lenin, Gramsci and repeatedly said Fidel right and the ruling classes, by his long experience in government, learn quickly and react with lightning speed to a situation like that today characterizes Libya. And if yesterday supported without regard to Kadafi now trying to get rid of him as soon as possible and facilitate an "orderly transition", Hillary Clinton dixit, organized by the betrayal of the expectations of the masses and introduce a sham democracy to allow the imperialists to continue bleeding Libya and the Arab world in general.
In its hasty conversion to neoliberalism Gaddafi opened the economy to the big companies, mainly European. In a detailed note Modesto Emilio Guerrero noted that since 1999 the West began to have treated it very special for three reasons that sound like heavenly music in the pockets of the bourgeoisie (10): (a) is a very good customer (b) is a good partner of its business, (c) is also a strategic supplier of oil and gas. Good customer because when it lifted the arms embargo on Libya weighed (in October 1999) for their participation, or complicity in "terrorist acts in various countries, Spain, Italy, England and Germany became the main arms suppliers then used Kadafi against his own people. Shortly after some 150 British companies linked to the oil business, including British Petroleum, paramount responsibility for the destruction of the marine ecosystem in the Gulf of Mexico and settled in Libya along with Repsol, France's Total, the Italian company ENI and OM Austrian business to exploit the oil. Other companies, these same countries and the United States actively participated in infrastructure apart from the aforementioned sale of weapons. Good partner, too, because through the 65,000 million dollars available to the Libyan Investment Authority made the family Kadafi significant investment in Fiat, the Italian oil company ENI and is a shareholder of Unicredit, the largest bank in Italy. (11) also holds shares in the economic group Pearsons, editor of the ultra-neoliberal Financial Times. Several major French and German companies also have the participation of Libyan capital. Insurance provider, finally, because, as stated by Silvio Berlusconi, the control of migratory flows "illegal" from the Maghreb and, more generally, throughout Africa, and the reliable supply of Libyan oil are extremely important services that leaders capitalist democracies, but could not fully appreciate worth. The President of the English government, José M. Aznar, his successor, Zapatero and the king himself Juan Carlos of Spain competed with "Il Cavaliere" Italian and British prime minister and leading figure of "new work" to cultivate the friendship of the Libyan leader, often with touches of shocking. (12 ) In line with these changes the relationship with Washington experienced a 180 degree turn: in 2006 the State Department removed Libya from the list of countries supporting terrorism. Frightened by the Gulf War in February 1991 and terrorized by contemplating what happened in Iraq since 2003 and the destination run by Saddam Hussein, Kadafi remorse over reacted to an extent that exceeded the ridiculous to declare time and again its willingness to adjust the behavior of Libya to the rules of the game imposed by imperialism. It was because of this that in 2008 former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice could declare that "Libya and the United States share permanent interests: cooperation in the fight against terrorism, trade, nuclear proliferation, Africa, human rights and democracy. "(13)" Given all that we might then ask: Is this the pan-Arab socialism, advocated in the Green Paper the self-proclaimed "leader and guide of the revolution"? Is this policy to do the Libyan "state of the masses ", as Qadhafi defined his political organization? Is Kadafi Maghreb counterpart Chavez and Fidel? What is about this regime emancipatory processes underway in Latin America, to say nothing of the Cuban revolution?
What to do?
What should then make the Latin American left? First, all expressed clear condemnation of the savage repression that Kadafi is perpetrating against their own people. Solidarity, under any circumstances, with whom he engages in such a crime would irreparably harm the moral integrity and credibility of the left Our America. The recognition of the justice and legitimacy of popular protests, as was done without hesitation in the cases of Tunisia and Egypt, has only one possible corollary: the alignment of our people with the revolutionary process underway in the Arab world. Of course, the way this is manifested not be equal in the case of political and social movements, on the other hand, leftist governments in Latin America, who must necessarily include aspects and commitments of various kinds which not exist in those. But considering the always complex and often treacherous "reasons of state" and the contradictions of the "real politik "can not lead to the latter so far as to support a beleaguered dictator by the mobilization and the struggle of his own people, repressed and abused while the family of Kadafi and the narrow circle of its fans are enriched to levels unimaginable. How to explain to the Arab masses, which for decades sought the keys to his emancipacipon in the struggles of our people and recognize the Che, Fidel and Chavez the personification of his libertarian ideals and democratic government indecision most advanced Latin America while all the imperialist villain from Obama on down, are aligned even hypocritically, to their side?
Second, it is necessary to denounce and repudiate the plans of U.S. imperialism and its servants in Europe. And organize solidarity with the new gobernos arising from Arab insurgency. The rebels themselves have issued statements Libyan very clear about it: if the U.S. invasion, with or without the (unlikely) coverage of NATO, the rebels turn their guns against the invaders and then settle accounts with Kadafi, primarily responsible for Libya's submission to the dictates of the imperialist powers. Latin America has to support all forces of resistance to imperialist invasion possible, aware that what is now is playing in North Africa and the Middle East is not a local problem but a decisive battle in the long war against imperialist domination worldwide. The triumph of the popular uprising in Libya will correlate the strengthening of the ongoing rebellion in Yemen, Morocco, Jordan, Algeria, Barheim and that has long been brewing in Saudi Arabia, in addition to strengthening the resistance of unions and social movements in Wisconsin, United States, and in several European countries, the IMF now preferred victims. Barheim is the headquarters of the U.S. Fifth Fleet, with a mission to monitor everything that happens in the Persian Gulf and its surroundings, and Saudi Arabia a system totally subservient to the will of the White House and the great regulator of the international oil prices and adequate supplies to the developed world. If the socio-political map of the Arab world will change, as we hope so, the international geopolitics would be altered the balance of power in favor of the oppressed peoples and nations. And Latin America, which since the late twentieth century was placed at the forefront of the anti-imperialist, would at last found the allies he needs in other regions of the global South to move forward in their struggle for national self-determination, social justice and democracy. Therefore, our region can not have the right to be wrong with a process whose projections can be even higher than that at the time was the collapse of the Soviet Union, and a different symbol, and whose outcome will strengthen revolutionary emancipatory processes underway in our region. Abandon our Arab brothers in this decisive battle would be an unforgivable mistake, both ethically and from the more specifically political. It would betray the internationalism of Che and Fidel and archive, perhaps permanently, Bolivarian ideals. We can not lose this opportunity. ________________
"I see hypocritical call to when peace comes from countries that make war "in Cubadebate, March 4, 2011.
This episode was recounted in an interview that the author of these lines will do to David Harvey, in September 2010. The interview will be posted to the web and will be available in about a week, on cable
www.atilioboron.com ANSA, February 25, 2011.
On this question see. Raul Bracho, "What if everything is a lie?" On Kaos on the net, March 3, also insert the commands 2011.Y Russia Today, "Russian army says airstrikes against demonstrators in Libya never happened" in the network Kaos , March 4, 2011. Satellite monitoring of the forces Russian military found no evidence of aerial bombardment on demonstrators in Benghazi and Tripoli on 22 February. But days later, they were absent in the vicinity of the oil and military installations east of the country, as recognized Saif Al-Islam Gaddafi the news network Al Jazeera. According to the Libyan leader's son, was bombed sites where there were no civilians or demonstrators. Inthe aforementioned interview admitted that Libyan security forces had been punished by military weapons to the insurgents.
Alma Santiago Alba Rico and Allende, "What about Libya? The Arab world to Latin America, "in Rebellion, February 24 2011.
The literature on structural genesis of the ongoing revolution in the Arab world is growing exponentially every day. See, among others, James Petras, "The roots of the Arab revolt and premature celebrations" in Rebellion, March 6, 2011 and Ignacio Ramonet, "Five causes of the Arab revolution" in http://www.monde- diplomatique.es /? url = editorial/0000856412872168186811102294251000/editorial /? article = 8ca803e0-5eba-4c95-908f-64a36ee042fd
Vicenc Navarro, "Gaddafi, Neoliberalism, the IMF and governments are supposed defenders of human rights", in Rebellion , March 2, 2011.
Ibid.
Alba Rico and Allende, op.cit. Modesto
Guerrero, "From the indefensible Gaddafi Arab rebellions" in Rebellion, March 1, 2011. Http://vocearancio.ingdirect.it/?p=18768
View On Tony Blair, see "Day the LSE STI sold soul to Libya", in Daily Mail (London), March 5, 2011, pp. Reproduced in
6-7
Alba Rico and Alma Allende, op. Cit.
Rebellion has posted this article with the author's permission through a license from Creative Commons, respecting their freedom to publish it elsewhere.
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