The Unwitting Agents of the Imperial Order
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| Humanitarian imperialism |
Once upon a time, in the early 1970′s, many people,
including myself, thought that all the “struggles” of that period were
linked: the Cultural Revolution in China, the guerillas in Latin
America, the Prague Spring and the East European “dissidents”, May 68,
the civil rights movement, the opposition to the Vietnam war, and the
nominally socialist anti-colonial movements in Africa and Asia. We also
thought that the “fascist” regimes in Spain, Portugal and Greece, by
analogy with WWII, could only be overthrown through armed struggle, very
likely protracted.
None of these assumptions were correct. The Cultural
Revolution had nothing to do with the anti-authoritarian movements in
the West, the Eastern European dissidents were, in general,
pro-capitalist and pro-imperialist, and often fanatically so, the Latin
American guerrillas were a pipe dream (except in Central America) and
the national liberation movements were just that: they (quite rightly)
aimed at national liberation and called themselves socialist or
communist only because of the support offered to them by the Soviet
Union or China. The southern European “fascist” regimes transformed
themselves without offering a serious resistance, let alone an armed
struggle. Many other authoritarian regimes followed suit: in Eastern
Europe, in Latin America, in Indonesia, Africa and now in part of the
Arab world. Some collapsed from inside, other crumbled after a few
demonstrations.
I was reminded of these youthful illusions when I read a petition
“in solidarity with the millions of Syrians who have been struggling
for dignity and freedom since March 2011”, whose list of signatories
includes a veritable who’s who of the Western Left. The petition claims
that “The revolution in Syria is a fundamental part of the North African
revolutions, yet it is also an extension of the Zapatista revolt in
Mexico, the landless movement in Brazil, the European and North American
revolts against neoliberal exploitation, and an echo of Iranian,
Russian and Chinese movements for freedom.”
The signatories of course demand the immediate
departure from power of Bashar al-Assad, which is supposed to be the
only “hope for a free, unified, and independent Syria”. They also
characterize Russia, China and Iran as standing “in support of the
slaughter of people”, although they are “allegedly friends of the
Arabs”; they acknowledge that “the U.S. and its Gulf allies have
intervened in support of the revolutionaries”, but blame them for
“having done so with a clear cynical self-interest” and trying to “crush
and subvert the uprising”. It is not clear how this squares with the
next line of the text, which claims that “regional and world powers have
left the Syrian people alone”.
The upshot of the petition consists in grandiose claims
of “solidarity” from “intellectuals, academics, activists, artists,
concerned citizens and social movements”, “with the Syrian people to
emphasize the revolutionary dimension of their struggle and to prevent
the geopolitical battles and proxy wars taking place in their country.”
Nothing less!
This petition is worth analyzing in detail, because it
nicely summarizes everything that is wrong in today’s mainstream leftist
thinking and it both illustrates and explains why there is no Left left
in the West. The same sort of thinking dominated the Western Left’s
thinking during the Kosovo and the Libyan wars, and to some extent
during the wars in Afghanistan (“solidarity with Afghan women”) and Iraq
(“they will be better off without Saddam”).
First of all, the presentation of the facts about Syria
is very doubtful. I am no expert on Syria, but if the people are so
united against the regime, how come that it has resisted for so long?
There have been relatively few defections in the army or in the
diplomatic and political personnel. Given that the majority of Syrians
are Sunnis and that the regime is constantly depicted as relying on the
support of the “Alawi sect”, something must be wanting in that narrative
about Syria.
Next, like it or not, the actions of “Russia, China and
Iran” in Syria have been in accordance with international law, unlike
those of the “U.S. and its Gulf allies”. From the viewpoint of
international law, the current government of Syria is legitimate and
responding to its request for help is perfectly legal, while arming
rebels is not. Of course, the leftists who sign the petition would
probably object to that aspect of international law, because it favors
governments over insurgents. But just imagine the chaos that would be
created if every Great Power was arming the rebels of its choice all
over the world. One could deplore the selling of arms to
“dictatorships”, but the U.S. is hardly in a position to lecture the
world on that topic.
Moreover, it is “Russia and China” who have, by their
vote at the UN prevented another U.S. intervention, like the one in
Libya, which the Western Left, opposed very lukewarmly, if at all. In
fact, given that U.S. used the U.N. Resolution on Libya to carry out a
regime change that the resolution did not authorize, isn’t it natural
that Russia and China feel that they were taken for a ride in Libya and
say: “never again!”?
The petition sees the events in Syria as an “extension
of the Zapatista revolt in Mexico, the landless movement in Brazil, the
European and North American revolts against neoliberal exploitation, and
an echo of Iranian, Russian and Chinese movements for freedom.”, but
they are careful not to link them to the anti-imperialist governments in
Latin America, since the latter stand squarely against foreign
interventions and for the respect of national sovereignty.
Finally, what should make anybody think that the
“immediate” departure of Bashar al-Assad would lead to a “free, unified
and independent Syria”? Aren’t the examples of Iraq and Libya enough to
cast some doubts on such optimistic pronouncements?
That brings us to a second problem with the petition,
which is its tendency towards revolutionary romanticism. The present-day
Western Left is the first to denounce the “Stalinist” regimes of the
past, including those of Mao, Kim Il Sung or Pol Pot. But do they forget
that Lenin fought against tsarism, Stalin against Hitler, Mao against
the Kuomintang, Kim Il Sung against the Japanese and that the last two
ones, as well as Pol Pot, fought against the U.S.? If history should
have thought us anything, it is that struggling against oppression does
not necessarily turn you into a saint. And given that so many violent
revolutions of the past have turned sour, what reason is there to
believe that the “revolution” in Syria, increasingly taken over by
religious fanatics, will emerge as a shining example of freedom and
democracy?
There have been repeated offers of negotiations by
“Russia, China and Iran”, as well as from the “Assad regime” with the
opposition as well as with its sponsors (the “U.S. and its Gulf
allies”). Shouldn’t one give peace and diplomacy a chance? The “Syrian
regime” has modified its constitution; why be so certain that this
cannot lead a “democratic future”, while a violent revolution can?
Shouldn’t one give reform a chance?
However, the main defect of this petition, as well as
with similar appeals from the humanitarian interventionist Left in the
past, is: to whom are they talking? The rebels in Syria want as many
sophisticated weapons as possible- no signatory of the petition can
deliver them, and it is hard to see how the “global civil society, not
ineffective and manipulative governments” can do it. Those rebels want Western governments
to provide them with such weapons-they couldn’t care less what the
Western Left thinks. And those Western government hardly know that the
wishful thinking Left even exists. And if they did, why would they
listen to people with no serious popular support, and so no means of
pressuring governments? The best proof of that is given by the cause to
which so many signatories have devoted a good part of their lives:
Palestine. Which Western government pays any attention to the demands of
the “Palestine solidarity movement”?
Just because the petition has no effect in Syria does not mean that it has no effect tout court.
It weakens and confuses what is left of antiwar sentiments, by
stressing that “our” priority must be empty gestures of solidarity with a
rebellion that is already militarily supported by the West. Once this
mindset is acquired, it becomes psychologically difficult to oppose U.S.
intervention in the internal affairs of Syria, since intervention is
precisely what the revolutionaries that we must “support” want
(apparently, they have not noticed, unlike the petitioners, that the
West wants to “crush and subvert the uprising”). Of course, defenders of
the petition will say that they don’t “support” the more violent
extremists in Syria, but who exactly are they supporting then, and how?
Moreover, the false impression that the “world powers have left the
Syrian people alone” (while, in fact, there is a constant flood of arms
and jihadists into Syria) comes partly from the fact that the U.S. is
not foolish enough to risk a World War, given that Russia seems to mean
what it says in this affair. The thought that we might be on the brink
of a World War never seems to occur to the petitioners.
Defenders of the petition will probably say that “we” must denounce both U.S. imperialism and
the oppressive regimes against which the “people” revolt. But that only
shows the depth of their delusions: why claim doing two things at once,
when one is not capable of doing either, even partly?
If such petitions are worse than doing nothing, what
should the Left do? First of all, mind its own business, which means
struggling at home. This is a lot harder than expressing a meaningless
solidarity with people in faraway lands. And struggling for what? Peace
through demilitarization of the West, a non-interventionist policy, and
putting diplomacy, not military threats, at the center of international
relations. Incidentally, a non-interventionist policy is advocated by
the libertarians and by the paleoconservative Right. This fact, plus
invocation of pre-World War II history (the Spanish civil war, the
Munich agreements), is constantly used by the Left to give
anti-interventionism a bad name. But this is silly: Hitler is not really
being constantly resurrected, and there are no serious military threats
faced by the West. In the present situation, it is a perfectly
legitimate concern of American citizens to cut back the costs of Empire.
In fact, it would be perfectly possible to set up a
broad Left-Right coalition of people opposed to militarism and
interventionism. Of course, within that coalition, people might still
disagree on Gay marriage but, important as this issue may be, it should
perhaps not prevent us from working together on issues that might also
seem important to some people, such as World peace, the defense of the
U.N. and of international law, and the dismantling of the U.S. empire of
bases. Besides, it is not unlikely that a majority of the American
public could be gained to such positions if sustained and well organized
campaigns were set up to persuade them.
But of course, the spirit of the petition goes exactly
in the opposite direction, towards more U.S. involvement and
interventions. Many signatories certainly think of themselves as
anti-imperialists and pro-peace, and some of them have had an important
role in opposing previous U.S. wars. But they do not seem to have
noticed that the tactics of imperialism have changed since the days of
the national liberation movements. Now, that decolonization is complete
(with the exception of Palestine), the U.S. is attacking governments,
not revolutionary movements, that are considered to be too independent.
And, in order to do that, they use a variety of means that are similar in their tactics
to the revolutionary or progressive movements of the past: armed
struggle, civil disobedience, government funded “N”GO’s, colored
revolutions, etc.
The latest example of these tactics is the attempt by
Western governments to use the LGBT community as ideological storm
troopers against Russia and the Winter Olympics, in a transparent effort
to deflect public attention from the embarrassing fact that, in the
Snowden affair, it is Russia and not the U.S. that is on the side of
freedom. It is to be feared that the humanitarian interventionist Left
will jump on the bandwagon of this new crusade. Yet, as Gilad Atzmon
has pointed out, with his usual slightly provocative style, it is
unlikely that this will do any good to the LGBT community in Russia,
since this sort of support allows their opponents to brand them as
bearers of foreign influence. It is not a good idea for any minority,
anywhere in the world, to be seen as agents of a foreign power, and
least of all, of a government so hated for its arrogance and its
interventionism as the present U.S. administration. And incidentally,
the people who call for boycott of the Winter games in Russia had no
objection to holding the Olympic games in London, which implies that, in
their eyes, taking anti-gay measures is a serious crime, whereas wars
in Afghanistan and Iraq are mere peccadillos.
People who succumb to the illusions of revolutionary
romanticism or who side with the apparent underdog, regardless of the
underdog’s agenda, are being taken in by the tactics of present-day
imperialism. But those who aspire to a more peaceful and more just world
order, and who think that a precondition of this order is the weakening
of U.S. imperialism, easily see through this camouflage. These two
different world views divide both the Left and the Right: liberal
interventionists and neoconservatives on one side, libertarians,
paleoconservatives and traditional leftists on the other, and it may
call for new and heterodox alliances.
JEAN BRICMONT teaches physics at the University of Louvain in Belgium. He is author of Humanitarian Imperialism. He can be reached at Jean.Bricmont@uclouvain.be
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