The Thought Behind the Act, Code Pink And US "leftists"

The Thought Behind the Act, Code Pink And US "leftists"
http://revolutionaryflowerpot.blogspot.com/2009/10/thought-behind-act.html

Sunday, October 11, 2009
The Thought Behind the Act
There has been some concern voiced over the conditional support given by leading members of Code Pink to the continued presence of foreign occupying forces in Afghanistan. In their estimation, the departure of occupying forces would create a vacuum, which is most likely to be filled by Taliban, a most horrid (at least, short term) outcome and something that Code Pink leaders, after talking to some Afghan citizens, have determined to be an unpopular outcome.

However, maybe instead of focusing on political behavior of certain famous activists, more attention needs to be paid to the political mentality/thought/ideology/etc. that drives such behavior. It will be more productive to ask: What is the political thinking that drives a Medea Benjamin, or anybody else, to a particularly shaky political behavior?

A while ago, Code Pink organized a trip to Iran. I wrote something in response to what I perceived was their (let's say) less-than-observant way of going about it (see here).

They had intended to conduct a 'citizen diplomats' kind of trip, in which they would go to Iran and talk to ordinary people to see what was happening 'on the ground', so to speak. Their visit was facilitated by the issuance of a visa that had been helped through at the orders of Ahmadinejad, which came in response to the request by Code Pink activists for a visa, in a cordial meeting that had been arranged for Ahmadinejad to meet, greet and discourse with some American anti-war/peace activists, in New York City, the previous time that clownish butcher was in the U.S., in September 2008, to attend the UN general assembly.

As it turned out, when Code Pink arrived in Iran, they were led by Iranian government agents and lobbyists (one being Rostam Pourzal), so they mostly met with government ministers and parliamentarians, etc. as well as the people they would run into while in restaurants, cafes, or while shopping, etc. If they met with any Iranian women's rights activists, student or labor activist, anti-stoning activists, anti-death-penalty-for-minors activists, or any dissidents whomever, it is unknown. But, from what Code Pink's reports from Iran (on their blog) indicate, it is clear that there was very little activist-to-real people contact between Code Pink and Iranian activists.

Understandably, most such activists in Iran are in jail, and I suppose a request by Code Pink activists to visit any political prisoners in Iran would have been considered rude by the Iranian hosts (mostly government people); and of course, it is impolite to offend your hosts, even if they are members of a ruthlessly oppressive government that jails any dissidents not-yet-jailed and with utter impunity tortures and even rapes them (as the whole world has now realized about what the Iranian people have been living with, for thirty miserable years). The fact that some in the American left can sit and have pleasant discourse with such a crowd, again, is indicative of a political mentality, whose limits of tolerance can be stretched depending on too many incidental factors; not a very reliable type of thinking if you want to create a better world free of bullies.

So, what is that mentality? It is the mentality that fixes its gaze only at the discourse of power and the powerful. It assumes that politics is only about official politicians, and whatever they say or do. In this mentality, the most important factor, that which is at the heart of all politics, the people, is a mere abstraction; a placeholder in some formulae. And in all these formulae, the people are always a function of the will and the plans of the powerful, and not independent actors. People don't have agency, and can't really change their history. People don't determine anything. They are mere sheep to be herded. They are fools and shall remain so. They need to be told what's best for them. The attitude is identical with the views held by conservatives.

Since people are powerless, this view of politics must by force of its logic conclude that only the powerful matter. So, their intended audience is as much the powerful as it is others of their own ranks (other activists; again, not the people). Hence, all the contradictory moves.

If all that matters is the will of the powerful, it follows that such leftists must intervene only at that top level, and lacking any real, organic ties to the ruling elites, they take it upon themselves to become uninvited advisor types for the power setup; of course, providing advice from a more humane angle, from a more progressive perspective, since such left-seeming humans are the personification of the best of intentions doing their best to persuade the powerful and their functionaries and planners to, for goodness' sake, act more rationally.

As if the powerful do things just randomly and with no rationale, bumbling their way this way and that, in need of being advised by the well intended yet the naive. The powerful act according to their own interests and according to the rationality that keeps their power and privilege unchallenged. Pure and simple. The kind of advice they do need, they get from people who share their interests and intentions, and would be far more equipped to give better and more practical advice than any leftist would ever be able to give them.

This political mentality is shared by a lot of American and European leftists, as well as leftists in the global south. It has been revealing itself very clearly for some time now, as relates to the close connection that some on this kind of left have felt between themselves and an obscurantist, reactionary theocratic dictatorship in Iran that stands against every single principle held dear by true leftists, by true democrats and true revolutionaries all over the world. The rationale runs along a well-established Cold War mentality of 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend'. This outlook has no independent principles that would guide it through the especially troubled waters through which our human and global social history is traveling right now. The only things weighed as the key, determining factors in their calculations is what the powerful have to say; be they international bullies or local bullies of the Iranian, Afghan, Burmese, Saudi, or you-name-it variety. If the big bully in the US says that a local bully called the Islamic Republic, for example, shouldn't have nuclear weapons, these leftists conclude that nuclear weapons are the best thing to be had (see my more elaborated argument against the nuclear industry in Iran, here, and here).

And, speaking of which, did you notice how quickly the entire issue of human rights, the tortures, the disappearances, the rapes and the killings and the whole theocratic dictatorship suffocating Iranians, and hence their revolt, was brushed aside by these same leftists, so as to make room for that all familiar discourse on the nuclear issue; familiar grounds for those adept at reminding all about the rights and obligations dictated and guaranteed by (the imperialist dictated) Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty? Straight back to the discourse set up by the powerful and their institutions. Back to the comfortable grounds, where supposedly no mistakes can be made even while paving a side street to hell, to an explicit endorsement of a nuclear weapons race, and the utter wasting of precious social resources of the global south on a mad proposition.

In short, simply because the western left has failed to create a real deterrent in their own societies, through mass organizing, against imperialist plundering (either economically, or politico-militarily) by their governments and corporations around the world, they expect the peoples of the global south too to abdicate all demands and just move right along with the plans these generous leftists have ever so carefully put together for us, plans which are inadvertently based on a logic dictated by the powerful.

This political line of thinking took even a nastier twist vis-à-vis the events surrounding the Iranian uprising that followed the electoral coup in June of this year. Entire swaths of the American left went along with the coup regime's propaganda, claiming that the massive rage felt by the people against brutality, this massive and millions-strong movement against thirty years of oppression, was all concocted by the CIA! One week after the electoral coup, my articles (representing the socialist/communist perspective within the Iranian opposition, a perspective that stands with the people) were universally blocked and denied publication by most the websites that had for the previous three to five years been posting my writings: Counterpunch, Dissident Voice, Online Journal and others refused to publish my pieces, while at the same time giving ample space to pieces spreading Iranian regime's propaganda (such as articles by the former Reagan administration official, Paul Craig Roberts, or by James Petras, et. al.).

While ordinary citizens protesting peacefully in the streets (practicing a most basic human right) were being arrested by the thousands, disappeared by the hundreds into secret prisons, tortured brutally, raped and killed, many 'leftist' websites were busy propagating Iranian regime's lies. The worst offenders were MRZine, World Socialist Website and the Workers World Party (sic.). MRZine in particular has been supporting this most fascistic faction of the regime ever since Ahmadinejad came to power in 2005, providing at times twisted, at times just plain bizarre, apologies/justifications for some of the crimes committed by the Islamic 'Republic' against the Iranian people.

Antiwar.com, by contrast, could at least muster enough creativity to go half way, but no cigars there either. They would post articles supporting the Moussavi faction (i.e., one of the factions of the regime), but no articles representing the people's side, most of whose demands go way beyond those tolerated by the regime's reformists; most people in Iran want nothing short of a complete replacement of the brutality, and all its legal structures ruling over them in the name of god. In one email exchange, I finally had to remind one of the editors of Antiwar.com that their publication is supposed to be a libertarian one, which means they should be standing with the people (and should therefore publish articles presenting people's views and demands) and not with different factions of a power elite (the view represented by the articles they were posting). The particular editor had no reply to my objection, but the editorial articles they continued to post reflected the same bias. I guess they did give an answer!

So, again, it is the mentality, and this particular mentality seems to have a lot of currency, in all corners of the American left. Is not the Monthly Review a publication with tons more leftist credibility than Code Pink could ever build? The history of that publication is rich with insightful perspectives and revolutionary ideas. Yet, look at their position on Iran.

But, the people do matter. The whole structure of modern world capitalist system is based on their exploitation, and all manner of soft and hard power is brought to the task of keeping the people down by any means available. So, building real solidarity with other people under attack, whether by world powers or by local bullies or both, is the only way forward for anybody who is fighting for real social justice and equality anywhere.

Instead of wasting so much rhetorical, organizational and social energies on how to give the best advice to imperialist planners (who couldn't care less about such advice anyway), we must be discussing and searching for ways to build real networks of support. If any individual, publication and/or organization, e.g., Code Pink or the good folk at Antiwar.com, etc., really wants to do something that CAN make a real difference for better in Afghanistan, why not use their resources and connections, etc., to hook up with, say, Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA)? Or, to get back to that Iran trip by Code Pink, what's to be learned from being led around different ministries and the parliament, dining with a dictatorial regime's lackeys or government-introduced people, all the while writing rosy reports from Iran about how wonderful it all is, while they should have been demanding of their hosts to be allowed to visit women activists held in Iran's medieval prison system, for the 'crime' of collecting signatures for a petition that would demand legal equality between men and women? Judge for yourself; which is true solidarity building and doing something positive, and which mere sightseeing?

If I were to suspend politeness for a moment, I would characterize a whole range of North American leftist outfits as political trading posts; or, as we characterize such in Farsi, dokoon (shop, or store). This is the left that historically has always had one foot in the establishment; at least ideologically, and in the sense that it accepts all the terms of debate in all the debates determined as permitted discourse, by the establishment, and merely reverses whatever the dominant discourse says, and calls it 'analysis'. It makes perfect sense then that during the Cold War, this very mentality failed so miserably to play a historically progressive role while they busied themselves for decades explaining away any and all crimes and misdemeanors committed by 'our own SOBs', in the process forgetting what they were supposed to be fighting for in the first place. By now, that lazy intellectual habit has become a full-fledged and deeply rooted philosophical trait; even an orthodoxy.

This left has always been mesmerized by power and the games played by the powerful, and forever desirous of taking over power. It still is. It yearns to participate in the wielding of power from above, and it yearns to prove that it can do it better, faster, more efficiently, in one hundred-percent upgraded fashion, and more humanely. This thinking lacks any sense of what's really needed to be done at this complex historical juncture; to take power back. To disarm the powerful. To deny the powerful their power. And all of it done through social organizing.

Due to its incapability to offer any useful analysis or plan of action, this tendency is naturally forever forced to beg in order to survive, since their own continued existence becomes the stand-in for real social movements; their mere survival becomes the focal reason for any and all social activities. In time, fundraising schedule becomes as busy (if not thrice as busy) as social activities schedule, a lot of which are likewise exercises in self-promotion, of selling a book or something; not an effort in propagating sound principles of institutionalized justice and useful practical solutions for organizing any of the numerous outrages that exist and are simmering away, just underneath the surface, in the society. This kind of left fails to connect with the people even when a ready-made millions-strong social movement of the people hits the streets of their own societies; such as that of the undocumented immigrants in the U.S. who took to the streets in millions.

* * *

There is only one way out. People to people solidarity, and building networks of support to, say, enable the Afghan women to fight back their oppressors, to enable Afghan farmers and workers to do likewise, or to raise money (if you want to raise money not just for yourself, but for a real social act) for a workers' strike fund in Iran, in Iraq, or in Burma, or building connections between university students in the U.S. and student activists in Iran, China, and beyond.

If I have to plead with a person to stand with the people while the people are being disappeared into horrid torture camps by the thousands, while being senselessly beaten by the hundreds and some even raped, and killed by a government that has zero accountability to the people, if I have to implore an editor who considers her/himself leftist to stop spreading the lies of the people's killers, their torturers and rapists, then, you have to admit, something fundamental is missing. In such cases, they are not even good liberals; forget other more progressive adjectives.

The real reason such leftists don't think along healthier lines is that they don't have any base in popular organizations of workers in their societies. Real radicals with connections to, or with deep appreciation of the labor movement in the U.S. (e.g., Steve Zeltzer, Louis Proyect, et. al.) were the first to announce their unambiguous support for the Iranian people's uprising in June. They reacted instinctively and needed no nudging at all.

I must mention before ending that, to its credit, Code Pink did stand with the Iranian people in the wake of the electoral coup in Iran and the uprising that took place quickly after the Khamenei- Ahmadinejad declaration of an absolutist dictatorship. So, people active in the pursuit of social justice, if sincere, cannot be reduced to purely this or purely that, either.

This proves to me, at least, that acts of real solidarity, backed by political clarity, do exist and that they provide the practical negation of the pretend-left's impotence. Since a clear-sighted left does exist, I for one am thankful that its representatives are active, and I suspect they are everywhere.

So, let's concentrate on the positives and spread them: each time there is a popular and inspiring uprising anywhere in the world, it inevitably washes off to the side some inept, lazy leftists who have nothing but cynicism to offer. Such revolutionary leaps also clear the air for more refreshing ideas, more creative expressions and plans for solidarity, and for real radical elements to connect and build the foundation stones for a true alternative.
Posted by RFS at 3:03 PM