on reading between the lines-Libya

revolutionary socialists always need to read betweeen the lines in relation to text and any other media.this requires the application of our critical faculties and is rarely an easy task although i never expect it to be.whilst we might apply these faculties and skills to varying degrees to the media of their class and ours but we should always apply them and think for ourselves.we can always ask questions,and sometimes neither we nor our interlocutors will know the answers or be prepared to own them.

im finding current british television news both confusedand confusing.some of that is unsurprising as the siuation and life itself is inevitably confusing.some of the nwes and/or the media reporting it is just plain daft,bizarre or plain and simple confusing.

yesterday a story began to emerge that at face value seems to amount to a small british "diplomatic mission" landing in the desert south of benghazi in free,liberated libya from a helicopter at 0200-0300 hours local time from a helicopter.the 6-8 men said to be from MI6 and the SAS and/or SBS{external security,special air service,special boat service respectively.

they were "met" by 1-2 others,and taken to a nearby compound where the guard on duty arrested the party.when searched this diplomatic advance guard were armed with guns and explosives.they also had papers claiming their visit was approved.

whether the libyans who initially acted were civilians,scared or not,or volunteer revolutionary mmilitia or professional soldiers now in the service of free libya,their judgements seems beyond questions at least in the sense of being completely reasonable and responsible behaviour.

the british share seems to be presenting a view that this was a mistake,in which this advance party were looking for a hotel!

i can only imagine the local perspective-seeing anunch of forigners coming out of the darkness and who the were found to be armed and with forged papers.

were the britsh press reporting certain other participants in certain other locations,questions about connections to al-queada,the taliban or others would be pinned to such "terrorism".i could not possibly comment myself!

at the very least this act of stupidity places libyans at immediate risk.it also helps prop up quadaffi in demonstrating foreign intervention that the colonel has been allegging anyway.

it may be tha case that the british home secretary or a diplomatic consulted with quadaffi or his aides about where best to land in liberated libya.so the criticism cuts both ways against british involvement.

its about time the british state stopped pretending it can keepup with "the big boys"in international diplomacy-more properly called bullying self interest.the days of gun boat diplomacy when the mere threat of sending a small british warship would bear imperialist results.the last time was probably 1956 and the anglo-french suez adventure.for those with a taste for historical memories such recollection can only bring bad tastes and nightmares

the usa may well have several of its giant aircraft carriers in the region presently but even that "threat"will work differently to gunboat diplomacy of the past.

there is more and worse,that is already more than hinted in this international diploacy.it is imperialism.i will return to this theme on another occassion.

the interest of the libyand people and the working class and others in britain has nothing in common with the gun boat diplommacy or any of it variants.its miserable failure on this occassion may heighten the dangers for libyans directly and immediately.in might rebound in britqain too.but it also offers the chance to break with the nonsensical abstractions of the british state "punching above its weight".it is no longer a great power.perhaps we can realise that this is a danger to order and peace and socialismm of a qualitatively different and real kind.in seeing britain for what it is,a little island on the coast of europe,a tin pot monarchy that acts like mickey mouse in disneyland.

the interests of libyans and british people has nothing in common with the british state.

we need to find ways to support libyan resistance and to develop our own.this should not involve the intervention of any foreign state in libya or the region,except explicitly at the demand of the revolutionary socilaist forces and working class of libya and the region.

perhaps we should however,be thinking of the role of and experienced and skilled international brigade instead under workers control her and there.

Hands off libya.NO state inteventions in libya!

lost
07/03/2011

please excuse the variation i have made to an old english maxim,as it serves my purpose in what follows.

revolutionary socialists need to excercise caution as well as being sharp in their thinking.there is always plenty of room for mistakes.we all make the and that includes myself.

i ean more than the typos that have crept too frequently into y powstings for which i apologize.i was thinking more at this time about the need for sharp and precise language.

in comparing events and the political economiespolis of north africa and britain/europe for example its all too easy to fall into linguistic traps that reproduce the relationships and language of imperialism/neo-colonialism.

it is quite difficult to avoid.it would be all too easy to compare the 2 geo-political areas as if one or other were in some way beter or worse.describing difference is not adequate either because there are also strong parrallels and siilarities.

the difference in brutality might be only skin deep,the degree and form of repression might be closer than at first appears.im sure a re-reading of thinkers like herbert marcuse and others might be relevant here.

the oppressive libyan regime is clearly willing to use whatever tricks and force are neccessary to enforce its will and will not allow human rights or life and limb to get in the way.its tempting to think that would never happen here but history,contemporary and even more recent show it to be otherwise.i mean the 20th century and recent years,the immediate past respectively.

the 1919 police strike in merseyside,the 1945 use of troops against dockworkers not long after the elction of a labour government coe to mind.then the use of the forces of the state against the miners in 1984-5 and in the poll tax strugle come to mind.john charles de meneses was gunned down at point blank range on a tube train when poliec were seeking terrorists,2 men seriously injured and arrested in simmilar circumstances in wanstead east london some years ago,and years on a newspaper seller not in any way involved in a demonstration was killed when pushed by a police officer.

i suppose it might be said that the north african regimes might be described as more desperate but some of the british examples alos illustrate fear and anxiety if not desperation.this view seems to be reinforced by adissions or demonstrations of stupidity emerge from britain-like admissions that the security services ade serious mistakes resulting in the deaths of civilians as a result of the 7/7 bus bombings or indeed the fiasco over recent days involving "diplomats"visiting libya.

in socialist registers 2009 issue focusaed on violence in all its forms highlighted in an article on britain how 1000 civilian deaths in policecustody or care had resulted in not a single conviction.this was copared with coverage of 30 police officer deaths within a decade are always presented as "the end of civilisation"even though something around only 15% were diurectly attributable to civilan violence or public unrest.ost of the deaths resulted from heart attacks on duty,road accidents or falling from helicopters.that article went on to explore the way industrial deaths simply fall off any accounting of violence or justice.although recent legal changes relating to coporate homicide might make adiffrenec,i am not aware of the impact,although certainly recent and planned cuts in the HSE/health and sarfety executive will downplay insutrial injury,which is always related to the means of production,even further,where workers will simmply enter worplaces as if there were no such laws at all.

all of this might indicate that there might be asubstantive difference between the 2 regions in that the "older","ore complete/detailed"or "decadent"societies reflect social complexities that hide and disguise the brutality of other regimes.however sophisticated marxist analysis has become in describing the complexities of capitalist societies it remmaisn true thyat metaphorically and literally the state can be reduced to a "body of armed"men which will use force.

it may also be the case that ore overtly authoritarian and autocratic societies has immpats on the class structure and on civil society which both limits the lines and routes of social developemnt and impacts on the proportions of class structure that both rigidifies society and deprives it of the layers of civil society.

it sees to mme that the so-called advanced socities might acquire a flexibilty that enables them to disguise and mystify the realities of social structure where power is not shared throughout but simply divided between institutions that appear different by slcing reality ever more thinly and creating diustance between those layers of relaity that copound the mystification.they will be functional and ystifying until places in crisis.he very complexity and competitive nature and values of that society do however create as well as liiting opportunities for change.the edifice is coplex but not monolithic.

in a time that ay well be barbaric as well as complex we need to sharpen our vigilance to identify the contradictiosn and go beyond them.

the giants of our tradition give us some key pointers but we need to both build on them and operate critically.for example whilst gyorgy lukacs notion of false consciousness is important it can also be misunderstood.it doe snot reduce soe or indeed any of social reality to illusion.

it might be better to identify the features of the contradictions that can be exposed.this might help in understanding the different attitudes to and experiences of democracy in various parts of the world.

-to be continued-

lost
09/03/2011