Imperialisms Open the Borders Footsoldiers
A Marxist Critique of the MWG Summer 'Camp' 1999
Despite the fact that the invitation to participate in the MWG SummerbCamp occurred prior to the outbreak of the NATO war on Yugoslavia and
airtickets were purchased accordingly it appears that prior to the arrival of the writer, the invitation was withdrawn. Hence the waiting at the airport, the non-appearance of the writer from the official programme of the camp (which coincidentally was circulated one day before the ´camp´started) and finally the successful attempt at not
allowing a contribution...
A summer camp if it to mean anything other than the same group of individuals discussing the same ideas and slogans like Sunday school
preachers (build a revolutionary party, the crisis of workers leadership etc) which invites people from other countries should expect people to have different political histories. Unfortunately we live in strange times where peoples actions aren´t determined by honest political debate, but by subterfuge, dishonesty and an overriding
attempt to straightjaqcket any debate which doesn´t fit into Clintons ´New world Order´.
Hence people who support the Serbs struggle against imperialist intervention and occupation are deemed fanatical nationalists because
they also oppose the imperialist slogan 'Open the Borders'. As if the borders in the Balkans were closed, as if the population transfers of
the last decade haven´t de facto opened the borders and finally as if a group of burnt out ´marxists´living in Detroit, USA need to explain to
us that Greece´s borders are closed and we need to fly all the way to the USA to understand this!!
When it was pointed out that the situation in Detroit from a political and social perspective resembled features of a neo-fascistic
dictatorship (no political opposition, slave-labout conditions, imprisonment of over 2 million people, corporate unions, prison schools) one was told to not confuse form with content. As if the form
isn´t a by-product of the content and as if fascism (in its classical Hitlerite form) is the only one which will re-emerge. Taking into account the inter-imperialist divisions in the interwar years which led to a growth of a nationalist Germany and the total opposite in todays world where we have the unity of the imperialist powers against the working peoples of the entire world.
As if the American world order, ie. the dominanace of transnational corporations with slave-labour conditions isn´t the modern neo-fascist
form which imperialism is using as a means to get out of its historical death agony and impasse.
When the Serbs produced classic photo-montages of Clinton slowly turning into Hitler and NATO´s airforce flying in the formation of a swastika and this was played and re-played on Serb TV, what are we to say: nationalist Serbs opposing once more the Opening of their Borders for and behalf of transnational capital?
What became clear from our brief exchanges was that the MWG is big on labels and low on content. However 'marxist' you tend to appear on
paper siding with the Serbs (with a whole host of conditions and after the even of war not prior) you are essentially pro-American and anyone
who dares criticise the Empire is an old fashioned nationalist whom the predominantly Black soldiers (from Detroit maybe) will Open Up... in more ways than one, one may add.
American self-prolaimed marxists who refuse to stand shoulder to shoulder with those whom the American Empire in its mortal death agony
is trampling upon and who refuse to assert that Amerikkka is imposing an international dictatorship alongside its other imperialist partners have nothing to say either to their own workers or to workers abroad.
The idea which circulated from the cde. from New York that American interventions have occurred before particularly in Central America and
the Carribean and that this type of intervention is nothing new, fail to understand or comprehend the immensity of the imperialist agenda, or
more precisely ignoring it in the hope that it will go away.
Yugoslavia is the test, if successful, Russia and China are next. Not being futile pessimists or ardent supporters of NATO´s new 'humanitarian' order, we believe resistance is inevitable and as we do not have the means of political power we do not prescribe beforehand the nature and type of resistance fitting it into neatly pre-defined
schemas learnt from textbooks. The people in Serbia who stepped on American flags which were put by shopkeepers in the entrance to their
stores or those who drank in bars which were re-named 'Fuck the New World Order' are the embodiment of the future not the past. And our
critique of the regime in Serbia isn´'t that it is nationalist, on the contrary we believe it is consciously anti-nationalist doing everything
in its power to aid the imperialist advance. If the regime was even nominally nationalist it would have fought to bring NATO down. How one
might add? Invade Albanis and attack US airbases in Italy as well as asking the populations of Albania, Italy and Greece to take up arms
against the imperialists. This was obviously beyond the limits of bureaucratic rule and it posed the question if America loses (and this
was a high possibility) who will replace its world role? Bankrupt stalinism? We think not.
In conclusion one may add today´s world isn't one where a small group of cdes from imperialist centres whose political views are conditioned
by the environment they live under (and the USA is the dominant imperialist power) can actually hold political weight unless they themselves are clear as to the period we are in. Sadly this does not
appear to be the case.
fraternally,
V.N. Gelis
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