LIBYA: “Liberal Intervention” and the Left.

What is the objective of the British, French and US NATO military intervention in Libya? The UN security council resolution under which it operates, sanctions the defence of civilians against attacks by Gaddafi’s armed forces. It does not sanction regime change. At the time of writing (15 April) it is apparent that the divisions within the NATO camp have not been resolved. Neither is there any unity about objectives amongst the countries of the Arab League or the African Union. Until a few days ago it looked as though the Obama administration was determined to scale back US involvement, but this has now changed. Obama, Sarkozy and Cameron have declared that they will pursue military action until Gaddafi is toppled. It is almost certain that their declaration will further fracture this fissiparous alliance. When security council resolution 1973 was passed on 17 March, those promoting it seem to have imagined that a short, sharp shock aimed at Gaddafi’s forces then poised to capture the rebel stronghold of Benghazi, would suffice to turn the fortunes of war quickly in favour of the insurrectionists who would then resume their triumphant march on Tripoli. It was assumed that the ”no fly zone” would be enough to tip the balance and enable the rebels to deliver the coup de grace against the regime. It has not turned out that way.

It is not possible to predict how things will turn out in Libya. The various pressures on the regime may still hasten its downfall in the shorter rather than the longer term – within weeks perhaps. But this is far from certain. Particularly in light of the Iraq debacle it is going to be difficult for the Anglo-French-US protagonists to convince the more skeptical amongst their associates that the terms of resolution 1973 can be stretched to support regime change. Should they fail to do so, they will require another resolution from the security council and it is unlikely that the Russians and the Chinese will be prepared to support this. Then there is the question of the organization, unity and capacity of the rebels. Even if they receive the arms they need, are they capable of using them to the necessary effect? There is some indication that that underground oppositionist forces in Tripoli are stepping up attacks on the regime there, but the reports are unreliable. It is difficult to assess how much real support Gaddafi still enjoys in the capital. It is certainly a lot less than the regime’s propagandists would have us believe, but it is hardly negligible. Unless there are further large-scale defections, including from the armed forces, Gaddafi appears to be capable of sitting it out for quite some time. And that poses a real problem for the rebels and their NATO supporters. In openly committing themselves to regime change they are delivering a hostage to fortune. Should they fail to gain the degree of support they need in NATO and if the UN fails to deliver a second resolution, are the British, French and the US prepared to proceed regardless? If so, how will they proceed? Air power alone cannot achieve the desired objective. It is already apparent that the NATO strikes have resulted in growing numbers of civilian deaths, including amongst the rebel fighters they are supposed to be defending. Will combat forces be sent in to support the rebels? If so, it will be in breach of resolution 1973. Following Iraq and Afghanistan, how will this be received in the Arab and Muslim world?

The perception that the Western intervention is motivated by the need to ensure continued control of Libya’s oil resources is already widespread. When Gaddafi asserts that this is indeed the case, he speaks to a sympathetic audience beyond his frontiers. Libya’s experience of Western colonialism stretching back over one hundred years, may not be of much concern to Europeans or Americans, but it resonates with many in the former colonies of France, Italy and Britain. The claims of “liberal interventionists” to be motivated solely by the need to protect the innocent from the brutalities of rampaging dictators, or from the stifling repression of autocratic despots, seem completely hypocritical given the selective nature of their interventions. It is reasonable to ask, why Libya? Or, if Libya, why not Yemen, or Syria – or, indeed, Saudi Arabia? And, of course, if the answer should be that it is all a matter of degree and the urgent need to prevent a bloodbath, or genocide, then the obvious response is, why (as in the case of Saudi Arabia and elsewhere) continue to supply arms to the despots, enabling them to snuff out any hint of dissent from their long-suffering people. It is crystal clear that the choice of candidates for “liberal intervention” is primarily a matter of “realpolitik”: we intervene when and where it is considered to be in our national interest to do so. This goes back a long way. In the 1870’s Disraeli’s realpolitik trumped Gladstone’s moral-liberal appeal to intervene against the Ottomans’ massacre of Greek Christians in the Balkans. Turkey was a bulwark against Russian expansion, which threatened the British Empire, so it was necessary to turn a blind eye to the atrocities.

However, the case of Libya poses some difficult questions. It is almost certainly true that prior to March 17. Gaddafi was poised to crush the rebels in their Benghazi stronghold. The balance of military forces was decisively in his favour. Everyone who had been inspired by the rolling Arab revolution, which had already resulted in the ousting of Ben Ali in Tunisia and Mubarak in Egypt, was filled with apprehension at the very real prospect of the Libyan uprising being crushed. Gaddafi’s eccentricities and self-proclaimed revolutionary credentials could not disguise the fact that his was a brutally repressive regime that tolerated no dissent. His close relations with radical forces and governments in Latin America and his association with left-wing anti-imperialist forces in the Third World, in no way excuses the deeply repressive nature of his regime. Does it follow from this that supporters of the revolutionary movement in the Arab world should have supported the Western intervention?

In attempting to address this question it may be instructive to consider it within a broader context: in what circumstances, if at all, may it be justifiable to intervene militarily in another country’s affairs? One possible answer is that it is justifiable only if such intervention is authorized by the United Nations – that is, by a vote in the security council. An obvious problem with this is that the use of the veto by any of the permanent members can (and frequently has) prevented action. Those who consider the UN to be the only legitimate voice of “the international community” will accept this as the best of a bad job. Opponents of the Iraq war argued persuasively that, in the absence of a UN resolution specifically sanctioning the invasion, the war was illegal. That was the view of the great majority of international lawyers. The mass demonstrations against the war stressed its illegality. It would have not have been so easy to mobilize such a broad-based opposition had there been a clear-cut UN vote for military intervention. It is significant that the Stop the War coalition has been unable to muster any substantial support against the NATO intervention in Libya. An obvious reason for this is that the Left is fully behind the revolutionary movements in the Arab world and supports the opposition to the Gaddafi regime. But this has resulted in a dilemma. It was clear that the internal opposition in Libya was not capable of achieving there what had been achieved in Tunisia and Egypt. By early March there was no doubt that without some form of outside assistance the rebels would be defeated and there could be little doubt about the nature of the fate that awaited them in Benghazi.

In a rare appearance on BBC Television’s Newsnight, Noam Chomsky, interviewed by Jeremy Paxman, was asked whether he would support intervention by the Western powers in support of the rebels. He said that he would not. When asked why not, he replied that the rebels had not requested outside support. The implication of his answer was that had they requested it, his answer might have been different. Shortly afterwards, they made clear that they would welcome support from NATO. Almost certainly Chomsky’s view, shared by most on the Left, is that military intervention by US imperialism and NATO should always be opposed because it is always motivated by self interest – that is, the interests of corporate capitalism. This is a very persuasive argument strongly supported by much historical evidence. However, it does not adequately address the situation in Libya at the beginning of March. It can be stated in stark terms: if the alternatives are (a) the complete defeat of the insurrection and a likely counter-revolutionary bloodbath, or (b) a NATO military intervention which prevents this and restores the initiative to the rebels, what should be the response of those who support the Arab revolution? This is the dilemma that faces the Left.

Is anything to be learned from the history of the twentieth century? There have been many situations where the Left has called for and supported military intervention to further progressive causes. In 1932 Leon Trotsky, then in exile after his expulsion from Soviet Russia, argued that, in the event of a Nazi seizure of power in Germany, the Red Army should intervene to overthrow a fascist regime that would be a mortal enemy of the working class and the Soviet Union. During the Spanish Civil War the Left condemned the non-intervention policy of the British and French governments and demanded that they respond to the appeal of the Spanish republic for military aid. In 1978 the Left supported Tanzanian intervention to topple Idi Amin in Uganda and likewise in 1979 supported the military intervention by Vietnam to overthrow the genocidal Pol Pot regime in Cambodia. The Vietnamese intervention was condemned by the United States. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s Cuba sent thousands of troops to fight alongside the MPLA in Angola against US backed mercenaries and South African interventionists. So, non-intervention has never been a universal principle of the Left.

The principle has been that military intervention is justified in specific circumstances where it is in support of a progressive struggle for freedom and democracy against a repressive regime. Military intervention in Third World countries by imperialist and post-imperialist powers is almost always motivated by the interests of the corporate power elites that rule those countries and dominate the military blocs to which they belong. In the case of Libya, the NATO intervention, while it may have provided an opportunity for the Libyan rebels to regain their initiative, will, if it is prolonged, serve only to lock an alternative government into the embrace of the Western powers. Therefore a post-Gaddafi regime must demand the complete withdrawal of NATO forces from the country and insist on complete economic and political independence.

A CERTAIN WORD - “DEMOCRACY”. But what’s it all about?

Any discussion of democracy is likely sooner or later to recall Churchill’s famous dictum to the effect that democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the other forms that have been tried from time to time. It is one of those seductive aphorisms that are thought to clothe a profound truth in a pithy witticism. Churchill, like his literary kindred spirits, Shaw and Wilde, was a past master in the delivery of such witticisms. And, to be sure, this one has a prima facie ring of truth about it. But the timing of his remark is of some interest. It dates from November 1947. He had been out of office for over two years, after losing the post-war general election of July 1945 to a Labour landslide. His heroic status as Britain’s war leader had led many, including his closest allies in the United States, to believe that he would triumph at the polls. He thought so himself. So, his comments on the merits of democracy may have been in part a sad but resigned reflection on his own fate at the hands of a seemingly ungrateful electorate. Then again, by the end of 1947 the international political landscape had changed dramatically since the end of the war. The cold war had started, fuelled to an extent by Churchill’s speech at Fulton Missouri in March 1946, in which he claimed that from Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an ‘iron curtain’ had descended across the continent of Europe. All those countries to the east of that line falling within the Soviet sphere, were, he said, part of the undemocratic bloc of communist totalitarianism. According to the cold war rhetoric that was then becoming commonplace, Soviet totalitarianism was simply a different variant of the Nazi totalitarianism that had just been defeated. So his ‘least worst’ claims about democracy must also be seen as a defense of the representative democratic systems in Britain, western Europe and the United States as opposed to communist dictatorship.

Few would now seriously argue that the Stalinist regimes that emerged in Eastern Europe after the second world war, were, despite their designation as ‘people’s democracies’, in any meaningful sense democratic. But the liberal subsumption of Nazism and Communism under the generic ‘totalitarianism’, fails adequately to address the profound differences between them. Churchill certainly had ‘totalitarianism’ in mind when extolling the merits of democracy as preferable to any other political system. Liberal political theorists take for granted that ‘democracy’ in the modern world means nothing other than representative parliamentary democracy of the type that has evolved in most western countries during the past two centuries. The idea that there could possibly be democratic alternatives to the liberal democratic model is discounted as idealistic, romantic nonsense. The Stalinist regimes and certain Third World dictatorships that claim to be democratic are cited as negative examples, demonstrating the invalidity of any model of democracy other than the western liberal parliamentary version. In rather the same way as the failure of the Soviet and East European communist economic system has been used to reinforce the claim that there can be no alternative to the neo-liberal economic system that has triumphed in the west, so it is claimed that western-style liberal democracy is the only desirable alternative to the single-party bureaucratic dictatorships that ruled those states. It is taken for granted that more or less everyone accepts this proposition. This assumes that everyone is in agreement about what is meant by democracy and also, that everyone agrees that the system we have at present is democratic. This is a rash and unwarranted assumption.

The reality in Britain (and very likely in most other democratic countries) is that there is widespread and growing cynicism about professional politicians and the political system. A venal and prostituted ‘popular’ press systematically panders to the lowest common denominator of supposed ‘public interest’. A current case in point is the forthcoming referendum on reform of the voting system. It is no exaggeration to say that the level of public interest and information about the proposed ‘Alternative Vote’ option, even amongst otherwise well informed people, is abysmally low. Although its adoption would produce a more genuinely representative electoral outcome than the existing ‘first past the post’ system, it will probably be defeated on what looks likely to be a very low turn-out. The two main parties (Conservatives and Labour) have always favoured the old system against any version of proportional representation, and most of the press adopts the same stance.

But quite apart from reform of the electoral system, the level of public knowledge and debate about democracy is still superficial. Widespread public cynicism about the political system and professional politicians has not yet led to probing questions about the nature and limitations of representative democracy. The financial crisis of 2008 and the bail-out of the banks at the expense of the taxpayers have caused real anger on a scale not seen for decades. The onslaught on the welfare state in the name of ‘deficit reduction’ has produced the first serious signs of opposition. At the end of March 500.000 marched in London under the banner of the TUC and the public sector unions. New grass-roots organizations such as UK Uncut have staged audacious public demonstrations on the premises of businesses and banks guilty of tax avoidance. Anarchist groups, demonized by the popular press, have physically attacked the bastions of corporate power and conspicuous wealth. Things are stirring and as the impact of the onslaught on the living standards of the majority of people becomes clearer opposition will certainly grow. The prospect of this growing public resistance which will increasingly involve direct action, raises crucial questions about the nature of democracy. Those in power will hope that extra-parliamentary action will be limited to the odd peaceful demonstration that can be easily contained. But it is precisely extra-parliamentary opposition that needs to grow and become ever more effective. And this must eventually encompass large-scale strike action.

Those who have advocated parliamentary representative democracy as the highest form of democratic expression necessarily regard all extra-parliamentary action as less legitimate. But the current popular uprisings in the Arab world have brought to the forefront of public debate the question of ‘people power’. The literal translation of the word ‘democracy’ from the Greek is ‘rule of the people’ (demos: people; rule: kratia), and this recalls the concluding words of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address in which he referred to ‘government of the people, by the people for the people’. Of course, while lip service has been paid to the notion of democracy as government, or rule, by the people, in reality it is taken for granted that even under the most democratic voting systems, ‘the electorate’ will participate in the process by voting every four or five years to send a representative to the legislature. That will be the limit of their involvement. The belief that, through a majoritarian electoral system, the people will be able to exercise full political and economic power, enabling them to enact policies that would, for example, bring about a radical redistribution of wealth and take the commanding heights of the economy into public ownership, is completely illusory.

Real power in Britain does not rest with parliament. No-one voted for Rupert Murdoch and News Corporation, but he is set to take control of the majority of the British news media. No-one voted to allow the accumulation of unregulated power and wealth in the hands of irresponsible investment bankers and, when they brought the whole financial system to the brink of disaster, no-one voted to bail them out at the expense of the taxpayer. No-one voted for the dismantling of the National Health Service and the decimation of the welfare state. Yet all these measures are being undertaken by a government that had no mandate for them, led by a political party which, without the support of their Liberal Democrat partners who betrayed their election pledges, would have no parliamentary majority. The manipulation of the parliamentary system in the interests of a power elite, hell-bent on solving the economic crisis into which their system has fallen by shifting the burden onto the shoulders of the majority of the working population and the poorest sections of society, has never been more transparent than it is today. A representative democracy that is limited to the operation of a parliamentary electoral system that affords no opportunity to redress the gross and growing inequalities of wealth and real economic power in society, may rightly be regarded as a sham democracy.

This doesn’t mean that it is without value or merit. Freedom of expression and the freedom to organize, to resist and to strike, are precious freedoms won over decades and centuries of struggle by working people. They must be cherished and defended and cannot be taken for granted. The coming months and years are sure to see growing resistance against the unprecedented scale of attacks on the public sector and on the living standards of the people. The degree of success of the popular struggles that lie ahead will also be the measure of the growth of a genuine people’s democracy. Such a democratic movement will not reject the parliamentary system, but neither will it be confined to it. Only by the determined mobilization of extra-parliamentary power, through trade unions, industrial action, direct action, occupations, sit-ins and large-scale community initiatives will a real democratic popular movement be able to tip the balance of power away from the corporate elite and into the hands of the majority of the people.

AUSTERITY BRITAIN AND ROYAL CIRCUSES. Funerals, Coronations and Weddings, 1935 – 2011

Next week, on March 23^rd, chancellor of the exchequer George Osborne will wield his axe to administer the £81bn of cuts the government says are necessary in order to deal with the deficit. There is still a sense of unreality about what lies in store for those who will be hit hardest. The mass-circulation newspapers convey little or nothing of the severe austerity that is about to be imposed. The general mood still seems to be one of denial. But that is unlikely to last long once reality kicks in. April will be the first of many hard months – and years – to come. But the government must be hoping that April will bring some welcome distracting sunshine in the form of a much hyped, romantic royal wedding. Second in line to the throne, Prince William, will wed his photogenic fiancée Kate Middleton on April 29^th. We are assured by the tabloids that this is an event eagerly awaited by the whole nation, and one which will attract to our shores multitudes of tourists eager to share with us our joy, and experience at first hand the colour and pageantry for which British state occasions such as this are world renowned. Less widely reported is the fact that the numbers of people opting to take extended Easter breaks abroad this year due to the additional public holiday granted for the wedding, has shot up by between 30% and 50%.

Such occasions are hardly conducive to reflections on their antecedents, or for that matter, on anything much beyond the razzmatazz of the moment. For the record, we may recall that the last such event in Britain, the wedding of Prince Charles to Diana Spencer in July 1981, received the full-on treatment of a state occasion. 3,500 guests were present at the ceremony in St. Paul’s Cathedral and it was watched by 750 million world-wide. The Times described the wedding as a “Day of Romance in a Grey World”, and the description didn’t apply to the weather, which was fine. It would perhaps be unkind to wish the son of Charles and Diana the “happy ever after” life that his parents enjoyed for him and his bride, but it is not inappropriate to caution the happy couple that the prognosis for the longevity of royal matches in recent times is not good.

But it is more interesting to pick up the point about the “grey world”. The wedding of Charles and Diana took place two years after the election of Margaret Thatcher. Unemployment in Britain had remained relatively low from 1945 until the late 1970s. Then, in the manufacturing recession of 1981, due partly to the deflationary impact of strict monetary policy, it rose rapidly to unprecedented levels. From 1.5 million in 1979 it had reached 3 million by 1981, at the time of the wedding. This is not to suggest of course that the nuptials were timed to distract public attention from the dire economic situation, but it was nevertheless a convenient coincidental happenstance. Interesting to note also is that Thatcher’s popularity ratings in 1980 and 1981 were at an all-time low, at 23%. It was only the Falklands War of 1982 that restored her popularity and enabled her to go on to win the 1983 election.

Devotees of British cinema will not have failed to notice the phenomenal success at the box office of The King’s Speech, which, to critical acclaim, purports to relate the story of the late George VI’s struggle to overcome a stammer which seriously inhibited him from performing his public duties. Leaving aside the questions raised about the film’s historical accuracy in its depiction of the king as an admirer of Churchill and an opponent of appeasement, it continues the theme started earlier by another popular movie, The Queen. This film was widely regarded as an attempt to restore public affection for Elizabeth II, which had suffered badly at the time of Diana’s death in 1997. These films have appealed to audiences far beyond the ranks of devoted monarchists.

Although republicanism does not have a wide following in Britain, public affection for the monarchy’s present representatives has over recent years been less than fulsome. The shenanigans of the current Duke of York (the queen’s younger son and, like Charles, a divorcee) who, as Britain’s special envoy for trade, has consorted with a paedophile procurer of prostitutes and various unsavoury dictators, has not exactly enhanced the royal reputation for probity and sound judgment. A few years ago William’s brother, Prince Harry, was photographed at an upper-crust fancy dress ball dressed in a Nazi uniform, complete with swastika armband. This could be put down to youthful naivety, but it still leaves something to be desired in terms of intelligence and sensitivity.

The British power elite have a vested interest in retaining public support for the monarchy. Its mystique has to be kept alive. Deference to its antiquated modes and manners has to be maintained because if the institution itself should be called into question the implications for the British state would be very serious. So what are presented as important “events” in the “unending saga” of the monarchy have to be staged with all the pomp and pageantry they are deemed to deserve. Coronations, weddings, funerals, jubilees, are invested with a mystique deliberately intended to encourage wonder and admiration and the suspension of disbelief.

If we exclude the first world war and its immediate aftermath, prior to the financial collapse of 2008 and the age of austerity which is just beginning, the decades of the twentieth century marked by economic crisis, unemployment, war and austerity were the 1930s, the 1940s and early 1950s. They were also the years of elaborately staged royal “events”. It’s worth running through them:

1935. 4^th May. At the height of the Depression in Britain with 3 million unemployed and Mosley’s fascists on the march, Hitler in power in Germany and Mussolini about to invade Abyssinia, Britain celebrated the silver jubilee of George V, King of the United Kingdom and Emperor of India. These were the years of dole queues and hunger marches. Jubilee celebrations were held up and down the country.

1936. January 20^th. Funeral of George V at St. George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, after lying-in-state in London.

1936. Accession to the throne of Edward VIII, King of the United Kingdom and Emperor of India. An admirer of Hitler, he abdicated in December 1936 after causing a constitutional crisis by announcing his intention of marrying a ‘commoner’ – the American socialite, and divorcee, Wallis Simpson. The crisis embroiling the monarch and the government lasted throughout the year.

1937. May 12^th. Coronation of George VI, King of the United Kingdom and Emperor of India. The event was a grand spectacle, filmed for posterity in gaudy early Technicolor with an unctuously sycophantic commentary. Neville Chamberlain became prime minister the same month. In September 1938 he concluded the Munich Agreement with Hitler which led to the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia and paved the way for world war two. This was the high point of appeasement. On his return from Munich and before he had sought the agreement parliamentary endorsement for the treaty, George VI and his wife Elizabeth invited Chamberlain to appear with them on the balcony of Buckingham Palace to receive the adulation of his admirers. This was a highly unusual and unconstitutional step, which has been described by historian John Grigg as “the most unconstitutional act by a British sovereign in the present century.”

1937 was also the centenary of Queen Victoria’s accession to the throne, the occasion for a jingoistic colour movie “Queen Victoria”starring Anna Neagle, which celebrated “sixty glorious years” of queen and empire.

1947.November 20^th. The Royal Wedding of Princess Elizabeth to the Duke of Edinburgh at Westminster abbey. The depth of winter in one of the bleakest years of post-war austerity was brightened by the royal wedding of the 21 year old princess to Philip Mountbatten.

1952. George VI died of lung cancer on 6^th February. The funeral took place on 15^th February. Thousands lined the streets of London to watch the funeral cortege pass on its way to Windsor.

1953. June 2^nd. Coronation of Elizabeth II. The official commentary on this occasion surpassed in nauseating unction even the excesses of the coronation of George VI. 8.000 guests attended the ceremony in Westminster Abbey. Three million were said to have lined the streets of London, many having camped out overnight in the rain. A colour documentary was made for the cinemas. 20 million viewers watched the proceedings on TV, crowding into neighbours’ houses as television ownership was still limited. According to the commentary, the people were said to have “let themselves go in an outpouring of spontaneous emotion.” “The monarchy”, it was claimed, was “enshrined in the hearts of the people.”

In 1977 the queen celebrated her golden jubilee. In June 2012 there will be more celebrations on the occasion of her diamond jubilee. Then she will have been on the throne for almost as long as Victoria. So, Austerity Britain in 2011 and 2012 will be distracted from the doldrums by captivating spectacles. In April of this year we will be treated to a sparkling wedding of young royal celebrities. In 2012 the Diamond Jubilee in June will be followed by the Olympic Games in July and August. Perhaps the realities of wage-cuts, redundancies, unemployment, destruction of local services, demolition of the NHS, big bankers’ bonuses and growing inequality may all be star-dusted away. Unlikely. Things are not quite as they used to be and there are growing signs that the old monarchical magic is no longer working as it used to.

But there are some republicans who once thought differently who have now become ftconverts to the monarchy. One such is Peter Mandelson – now Lord Mandelson. In 1981, he and some fellow Labour party friends went to   Boulogne in France in order to spend the day of the royal wedding in a republic. He now looks forward to the Diamond Jubilee as “a truly historic occasion which will allow the people to show their pride and affection for the Queen.”

THE ARAB REVOLT ROLLS ON: Today Libya; Tomorrow?

For the past two months as the drama has unfolded in the Arab world, time and again the prescient words of Bertolt Brecht have come to mind. The spectacle of the deluded Gaddafi, confined to his redoubt in Tripoli, dismissing the masses in revolt as drug-crazed simpletons manipulated by Al Qaeda, while claiming that the people love him, recalls Brecht’s pithy advice to the authorities on the occasion of the 1953 Berlin workers’ uprising:

The Solution

After the uprising of the 17th of June

The secretary of the Writers’ Union

Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinalee

Stating that the people

Had forfeited the confidence of the government

And could win it back only

By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier

In that case for the government

To dissolve the people

And elect a new one.

Tyrants and all others corrupted by power seem incapable of comprehending the forces of anger, rage and rebellion that are unleashed once the long-suffering masses have cast off their fear and committed themselves to toppling their oppressors from power. This tide of popular anger has now been unleashed in the Arab world and no-one can say with any certainty where it will end. Brecht might have been writing for those now on the march for their freedom, when he penned the following lines ‘In Praise of the Dialectic’:

But many of those oppressed now say

What we want will never be.

If you’re still living, never say ‘Never’!

What is certain isn’t certain

Things will not stay as they are

When the rulers have spoken

The ruled will speak

Who dares to say: Never?

On whom does it rest if oppression remains? On us.

On whom does it rest if its grip’s to be broken?

Likewise on us. Whoever has been struck down, rise up!

Whoever feels forsaken, fight! He who has understood his condition, how can he be held back?

For the vanquished of today are the victors of tomorrow                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  And from ‘Never’ will come ‘Before the day is out!’

What was ‘certain’ about the Arab world and the Middle East at the end of last year – a few short months ago – now isn’t certain. The supposedly careful calculations upon which governments, academic and journalistic ‘experts’ in international relations, advisers to the oil industry, the defence departments and the armaments manufacturers whose interests they promote, have been thrown into complete confusion. The response of western politicians to the toppling of the dictators with whom they were so recently doing business, has been delightful to behold. The Obama administration and the UK’s ConDem government wriggled and squirmed when faced with the plight of their close ally Hosni Mubarak in Egypt. Clinton and Hague tried desperately to avoid deserting him, initially claiming that his government was ‘stable’. Having happily ignored the human rights abuses, the torture chambers and the unrestrained corruption of a despotic, kleptocratic regime for decades, they suddenly began to talk about the need for reform, urging the despot to facilitate a ‘peaceful transition’ to something more democratic. Former prime minister Blair, the Middle East Quartet’s special envoy, has been close to Mubarak and a recipient of his largesse in the form of free holidays at his luxury mansion in Sharm el Sheikh. He has clearly been discomfited by his friend’s predicament. Blair must also feel the present pain of Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi for whom he himself recently went to such great pains in persuading the former terrorist in chief to abandon his WMDs and sign up to the war on terror. Of course, the opening up of the Libyan oilfields to the western oil giants was also a factor in the rapprochement. Just as in the cases of Egypt and Saudi Arabia, Libya’s unbroken record of tyranny and repression of its own people was not allowed to stand in the way of realpolitik and a good business deal, supposedly in Britain’s ‘national interest’.

The tide of democratic revolution in North Africa and the Middle East has still to run its course and where that course will lead it is still too early to tell. The situation in Libya is at the moment on a knife edge. It is already clear that Gaddafi’s regime is proving more obdurate than the Tunisian or Egyptian regimes, and his capacity to launch a counter-offensive from Tripoli should not be underestimated. The outcome of the struggle there may depend on the balance of tribal loyalties as well as the balance and quality of armed forces. But it is becoming increasingly clear that in this case, as distinct from either Tunisia or Egypt, there is a real possibility of Western intervention, either sanctioned by the UN Security Council under pressure from the US and Britain, or, as in Kosovo, as a NATO exercise without UN backing. The enforcement of a ‘no fly’ zone over Libya would necessitate a bombardment of the airfields. This would amount to a direct attack on the country and would rightly be regarded as such throughout the Arab and wider Muslim world. At the moment, (04.March), there appears to be some reluctance in EU and US government circles to move in this direction, but the intensity of their demand for Gaddafi’s removal compares strikingly with their reluctance to abandon Mubarak. And, of course, until recently Gaddafi was a pariah to the Western powers, whose hostility towards him had little to do with his appalling human rights record or his support for terrorism. Other regimes worldwide with records as bad as or worse than Gaddafi’s have enjoyed – and continue to enjoy – good relations with those Western leaders now so incensed about the Libyan dictator. The US did not in the past threaten to indict Suharto of Indonesia, Pinochet in Chile or the Contras in Nicaragua for crimes against humanity when they were slaughtering their own people. On the contrary, they were able to commit their crimes because they were armed and actively backed in their criminality by the United States government. Despite his recent rehabilitation by his erstwhile enemies, Gaddafi is too much of a loose cannon to be accorded the degree of support enjoyed by other pro-western dictators. He is too unpredictable and is seen to have too many undesirable friends, such as Hugo Chavez, in the anti-imperialist camp.

Nevertheless, since he was brought in from the cold, the ties to his regime have become firmly established. Here for example, through his son, Saif al-Islam, the London School of Economics, where he was a research student, has become enmeshed in a web of lucrative business and academic connections with Libya. These have also involved a US based consultancy, the Monitor Group, which is responsible for a multimillion dollar contract with the regime intended to improve Gaddafi’s image in the UK and the US and to promote academic, government, and business exchanges. As a result of these disclosures, the LSE’s director, Sir Howard Davies, who is a senior advisor to the Monitor Group, has been forced to resign. Others associated with the Monitor enterprise include academic historian Francis Fukuyama, author of The End of History, and the prominent neo-conservative advisor to the Bush White House, Richard Perle. Saif al-Islam, who claimed last week in Tripoli, as his father’s mercenaries were firing live ammunition into unarmed crowds, that the regime would ‘fight to the last man, to the last bullet’, was, apparently regarded by his academic tutors at the LSE as a genuine liberal and democrat. He was even allowed to give the Ralph Miliband memorial lecture last year – an event dedicated to the memory of the late Marxist professor, father of the Miliband brothers, who taught at the School for many years. It is difficult to imagine any greater insult to his memory. But such are the ways of ‘competition in the market place’ for cash-strapped academic institutions, and such is the understanding of ‘national interest’, that such things are to be expected.

So where does this leave the uncompleted Arab revolution? As distinct from the largely hypocritical responses of Western and other political leaders, motivated largely by what they perceive to be their own national interests, or the interests of their global alliances, the only genuinely democratic response must be one of unqualified support for the revolutionary forces engaged in courageous struggle against oppressive regimes. There can be no tolerance for any attempt to co-opt such popular movements; no attempts to divert them or to limit their demands to accord with the interests of their own elites or the interests of international corporations, should be countenanced. Continued and determined pressure from beneath to ensure that the lid of repression is not clamped down again, can succeed. No matter from which sources they may come, all attempts to divert the mass movements into negotiations for compromises that would leave the old power structures in place, must be resisted.

Long-established power structures in the Middle East are tottering. The old canard to the effect that the Arab peoples are incapable of democratic self-government is being exposed for what it is. It is becoming clear that those who for so long have peddled this story are deeply worried at the prospect of popular democracy in the Arab world. Now that the democratic revolution sweeping the region looks likely to succeed, the Western democrats seem deeply worried by the prospect that the old authoritarian elites may be swept away by a tide that they are unable to stem. Today it suits them to support the overthrow and prosecution of Gaddafi in the hope that they will be able to control the course of events after he has gone. But tomorrow, should the tide of revolt threaten the Saudi monarchy, it will be interesting to see how they respond to the prospect of their closest ally biting the dust.

THE “BIG SOCIETY” – IN BIG TROUBLE

David Cameron’s latest attempt to arouse some enthusiasm for his ‘passionate mission’ to promote the ‘Big Society’ should be put into perspective. Consider this:

Charities that are supposedly at the heart of his mission will lose £5bn through cuts. The 2008 bailout of the banks cost the taxpayer £117bn, averaging £5.500 per family. Last week, in his ‘Project Merlin’ peace deal with the banks, Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne announced that it was time ‘to move from retribution to recovery’. Barclays is to pay £4.5bn in total remuneration to 22.000 investment bankers employed by its investment wing, Barclays Capital. £2bn will be paid in bonuses. CEO Bob Diamond will receive a bonus of £9m. Royal Bank of Scotland, 80% of which is publicly owned, will pay £1.3bn to executives. That’s the background. It should not be, and has not been forgotten by the general public. Most people are very angry and remain completely unconvinced that the ‘Big Society’ amounts to anything other than a meaningless sound-bite at best and a cynical deception at worst.

The notion is now in big trouble. For months the government has been trying to get the idea to fly but it has stubbornly refused to leave the ground. Ministers have struggled to explain what it means, which is not surprising as some of them have no idea themselves. Now, faced with high-profile desertions by those who were supposed to have been signed up to it, the prime minister is floundering. Suzie Leather, chair of the Charities Commission, told Cameron ‘if you cut the charities you are cutting our ability to help each other. That is what the ‘big society’ is all about. So you are pulling the rug from under that.’ Leader of Liverpool City Council, Joe Anderson, prized as a high-profile enthusiast for the scheme, has just pulled out, with a letter to Cameron on February 4^th announcing that ‘the council can no longer support the ‘big society’…as a direct result of your funding cuts.’ Anderson writes: ‘How can the city council support the Big Society and its aim to help communities do more for themselves when we will have to cut the lifeline to hundreds of these vital and worthwhile groups.’

Cameron is so worried that he has decided to re-launch the scheme. From someone with his PR background one might have expected a smooth, hard-hitting, convincing performance. Whatever one thinks of his politics he has a reputation as someone sympathetic and responsive to the public mood. To many he sounds persuasive despite the suspect smoothness associated with the PR man. But this time he sounded completely, even comically, unconvincing. In both his article for The Observer (13.02) and his speech to an invited audience at Somerset House in London (14.02) his performance was muddled and meandering. The strength of his conviction failed to convince. The Big Society, he proclaimed was something about which he feels passionately. It is ‘his mission’. The fact that something on which he has staked so much is proving such a flop should worry him and his supporters a great deal. You can be sure that when political leaders start to tell us over and over how passionately they believe something, they are getting desperate. Cameron is beginning to sound like Blair. Blair never tired of telling us how firmly he believed that what he was doing was right, as though the strength of his self-belief was sufficient justification for his actions regardless of how much evidence there was to the contrary. Thatcher, another ‘conviction’ politician (albeit one from whom Cameron wants to distance himself) firmly believed in the need for a ‘poll tax’. The failed attempt to impose it helped to end her career. Her successor, John Major, firmly believed that the British people needed to ‘get back to basics’, meaning basic Victorian standards of probity and moral rectitude, only to see his government overwhelmed by sleaze. And who now is able to explain with any assurance what Blair’s ‘Third Way’ was all about or how transformative his promotion of ‘Cool Britannia’? They are remembered, if at all, either with anger, as in the case of the poll tax, or as empty phrases ‘signifying nothing’.

When Letter from the UK first visited this subject some months ago, it was suggested that the idea of the ‘Big Society’ may have been prompted by Margaret Thatcher’s claim that there was no such thing as society. Hers was a philosophy of possessive individualism in extremis. In attempting, towards the end of the party’s thirteen years in opposition, to re-mould, or detoxify the Tory brand, Cameron was concerned to distance himself from the Thatcherite right wing. He couldn’t do this effectively without abandoning her views about society. The concept of the ‘Big Society’ is intended to do that. It is also intended to counteract what is denounced as Labour’s supposed commitment to the Big State – top-down over-centralization. The encouragement of localism, community-based initiatives, charitable organizations, neighbourhood watch schemes, residents’ associations – indeed, the whole voluntary sector, is unexceptionable. But it offers nothing new. In this sense the ‘Big Society’ already exists, and, despite often meagre funding, has, until now, functioned effectively. Of course, there is room for more and stronger local initiatives that will empower people, like the ‘people’s co-operative’ singled out by Cameron for special praise. This venture, inspired by a successful people’s co-op in Brooklyn will, if it succeeds, provide a cheaper and healthier source of supply to the local community, utilizing the voluntary labour of the community. But, the likelihood of such ventures succeeding depends largely on availability of funds. And there’s the rub.

Some critics have argued that this is a ‘good idea at the wrong time’, suggesting that if it were not for the unprecedented cuts in government spending that are decimating the public sector, the ‘Big Society’ would be a great success. This misses the point. The scheme has been launched now for a very good reason. It is intended to persuade people that with a bit of effort they can work together to provide the services they will lose in the tornado of cuts about to decimate local services up and down the country. Local government budgets are to be cut by 15% to 25%. Citizens’ Advice Bureaus and public libraries will close as will the Sure Start centers for young children. Front-line services of all kinds are to be seriously reduced; streets will be cleaned less frequently; parks will be unsupervised. Every voluntary organization is under threat, resulting inevitably not just in the impoverishment of local communities but in large scale redundancies as councils lay off thousands of workers. As has now been made abundantly clear by representatives of the voluntary sector and local government, there is no way that the ‘Big Society’ can begin to make good the damage that will be inflicted. Whether Cameron really believes what he says is neither here nor there. His ‘passion’ for the idea doesn’t alter the fact that it will not and cannot work. That is because it flies in the face of the reality inflicted by his government. The ‘Big Society’ can only serve the purpose of providing a fig leaf for the cuts. This is not, as claimed by the diminishing band of BS advocates, the cynical dismissal of a decent idea. It is the only reasonable conclusion in face of the facts.

Unless this conclusion proves to be mistaken, which is doubtful, then the ‘Big Society’ is destined to go the way of the other ‘initiatives’ mentioned above. But there is something puzzling about the way Cameron desperately clings to it. He says it is his ‘mission’ – using, once again that tired old phrase so beloved of leaders trying to dignify their mediocre ideas with a profundity they do not deserve. He has staked his reputation on it. This suggests that it has become something of an obsession, rather like Blair’s conviction that he was right to invade Iraq. It may very well turn out to be his undoing.

As the ‘Big Society’ joins the litany over-hyped, over-blown pseudo-concepts, it is tempting to look for a more truthful substitute that accurately describes the real distribution of power in Britain today. Set against the civil society there is an entrenched power elite, or ruling class, clearly represented by the members of the present cabinet. What is happening now is nothing less than an intensified re-distribution of wealth from the poorest sections of society to the most wealthy. Nothing provides clearer evidence of this than the way the bankers who brought the economy to the brink of disaster a few years ago, have been allowed to return to business as usual, while the rest of us have to tighten our belts and pick up the bill. The society favoured by the government and the power elite whose interests they represent, is not the big society. It can be accurately described as The Big Business Society – or, The Big Bankers Bonuses Society. Let’s coin the phrases – they may take off. 

EGYPT IN REVOLUTION: Which Way Will It Go?

The word ‘revolution’ has been overused and misused for decades. It has, for instance, become almost a commonplace of political journalism in Britain to talk about the ’Thatcherite revolution’ when referring to the assault on the post-war consensus, the dismantling of the country’s manufacturing base and the privatization spree that started in the 1980s. In the 1990s and into the first decade of the twenty-first century, the emergence of microchip technology became referred to as the ‘IT revolution’ or the ‘communications revolution’. There is nothing particularly wrong with this and it may be argued that an over-zealous resistance to etymological flexibility denotes nothing more than a conservative mindset. However, it is important to demand greater clarity of thought and analysis when considering the use of the term in relation to significant instances of social and political change involving the mobilization of thousands and even millions of people. The drama unfolding in Egypt now is clearly such an event. It is being widely described, by both participants and observers, as a revolution, and such a description seems appropriate.

Unless we are to argue that any and every instance of the removal of a government by means of force, including military putsches, palace coups and the like should be regarded as revolutions, then we need more careful terms of reference. If by ‘revolution’ we mean the transfer of political and economic power from one section of society to another, involving the dismantling of the old apparatus of state, including crucially the apparatuses of repression, and the creation of a new state apparatus based on the hegemonic power of a formerly subordinate class, then the last 250 years have seen very few revolutions.

In Europe there have been only two such seminal examples: the French revolution of 1789-92 and the Bolshevik revolution in Russia in 1917. Outside Europe, the Chinese revolution of 1949 and the Cuban revolution of 1959 are similar instances. According to this criterion other cases are more problematic. Two cases come to mind: the American revolution of 1776 and the Iranian ‘Islamic revolution’ of 1979. In Britain, where the term ’revolution’ still causes problems for many historians, there is a deep reluctance to admit that the 17^th century Cromwellian civil war against the monarchy was a revolution. The ‘American revolution’ is usually referred to as ‘the war of independence.’ The Iranian ‘Islamic revolution’ of 1979 also poses problems. In one sense it was a classic example of a ‘Leninist’ type revolution. It involved the mass mobilization of millions of the most oppressed people, a general strike leading to the complete collapse of the Shah’s regime, the triumph of a new ideology and the purging of the apparatus of the old state. But, it did not lead to a completely new socio-economic system resting on the hegemonic power of the formerly exploited classes. It produced instead the rule of a reactionary theocracy that kept, and still keeps, the people in thrall.

How then, should we regard the events unfolding in Egypt? It is immediately apparent that we are witnessing what may without hyperbole be described as a rising of the masses. The importance and significance of this cannot be exaggerated. A whole people, until recently cowed and powerless, have found their feet and their voice. This is ‘people’s power’ and it is a spectacle breathtaking to behold. On these too rare occasions the realities of power relationships are stripped bare. The corrupt despot and his cronies skulk in their moral bankruptcy and powerlessness before the unfolding spectacle engulfing the city. The millions they have exploited and oppressed are taking to the streets and demanding with one voice that he and his abettors leave the scene forthwith. The die is cast. The people are not prepared to go on living any longer as despised underlings; the despotic regime is unable to continue to rule. This is a revolutionary situation and it is both exhilarating and also fraught with danger. It is exhilarating because it expresses the very best in humanity. People in their tens and hundreds of thousands co-operate with each other in a festival of solidarity. They are no longer isolated monads but members of an autonomous, self-sufficient community. They stand together, secular and religious, men and women, children and adults, fired with democratic fervour. They are no longer afraid. The bonds of solidarity have conquered fear – even fear of death.

But their situation is extremely dangerous. A revolutionary situation is not a successful revolution and, in one form and another, the odds they face are formidable. The old power elite have reached the end of their road; they cannot carry on as before. But Mubarak refuses to go. Getting him out is like trying to remove a crumbling, rotten cork from a wine bottle. You can’t drink the wine until the cork is out, but the act of removing it could break the bottle. The suppression of all democratic forms of expression for thirty years has meant that there are no organized political forces capable of guiding this outburst of popular democracy. The Mubarak regime has relied upon the Egyptian army and the security forces to keep the lid on the cauldron but it is by no means certain that the army is willing to suppress the mass movement should it be ordered to do so. Nevertheless, the forces of reaction are mobilizing and, at the time of writing (04.02.11), it is still possible, even likely, that the regime’s thugs will be unleashed to wreak their revenge on the unarmed masses presently holding Cairo’s Tahrir Square. The regime possesses the fire power to crush the uprising if it orders the army to do so. The question is, would such an order be obeyed. So far, in the violent confrontations that have occurred as a result of vicious attacks on the demonstrators by armed thugs and plain clothes policemen, hirelings of the regime, many have been killed and hundreds injured. Within the next day or two it should become clear what the outcome of this uprising will be. The overwhelming popular demand is that Mubarak should go now. At the moment, there is little sign that he intends to do so.

The revolt in Egypt follows the toppling of the of Ben Ali regime in Tunisia in mid January and there are increasing signs that the movement for democratic change and self determination is spreading throughout the Arab world. But Egypt is pivotal. The Mubarak regime has been for thirty years the bedrock of U.S. and Western policy in the Middle East. Should Egypt’s accord with Israel unravel, US policy would go into a tail-spin. The crisis, which was unimaginable just weeks ago, has exposed the fragility and the hypocrisy of Western policy. For decades Israel has been presented as the only democracy in the region with the clear implication that if only the Arab countries were democratic it would be possible to resolve the conflict with Israel through sensible negotiation. There would be ‘partners for peace’. The truth is that the US and its Western allies have armed and sustained repressive, autocratic regimes - in the case of Egypt to the tune of £1.5 billion a year. Mubarak has been the closest ally of the West since he took power in 1981. Successive US presidents and British prime ministers have turned a blind eye to his torture chambers, rigged elections, crushing of dissent and rampant corruption, because, though son-of-bitch he may be, he is ‘our SOB’.

But now he poses a dilemma for them. Realising that his game is up with the Egyptian people, they would ideally like to see him go quietly to be replaced by another group of ‘trustworthy’ cronies who may be able to pass themselves off as acceptable to the people while agreeing to pursue exactly the regional policy they inherit from Mubarak. This would guarantee ‘stability’ in the region. The problem is that fully democratic elections might produce a result that is unacceptable to the US and its allies. The fear that stalks all of them is the possibility that the Muslim Brotherhood might emerge as a powerful player in the game. Actually, there is little evidence that the Brotherhood has very much influence at all over the democratic popular movement. But, as the Mubarak regime has suppressed all political dissent, his US and other backers can hardly now dictate the terms of any post-Mubarak settlement. They must, even if only to maintain the appearance of championing democracy, agree to fully democratic elections. Having committed themselves to ‘a peaceful transition of power now’, which means getting rid of Mubarak, it is difficult to see how they can renege on that demand. They cannot put the genie back in the bottle, much as they might like to do so. Clearly what they are anxious to avoid at all costs is that the despot digs in and unleashes a bloodbath against the opposition. This would result either in a bloody counter-revolution that they could not support, or in the collapse of the regime in a fury of revolutionary fervour, with sections of the army siding with the people. This could end in civil war in Egypt which, in turn, could set the whole of the Arab world alight.

As of today, the initiative seems to be with the courageous Egyptian people. We will see what tomorrow will bring.