NavigationAnnouncementsUpcoming eventsRecent blog posts
|
An Anti-Authoritarian Response to the War EffortsAnonymous Comrade writes: Dear Comrades, We are living through scary times. Clearly the US Government and its allies believe they have a grand opportunity to realign domestic and international relationships in their interest. This is frightening: major shifts in the political landscape threaten to tear the ground from beneath our feet. However, these glacial shifts in the political scene also offer First of all, we must not be cowed by present circumstances, as disturbing as they are. On the contrary: recent events call upon us to exercise political leadership in the best, most principled and visionary sense of the term. This is our challenge, and one that we can meet with an anti-authotarian vision and politics. We believe it is imperative that anti-authoritarians formulate a coherent response to the war buildup and their role within the growing peace movement. We must not allow our perspective to be subsumed under more prominent but less radical tendencies in the left. Also, the peace movement is presently defining its politics and structures and we have a great opportunity - at this moment - to engage the movement and push it in the most radical direction. This purpose of this letter is to explore the contours of an We want to address three important issues in this letter: structure, STRUCTURE: Thus, we think our immediate challenge is to ensure that the anti-war POLITICS: Presently we are aware of two positions on the war: The rightwing position asserts that the US is entitled to take unilateral military action against whomever. This position is not reasoned, just retaliatory, and is thus utterly barbaric. The argument crumbles when faced with questions of social justice. The liberal-left position condones military action against Osama Bin Laden if - and only if - the UN or some pre-existing international legal body decides that such action is required and determines its nature. This appears to be Z Magazine’s position, as well as many others. This position is inadequate because it appeals to the political authority of the UN (and/or similar bodies). This is untenable because the UN is an illegitimate political body and thus incapable of determining a just or unjust response to the terror attacks. The UN is illegitimate because a) it presupposes the nation-state, which is inherently anti-democratic and b) because the US has veto power over many of the UN’s most important decision-making bodies, such as the Security Council. The anti-authoritarian position must obviously be much more radical than the liberal-left position. We believe that anti-authoritarians should advance the following demands: · First, all war criminals must be brought to justice (and judged by an international people’s tribunal). Osama Bin Laden, Augusto Pinochet, Henry Kissinger, and those who have committed acts of terror and violence must be held accountable for their actions and dealt with accordingly. · Second, there should be an international grass roots assembly/plebiscite/encuentro/assembly/truth and reconciliation commission on global terror. This assembly will define the terms of terror and the appropriate responses to it. There are existing decentralized, grassroots networks and organizations that could provide basis for such an initiative. · Third, we must oppose military action against Osama Bin Laden, Afghanistan, or anyone else until these first two conditions are met. FUTURE: We believe there is a great potential to create a radically democratic and deeply oppositional movement against the war. We believe this movement could sustain the accomplishments of the struggle against global capital and bring our movement to a new level of engagement, diversity, and radicalism. Another world is possible, Marina Sitrin (active with the Direct Action Network) & Chuck Morse (active with the Institute for Anarchist Studies)" |
SearchAnalysisNewsReviews |