The Enemy of Our Enemy May Be Equally Our Enemy

The takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban raises issues for socialist internationalists. On one side, the departure of US and NATO forces, which had inflicted so much violence and suffering on the people of Afghanistan, is a cause of celebration for many. Those who celebrate include some who refuse to acknowledge that the people of Afghanistan had earlier suffered well over a million civilian deaths at the hands of Russian imperialism. But can we really celebrate the fact that a brutal, authoritarian, misogynist armed group like the Taliban has taken over the state? The fact that they are now in power is certainly not a victory for the working people of Afghanistan.

What this example illustrates is a dilemma that has confronted us for a long time: However vehemently we oppose Western imperialisms, we have to recognise that among the other forces opposing them are some that are equally brutal and authoritarian. We have to reckon with the possibility that genuine support for working people in other countries or our own country may mean confronting two or more enemies who may be fighting against each other but are equally inimical to the self-emancipation of the working classes, and may even be making deals behind the backs of the people they claim to represent, as Trump did with the Taliban. Genuine anti-imperialists must oppose all oppressive forces.

The Only Alternative to Global Terror

 

Father, Son and Holy War

My apologies to Anand Patwardhan, but I can’t resist the temptation to borrow the title of his film as an apt description of what is happening in the world right now (i.e. October 2001, the month after the terrorist attacks in the USA). Whether the father is Saudi billionnaire Mohammed bin Laden, with his close ties to the Saudi royal family, the son is his estranged offspring Osama, who is enraged every time he thinks of infidel American troops stationed on the holy soil of Saudi Arabia, and the holy war is the jihad which the latter has declared against America and Americans; or the father is George Bush Sr, who started it all with his war to defeat Saddam Hussein by gradually exterminating the people of Iraq, the son is George Jr., who has trouble opening his mouth without putting his foot in it, and the holy war is the crusade the latter has declared against, well, let us say vaguely specified enemies who happen to be Muslims – in both cases, the themes of religious communalism, militarism and machismo are inextricably intertwined. 

There is even an uncanny similarity in the ways that the two sons think, if we ignore the cowboy rhetoric of one (‘wanted - dead or alive’, ‘smoke 'em outa their holes’, etc.) and the pious expressions of the other (‘may God mete them the punishment they deserve’, etc.). Bush tells us, ‘either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists’ (statement of 20/9/01); Osama tells us the entire world is divided into ‘two regions – one of faith… and another of infidelity’ (statement of 7/10/01). In other words, they both want us to believe that the population of the world is divided into two camps, one headed by Bush, the other by bin Laden.