The Struggle for Democracy in Sri Lanka

 

Introduction

The terms ‘bourgeois democracy’ and ‘bourgeois-democratic revolution’ have often been confused by socialists, because they seem to imply that democracy is a gift of the bourgeoisie, is inseparable from capitalism, and has nothing to do with socialism. It is true that in many revolutions against feudalism, absolutism and imperialism, the mass of working people rise up and inscribe their agenda of freedom, equality and solidarity on the struggle. But once the bourgeosie is in power, it sooner or later seeks to roll back these gains, sometimes in extremely brutal ways, and capitalism can survive for long periods without democracy: there is no intrinsic link between the two. Solidarity in particular is a threat to an insecure bourgeoisie, which therefore encourages divisions, relationships of domination and subordination, and discrimination, exclusion and persecution targeting particular communities.  

In stark contrast with the view that democracy has nothing to do with socialism, Marx and Engels declared in The Communist Manifesto that ‘the first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class, to win the battle of democracy’ (1); and Engels later confirmed, ‘The Communist Manifesto had already proclaimed the winning of universal suffrage, of democracy, as one of the first and most important tasks of the militant proletariat’ (2). Since they believed that the emancipation of the working class would be carried out by the class as a whole, it made sense to affirm that freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly, equality before the law and equal protection of the law, and the right to elect representatives of your choice in free and fair elections were needed to prepare the proletariat to take over government and production.

Given this hostility to democracy on the part of the bourgeoisie as well as sections of the petty bourgeoisie, it would be more useful to see the bourgeois and democratic revolutions as two separate revolutions, with the bourgeois revolution being accomplished fairly quickly while the democratic revolution may drag on for decades. Indeed, even when a democratic republic has been established, it can be demolished and replaced by a fascist state. This ongoing struggle between authoritarianism and democracy is evident in Sri Lanka, with the presidential election of 16 November 2019 being the latest episode.

Syria: Freedom and Solidarity versus Pseudo-Anti-Imperialism

(This presentation was made at the eighth biennial International Herbert Marcuse Society conference ‘Critical Theory in Dark Times: The Prospects for Liberation in the Shadow of the Radical Right’ held at the University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB) from October 10–12 2019. It was one of four presentations at a panel entitled ‘Syria, the Eros Effect, and Pseudo-Anti-Imperialism’. All four presentations can be found at https://transnationalsolidarity.net/syria-the-eros-effect-and-pseudo-anti-imperialism/ ) 

As Javier pointed out, many leftists failed to support the Syrian revolution and some even backed Assad’s brutal counter-revolution. Unfortunately, the Syrian case is not the first instance where self-professed socialists have supported despotic regimes and imperialist powers; in fact, sections of the left have an inglorious history of doing just this, and it is instructive to look back on this history in order to understand why the Syrian revolutionaries have received so little solidarity from the international left.

A revolution can be defined as a mass uprising to overthrow an oppressive regime, in which the majority of actors seek to replace it with a regime that is, at the very least, less oppressive, and ideally with a society in which there is no oppression. According to this definition, anti-imperialist struggles for national liberation and independence from foreign rule can be seen as revolutionary uprisings, along with struggles against feudal regimes and authoritarian states. By their nature, such uprisings are dominated by the demand for freedom and by expressions of solidarity between different sections of the oppressed population.

However, all revolutions face opposition. First, and most obviously, the old regime fights back with all the resources at its disposal, including, in some cases, imperialist allies. But often the uprising includes actors who are fighting against the old oppressive state, but with the goal of installing their own oppressive regime. In some cases there is the possibility of a compromise, as when the new ruling class – for example the bourgeoisie – allows working people to establish a democratic republic, which Marx and Engels saw as the first step in a proletarian revolution. In other cases, as in the case of Al Qaeda and ISIS, there are new would-be rulers who are as oppressive as the old regime, and working people are forced into a multi-pronged battle against more than one enemy. In such circumstances, it is essential for socialists worldwide to stand in solidarity with the working people who are fighting for liberation from oppression, but unfortunately there are cases where a section of socialists sides with the oppressors. This is what has happened in Syria, but it has happened before. 

Capitalism, Socialism, and the Transition from One to the Other

 

Socialism and Commodity Production: Essay in Marx Revival by Paresh Chattopadhyay, Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2018; pp xiii + 300

The subtitle of this book is unduly modest: it is not really an ‘essay’ but a substantial and extremely scholarly exploration of what Marx, Engels and others have written about socialism in several different languages. Above all, it is an extremely timely critique of Marx’s followers who use the term ‘socialism’ and ‘socialist revolution’ in a very different and even opposite sense to Marx’s own meaning.

Religion, Fundamentalism, and Violence

 Introduction

Vociferous advocates of atheism like Richard Dawkins (2006), Sam Harris (2004) and Christopher Hitchens (2007) claim that religion has been the leading cause of war and violence throughout history. This has been challenged factually by critics who point out that while religion was the central factor in wars like the Crusades, there are much larger death tolls from wars and ideologies that are not religious in the conventional sense (for example the two world wars, Nazism and Stalinism). Another criticism comes from a study which found that all three of these atheists supported the 2001 war on Afghanistan, and Hitchens supported the 2003 war on Iraq, which between them resulted in millions of deaths (Megoran 2018). This suggests that their real objection is only to religion, rather than to violence and war.

My purpose in this paper is not to examine the statistics of religion and violence but to challenge the use of the term ‘religion’ as though its meaning were monolithic and unproblematic, arguing instead that within each religion there are currents that embue it with very different and even diametrically opposed meanings. I conclude that any sweeping generalisations about religion as such are bound to be wrong, and that versions of almost every religion span the entire spectrum from life-affirming love and respect for all humans to destructive hatred and violence against those who are defined as being inferior or different. What is important, then, is neither to support nor to oppose religion as such, but to identify and oppose those strands which endorse or encourage oppression and cruelty.

Presentation at the Launch of Indefensible: Democracy, Counter-Revolution and the Rhetoric of Anti-Imperialism

(This is a presentation I made at the launch of my book Indefensible: Democracy, Counter-Revolution, and the Rhetoric of Anti-Imperialism in the School of African and Asian Studies, University of London, on 16 July 2018. It was followed by a lively discussion chaired by Gilbert Achcar, Professor of Development Studies and International Relations at SOAS.)

In the Introduction to my book Indefensible: Democracy, Counter-Revolution, and the Rhetoric of Anti-Imperialism, I explain why I wrote it. When the Arab uprisings began in 2010-2011, most socialists and progressives welcomed them. But very soon it became evident that they were being treated differently, despite the fact that they were sparked by similar conditions. In the words of historian Fawwaz Traboulsi, ‘These are revolutions that do not hide their causes: unemployment, dictatorship, social divides, the citizen’s abused dignity. To which they roar back: Work! Freedom! Social justice! Human dignity!’ Yet there was a striking difference between the respect with which a section of the anti-imperialist left treated the Egyptian revolution and their vilification of the protesters in Syria, thus supporting Assad by spreading his propaganda against them. What could account for this?

Introduction to Indefensible: Democracy, Counter-Revolution, and the Rhetoric of Anti-Imperialism

 

In September 2015, the image of little Aylan Kurdi, whose dead body washed up on a beach in Turkey, temporarily jolted the conscience of European politicians who had been preoccupied up until then with turning back the tide of refugees from Syria. The compassion and kindness of those who welcome refugees to their countries is certainly admirable, especially in contrast with the cruelty of the far right, which seeks to exclude them. We must ask, however: is this enough? As a member of the Syria Campaign pointed out soon afterwards:

Since the picture of Aylan hit headlines across the world, 6 children have been killed in Syria every day – the majority from barrel bombs and missiles from Syrian government aircraft. But their bloodied and blown apart corpses don’t make the front page of any newspaper. None of the other 10,000 children killed in the fighting have. What broke my heart this week was a cartoon by Neda Kadri, a Syrian artist, that pictured Aylan in heaven being welcomed by children: ‘you are so lucky Aylan! We’re victims of the same war but no one cared about our death.’ (Nolan 2015)

Despite the tendency of the mainstream media to conflate ‘migrants’ and ‘refugees’, it is important to remember that they are different. Refugees are fleeing violence. Therefore, the only viable solution to the refugee crisis would be to end the violence that has killed hundreds of thousands and displaced millions.

That is, however, easier said than done. Ending the Syria crisis would entail, first and foremost, identifying its causes. For some of those who call themselves anti-imperialists, there is only one cause: Western (that is, North American and Western European) imperialism, which is responsible for all the bloodshed, including the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS),[i] which, according to them, is responsible for most of the violence in Syria. An example of this argument is an article in the Guardian by Seamus Milne (2015) titled ‘Now the truth emerges: how the US fuelled the rise of Isis in Syria and Iraq’.

Foreword and Preface of To Do Something Beautiful (a novel)

 

Foreword to the Kindle Edition

     This novel was inspired by many of the women and men I have met in the course of my work: by their ability to keep alive their dignity, humanity, and even sense of humour in the midst of poverty and overwork; by their aspiration not merely to survive but to create a better world, to do something beautiful. However, poor people in isolation are powerless; if they compete with one another as individuals or groups, a few may come out on top, but the majority always lose. Therefore one of the most crucial and admirable qualities of these women and men is their capacity to build relationships of solidarity, friendship and love across traditional barriers of caste, religion, language and even nationality. The spontaneous warmth and generosity I have encountered among working women in widely separated parts of South Asia never fails to move me, and I think it would not be an exaggeration to talk of a common culture which they share despite superficial differences.

     There have been many changes since I wrote this novel in the 1980s. For example, information and communication technologies have been revolutionised, and the value of the rupee has fallen to less than a quarter of what it was then. The prices of essential commodities, utilities and services, especially food and public transport, have risen correspondingly or even more. Wages have increased, but at the lowest levels have not kept pace with inflation. At the opposite pole, there has been a vast accumulation of wealth, and consequently the gap between rich and poor has widened to obscene proportions. Lured by sky-rocketing real estate prices and the prospect of union-free workforces, many industrialists have sold their factories in Bombay and either subcontracted their work to small enterprises or shifted production to other locations where vicious union-busting is the norm even in large-scale industry. The big pharamaceutical factories have disappeared, as have many other large factories, and along with them the relatively well-paid and secure jobs they represented. On a more positive note, formal workers are now more aware of the importance of fighting for the rights of informal workers, democratic independent unions have proliferated, and these unions have formed an all-India federation that counteracts the earlier isolation of independent unions.