…Panama, Iraq, Somalia, Yugoslavia, Palestine, Afghanistan, Argentina...
The list of the countries that have suffered and continue to suffer the pillaging and increasingly devastating attacks of the imperialist West is getting longer: military incursions blessed by the UN, terroristic bombing that does not exclude the use of atomic weapons, economic blockades, the crushing of States and entire economies under the weight of foreign debts, the rules of the market and the powers that dominate it – the WTO, the IMF and the World Bank. It is an aggression that not only demolishes economies such as that of Argentina, but also feels the need to detroy even the minimal degree of resistance created in a country such as Afghanistan. It is an aggression which, throughout the world and albeit by means of partially different mechanisms, expresses the same need for the increasingly global exploitation and expropriation of every geographical and economic space, and all of their material, environmental and human resources.
The exploited of the southern part of the world are demonstrating their ability to resist and oppose the offensive launched by imperialism and its related proprietary classes: from the struggle of the Arab and Islamic masses in Palestine to the resistance in Afghanistan and Iraq against murderous bombings and embargoes; from the strikes of Korean workers to the organisation and struggles of the peasants in India, Brazil, Zimbabwe and South Africa; from the extraordinary mobilisations in Pretoria and Durban against the multinational pharmaceutical companies and in support of the Palestinian intifada to the mass revolts in Argentina and the struggles taking place in all of the countries of Latin-America…
The offensive of globalised capital above all strikes the people living in the South of the world, the Far East and Eastern Europe, but it is also beginning to affect the exploited in the opulent West, where the nodes underlying the crisis affecting its putrid social system are beginning to emerge, and where there are the first signs of the development of a supra-national protest movement based on a variety of instances, struggles and feelings against its disasters and injustices. The masses are beginning to act on their own behalf by taking on the various "individual" aspects of the general degradation and alienation affecting human existence: against environmental destruction and in favour of the climate, for women’s liberation, against Western wars and pillage, against the general worsening of living and working conditions, against the super-exploitation of our immigrant brothers… Workers, women and the young are beginning to perceive that their condition of relative well-being is being undermined by the effects of globalisation, which do not protect them against the injustices imposed upon them by their own governments or against the oppression of the centres of power that deny the three-quarters of the world population living in the dominated countries any possibility of a human existence as a result of the super-exploitation that imperialism has constructed – as well as the previously differentiated and privileged oppressive conditions of their own workers.
We internationalist communists welcome the ignition of the energies, passions and struggles that have have been encountered in the streets since Seattle: although apparently based on "separate" instances, they are actually not and they are also connected with the denunciation of the conditions of the exploited in the Southern part of the world and participation in their struggle. We are a part of this world movement of the exploited, who we know are above all super-exploited and oppressed by "our" governments and "our" Western imperialism (not only American, but also European and Italian). We are aware that there can be no union of the struggles in the South and North of the world unles the militants in the West work on mobilising their antagonistic internal forces inside and against the centre of imperialism. We do so because "a people that oppresses another people cannot be free" and therefore our proletarian cause is that of our Southern brothers who we know to be much more oppressed in the concerted and unequal system of world capitalism. This approach towards an identification with the mass rebellion of the exploited in the South is not easy and cannot be taken for granted: it has only just begun and is still far from providing in the West a response that is minimally adequate to meet the appeal reaching us from the struggle taking place in the South. Nevertheless, we say that these beginnings are promising insofar as they have been capable of generating the mobilisations in Seattle, the World March of Women, the demonstrations in Genoa… These first signals are beginning to show that the exploited of the entire world have one problem to confront: the problem raised by the rotten world capitalist system. We internationalist communists are doing everything we can to encourage this decisive unification: by means of our everyday commitment to the organisation of immigrants and their unity with the movement of the metropolitan proletariat insofar as they two undissociable sectors of the united front of the exploited; by means of our pressing interventions in relation to all international issues which, unlike others, we concretely make an effort not to see as being extraneous to us and merely an object of comment, but about which – by bringing them forcefully to the attention of Western workers – we express the need to place ourselves unconditionally on the side of the Southern masses struggling against "our" imperialism.
Valorising the resistance and rebellion of the exploited in the Souther worn, and binding ourselves to them, are indispensable steps in unifying the struggle. This is the only way to abolish the obstacles and dividing walls that capital has created in its attempt to ensure that the various sectors of the exploited remain blind to the fact that their individual instances and desires for liberation are all parts of a single battle. Imperialism fears the struggle of the exploited, and above all that this finds a way of becoming united with the struggle of the exploited in the metropoli. It is for this reason that it attacks and criminalises the resistance of the exploited in the Southern parts of the world by painting it as something distant, local and deviated, particularly in the eyes of Western workers. Imperialism ruthlessly terrorises
the peoples who do not bow down to its dominion, dignifying its own criminal aggressions as missions of "humanity", "peace" or "infinite justice", while defining anyone who reacts and fights against its pillaging and repression a "terrorist". Its obvious aim is to criminalise, isolate and repress the mass uprising of the oppressed, whereas we must recognise, valorise and join the struggles of the masses wherever they resist and fight against imperialism. Just as the Mothers of Piazza di Maggio understood that the resistance of the Islamic peoples was also theirs and that of the exploited throughout the world, so must we work to identify ourselves in the reasons and needs for a united response. In order to defeat the false propaganda of imperialism, our struggle must grow and weld itself into a single fight that involves all of the exploited of the world by giving itself an appropriate programme and direction. This is the only way of providing ourselves with the strength necessary to repel the attack of imperialism.
Albeit with difficulties and contradictions, the answer to the question as to what the objective should be and how to reach it must come from inside the struggles that are now beginning to make themselves felt. It is right that the various "peoples" seek to end their strangulation and the expropriations induced by international capital, but how can this be done? Certainly not by means of assuming that the goodwill and agreement of capitalist institutions will allow the establishment of "grass roots" democracy! Capital will never loosen the grip of its oppressive instruments (the IMF, WTO and … multiple warships) or the substance of its control unless it is taken by the neck – and this is something that the masses must achieve by imposing a radical change based on their own struggles and strengths. Any belief that these problems can be solved by means of a dialogue with the representatives of capital or reformist petitions entrusted to the good offices of the UN means denying any possibility of success.
The compelling need is to unite the exploited workers of every race, nation, religion, generation and gender in one battle with a single objective. Respect for "different needs" and popular cultures does not mean everyone withdrawing into their national shells isolated from globalisation: such a prospect is purely illusory. None of the questions can be solved separately inside the borders of this or that country: not in Palestine, nor Afghanistan, nor Argentina. It is necessary to get to the root of the problems. And the root of the problems is the fact that the wealth created by the social labour of the entire globe has been avidly sucked up by capitalism and a restricted minority of exploiters. In order to solve the problems, this global social labour must be reconquered by working humanity and used for its own human purposes. The unifying programme is therefore the destruction of capitalism. The facts show that reforming capital is impossible. Everywhere, the imperialist bourgeoisie defends the privileges of a restricted class of exploiters using the bloodiest of violence to crush any attempt by the vast oppressed majority of the population to emancipate themselves. Oppressed humanity must recognise that its enemy is the capitalist system as a whole – a system which, having long ago exhausted any progressive function, now cultivates only ruin and barbarism. It is only by defeating and destroying it that we can liberate the path towards the future of humanity, and allow the politically active and participatory oppresed masses to take control over all social production, freeing it from expropriation for the profit of a few and returning it to the collective well-being of everyone. Therefore: a common international struggle in order to impose the common social use of the available social resources throughout the world.
If these are the problems that we have to face, calling upon the "social" Europe of "the peoples" means more or less consciously relegating the movement of the exploited behind the waggon of European imperialism. The chimera of a Europe which, unlike the American gangster, would safeguard the rights of workers and be ready to dialogue with the peoples of the South is nothing but an infinite lie. The capitalist states of Europe were the first colonialists and imperialists to appear on the face of the Earth. Anything but the Europe of dialogue! Even the "socially" tinged Europe of the left has long been in the field against all of the exploited: we have seen it in Iraq and Yugoslavia, and in the police repressions triggered off in Prague, Goteborg and Genoa; we can see it in the criminal aggression against Afghanistan, in which Europe is a front line participant, as well as in the all-round offensive launched against European workers themselves, with immigrants as the first – but by no means exclusive – target. In order to ensure that the struggle advances in the right direction, it is necessary to fight all of the reformist and chauvinist sirens in the movement of whatever type or colour.
It is a struggle that must incorporate its immediate objectives in this broader perspective. Let us pick up once again the threads already woven in Durban and relaunch the international mobilisation on the side of the intifadah in Palestine. Let us line up together for the immediate cessation of the bombing in Afghanistan and drive out the imperialist armies. Let us support the mass revolt in Argentina, and capitalise everything it has to teach us. Is it possible to oppose the economic and financial strangulation of the dominated countries by introduciing the Tobin tax? But, above all, is it possible to do so without working to organise and set the strength of the masses against the complex of imperialisms’ usurious and repressive machinery? Today’s Argentinian uprisings are calling upon us to sustain with force the cancellation of the country’s foreign debt. We must adopt this objective while being fully aware that it must be linked with the destiny of the working and exploited classes in every country – above all those in the Western creditor countries – preparing ourselves to support the struggle of the exploited in Argentina against the payment of the debt and to set in motion our own struggle against the preying imperialists who want to offload on the exploited (over there and here) all of the consequences of their rape and pillage.
It is also from inside the struggle of the exploited masses against imperialist aggression that we are beginning to see the need for a political organisation that is capable of unifying, organising and leading the battle. This is something else we have learnt from the Argentinian uprisings and the heroicresistance of the Arab and Islamic masses. We internationalist communists swear that, with our work, we will put together and pursue all of the instances that go in this direction, ensure the continuity of international contacts, circulate information and encourage debate, create international organs for the exchange of information and experiences. The Argentinian proletariat in revolt must immediately put into the field a step of necessary opposition against all possible forms of capitalist government, and defeat in the streets all of the governments of all of the political forces that are the expression of capitalism and, in their various ways, have prcipitated the disaster. This is another lesson we have to learn. The exploited cannot be freed by means of the electoral conquest of capitalist institutions or illusory participations in their management. What is necessary is the conquest of all decision-making powers over society, production and social wealth, putting them all into the hands of the one class – the international protetariat – that has produced and produces this wealth by its labours. We know that it is not something that can be done the day after tomorrow – but it is something that is already alive in every proletarian struggle against the globalised exploitation of imperialist capital and its lackeys.