Are Boycotts Still Useful?

After Israel’s latest assault on Palestine, it seems there has been greater interest in Palestinian solidarity groups and movements like Boycott, Divest, Sanctions (BDS). The idea of the latter is to treat Israel as the World Community treated South Africa during its Apartheid years, hoping that the results will be similar. There are two interrelated matters to take in to consideration when it comes to BDS: Israel’s role in the global hierarchy and the value of boycotts in general in the modern world.

The position of Israel is the most crucial issue, so I will start there. Not infrequently, both in unofficial forums in the U.S. and the whole gamut of “officialness” in foreign media sources, I have come across people from the Middle East (and sometimes other parts of the world as well) express the almost-cliched anti-Semitic truisms: Jews control the banks and the media, they pull the strings of Western foreign policy, there is a reason why “everyone” has a problem with the Jews, etc. Obviously there are many Jewish anti-Zionists and anti-Zionists who are in no way anti-Semitic; however, in denouncing Zionism one must take great care not to unintentionally provide support for or feed into the misconceptions of the anti-Semites. When one emphasizes the power of Israel and isolates its evil from the global capitalist system of which it is a part, then one runs the risk of reinforcing the ideas about Jews Running the World and Jews as an Evil People.

It is certainly important to call attention to the reality of the situation in Palestine, as Western media and public discourse are very one-sided. Yet, this attention should also highlight the context of European colonialism, American neocolonialism, and global capitalism. These forces are responsible for nurturing Zionism, guiding it in particular directions, using it to secure global structures of power, and of course, funding and arming it. Just like poor whites in the American South who were inculcated with racism to suit the needs of politicians, Israel is in a sense “only a pawn in the game” (lyrics courtesy of Bob Dylan).

So the question (which can apply to all boycotts) is, why Israel? It seems a bit like cherry-picking. The U.S. has enslaved more people (particularly if you include the humungous prison population) and caused more death and suffering worldwide (including direct support for the Israeli occupation). Why not boycott all goods produced by U.S. companies? In fact, since all corporations exploit human beings (and are complicit to varying degrees with slavery and poverty), why not boycott all capitalist-produced goods? Once again, to single out Israel is to make the Jewish nation appear as the greatest evil in this world when it certainly is not.

But those questions bring me to my second point. One of the first instances of the boycott was employed by Quakers and free blacks in the United States as a reaction to slavery. At that time, it probably was not possible to see the development of capitalism, and certainly the institution of slavery was (and still is) foundational to the capitalist system. In that sense, the boycott really was aiming high. The participants did not want to personally profit off of slavery; thus, it was a general, principled stand rather than a fight against anyone or anything in particular. The problem with boycotts now is that they are directed at specific actors: a certain corporation or set of corporations. All capitalists play by the same rules. If you do not want to personally benefit from capitalist exploitation, then it doesn’t make any sense to single anyone out. In fact, it may end up just putting impoverished people in a more vulnerable position (as I once heard a Bangladeshi Walmart employee say, “But we need the jobs!”). What we need is an effective way to challenge the entire global capitalist system – a way to extricate ourselves from it and call attention to the reality of its mechanisms. When we boycott these days, we are sending the message that we are just concerned about “bad guys,” but the truth is that we are fight against a bad system.

Drones and the Universal Battlefield

I was very happy this morning when I saw drones on the front pages of the newspapers. Finally, I thought, this is being raised to the level of public discussion. As the day wore on and I read all of the variations of the story, with associated comment threads (yes, I did my actual reading online), my excitement continued, but I also grew irritated by a couple of things. On the positive side, I was happy to see people, including those who have believed that Obama is the answer to all their dreams and aspirations, starting to seriously question some of his choices. Yet, predictably, the debate centered entirely on the subject of the targeted killing of American citizens, and all criticisms of these killings were amply qualified with paeans to the virtues of killing terrorists.

The American Citizen Angle
Obviously it is a breach of domestic law and the Constitution (specifically that part about due process) to assassinate American citizens without a trial or any sort of legal procedure that might justify the act. This is and should be an outrage to those people who believe in the virtues of the modern institution of law. (I, on the other hand, have argued that the modern concept of “law” is a bourgeois institution/ideology/set of practices that create different spheres of actions and different types of citizenship – as such, laws are not made to be followed, and the U.S. has never consistently followed the rules upon which it supposedly is founded; infringements on civil rights have been the norm for the nation’s entire existence.) However, this departure from the Constitution is seen as the extent of the scandal. The targeted killing of non-citizens is not seen as problematic, and I have not seen it raised for discussion.

However, drone strikes, regardless of whom they are directed against, represent a fundamental shift in our notion of the “battlefield.” Up until recently, if one wanted to intervene militarily in another country, one declared war. It was the declaration of war itself that triggered the application of international laws pertaining to Just War. For example, the rationalization of “collateral damage” (which I nevertheless do not believe is in any way "rational") occurred within the context of a declared war, with a specified battlefield in relation to where the combatants were located. It was this official declaration of war that made a “special exception” for the killing of civilians located in a conflict zone. Now there is no declared war. And the “battleground” has been redefined as “anywhere a terrorist moves.” Since “terrorist” itself is a vague word (more on that below), any location on earth can be defined as a battleground, and therefore the “special exceptions” of war have become universally applicable laws. Despite the misleading contentions that drones only kill terrorists, less biased international organizations estimate that the vast majority of victims are innocent civilians. What the drone apologists are arguing is that they have the authority to indiscriminately kill anyone in the world, without any approval or oversight, or any framework of a “war.” This is just as much of an abrogation of previously accepted law as the assassination of American citizens.

The Secrecy Angle (/Killing Terrorists is A-Okay)
One common sentiment that I encountered today went along the lines of:  "Of course, no one would have much of a problem with the U.S. killing terrorists without due process. They just shouldn't be so secretive about it." Yes, it seemed that the main problem was simply the covertness with which the drone program has been carried out. Not the the loss of life or physical destruction or psychological trauma in Yemen, Pakistan, and Somalia. The telling thing is that a lot of people are more than willing to give up their sacred laws if terrorists are involved. This is where the problematic definition of "terrorist" comes in.

It has been noted that the U.S. retroactively (and erroneously) identified some drone victims as high-ranking Al Qaeda members in order to justify the killings. Yet, many victims are young and only marginally involved in Al Qaeda, posing no serious threat to the U.S. The problem is that one does not have to possess both the means and the intent to inflict harm on the U.S. institutional apparatus or citizenry to be considered a terrorist. Generally, anyone expressing any views that challenge the U.S. and its vital interests can be labeled as a "threat" - and if they are Muslim, a "terrorist." Of course, one can view this as a freedom of speech issue. But there is a broader issue. All nations are not created equal. The U.S. is a neo-colonial power with substantial influence in pretty much every country, particularly in those areas where "terrorists" reside. Expressing anti-American sentiments must be seen in the context of feeling the domination of the U.S. in a very physical way (poverty, dictatorships, etc.)

It is an established fact that when one group of humans dominates another, the subject populations will resist. It is also an establish fact that the dominating power will label the resistance movement as "terrorists" or some other such pejorative term. For a while, the popular term was "communist." Whether one talks about "terrorists" or "communists" the effect is always the same: the demonization of people resisting domination, and the legitimization of all manner of activities that would in normal circumstances be unpalatable (e.g. killing random people with drones).

Drone attacks should be seen for what they are: another expression of American domination of the Middle East and Africa. That is why they largely increase anti-American sentiments. When drones kill "terrorists" they are not eradicating evil-doers. They are annihilating the resistance to neo-colonialism.

What is Important about the Benghazi Attack?

I previously asserted that structured opposition (organizing and condensing a limitless variety of viewpoints into two ostensibly antagonistic factions) serves to create an illusion of free speech and a "free marketplace of ideas," when, in fact, anything outside of that dichotomous scheme is actively suppressed. Obviously, as a Marxist, my first example is the way in which Marxist arguments are routinely stigmatized and undermined. They are not legitimate in the public sphere.

But this phenomenon has even deeper significance, particularly for the way in which information is transmitted. Each side of the opposition has their own ideological framework, commitments, and a set of talking points, all of which completely determines the treatment of any new information. It reminds me of Mad Libs. The narrative is already set, but new adjectives and nouns can fill in the blanks as the circumstances require.

So, let's look at the Benghazi attack (obviously my ultimate goal with this post). From the beginning, the military intervention in Libya was framed as a humanitarian undertaking, designed to aid an independently thriving grassroots opposition movement. When Gaddafi was captured, the Obama Administration quickly proclaimed that the operation was done - quick and clean. So easy.

Then there's this attack on an embassy in Benghazi, which we are initially told was a spontaneous reaction to an anti-Muslim film. When information gets out that it was actually a planned attack and there is a large CIA base nearby, there is now the potential for probing questions. What is the CIA doing there? What kind of presence have they had in Libya? Why was the embassy attacked? There is, of course, plenty of evidence that the CIA was quite involved, from the beginning, in the Libyan civil war. There is also plenty of evidence that it is currently using this base to transfer weapons to militant groups (particularly to Syrian rebels) and that the embassy was just providing a cover for the operation. The group that coordinated the attack was upset that the CIA merely used them to serve broader geopolitical goals.

All of this information had the potential to explode into the public sphere. This would have initiated discussions about the role of the CIA in organizing rebel groups and fomenting revolution for the ultimate purpose of regime change. Maybe we could have linked all of this information to the current situation in Mali and then voiced our opposition to military incursions in this region.

But what happened was this. The Republican Party wanted to use the cover up to their benefit, without exposing the CIA. No one wants to mess with the CIA. (Plus, the Republican Party has an ideological loyalty to the military-intelligence complex.) So, in their messaging, they decided to bracket all the information about the CIA, still treat the Benghazi embassy as a legitimate embassy under the control of the State Department, and direct all of their criticism toward the way the State Department secured the embassy and responded to the attack. In other words, they framed it as another case of government incompetence (which is a primary Republican ideological narrative). Of course, the Democrats have the same loyalties to the military-intelligence complex, and simply formed their talking points in reaction to the Republican argument.

The result? A debate about security, and honesty, and the State Department, and very little about the CIA. Since both political parties share a key commitment (and are probably completely subservient to the military and intelligence communities) the public conversation about a potentially illuminating event has elided everything that is important for the public to know, instead focusing on the most trivial details.

Will Statehood Help the Palestinians?

The hope that Palestinians pin on the UN and statehood status is just another example of the pitfalls of trying to create change within the system.

The Palestinians are not being screwed by Israel. They are being screwed by a global system, of which Israel is merely one component.

Do the Palestinians really believe that having the status of a sovereign state will protect them from being occupied or invaded? Do they think that, in obtaining statehood, they will suddenly be freed from their open-air prisons and no longer be deprived of basic necessities? The answer, of course, is no, but the hope is that any steps toward statehood will give them certain rights under international law and perhaps some leverage via the UN.

Then I must ask, do you really think the UN is going to deliver? We're talking about the same UN, right?

The fact of the matter is that the UN serves the interests of the global capitalist elite who control its institutional machinery. So long as Palestinian subjugation is useful in the capitalist system, it will continue.

The Palestinians would be better served by recognizing the way in which all modern institutions (including the system of nation-states and international law) functioning together with capitalism as an integrated whole. If the Palestinians want their freedom, they will not find it in the international legal system. Perhaps the only way out of captivity is the path (more or less) of the Zapatistas.

Democracy Doesn't Create Wealth

And... now for part three of the "I Told You So" series.

As I was listening to a report this morning about the continued economic woes (e.g. high unemployment) in Tunisia, despite the new democratically elected government, I was reminded of a post I wrote about dictatorships and democracy, in which I argued that dictatorships are a result of poverty rather than a cause.  I insisted that democracy is nothing more than a discursive tool employed by those who are wealthy enough to erect the requisite physical and ideological infrastructure to sustain its illusion.  And I predicted that supposed democratization in the MENA region would not bring about prosperity, so long as the capitalist system remained in place.

I told you so.

A Syrian Plot?

I had written a new post yesterday and then forgot to email it to myself, thus trapping it on my work computer until Monday.  In the meantime, I wanted to link to an article I just read.  I have already speculated about whether the CIA and other forces are behind the Syrian uprising.  This article provides some fairly compelling evidence that it is, indeed, the case.

Israel's Role In Foreign Affairs

It is clear that Israel is a key player in world affairs. To many in the West, Israel is seen as an indispensible ally, while to others, particularly in the Middle East, it is viewed as a provocateur and invoked as a justification for violence. In fact, some people (generally those in the latter camp) believe that Israel is pulling all the strings of Western foreign policy. And there are people who think that Jews secretly run the world. Clearly, a lot is attributed to Israel/the Jews.

While I do think that the West, and in particular the U.S., are very vested in Israel’s security and exhibit a public bias toward the nation in their handling of regional conflicts, I don’t think that it’s fair to say that Israel is calling all of the shots. And the idea that Jews control the world does not even deserve comment. In fact, I would say, quite contrarily, that Israel has more often been used as a tool by the West in pursuit of their own goals, and that a general anger over colonialism/neo-colonialism has to some extent been unfairly (I will admit, also to some extent fairly) displaced onto Israel, as the visible arm of Western colonialism in the Middle East.

For example, let’s look at the creation of this nation-state. The establishment of the state of Israel could not have occurred if Britain, the occupier of the territory, did not will it. And Britain did not will it because of its sympathy for the victims of Nazi genocide. It had been planning the creation of a Jewish state prior to WW2 as a strategy to counter any potential expansionary aims of the new Egyptian regime. The British took advantage of the Zionist attitudes and devastation felt by the Jews in order to place colonial agents in the region.  And they continued to use Israel as a check against the emergence of any regional power that could threaten Western hegemony.

It is true that Israel lobbies, both directly and through its organized American supporters, for particular foreign policy interventions whose strategic aim is to prevent the rise of any regional power that could rival Israel. This is rational. It is also true that the U.S. often seems to bend to the sway of this influence. However, that is only because the U.S.'s own strategic objectives happen to dovetail, in large part, with Israel's. The U.S., as world hegemonic power and chief instrument of neocolonialism for the capitalist class, also does not want any regional power to emerge in the Middle East. But the U.S. interest is in maintaining control over as much of the region as possible, and the rise of any hostile power would threaten that control. Israel just happens to be a useful ally.

Israel may have a lot of nukes, but the global elite is strong and globally integrated.  And the bottom line, under capitalism, is always the bottom line:  profit.

Muslim Women Are a Tool of Western Imperialism

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia announced this past week that women would be able to participate in elections for the first time.  Of course, in the U.S. this news was used a platform for self-righteous sermonizing about the treatment of women in the Middle East.  On the Daily Show, Jon Stewart jumped on the bandwagon by making several insensitive jokes (for example, showing a picture of voting booths constructed out of women and their veils).

First of all, having the "right to vote" by no means signifies liberation for women in the U.S. or any country.  In fact, the focus on voting is another example of the way in which discontent is channeled into activities that ultimately support the system.  I would link to another post in which I made this point, but I feel like it is becoming a pervasive theme in this blog.  Voting is an illusory, symbolic privilege that ornaments a highly stratified, oligarchic global society.  (The fact that the Saudi king would be willing to allow women to vote as a sort of PR stunt - a response to regional instability - very well exemplifies the true nature of voting.)  Women may be able to vote and even hold elected office, but that doesn't mean society is any less patriarchal.

Moreover, there has been a long history of Europeans pointing toward Arab/Muslim/Middle Eastern (undistinguished) patriarchy in contrast to the supposed liberation of European women (long before they ever got the right to vote!) as an excuse for the colonial project.  And it continues to this day.  The plight of Afghani women under the rule of the Taliban, for example, is used as a rationale for U.S. military involvement in the region, even though most women see the violence resulting from these operations as a greater menace than the veils they wear.

Some women like wearing veils and burkas.  It has spiritual meaning for them and serves as a form of agency, a means of self-discipline.  Who are we to tell them that they can only be free if they don't wear a veil?

Furthermore, where women do feel oppressed, they have the ability to act on their own behalf and fight their own battle.  They do not need or necessarily want us to liberate them.  They are not passive and helpless.  However, their vision of "liberation" may differ from the Western feminist vision of liberation. But Western feminists will not recognize it.  In this way, white feminists are actually denying agency to women of other colors and faiths.

But the bottom line is this:  whatever liberation movements may have occurred in different places and at different times, the system has not changed in its fundamentals.  All women are oppressed, and by the same systemic processes, though they may be oppressed in different ways.  It does not make sense to play the game of "who is more oppressed?"  Yes, women in some regions have to cover their entire body and can only appear in public with a male chaperone.  But women in other regions may feel forced to expose or sell their bodies, and are tortured daily with self-imposed starvation and feelings of inadequacy.  Is it any more liberating or honorable to be treated as an object and to hate one's own body?

Why Afghanistan?

On Thursday's Daily Show, the guest was Peter Tomsen, a former U.S. Special Envoy and expert on Afghanistan.  Now, there are probably many Daily Show interviews, and many other such interviews from other sources, that I could use to make the point I am about to argue, but I just happened to "feel like it" this time.  So there was nothing particularly special about this interview.

The general point I want to raise is:  such a distorted view of the world has been constructed and promulgated, that even the "experts" are often clueless and misguided.  Never trust an expert.  Or at least, never trust an expert just because they are an expert.  Do your own research so that you can evaluate claims with reference to your own knowledge base.

The Peter Tomsen interview demonstrated the ineptitude of experts quite well.  For example, he suggests that there has been so much interest in Afghanistan because it is located on a plateau, which gives its occupier strategic military advantage.  Even Jon could see the ridiculousness of this proposition, it seemed from his jokes.  It is, in fact, quite an outmoded understanding of geopolitical strategy.

The salience of things like geographical features, or even oil, is not what it used to be.  What matters now is having neocolonial control over other governments so that they willingly "open" their markets to foreign investment and create projects that enable or require the involvement of multinational corporations.  (In Afghanistan, for example, whether intended or unintended consequence, the infrastructural devastation cause by all of the wars has actually allowed some corporations to profit enormously from reconstruction efforts.)  I have argued before that "Islamic extremists," such as the Taliban, are only threatening to the United States when they refuse to cooperate with the U.S. and its corporate interests.  Otherwise, the U.S. is all to happy to openly or covertly support Islamist groups.  It is clear, then, what the true strategic interest is.

Probably the most laughable and blatantly false thing that Tomsen said was that the Pakistani government has control over the ISI.  Expert on what now?

Religion and Colonialism in MENA

In a previous post, I mentioned that there are two general responses to colonialism - nationalism and socialism - and one particular to the MENA reigion - Islamism (a political movement based on religious fundamentalism). I also suggested that Islamism may be viewed as a type of nationalism.

Of these three responses to colonialism, socialism poses the most radical challenge to the global power structure. Although socialism is a form of capitalism, the practice of nationalizing industries serves as a means of blocking the control of resources, enterprises, and markets from the most powerful competitors - the ones who maintain neocolonial control over the entire globe.

In contrast to socialism, nationalism and Islamism can be (and have been) coopted by the industrial powers to suit their own purposes. This fact is most fundamentally demonstrated by the way in which countries like the United States promote Islamophobia and denounce "Islamic extremism" on the one hand, while using their other hand to covertly aid and support Islamist groups. While the support for nationalist groups has been used primarily to destabilize other colonial powers, the capitalist powers are most likely to court Islamist groups when they can be pitted against socialist forces (in this sense, then, Islamism becomes "the lesser of two evils").

Islamist groups are remarkably varied in terms of the scope of their goals and the methods that they employ. It is by no means a single movement. Rather "Islamism" describes a heterogenous group of movements. (This is one reason it is misguided to speak generically of "Islamic fundamentalism," "terrorism," or "religious extremism" as a unified force, when these groups and movements are so often working at cross purposes.) Some Islamist groups are so narrowly concerned with consolidating political power within a single nation that they do not hesitate to coorporate with the industrial powers to promote a neoliberal agenda (e.g. "open markets") or whatever else these powers want in return for covert funding and support.

It is fairly well known that the United States armed the Mujahideen in Agfhanistan in order to thwart the socialist forces that had taken root there (including Soviet involvement). People seem less aware that both the British and the United States have supported the Islamic Brotherhood in Egypt. For this reason the Brotherhood is currently lauded for being "moderate" and friendly to Israel, despite the fact that they constituted an important part of the power structure of the previous despotic regimes. The aims of the world powers are, in fact, served by keeping in place as much of the governing apparatus from Mubarak's regime as possible, as it had been carefully constructed to protect foreign capitalist interests via covert interventions (including raising the Islamic Brotherhood into a significant political force).

Under what circumstances, then, do Islamists become "the enemy"?  Some Islamists do not have such narrow political pursuits.  Some are more broadly anti-colonial and seek to undermine foreign influence in the region.   This may include opposition to the perceived proxy of European and U.S. interests in the Middle East: Israel.

This, like socialism, is too much of a challenge.

But why would the U.S. promote a generalized Islamophobia within its borders, when this does not represent the actual geopolitical relationship with Muslim or even Islamist forces?  I will try to tackle this question perhaps in the next post.

"Tribalism"

One strategy that imperial and neocolonial powers have employed to legitimize their actions, as well as the general global political-economic order, is to portray their subjects as culturally and developmentally backward. This tactic has taken multiple forms throughout the past couple of centuries or so. One recent manifestation is the invocation of the concept of "tribalism" when describing conditions in the Middle East and Africa. In the post I will focus specifically on the Middle East, in light of recent military involvements and current political interests.

The term "tribe," as it is currently used, has its roots in anthropology.   Here is another great example of the way in which science has served as a tool of colonialism.  For anthropology, in its origin as an academic discipline, was oriented toward elaborating an evolutionary (oh yes, we're back to evolution) framework of human history, which used certain living human populations to represent the past evolutionary stages of the more developed European civilization.  One aspect of this model of "cultural evolution" was a progression of social organization from bands and tribes to the eventual emergence of a state apparatus.  The former acheived social cohesion not "rationally" through laws and systems of justice, but "emotionally" (once again, the contradistinction between "emotional" and "rational") through bonds of kinship and patriarchal authority.

The cultural backwardness of non-European populations was used to justify the "civilizing" mission of colonialism. Europeans congratulated themselves on their attempts to liberate their subjects from the bonds of patriarchal tyranny, even while women in their own countries were denied fundamental rights.

It is obvious how the salience of kinship and partriarchy continues to dominate characterizations of Middle Eastern societies. The use of the word "tribalism" bears witness to the lasting influence of cultural evolutionism, and implies a less "civilized" form of existence for those to whom the term is applied.

In particular, "tribalism" is invoked to suggest that a situation is unpredictable, that the people with whom one is engaging are apt to act irrationally, that loyalties of kinship will frustrate efforts to enact compromises and create peace. It is a way of saying that persistant violence and chaos is "their" fault and not "ours." Conflict is the result, not of systematic exploitation by the industrial powers, but of ethnic/sectarian differences that have existed before the dawn of time ("tribal" people do not possess a history either of their own or in relation to the rest of the world). Conflict persists, not because of foreign intervention and provokation, but because "tribal" people are not able to act any differently.

However, let's consider the facts.  First, it is a property of human identities that they are malleable and changing while appearing as fixed or "natural" categories. Thus, every sort of ethnic/racial/sectarian identity, in the form that it currently exists, is necessarily new and responsive to the particular conditions at hand.  No feature of human social life is truly ancient.  Second, the Middle East was, during one of the most affluent and fastest-growing periods of human history (11th-13th centuries), the most developed region in the Old World. Localities that are now supposedly stuck in a primitive, tribal past, were home to some of the most advanced state structures, the most sophisticated economic institutions, and the most cosmopolitan and learned cities in the world. The stage of social evolution that is currently attributed to regions such as Afghanistan was far surpassed even 10 centuries ago!! Clearly, the current state of these locales cannot be a function merely of internal characteristics or enduring "tribal" loyalties. Rather, current conditions in the Middle East must, as with current conditions anywhere in the world, have arisen as a result of recent geopolitical/economic processes. Specifically, those processes include: colonialism, more colonialism, neocolonialism (i.e. foreign meddling), economic marginalization, etc. etc.

It is both inaccurate and racist to impute conditions in the Middle East and Africa to "tribalism."