The rest of the Arab nation steps forward

Scan page 4

Moreover, National Public Radio quoted a number of Benghazi residents saying they did not want foreign intervention, their correspondent reporting their desire to “get rid of Qaddafi finally themselves.” Numerous similar quotes have appeared in the media.

Evidence of the masses’ willingness to fight can be seen in the long lines of volunteers in Benghazi waiting to sign up, as well as the pitched battles, often victorious, fought by citizen militias to take and retake cities. Their courage and determination could be seen on March 4 when, despite the reign of terror, several hundred demonstrators gathered in Tajura, an area east of the capital still under Qaddafi’s control, and braved tear gas and live ammunition.

U.S. military officials themselves note that a nofly zone would mean shooting down Libyan planes, bombing anti-aircraft sites, and putting ships and thousands of personnel in place as support. And such a zone would, as in Iraq, likely be a prelude to the introduction of ground troops who would—again, as in Iraq—guard oil fields while ignoring (or even taking part in) the massacres of civilians.

While the masses have expressed a desire to march on Tripoli—and residents in that city are awaiting a force that would give them the slightest window of opportunity to rise up and crush Qaddafi’s murderous forces—the defecting military officers hope to postpone a final confrontation with Qaddafi. Their plea for aid from the U.S. and Europe is a signal that they are ready to collaborate in setting up a new pro-Western regime, and that they dread the kind of radical demands being put forward by the masses throughout the Arab world.

A coalition of over 200 Arab non-governmental organizations and intellectuals has called for “immediate contingency plans for international intervention … including a no-fly zone. … The window of opportunity to prevent further atrocities from occurring is closing fast.” Some liberals in the West, such as Phyllis Bennis of the Institute for Policy Studies, are counterposing to no-fly zones calls for armed UN “humanitarian missions”—despite the murderous, repressive record of just such a mission in recent years in Haiti.

In contrast, the United National Antiwar Committee issued a “Statement on U.S. Non-Intervention in Libya and Other Countries,” which declared: “UNAC calls for an immediate halt to U.S. intervention in regions and countries where mass mobilizations are challenging oppressive regimes. … We therefore oppose any form of U.S. military or economic intervention in Libya, Egypt, Bahrain, Tunisia and other countries where movements are rising in opposition to dictatorships 4 Socialist Action march 2011 around the legitimate hatred of the masses against the West which has been nurtured for generations.”

Such clarity is not universal, however, where some still have illusions fostered by Qaddafi’s anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist bombast. Numerous writers, both mainstream and alternative, have pointed to Qaddafi’s turn toward imperialism in recent years, his opening of the country’s economy to foreign capital and to IMF-dictated austerity programs and privatization, and his joining in the “War on Terror,” all accompanied by harsher repression to stifle dissent against this turn.

It must be noted, however, that even at the height of his supposed anti-imperialist policies, Libya remained a capitalist state. The rhetoric against imperialism, the money donated to Arab and other liberation groups, and the services granted to the masses from the country’s oil revenue were all doled out under conditions decided by Qaddafi and his regime, with no input from workers and peasants. Qaddafi’s nationalizations of foreign banks and oil companies no more made Libya a workers’ state than did similar measures in Egypt under Nasser or Iraq under Hussein.

Unfortunately, much of the left fell for his rhetoric, as they had—and still do—for other bourgeois populists in neocolonial countries.

Particularly disappointing is the role of Hugo Chavez, Daniel Ortega, and Fidel Castro in their one-sided, if correct, denunciation of imperialism’s interests and intentions in this affair, while denying or ignoring Qaddafi’s repression and murders. Chavez even offered to mediate the dispute—an offer immediately rejected by the resistance. Numerous Latin American revolutionaries reacted with horror to the stances of these three leaders, worrying that the potential for solidarity between the masses of the Arab world and Latin America was being destroyed.

But the masses of Libya, as throughout the Arab world, have shown they no longer want or need help from condescending saviors (to borrow a phrase from “The Internationale”). Beside their willingness to fight arms in hand, the other major weapon the insurgents have is the deepening of their revolution, the development of a program that would make clear to the population in Tripoli that a mass rising against Qaddafi is worth risking, as it would bring political freedom, social justice, and far better economic conditions.

Such a program would necessarily seek to replace the capitalist economic system with one that serves the needs of the working people of Libya, and is controlled by them. And it would raise the call for a pan-Arab “Socialist United States” spanning the artificial In the last month, the Arab revolution has spread to virtually every country in the region. In Bahrain, Yemen, Oman, Jordan, Algeria, Morocco, Djibouti, and even Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, repeated rallies ranging from hundreds to hundreds of thousands have occurred, met sometimes with murderous repression, sometimes with grudging and pathetic reforms. In several cases murders by the ruling regime have led protesters to drop their demands for constitutional monarchies and instead demand republics. Often there have been workers’ strikes; these are countries, let us not forget, with heroic histories of labor and radical organizing (see Fred Halliday’s “Arabia Without Sultans” for more on this).

The strategic importance of the revolts in the Gulf States is heightened by the presence in Bahrain, next to the Gulf’s strongest power, Saudi Arabia, of the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet, a base that has been the launching pad for U.S. wars in the region. In many of these countries the same steps in self-organization taken by the masses in Cairo’s Tahrir Square have appeared.

Repeated mass protests have occurred even in U.S.-occupied Iraq, demanding services such as water and electricity. The murder by the regime of dozens, and the detention and torture of hundreds, during these protests was met with silence by an Obama administration too busy threatening war against Libya.

In Lebanon there were two days of protest for non-confessional government (the country’s election system guarantees wealthier Sunnis’ domination by allotting seats in parliament by religion, based on a census out of proportion to actual population figures).

The victories in Egypt and Tunisia have inspired Palestinians to step up their struggle. Rallies in solidarity with the Arab revolt and against the quisling Palestinian Authority have taken place in the face of vicious repression by the PA. In the United States, the U.S. Palestinian Community Network has launched a campaign, building on (continued on page 7, in “U.S. unable to rely on military force in its quest for world dominance”)

Scan page 5

Mohammed Abed / AFP / Getty Images