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‘Democracy’ has arrived in Libya

Marie Lynam
26th August 2011 at 10:41
2 comments

Hello comrades

A peoples’ rising - in this case by ‘the youth of Libya’, according to Stuart - that follows behind an NTC with the air-and-ground support of the US & NATO, cannot possibly have opened the road ‘to a democratic period’, as Stuart would have us believe.
The foreign workers of Libya, the large amount of them who were working in Libya, were scared away by the peoples’ rising. The workers returned massively to Tunisia and Egypt, and overflowed into Southern Europe.
In not trying to incorporate this huge proletarian force, the peoples’ rising showed exactly was it was not: Not of the people, and even less of the working class. And it showed exactly what it was: An arm of the world bosses.
Proofs are aplenty: monarchist flag, mercenaries, concealed SAS and Israeli trainers, no end of lies, no socialist demand, no mention of better trade unions, submission to the NTC - and the NCT, devoid of social support, having to rely entirely on the United Bombs of Global Capitalism.
‘Now the workers and students must use the democratic space they have won’, says Stuart.
But there is no democratic space won. For the good reason that no democratic space was asked for.
If democratic space means ‘genuine trade unions or socialist organisations’, as Stuart puts it, the popular rising never mentioned it; for the good reason that, for the masters of the popular rising, ‘democratic space’ means privatisation, personal enrichment, destruction of the structures for the collective good, just as in Iraq.
Having placed itself between the teeth of the imperialist beast, several things now face the peoples’ rising:

1. Its most ambitious leaders will fight the less powerful ones. What do you expect? The mightiest will get the largest share of the spoils that imperialist plunder may (perhaps) grant. The latter will make sure that the less fleshy bones go to the less mighty ‘rebels’ and the weakest imperialists. Depending on power hierarchies soon to be established by force within the ranks of the ‘rebels’. Watch this space.

Funding for the new rebel government in Libya is already being taken from the Libyan coffers ‘protected’ by the US banks, not from the imperialist oil companies or banks. From those Libyan coffers, free education and health used to be paid for in Libya, and aid sent to Africa. Expect an immediate programme of privatisations. Starting with the oil.

2. In not being a social class, the ‘youth of Libya’ will not be able to follow an independent political road. As the young people mature, each of its members enters society along the class structures.

3. Having been the tool of imperialism, the peoples’ rising has no political independence. It is true that layers within it may object to their country being re-colonised. But these layers, if they come about, will be like the Anarchists who joined the bourgeois Republic in 1936 in Spain. Now under the protection of the imperialists, the peoples rising are under the protection of the imperialist military. An uncomfortable position, if Afghanistan and Iraq are anything to go by.

Stuart hopes that the Peoples Rising, and the Youth in Libya, will now stop imperialism consolidating the NTC. But the Peoples Rising and the Youth have no such power. They cannot have any independent policy or functioning, because the imperialist military will not let them.

As for imperialism, having used the rag of monarchists, religious obscurantists, self-seekers and adventurers, mercenaries and turncoats, its next move will be to throw the rag away.
4. The capture of Libya’s government has not been a political matter but a military conquest. It is therefore necessary to expect that, those who thought that the Revolutionary State that existed before could be improved, will not admire the privatisation and the plunder that are coming.
They are obviously going to continue the fight, and this will give to the US and NATO the pretext to occupy the place indefinitely, as in Afghanistan and Iraq.
In preparation for more general wars, or a general war. World capitalism is moribund, but it will make war rather than give up.
 
Stuart, you speak of taking this fight to Damascus.
But you will get the same result. With the difference, perhaps, that a guerrilla fight in Syria/Lebanon is likely to force Israel to return the Golan to Syria, the West Bank to to Jordan, the Palestinians to Palestine, and a unification of the revolutionary Arab masses with the newly formed Israeli ‘indignados’ ...

It would have been much more intelligent, from the point of view of those who do not object to NATO’s bombs opening ‘democratic spaces’ for them, to have kept quiet in Libya.
For Gaddafi and Assad, after all, have kept the Palestinian masses at bay. Any destabilisation of that region is going to bring back the question of the Right of Return for millions of Palestinians. Those who respect the UN resolutions, note!
This is an experience for the LRC.

As it finds itself between the teeth of a Trade Union and Labour bureaucracy that has supported the ‘rebels’ of Libya - themselves supported by British imperialism and NATO - the LRC finds itself constrained in its ability to oppose British imperialism and NATO.
The Left in the Labour Party has no possibility of advancing ‘genuine trade unions and socialist organisations’ (if this applies also to Britain) unless it breaks this chain.
The re-founding of Labour cannot be discussed as if this chain did not exist.
This matter of Libya is precisely the occasion to do so!
More of this on demand.
Comradely greetings, Marie Lynam, GMB individual capacity.

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