Mexiko: Verhaftet, freigelassen und wieder verhaftet.
Andreas Knobloch
Die mexikanische Justiz hat in den vergangenen Jahren nicht gerade durch hohe Effizienz von sich reden gemacht. Gerade einmal 15 Prozent der während der vergangenen vier Jahre im sogenannten Drogenkrieg verhafteten mutmaßlichen Verbrecher sind auch verurteilt worden. Doch der Fall des ehemaligen Bürgermeisters der nordmexikanischen Millionenstadt Tijuana, Jorge Hank Rhon, ist sogar für mexikanische Verhältnisse ungewöhnlich. Hank wurde am am 4. Juni wegen illegalen Waffenbesitzes und Beteiligung an drei Morden festgenommenen. Elf Tage später, am Dienstag, wurde er aus der Haft entlassen, dann wieder verhaftet, um schließlich erneut auf freien Fuß gesetzt zu werden. Das Ganze vollzog sich innerhalb von zwölf Stunden.
Am Morgen hatte ein Bundesrichter die Freilassung Hanks angeordnet, da nicht ausreichend Beweise für illegalen Waffenbesitz vorlägen. Auf Geheiß der Staatsanwaltschaft wurde er nur wenige Stunden später wieder festgesetzt, um, kaum im Gefängnis, erneut entlassen zu werden. Ein Gericht im Bundesstaates Baja California hatte die Entscheidung der Staatsanwaltschaft außer Kraft gesetzt. In dem Bericht der Armee zur Festnahme Hanks habe es »Widersprüche« beim zeitlichen Ablauf, zu Distanzen und Örtlichkeiten gegeben, so die Begründung.
Hank ist Mitglied der ehemaligen Staatspartei PRI (Revolutionäre Institutionelle Partei), Kasinobesitzer und einer der reichsten Männer Tijuanas. Sein Geschäftsimperium umfaßt Rennbahnen, Hotels, Shopping Malls und Kasinos in ganz Mexiko. 2004 ist er zum Bürgermeister von Tijuana gewählt worden. 2006 gab er sein Amt auf, um bei den Gouverneurswahlen anzutreten, bei denen er jedoch unterlag.
An drei Morden soll er nach Ansicht der Generalstaatsanwaltschaft beteiligt gewesen sein. Bei seiner Festnahme am 4. Juni wurden die Tatwaffen in seinem Haus sichergestellt, gemeinsam mit 88 Pistolen und Gewehren, mehr als 9000 Patronen und einer Gasgranate. Hank beteuerte seine Unschuld und erklärte, die Waffen seien in seinem Haus »plaziert« worden. Von seiner Verteidigung vorgelegte Überwachungsvideos zeigen, daß die an der Festnahme beteiligten Soldaten mehrere Minuten auf dem Gelände sind, bevor sie in das Haus eindringen.
Die PRI wittert politische Motive. Die stünden im Zusammenhang mit den Gouverneurswahlen im Bundesstaat Estado de México Anfang Juli, die als wegweisend für die Präsidentschaftswahlen im nächsten Jahr gelten. Der PRI, die Mexiko von 1929 bis 2000 ununterbrochen regierte, werden gute Chancen eingeräumt, die Partei der Nationalen Aktion von Präsident Felipe Calderón, die auch den Gouverneur von Baja California stellt, zu entmachten.
Die Freilassung und vor allem die von der zuständigen Richterin monierten »Unregelmäßigkeiten« bei der Festnahme sind ein schwerer Schlag für die Staatsanwaltschaft. Erst Anfang April hatte Präsident Calderón den Generalstaatsanwalt ausgetauscht. In der Vergangenheit waren bereits eine Reihe von Verfahren gegen Bürgermeister wegen Verbindungen zur organisierten Kriminalität gescheitert, viele auch mit ähnlichen politischen und wahltechnischen Implikationen wie beim Fall Hank.
URL: http://www.jungewelt.de/2011/06-17/028.php
Montag, 27. Juni 2011
Gaza flotilla sets sail on a rip tide
20 June 2011. A World to Win News Service. As a small flotilla prepares to assemble in the eastern Mediterranean on 25 June and defy the Israeli naval blockade of Gaza toward the end of the month, it is becoming clear that these ships and boats will have to sail amid powerfully conflicting currents. A rip tide of contradictions might allow this pro-Palestinian protest to have a major impact, but at the same time it represents not only a real danger to the lives and safety of this brave group but also difficult political conditions that must be carefully navigated.
The wellsprings of this protest were articulated by the African-American writer Alice Walker, best known for her novel The Colour Purple, who is taking part in the flotilla. Speaking of the Israeli efforts to wall off and imprison the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, she said, "This is such a crime against the soul of humanity. We can't stand this. Who are we as human beings if we can even bear this? We cannot bear it. And we must not." Recognizing that all of the participants in this action face the possibility of being killed, she urged people everywhere to think about how they could live their lives in a way that gave them meaning. (Interview by Ali Abunimah posted on ElectronicIntifada.net)
This protest is up against an Israeli government, military and public opinion for which everything is justified by the goal of defending the existence of a Jewish state. "We will do anything we have to do to prevent a boat from breaking the blockade," a top Israeli naval official quoted by The New York Times told journalists 16 June. "If there is the same violence against our forces on board, there is a pretty good chance there will be injuries." According to the Washington Post, he warned "there may be injuries and casualties."
What is the "same level of violence" that would allegedly justify killing and maiming protesters?
This threat refers to the anti-blockade ship the Mavi Marmara, boarded by heavily armed airborne Israel commandos on 31 May, 2010. The "level of violence" was this: the Israelis assaulted the ship in international waters and opened fire even before they reached the decks. They killed nine passengers from Turkey, at least two of them executed while lying wounded on the deck, and injured 24 others, mostly by gunfire. The survivors were beaten and tortured. There were no deaths or gunshot wounds among the Israeli attackers. (See UN Human Rights Council report A/HRC/15/21)
The head of the Israeli Navy, Vice Admiral Eliezer Macom, provided advance political justification for "doing anything we have to do" by calling the ships a "flotilla of hatred which operates under the cover of providing humanitarian aid to the Gaza strip." If these vessels got through, he said, "Hamas would equip itself with unmonitored loads of weapons and threaten the state of Israel by means of terroristic rockets and missiles." (Haaretz, 19 June)
These comments are especially hypocritical in light of the recent signed agreement between the Gaza-based Hamas and Fatah, which governs the Israeli-occupied West Bank, to recognize Israel's 1967 borders and cease rocket attacks and other military actions against the Zionist state. (For details, see veteran journalist Robert Fisk's 7 June article in the Independent. The broad outlines of these agreements have been widely reported.)
In fact, Israel's own decades-long record shows that it considers any Palestinian protest "terroristic" and subject to violent repression, whether armed or not. Most recently, the Israeli military directed tank, artillery and rifle fire against incontestably unarmed Palestinian youth demonstrating on 15 May, Nakba Day, commemorating the violent expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians from what is now Israel in 1948, and again on 5 June, the anniversary of the 1967 war in which Israel seized the West Bank, Gaza and the Golan Heights.
The Israeli authorities justified that one-sided bloodshed by claiming that they were defending their country from an invasion. There is a big lie wrapped up in this, in that Israel's definition of its own boundaries are subject to expansion. The Golan Heights, where the majority of demonstrators trying to cross Israeli lines were shot, are not considered part of Israel even by the countries that do recognize Israel's ethnically-cleansed, pre-1967 boundaries. They belong to Syria and Lebanon.
But this argument contains an element of truth: the existence of Israel as a Jewish state is inconceivable without denying the rights of the Palestinians. If Israeli troops did not use murder and the threat of murder to stop peaceful protesters carrying symbolic door keys attempting to walk back to the homes where they or their parents or grandparents were born, that would lead to the end of the Jewish state. The logic of defending the Jewish state explains not only the lack of rights for present and past Palestinian inhabitants within Israel's pre-1967 boundaries but also the Zionists' need to ensure their domination over Palestinians outside those boundaries.
In that sense, the Israeli claims – that the flotilla threatens to "delegitimize" Israel and the existence of a Jewish state – are murderously criminal but not irrational. They reflect the reality of the contradiction between the settlers on a stolen land where one people are privileged and the land's largely expelled and always oppressed original inhabitants.
However, this contradiction is set in a broader and even more complex context through which the Gaza flotilla has to steer.
The most important determinate of this situation is not Israel but the US, without whose support the Jewish state could not prevail. One thing that makes it difficult for many people to understand the situation and act effectively within it is the illusion that Washington can become a counterweight to Israel's most blatantly violent policies.
This illusion is illustrated by the name American participants have given to their boat, "The Audacity of Hope". Undoubtedly for many participants this use of US President Barack Obama's campaign slogan does not represent full support for Obama, but rather an attempt to use his own rhetoric against him.
The novelist Walker, for instance, while explaining that "We had hoped for much better from Obama," emphasises her disappointment and explains that her support for "his political career" is "not unconditional". Comparing this "Freedom Flotilla II" with the Freedom Riders who "were met with extreme violence" in the struggle against racial segregation in the American South during the early 1960s, she notes that President John F. Kennedy, who some people mistakenly think of as supporting the civil rights movement, "did not look favourably on the Freedom Riders and said that they were being provocative and that they should refrain from what they were doing. And that just struck me as almost a parallel with what's happening now." She continues that while some of her fellow participants are trying to get support or at least protection from Congress members, "at some point in all of these ventures one realizes that you're on your own and that this is something that you feel you have to do because it's a necessary work of the world".
It is very true that the Obama government has tried to dissuade the flotilla volunteers and has not issued the slightest warning to Israel that it would be held accountable for any of the threatened "injuries and casualties". But the US is not just indifferent to the fate of these self-sacrificing men and women fighting for justice, it is actively working against them, just as the Kennedy government deliberately let mobs and police attack the Freedom Riders. The Obama government blocked the UN report on the 2010 attack on the Mavi Marmara and refused to issue a protest over the killing of a US citizen, a young man from Turkey whom the report says was murdered in cold blood. Now the US has, at a minimum, encouraged UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's refusal to ask for safe passage for the second flotilla despite an open letter from four women Nobel Peace prize winners, which seems to be a go-ahead signal to Israel. Ultimately it is the US that will be responsible for anything that happens to them, although on this subject there has been no difference between the US and the European Union.
US policy toward Israel has to be looked at from several angles. The first is that of the deep character of the US relationship with Israel.
Again, it is true that Obama recently reiterated the US's long-standing call for a "two-state solution", a Jewish state within the 1967 boundaries "with land swaps" and a Palestinian state on the little land left. It is also true that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave this a surly rejection during his May visit to Washington. But rather than representing an Obama shift to an even slightly less reactionary position, his proposal simply reflects the US's broader reactionary interests.
Looking at the situation objectively, there is little reason why Israel could not live with a "two-state solution" that would entail Palestinians giving up on the struggle to recover Palestine and instead settle for a tiny, geographically disconnected, economically unviable, militarily powerless and inevitably Israel-dominated state. Netanyahu himself has never totally rejected this option. If Israel stubbornly refuses to negotiate right now, despite the Palestinian Authority's documented offers to give in to most Israeli demands (see the "Palestinian Papers" archive on english.aljazeera.net), this is not because it would lead to the demise of the Jewish state (many leading Zionists argue that it would be its salvation). This reluctance seems to flow from a combination of two factors. One is a feeling that because the Palestinians are in a weaker position than ever before, this is not the time to make "compromises" but to crush them further. The other has to do with political and ideological conditions within Israeli society.
This is a society where Jewish fundamentalist are seizing more authority every day and religious fanaticism plays an increasingly central role in the armed forces. The 400,000 settlers on the West Bank have become Zionism's most reliable shock troops because they cannot help but see in their daily existence what some other Israelis would rather not admit: that their way of life depends on forcibly denying the humanity of another people. In a remarkable event for a country that prides itself on being "democratic" (for Jews), an elderly Jewish author was recently sentenced to prison for an article in which he mused that Jewish settlers – who are better armed and trained than the Israeli military and habitually carry out raids to drive out their Palestinian neighbours – should not perhaps be considered civilians. Under these circumstances, Israeli concessions on symbolic issues (such as whether or not to "Judaize" all of Jerusalem) would have powerful ideological repercussions and thus political consequences.
All this reveals the internal logic of the Zionist project, but US interests are somewhat different. In today's Middle East, the US cannot allow itself to be indivisibly identified with Israel and every single Zionist policy. While the US and Israeli have clashed in the past, sometimes violently, now especially there is a serious contradiction between Israeli interests narrowly conceived from the point of view of Israel itself and the broader necessities faced by the US in imposing and keeping together a regional configuration of regimes that in a general way (not necessarily all the time and on every level) serves its interests. The revolt sweeping the Arab counties has brought about new difficulties for the US. For example, whereas Mubarak's Egypt was all but publicly submissive to Israel, the consolidation of a new US-friendly regime requires at least a show of Egyptian independence and maybe even more real flexibility in US/Egyptian relations. That is why Egypt's new government, along with Syria, played a major role in brokering the Hamas-Fatah agreement: Many Arab regimes, and possibly the US itself, would prefer a "two-state solution" to the current, perhaps unsustainable, situation.
But at the same time, these Arab revolts have made the Jewish state even more strategically necessary to the US, because the privileges of its people make them "reliable" – from the strategic point of view of American domination of the Middle East – in a way that cannot conceivably apply to the masses of Arab peoples. Many Israeli Jews are courageously opposing the brutality of their government's policies amidst increasingly difficult political conditions. But when Israeli tanks fired on unarmed Palestinian youth in Syria and on other borders, this was generally recognized as an "existential threat" to the Jewish state and there was no broad outcry among Israelis.
The US and Israel, however, are not the only reactionary actors on this stage. At a time when people's upsurges are threatening the US-protected regional order, the ruling classes of several countries are manoeuvring to find a new place for themselves, one that may be based on a weakened US ability to impose whatever it wants but does not challenge American regional and global dominance in general.
This has directly impacted the Gaza flotilla in the form of the last-minute pull-out of what was to be its flagship, the Mavi Marmara, the 500-passenger ferry that was to represent its continuity with the flotilla of a year ago and carry as many as half of the anti-blockade protesters. The reasons for this betrayal are as complex as they are filthy.
The Turkish government frankly opposed the flotilla and can be assumed to have directed the denial of a permit to sail for insurance reasons that was the ostensible motive for cancellation of the ship's departure. Turkey's current attempts to establish regional dominance, including replacing Iran as the main foreign influence in Syria, require both a certain verbal distancing from Israel and an ever-closer working relationship with the US in deeds. The Turkish government went so far as to call the plans for the Mavi Marmara a distraction and possible danger to its efforts to "stabilise" Syria. That means the threat – or more than just a threat – of military intervention to abort the popular revolt there and ensure an outcome that in one way or another is acceptable to Turkey and the US. An increase of tensions with Israel would work against Turkish efforts, which depend on Israel's acceptance of this as, if not welcome, at least the least objectionable solution to the "problems" this revolt poses. Acting with implicit US support over the last few years, Turkey has sponsored the Israel-Syria negotiations through which Bashar al-Assad has tried to save his rule. While the Syrian regime has been an enemy of Israel on one level, it has also ruthlessly suppressed the Palestinians, and Israel fears its demise.
Now Israeli sources have also been free to reveal – since Turkey's governing party has emerged strengthened from the parliamentary elections and is less vulnerable to political damage – that the AKP has been conducting secret negotiations with Israel, with American approval. One of the main items is reportedly how to bring closure to the diplomatic scuffle over the 2010 Mavi Marmara massacre in a way that saves face for both sides, which would free Turkey's hand to act in relation to Syria with the consent of the US and Israel. (Haaretz, 21 June)
Further, the IHH, the Islamic charity that owns the Mavi Marmara, is tied to both the Turkish AKP government and more fundamentalist forces. Certainly these Islamics fully support their government's demand that Syria's Assad remove the prohibitions on the Syrian Islamic Brotherhood, and don't want Israeli anger to get in the way of that.
Treachery against the Palestinian cause extends to other Islamic forces and more broadly. The Hamas-Fatah agreement may or may not stand, but its signing represents an even further step in the abandonment of the goal of Palestinian liberation by these two organisations. This can also be seen in the pressure against and even violent repression of the 15 May and especially 5 June Palestinian demonstrations by Hamas and Fatah, along with the Jordanian security forces and the Lebanese army. Hamas and Fatah are united in threatening to ask for UN recognition of a Palestinian state in September if Israel doesn't reopen negotiations to bring this "mini-state" into being. Since the US would have to either accept this motion in the UN or suffer the embarrassment of vetoing its own proposed solution, this is an attempt to use Washington against Tel Aviv – not very different from the idea behind calling the US flotilla ship "The Audacity of Hope" to use Obama against Obama. For the sake of this bid for American approval, these two organizations need to demonstrate that they can contain and suppress Palestinian aspirations as well as the Israeli occupiers can.
Egypt, too, is playing a further dirty role by supposedly reopening the Rafah crossing with Gaza, allowing Israel to use this to argue that Gaza is no longer under blockade, while sharply restricting the number of people allowed to cross and prohibiting all imports and exports. (A 16 June posting on the Gisha Website gives details.) The European countries, Turkey and UN officials claim that the Rafah reopening means that the flotilla no longer has any justification.
In short, the Palestinians might seem "on their own" in a situation where every state is against them. In some ways this is "the darkest night" ever faced by the Palestinian people, as some radical Palestinians call it, but it has to be recognized that none of these states ever fully supported the Palestinian cause and that strategies for Palestinian liberation based on hopes for consistent aid from reactionary states and forces have always been a serious obstacle to the Palestinian movement.
This situation is very difficult for Palestinians, politically and geographically, given their division into Gaza and the West Bank, the occupier's splintering of the West Bank itself into pieces between which contact is difficult, the almost omnipresence of the occupation troops and lack of any rear area for the struggle. Strategies for liberation of the past have proved unsuccessful, and deep thinking and new looks at revolutionary goals and the paths to achieve them are required.
But there are some very favourable factors.
There is the coming onto the scene of a new generation of Palestinians with renewed determination instead of the fatigue that weighs on many of their elders. Everyone who longs for the liberation of Palestine was exhilarated by the sight of thousands of enthusiastic youth marching down the hills from refugee camps in Syria and Lebanon to confront the Israeli army.
There is the tide of revolt surging through North Africa and the Middle East. It has achieved victories and stumbled against obstacles, but forced all the reactionaries to take it into account. It has very much encouraged the Palestinian youth, just as hatred for the occupation of Palestine and the submission of Arab governments to the US and especially Israel has been one factor in the revolt itself. Never in recent decades has the line-up of US-backed and Israel-tolerant states in the region faced a greater threat. Big cracks have opened up in the reactionary "stability" within which Palestinians and other Arabs have been imprisoned.
And there is the support for the Palestinians all over the world, including Europe and the US, from people who cannot bear injustice, and those who understand that they have a common cause with the Palestinians in opposing an unjust, oppressive and exploitative world order that has visible potential cracks on more than one continent lately. The Palestinian cause both benefits from today's incipient instability in that world order and is a particularly powerful lever to crack it further apart.
These are the main currents in the seas in which the flotilla is setting sail. As the flotilla approaches Gaza at the end of June, many people everywhere will act to support it – and hold their breath
The wellsprings of this protest were articulated by the African-American writer Alice Walker, best known for her novel The Colour Purple, who is taking part in the flotilla. Speaking of the Israeli efforts to wall off and imprison the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, she said, "This is such a crime against the soul of humanity. We can't stand this. Who are we as human beings if we can even bear this? We cannot bear it. And we must not." Recognizing that all of the participants in this action face the possibility of being killed, she urged people everywhere to think about how they could live their lives in a way that gave them meaning. (Interview by Ali Abunimah posted on ElectronicIntifada.net)
This protest is up against an Israeli government, military and public opinion for which everything is justified by the goal of defending the existence of a Jewish state. "We will do anything we have to do to prevent a boat from breaking the blockade," a top Israeli naval official quoted by The New York Times told journalists 16 June. "If there is the same violence against our forces on board, there is a pretty good chance there will be injuries." According to the Washington Post, he warned "there may be injuries and casualties."
What is the "same level of violence" that would allegedly justify killing and maiming protesters?
This threat refers to the anti-blockade ship the Mavi Marmara, boarded by heavily armed airborne Israel commandos on 31 May, 2010. The "level of violence" was this: the Israelis assaulted the ship in international waters and opened fire even before they reached the decks. They killed nine passengers from Turkey, at least two of them executed while lying wounded on the deck, and injured 24 others, mostly by gunfire. The survivors were beaten and tortured. There were no deaths or gunshot wounds among the Israeli attackers. (See UN Human Rights Council report A/HRC/15/21)
The head of the Israeli Navy, Vice Admiral Eliezer Macom, provided advance political justification for "doing anything we have to do" by calling the ships a "flotilla of hatred which operates under the cover of providing humanitarian aid to the Gaza strip." If these vessels got through, he said, "Hamas would equip itself with unmonitored loads of weapons and threaten the state of Israel by means of terroristic rockets and missiles." (Haaretz, 19 June)
These comments are especially hypocritical in light of the recent signed agreement between the Gaza-based Hamas and Fatah, which governs the Israeli-occupied West Bank, to recognize Israel's 1967 borders and cease rocket attacks and other military actions against the Zionist state. (For details, see veteran journalist Robert Fisk's 7 June article in the Independent. The broad outlines of these agreements have been widely reported.)
In fact, Israel's own decades-long record shows that it considers any Palestinian protest "terroristic" and subject to violent repression, whether armed or not. Most recently, the Israeli military directed tank, artillery and rifle fire against incontestably unarmed Palestinian youth demonstrating on 15 May, Nakba Day, commemorating the violent expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians from what is now Israel in 1948, and again on 5 June, the anniversary of the 1967 war in which Israel seized the West Bank, Gaza and the Golan Heights.
The Israeli authorities justified that one-sided bloodshed by claiming that they were defending their country from an invasion. There is a big lie wrapped up in this, in that Israel's definition of its own boundaries are subject to expansion. The Golan Heights, where the majority of demonstrators trying to cross Israeli lines were shot, are not considered part of Israel even by the countries that do recognize Israel's ethnically-cleansed, pre-1967 boundaries. They belong to Syria and Lebanon.
But this argument contains an element of truth: the existence of Israel as a Jewish state is inconceivable without denying the rights of the Palestinians. If Israeli troops did not use murder and the threat of murder to stop peaceful protesters carrying symbolic door keys attempting to walk back to the homes where they or their parents or grandparents were born, that would lead to the end of the Jewish state. The logic of defending the Jewish state explains not only the lack of rights for present and past Palestinian inhabitants within Israel's pre-1967 boundaries but also the Zionists' need to ensure their domination over Palestinians outside those boundaries.
In that sense, the Israeli claims – that the flotilla threatens to "delegitimize" Israel and the existence of a Jewish state – are murderously criminal but not irrational. They reflect the reality of the contradiction between the settlers on a stolen land where one people are privileged and the land's largely expelled and always oppressed original inhabitants.
However, this contradiction is set in a broader and even more complex context through which the Gaza flotilla has to steer.
The most important determinate of this situation is not Israel but the US, without whose support the Jewish state could not prevail. One thing that makes it difficult for many people to understand the situation and act effectively within it is the illusion that Washington can become a counterweight to Israel's most blatantly violent policies.
This illusion is illustrated by the name American participants have given to their boat, "The Audacity of Hope". Undoubtedly for many participants this use of US President Barack Obama's campaign slogan does not represent full support for Obama, but rather an attempt to use his own rhetoric against him.
The novelist Walker, for instance, while explaining that "We had hoped for much better from Obama," emphasises her disappointment and explains that her support for "his political career" is "not unconditional". Comparing this "Freedom Flotilla II" with the Freedom Riders who "were met with extreme violence" in the struggle against racial segregation in the American South during the early 1960s, she notes that President John F. Kennedy, who some people mistakenly think of as supporting the civil rights movement, "did not look favourably on the Freedom Riders and said that they were being provocative and that they should refrain from what they were doing. And that just struck me as almost a parallel with what's happening now." She continues that while some of her fellow participants are trying to get support or at least protection from Congress members, "at some point in all of these ventures one realizes that you're on your own and that this is something that you feel you have to do because it's a necessary work of the world".
It is very true that the Obama government has tried to dissuade the flotilla volunteers and has not issued the slightest warning to Israel that it would be held accountable for any of the threatened "injuries and casualties". But the US is not just indifferent to the fate of these self-sacrificing men and women fighting for justice, it is actively working against them, just as the Kennedy government deliberately let mobs and police attack the Freedom Riders. The Obama government blocked the UN report on the 2010 attack on the Mavi Marmara and refused to issue a protest over the killing of a US citizen, a young man from Turkey whom the report says was murdered in cold blood. Now the US has, at a minimum, encouraged UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's refusal to ask for safe passage for the second flotilla despite an open letter from four women Nobel Peace prize winners, which seems to be a go-ahead signal to Israel. Ultimately it is the US that will be responsible for anything that happens to them, although on this subject there has been no difference between the US and the European Union.
US policy toward Israel has to be looked at from several angles. The first is that of the deep character of the US relationship with Israel.
Again, it is true that Obama recently reiterated the US's long-standing call for a "two-state solution", a Jewish state within the 1967 boundaries "with land swaps" and a Palestinian state on the little land left. It is also true that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave this a surly rejection during his May visit to Washington. But rather than representing an Obama shift to an even slightly less reactionary position, his proposal simply reflects the US's broader reactionary interests.
Looking at the situation objectively, there is little reason why Israel could not live with a "two-state solution" that would entail Palestinians giving up on the struggle to recover Palestine and instead settle for a tiny, geographically disconnected, economically unviable, militarily powerless and inevitably Israel-dominated state. Netanyahu himself has never totally rejected this option. If Israel stubbornly refuses to negotiate right now, despite the Palestinian Authority's documented offers to give in to most Israeli demands (see the "Palestinian Papers" archive on english.aljazeera.net), this is not because it would lead to the demise of the Jewish state (many leading Zionists argue that it would be its salvation). This reluctance seems to flow from a combination of two factors. One is a feeling that because the Palestinians are in a weaker position than ever before, this is not the time to make "compromises" but to crush them further. The other has to do with political and ideological conditions within Israeli society.
This is a society where Jewish fundamentalist are seizing more authority every day and religious fanaticism plays an increasingly central role in the armed forces. The 400,000 settlers on the West Bank have become Zionism's most reliable shock troops because they cannot help but see in their daily existence what some other Israelis would rather not admit: that their way of life depends on forcibly denying the humanity of another people. In a remarkable event for a country that prides itself on being "democratic" (for Jews), an elderly Jewish author was recently sentenced to prison for an article in which he mused that Jewish settlers – who are better armed and trained than the Israeli military and habitually carry out raids to drive out their Palestinian neighbours – should not perhaps be considered civilians. Under these circumstances, Israeli concessions on symbolic issues (such as whether or not to "Judaize" all of Jerusalem) would have powerful ideological repercussions and thus political consequences.
All this reveals the internal logic of the Zionist project, but US interests are somewhat different. In today's Middle East, the US cannot allow itself to be indivisibly identified with Israel and every single Zionist policy. While the US and Israeli have clashed in the past, sometimes violently, now especially there is a serious contradiction between Israeli interests narrowly conceived from the point of view of Israel itself and the broader necessities faced by the US in imposing and keeping together a regional configuration of regimes that in a general way (not necessarily all the time and on every level) serves its interests. The revolt sweeping the Arab counties has brought about new difficulties for the US. For example, whereas Mubarak's Egypt was all but publicly submissive to Israel, the consolidation of a new US-friendly regime requires at least a show of Egyptian independence and maybe even more real flexibility in US/Egyptian relations. That is why Egypt's new government, along with Syria, played a major role in brokering the Hamas-Fatah agreement: Many Arab regimes, and possibly the US itself, would prefer a "two-state solution" to the current, perhaps unsustainable, situation.
But at the same time, these Arab revolts have made the Jewish state even more strategically necessary to the US, because the privileges of its people make them "reliable" – from the strategic point of view of American domination of the Middle East – in a way that cannot conceivably apply to the masses of Arab peoples. Many Israeli Jews are courageously opposing the brutality of their government's policies amidst increasingly difficult political conditions. But when Israeli tanks fired on unarmed Palestinian youth in Syria and on other borders, this was generally recognized as an "existential threat" to the Jewish state and there was no broad outcry among Israelis.
The US and Israel, however, are not the only reactionary actors on this stage. At a time when people's upsurges are threatening the US-protected regional order, the ruling classes of several countries are manoeuvring to find a new place for themselves, one that may be based on a weakened US ability to impose whatever it wants but does not challenge American regional and global dominance in general.
This has directly impacted the Gaza flotilla in the form of the last-minute pull-out of what was to be its flagship, the Mavi Marmara, the 500-passenger ferry that was to represent its continuity with the flotilla of a year ago and carry as many as half of the anti-blockade protesters. The reasons for this betrayal are as complex as they are filthy.
The Turkish government frankly opposed the flotilla and can be assumed to have directed the denial of a permit to sail for insurance reasons that was the ostensible motive for cancellation of the ship's departure. Turkey's current attempts to establish regional dominance, including replacing Iran as the main foreign influence in Syria, require both a certain verbal distancing from Israel and an ever-closer working relationship with the US in deeds. The Turkish government went so far as to call the plans for the Mavi Marmara a distraction and possible danger to its efforts to "stabilise" Syria. That means the threat – or more than just a threat – of military intervention to abort the popular revolt there and ensure an outcome that in one way or another is acceptable to Turkey and the US. An increase of tensions with Israel would work against Turkish efforts, which depend on Israel's acceptance of this as, if not welcome, at least the least objectionable solution to the "problems" this revolt poses. Acting with implicit US support over the last few years, Turkey has sponsored the Israel-Syria negotiations through which Bashar al-Assad has tried to save his rule. While the Syrian regime has been an enemy of Israel on one level, it has also ruthlessly suppressed the Palestinians, and Israel fears its demise.
Now Israeli sources have also been free to reveal – since Turkey's governing party has emerged strengthened from the parliamentary elections and is less vulnerable to political damage – that the AKP has been conducting secret negotiations with Israel, with American approval. One of the main items is reportedly how to bring closure to the diplomatic scuffle over the 2010 Mavi Marmara massacre in a way that saves face for both sides, which would free Turkey's hand to act in relation to Syria with the consent of the US and Israel. (Haaretz, 21 June)
Further, the IHH, the Islamic charity that owns the Mavi Marmara, is tied to both the Turkish AKP government and more fundamentalist forces. Certainly these Islamics fully support their government's demand that Syria's Assad remove the prohibitions on the Syrian Islamic Brotherhood, and don't want Israeli anger to get in the way of that.
Treachery against the Palestinian cause extends to other Islamic forces and more broadly. The Hamas-Fatah agreement may or may not stand, but its signing represents an even further step in the abandonment of the goal of Palestinian liberation by these two organisations. This can also be seen in the pressure against and even violent repression of the 15 May and especially 5 June Palestinian demonstrations by Hamas and Fatah, along with the Jordanian security forces and the Lebanese army. Hamas and Fatah are united in threatening to ask for UN recognition of a Palestinian state in September if Israel doesn't reopen negotiations to bring this "mini-state" into being. Since the US would have to either accept this motion in the UN or suffer the embarrassment of vetoing its own proposed solution, this is an attempt to use Washington against Tel Aviv – not very different from the idea behind calling the US flotilla ship "The Audacity of Hope" to use Obama against Obama. For the sake of this bid for American approval, these two organizations need to demonstrate that they can contain and suppress Palestinian aspirations as well as the Israeli occupiers can.
Egypt, too, is playing a further dirty role by supposedly reopening the Rafah crossing with Gaza, allowing Israel to use this to argue that Gaza is no longer under blockade, while sharply restricting the number of people allowed to cross and prohibiting all imports and exports. (A 16 June posting on the Gisha Website gives details.) The European countries, Turkey and UN officials claim that the Rafah reopening means that the flotilla no longer has any justification.
In short, the Palestinians might seem "on their own" in a situation where every state is against them. In some ways this is "the darkest night" ever faced by the Palestinian people, as some radical Palestinians call it, but it has to be recognized that none of these states ever fully supported the Palestinian cause and that strategies for Palestinian liberation based on hopes for consistent aid from reactionary states and forces have always been a serious obstacle to the Palestinian movement.
This situation is very difficult for Palestinians, politically and geographically, given their division into Gaza and the West Bank, the occupier's splintering of the West Bank itself into pieces between which contact is difficult, the almost omnipresence of the occupation troops and lack of any rear area for the struggle. Strategies for liberation of the past have proved unsuccessful, and deep thinking and new looks at revolutionary goals and the paths to achieve them are required.
But there are some very favourable factors.
There is the coming onto the scene of a new generation of Palestinians with renewed determination instead of the fatigue that weighs on many of their elders. Everyone who longs for the liberation of Palestine was exhilarated by the sight of thousands of enthusiastic youth marching down the hills from refugee camps in Syria and Lebanon to confront the Israeli army.
There is the tide of revolt surging through North Africa and the Middle East. It has achieved victories and stumbled against obstacles, but forced all the reactionaries to take it into account. It has very much encouraged the Palestinian youth, just as hatred for the occupation of Palestine and the submission of Arab governments to the US and especially Israel has been one factor in the revolt itself. Never in recent decades has the line-up of US-backed and Israel-tolerant states in the region faced a greater threat. Big cracks have opened up in the reactionary "stability" within which Palestinians and other Arabs have been imprisoned.
And there is the support for the Palestinians all over the world, including Europe and the US, from people who cannot bear injustice, and those who understand that they have a common cause with the Palestinians in opposing an unjust, oppressive and exploitative world order that has visible potential cracks on more than one continent lately. The Palestinian cause both benefits from today's incipient instability in that world order and is a particularly powerful lever to crack it further apart.
These are the main currents in the seas in which the flotilla is setting sail. As the flotilla approaches Gaza at the end of June, many people everywhere will act to support it – and hold their breath
Sonntag, 19. Juni 2011
Report from Tunisia: the current situation and what could come of it
6 June 2011. A World to Win News Service. Following is the third and final instalment of a report written for AWTWNS by Samuel Albert. The first instalment, parts I and II, described what the revolt in Tunisia achieved and how it took place. The second discussed the underlying and triggering factors behind this revolt.
With this issue we are also sending out the complete article with minor corrections, in WORD DOC and pdf formats, with a map.
IV. The present situation
People are worried – and "the people" are no longer united
It's not every day that there exists such a thing as "the people". During the revolt, there was a "people" that made its will known, not in the sense of all ten million or even millions of Tunisians coming out into the streets, but in the sense that people of conflicting social classes and political and ideological trends were united in their determination to get rid of Ben Ali, on the one hand, and on the other, those who supported the regime or weren't sure were no longer in a mood to speak out.
Now "the people" has begun to divide out according to the class interests of the various forces involved, even while nearly everyone's thinking remains contradictory. Millions remain dissatisfied especially among the lower classes and the workers. That is very favourable for radical social change. But the factors that stand in the way of that change include not only the persisting strength of the world economic system and its local ruling classes, but also some elements in the thinking among the people and especially the lack of a clearer understanding of the basic problems that afflict them. Some of these conflicting ideas can be seen in what was said in interviews.
- Spetla, a very small town in the centre of the country, between Kasserine and Sidi Bouzid. Newspaper and refreshments stand owner:
There is no work in this town at all. If you don't farm, the only way to make a living is commerce. People from here go down to the border with Libya, buy a few things made in China or Europe and bring them back here to sell. Before we couldn't make a living because people were just coming back with a knapsack of smuggled goods while Ben Ali's wife Trabelsi was having whole shipping containers full of merchandise brought into the country without paying customs fees. Local smugglers just couldn't compete. But we never had any demonstrations here.
Now Ben Ali and the Trabelsis are gone but there's a war in Libya and the border is closed. So people from here are going abroad to look for work. When you hear about all those "sea jumpers", Tunisians dying to make it to Italy in small boats, that's us. We have liberty now but there's no way to make a living.
- Unemployed older man, Bourguiba avenue:
I've been unemployed for ten years. I can't tell you how I've managed to feed my family. I have a wife and two kids; one works in the street and another is seven and will go to school next year. I don't know how we survive. I studied in France and came back to a good job in the sanitation department. My brother-in-law was with the Islamics and I got fired for that. I haven't been able to find work since. I'm very glad we have liberty now but my life is still lousy.
- Grizzled older worker and other strikers at a plant that makes reinforced concrete pipes, Ben Arous:
We're poor. That means we don't have any money. Yes, we did contribute to the movement that overthrew Ben Ali. When he saw the crowd on 14 January, he was afraid we would storm his palace, so he and his family got on an airplane and left. He was backed basically by the French and the US. France intervened militarily in Libya and the Ivory Coast but they never told Ben Ali to go.
At our plant they treated us like slaves. Paid us less than the minimum wage. Now we have liberty, so it's only natural that we start a union and try to get the protection of the law. But the government is still a mafia, paid off by the US and France.
What do we expect from the revolution? We hope for the best. So far we haven't seen anything at all, zero percent change. In fact, things are worse economically, not better. The bosses are still ugly and hard-headed. We all want freedom – freedom to talk, freedom of the press, freedom of everything. Does democracy mean that the employers have all the rights? The new government is the same as before. Ben Ali was a big thief, but we've been under the same system for 56 years (since independence from France). Democracy hasn't changed that so far, but we want it to change.
- 23 year-old student, rally on Bourguiba avenue:
It's very important to me that we have liberty now. That's why we made the revolution. But when are the snipers who shot us down going to be brought to justice? Who's protecting them? Why does the government deny that they even existed? And why do the police have the right to stop me on the street and demand to know why I'm taking pictures with my mobile (cell phone)? And here's my big question: Why do bad people always end up on top?
- Middle-aged high school chemistry teacher, shopping centre cafeteria:
I decided to wear hijab (in this case a "modern" head scarf) five years ago. My mother wore one of those old-fashioned white head scarfs but my family wasn't observant. It was when I got older that I turned to Islam. I teach and my husband is a teacher and we share all the household tasks. I'm not someone who believes women should stay home or be paid less.
Why are people like me turning to religion? When you're frustrated and don't have freedom you take refuge in religion, drinking or drugs. I hate to see all those kids doing nothing with their lives but hanging out in cafés and drinking beer. I don't want to see so many university graduates without jobs. My daughter, who's a chemical engineer, couldn't find work here and had to go to France to teach. If the extremists come to power, they won't let her work here or even go abroad. But under Ben Ali, I wasn't allowed to cover my head in school.
I'm the one who decided to cover my head, and I'll decide when to take it off. I believe in an indulgent Islam, one that believes in forgiveness. I define religious extremism as not wanting to allow discussion. What I want is a democratic, balanced country where people have values.
- Owner of a restaurant frequented by merchants in the Medina, the Tunis old quarter markets. Employs six people:
I'm an Islamic. But I'm against extremism. Islam means moderation in everything. What we need now is security. The laws should be changed so that they can cut off the hands of thieves.
It's a good thing that the army didn't shoot the people but this revolution isn't working. Things have gotten out of hand and they shouldn't have let that happen. People aren't going to work and there are thieves everywhere. The garbage workers are on strike and the rubbish is piling up. Everyone should be working hard now, but they're not.
I want three things; security, order, everyone going to work. The old regime people are still running the government, business and industry.
God protects our country, but it could be better. It's not really our country. The economy is very iffy – we have industry, even hi-tech, phosphate mines and agriculture, but things could go better. A new president means nothing. Belgium has gone without a government for a year and nobody cares. But we do need police and security.
When I'm at work I should be able to concentrate on business without worrying about my wife at home and my kids on the street. What I want to see is a country without iron bars. The day I no longer see iron bars on all the doors and windows is the day we'll have law.
We fathers need more support as heads of the family. We need child subsidy payments so we can have more kids. And I want to pay less taxes and utility fees. In France, if you make minimum wage and spend it all on meat, you could buy 100 kilos. Here it would be only 15 kilos. And we pay relatively a lot more for health care than in France. Why is that?
- Young woman activist, Ben Arous:
When we had an International Women's Day demonstration on Bourguiba avenue on 8 March, the Islamics held a counter-demonstration. They didn't physically attack us, like they sometimes do to "immodest" women in the cafés, but they were very aggressive. They chanted, "Women go home!" That's their solution to unemployment: make all women quit their jobs and spend their lives taking care of their families.
There have always been Islamics among the workers and the union members, but now that the preachers can operate openly, more young workers are joining that movement, just like thousands and thousands are joining unions and political parties. That's what freedom means. I'm afraid of the old regime making a comeback and I'm afraid of the Islamics.
- Teachers' union official, Ben Arous:
First we battled the dictatorship, now we're battling the fundamentalists. Since the revolution there's been a lot of Islamic agitation, especially among the youth. They didn't lift a finger during the revolution but at last night's meeting they demanded most of the seats in our Committee to Defend the Revolution. But I know that the government won't let them take over.
Where things stand now
On his way out the door on 14 January Ben Ali named his Prime Minister, Mohammed Ghannouchi, the new head of state. This was seen as a last act of tyranny on his part, since it went against the procedure established by the constitution.
Veteran and new activists organized Committees to Defend the Revolution at open mass meetings in cities and towns throughout the country. Students, youth and others from Tunis were joined by youth who came from the provincial cities in a giant sit-in in front of the government office complex called the Kasbah, on the other side of the Medina from Bourguiba avenue, to demand the dissolution of a government made up of the "living dead", Ben Ali's old ministers and notables.
To appease the people and demonstrate that Tunisia would now be a state of law, the head of the National Assembly, Fouad Mebazzaa, became president as prescribed by the constitution. Mebazzaa turned around and appointed Ghannouchi his Prime Minister.
Then on 25 February came a new occupation that lasted until Ghannouchi was replaced as prime minister by Beji Caid Essebsi, an 84-year-old man who had been prime minister under Bourguiba but was not so associated with Ben Ali. Eventually the youth from the provinces went home and the second Kasbah sit-in dwindled and came to an end. An attempt in March to organize a "Kasbah III" to depose Essebsi failed.
The new government successfully brushed aside the attempts of the Committees to Defend the Revolution to exercise a kind of dual power. Instead it proposed what Essebsi described as a "synthesis" between those advocating continuity and those fighting for a clean break with the old regime: a High Authority for the Achievement of the Goals of the Revolution, Political Reform and the Transition to Democracy, whose 155 members are nominated from below and approved by the state (hence the union leader's statement that the government won't let the Islamics take over). This body is to prepare for elections to a Constitutional Assembly, which in turn would write a new constitution and hold new parliamentary and presidential elections. Originally scheduled for 24 July, now it seems that these elections may be delayed until November.
This body has been joined by most (but not all) of the organizations that took part in toppling Ben Ali and some that did not, such as Ennahda (The Renaissance), a newly-revived Islamic party that says its aim is not an Islamic regime but what some people call "Islam lite" modelled after the governing AKP party in Turkey. Ennahda defends its failure to participate in the revolt as a tactic to avoid allowing Ben Ali to discredit the movement against him, but many people think it hoped for an accommodation with the regime. Considered the largest party now, it is among the most loyal supporters of the present government and consistently praises the armed forces.
These measures taken in the name of democracy have significantly lessened the participation of the broad masses in the political process. Many people feel that things are being decided behind closed doors in cynical negotiations between representatives of what they see as hard-to-define "interests" who don't care what ordinary people think or want or need. Yet at the same time there is a still a tug of war between the regime's efforts to stabilize and the continuing dissatisfaction.
One of the most important of these tests of strength took place in May, when a recently-fired Interior Minister told a TV interviewer that he had been prevented from getting rid of former regime figures in the security services. He also said that the president and the head of the armed forces had discussed launching a military coup if they didn't like the results of the Constituent Assembly elections. This swelled the ranks of the Friday march to the Interior Ministry on 6 May. Protesters chanted, "The people want a new revolution!" The police not only attacked it with special savagery, they rampaged throughout the city centre and into adjoining lower class neighbourhoods. They also hunted down and beat journalists, chasing some into the offices of a regime mouthpiece newspaper.
There are constant strikes (hence the restaurant owner's complaints) and mini-"Clear out!" movements aimed at getting rid of petty tyrants linked to the old regime in schools, offices, hospitals and all sorts of institutions. But some activists now feel a discouraging sense of drift, a feeling that they don't know where things or headed or exactly what to do about it. They also understand that "stabilization" doesn't necessarily mean that things would stay the way they are right now. Facebook, Twitter and mobiles (cellphones) helped make the revolt possible, but their electronic records also mean that if the forces of repression regain the initiative, they would know who to round up and punish.
Who defines the goals of "the revolution"?
Despite its name, most of what the High Authority is supposed to decide is not related to "the Goals of the Revolution", in the sense of the yearnings that drove people forward. It is true that the electoral code grossly favoured the ruling party (which never, however, skipped an election), and that the formulation of a new code and related matters will have consequences. But it's like an interminable squabble over the rules for a discussion to avoid discussing the basic issues and hide the fact that they are already being decided.
Whether in the High Authority or elsewhere, there is little debate over the big questions that the country faces, issues that made themselves felt, even though not clearly understood: How is Tunisia going to recover its national dignity and become the truly independent country that more than half a century of political independence from France has not yet brought about? How is it going to overcome the yawning regional disparities? How will it have the kind of development that can provide not only jobs but the dignity of fulfilling lives to everyone? How are the workers ever going to be anything but slaves? How are people in the countryside going to be rescued from their living tombs and freed to become a long-term force for social transformation? Are women's aspirations for equality going to bring them more fully into the movement for social change, or are these aspirations going to become a target? How can the education of so many youth become a force for that kind of transformation and not a cruel joke on them and their parents? What kind of social and moral values and what kind of world outlook will prevail?
Again, the question of "Who will lead" is not just an abstraction. Two visions are competing for the people's loyalty, and neither is good.
Which do you want: the French or the Iranian model?
Many people, including religious people, are terrified by the prospect of a fundamentalist takeover. This danger is far from a fantasy. In April, a man yelling "Allahu Akbar" swung an iron bar at the head of one of Tunisia's most famous film directors, Nouri Bouzid, as he chatted with a student at a university. His 1992 film Bezness (the title combines French slang for sex and the English word "business"), about a prostitute who sells himself to tourists but insists on male domination in the family in the name of "honour", brought out the side of Tunisian society many people would rather not see. Other Tunisian artists and intellectuals took this as more of a warning than an isolated incident. In May Nadia El-Fani was threatened with death because of her new film Neither Master nor Allah.
In the 1990s, the Tunisian Islamic movement, led by Ennahda and the man who still leads it today, Rachid Ghannouchi (no relationship to Ghannouchi the prime minister), allied with fundamentalists in neighbouring Algeria in an attempt to foment and actually carry out an armed takeover in Tunisia.
It would be hard to exaggerate how traumatic that period was for Algeria, Tunisia and elsewhere in the Arab countries. The Algerian military canceled elections after an Islamic party won the first round. Hundreds of thousands of people were killed in a convoluted civil war between the military and two rival Islamic trends. Who was killing whom became hard to determine and ultimately not the most important question. All sides massacred whole villages and urban neighbourhoods. Intellectuals and artists were murdered in such numbers that many fled the country.
In Tunisia, Ben Ali succeeded in crushing Ennahda by means of arrests, torture and imprisonment on a vast scale. He also used this as an excuse to crush all dissent for the next two decades. But the Islamics bore the brunt of the most violent repression.
Ennahda reemerged as a major force almost as soon as Ben Ali fell and its leaders returned from exile in the UK and France. There is constant debate about whether it has abandoned its goal of religious rule. It has strength among the lower and middle classes, from factory workers to shopkeepers and especially lawyers,who are divided between secular and religious tendencies. Meanwhile, a Salafist movement has also sprung up overnight. (Salafists are Sunnis who advocate a return to Islam as they believe it was practised in the early days.) Hizb al-Tahrir (The Party of Liberation) calls for an Islamic caliphate and the abolition of political freedoms. It has been able to recruit many youth, apparently from among the poor, and they go around looking for fights. The situation on the streets is complicated. Often, when "immodest" women and girls are treated as fair game, people say they aren't sure who is doing it.
It can't be ruled out that Ghannouchi sincerely has become a "revisionist Islamic", as some people call him, and would like to follow the path of the Turkish "Islam lite" AKP in becoming part of a pro-US, modernizing government. In a recent major report on Tunisia, the International Crisis Group, run by the cream of European and American diplomacy and government-friendly think tanks, is unashamedly enthusiastic about Ennahda. But it would be wrong not to recognize the contradictoriness and fluidity of the situation. Once religion has been accepted as the ground of legitimacy and truth, then "indulgent" religiosity can find itself at a disadvantage in relation to fundamentalism.
Bob Avakian has introduced the concept of the "two outmodeds": "Jihad on the one hand and McWorld/McCrusade on the other", "historically outmoded strata among colonized and oppressed humanity up against historically outmoded ruling strata of the imperialist system." While "it is the historically outmoded ruling strata of the imperialist system" that "poses the greater threat to humanity", "if you side with either of these 'outmodeds', you end up strengthening them both." (Bringing Forward Another Way) In Tunisia, it's not that one side stands up and proclaims itself in favour of imperialist domination and the other opposes everything modern. But still, this quote accurately describes a trap that most people are falling into.
When pressed about their hopes for Tunisia, many activists and intellectuals as well as people from the lower classes answer that they want it to become like France, a stable parliamentary multi-party democracy with a social safety net. Many Tunisians have lived the harsh lives of immigrant workers, and they don't think Europe is heaven. It's just hard for people to conceive that anything better is possible, especially in today's world, where even most of the Tunisian left has not really analysed the historical experience of the communist-led revolutions, and instead accepts the dominant thinking that radical change has proved futile. Further, while many ordinary people do have some sense that France could not be the way it is without the superexploitation of countries like Tunisia, they don't have enough of a scientific understanding that the "French" model is actually impossible in Tunisia, again largely because they don't see any alternative.
This posing of Tunisia's possible future in terms of the French model or Islamic fundamentalist rule (what people not so scarred by the Algerian experience would call the Iranian model) provides more favourable grounds for Islamicism – and vice versa.
This is a society modern enough to have as many girl students as boys but where not only is there more than twice as much illiteracy among women than men in general, but even among today's generation there are twice as many unemployed female university graduates as male. Secularist Tunisians are right when they point out that Tunisia's 1959 constitution was more advanced than France at that time in terms of women's rights, but it also makes serious concessions to Islam on this subject (women only inherit half as much as men and have less rights in other family matters). At any rate, the example of France should tell us something: women there are equal in legal terms but it is still a thoroughly male supremacist, patriarchal society, as the recent wave of support for the accused rapist IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn should make obvious, since the argument is not that he is innocent but that rape isn't important. Male supremacist religion and patriarchal elements are still very powerful in Tunisia, reflecting the hold of reactionary traditions, beliefs and practices among the people, and the Islamics can gain an advantage by openly appealing to male supremacy rather than trying to cover it up.
Some people contend that a more radical stand against the "French model' and the "Iranian model" would cut off political activists from the broad masses and especially the lower strata, but in fact fuzzy and wrong thinking on these questions is a major obstacle to being able to connect in a sustained way with those who have nothing to lose and unite these masses, better-off strata, the intelligentsia and others.
Further, clarity on these questions is the only way to provide a scientific understanding that can deal with a major source of depression among ordinary people and activists alike right now: when they look at the Tunisian regime, the army and the Islamics, and think about Algeria and the civil war between the French- (and American-) backed Algerian military and the Islamic fundamentalists there, many people feel that the question now is not whether things can get better but whether or not, one way or another, they are about to get much worse.
V. Now what?
Political liberty – freedom of expression, protest, the press and so on – is not just for the educated middle classes. In fact, as can be seen in the concrete development of the revolt as people seized these rights through their own struggle and sacrifice, ordinary Tunisians have spoken up fearlessly, defied authority and produced a more profound and society-wide social questioning and ferment than seen since the 1960s in most "advanced" countries where such rights are enshrined in law. This is necessary for people to become fully alive and for real social change to take place.
But what to tell those whose lives will continue to be miserable? That now that some relatively better-off people have gotten some of what they want, the "revolution" is over?
The unspoken assumption behind the political arrangements now being put into place is that life – Tunisia's relationship with the rest of the world and the economic and social relationships between Tunisians (the various classes, men and women, the regions) – is going to be like before, only a little better because now they have political rights and parliamentary democracy.
Whether or not people are fully aware of it, what they are rebelling against in Tunisia and throughout the Arab countries (and elsewhere in the third world) is the way imperialism dominates the organization of their economies and shapes their societies as a whole on that basis, and the political regimes that enforce that domination.
Tunisia is not necessarily doomed to the rule of an autocrat or a military junta, but it's no accident that naked dictatorship has been so common throughout the third world, geographically and historically. (Latin America, sometimes held up as proof that those days are over, has actually known alternating periods of "democratic openings" and military clampdowns for the last century.)
They may have elections and sometimes constitutional rights (as opposed to arbitrary rule of the Ben Ali or other varieties), but these things tend to get restricted, when not just cut off. The local foreign-dependent ruling classes are smaller and weaker than the ruling classes in the imperialist countries, the middle classes are smaller and even less stable, the conditions of life more often impel people to rebel, and lopsided regional development often make centralized rule difficult. Persisting feudal and other pre-capitalist exploitative relations often facilitate imperialist domination, and the classes and forces that represent these relations are also bitter enemies of the people's basic interests.
Most fundamentally, no matter what the system of government, the ruling classes of such countries are representatives of the imperialist relations, and the right of self-determination and the equality of nations is never on the agenda. It is not just that they are subservient to imperialism politically, although it is true that imperialist machinations and interventions play a major role in bringing governments into office and taking them out again. As long as their economies are organized according to the laws of capitalism, especially the pursuit of the highest rate of profit, in a world where the competing monopoly capital formations rooted in a handful of countries dominate the rest, or in other words, as long as they are dependent on the imperialist world market, they must bow to the interests and dictates of Paris, New York, London, Berlin, Rome, etc. This is the only logic capitalists and other exploiting classes can follow.
A development that would meet the needs of the people would require a whole different political system, one whose purpose was to free the people and the nation from the domination of imperialism and the Tunisian capitalists and other exploiters reliant on them, not seeing development as a goal in itself, which would simply open the door to old or new exploiters, but as part of a process leading toward the abolition of forms of exploitation and oppression and the overcoming of all inequalities on a world scale. As part of this, there would also have to be a process of breaking with prevailing oppressive social relations, customs and thinking, both those imposed by imperialism and those traditionally embedded in Tunisian society.
Tunisians are right to want to be able to express themselves, organize themselves, and enjoy other liberties, to be free of arbitrary rule, to recover individual and national dignity and take their country back. But they can't be free unless they understand that the word "freedom" is meaningless and deceitful unless they ask themselves: freedom for who, for which class? Freedom for the imperialists and their local allies? Or freedom from them for the people, freedom to have a decisive role in determining the direction of society and join with people worldwide to free humanity?
These questions, even in the most immediate forms of why Tunisia and Tunisians suffer like they do and what can be done about it, are not being thought about deeply enough and debated in Tunisia right now. Instead, too many people are caught up in what seems possible at any given moment, even when they know or suspect that there is no way out for Tunisia unless it breaks the bonds of politics as it is now practised and people start figuring out how to make possible a real revolution.
In a word, the future of the revolt in Tunisia has not been settled. Today's "democratic opening" can favour the training and preparation of the people for revolution; but it can also disorient and lull them, leading to the loss of the revolt's great gains: their political awakening, their widespread and acted-upon determination for some kind of radical change without which such change is impossible, and the political initiative they have seized out of the hands of their oppressors.
The point is to see the situation in Tunisia not just as it is, but as it could become. Some activists close their eyes and hope that history will always do the right thing, while others are prone to bouts of dark thoughts. Many are afflicted by both. The important thing is not to pluck up one's courage but to see how what the masses of people have done has created a very favourable situation for the revolutionary work that has to be done.
No one can predict how long this situation will last. Nor can anyone predict how the regional and world volatility that Tunisians have helped bring about might react back on Tunisia.
So far the Tunisian people have accomplished amazing things on their own initiative. But they are facing obstacles that they can either overcome or be defeated by. The question is who will lead the people now – one or another sort of reactionaries who seek to drag the people backward, or comrades who break with reformist politics, seize the possibility of training themselves and many others in the most advanced understanding of the science of communism amidst the upheaval and confusion, and forge a revolutionary strategy.
With this issue we are also sending out the complete article with minor corrections, in WORD DOC and pdf formats, with a map.
IV. The present situation
People are worried – and "the people" are no longer united
It's not every day that there exists such a thing as "the people". During the revolt, there was a "people" that made its will known, not in the sense of all ten million or even millions of Tunisians coming out into the streets, but in the sense that people of conflicting social classes and political and ideological trends were united in their determination to get rid of Ben Ali, on the one hand, and on the other, those who supported the regime or weren't sure were no longer in a mood to speak out.
Now "the people" has begun to divide out according to the class interests of the various forces involved, even while nearly everyone's thinking remains contradictory. Millions remain dissatisfied especially among the lower classes and the workers. That is very favourable for radical social change. But the factors that stand in the way of that change include not only the persisting strength of the world economic system and its local ruling classes, but also some elements in the thinking among the people and especially the lack of a clearer understanding of the basic problems that afflict them. Some of these conflicting ideas can be seen in what was said in interviews.
- Spetla, a very small town in the centre of the country, between Kasserine and Sidi Bouzid. Newspaper and refreshments stand owner:
There is no work in this town at all. If you don't farm, the only way to make a living is commerce. People from here go down to the border with Libya, buy a few things made in China or Europe and bring them back here to sell. Before we couldn't make a living because people were just coming back with a knapsack of smuggled goods while Ben Ali's wife Trabelsi was having whole shipping containers full of merchandise brought into the country without paying customs fees. Local smugglers just couldn't compete. But we never had any demonstrations here.
Now Ben Ali and the Trabelsis are gone but there's a war in Libya and the border is closed. So people from here are going abroad to look for work. When you hear about all those "sea jumpers", Tunisians dying to make it to Italy in small boats, that's us. We have liberty now but there's no way to make a living.
- Unemployed older man, Bourguiba avenue:
I've been unemployed for ten years. I can't tell you how I've managed to feed my family. I have a wife and two kids; one works in the street and another is seven and will go to school next year. I don't know how we survive. I studied in France and came back to a good job in the sanitation department. My brother-in-law was with the Islamics and I got fired for that. I haven't been able to find work since. I'm very glad we have liberty now but my life is still lousy.
- Grizzled older worker and other strikers at a plant that makes reinforced concrete pipes, Ben Arous:
We're poor. That means we don't have any money. Yes, we did contribute to the movement that overthrew Ben Ali. When he saw the crowd on 14 January, he was afraid we would storm his palace, so he and his family got on an airplane and left. He was backed basically by the French and the US. France intervened militarily in Libya and the Ivory Coast but they never told Ben Ali to go.
At our plant they treated us like slaves. Paid us less than the minimum wage. Now we have liberty, so it's only natural that we start a union and try to get the protection of the law. But the government is still a mafia, paid off by the US and France.
What do we expect from the revolution? We hope for the best. So far we haven't seen anything at all, zero percent change. In fact, things are worse economically, not better. The bosses are still ugly and hard-headed. We all want freedom – freedom to talk, freedom of the press, freedom of everything. Does democracy mean that the employers have all the rights? The new government is the same as before. Ben Ali was a big thief, but we've been under the same system for 56 years (since independence from France). Democracy hasn't changed that so far, but we want it to change.
- 23 year-old student, rally on Bourguiba avenue:
It's very important to me that we have liberty now. That's why we made the revolution. But when are the snipers who shot us down going to be brought to justice? Who's protecting them? Why does the government deny that they even existed? And why do the police have the right to stop me on the street and demand to know why I'm taking pictures with my mobile (cell phone)? And here's my big question: Why do bad people always end up on top?
- Middle-aged high school chemistry teacher, shopping centre cafeteria:
I decided to wear hijab (in this case a "modern" head scarf) five years ago. My mother wore one of those old-fashioned white head scarfs but my family wasn't observant. It was when I got older that I turned to Islam. I teach and my husband is a teacher and we share all the household tasks. I'm not someone who believes women should stay home or be paid less.
Why are people like me turning to religion? When you're frustrated and don't have freedom you take refuge in religion, drinking or drugs. I hate to see all those kids doing nothing with their lives but hanging out in cafés and drinking beer. I don't want to see so many university graduates without jobs. My daughter, who's a chemical engineer, couldn't find work here and had to go to France to teach. If the extremists come to power, they won't let her work here or even go abroad. But under Ben Ali, I wasn't allowed to cover my head in school.
I'm the one who decided to cover my head, and I'll decide when to take it off. I believe in an indulgent Islam, one that believes in forgiveness. I define religious extremism as not wanting to allow discussion. What I want is a democratic, balanced country where people have values.
- Owner of a restaurant frequented by merchants in the Medina, the Tunis old quarter markets. Employs six people:
I'm an Islamic. But I'm against extremism. Islam means moderation in everything. What we need now is security. The laws should be changed so that they can cut off the hands of thieves.
It's a good thing that the army didn't shoot the people but this revolution isn't working. Things have gotten out of hand and they shouldn't have let that happen. People aren't going to work and there are thieves everywhere. The garbage workers are on strike and the rubbish is piling up. Everyone should be working hard now, but they're not.
I want three things; security, order, everyone going to work. The old regime people are still running the government, business and industry.
God protects our country, but it could be better. It's not really our country. The economy is very iffy – we have industry, even hi-tech, phosphate mines and agriculture, but things could go better. A new president means nothing. Belgium has gone without a government for a year and nobody cares. But we do need police and security.
When I'm at work I should be able to concentrate on business without worrying about my wife at home and my kids on the street. What I want to see is a country without iron bars. The day I no longer see iron bars on all the doors and windows is the day we'll have law.
We fathers need more support as heads of the family. We need child subsidy payments so we can have more kids. And I want to pay less taxes and utility fees. In France, if you make minimum wage and spend it all on meat, you could buy 100 kilos. Here it would be only 15 kilos. And we pay relatively a lot more for health care than in France. Why is that?
- Young woman activist, Ben Arous:
When we had an International Women's Day demonstration on Bourguiba avenue on 8 March, the Islamics held a counter-demonstration. They didn't physically attack us, like they sometimes do to "immodest" women in the cafés, but they were very aggressive. They chanted, "Women go home!" That's their solution to unemployment: make all women quit their jobs and spend their lives taking care of their families.
There have always been Islamics among the workers and the union members, but now that the preachers can operate openly, more young workers are joining that movement, just like thousands and thousands are joining unions and political parties. That's what freedom means. I'm afraid of the old regime making a comeback and I'm afraid of the Islamics.
- Teachers' union official, Ben Arous:
First we battled the dictatorship, now we're battling the fundamentalists. Since the revolution there's been a lot of Islamic agitation, especially among the youth. They didn't lift a finger during the revolution but at last night's meeting they demanded most of the seats in our Committee to Defend the Revolution. But I know that the government won't let them take over.
Where things stand now
On his way out the door on 14 January Ben Ali named his Prime Minister, Mohammed Ghannouchi, the new head of state. This was seen as a last act of tyranny on his part, since it went against the procedure established by the constitution.
Veteran and new activists organized Committees to Defend the Revolution at open mass meetings in cities and towns throughout the country. Students, youth and others from Tunis were joined by youth who came from the provincial cities in a giant sit-in in front of the government office complex called the Kasbah, on the other side of the Medina from Bourguiba avenue, to demand the dissolution of a government made up of the "living dead", Ben Ali's old ministers and notables.
To appease the people and demonstrate that Tunisia would now be a state of law, the head of the National Assembly, Fouad Mebazzaa, became president as prescribed by the constitution. Mebazzaa turned around and appointed Ghannouchi his Prime Minister.
Then on 25 February came a new occupation that lasted until Ghannouchi was replaced as prime minister by Beji Caid Essebsi, an 84-year-old man who had been prime minister under Bourguiba but was not so associated with Ben Ali. Eventually the youth from the provinces went home and the second Kasbah sit-in dwindled and came to an end. An attempt in March to organize a "Kasbah III" to depose Essebsi failed.
The new government successfully brushed aside the attempts of the Committees to Defend the Revolution to exercise a kind of dual power. Instead it proposed what Essebsi described as a "synthesis" between those advocating continuity and those fighting for a clean break with the old regime: a High Authority for the Achievement of the Goals of the Revolution, Political Reform and the Transition to Democracy, whose 155 members are nominated from below and approved by the state (hence the union leader's statement that the government won't let the Islamics take over). This body is to prepare for elections to a Constitutional Assembly, which in turn would write a new constitution and hold new parliamentary and presidential elections. Originally scheduled for 24 July, now it seems that these elections may be delayed until November.
This body has been joined by most (but not all) of the organizations that took part in toppling Ben Ali and some that did not, such as Ennahda (The Renaissance), a newly-revived Islamic party that says its aim is not an Islamic regime but what some people call "Islam lite" modelled after the governing AKP party in Turkey. Ennahda defends its failure to participate in the revolt as a tactic to avoid allowing Ben Ali to discredit the movement against him, but many people think it hoped for an accommodation with the regime. Considered the largest party now, it is among the most loyal supporters of the present government and consistently praises the armed forces.
These measures taken in the name of democracy have significantly lessened the participation of the broad masses in the political process. Many people feel that things are being decided behind closed doors in cynical negotiations between representatives of what they see as hard-to-define "interests" who don't care what ordinary people think or want or need. Yet at the same time there is a still a tug of war between the regime's efforts to stabilize and the continuing dissatisfaction.
One of the most important of these tests of strength took place in May, when a recently-fired Interior Minister told a TV interviewer that he had been prevented from getting rid of former regime figures in the security services. He also said that the president and the head of the armed forces had discussed launching a military coup if they didn't like the results of the Constituent Assembly elections. This swelled the ranks of the Friday march to the Interior Ministry on 6 May. Protesters chanted, "The people want a new revolution!" The police not only attacked it with special savagery, they rampaged throughout the city centre and into adjoining lower class neighbourhoods. They also hunted down and beat journalists, chasing some into the offices of a regime mouthpiece newspaper.
There are constant strikes (hence the restaurant owner's complaints) and mini-"Clear out!" movements aimed at getting rid of petty tyrants linked to the old regime in schools, offices, hospitals and all sorts of institutions. But some activists now feel a discouraging sense of drift, a feeling that they don't know where things or headed or exactly what to do about it. They also understand that "stabilization" doesn't necessarily mean that things would stay the way they are right now. Facebook, Twitter and mobiles (cellphones) helped make the revolt possible, but their electronic records also mean that if the forces of repression regain the initiative, they would know who to round up and punish.
Who defines the goals of "the revolution"?
Despite its name, most of what the High Authority is supposed to decide is not related to "the Goals of the Revolution", in the sense of the yearnings that drove people forward. It is true that the electoral code grossly favoured the ruling party (which never, however, skipped an election), and that the formulation of a new code and related matters will have consequences. But it's like an interminable squabble over the rules for a discussion to avoid discussing the basic issues and hide the fact that they are already being decided.
Whether in the High Authority or elsewhere, there is little debate over the big questions that the country faces, issues that made themselves felt, even though not clearly understood: How is Tunisia going to recover its national dignity and become the truly independent country that more than half a century of political independence from France has not yet brought about? How is it going to overcome the yawning regional disparities? How will it have the kind of development that can provide not only jobs but the dignity of fulfilling lives to everyone? How are the workers ever going to be anything but slaves? How are people in the countryside going to be rescued from their living tombs and freed to become a long-term force for social transformation? Are women's aspirations for equality going to bring them more fully into the movement for social change, or are these aspirations going to become a target? How can the education of so many youth become a force for that kind of transformation and not a cruel joke on them and their parents? What kind of social and moral values and what kind of world outlook will prevail?
Again, the question of "Who will lead" is not just an abstraction. Two visions are competing for the people's loyalty, and neither is good.
Which do you want: the French or the Iranian model?
Many people, including religious people, are terrified by the prospect of a fundamentalist takeover. This danger is far from a fantasy. In April, a man yelling "Allahu Akbar" swung an iron bar at the head of one of Tunisia's most famous film directors, Nouri Bouzid, as he chatted with a student at a university. His 1992 film Bezness (the title combines French slang for sex and the English word "business"), about a prostitute who sells himself to tourists but insists on male domination in the family in the name of "honour", brought out the side of Tunisian society many people would rather not see. Other Tunisian artists and intellectuals took this as more of a warning than an isolated incident. In May Nadia El-Fani was threatened with death because of her new film Neither Master nor Allah.
In the 1990s, the Tunisian Islamic movement, led by Ennahda and the man who still leads it today, Rachid Ghannouchi (no relationship to Ghannouchi the prime minister), allied with fundamentalists in neighbouring Algeria in an attempt to foment and actually carry out an armed takeover in Tunisia.
It would be hard to exaggerate how traumatic that period was for Algeria, Tunisia and elsewhere in the Arab countries. The Algerian military canceled elections after an Islamic party won the first round. Hundreds of thousands of people were killed in a convoluted civil war between the military and two rival Islamic trends. Who was killing whom became hard to determine and ultimately not the most important question. All sides massacred whole villages and urban neighbourhoods. Intellectuals and artists were murdered in such numbers that many fled the country.
In Tunisia, Ben Ali succeeded in crushing Ennahda by means of arrests, torture and imprisonment on a vast scale. He also used this as an excuse to crush all dissent for the next two decades. But the Islamics bore the brunt of the most violent repression.
Ennahda reemerged as a major force almost as soon as Ben Ali fell and its leaders returned from exile in the UK and France. There is constant debate about whether it has abandoned its goal of religious rule. It has strength among the lower and middle classes, from factory workers to shopkeepers and especially lawyers,who are divided between secular and religious tendencies. Meanwhile, a Salafist movement has also sprung up overnight. (Salafists are Sunnis who advocate a return to Islam as they believe it was practised in the early days.) Hizb al-Tahrir (The Party of Liberation) calls for an Islamic caliphate and the abolition of political freedoms. It has been able to recruit many youth, apparently from among the poor, and they go around looking for fights. The situation on the streets is complicated. Often, when "immodest" women and girls are treated as fair game, people say they aren't sure who is doing it.
It can't be ruled out that Ghannouchi sincerely has become a "revisionist Islamic", as some people call him, and would like to follow the path of the Turkish "Islam lite" AKP in becoming part of a pro-US, modernizing government. In a recent major report on Tunisia, the International Crisis Group, run by the cream of European and American diplomacy and government-friendly think tanks, is unashamedly enthusiastic about Ennahda. But it would be wrong not to recognize the contradictoriness and fluidity of the situation. Once religion has been accepted as the ground of legitimacy and truth, then "indulgent" religiosity can find itself at a disadvantage in relation to fundamentalism.
Bob Avakian has introduced the concept of the "two outmodeds": "Jihad on the one hand and McWorld/McCrusade on the other", "historically outmoded strata among colonized and oppressed humanity up against historically outmoded ruling strata of the imperialist system." While "it is the historically outmoded ruling strata of the imperialist system" that "poses the greater threat to humanity", "if you side with either of these 'outmodeds', you end up strengthening them both." (Bringing Forward Another Way) In Tunisia, it's not that one side stands up and proclaims itself in favour of imperialist domination and the other opposes everything modern. But still, this quote accurately describes a trap that most people are falling into.
When pressed about their hopes for Tunisia, many activists and intellectuals as well as people from the lower classes answer that they want it to become like France, a stable parliamentary multi-party democracy with a social safety net. Many Tunisians have lived the harsh lives of immigrant workers, and they don't think Europe is heaven. It's just hard for people to conceive that anything better is possible, especially in today's world, where even most of the Tunisian left has not really analysed the historical experience of the communist-led revolutions, and instead accepts the dominant thinking that radical change has proved futile. Further, while many ordinary people do have some sense that France could not be the way it is without the superexploitation of countries like Tunisia, they don't have enough of a scientific understanding that the "French" model is actually impossible in Tunisia, again largely because they don't see any alternative.
This posing of Tunisia's possible future in terms of the French model or Islamic fundamentalist rule (what people not so scarred by the Algerian experience would call the Iranian model) provides more favourable grounds for Islamicism – and vice versa.
This is a society modern enough to have as many girl students as boys but where not only is there more than twice as much illiteracy among women than men in general, but even among today's generation there are twice as many unemployed female university graduates as male. Secularist Tunisians are right when they point out that Tunisia's 1959 constitution was more advanced than France at that time in terms of women's rights, but it also makes serious concessions to Islam on this subject (women only inherit half as much as men and have less rights in other family matters). At any rate, the example of France should tell us something: women there are equal in legal terms but it is still a thoroughly male supremacist, patriarchal society, as the recent wave of support for the accused rapist IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn should make obvious, since the argument is not that he is innocent but that rape isn't important. Male supremacist religion and patriarchal elements are still very powerful in Tunisia, reflecting the hold of reactionary traditions, beliefs and practices among the people, and the Islamics can gain an advantage by openly appealing to male supremacy rather than trying to cover it up.
Some people contend that a more radical stand against the "French model' and the "Iranian model" would cut off political activists from the broad masses and especially the lower strata, but in fact fuzzy and wrong thinking on these questions is a major obstacle to being able to connect in a sustained way with those who have nothing to lose and unite these masses, better-off strata, the intelligentsia and others.
Further, clarity on these questions is the only way to provide a scientific understanding that can deal with a major source of depression among ordinary people and activists alike right now: when they look at the Tunisian regime, the army and the Islamics, and think about Algeria and the civil war between the French- (and American-) backed Algerian military and the Islamic fundamentalists there, many people feel that the question now is not whether things can get better but whether or not, one way or another, they are about to get much worse.
V. Now what?
Political liberty – freedom of expression, protest, the press and so on – is not just for the educated middle classes. In fact, as can be seen in the concrete development of the revolt as people seized these rights through their own struggle and sacrifice, ordinary Tunisians have spoken up fearlessly, defied authority and produced a more profound and society-wide social questioning and ferment than seen since the 1960s in most "advanced" countries where such rights are enshrined in law. This is necessary for people to become fully alive and for real social change to take place.
But what to tell those whose lives will continue to be miserable? That now that some relatively better-off people have gotten some of what they want, the "revolution" is over?
The unspoken assumption behind the political arrangements now being put into place is that life – Tunisia's relationship with the rest of the world and the economic and social relationships between Tunisians (the various classes, men and women, the regions) – is going to be like before, only a little better because now they have political rights and parliamentary democracy.
Whether or not people are fully aware of it, what they are rebelling against in Tunisia and throughout the Arab countries (and elsewhere in the third world) is the way imperialism dominates the organization of their economies and shapes their societies as a whole on that basis, and the political regimes that enforce that domination.
Tunisia is not necessarily doomed to the rule of an autocrat or a military junta, but it's no accident that naked dictatorship has been so common throughout the third world, geographically and historically. (Latin America, sometimes held up as proof that those days are over, has actually known alternating periods of "democratic openings" and military clampdowns for the last century.)
They may have elections and sometimes constitutional rights (as opposed to arbitrary rule of the Ben Ali or other varieties), but these things tend to get restricted, when not just cut off. The local foreign-dependent ruling classes are smaller and weaker than the ruling classes in the imperialist countries, the middle classes are smaller and even less stable, the conditions of life more often impel people to rebel, and lopsided regional development often make centralized rule difficult. Persisting feudal and other pre-capitalist exploitative relations often facilitate imperialist domination, and the classes and forces that represent these relations are also bitter enemies of the people's basic interests.
Most fundamentally, no matter what the system of government, the ruling classes of such countries are representatives of the imperialist relations, and the right of self-determination and the equality of nations is never on the agenda. It is not just that they are subservient to imperialism politically, although it is true that imperialist machinations and interventions play a major role in bringing governments into office and taking them out again. As long as their economies are organized according to the laws of capitalism, especially the pursuit of the highest rate of profit, in a world where the competing monopoly capital formations rooted in a handful of countries dominate the rest, or in other words, as long as they are dependent on the imperialist world market, they must bow to the interests and dictates of Paris, New York, London, Berlin, Rome, etc. This is the only logic capitalists and other exploiting classes can follow.
A development that would meet the needs of the people would require a whole different political system, one whose purpose was to free the people and the nation from the domination of imperialism and the Tunisian capitalists and other exploiters reliant on them, not seeing development as a goal in itself, which would simply open the door to old or new exploiters, but as part of a process leading toward the abolition of forms of exploitation and oppression and the overcoming of all inequalities on a world scale. As part of this, there would also have to be a process of breaking with prevailing oppressive social relations, customs and thinking, both those imposed by imperialism and those traditionally embedded in Tunisian society.
Tunisians are right to want to be able to express themselves, organize themselves, and enjoy other liberties, to be free of arbitrary rule, to recover individual and national dignity and take their country back. But they can't be free unless they understand that the word "freedom" is meaningless and deceitful unless they ask themselves: freedom for who, for which class? Freedom for the imperialists and their local allies? Or freedom from them for the people, freedom to have a decisive role in determining the direction of society and join with people worldwide to free humanity?
These questions, even in the most immediate forms of why Tunisia and Tunisians suffer like they do and what can be done about it, are not being thought about deeply enough and debated in Tunisia right now. Instead, too many people are caught up in what seems possible at any given moment, even when they know or suspect that there is no way out for Tunisia unless it breaks the bonds of politics as it is now practised and people start figuring out how to make possible a real revolution.
In a word, the future of the revolt in Tunisia has not been settled. Today's "democratic opening" can favour the training and preparation of the people for revolution; but it can also disorient and lull them, leading to the loss of the revolt's great gains: their political awakening, their widespread and acted-upon determination for some kind of radical change without which such change is impossible, and the political initiative they have seized out of the hands of their oppressors.
The point is to see the situation in Tunisia not just as it is, but as it could become. Some activists close their eyes and hope that history will always do the right thing, while others are prone to bouts of dark thoughts. Many are afflicted by both. The important thing is not to pluck up one's courage but to see how what the masses of people have done has created a very favourable situation for the revolutionary work that has to be done.
No one can predict how long this situation will last. Nor can anyone predict how the regional and world volatility that Tunisians have helped bring about might react back on Tunisia.
So far the Tunisian people have accomplished amazing things on their own initiative. But they are facing obstacles that they can either overcome or be defeated by. The question is who will lead the people now – one or another sort of reactionaries who seek to drag the people backward, or comrades who break with reformist politics, seize the possibility of training themselves and many others in the most advanced understanding of the science of communism amidst the upheaval and confusion, and forge a revolutionary strategy.
Freitag, 17. Juni 2011
Indian army sets up anti-guerrilla warfare training camp in central India
13 June 2011. A World to Win News Service. During the first week of June, the Indian army began moving into the Bastar region in the southern part of the state of Chhattisgarh, in central India, to set up what officials describe as an installation to train soldiers in jungle warfare. This area is a centre of the revolutionary movement of Adivasi (tribal) people led by the Communist Party of India (Maoist), and it is adjacent to the vast region of eastern and central India that the "Naxals", as the Indian Maoists are known, have made their stronghold.
Indian media have reported that several columns totalling 500 "jawans" (soldiers) and officers have reached Abujhmad in Narayanpur District, where 750 square kilometres of land has been allotted for the camp. A statement from the CPI(M) refers to a thousand central government troops. The 4 June statement says that while details remain secret, there has been talk that the central authorities plan to set up two more jungle warfare schools in the area. It warns that as these troops are trained, they are likely to be sent elsewhere in Chhattisgarh and also to Maharashtra, Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Western Ghats, West Bengal, Odisha and Andhra Pradesh, all areas where the Maoists have been leading struggles by Adivasis and other rural people. This is an escalation of "Operation Green Hunt", a military campaign against the people in the Maoist-led Adivasi areas. (For CPI[M] documents, see www.bannedthought.net)
Following is another press release, put out by the CPI(M) Dandakaranya Special Zonal Committee 3 June, explaining and opposing this army deployment. The vast forests of Dandakaranya extend through the states of Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Maharastra and Orissa.
As the first column of the Indian Army arrived in Kanker, the formal process of Army deployment in Bastar has commenced. But hiding this fact from the eyes of the people, the rulers are propagating the falsehood that the Army was coming here just for training and not to fight the Maoists. It's being said that in the name of "self defence", the ministries of Defence and Law had issued "guiding principles" for the Army, but nobody is ready to reveal the details. It’s noteworthy that the Air Force was already given the right to attack in "self-defence".
The Central and State governments have been hiding the fact that this was obvious deployment and have been telling the world that they were just coming here for a training as part of their ploy of deceiving the people and pacifying those democratic forces who have been outrageous against Army deployment. The glaring fact is that the Army is now deployed in the ongoing war against people of our country. After Kashmir and the North-East regions, now the Indian Army is going to wage a brutal war against most oppressed people of India. Now the apprehensions seem to be realized that the draconian law, the AFSPA (Armed Forces Special Powers Act), would also be proclaimed in Bastar.
In fact the government gave a free hand to the Army and Air Force to attack the people in the name of "self-defence", as there are no measures defined for clear-cut demarcation between a Maoist combatant and an ordinary citizen. Since 2005, first with Salwa Judum [counter-revolutionary militias led by the local authorities and the police in Chhattisgarh] and now in Operation Green Hunt, state armed forces set ablaze more than 700 villages; murdered more than 1,500 people; raped hundreds of Adivasi women; burnt down the crops; looted the villages; and forced tens of thousands of people to flee from their native places. The recent carnage in Chintalnar was just an example of ongoing state terror in Dandakaranya.
And now, with the Army taking part in this onslaught and with all powers granted to it in the name of self-defence, the massacres of Adivasis and brutalities would increase manifold. This would pose a big question mark on the very existence of the Adivasi community. Particularly, the Jal-Jungle-Zameen and the ancient cultural heritage of the Mariya tribes, the indigenous residents of Maad, would vanish.
A heated discussion is going on across the country on the issue of land grab these days. Particularly, in the context of the Uttar Pradesh incidents [where farmers have been protesting against the government takeover of their land], all political parties belonging to the ruling classes, including Congress [currently the governing party] and BJP [the Hindu chauvinist party currently in the opposition], have been portraying themselves as the "champions of peasants" and vaguely speaking against the forceful land acquisitions as part of promoting their vested political interests. But all these "champions" are keeping themselves mum on this huge land grab taking place in one of the most backward Adivasi areas of the country in the name of Army training.
BJP's Raman Singh [Chhattisgarh state] government has decided to uncaringly give away as much as 750 square kilometres of land in the Maad area of Narayanpur district for one of the three proposed training schools to be set up. Raman Singh, the man who has been trumpeting his cheap tactic of selling one kilogram of chana per month for 5 rupees to each Adivasi family in Bastar region, is completely unmasked now. There has neither been any debate nor been any discussion about the decision of giving away such a huge portion of precious land and forest. Laws like PESA (Panchayat Extension to Scheduled Areas) and 5th Schedule [both laws supposedly meant to overcome discrimination against tribal people and others] have become a joke here.
The local Mariya people of Maad region are completely unaware that the land on which they have been living for thousands of years and the forest with whose support they have been able to survive till this day, belong to them no more. One fifth of the total 4,000 square kilometres area of the Maad region would now be given away to the army. It would be expanded further according to the reports coming in media. As Army vehicles started moving into Bastar, the Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) has declared that the Raoghat mining project would be privatized and a global tender notice would be issued. This makes the picture very clear now. On one side there would be a vast Army base and on the other side of the Maad region the Multinational Corporations would fall in line in a rush to plunder the precious iron ore from Raoghat hills. The mining mafia would become active with their pending mining projects and the lands of the tribal people would be acquired forcefully. Now it’s not at all difficult to realize who is coming with what intention and what the interrelation between them is!
Politically, today the Maoist movement is posing a serious challenge to the pro-imperialist neo-liberal policies being implemented by the servile rulers of our country. The struggles of Adivasis and the Maoists who are leading them have become gravest threat for the ruling classes of India and their imperialist masters, who are hell-bent on looting huge deposits of precious minerals from the Adivasi regions in particular. In Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal and other states, hundreds of MoUs [corporate-government agreements] were signed by state governments and the corporate houses are not getting implemented due to the opposition posed by people. Particularly in Dandakaranya, several projects of big corporate houses, such as mines, big dams and heavy industries have been held up due to organized protests and resistance struggles of the people. To sum up, in Dandakaranya the exploiters' juggernaut of "development" has not been able to move forward. That's why they have been waging this brutal war against the people in which now the Army is involved.
The Bastariya Adivasis have never bowed their head to exploitation, injustice, suppression and alien rule. They have a glorious history of several rebellions against the British colonialists. In 1910, at the time of Mahan Bhumkaal, a great tribal uprising, the British rulers deployed the army against the people of Bastar. Now, after a hundred years, the rulers have once again sent the Army so that their just struggles could be crushed cruelly. We call upon the people of Dandakaranya to face this challenge boldly. People are the creators of history! So, the ultimate victory will only be theirs!!
Our Special Zonal Committee appeals to all democrats, human rights organizations, anti-displacement movements, Adivasi organizations, and well-wishers of Adivasis, intellectuals, writers, artists and media persons to raise their voice against setting up of Army training schools in Bastar and the proposed huge land grab meant for this purpose. Come forward to build agitations with the slogan: "Indian Army, Go back from Bastar". Oppose the deployment of the Army in the ongoing war against people in the name of training schools. Demand to scrap all those MoUs signed by the government of Chhattisgarh with big corporate houses and all those projects of forceful land acquisition.
Indian media have reported that several columns totalling 500 "jawans" (soldiers) and officers have reached Abujhmad in Narayanpur District, where 750 square kilometres of land has been allotted for the camp. A statement from the CPI(M) refers to a thousand central government troops. The 4 June statement says that while details remain secret, there has been talk that the central authorities plan to set up two more jungle warfare schools in the area. It warns that as these troops are trained, they are likely to be sent elsewhere in Chhattisgarh and also to Maharashtra, Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Western Ghats, West Bengal, Odisha and Andhra Pradesh, all areas where the Maoists have been leading struggles by Adivasis and other rural people. This is an escalation of "Operation Green Hunt", a military campaign against the people in the Maoist-led Adivasi areas. (For CPI[M] documents, see www.bannedthought.net)
Following is another press release, put out by the CPI(M) Dandakaranya Special Zonal Committee 3 June, explaining and opposing this army deployment. The vast forests of Dandakaranya extend through the states of Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Maharastra and Orissa.
As the first column of the Indian Army arrived in Kanker, the formal process of Army deployment in Bastar has commenced. But hiding this fact from the eyes of the people, the rulers are propagating the falsehood that the Army was coming here just for training and not to fight the Maoists. It's being said that in the name of "self defence", the ministries of Defence and Law had issued "guiding principles" for the Army, but nobody is ready to reveal the details. It’s noteworthy that the Air Force was already given the right to attack in "self-defence".
The Central and State governments have been hiding the fact that this was obvious deployment and have been telling the world that they were just coming here for a training as part of their ploy of deceiving the people and pacifying those democratic forces who have been outrageous against Army deployment. The glaring fact is that the Army is now deployed in the ongoing war against people of our country. After Kashmir and the North-East regions, now the Indian Army is going to wage a brutal war against most oppressed people of India. Now the apprehensions seem to be realized that the draconian law, the AFSPA (Armed Forces Special Powers Act), would also be proclaimed in Bastar.
In fact the government gave a free hand to the Army and Air Force to attack the people in the name of "self-defence", as there are no measures defined for clear-cut demarcation between a Maoist combatant and an ordinary citizen. Since 2005, first with Salwa Judum [counter-revolutionary militias led by the local authorities and the police in Chhattisgarh] and now in Operation Green Hunt, state armed forces set ablaze more than 700 villages; murdered more than 1,500 people; raped hundreds of Adivasi women; burnt down the crops; looted the villages; and forced tens of thousands of people to flee from their native places. The recent carnage in Chintalnar was just an example of ongoing state terror in Dandakaranya.
And now, with the Army taking part in this onslaught and with all powers granted to it in the name of self-defence, the massacres of Adivasis and brutalities would increase manifold. This would pose a big question mark on the very existence of the Adivasi community. Particularly, the Jal-Jungle-Zameen and the ancient cultural heritage of the Mariya tribes, the indigenous residents of Maad, would vanish.
A heated discussion is going on across the country on the issue of land grab these days. Particularly, in the context of the Uttar Pradesh incidents [where farmers have been protesting against the government takeover of their land], all political parties belonging to the ruling classes, including Congress [currently the governing party] and BJP [the Hindu chauvinist party currently in the opposition], have been portraying themselves as the "champions of peasants" and vaguely speaking against the forceful land acquisitions as part of promoting their vested political interests. But all these "champions" are keeping themselves mum on this huge land grab taking place in one of the most backward Adivasi areas of the country in the name of Army training.
BJP's Raman Singh [Chhattisgarh state] government has decided to uncaringly give away as much as 750 square kilometres of land in the Maad area of Narayanpur district for one of the three proposed training schools to be set up. Raman Singh, the man who has been trumpeting his cheap tactic of selling one kilogram of chana per month for 5 rupees to each Adivasi family in Bastar region, is completely unmasked now. There has neither been any debate nor been any discussion about the decision of giving away such a huge portion of precious land and forest. Laws like PESA (Panchayat Extension to Scheduled Areas) and 5th Schedule [both laws supposedly meant to overcome discrimination against tribal people and others] have become a joke here.
The local Mariya people of Maad region are completely unaware that the land on which they have been living for thousands of years and the forest with whose support they have been able to survive till this day, belong to them no more. One fifth of the total 4,000 square kilometres area of the Maad region would now be given away to the army. It would be expanded further according to the reports coming in media. As Army vehicles started moving into Bastar, the Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) has declared that the Raoghat mining project would be privatized and a global tender notice would be issued. This makes the picture very clear now. On one side there would be a vast Army base and on the other side of the Maad region the Multinational Corporations would fall in line in a rush to plunder the precious iron ore from Raoghat hills. The mining mafia would become active with their pending mining projects and the lands of the tribal people would be acquired forcefully. Now it’s not at all difficult to realize who is coming with what intention and what the interrelation between them is!
Politically, today the Maoist movement is posing a serious challenge to the pro-imperialist neo-liberal policies being implemented by the servile rulers of our country. The struggles of Adivasis and the Maoists who are leading them have become gravest threat for the ruling classes of India and their imperialist masters, who are hell-bent on looting huge deposits of precious minerals from the Adivasi regions in particular. In Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal and other states, hundreds of MoUs [corporate-government agreements] were signed by state governments and the corporate houses are not getting implemented due to the opposition posed by people. Particularly in Dandakaranya, several projects of big corporate houses, such as mines, big dams and heavy industries have been held up due to organized protests and resistance struggles of the people. To sum up, in Dandakaranya the exploiters' juggernaut of "development" has not been able to move forward. That's why they have been waging this brutal war against the people in which now the Army is involved.
The Bastariya Adivasis have never bowed their head to exploitation, injustice, suppression and alien rule. They have a glorious history of several rebellions against the British colonialists. In 1910, at the time of Mahan Bhumkaal, a great tribal uprising, the British rulers deployed the army against the people of Bastar. Now, after a hundred years, the rulers have once again sent the Army so that their just struggles could be crushed cruelly. We call upon the people of Dandakaranya to face this challenge boldly. People are the creators of history! So, the ultimate victory will only be theirs!!
Our Special Zonal Committee appeals to all democrats, human rights organizations, anti-displacement movements, Adivasi organizations, and well-wishers of Adivasis, intellectuals, writers, artists and media persons to raise their voice against setting up of Army training schools in Bastar and the proposed huge land grab meant for this purpose. Come forward to build agitations with the slogan: "Indian Army, Go back from Bastar". Oppose the deployment of the Army in the ongoing war against people in the name of training schools. Demand to scrap all those MoUs signed by the government of Chhattisgarh with big corporate houses and all those projects of forceful land acquisition.
Portugal - Ein Musterschüler geht pleite
Von Charles Reeve
Ein paar Wochen vor dem Sturz der Regierung senkte der sozialistische Premierminister die Mehrwertsteuer für Golfplätze von 23 Prozent auf sechs Prozent. Angesichts der allgemeinen Verblüffung erklärte er, dass der Golf-Tourismus Portugal helfen würde, aus der Krise zu kommen… Zwei Tage bevor das Land finanzielle »Hilfe« von Brüssel anforderte, kündigten die Bürgermeistereien der beiden Großstädte Porto und Faro an, dass die Schulküchen während der Ferien geöffnet blieben, damit die Kinder wenigstens eine Mahlzeit pro Tag bekämen. In der Stadtregion Porto, der zweitgrößten Stadt des Landes, leben tatsächlich zwei Drittel der Armen und die Mehrheit der SozialhilfeempfängerInnen Portugals. In Faro, der großen Stadt des Touristengebiets Algarve, liegt die Arbeitslosigkeit über dem nationalen Durchschnitt von offiziell elf Prozent. Diese beiden Anekdoten beleuchten einerseits die Arroganz der politischen Klasse, andererseits die allgemeine Verarmung der Gesellschaft.
Zehn Jahre nach seiner Einstufung als »Musterschüler der europäischen Integration« ist das bankrotte Portugal auf den Titelseiten der Zeitungen. Die Medien decken einerseits die Armut und die soziale Ungleichheit auf, andererseits die zur Schau gestellte Verschwendung der Bourgeoisie, vor allem die der »Neuen Reichen«, die von dieser »Integration« profitiert haben. Zwischen Autobahnen und Einkaufszentren, in denen die großen deutschen, französischen und spanischen Handelsketten ihre Waren ausbreiten - unter den gierigen Blicken einer Bevölkerung mit beschränkter Kaufkraft, aber mit problemlosem Zugang zu Krediten - war der durchreisende Europäer schließlich zu dem Glauben gekommen, dass Portugal ein modernes Land in Europa wäre, während das portugiesische Volk nicht mehr weiß, woran es ist… Der Kapitalismus ist ein auf soziale Ungleichheit gegründetes Klassensystem, und das kleine Portugal bleibt nicht davon ausgenommen, auch nicht von den Konsequenzen der neoliberalen Periode, in der das Einkommen stark zugunsten des Kapitals verlagert wurde. Aber hier wird diese Entwicklung zu einer Gesellschaft der »zwei Geschwindigkeiten« auf eine altüberlieferte Armut aufgepresst.
Einige Zahlen werden helfen, zur Wirklichkeit zurückzukommen. In Portugal beträgt das mittlere monatliche Einkommen 1000 Euro, aber in den armen Regionen des Landes die Hälfte. Von einer Bevölkerung von zehn Millionen sind mehr als zwei Millionen Rentner, von denen kaum zehn Prozent mehr als 1500 Euro Rente beziehen. Die durchschnittliche Monatsrente liegt bei 380 Euro. 1,3 Millionen Menschen leben von 189 Euro Sozialunterstützung. Fast eine Million, insbesondere junge Leute, arbeiten prekär mit den berühmten »Grünen Scheinen« (recibos verdes) als Scheinselbständige - und müssen ihre Sozialbeiträge selbst bezahlen. Seit einigen Jahren steigt die Armutsrate wieder an. Nach Aussagen der Wohltätigkeitsorganisationen wurden allein in den ersten zwei Monaten des Jahres 2011 40 Prozent mehr Anträge auf Hilfe gestellt. Und die Suppenküchen werden gestürmt. Im Auswanderungsland Portugal suchen viele wieder ihr Glück im Exil.Viele osteuropäische MigrantInnen, die in Portugal waren, sind zurückgegangen. Seit 2000 ist die Auswanderung fast wieder so hoch wie in den 1960er Jahren; jeden Monat verlassen 2000 Arbeitslose das Land und werden aus Wählerlisten gestrichen.
Der portugiesische Staat ist heute hoch verschuldet und hat nicht einmal mehr die Mittel, weiter Geld zu horrenden Zinsen aufzunehmen, um die Schulden zu bedienen. Deshalb wurde er unter die direkte Kontrolle von Brüssel gestellt. Bevor wir den ökonomischen Neusprech über die Schulden dechiffrieren, ist es wichtig zu klären, wie es zu dieser Situation gekommen ist.
Die Folgen des EU-Beitritts
Die Situation der ArbeiterInnen hat sich in den letzten 35 Jahren stark verändert. Die erste Veränderung haben die sozialen Bewegungen nach der »Portugiesischen Revolution« erreicht, die zwar nicht die gesellschaftliche Ordnung umwälzten, aber die sozialen Bedingungen total transformierten, was Löhne, Arbeitsbedingungen, Arbeitsgesetzgebung usw. betrifft. Nach dem EU-Beitritt 1986 stiegen die Löhne und die Beschäftigung, ein Sozialstaat wurde aufgebaut, entsprechend den neuen Bedingungen der Ausbeutung der Arbeitskraft. Die Infrastruktur wurde ausgebaut, und die niedrigen Löhne zogen ausländisches Kapital an; die kapitalistische Entwicklung wurde in Schwung gebracht. Für eine kurze Zeit ging die Auswanderung zurück, staatliche Investitionen stiegen und die allgemeinen Lebensbedingungen verbesserten sich. Da die Löhne die niedrigsten in Europa blieben, wurden Konsumentenkredite eingeführt, um den Konsum der Arbeiterklasse zu steigern. Die enormen Finanzinvestitionen, die in Form von Krediten oder direkter Hilfe von Brüssel kamen, finanzierten diese Modernisierung des Landes und verteilten Geld an die großen europäischen Baufirmen und andere Branchen, aber auch an einen wichtigen Sektor der lokalen Kapitalistenklasse. Einige konzentrierten sich auf besondere Großereignisse wie die Weltausstellung in Lissabon, Porto als Europäische Kulturhauptstadt oder die Fußballeuropameisterschaften.
Mit der Osterweiterung der EU und den ersten Anzeichen der jetzigen kapitalistischen Profitkrise begann sich das Bild zu ändern. Fabriken gingen weg, schlossen, Löhne wurden gar nicht, verspätet oder nicht in voller Höhe ausgezahlt. Die Arbeitslosigkeit stieg, die Auswanderung stieg wieder an und das soziale Elend nahm zu. Die traditionellen Armutssektoren der portugiesischen Wirtschaft waren im vorangehenden Zeitraum zerstört worden und konnten keine Arbeitsplätze schaffen. ArbeiterInnen standen auf einmal ohne Job da, aber mit einem Haufen Schulden. Auch die traditionellen Familienstrukturen, die Verbindungen zum Land, die zur Reproduktion der Arbeitskraft beitragen konnten, waren entweder durch die rasche Landflucht oder durch die neuen isolierten und atomisierten Lebensformen zerstört worden. Der jüngste Angriff auf den Sozialstaat schließlich führte zu dieser sozialen Krise. Interessant ist, dass die alten Formen von Armut, also die alten Leute auf dem Land, nie verschwunden sind und sich mit den neuen jungen urbanen Formen verbanden. Zusammengefasst kann man sagen, dass in all diesen verschiedenen Zeiträumen die Löhne immer die niedrigsten in Europa geblieben sind. Als die jetzige Krise begann, war die Arbeiterklasse schon geschlagen. Die »Europäische Entwicklung« hat eine »Mittelklasse« im öffentlichen Sektor hervorgebracht, die – nach dem Versagen des Staates und der Zerstörung staatlicher Sozialpolitik (Erziehung, Gesundheit, Funktionsfähigkeit der Städte) - nun direkt angegriffen wird und langsam aber sicher dabei ist, der Arbeiterklasse in die Armut zu folgen.
Portugal ist also ein exemplarischer Fall der »Europäischen Integration«. Diese armen Gesellschaften der Peripherie wurden in der Tat von den Unternehmen und Banken der großen europäischen kapitalistischen Zentren ausgeplündert. Die schwache lokale Wirtschaft von einst wurde zerstört, Landwirtschaft und Fischerei, von der ein Teil der Bevölkerung – wenn auch schlecht – lebte, existieren praktisch nicht mehr. Die niedrigen Löhne haben einige Jahre lang Industrien mit hohem Bedarf an wenig qualifizierter Arbeitskraft angezogen – bis zum Anschluss der mittelosteuropäischen Staaten. Ein paar moderne Unternehmen und einige Zulieferfirmen großer Multis, die alle von der weltweiten Rentabilitätskrise betroffen sind, gibt es auch heute noch. Das soziale Netz ist ausgeblutet. Allein in der Stadtregion Porto gehen täglich 50 Läden oder Kleinbetriebe pleite. In manchen Einkaufsstraßen der Altstadt hat die Hälfte der Läden geschlossen und ein Drittel der Immobilien steht leer oder ist sogar eine Ruine. Im Handel sind zugunsten der großen Ketten europäischer Konzerne 2010 landesweit 40 000 Stellen weggefallen. In der Landwirtschaft haben die Landflucht, die Aufgabe von Feldern, die touristische Immobilienspekulation und die europäischen Flächenstilllegungsprämien zu einem Einbruch der Produktion geführt. Das frühere Agrarland Portugal importiert heute ein Drittel seiner Nahrungsmittel.
Der Diskurs über die Verschuldung
Kommen wir nun zu dem Schwindel, der sich hinter dem Diskurs über die Schulden verbirgt. Wir beziehen uns hier nur auf die Staatsschulden und lassen die privaten Schulden beiseite. Das, was man die »Hilfe« aus Brüssel oder vom IWF nennt, ist nichts anderes als dass weitere Darlehen vergeben werden zu Zinsen, die kaum niedriger sind als die auf dem privaten Markt – unter der Bedingung, dass äußerst aggressive Sparmaßnahmen durchgeführt werden. Diese »Hilfe« ist in Wirklichkeit eine Hilfe für den europäischen Bankensektor, damit sie weiterhin Zinsen für ihre Kredite kassieren können. Allein für das Jahr 2011 muss der portugiesische Staat 39 Milliarden Euro Kredit aufnehmen, von denen 32 Milliarden für Zinsen und Schuldentilgung bestimmt sind. Die europäischen Banken sind dadurch erheblich gefährdet. Von den an die portugiesische, irische, griechische und spanische Regierung verliehenen 380 Milliarden Euro kamen 264 Milliarden von den Banken anderer Länder der Eurozone, und im Fall Portugals haben sich spanische Banken besonders »exponiert«. Das heißt, allein die Zinszahlungen für die schon bestehenden Schulden treiben die Gesamtschuld immer weiter nach oben… – ein Schneeballmechanismus, dem ein Staat nur durch Konkurs und Zahlungsverweigerung entkommen kann. Was für die Banken zählt, ist die Fortsetzung der Zinszahlungen, die Schuld selber muss womöglich nie zurückgezahlt werden. Das scheint sich im Fall Griechenlands schon zu bestätigen.
Außer der Sicherstellung des Schuldendienstes muss der Staat auch die Finanzierung seiner eigenen Dienstleistungen und anderer Aufwendungen abdecken. Zu den Aufwendungen für sogenannte »Investitionen« gehören »Konjunkturprogramme«, die nach guter keynesianischer Logik die Wirtschaft wieder ankurbeln sollen. Aber wenn man den großen europäischen Konzernen mit einigen lokalen Zulieferern Geld für öffentliche Arbeiten gibt, wirkt sich das beschäftigungsmäßig letztlich kaum aus. Das gilt auch für das Projekt einer Hochgeschwindigkeitstrasse zwischen Madrid und Lissabon, deren Umfang von Tag zu Tag kleiner wird…
Da nun einmal der Druck des internationalen Finanzsektors es nicht erlaubt, den Schuldendienst zu umgehen, muss offensichtlich am Staatshaushalt gekürzt werden, von der Bildung bis zum Gesundheitswesen.
Wie überall gehorchen auch in Portugal die Notmaßnahmen derselben kapitalistischen Logik. Ziel ist es, die Löhne drastisch zu drücken. Die Ökonomen, die die Fäden der politischen Marionetten ziehen, sehen das aktuelle Problem in den Arbeitskosten, diese müssen für die Wettbewerbsfähigkeit des Kapitals gesenkt werden, um Privatinvestitionen anzuregen und damit den Aufschwung zu fördern. Aber in einer Gesellschaft wie der portugiesischen, wo die gesellschaftliche Armut strukturell und die Prekarität der Arbeit eine der höchsten in Europa ist und wo der Anteil der Löhne am produzierten Reichtum schon lange vor dem Beginn der Krise zu sinken begann, ist dieses Argument unhaltbar. Die Austeritätspläne der sozialistischen portugiesischen Regierung haben zuerst die Industriearbeiter verarmt und haben es nun geschafft, den Lebensstandard der Mittelklasse zu schleifen: der Beamten, Lehrer usw. - und damit das Feuer der Revolte in zuvor friedlichen Bereichen entfacht..
Das Feuer der Revolte…
Anfang April haben die Medien lang und breit über die neue politische Instabilität schwadroniert und sie mit dem skrupellosen Politikerleben erklärt, das sich über den Köpfen der einfachen Jedermänner abspiele. Nichts ist falscher als das; denn diese politische Krise – der Sturz der Regierung – wurde durch eine gesellschaftliche Krise ausgelöst, die nicht erst heute begann, mit einer Vielzahl von Streiks, einschließlich Generalstreiks und beeindruckenden Straßendemonstrationen. Die Gewerkschaften – dominierend dabei die von der kommunistischen Partei kontrollierte CGTP, die vor allem im öffentlichen Dienst verankert ist – haben diese Aktionstage vor allem mit dem Ziel organisiert, die Unzufriedenheit in Richtung auf einen Verhandlungsweg zu kanalisieren.
Tatsache ist, dass die Beteiligung an den Streiks massiv zunimmt und die Stimmung kämpferisch ist. Besonders exemplarisch ist der sehr hart geführte Konflikt der Lehrer der Sekundarstufe gegen die Zerschlagung ihres Status und die absehbare Verschlechterung der Lehrbedingungen, der sich seit zwei Jahren hinzieht. Der letzte Tag des Generalstreiks am 24. November 2010, an dem es zu Zusammenstößen mit der Polizei kam, mobilisierte die Beschäftigten im öffentlichen und im Privatsektor. Zum ersten Mal seit den Jahren der Portugiesischen Revolution wurden Streikpostenketten gebildet, es gab Versuche von Besetzungen und Aufrufe zur Fortsetzung der Bewegung.
Ende 2010 gab es einzelne Anzeichen, dass die Unzufriedenheit auf eine neue Stufe gestiegen war. In den Demonstrationen traten kleine Gruppen mit antikapitalistischen Positionen auf, Zeichen einer Radikalisierung der prekarisierten Jugend. Die ArbeiterInnen zeigten sich gegenüber den revolutionären Parolen der Jugend so aufgeschlossen, dass der Ordnungsdienst der CGTP mehrmals einschritt, um die »Kontamination« ihrer Umzüge zu verhindern. Dann gab es den Vorfall Deolinda, der schnell zu einer »nationalen Affäre« wurde. Anfang 2011 produzierte diese bekannte Rockgruppe einen Song mit dem provokativen Titel »Parva que sou!« (Wie blöd bin ich doch!), der hinaus schreit: »Ich gehöre zur resignierten Generation / Ich habe im Fernsehen Leute gesehen, denen es schlechter geht als mir. / ich bin aus der Generation, die das nicht mehr aushält! / Diese Situation dauert schon viel zu lange / und weil ich nicht mehr blöd bin / sage ich mir, / Was ist das für eine blöde Welt / wo man studieren muss, um Sklave zu werden« Die Konzerte der Gruppe verwandelten sich in politische Versammlungen, es gab stehenden Applaus mit erhobener Faust. Über YouTube verbreitet erreichte der Song, der eine simple Feststellung zur Lage macht, eine politische Dimension und wurde zum Wahrzeichen der »prekären Generation«. Die Intellektuellen diskutierten, die Politiker wurden unruhig, die Medien begeisterten sich und die Gruppe machte ihre Schnitte… und verwahrte sich dagegen, Politik zu machen. Einige Wochen später wurde Os homens da luta (Männer des Kampfes), eine mittelmäßige Gruppe mit populärer Musik, die die Lieder der Revolutionszeit (1974-75) parodiert, von den Fernsehzuschauern ausgewählt, um Portugal beim Eurovision Song Contest zu vertreten, was bei denselben Intellektuellen Bestürzung auslöste! »Kämpfen macht Spaß« ist der populäre Nachfolgesong von »Wie blöd bin ich doch!«
[http://www.eurovision.de/teilnehmer/homensdaluta107.html - Portugal ist im Halbfinale ausgeschieden.]
Und dann ging man am 12. März 2011 abrupt vom Showbiz und schlechter Poesie zum Konkreten über. Ein Demonstrationsaufruf, der von jungen Leuten, die sich selbst Geraçao à rasca (Generation in der Klemme oder verlorene Generation) nennen, über die sozialen Netze verbreitet wurde, brachte massenhaft Leute auf die Straßen der wichtigsten Städte des Landes: 300 000 in Lissabon, 100 000 in Porto und 6000 in Faro. Die Aufrufer hatten vor allem junge Leute erwartet, die jungen Leute dachten, es ginge nur um sie selbst, aber der Rest der Gesellschaft sagte schnell: es geht um uns alle! Wir stecken alle in der Tretmühle, es ist keine Frage der Generation! In der Menge mischten sich die Generationen, Volks- und Mittelklasse-Schichten, es mischten sich in einer unbefangenen Atmosphäre Fahnen schwingende Patrioten, Punks, Kommunisten, Anarchisten, Einzelpersonen, die stolz die Verfassung mit sich trugen, andere, die mit Aufklebern an die »Nelken-Revolution« erinnerten. All das außerhalb von Parteien und Gewerkschaften. Zahlreiche Parolen äußerten eine radikale Gesellschaftskritik: »Weder Ökonomie, noch Arbeit…Verpisst euch alle!«, »Eine andere Krise ist möglich!«. Zwei Gedanken dominierten: Die Ablehnung der politischen Klasse insgesamt und die Bejahung von Autonomie in der Aktion: »Das einige Volk braucht keine Parteien!« Eine geheimnisvolle Erinnerungsarbeit brachte das Wort »apartidarismo« (Organisierung außerhalb von Parteien) wieder zum Vorschein, das während der Nelken-Revolution geprägt worden war.
Bei der Mobilisierung am 12. März 2011 gab es mehr Bezüge auf die tunesischen und ägyptischen Revolten als die griechischen. Auf einem auffälligen Transparent stand auf portugiesisch und arabisch »Basta!«. Als wäre die Fäulnis der politischen Demokratie mit einer neuen Diktatur vergleichbar, erstickenden Verhältnissen, von denen man sich befreien müsse. Die Anspielungen auf die Revolution von 1974 können ebenso interpretiert werden als Feststellung, dass ein Emanzipationsprojekt verpfuscht wurde. Dieses Projekt ist mit einer Aura versehen und hat für die jungen Leuten von heute nur vage Umrisse, aber es ist in der gesellschaftlichen Vorstellung präsenter, als man vermuten könnte. Der Aufruf zu einer zweiten Demonstration am 25. April 2011 ist aus diesem Blickwinkel noch eindeutiger, »Der 25. April in der Klemme!«.
Diese erste Demonstration besiegelte das Schicksal der sozialistischen Regierung, sie war aber Ausdruck des Misskredits gegenüber der politischen Klasse insgesamt. Die angeblich beleidigten Aufschreie der Politiker, die den sogenannten Nihilismus der »Jungen« anprangern, zählen angesichts der konkreten Erfahrung wenig. In 36 Jahren ist das Vertrauen in die parlamentarische Demokratie dahin geschwunden, Politiker gelten als verabscheuenswerte Betrüger. Die Portugiesische Sozialistische Partei trägt eine erhebliche Verantwortung für dieses Image. Ihre Nomenklatura ist eine Bande von gierigen Raubtieren, Neureichen und Geschäftemachern, ein mafiöser Krake, der sich alles unter den Nagel reißt, was Vorteile oder Privilegien bringen kann, der in die Finanz-, Immobilien- und spekulativen Bereiche investiert, Freunde, Familienmitglieder und Bekannte auf einträglichen Posten platziert. Die sozialistischen Minister und Notabeln werden vom Volk verabscheut. Nur wenige von ihnen sind nicht in fragwürdige Affären verwickelt, die meistens straffrei ausgehen.
Die Sozialistische Partei ist eine Sozialmafia, die sich auf alle Industriebranchen (soweit sie überlebt haben), hauptsächlich aber auf die Finanzbranche erstreckt. In der Gesellschaft gibt es allgemein das Gefühl, dass sie versuchen, ihre korrupten Machtmethoden zu schützen und deshalb lange Zeit eine direkte Intervention von Brüssel und dem IWF vermeiden wollten. Das ist ein politischer Grund. Man könnte sogar sagen, dass es im Volk Erwartungen an diese Intervention von außen gibt, als ein Weg, wieder Moral in das öffentliche Leben zu bringen, um die »Sozialistenbande« loszuwerden. Es gibt auch wirtschaftliche Gründe, wichtiger ist meiner Ansicht nach aber die Tatsache, dass Spanien geschützt werden muss, weil Portugal die letzte Mauer ist, bevor auch Spanien fällt. Der Finanz- und Spekulationssektor in Spanien ist enorm in der portugiesischen Verschuldung engagiert und deshalb bankrott.
Für die »normalen Leute« wird diese Rettung natürlich mehr Leiden bringen, die Mittelklasse im öffentlichen Sektor wird noch mehr absteigen und nichts wird gelöst werden. Es ist nur eine Hilfe für die Banken, die in der öffentlichen Verschuldung engagiert sind.
Portugal ist das erste Land in Europa, in dem eine linke, sozialistische Regierung sich gezwungen sieht, wegen der durch die Austeritätspolitik hervorgerufenen sozialen Unzufriedenheit die Macht aufzugeben.
Das Beispiel zeigt auch gut, wie sehr die politische Klasse durch die Krise destabilisiert ist. Obwohl der Misskredit gegenüber dem parlamentarischen Systems groß ist, sind die großen Parteien gezwungen, sich mit ihrer Wählerschaft auseinanderzusetzen. Die Sozialistische Partei macht das schlau. In Portugal waren anfangs die Notmaßnahmen gegenüber dem öffentlichen Dienst moderater als in Griechenland oder Irland: nur die Löhne, die oberhalb von 1500 Euro lagen, wurden um fünf Prozent reduziert, das 13. und 14. Monatsgehalt belassen. Die PS hat soweit wie möglich auf ihre Wählerschaft Rücksicht genommen, zögerte aber nicht, die ärmsten Arbeiter heftig anzugreifen. Die Abfindungszahlungen wurden um ein Drittel reduziert und die ohnehin schon miserablen Sozialleistungen eingeschränkt. Durch neue Berechnungskriterien für den Zugang zur Sozialhilfe schaffte es die Regierung, in einem Jahr 30 000 Familien aus dem Empfang auszuschließen.
Kaum hatten sie die Staatsgeschäfte aus der Hand gegeben, haben die Sozialisten ihren neuen Wahlslogan gefunden: »Portugal verteidigen!« – eine nationalistische Demagogie, hinter der sie die Verteidigung ihrer mafiösen Interessen und ihre Verbindungen zu den lokalen und internationalen Finanz- und Industriesektoren verbergen, um die es wegen der Intervention des IWF schlecht stehen könnte. Darüber hinaus folgten die sozialistischen Sparpläne derselben Logik wie die zukünftigen: Senkung der Löhne, Verringerung der Sozialleistungen, rechtliche Deregulierung des Arbeitsmarkts, Schutz der hohen Einkommen und der kapitalistischen Klasse. In Erwartung der Ankunft des IWF hat die Sozialistische Partei unverfroren ihre Aufgabe als Bewahrerin des Systems übernommen, so wie sie schon 1975 unter sehr viel gefährlicheren Umständen mit militärischem Druck und Unterstützung der Vereinigten Staaten die Rückkehr zur kapitalistischen Ordnung durchgesetzt hatte.
Nach drei Sparpakten schien die Partei in einer schlechten Position für die Fortsetzung der Schmutzarbeit zu sein. Es war dringend, das Gesicht der politischen Klasse zu säubern/renovieren, auch wenn jeder weiß, dass die an ihre Stelle tretenden Politiker der rechtssozialdemokratischen Partei Klone der Sozialisten sind. Hat nicht Brüssel – wo von nun an alles entschieden wird – zur Bedingung für die »Hilfe« gemacht, dass die gesamte politische Klasse vor Ort der Fortsetzung der Austeritätspolitik zustimmt? Das wird nicht gemacht, um die Glaubwürdigkeit der Politik wieder herzustellen; auf die Gefahr hin, den Raum für den sozialen Protestes noch zu erweitern.
Wenn sich Länder wie Portugal, Griechenland, Irland und dann noch Spanien von der isländischen Haltung – Ablehnung der Schuldenzahlung – anstecken ließen, könnte das den Zusammenbruch des Europäischen Währungssystems nach sich ziehen. Der Zusammenbruch der Peripherien zöge den der kapitalistischen Zentren Europas nach sich und würde endlich eine einheitliche soziale Situation in Europa schaffen. Andernfalls wird es in jedem Land zu einer fremdenfeindlichen Absetzbewegung wie in Finnland, mit noch viel verheerenderen sozialen Folgen kommen. »Das ist Politik vom Schlimmsten«, werden die Taliban des »Kapitalismus als einzig mögliche Perspektive« schreien, aber die jetzige Situation ist für die Mehrheit der Bevölkerung in Portugal wie überall in Europa schon die schlimmste Politik.
Auf Anti-Atom-Demos in Berlin nach dem kapitalistischen Verbrechen von Fukushima kam ein Slogan besonders gut an: »Unsere AKWs sind so sicher wie unsere Renten!« Diese kluge Parole paraphrasierend könnte man ebenso gut sagen, dass »die Beherrschung der kapitalistischen Ökonomie genau so sicher ist, wie die Beherrschung der Kernenergie durch die Wissenschaft.« Es ist Zeit, sich mit der realen Situation zu befassen, den von der Ökonomie vergifteten Boden aufzugeben und autonome Praktiken der Übernahme der Gesellschaft durch die Betroffenen selbst zu entwickeln. Der Kapitalismus ist ein gefährliches System und die Folgen seiner Krise sollten uns auf Trab bringen. Attentismus und Resignation bringen keine Sicherheit mehr; sie sind eine Gefahr.
Charles Reeve, 20. April 2011
aus: Wildcat 90, Sommer 2011
Ein paar Wochen vor dem Sturz der Regierung senkte der sozialistische Premierminister die Mehrwertsteuer für Golfplätze von 23 Prozent auf sechs Prozent. Angesichts der allgemeinen Verblüffung erklärte er, dass der Golf-Tourismus Portugal helfen würde, aus der Krise zu kommen… Zwei Tage bevor das Land finanzielle »Hilfe« von Brüssel anforderte, kündigten die Bürgermeistereien der beiden Großstädte Porto und Faro an, dass die Schulküchen während der Ferien geöffnet blieben, damit die Kinder wenigstens eine Mahlzeit pro Tag bekämen. In der Stadtregion Porto, der zweitgrößten Stadt des Landes, leben tatsächlich zwei Drittel der Armen und die Mehrheit der SozialhilfeempfängerInnen Portugals. In Faro, der großen Stadt des Touristengebiets Algarve, liegt die Arbeitslosigkeit über dem nationalen Durchschnitt von offiziell elf Prozent. Diese beiden Anekdoten beleuchten einerseits die Arroganz der politischen Klasse, andererseits die allgemeine Verarmung der Gesellschaft.
Zehn Jahre nach seiner Einstufung als »Musterschüler der europäischen Integration« ist das bankrotte Portugal auf den Titelseiten der Zeitungen. Die Medien decken einerseits die Armut und die soziale Ungleichheit auf, andererseits die zur Schau gestellte Verschwendung der Bourgeoisie, vor allem die der »Neuen Reichen«, die von dieser »Integration« profitiert haben. Zwischen Autobahnen und Einkaufszentren, in denen die großen deutschen, französischen und spanischen Handelsketten ihre Waren ausbreiten - unter den gierigen Blicken einer Bevölkerung mit beschränkter Kaufkraft, aber mit problemlosem Zugang zu Krediten - war der durchreisende Europäer schließlich zu dem Glauben gekommen, dass Portugal ein modernes Land in Europa wäre, während das portugiesische Volk nicht mehr weiß, woran es ist… Der Kapitalismus ist ein auf soziale Ungleichheit gegründetes Klassensystem, und das kleine Portugal bleibt nicht davon ausgenommen, auch nicht von den Konsequenzen der neoliberalen Periode, in der das Einkommen stark zugunsten des Kapitals verlagert wurde. Aber hier wird diese Entwicklung zu einer Gesellschaft der »zwei Geschwindigkeiten« auf eine altüberlieferte Armut aufgepresst.
Einige Zahlen werden helfen, zur Wirklichkeit zurückzukommen. In Portugal beträgt das mittlere monatliche Einkommen 1000 Euro, aber in den armen Regionen des Landes die Hälfte. Von einer Bevölkerung von zehn Millionen sind mehr als zwei Millionen Rentner, von denen kaum zehn Prozent mehr als 1500 Euro Rente beziehen. Die durchschnittliche Monatsrente liegt bei 380 Euro. 1,3 Millionen Menschen leben von 189 Euro Sozialunterstützung. Fast eine Million, insbesondere junge Leute, arbeiten prekär mit den berühmten »Grünen Scheinen« (recibos verdes) als Scheinselbständige - und müssen ihre Sozialbeiträge selbst bezahlen. Seit einigen Jahren steigt die Armutsrate wieder an. Nach Aussagen der Wohltätigkeitsorganisationen wurden allein in den ersten zwei Monaten des Jahres 2011 40 Prozent mehr Anträge auf Hilfe gestellt. Und die Suppenküchen werden gestürmt. Im Auswanderungsland Portugal suchen viele wieder ihr Glück im Exil.Viele osteuropäische MigrantInnen, die in Portugal waren, sind zurückgegangen. Seit 2000 ist die Auswanderung fast wieder so hoch wie in den 1960er Jahren; jeden Monat verlassen 2000 Arbeitslose das Land und werden aus Wählerlisten gestrichen.
Der portugiesische Staat ist heute hoch verschuldet und hat nicht einmal mehr die Mittel, weiter Geld zu horrenden Zinsen aufzunehmen, um die Schulden zu bedienen. Deshalb wurde er unter die direkte Kontrolle von Brüssel gestellt. Bevor wir den ökonomischen Neusprech über die Schulden dechiffrieren, ist es wichtig zu klären, wie es zu dieser Situation gekommen ist.
Die Folgen des EU-Beitritts
Die Situation der ArbeiterInnen hat sich in den letzten 35 Jahren stark verändert. Die erste Veränderung haben die sozialen Bewegungen nach der »Portugiesischen Revolution« erreicht, die zwar nicht die gesellschaftliche Ordnung umwälzten, aber die sozialen Bedingungen total transformierten, was Löhne, Arbeitsbedingungen, Arbeitsgesetzgebung usw. betrifft. Nach dem EU-Beitritt 1986 stiegen die Löhne und die Beschäftigung, ein Sozialstaat wurde aufgebaut, entsprechend den neuen Bedingungen der Ausbeutung der Arbeitskraft. Die Infrastruktur wurde ausgebaut, und die niedrigen Löhne zogen ausländisches Kapital an; die kapitalistische Entwicklung wurde in Schwung gebracht. Für eine kurze Zeit ging die Auswanderung zurück, staatliche Investitionen stiegen und die allgemeinen Lebensbedingungen verbesserten sich. Da die Löhne die niedrigsten in Europa blieben, wurden Konsumentenkredite eingeführt, um den Konsum der Arbeiterklasse zu steigern. Die enormen Finanzinvestitionen, die in Form von Krediten oder direkter Hilfe von Brüssel kamen, finanzierten diese Modernisierung des Landes und verteilten Geld an die großen europäischen Baufirmen und andere Branchen, aber auch an einen wichtigen Sektor der lokalen Kapitalistenklasse. Einige konzentrierten sich auf besondere Großereignisse wie die Weltausstellung in Lissabon, Porto als Europäische Kulturhauptstadt oder die Fußballeuropameisterschaften.
Mit der Osterweiterung der EU und den ersten Anzeichen der jetzigen kapitalistischen Profitkrise begann sich das Bild zu ändern. Fabriken gingen weg, schlossen, Löhne wurden gar nicht, verspätet oder nicht in voller Höhe ausgezahlt. Die Arbeitslosigkeit stieg, die Auswanderung stieg wieder an und das soziale Elend nahm zu. Die traditionellen Armutssektoren der portugiesischen Wirtschaft waren im vorangehenden Zeitraum zerstört worden und konnten keine Arbeitsplätze schaffen. ArbeiterInnen standen auf einmal ohne Job da, aber mit einem Haufen Schulden. Auch die traditionellen Familienstrukturen, die Verbindungen zum Land, die zur Reproduktion der Arbeitskraft beitragen konnten, waren entweder durch die rasche Landflucht oder durch die neuen isolierten und atomisierten Lebensformen zerstört worden. Der jüngste Angriff auf den Sozialstaat schließlich führte zu dieser sozialen Krise. Interessant ist, dass die alten Formen von Armut, also die alten Leute auf dem Land, nie verschwunden sind und sich mit den neuen jungen urbanen Formen verbanden. Zusammengefasst kann man sagen, dass in all diesen verschiedenen Zeiträumen die Löhne immer die niedrigsten in Europa geblieben sind. Als die jetzige Krise begann, war die Arbeiterklasse schon geschlagen. Die »Europäische Entwicklung« hat eine »Mittelklasse« im öffentlichen Sektor hervorgebracht, die – nach dem Versagen des Staates und der Zerstörung staatlicher Sozialpolitik (Erziehung, Gesundheit, Funktionsfähigkeit der Städte) - nun direkt angegriffen wird und langsam aber sicher dabei ist, der Arbeiterklasse in die Armut zu folgen.
Portugal ist also ein exemplarischer Fall der »Europäischen Integration«. Diese armen Gesellschaften der Peripherie wurden in der Tat von den Unternehmen und Banken der großen europäischen kapitalistischen Zentren ausgeplündert. Die schwache lokale Wirtschaft von einst wurde zerstört, Landwirtschaft und Fischerei, von der ein Teil der Bevölkerung – wenn auch schlecht – lebte, existieren praktisch nicht mehr. Die niedrigen Löhne haben einige Jahre lang Industrien mit hohem Bedarf an wenig qualifizierter Arbeitskraft angezogen – bis zum Anschluss der mittelosteuropäischen Staaten. Ein paar moderne Unternehmen und einige Zulieferfirmen großer Multis, die alle von der weltweiten Rentabilitätskrise betroffen sind, gibt es auch heute noch. Das soziale Netz ist ausgeblutet. Allein in der Stadtregion Porto gehen täglich 50 Läden oder Kleinbetriebe pleite. In manchen Einkaufsstraßen der Altstadt hat die Hälfte der Läden geschlossen und ein Drittel der Immobilien steht leer oder ist sogar eine Ruine. Im Handel sind zugunsten der großen Ketten europäischer Konzerne 2010 landesweit 40 000 Stellen weggefallen. In der Landwirtschaft haben die Landflucht, die Aufgabe von Feldern, die touristische Immobilienspekulation und die europäischen Flächenstilllegungsprämien zu einem Einbruch der Produktion geführt. Das frühere Agrarland Portugal importiert heute ein Drittel seiner Nahrungsmittel.
Der Diskurs über die Verschuldung
Kommen wir nun zu dem Schwindel, der sich hinter dem Diskurs über die Schulden verbirgt. Wir beziehen uns hier nur auf die Staatsschulden und lassen die privaten Schulden beiseite. Das, was man die »Hilfe« aus Brüssel oder vom IWF nennt, ist nichts anderes als dass weitere Darlehen vergeben werden zu Zinsen, die kaum niedriger sind als die auf dem privaten Markt – unter der Bedingung, dass äußerst aggressive Sparmaßnahmen durchgeführt werden. Diese »Hilfe« ist in Wirklichkeit eine Hilfe für den europäischen Bankensektor, damit sie weiterhin Zinsen für ihre Kredite kassieren können. Allein für das Jahr 2011 muss der portugiesische Staat 39 Milliarden Euro Kredit aufnehmen, von denen 32 Milliarden für Zinsen und Schuldentilgung bestimmt sind. Die europäischen Banken sind dadurch erheblich gefährdet. Von den an die portugiesische, irische, griechische und spanische Regierung verliehenen 380 Milliarden Euro kamen 264 Milliarden von den Banken anderer Länder der Eurozone, und im Fall Portugals haben sich spanische Banken besonders »exponiert«. Das heißt, allein die Zinszahlungen für die schon bestehenden Schulden treiben die Gesamtschuld immer weiter nach oben… – ein Schneeballmechanismus, dem ein Staat nur durch Konkurs und Zahlungsverweigerung entkommen kann. Was für die Banken zählt, ist die Fortsetzung der Zinszahlungen, die Schuld selber muss womöglich nie zurückgezahlt werden. Das scheint sich im Fall Griechenlands schon zu bestätigen.
Außer der Sicherstellung des Schuldendienstes muss der Staat auch die Finanzierung seiner eigenen Dienstleistungen und anderer Aufwendungen abdecken. Zu den Aufwendungen für sogenannte »Investitionen« gehören »Konjunkturprogramme«, die nach guter keynesianischer Logik die Wirtschaft wieder ankurbeln sollen. Aber wenn man den großen europäischen Konzernen mit einigen lokalen Zulieferern Geld für öffentliche Arbeiten gibt, wirkt sich das beschäftigungsmäßig letztlich kaum aus. Das gilt auch für das Projekt einer Hochgeschwindigkeitstrasse zwischen Madrid und Lissabon, deren Umfang von Tag zu Tag kleiner wird…
Da nun einmal der Druck des internationalen Finanzsektors es nicht erlaubt, den Schuldendienst zu umgehen, muss offensichtlich am Staatshaushalt gekürzt werden, von der Bildung bis zum Gesundheitswesen.
Wie überall gehorchen auch in Portugal die Notmaßnahmen derselben kapitalistischen Logik. Ziel ist es, die Löhne drastisch zu drücken. Die Ökonomen, die die Fäden der politischen Marionetten ziehen, sehen das aktuelle Problem in den Arbeitskosten, diese müssen für die Wettbewerbsfähigkeit des Kapitals gesenkt werden, um Privatinvestitionen anzuregen und damit den Aufschwung zu fördern. Aber in einer Gesellschaft wie der portugiesischen, wo die gesellschaftliche Armut strukturell und die Prekarität der Arbeit eine der höchsten in Europa ist und wo der Anteil der Löhne am produzierten Reichtum schon lange vor dem Beginn der Krise zu sinken begann, ist dieses Argument unhaltbar. Die Austeritätspläne der sozialistischen portugiesischen Regierung haben zuerst die Industriearbeiter verarmt und haben es nun geschafft, den Lebensstandard der Mittelklasse zu schleifen: der Beamten, Lehrer usw. - und damit das Feuer der Revolte in zuvor friedlichen Bereichen entfacht..
Das Feuer der Revolte…
Anfang April haben die Medien lang und breit über die neue politische Instabilität schwadroniert und sie mit dem skrupellosen Politikerleben erklärt, das sich über den Köpfen der einfachen Jedermänner abspiele. Nichts ist falscher als das; denn diese politische Krise – der Sturz der Regierung – wurde durch eine gesellschaftliche Krise ausgelöst, die nicht erst heute begann, mit einer Vielzahl von Streiks, einschließlich Generalstreiks und beeindruckenden Straßendemonstrationen. Die Gewerkschaften – dominierend dabei die von der kommunistischen Partei kontrollierte CGTP, die vor allem im öffentlichen Dienst verankert ist – haben diese Aktionstage vor allem mit dem Ziel organisiert, die Unzufriedenheit in Richtung auf einen Verhandlungsweg zu kanalisieren.
Tatsache ist, dass die Beteiligung an den Streiks massiv zunimmt und die Stimmung kämpferisch ist. Besonders exemplarisch ist der sehr hart geführte Konflikt der Lehrer der Sekundarstufe gegen die Zerschlagung ihres Status und die absehbare Verschlechterung der Lehrbedingungen, der sich seit zwei Jahren hinzieht. Der letzte Tag des Generalstreiks am 24. November 2010, an dem es zu Zusammenstößen mit der Polizei kam, mobilisierte die Beschäftigten im öffentlichen und im Privatsektor. Zum ersten Mal seit den Jahren der Portugiesischen Revolution wurden Streikpostenketten gebildet, es gab Versuche von Besetzungen und Aufrufe zur Fortsetzung der Bewegung.
Ende 2010 gab es einzelne Anzeichen, dass die Unzufriedenheit auf eine neue Stufe gestiegen war. In den Demonstrationen traten kleine Gruppen mit antikapitalistischen Positionen auf, Zeichen einer Radikalisierung der prekarisierten Jugend. Die ArbeiterInnen zeigten sich gegenüber den revolutionären Parolen der Jugend so aufgeschlossen, dass der Ordnungsdienst der CGTP mehrmals einschritt, um die »Kontamination« ihrer Umzüge zu verhindern. Dann gab es den Vorfall Deolinda, der schnell zu einer »nationalen Affäre« wurde. Anfang 2011 produzierte diese bekannte Rockgruppe einen Song mit dem provokativen Titel »Parva que sou!« (Wie blöd bin ich doch!), der hinaus schreit: »Ich gehöre zur resignierten Generation / Ich habe im Fernsehen Leute gesehen, denen es schlechter geht als mir. / ich bin aus der Generation, die das nicht mehr aushält! / Diese Situation dauert schon viel zu lange / und weil ich nicht mehr blöd bin / sage ich mir, / Was ist das für eine blöde Welt / wo man studieren muss, um Sklave zu werden« Die Konzerte der Gruppe verwandelten sich in politische Versammlungen, es gab stehenden Applaus mit erhobener Faust. Über YouTube verbreitet erreichte der Song, der eine simple Feststellung zur Lage macht, eine politische Dimension und wurde zum Wahrzeichen der »prekären Generation«. Die Intellektuellen diskutierten, die Politiker wurden unruhig, die Medien begeisterten sich und die Gruppe machte ihre Schnitte… und verwahrte sich dagegen, Politik zu machen. Einige Wochen später wurde Os homens da luta (Männer des Kampfes), eine mittelmäßige Gruppe mit populärer Musik, die die Lieder der Revolutionszeit (1974-75) parodiert, von den Fernsehzuschauern ausgewählt, um Portugal beim Eurovision Song Contest zu vertreten, was bei denselben Intellektuellen Bestürzung auslöste! »Kämpfen macht Spaß« ist der populäre Nachfolgesong von »Wie blöd bin ich doch!«
[http://www.eurovision.de/teilnehmer/homensdaluta107.html - Portugal ist im Halbfinale ausgeschieden.]
Und dann ging man am 12. März 2011 abrupt vom Showbiz und schlechter Poesie zum Konkreten über. Ein Demonstrationsaufruf, der von jungen Leuten, die sich selbst Geraçao à rasca (Generation in der Klemme oder verlorene Generation) nennen, über die sozialen Netze verbreitet wurde, brachte massenhaft Leute auf die Straßen der wichtigsten Städte des Landes: 300 000 in Lissabon, 100 000 in Porto und 6000 in Faro. Die Aufrufer hatten vor allem junge Leute erwartet, die jungen Leute dachten, es ginge nur um sie selbst, aber der Rest der Gesellschaft sagte schnell: es geht um uns alle! Wir stecken alle in der Tretmühle, es ist keine Frage der Generation! In der Menge mischten sich die Generationen, Volks- und Mittelklasse-Schichten, es mischten sich in einer unbefangenen Atmosphäre Fahnen schwingende Patrioten, Punks, Kommunisten, Anarchisten, Einzelpersonen, die stolz die Verfassung mit sich trugen, andere, die mit Aufklebern an die »Nelken-Revolution« erinnerten. All das außerhalb von Parteien und Gewerkschaften. Zahlreiche Parolen äußerten eine radikale Gesellschaftskritik: »Weder Ökonomie, noch Arbeit…Verpisst euch alle!«, »Eine andere Krise ist möglich!«. Zwei Gedanken dominierten: Die Ablehnung der politischen Klasse insgesamt und die Bejahung von Autonomie in der Aktion: »Das einige Volk braucht keine Parteien!« Eine geheimnisvolle Erinnerungsarbeit brachte das Wort »apartidarismo« (Organisierung außerhalb von Parteien) wieder zum Vorschein, das während der Nelken-Revolution geprägt worden war.
Bei der Mobilisierung am 12. März 2011 gab es mehr Bezüge auf die tunesischen und ägyptischen Revolten als die griechischen. Auf einem auffälligen Transparent stand auf portugiesisch und arabisch »Basta!«. Als wäre die Fäulnis der politischen Demokratie mit einer neuen Diktatur vergleichbar, erstickenden Verhältnissen, von denen man sich befreien müsse. Die Anspielungen auf die Revolution von 1974 können ebenso interpretiert werden als Feststellung, dass ein Emanzipationsprojekt verpfuscht wurde. Dieses Projekt ist mit einer Aura versehen und hat für die jungen Leuten von heute nur vage Umrisse, aber es ist in der gesellschaftlichen Vorstellung präsenter, als man vermuten könnte. Der Aufruf zu einer zweiten Demonstration am 25. April 2011 ist aus diesem Blickwinkel noch eindeutiger, »Der 25. April in der Klemme!«.
Diese erste Demonstration besiegelte das Schicksal der sozialistischen Regierung, sie war aber Ausdruck des Misskredits gegenüber der politischen Klasse insgesamt. Die angeblich beleidigten Aufschreie der Politiker, die den sogenannten Nihilismus der »Jungen« anprangern, zählen angesichts der konkreten Erfahrung wenig. In 36 Jahren ist das Vertrauen in die parlamentarische Demokratie dahin geschwunden, Politiker gelten als verabscheuenswerte Betrüger. Die Portugiesische Sozialistische Partei trägt eine erhebliche Verantwortung für dieses Image. Ihre Nomenklatura ist eine Bande von gierigen Raubtieren, Neureichen und Geschäftemachern, ein mafiöser Krake, der sich alles unter den Nagel reißt, was Vorteile oder Privilegien bringen kann, der in die Finanz-, Immobilien- und spekulativen Bereiche investiert, Freunde, Familienmitglieder und Bekannte auf einträglichen Posten platziert. Die sozialistischen Minister und Notabeln werden vom Volk verabscheut. Nur wenige von ihnen sind nicht in fragwürdige Affären verwickelt, die meistens straffrei ausgehen.
Die Sozialistische Partei ist eine Sozialmafia, die sich auf alle Industriebranchen (soweit sie überlebt haben), hauptsächlich aber auf die Finanzbranche erstreckt. In der Gesellschaft gibt es allgemein das Gefühl, dass sie versuchen, ihre korrupten Machtmethoden zu schützen und deshalb lange Zeit eine direkte Intervention von Brüssel und dem IWF vermeiden wollten. Das ist ein politischer Grund. Man könnte sogar sagen, dass es im Volk Erwartungen an diese Intervention von außen gibt, als ein Weg, wieder Moral in das öffentliche Leben zu bringen, um die »Sozialistenbande« loszuwerden. Es gibt auch wirtschaftliche Gründe, wichtiger ist meiner Ansicht nach aber die Tatsache, dass Spanien geschützt werden muss, weil Portugal die letzte Mauer ist, bevor auch Spanien fällt. Der Finanz- und Spekulationssektor in Spanien ist enorm in der portugiesischen Verschuldung engagiert und deshalb bankrott.
Für die »normalen Leute« wird diese Rettung natürlich mehr Leiden bringen, die Mittelklasse im öffentlichen Sektor wird noch mehr absteigen und nichts wird gelöst werden. Es ist nur eine Hilfe für die Banken, die in der öffentlichen Verschuldung engagiert sind.
Portugal ist das erste Land in Europa, in dem eine linke, sozialistische Regierung sich gezwungen sieht, wegen der durch die Austeritätspolitik hervorgerufenen sozialen Unzufriedenheit die Macht aufzugeben.
Das Beispiel zeigt auch gut, wie sehr die politische Klasse durch die Krise destabilisiert ist. Obwohl der Misskredit gegenüber dem parlamentarischen Systems groß ist, sind die großen Parteien gezwungen, sich mit ihrer Wählerschaft auseinanderzusetzen. Die Sozialistische Partei macht das schlau. In Portugal waren anfangs die Notmaßnahmen gegenüber dem öffentlichen Dienst moderater als in Griechenland oder Irland: nur die Löhne, die oberhalb von 1500 Euro lagen, wurden um fünf Prozent reduziert, das 13. und 14. Monatsgehalt belassen. Die PS hat soweit wie möglich auf ihre Wählerschaft Rücksicht genommen, zögerte aber nicht, die ärmsten Arbeiter heftig anzugreifen. Die Abfindungszahlungen wurden um ein Drittel reduziert und die ohnehin schon miserablen Sozialleistungen eingeschränkt. Durch neue Berechnungskriterien für den Zugang zur Sozialhilfe schaffte es die Regierung, in einem Jahr 30 000 Familien aus dem Empfang auszuschließen.
Kaum hatten sie die Staatsgeschäfte aus der Hand gegeben, haben die Sozialisten ihren neuen Wahlslogan gefunden: »Portugal verteidigen!« – eine nationalistische Demagogie, hinter der sie die Verteidigung ihrer mafiösen Interessen und ihre Verbindungen zu den lokalen und internationalen Finanz- und Industriesektoren verbergen, um die es wegen der Intervention des IWF schlecht stehen könnte. Darüber hinaus folgten die sozialistischen Sparpläne derselben Logik wie die zukünftigen: Senkung der Löhne, Verringerung der Sozialleistungen, rechtliche Deregulierung des Arbeitsmarkts, Schutz der hohen Einkommen und der kapitalistischen Klasse. In Erwartung der Ankunft des IWF hat die Sozialistische Partei unverfroren ihre Aufgabe als Bewahrerin des Systems übernommen, so wie sie schon 1975 unter sehr viel gefährlicheren Umständen mit militärischem Druck und Unterstützung der Vereinigten Staaten die Rückkehr zur kapitalistischen Ordnung durchgesetzt hatte.
Nach drei Sparpakten schien die Partei in einer schlechten Position für die Fortsetzung der Schmutzarbeit zu sein. Es war dringend, das Gesicht der politischen Klasse zu säubern/renovieren, auch wenn jeder weiß, dass die an ihre Stelle tretenden Politiker der rechtssozialdemokratischen Partei Klone der Sozialisten sind. Hat nicht Brüssel – wo von nun an alles entschieden wird – zur Bedingung für die »Hilfe« gemacht, dass die gesamte politische Klasse vor Ort der Fortsetzung der Austeritätspolitik zustimmt? Das wird nicht gemacht, um die Glaubwürdigkeit der Politik wieder herzustellen; auf die Gefahr hin, den Raum für den sozialen Protestes noch zu erweitern.
Wenn sich Länder wie Portugal, Griechenland, Irland und dann noch Spanien von der isländischen Haltung – Ablehnung der Schuldenzahlung – anstecken ließen, könnte das den Zusammenbruch des Europäischen Währungssystems nach sich ziehen. Der Zusammenbruch der Peripherien zöge den der kapitalistischen Zentren Europas nach sich und würde endlich eine einheitliche soziale Situation in Europa schaffen. Andernfalls wird es in jedem Land zu einer fremdenfeindlichen Absetzbewegung wie in Finnland, mit noch viel verheerenderen sozialen Folgen kommen. »Das ist Politik vom Schlimmsten«, werden die Taliban des »Kapitalismus als einzig mögliche Perspektive« schreien, aber die jetzige Situation ist für die Mehrheit der Bevölkerung in Portugal wie überall in Europa schon die schlimmste Politik.
Auf Anti-Atom-Demos in Berlin nach dem kapitalistischen Verbrechen von Fukushima kam ein Slogan besonders gut an: »Unsere AKWs sind so sicher wie unsere Renten!« Diese kluge Parole paraphrasierend könnte man ebenso gut sagen, dass »die Beherrschung der kapitalistischen Ökonomie genau so sicher ist, wie die Beherrschung der Kernenergie durch die Wissenschaft.« Es ist Zeit, sich mit der realen Situation zu befassen, den von der Ökonomie vergifteten Boden aufzugeben und autonome Praktiken der Übernahme der Gesellschaft durch die Betroffenen selbst zu entwickeln. Der Kapitalismus ist ein gefährliches System und die Folgen seiner Krise sollten uns auf Trab bringen. Attentismus und Resignation bringen keine Sicherheit mehr; sie sind eine Gefahr.
Charles Reeve, 20. April 2011
aus: Wildcat 90, Sommer 2011
Eskalation in "Bad Taloqan"
IMI-Standpunkt 2011/031 - in: AUSDRUCK (Juni 2011)
http://www.imi-online.de/2011.php?id=2307
2.6.2011, Jonna Schürkes
Taloqan im Nordosten Afghanistans galt lange als einer der ruhigsten
Flecken im Land, weshalb Die ZEIT ihn noch vor einem Jahr als Kurort -
als „Bad Taloqan“ - betitelte, um damit auf die vermeintlich
erfolgreiche Arbeit des Regionalen Beraterteams der Bundeswehr und die
gute Zusammenarbeit mit der afghanischen Polizei in dieser Region
hinzuweisen (Die ZEIT, 17.05.10). Vor dem Stützpunkt eben jenes
Beraterteams wurden jedoch am 17.Mai bei Protesten gegen die
NATO-Truppen ISAF und die afghanische Regierung mindestens 14 Menschen
von Bundeswehrsoldaten und afghanischen Polizisten erschossen, ca. 80
Menschen wurden verletzt.
Anlass der Demonstration war die Tötung von vier Menschen in der Nacht
zuvor. Der Nachtangriff („night raid“), der nach Angaben der ISAF von
US-Spezialkräften und afghanischen Sicherheitskräften durchgeführt
wurde, war demnach gegen einen Führer der Islamischen Bewegung
Usbekistans gerichtet. Auf dem Gelände, das von den Soldaten angegriffen
wurde, wurde der Gesuchte allerdings offenbar nicht angetroffen.
Stattdessen wurden vier Personen getötet, davon zwei Frauen.
Während ISAF erklärte, bei den vier getöteten Menschen habe es sich um
Aufständische gehandelt, sind nicht nur die Demonstranten sondern auch
der lokale Polizeichef und Präsident Karsai der Überzeugung, dass vier
Zivilisten starben.
Night raids gelten auch dem Auswärtigen Amt zufolge als probates Mittel
zur Aufstandsbekämpfung (Spiegel Online, 22.05.11). Im August 2010
erklärte der ISAF-Kommandeur David Petraeus, innerhalb von 90 Tagen
hätten fast 3000 solcher Nachtangriffe stattgefunden. Die Zahl dieser
Art von Angriffen nimmt weiter zu, obwohl die Trefferquote von Petraeus
selbst als extrem schlecht eingestuft wird: Für jede gesuchte Person,
die getötet oder gefangen genommen wird, würden drei Menschen, die nicht
Ziel der Angriffe sind, getötet und vier weitere festgenommen (IPS-News,
15.09.10). Ein kürzlich erschienener Bericht von Oxfam und anderen NGOs
stuft Night Raids als schwerwiegende Menschenrechtsverletzung ein: „Auch
wenn es in den letzten zwei Jahren einige Verbesserungen gegeben hat,
schließen Night Raids in vielen Fällen die exzessive Gewaltanwendung,
die Zerstörung und/oder den Diebstahl von Eigentum und die Misshandlung
von Frauen und Kindern mit ein.“(Oxfam: No time to lose, 10.05.11)
Angesichts dessen ist es allzu verständlich, dass die afghanische
Bevölkerung gegen diese Form der Kriegsführung protestiert. Insgesamt
ist festzustellen, dass es in Afghanistan immer häufiger Demonstrationen
gegen die NATO-Truppen und die afghanische Regierung gibt. Die
Bundesregierung hingegen versucht diese Demonstrationen als Ausdruck des
Protestes zu verunglimpfen, indem sie behauptet, sie seien von den
Taliban inszeniert. Diese Darstellung deckt sich jedoch in keinster
Weise mit den Berichterstattungen über diese Proteste.
Die Demonstration vom 17. Mai begann am Morgen mit zunächst ca. 2000
Menschen in der Stadt. Es wurden die Leichen der vier getöteten Menschen
durch die Stadt getragen, die Protestierenden „riefen Schmährufe gegen
die USA und Präsident Hamid Karsai. ‚Tod Karsai! Tod den USA!‘ hieß es“
(Die Welt, 18.05.11). Bereits zu diesem Zeitpunkt ging die Polizei
gewaltsam gegen die Demonstration vor, es gab erste Verletzte und Tote.
„Die Menge sei später auf 15.000 angewachsen, darunter viele Schüler,
die zum Teil bewaffnet gewesen seien, örtliche Einrichtungen angegriffen
und Geschäfte und Autos demoliert hätten. Dabei seien Handgranaten über
die Einfriedung des deutschen PAT [Stützpunkt des Regionalen
Beraterteams] geworfen und nach afghanischen Angaben zwei deutsche
Soldaten und drei afghanische Wachleute verletzt worden“ (taz, 18.05.11).
Zunächst hieß es, die Bundeswehrsoldaten hätten „nur“ Warnschüsse
abgegeben und auf die Beine von gewaltbereiten und bewaffneten
Demonstranten geschossen. Erst später gab das Einsatzführungskommando
der Bundeswehr bekannt, in mehreren Fällen hätten die Soldaten auf den
„Rumpfbereich beziehungsweise Arme und Hände“ und den „Hals-Kopfbereich“
geschossen.
Am nächsten Tag demonstrierten die Menschen erneut vor einer
Polizeistation in Taloqan, wieder versuchte die Polizei die
Demonstration gewaltsam aufzulösen, erneut wurden Menschen verletzt.
Obwohl in den Berichten alles darauf hindeutet, dass sich die Proteste
gegen das Vorgehen der NATO und der afghanischen Polizei richteten,
wurde auch in diesem Fall vonseiten der Bundesregierung versucht, die
Demonstration zu delegitimieren und damit zugleich ihre Niederschießung
zu rechtfertigen. So sprach Verteidigungsminister De Maizière von einer
von den Taliban inszenierte Demonstrationen (NDR, 30.05.11). Werner
Hoyer, Staatsminister im Auswärtigen Amt, führte diese Behauptung am 25.
Mai im Bundestag weiter aus: „[Es] liegen Erkenntnisse vor, dass diese
Gewaltausbrüche von regierungsfeindlichen Kräften und lokalen
Machthabern langfristig geplant waren. Das war keine spontane Aktion,
die aus der vorangegangenen Erfahrung vom Vortag erwachsen ist. Es war
eine geplante Aktion“.
Inwiefern allerdings die von der Bundeswehr getöteten Zivilisten dabei
eingeplant gewesen sein sollten, die den Anlass für die Proteste gaben,
hierauf ging Hoyer nicht ein (BT-Drs. 17/12549).
Noch widersprüchlicher wird die Argumentation der Bundesregierung
allerdings, wenn Hoyer nur wenige Sätze später behauptet, die
Protestaktion hätte „offensichtlich eher etwas mit einer Unzufriedenheit
von Teilen der afghanischen Gesellschaft zu tun..., die auf den geringen
Möglichkeiten zur Partizipation an politischen und ökonomischen
Prozessen beruht. Von daher war das gar nicht gegen ISAF gerichtet “.
Nur wenige Tage später, am 28. Mai traf sich der deutsche
ISAF-Kommandeur Markus Kneip mit dem Gouverneur von Taloqan, dem
örtlichen Polizeichef und dem Polizeikommandeur, um über das weitere
Vorgehen nach der Niederschlagung der Proteste zu beraten. Ein
Sprengsatz in dem Gebäude tötete neben den beiden Polizeichefs auch zwei
deutsche Soldaten und zahlreiche weitere Menschen, Kneip wurde verletzt.
Auch hier wurde schnell von der Bundesregierung behauptet, der Anschlag
habe der afghanischen Polizei, nicht aber dem deutschen General
gegolten. Zugespitzt sei die Bombe also eher zufällig gerade zu dem
Zeitpunkt explodiert, als hochrangiger ISAF-Besuch anwesend war.
Offensichtlich versucht die Bundesregierung mit ihren
Falschdarstellungen, den Misserfolg ihrer Strategie zu verleugnen. Weder
die Schüsse auf Demonstranten, noch der Anschlag könnten Deutschland
davon abbringen, diese Strategie in Afghanistan weiter zu verfolgen,
erklärte Westerwelle eilig (NZZ, 29.05.11). Ernst-Reinhard Beck,
verteidigungspolitischer Sprecher der CDU, forderte hingegen, die
Bundeswehr müsse nun reagieren (obwohl sie doch gar nicht gemeint war),
und dass nun ein entsprechender Gegenschlag gegen die
Taliban-Organisation in dieser Provinz erfolgen müsse (Spiegel Online,
30.05.11). Offenbar setzt die Bundeswehr weiter auf Eskalation und
Aufstandsbekämpfung im klassischen Sinne, bei der alle Gegner der
Besatzer oder reine Sympathisanten zu Taliban und damit zu militärischen
Gegnern erklärt werden. Mit weiteren zivilen Opfern, (gewalttätigen)
Demonstrationen und deren Niederschießungen wird also zu rechnen sein.
--
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imi@imi-online.de
http://www.imi-online.de/2011.php?id=2307
2.6.2011, Jonna Schürkes
Taloqan im Nordosten Afghanistans galt lange als einer der ruhigsten
Flecken im Land, weshalb Die ZEIT ihn noch vor einem Jahr als Kurort -
als „Bad Taloqan“ - betitelte, um damit auf die vermeintlich
erfolgreiche Arbeit des Regionalen Beraterteams der Bundeswehr und die
gute Zusammenarbeit mit der afghanischen Polizei in dieser Region
hinzuweisen (Die ZEIT, 17.05.10). Vor dem Stützpunkt eben jenes
Beraterteams wurden jedoch am 17.Mai bei Protesten gegen die
NATO-Truppen ISAF und die afghanische Regierung mindestens 14 Menschen
von Bundeswehrsoldaten und afghanischen Polizisten erschossen, ca. 80
Menschen wurden verletzt.
Anlass der Demonstration war die Tötung von vier Menschen in der Nacht
zuvor. Der Nachtangriff („night raid“), der nach Angaben der ISAF von
US-Spezialkräften und afghanischen Sicherheitskräften durchgeführt
wurde, war demnach gegen einen Führer der Islamischen Bewegung
Usbekistans gerichtet. Auf dem Gelände, das von den Soldaten angegriffen
wurde, wurde der Gesuchte allerdings offenbar nicht angetroffen.
Stattdessen wurden vier Personen getötet, davon zwei Frauen.
Während ISAF erklärte, bei den vier getöteten Menschen habe es sich um
Aufständische gehandelt, sind nicht nur die Demonstranten sondern auch
der lokale Polizeichef und Präsident Karsai der Überzeugung, dass vier
Zivilisten starben.
Night raids gelten auch dem Auswärtigen Amt zufolge als probates Mittel
zur Aufstandsbekämpfung (Spiegel Online, 22.05.11). Im August 2010
erklärte der ISAF-Kommandeur David Petraeus, innerhalb von 90 Tagen
hätten fast 3000 solcher Nachtangriffe stattgefunden. Die Zahl dieser
Art von Angriffen nimmt weiter zu, obwohl die Trefferquote von Petraeus
selbst als extrem schlecht eingestuft wird: Für jede gesuchte Person,
die getötet oder gefangen genommen wird, würden drei Menschen, die nicht
Ziel der Angriffe sind, getötet und vier weitere festgenommen (IPS-News,
15.09.10). Ein kürzlich erschienener Bericht von Oxfam und anderen NGOs
stuft Night Raids als schwerwiegende Menschenrechtsverletzung ein: „Auch
wenn es in den letzten zwei Jahren einige Verbesserungen gegeben hat,
schließen Night Raids in vielen Fällen die exzessive Gewaltanwendung,
die Zerstörung und/oder den Diebstahl von Eigentum und die Misshandlung
von Frauen und Kindern mit ein.“(Oxfam: No time to lose, 10.05.11)
Angesichts dessen ist es allzu verständlich, dass die afghanische
Bevölkerung gegen diese Form der Kriegsführung protestiert. Insgesamt
ist festzustellen, dass es in Afghanistan immer häufiger Demonstrationen
gegen die NATO-Truppen und die afghanische Regierung gibt. Die
Bundesregierung hingegen versucht diese Demonstrationen als Ausdruck des
Protestes zu verunglimpfen, indem sie behauptet, sie seien von den
Taliban inszeniert. Diese Darstellung deckt sich jedoch in keinster
Weise mit den Berichterstattungen über diese Proteste.
Die Demonstration vom 17. Mai begann am Morgen mit zunächst ca. 2000
Menschen in der Stadt. Es wurden die Leichen der vier getöteten Menschen
durch die Stadt getragen, die Protestierenden „riefen Schmährufe gegen
die USA und Präsident Hamid Karsai. ‚Tod Karsai! Tod den USA!‘ hieß es“
(Die Welt, 18.05.11). Bereits zu diesem Zeitpunkt ging die Polizei
gewaltsam gegen die Demonstration vor, es gab erste Verletzte und Tote.
„Die Menge sei später auf 15.000 angewachsen, darunter viele Schüler,
die zum Teil bewaffnet gewesen seien, örtliche Einrichtungen angegriffen
und Geschäfte und Autos demoliert hätten. Dabei seien Handgranaten über
die Einfriedung des deutschen PAT [Stützpunkt des Regionalen
Beraterteams] geworfen und nach afghanischen Angaben zwei deutsche
Soldaten und drei afghanische Wachleute verletzt worden“ (taz, 18.05.11).
Zunächst hieß es, die Bundeswehrsoldaten hätten „nur“ Warnschüsse
abgegeben und auf die Beine von gewaltbereiten und bewaffneten
Demonstranten geschossen. Erst später gab das Einsatzführungskommando
der Bundeswehr bekannt, in mehreren Fällen hätten die Soldaten auf den
„Rumpfbereich beziehungsweise Arme und Hände“ und den „Hals-Kopfbereich“
geschossen.
Am nächsten Tag demonstrierten die Menschen erneut vor einer
Polizeistation in Taloqan, wieder versuchte die Polizei die
Demonstration gewaltsam aufzulösen, erneut wurden Menschen verletzt.
Obwohl in den Berichten alles darauf hindeutet, dass sich die Proteste
gegen das Vorgehen der NATO und der afghanischen Polizei richteten,
wurde auch in diesem Fall vonseiten der Bundesregierung versucht, die
Demonstration zu delegitimieren und damit zugleich ihre Niederschießung
zu rechtfertigen. So sprach Verteidigungsminister De Maizière von einer
von den Taliban inszenierte Demonstrationen (NDR, 30.05.11). Werner
Hoyer, Staatsminister im Auswärtigen Amt, führte diese Behauptung am 25.
Mai im Bundestag weiter aus: „[Es] liegen Erkenntnisse vor, dass diese
Gewaltausbrüche von regierungsfeindlichen Kräften und lokalen
Machthabern langfristig geplant waren. Das war keine spontane Aktion,
die aus der vorangegangenen Erfahrung vom Vortag erwachsen ist. Es war
eine geplante Aktion“.
Inwiefern allerdings die von der Bundeswehr getöteten Zivilisten dabei
eingeplant gewesen sein sollten, die den Anlass für die Proteste gaben,
hierauf ging Hoyer nicht ein (BT-Drs. 17/12549).
Noch widersprüchlicher wird die Argumentation der Bundesregierung
allerdings, wenn Hoyer nur wenige Sätze später behauptet, die
Protestaktion hätte „offensichtlich eher etwas mit einer Unzufriedenheit
von Teilen der afghanischen Gesellschaft zu tun..., die auf den geringen
Möglichkeiten zur Partizipation an politischen und ökonomischen
Prozessen beruht. Von daher war das gar nicht gegen ISAF gerichtet “.
Nur wenige Tage später, am 28. Mai traf sich der deutsche
ISAF-Kommandeur Markus Kneip mit dem Gouverneur von Taloqan, dem
örtlichen Polizeichef und dem Polizeikommandeur, um über das weitere
Vorgehen nach der Niederschlagung der Proteste zu beraten. Ein
Sprengsatz in dem Gebäude tötete neben den beiden Polizeichefs auch zwei
deutsche Soldaten und zahlreiche weitere Menschen, Kneip wurde verletzt.
Auch hier wurde schnell von der Bundesregierung behauptet, der Anschlag
habe der afghanischen Polizei, nicht aber dem deutschen General
gegolten. Zugespitzt sei die Bombe also eher zufällig gerade zu dem
Zeitpunkt explodiert, als hochrangiger ISAF-Besuch anwesend war.
Offensichtlich versucht die Bundesregierung mit ihren
Falschdarstellungen, den Misserfolg ihrer Strategie zu verleugnen. Weder
die Schüsse auf Demonstranten, noch der Anschlag könnten Deutschland
davon abbringen, diese Strategie in Afghanistan weiter zu verfolgen,
erklärte Westerwelle eilig (NZZ, 29.05.11). Ernst-Reinhard Beck,
verteidigungspolitischer Sprecher der CDU, forderte hingegen, die
Bundeswehr müsse nun reagieren (obwohl sie doch gar nicht gemeint war),
und dass nun ein entsprechender Gegenschlag gegen die
Taliban-Organisation in dieser Provinz erfolgen müsse (Spiegel Online,
30.05.11). Offenbar setzt die Bundeswehr weiter auf Eskalation und
Aufstandsbekämpfung im klassischen Sinne, bei der alle Gegner der
Besatzer oder reine Sympathisanten zu Taliban und damit zu militärischen
Gegnern erklärt werden. Mit weiteren zivilen Opfern, (gewalttätigen)
Demonstrationen und deren Niederschießungen wird also zu rechnen sein.
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