Socialist Action /December 2001
Picket Line & Barricades: The
World in a Straight Jacket
By BLACKIE D.
The researchers in various disciplines have this really neat mode of
investigation into the order of reality. They issue a theoretical concept
(often pages of mathematical formulas and a volume of Greek, Latin, and
Hebrew characters). Then they predict: if this is correct, they say, so
and so and thus and so will be found.
Well, sometimes it is and sometimes it's not. Often the negative finding
is the more valuable.
Which leads to the 19 hijackers of four airplanes who crashed them in
New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania. Why did they do it, taking
their own lives in the process?
There is general agreement that the 19 were of Middle Eastern background
and that the attacks constituted a political protest. I believe it is feasible
to construct a general outline of their thinking. It's certain that they
reflected in a distorted fashion the hopes, anger, and disillusion of the
masses stretching from North Africa to South Central Asia. Thus, it would
have consisted of three parts:
The first is a protest against Israel's treatment of the Palestinians.
The second is anger and opposition to the continued bombing and blockade
of Iraq.
The last is the knowledge that the advanced Western nations (Europe,
the U.S., and Japan) exercise political control and are economic overseers
of the sizable commercial operations in the region.
Back to science: How did the attack on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon,
and the four planes affect these complaints? Note that there is a fourth
section held by the people of those areas that was not held by the 19 attackers-the
wish to overthrow their local oppressors-dictators, sheiks, generals, capitalists,
and religious fundamentalists.
Regarding Palestinians: their oppression has intensified. Ariel Sharon,
the militarist Likud leader, has ordered tanks and troops into most of the
Gaza and West Bank towns, killing, destroying as they enter, and cutting
off the Palestinian areas from each other and from the outside world.
Sharon's aim is to make conditions so difficult and the people so despairing
that they will depart and leave the land "Arab-free" (that is,
empty). These concepts are not new, and indeed were held by Adolph Hitler
in Nazi Germany against the Jews themselves.
In Iraq, the bombing continues. The blockade remains. The children die
en masse for lack of food and medicine. Indeed, the threats of the New World
Order have become even more brazen, with various American government officials
hinting that another invasion is in the works.
Regarding Western control of the Middle East, there is no way the leading
capitalist nations will release their death grip on the oil and gas properties.
Political control of the Near East now resembles a stranglehold. These separate
countries have been hauled in feet first to become members of the collective
New Order, under strict discipline of the U.S. ruling class, despite the
opposition of their populations.
So it is perfectly clear, the sacrifice of the 19 lives of those who
seized the planes, as well as the loss of passengers and the workers in
the twin towers and the lower ranks of the military in the Pentagon, was
not only to no avail but redounded sharply against Arab aims and hopes.
Indeed, the world has been put into a military straight jacket, forced
to agree to whatever issues from the mouth in the White House. As a result
of the action of the 19, the Western military has the Middle East by the
throat. There is no room for doubt-this type of action is self-defeating!
What is the answer, what course would succeed? There must be the formation
of mass, independent socialist organizations willing to struggle for power.
These groups would not be welcomed by the owning classes of the West; on
the contrary, those ruling classes would be utterly hostile, as these new
groups would endanger their political power, and even worse, the ownership
of their wealth.
Don't kid yourself; there have been such mass organizations in the Middle
East in the past, and there will be again! The task becomes more urgent
with every passing day!
Socialist Action /December 2001 |