E. Tani - False Nationalism, False Internationalism: Class Contradictions in the Armed Struggle

E. Tani & Ka Sera

A Seeds Beneath the Snow Publication

Copyright 1985

My whole life has been a series of failures, and the history of my country has been a history of failure. I have had only one victory over myself. This one small victory, however, is enough to give me confidence to go on. Fortunately, the tragedy and defeat I have experienced have not broken but strengthened me. I have few illusions left, but I have not lost faith in men and in the ability of men to create history. Who shall know the will of history? Only the oppressed who must overthrow force in order to live. Only the undefeated in defeat who have lost everything to gain a whole new world in the last battle. Oppression is pain, and pain is consciousness. Consciousness means movement. Millions of men must die and tens of millions must suffer before humanity can be born again. I accept this objective fact. The sight of blood and death and of stupidity and failure no longer obstructs my vision of the future.

Kim San

A biography of Kim San (PDF): Song of Ariran (1941)

To

Atiba Shanna

and

Oyaya (Oya) Ayoluha

Political events of the last twenty-five years have shown that the revolutionary movements born in the 1960s still believe that white people (i.e. the US oppressor nation) are the answer to the problems of the oppressed nations. The decline of these old movements has also shown that these beliefs lead to bitter defeats, both militarily and politically. This view that white people are the answer to the problems of the oppressed nations is neo-colonial and Eurocentric, and is one of the main forms of false internationalism.

On a world scale, neo-colonialism as a stage of imperialism has proven to be very dangerous because of its flexibility and powers of camouflage as compared to colonialism. Even people who are opposed to imperialism can get misdirected by neo-colonial influences.

So there are not misunderstandings, right at the beginning we want to take the time to spell out what certain key concepts are. Neo-colonialism (literally "new colonialism") is a more sophisticated, disguised form of the classic capitalist colonialism. Originally, the European capitalist nations and their settler off-shoots ("u.s.a.," Canada, Northern Ireland, etc.) militarily seized oppressed nations, which they ruled and looted as national property. However, to deflect anti-colonial revolutions the imperialist powers found it expedient to grant "flag independence" to the new governments representing the oppressed nation petty-bourgeoisie.

So Kenya before independence in 1960 was an outright British Crown Colony, where the economy was owned by major European corporations and settler plantation owners, and where political dissent and rebelliousness were brutally put down by Britain's puppet "native police". Today, Kenya is a British neo-colony, governed by a well-paid Afrikan elite who are in alliance with imperialism against their own people. The same European and U.S. corporations and the same settler planters dominate the economy, while the same puppet troops repress the masses. So the "flag independence" is democratic only in outward form, a change of faces, but in essence the Kenyan neo-colony is still a nation oppressed by another nation (and by imperialism as a system).

Implicit in everything we say is the communist understanding that the imperialist stage of capitalist development is characterized by the complete division of the world into oppressor and oppressed nations. By the start of the 20th century, the imperialist powers of Europe, the "u.s.a." and Japan had divided among themselves claim to every square inch of the earth's surface. Every person was supposed to be owned by one imperialist nation or another. While today we generally think of oppressed nations as Third World or non-European, there have been numerous exceptionsIreland (oppressed by Britain), the Basque (oppressed by Spain), Albania (oppressed by Italy), and so on.

Neo-colonialism uses a facade of democracy ("native rule", "one man one vote", etc.) to conceal continued domination. This need not take the form of independence, but can also take the form of phony citizenship in the oppressor nation. French imperialism gave "democracy" to its small New Caledonian colony in the Pacific, for example, by annexing it into France. All Kanak people, the true inhabitants, were involuntarily given paper French citizenship with "voting rights". Of course, even in Kanaky elections the garrison of French settlers on the island outvotes the Kanak "minority", while assassinating or imprisoning those who get too militant. New Caledonia is a "democratic" neo-colony, in the same way as Puerto Rico or New Afrika. New Afrika was originally a colony of chattel slaves, but was converted to a neo-colony in 1865 when New Afrikan colonial subjects were involuntarily given phony U.S. citizenship as a pretense of democracy, a substitute for independence as a nation.

While neo-colonialism is a phenomenon of imperialism, that does not mean that only the capitalist class practices it. Neo-colonialism is a part of the general relations between oppressor nations and oppressed nations. Often noble sentiments and concerns are twisted or exploited, in the same way that "democracy" or "voting rights" are used to deny real democracy through independence. For example, in 1985 one of the major events in the U.S. was the popularity of aid to Afrika campaigns. While preventing starvation in drought areas is humanitarian, the campaigns were also clearly neo-colonial propaganda. The implicit message was always put out that Afrikans are too savage and too stupid to feed themselves, so that their survival depends on white people. It is our point that in many ways neo-colonialism has pervaded relations between revolutionary movements in the U.S. Empire, however masked by lofty words like "solidarity" and "internationalism".

There is a relationship between neo-colonialism and class, just as there is between false internationalism and class. Genuine proletarian internationalism between revolutionaries of different nations is based on our class stand. We recognize that the oppressed and exploited masses of the world, led by the proletariat as the most modern and revolutionary class, not only have common interests but are remaking the world through socialist revolution. False internationalism is a pretense of this, in the same way that neo-colonialism is the pretense of true independence. When we think about it, examples are easy to find.

In the late 1960s Euro-Amerikan radicals and liberals raised tens of thousands of dollars, walked picket lines in front of courthouses, and helped make a big public issue of the defense trials of Black Panther Party leaders Huey Newton and Bobby Seale. Newton and Seale were projected by the media and the white Left as the most revolutionary leadership of the New Afrikan movement. Was that campaign an example of genuine internationalism? No. Many Euro-Amerikan students may have been subjectively sincere in a desire for internationalism, but objectively what took place was the reverse. Because at the same time that the Euro-Amerikan Left was promoting Huey and Bobby, they were also ignoringand thus implicitly condoningimperialism counter-insurgency against real revolutionary nationalists, such as Fred Ahmed Evans in Cleveland or the Republic of New Afrika 11 in Mississippi. In other words, no solidarity with those explicitly fighting for New Afrikan independence. What passed for "solidarity" was really a settler Left attempt to once again pick Black leaders more suitable to them. Not internationalism but false internationalism.