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Recent articles by Lucien van der Walt
Análisis de Coyuntura 2016 para la Europa que viene May 25 16 Personal statement on the Michael Schmidt affair: Lucien van der Walt,... Feb 12 16 Arab Spring and Syrian Refugee Crisis: Ten Theses for Discussion Nov 18 15 With the Working Class, Against Imperialism and Terror Attacks. international |
miscellaneous |
opinion / analysis
 Sunday November 15, 2015 05:46 by Lucien van der Walt
 Let us approach from the side of the struggle of working class and poor for freedom, and that means the struggle against all oppression and exploitation. From that side, be against imperialism, unconditionally, including whatever outrages the French state will now justify. But also be against reactionary anti-imperialists with reactionary programmes, and for a progressive anti-imperialism, like that of PKK in Rojava. The working class and left must lead anti-imperialist struggles, and work with progressive movements, including progressive anti-imperialists, to make a better world, pushing those struggles towards anarchist-communism. With The Working Class, Against Imperialism and Terror Attacks.Lucien van der WaltPolitics should be approached with a simple rule: does an action help or harm the working class and poor's struggle for complete freedom? Strategic choices are determined by moral or ethical ones. More precisely: an ethics centred on anti-authoritarianism, anti-domination, anti-capitalism, anti-statism determine what strategy is acceptable. It is not the means that justify the ends, but the ends we want, that shape the means. How does this apply to issues like Western imperialism, and issues like the recent ISIS attacks in Kobane (Rojava), Beirut (Lebanon) and Paris (France)? Obviously, to fight for the freedom of the working class must mean to be against imperialism. That is essential to this struggle. It does not matter if the imperialism is justified as promoting "democracy" or "freedom." So, we should completely, unconditionally oppose reactionary Western imperialist actions in the "Middle" East. Imperialism is a great evil, whether it is Western, or Eastern, by a great power, or by a small one. BUT this does not mean every anti-imperialist movement is worthy of support, or justify a knee-jerk "my enemy's enemy is my friend" reasoning.... ISIS is genuinely anti-imperialist (leaving aside baseless conspiracy theories) , but its actions and programme are completely reactionary, including its attacks in Rojava against the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and in Beirut and Paris against civilians. Its main targets are, in fact, other people in the "Middle" East, secular, Muslim, Christian and others. The hypocrisy of Western media, and the crimes of Western imperialism, and discrimination against immigrants and "foreigners" do not justify Left support of any sort for either the reactionary Western imperialism *or* for the reactionary anti-imperialists, or apologies or sympathies for either group of reactionaries, West or East. The hell with both sides. Both sides are our enemies. The world is not two camps, the imperialist and rebellious "third world" elites, because there is a third side, the working class and Left including anarchists, and that is our side. The working class and left must lead anti-imperialist struggles, and work with progressive movements, including progressive anti-imperialists, to make a better world, pushing those struggles towards anarchist-communism. Movements like PKK show an important way to fight for national liberation *and* a radical, participatory-democratic and progressive programme. So, let us approach from the side of the working class and poor, and that means against all oppression and exploitation. From that side, be against imperialism, unconditionally, including whatever outrages the French state will now justify. But also be against reactionary anti-imperialists with reactionary programmes, and for a progressive anti-imperialism, like that of PKK in Rojava. The same PKK that is also getting attacked by ISIS. In every country, there is a fight between reaction and progress, and our side is with progress. We should not be dragged along with the ebbs and flows of the struggles of our enemies, but chart our own course.
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Personal statement on the Michael Schmidt affair: Lucien van der Walt, 11 February 2016 All new publications by Zabalaza Books from March till June 2012 All new publications from Zabalaza Books for the month of January.
The Facebook page of 'Black Flame' has been reorganised and rebooted, now carrying regular updates related to the book by Lucien van der Walt and Michael Schmidt... All publications from Zabalaza Books for the month of September
This blog has been updated again, collecting materials on strikes, union education, a recent "anarchist survey," the Spanish and Russian Revolutions, and race/ class in South Africa. The overall aim of the page is to collect my my writings on political economy, policy, unions and class struggles. These are are written from a red-and-black anarchist/ syndicalist perspective, and go back to the 1990s. New additions to the Zabalaza Books site as of November 2010
Joe Stack recently committed suicide by crashing an airplane into the IRS offices in Austin, Texas. He left a manifesto describing the long path which had finally led him to this decision.
As Black Flag brings out it's May 2009 issue, we proudly present all three of the pre-2009 issues produced by the current collective, for free download from the libcom.org website.
Dear Friends and Comrades,
As working class activists, we should share experiences with – and learn from – working class struggles in other places. The ruling class organises worldwide to exploit and dominate our class. So we need to organise resistance to defend our interests everywhere. And we can only benefit from arming ourselves with lessons from different working class movements.
It is clear that the multi-level direct democracy of the world commune will be based on the grassroots communities, in whose members' assemblies the decisions will be arrived at and from where the delegates to the higher levels of organizations will be nominated. However, the details that the whole is combined from have been gone into mainly in fiction literature only.
All that was needed was a profound economic crisis and a little discontent among the people for Europe's democracies to abandon their liberal facade and show themselves for what they really are: the dictatorship of large Capital. It doesn't matter what the citizens think, the coup d'état in Greece, the nomination of technocrats to the government in Italy and the government in Ireland radio-controlled from Brussels, these are the best proof of the fact that not even in Europe will they hesitate to put aside their democratic formalism is the interests of the 1% are in danger. While the general discontent and popular mobilization grows, what will happen next? [Italiano] [Castellano]
Despite blanket media coverage of Wikileaks and Julian Assange, there has been little discussion of the fact that Assange is merely one leader within a large and complicated social movement. The better analyses have found it interesting that the Swedish Pirate Party are aiding Wikileaks; some note links to the German Chaos Computer Club. But only “geeks” and “hackers” (technology workers) are aware that all of these organisations are members of the same movement.
This is a discussion of two approaches employed in organizing at the mass level: mobilizations and mass movements. Mobilizations typically entail calling on people to participate in rallies, protests and other actions. A mass movement pushes dialogue and strategizing from the revolutionary or intermediate levels to the mass level, building organization and consciousness through continuity of practice. more >>
Personal statement on the Michael Schmidt affair: Lucien van der Walt, 11 February 2016
All new publications by Zabalaza Books from March till June 2012
All new publications from Zabalaza Books for the month of January.
The Facebook page of 'Black Flame' has been reorganised and rebooted, now carrying regular updates related to the book by Lucien van der Walt and Michael Schmidt...
All publications from Zabalaza Books for the month of September more >> |
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