Popular uprisings are sweeping North Africa and the Middle East. Dictators Ben Ali of Tunisia and Mubarak of Egypt have been driven from power. Hundreds of thousands of Yemenis have been in the streets, and are on the verge of toppling Ali Abdullah Saleh. The monarchy in Bahrain has only saved itself (for now) by calling in troops from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates…but the uprising of the Syrian people is growing. Indeed, it’s hard to name a country in the region where the masses are not in motion.
These are historic events in which the masses of people are struggling to topple dictatorial regimes that have often been armed and supported by the U.S. and other imperialist powers for many decades. And they’re also being fueled by unemployment, rising food and fuel prices, and mass impoverishment that have been intensified by the regimes’ implementation of neo-liberal economic reforms demanded by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank. Thus, throughout the region millions of people are rising in struggle against repressive emergency laws; bans on unions, strikes and political parties; brutal repression by police, military, and security forces; and corruption. They’re demanding democratic rights and real elections, sometimes elections for the first time.
The popular uprising in Libya is a component part of this Arab spring.
Against the Qadaffi tyranny
Qadaffi and the other colonels who overthrew King Idris in 1969 represented the interests of a rising bourgeoisie determined to enrich itself through exploiting Libyan oil reserves, which are the largest in Africa. This led to clashes between the imperialist powers and the nationalist regime, with the UN imposing sanctions for the imperialists. Also during those years the regime expanded Libyan capitalism and broadened its social support with economic policies that gave Libyans the highest standard of living in Africa. Facilitating this was Libya’s oil wealth combined with its low population—which is only some 6.4 million today. But at the same time Qadaffi & Co. were afraid of the people. They outlawed political parties, banned trade unions independent of the government-controlled union, and developed an all-round police state.
Then with the suspension of UN sanctions in 1999, Qadaffi called for foreign investment and began neo-liberal programs of privatization. And in the 2000s Libya became a full-fledged corporate “destination,” with oil and gas and other international contractors rushing to get in on the loot. Moreover, this was greased by a Qadaffi policy of allowing the super-exploitation of migrant and contract laborers from sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. Along with this reactionary economic policy, the Qadaffi regime joined Bush’s “war on terror,” while the Western death merchants sold it arms it is now using against the Libyan people. It signed a dirty deal with the racist Italian government whereby Libya became a gatekeeper against Africans seeking work or asylum in Europe. And all the while the Libyan capitalists grew ever richer through oil sales to Europe, as well as by becoming international exploiters of labor through overseas investments.
But after this “glorious” decade (which won the praise of the imperialist IMF) an estimated 30 percent of the Libyan workers and youth remained unemployed, food prices were rising, and the people had no rights.
The people rise up
On February 15 peaceful protests broke out in Benghazi, Libya’s second largest city, against the arrest of Fathi Terbil, a lawyer and activist who represents the families of those killed in the 1996 Abu Salim Prison massacre of some 1200 government opponents. On the 16th the protests spread to nearby Al Bayda (where people had been protesting poor housing conditions since January), and to Az Zintan, in the far west of the country. In these two days the police violently attacked protesters, two of whom were killed in Al Bayda. The masses responded by setting fire to police stations in two cities.
But this was only the beginning. Inspired by the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, democratic Libyans had been organizing for a day of peaceful protests on February 17. The government response included preemptive arrests, threats of violence, and later blocking internet and mobile phone networks and clamping down on the media. None of it worked. Tens of thousands of people turned out for protests. Troops and police used tear gas and live ammunition, killing at least a dozen people. For many the latter was the final straw.
In the next days people rose in struggle all across the country. In Tripoli, where the working class districts rose most angrily, the regime restored a seething order with machine guns, aircraft, and snipers. But in the rest of the country the masses bravely drove soldiers and police out of towns and cities, seized arms and fought back with them. Moreover, ordinary soldiers refused to fire on protesters and/or defected to their ranks, as did numerous military officers, government officials, technocrats and diplomats.
By early March the rebels controlled eastern Libya and several cities in the west, including far west Zawiyah, population 200,000. But on March 6 the government launched a counteroffensive to retake towns and cities from west to east. The rebels resisted but could not deal with the jets, artillery, tanks and military organization thrown against them. And by March 19 Qadaffi’s forces were on the outskirts of the last remaining rebel stronghold, Benghazi, where the rebels faced being drowned in a bloodbath.
UN/NATO intervention: a danger for the future of the movement
Meanwhile, seeing no other way out of their growing predicament the rebel leaders of the Interim Transitional National Council (ITNC) had been calling for the UN to impose a no-fly zone that would include air strikes on Qadaffi‘s ground forces. On March 17 the Security Council approved Resolution 1973 to this effect, and the U.S. France, and Britain launched their first attacks on March 19.
This is advertised as a “humanitarian” intervention, but the actions of the U.S., France, Britain, Italy, etc., are premised on defense of empire. In fact their hands freshly drip with the blood of Afghans, Iraqis, and others, and just yesterday they were arming Qadaffi himself knowing full well that he ran a police state. Nevertheless, the fact that two reactionary forces—NATO and the Qadaffi regime—are now fighting has temporarily saved the rebel forces. But the imperialist states comprising NATO continue to pursue a reactionary agenda which is very different from that of the Libyan rebels:
The imperialists badly isolated themselves by supporting Ben Ali and Mubarak until the end. So now they want to posture as supporters of democratic change so as to wrest initiative away from the North African and Middle Eastern masses, who are upsetting the imperial order of the region. (Perhaps they think that no one will notice their continued support for the oil monarchs of the Arabian peninsula and other tyrants throughout the region!) To achieve this they’re sacrificing their ally, Qadaffi, and hoping to regain stability under a compliant new government.
Thus, the imperialist intervention is a grave danger for the Libyan masses. The big powers will do everything they can to finance and promote favorites in the ITNC and sideline those who oppose them. And they’re going to use their powerful position to act as dictating arbiters of what Libyan democracy will look like.
Problems confronting the movement
Even with the help of NATO air strikes the rebels remain in a difficult military position, which is connected with political issues. For example, Qadaffi not only violently suppressed the masses who initially rose up in western cities, including Tripoli, but he’s used the NATO bombings to step up his portrayals of the entire uprising as a plot of the imperialist powers, Islamic fundamentalists, and other reactionaries. He has also bought various tribal leaders back to his side with cash.
There’s also the issue of waging the political struggle within the popular movement itself, e.g., there are numerous figures associated with the ITNC who are diehard neo-liberals with the most restricted of democratic visions. In fact the imperialist powers wouldn’t have attacked the Libyan government if they thought the rebellion had radical economic views. But in these conditions the Libyan workers and youth have no significant independent organization with which to fight for the maximum in democratic liberties for the masses, and to develop the struggle against class exploitation–exploitation which will continue under a bourgeois democracy. If such organization isn’t built during the course of the current uprising then any victory for the masses will be weak.
Connected with this is the huge issue of racial discrimination and lynching of Blacks. These crimes were part of the Qadaffi order, e.g., at least 150 people were murdered in anti-Black pogroms in 2000. But now numerous Blacks have been lynched in rebel-controlled territory, including by armed rebels. This tendency must be smashed if Libya is going to have any more than the restricted, shameful, elitist democracy that existed the Jim Crow South.
Solidarity from the workers and youth of America
The Obama-led bipartisan political reality in the United States is one of vicious budget cutting right in the midst of a continuing economic depression and wars abroad. Obama also continues to deport undocumented immigrants in record numbers, and his only program for national minorities boils down to mass incarceration. But the mass uprisings of the Libyan and other peoples of North Africa and the Middle East are showing that old political realities don’t have to just go on and on; they can be broken up with mass action! This is inspiring people everywhere to mount their own struggles against exploitation and oppression.
Certainly the mass uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East have problems, but these are problems to learn from by comparing them with our own experience. In fact, one of the reasons that workers and youth here in the U.S. can so identify with the fire in the Arab world is that we see the masses struggling to solve problems similar to our own: little independent political organization, political opportunists trying to end movements before they’ve barely begun, and more. So let us persist in our efforts to solve these problems in this country. Let us come to the aid of the Libyan and other rebelling peoples by stepping up efforts to organize mass struggle against our mutual enemy: the exploitative, budget-cutting, mass impoverishing, environmental-wrecking, racist, and warlike U.S. imperialist ruling class.
Solidarity with the democratic mass uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East!
Down with the Qadaffi tyranny and other repressive governments!
Expose and denounce the real aims of the NATO intervention in Libya!
Victory to the masses!
Seattle Anti-Imperialist Committee, April 16, 2011 (updated on April 18, 2011)
6 Comments
This is quite an informative piece. Some of the paradoxes are mentioned but some are omitted. The article implies that NATO and the Qadaffi regime are reactionary but the rebels are fighting for a working class popular uprising. This isn’t so simple. Mention should be made of Khalifa Haftar who has been supported by the CIA and Saudi Arabia. Mention should also be made of the claims that the rebels were murdering Black immigrants. This anti-black pogrom was begun by the rebel leadership. Whatever the origins of this uprising, the rebels are now mere pawns of NATO and its imperialist cravings.
Spyder, it’s pretty obvious that you did not carefully read the leaflet.
It does not “imply” that NATO and the Qadaffi regime are reactionary, but outright says they are.
It characterizes the overall nature of the uprising as a people’s uprising, not a working-class uprising. Moreover, it goes on to say that
“There’s also the issue of waging the political struggle within the popular movement itself, e.g., there are numerous figures associated with the ITNC who are diehard neo-liberals with the most restricted of democratic visions. In fact the imperialist powers wouldn’t have attacked the Libyan government if they thought the rebellion had radical economic views. But in these conditions the Libyan workers and youth have no significant independent organization with which to fight for the maximum in democratic liberties for the masses, and to develop the struggle against class exploitation–exploitation which will continue under a bourgeois democracy. If such organization isn’t built during the course of the current uprising then any victory for the masses will be weak.”
It not only mentions the murders of numerous Blacks, but denounces them.
And related to this is that the racist lynchings and shootings seem to have mostly occurred in the early days of the uprising, i.e., before the formation of the Transitional National Council. So this makes me wonder about your assertion that the racist attacks were begun by the rebel leadership. Moreover, having read a large number of articles about the racist killings—including by pro-Qadaffi propagandists—I’m very aware that it’s hard to get a clear idea of what happened. Even the actual number of people who have been killed is unclear. For example, leaving aside the possibility of hidden bodies, after pouring through scores of articles I found that it could have been as low as three or as high as 43. So I wonder what credible sources are behind your claim that “this anti-black pogrom was begun by the rebel leadership,” as well as what credible sources you have that show it’s extent.
Lastly, you write that
“Whatever the origins of this uprising, the rebels are now mere pawns of NATO and its imperialist cravings.”
Well, the origins of the uprising have to rooted in the people’s hatred of the tyranny and desire for freedom. Only this can explain a nation-wide uprising of many hundreds of thousands of people; only this can explain thousands of youth bravely taking up arms to fight the better-armed forces of reaction. But you brush this aside with a “whatever” in order to rush to the conclusion that “the rebels are now mere pawns of NATO and its imperialist cravings.
You don’t explain, however, how the rebelling masses have now become “mere pawns.” Did they suddenly stop fighting for democracy when the imperialists intervened? Do you think that in early March they knew that France, Britain, Italy, the U.S., etc., were imperialist powers interested in Libyan oil, but that in mid-March they suddenly forgot this? Or do you think they’ve forgotten that these same powers had good business relations with their oppressor, Qadaffi, sold him arms, included him as an ally in the “war on terror,” etc.?
I don’t think that the masses of people have forgotten these things in their battle for democracy. But at the same time I agree with the flyer when it says
“the imperialist intervention is a grave danger for the Libyan masses. The big powers will do everything they can to finance and promote favorites in the ITNC and sideline those who oppose them. And they’re going to use their powerful position to act as dictating arbiters of what Libyan democracy will look like.”
And I also agree with its warning that
“in these conditions the Libyan workers and youth have no significant independent organization with which to fight for the maximum in democratic liberties for the masses, and to develop the struggle against class exploitation–exploitation which will continue under a bourgeois democracy. If such organization isn’t built during the course of the current uprising then any victory for the masses will be weak.”
So this gives some perspective on what needs to be done to achieve the best immediate outcome of the rebellion in the current conditions, as well as a perspective that the working class has interests that go beyond achievement of bourgeois democracy.
Lastly, I think it remains to be seen how much the imperialists will dominate Libyan politics even if the regime of Qadaffi & Sons is smashed. Remember that U.S. imperialism went into Iraq thinking that it was going to do what it pleased. It thought that it would set up the Interim Governing Council, take it’s time to cultivate some politicians that would be sure winners in eventual elections, etc. In this way it would establish a government of pawns: a puppet government.
But things didn’t work out that way.
Bush had to call earlier than planned elections because of popular mass pressure and the reactionary cleric al-Sistani openly threatening rebellion. Then, with over 150,000 troops in the country and plenty to money to channel to its favorites, the U.S. supported candidates came in a distant third.
The government that was elected represented an Iraqi bourgeoisie that was often violently reorganizing itself, especially viz-a-vis the formerly dominant Sunni bourgeoisie. It therefore shared an interest with the occupiers in smashing the Sunni rebellion in order to establish stability. But it was inevitably going to struggle to attain the rightful place in the imperialist hierarchy that oil revenue and a U.S.-built military gave it. This meant that the Iraqi government was going to follow its own course. Thus, it has given oil contracts to the highest bidders, which most often have not been U.S. companies. It has taken independent positions in the U.N. It came out against permanent U.S. military bases, and continues to insist that the remaining 47,000 U.S. troops leave at the end of the year. And for the time being it has close relations with the U.S. nemesis in the region, Iran—which does not mean that it will not at some point again contend with Iran for domination of the Gulf region.
Back to Libya, the popular democratic upsurge forced a split in the Libyan bourgeoisie. (That’s what the defections from the Qadaffi government mean, as well as various tribal leaders going over to the side of the rebels.) More, various bourgeois are now leading the rebellion because the workers and other toilers don’t have the ideological and organizational strength to do so. But while it has less oil than Iraq and presides over a country with ¼ the population, the Libyan bourgeoisie is used to fighting to follow an independent course in the world by playing various imperialist powers off against each other. In the modern era it’s never really been a pawn. Hence, the section that has rebelled against Qadaffi wants to reorganize the entire class in order to get back in the business of exporting oil, living off the interests it gains from exporting capital, broadening its sphere of interest in Africa, etc.
Thus, while the defecting bourgeois now have an alliance with NATO I think they want to preserve as much independence as possible now, and have even more later.
Of course, before February the defecting bourgeois were feathering their nests in the repressive regime, with some being directly involved in repression. And the imperialist powers didn’t give a damn about the democratic strivings of the Libyan people either…all they cared about was cutting good deals with Qadaffi. But the workers and youth have interests separate from and against those of both the local exploiters and the imperialists. Hence, anti-imperialism means concentrating on supporting the current struggle of the workers and youth for democracy, as well as supporting any tendencies that arise among them which aim at fighting capitalist exploitation, neo-liberalism, or even eventually replacing bourgeois democracy with proletarian democracy.
I admit that you are much better informed than I concerning these events in Libya. I only noticed that certain things were missing from the story.
1. The CIA and Saudi Arabia have been training and supporting the rebels in this area for decades. They even allowed weapons to be transported to the rebels from Saudi Arabia through Egypt. There was no mention of Khalifa Haftar with his seedy past and his alignment with with the CIA.
2. The rebel leadership encouraged the attacks on Black immigrants. (Glen Ford - Black Agenda Radio)
As for me calling it a working class uprising, consider this snippet. “In Tripoli, where the working class districts rose most angrily”
Consider these headlines:
“Mounting evidence of CIA ties to Libyan rebels
Numerous press reports over the weekend add to the evidence that the Libyan rebels fighting the regime of Muammar Gaddafi are under the direction of American intelligence agencies.” (WSWS.org)
“The anti-Qaddafi Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) Merges with al Qaeda, 2007″
“The Obama administration has eased its sanctions on Libya to allow for the sale of oil controlled by the rebels.”
“Italy and France to work with Libya rebels on oil sales”
Support of the Libyan rebels is coddling with reactionary, imperialist, racist and extremist religious elements.
Spider –
It is late, and I’m only going to take on a couple of your points (at least for now).
First:
Your initial post says: “This anti-black pogrom was begun by the rebel leadership”. Frank replied by asking what your sources are for this charge.
In your second post, you cite Glen Ford on the lynchings, but give no specific citation. The account “Lynch Law and Summary Executions in Rebel-Held Libya”, at http://www.blackagendareport.com/content/lynch-law-and-summary-executions-rebel-held-libya is believable, yet at least there Ford doesn’t make the charge that these attacks were led or encouraged by the rebel leadership. He only charges that the rebels have been brutally attacking Chadians. This makes it an atrocity and something to be denounced, but does not answer the question of whether it was led or encouraged by the rebel leadership.
Frank also raises the point that the lynchings seem to have mostly occurred before the rebel leadership in the form of the Transitional National Council was organized. If this is true, it leads to a very different picture than you paint. While it is difficult to tell what really went on, it is reasonable to think that the lynching might have been relatively widespread actions by an undisciplined rebel force containing backward elements. Attacks on of immigrant laborers in Libya has a long history, and those carried out by rebel forces are likely at least in part a carry-over from this history.
Do you have more substantial sources for your view? What do you think of Frank’s observation that the lynchings seem to have mostly occurred early in the rebellion?
Second:
You write: “As for me calling it a working class uprising, consider this snippet. ‘In Tripoli, where the working class districts rose most angrily’”.
This appears to be in response to Frank writing: “[The leaflet] characterizes the overall nature of the uprising as a people’s uprising, not a working-class uprising”.
However, if you read the leaflet carefully, you’ll see that the leaflet mainly talks of “the masses”, “the rebels”, “the people’s uprising”. This is a broader category than the working class alone, and in this case, the working class isn’t particularly well organized as a class, but is pretty merged with the movement as a whole.
True, as the snippet you raise shows, the leaflet picks out the working class in particular and its participation in the masses’ uprising. Working class leadership is critical to the success of this and any other revolution. But working class participation in the rebellion does not make it a working class uprising. Various Libyan bourgeois and petty-bourgeois forces are putting their class stamp on the rebellion as well. Frank raises this point in his post.
Third:
You list a series of article titles from different sources, which you sum up with the line that “Support of the Libyan rebels is coddling with reactionary, imperialist, racist and extremist religious elements.”
While there are certainly such elements among the rebels, are you arguing that these elements characterize the entire movement? Rebellions don’t follow simple scripts. In this case, there are working class fighters, petty-bourgeois fighters, and bourgeois fighters, each with their own lines and tendencies based in their class interests. Within the movement there are progressive and democratic fighters, and those who seek to curtail the movement as far as possible, or are only looking for a spot in the new post-Gaddafi regime.
Our job as anti-imperialists is to analyze carefully the nature of the movement, and to support those democratic elements which do exist. To baldly state that we must not support the progressive elements in the movement because it also contains reactionaries of various stripes is to cede victory to the reactionaries and imperialists.
I’m not going to spend a lot of time arguing this. Of coarse progressive people need to support whatever democratic elements exist, especially those in Bahrain and Yemen. The leadership of the armed Libyan rebels are not these people, rather shadowy Al Queda and CIA trained thugs. I will list a few articles that have guided my thinking.
“the anti-black hysteria whipped up by the rebel political leadership”
http://blackagendareport.com/content/libyan-rebels-dependent-minions-us-and-europe
“Whatever genuine popular opposition was expressed in the initial revolt against the corrupt Gaddafi dictatorship, the rebellion has been hijacked by imperialism.”
http://wsws.org/articles/2011/mar2011/pers-m28.shtml
“The opposition forces in Libya attempting to march on Tripoli with the assistance of American, French and British bombs are far removed from the image of innocent civilians fighting for freedom and democracy promoted by the media and political circles.”
http://wsws.org/articles/2011/mar2011/rebe-m31.shtml
“the Libyan rebel military is not the independent organ of a popular uprising against the Gaddafi dictatorship, but rather the creature of American imperialism, the most reactionary political force on the planet.”
http://wsws.org/articles/2011/apr2011/liby-a04.shtml
Spider –
Earlier you wrote that “Support of the Libyan rebels [as a whole, apparently] is coddling with reactionary, imperialist, racist and extremist religious elements”, and I challenged you whether you believe that these elements characterize the entire movement. You appear to do so. In response, you change the subject, writing, “Of course progressive people need to support whatever democratic elements exist, especially those in Bahrain and Yemen.” But what about in Libya? What about in the ranks of the Libyan rebels? Not the reactionary elements among the leadership, but the striking workers, the democracy-seeking masses? Does the movement need to be pure and without taint by the various strains of reaction which inevitably try to control movements from within?
The leaflet reads “But in these conditions the Libyan workers and youth have no significant independent organization with which to fight for the maximum in democratic liberties for the masses, and to develop the struggle against class exploitation–exploitation which will continue under a bourgeois democracy. If such organization isn’t built during the course of the current uprising then any victory for the masses will be weak.”
I think it is critical to make the distinction between the masses and the leadership of the movement, as this passage does when it references “no significant independent organization” of the masses. Here, “independent” means independent from the various class forces seeking to steer the rebellion toward their own ends.
And the fact that there is none is a great weakness for the workers. But to refuse to support their struggle just because movement leaders are reactionary is to betray the masses’ democratic hopes.