“ALLIANCE!”
MARXIST-LENINIST
“Terrorist”
Mohammad, “Democratic” West -
Thoughts on the Cartoon
Crisis and the Protest Actions of the Muslim Masses
Garbis
Altinoglu, February 2006
Publication of cartoons that portray the
prophet
Mohammad as a terrorist by Jyllands-Posten, a reactionary
Danish
newspaper took place on September 30th, 2005. With their re-publication
in Norwegian
papers on January 10th, 2006 and in French, German, Spanish and Italian
papers
on February 1st, 2006 - the way opened for a serious discussion and a
political
confrontation. Demonstrations were held in several Muslim countries as
well as
in Western Europe during which these cartoons were condemned. Dozens of
people
lost their lives at the demonstrations in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya
and Nigeria
and hundreds were wounded, though most of the events were more or less
peaceful.
Freedom
of the press?
The corporate bourgeois media and Western
European
governments have defended the publication of the Mohammad cartoons
under the
pretext of “freedom of the press”. Moreover, they have tried to portray
the
confrontation over the cartoons as one between the forces of barbarism
and
religious fanaticism on the one hand and those of democracy and
secularism on
the other. This assessment, however, has nothing to do with the real
state of
affairs. In the US and Western Europe - considered the cradle of
democracy - the print and electronic
media, has long been
under the control and domination of big corporations, general staffs
and
bourgeois state apparatus. Yes, the freedom of the press is under
threat;
however this threat does not originate from the Muslim
world and Muslim
peoples, which do not command any serious economic and political
influence. The
threat originates from the US, sliding towards fascism and igniting the
flames
of a new world war, and the monopoly bourgeoisie of Western Europe,
which has
been following in the footsteps of Washington.
The task of the bourgeois media has been
to dupe and
deceive workers and other exploited people, to distract their attention
away
from genuine problems emanating from capitalist exploitation and
oppression and
to create false agendas for this purpose. This media does not dwell
upon
attacks on workers’ rights and political freedoms and the gradual drift
towards
fascism in “advanced” capitalist countries. Nor does this media dwell
upon
neo-colonial wars, waged in the name of “war on terrorism”,
“peacekeeping” and
“promotion of democracy” on the peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin
America. The Western
corporate media is on the way to becoming a replica of the mouthpieces
of the Nazi
Propaganda Ministry, who support the preparations of a new world war
led by the
axis of evil, comprising the US, Israel and Britain.
Let’s take a look at
some examples
The “Free” Western corporate media raised
a hue and
cry for weeks over the destruction of two statues of Buddha in Bamian,
Afghanistan by the Taliban prior to the invasion of that country.
However it dwelt very little upon the
wide-scale
destruction and pillage of the cultural wealth of Afghanistan and Iraq
by American
invaders and their accomplices.
The “Free” Western corporate media has
been clamoring
about the crimes of Saddam Hussein, who was armed, financed and
supported by
its “own” bosses, that is by various imperialist countries, including
the USSR,
the US, Britain, France etc. for decades. But it has been almost
entirely
silent over the fact that, according to the figures provided by the
UNICEF and
other UN bodies, more than a million people lost their lives in Iraq as
a
result of the UN Security Council embargo imposed upon that country in
1991.
The “Free” Western corporate media has
preferred not
to mention the massacre of thousands of Taliban POWs and their burial
in mass
graves by collaborationist “Northern Alliance” forces in November 2001
at
Mazar-i Sharif under the supervision of the US military in the wake of
the
overthrow of The Taliban government.
The “Free” Western corporate media, had
times and
again “revealed” Iraq’s non-existent weapons of mass destruction at the
behest
of the White House and the Pentagon and systematically warned the world
over
the “danger” this small, weak and worn-down country posed for the
security of
the much stronger West; however it has never dared to utter a word
about
Israel’s hundreds of nuclear and thermonuclear warheads, its
state-of-the-art
conventional arsenal and dirty record of aggression and
expansionism.
With regard to Iraq, the “Free” Western
corporate
media does not venture much beyond announcing the “security incidents”
in
accordance with the communiques of the Pentagon, British “Defense”
Ministry and
Tel Aviv. In this context, this media sheds crocodile tears over the
prospect
of Shiite-Sunnite civil war, which is being actively provoked by its
bosses, as
exemplified by the recent bombing of the Al-Askariya Mosque, that is by
the
intelligence organizations of the US, Israel and Britain and their
local
stooges.
The “Free” western corporate media, which
purports to
be very sensitive over the freedom of the press, is not concerned with
the
killing of dozens of Iraqi and foreign reporters, cameramen etc. by US
soldiers
and their accomplices and the control of the Iraqi media by the
invaders.
Neither does it raise its voice over the systematic and CIA and
MOSSAD-led
massacre of hundreds of Iraqi academics and intellectuals.
This - colonialist and racist mentality of
“free”
western corporate media does not allow it to defend the rights of
–especially
‘backward’- nations to self-determination, a notion which is part and
parcel of
the Charter of the United Nations. It does not even question the
“right” of the
US and other imperialists to occupy other countries, loot their
resources and
establish puppet regimes there, under the pretext of “war on
terrorism”,
“peacekeeping” and “promotion of democracy”.
The “Free” western corporate media is not
very much
concerned over the arbitrary capture and arrest of people suspected of
being
“terrorists” by American neo-fascists and their illegal transfer to
secret
interrogation centers, where they can be tortured and killed.
Accustomed to dub the legitimate
resistance of the
Palestinian people against Zionist occupation as “terror” and
“violence”, this
same “free” Western corporate media has, in perfect accord with
Washington and
Tel Aviv, initiated another smear and disinformation campaign over the
victory
of Hamas at the January 25th elections. Moreover, right after the
elections, it
has begun to threaten both Hamas and the Palestinian people at the
behest of
American and Zionist state terrorists with the aim of breaking their
will and
discrediting their legitimate resistance.
No doubt, this list can be extended
indefinitely.
However, this much is sufficient to expose the role of the corporate
media,
which is nothing but a mouthpiece of the monopoly bourgeoisie, and to
show the
racist/ colonialist mentality of the imperialist bourgeoisie in general
and the
false and hypocritical character of bourgeois democracy in particular.
In his
“Theses and Report on Bourgeois Democracy and the Dictatorship of the
Proletariat” presented to the First Congress of the Communist
International on
March 4th, 1919, Lenin
had
said:
“8.
‘Freedom of the
press’ is another of the principal slogans of ‘pure
democracy’. And
here, too, the workers know - and the
socialists everywhere have admitted it millions of times - that this
freedom is
a deception while the printing presses and the biggest stocks of paper
are
appropriated by the capitalists, and while capitalist rule over the
press
remains, a rule that is manifested throughout the world all the more
strikingly, sharply and cynically the more democracy and the republican
system
are developed, as in America for example. The first thing to do to win
real
equality and genuine democracy for the working people, for the workers
and
peasants, is to deprive capital of the possibility of hiring writers,
buying up
publishing houses and bribing newspapers. And to do that the
capitalists and
exploiters have to be overthrown and their resistance suppressed. The
capitalists have always used the term ‘freedom’ to mean freedom for the
rich to
get richer and for the workers to starve to death. In capitalist
usage,
freedom of the press means freedom of the rich to bribe the
press,
freedom to use their wealth to shape and fabricate so-called public
opinion...”
(Theses, Resolutions and Manifestoes of
the First
Four Congresses of the Third International, London, Pluto Press,
1980, pp.
9-10)
The situation is not much different today,
despite
the great advances in communications technology. The so-called
mainstream
media, both printed and electronic, is under the control of big
corporations,
the general staffs and intelligence organizations, while the opponents
or
critics of the existing system can make themselves heard only through
the
internet and newspapers, journals or radio stations, which command the
attention
of a much smaller audience.
The
Position of Jyllands-Posten and the Real Motives Behind the
Publication
of the Cartoons
Jyllands-Posten, the paper publishing the Mohammad
cartoons in the first place, stands
close to the Danish People’s
Party, a
neo-fascist and racist party which supports the right-wing government
of Prime
Minister Fogh Rasmussen.
This paper
is also known for its affinity to the views of the neo-fascist Bush
clique and
the position of the “Atlanticist”
faction of Western European monopoly capital. This faction is eager for
the
rebuilding of the “Cold War” alliance between the US and Western Europe
and is
in favor of pursuing a more aggressive line against the Muslim peoples
and
countries. As we all know, despite the irreconcilable contradictions
between
the US and Western Europe, there has emerged a more or less solid
tactical
alliance between the two, not long after the piratical attack of the US
and its
allies on Iraq. Since then, American imperialists and their Western
European
counterparts have been collaborating on several fronts, such as the DR
of
Congo, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Haiti, Ivory Coast, Georgia, the Ukraine.
Both
sides are cooperating in putting pressure on Cuba, Serbia-Montenegro,
Belarus,
Lebanon, Syria, Iran and even Russia. There is also growing behind the
scene
cooperation between the two sides in Iraq.
Western European monopoly capital, which
initiated
the First and Second World Wars for the redistribution of colonies,
semi-colonies, spheres of influence, sources of raw materials etc. is
now
assisting US imperialists in their aggression against the peoples of
countries
of the Muslim world and in this manner contributing to the initiation
of an
impending Third World War. The war against the Muslim peoples and
countries of
the Middle East and Central Asia and the scramble for the control of
this vast
region and its resources is also a war against other aspiring
imperialist
powers, such as China, Russia and the Shangai Cooperation Organization
formed
under their leadership. Despite their contradictions with the US and
their
cooperation and trade with both Russia and China, the EU imperialists
have
thrown their weight behind Washington. The transatlantic alliance is
firmly
supported and promoted by Israel and powerful Zionist lobbies all over
the
Western world, which have played a very important role in the ongoing
aggression on Iraq and play a very important role in the preparation of
planned
aggression on Iran. For the moment, this rivalry between different
imperialist powers
and blocs is mainly being carried out under the guise of fighting
“Islamic
terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism.” To deceive their “own” workers
into
supporting their prospective military adventures in the Middle East or
elsewhere, EU imperialists need to frighten them with this scarecrow.
The EU imperialists led by Germany and
France need an
atmosphere of fear, terror, militarism and war for internal purposes as
well.
To gain a competitive edge vis-a-vis the US, China, India etc. and to
outdo
their imperialist rivals, they have striven to push wage levels down,
destroy
the organizations of workers and abolish their social and economic
gains. This
drive is being met with sporadic, but growing resistance on the part of
workers
in France, Germany, Italy etc. Here too, the scarecrow of Islamic
terrorism and
Islamic fundamentalism” provides the European bosses with a suitable
scapegoat
and an excuse for diverting the discontent and anger of the workers
towards the
Muslim minority, which is being portrayed as potential terrorists and/
or
unfair competitors on the job market etc. For some time, especially
after the
events of September 11, 2001, Western corporate media has been, more
and more
eagerly fanning anti-Muslim feelings towards the growing and mostly
poor Muslim
minority. Several incidents of reactionary terror, (Bali, October 12,
2002,
Casablanca, May 16, 2003, Istanbul, November 15 and 20, 2003, Madrid,
March 11,
2004 and London, July 7, 2005) which have targeted ordinary people and
allegedly perpetrated by “Muslim terrorists” are utilized to instill
fear in
European workers and toilers and to sow distrust between the Muslim
minority
and the great mass of European workers. In this way, the EU
imperialists strive
to divide the ranks of the workers along religious and ethnic lines and
build a
social basis for their plans to build a fascistic police state.
However, it is not so easy to deceive
European
workers into supporting such military adventures and to cheat them away
from
their hard-won gains. Despite the absence of communist and more or less
consistent revolutionary leadership and the betrayal of leaderships of
revisionist parties and trades-union, European workers have not
entirely lost
their fighting spirit. After all, they are the repository of several
revolutions and have a great tradition of resistance and struggle
against
fascism and capitalism. This, indeed, must be the reason behind the
publication
and re-publication of the cartoons of Mohammad, which is only a link in
the
much longer chain of imperialist psychological war against the Muslim
peoples
AND the workers of Western Europe and the US. So, the cartoon crisis
has almost
nothing to do with the defense of the freedom of the press or that of
democratic values of the West, values which are in danger of being
trampled
underfoot by the monopoly bourgeoisie in power. The attempt to limit
the
context of the discussion with censorship vs. freedom itself betrays an
attitude to deflect the attention of the masses from the real issues
involved.
The
Political Character of Islamic Anger
The protest actions that have taken and
are taking
place in Muslim countries and partly in Western Europe lack a
revolutionary or
more or less consistent democratic leadership. Most seem to be
spontaneous actions
and/ or actions organized and led by groups which describe themselves
as
“Islamic”.
In some places, such as Syria and Iran, it appears that these
actions are organized by state agencies, for the purposes of utilizing
the
anti-imperialist potential of the wave of popular Islamic anger and
with the
aim of reducing the aggressive pressure of the US, Israel and the EU.
In the
special case of Nigeria, where tens of thousands of people have lost
their
lives during the last decade as a result of inter-communal violence,
cartoon
actions have degenerated into a Christian-Muslim confrontation. We can
surmise
that in Nigeria, state agencies or
other reactionary cliques were behind the attacks and counter-attacks.
In
several Muslim countries, such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia,
Indonesia, the
ruling cliques tried to ride the wave of popular Muslim anger and maybe
to make
political capital out of it by displaying false anger or engaging in
noisy, but
empty rhetoric. Though targeting Denmark, Norway etc. initially, these
actions
took on a more and more distinct anti-US and anti-EU character.
This has been
especially true for Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. In the
latter two,
cartoon actions have blended into protest actions against imperialist
invaders
and their local collaborators. Although the demonstrators have mostly
demanded
apologies from the Danish and other European governments and condemned
the Jyllands-Posten
and other papers involved, demands for the non-interference of Western
powers
in the internal affairs of Muslim countries and for the expulsion of
Danish and
other foreign troops from Afghanistan and Iraq have also been raised.
Consistent democrats and internationalists
cannot
approach these protest actions from the extremely narrow and distorted
perspective
of the freedom of the press or the defense of the so-called
sensibilities of
the Muslim peoples. The Muslim world has been under the occupation and/
or
domination of Western colonial powers for more than 150 years; colonial
powers
which have constantly interfered in the internal affairs of Muslim
peoples,
oppressed them directly or through their agents and pillaged their
wealth and
resources.
Decades long occupation of Palestine by
Zionist
aggressors, the ongoing suffering of the Palestinian people with the
open,
“generous” and unabashed support of the US and Western Europe and
consistent
backing of several reactionary cliques and dictatorships by Washington
and
Brussels under the guise of promoting democracy and human rights etc.,
has
added to the discontent and anger of Muslim peoples. This discontent
and anger
has been exacerbated by the heinous occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq,
massacre of more than 150,000 people in this “war on terror”; and by
the
haughtily declared plans of American neo-fascists to re-design the map
of the
Middle East and promote further regime change. It has been further
exacerbated
by US-Israeli actions meant to suffocate Palestine, to destabilize
Lebanon,
dominate Syria and bomb and occupy Iran etc. Should one be surprised at
seeing
the Muslim toilers reacting on a massive scale and sometimes in a
violent
manner against this whole system of exploitation, oppression and
degradation
under the pretext of offensive Mohammad cartoons under these
conditions? Not at
all.
Therefore to neglect or to pretend not to
see the
deep discontent and anger of the Muslim masses and focus the attention
of the
public opinion on the cartoons and the question of the freedom of the
press is
not only entirely misleading, but utterly immoral and unacceptable as
well. In
one of his articles written in January-February 1916, discussing the
impact of
the Dreyfus case
in France, Lenin
had
said:
How
to Approach the Protest Actions of the Muslim Masses
Under the conditions mentioned and in view
of the
lack of a revolutionary or more or less consistent democratic
leadership, it is
understandable that the anger of the Muslim peoples can at times assume
irrational forms, be diverted towards incorrect targets and be utilized
for
reactionary ends. The class-conscious proletariat is aware of this
danger; it
is also aware of the endless machinations and provocations of the
intelligence
organizations of the imperialist invaders, their allies and local
stooges, who
strive to incite violence between workers and toilers of different
nationalities, religions and sects. A case in point is the provocative
bombing
of the Al-Askariya Mosque
in Samarra,
Iraq on February 22, with the aim of furthering their plans for a civil
war
between Shiite and Sunni toilers.
Unless the Muslim masses are illuminated
with the
internationalist and revolutionary world view of the proletariat,
resistance
actions conducted under the banner of political Islam are liable at
times to
deviate from their real aims, and target potential and indisputable
allies and
friends of the Muslim peoples - such as
revolutionary groups, foreign workers, Christian communities, women’s
groups
etc., rather than their enemies. This is true, for the cartoon protests
as
well. On the other hand, the relatively low level of development of
capitalism
in Muslim countries and the resulting preponderance in these countries
of
petty-bourgeoisie and semi-proletarians coupled with the frustration
and
desperation of the Muslim toilers, who have been oppressed, exploited
and degraded
for decades and hundreds of years by colonialists, imperialists,
Zionists and
their local servants leads to a semi-anarchistic state of mind and at
times to
a tendency to blind terrorism. In his article “Anarchism
and Socialism” written in 1901, Lenin described
anarchism as “a product of despair. The
psychology of the unsettled intellectual or the vagabond and not of the
proletarian.” To a certain extent, this, unfortunately, is very much
the case
in certain Arab countries, such as Palestine and Iraq.
However, all these
considerations do not
detract from the revolutionary potential of the Muslim peoples
and their
protest actions with regard to Mohammad cartoons. The fact that
hundreds of
thousands of people have risen and are on the streets is in itself is a
source
of fear for the reactionary cliques in power and their imperialist
masters.
What is more, as mentioned above, in several countries, such as
Lebanon,
Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan, these protest actions assumed an
anti-imperialist
and anti-Zionist character and dealt blows at imperialists and their
local
agents.
Under conditions of
imperialist
aggression and/ or fascist dictatorship, Islamic (or other
religious) resistance movements may play a limited
progressive role, as long as they fight against
the enemies of the people. We can remind ourselves of the “liberation
theology”
of Latin America, of the protest actions of Buddhist monks during the
Vietnamese national liberation war in the 1960s and 1970s, of the
victorious
struggle of Hizbullah against Zionist occupation and terror in Lebanon
during
1978-2000 and of the presence of Islamic resistance movements in
Afghanistan
and Iraq. In view of the continuing US-led imperialist-Zionist
aggression, we
may and should expect further upsurges of the Muslim masses with more
explicit
anti-imperialist demands. Such mass movements may lead to the
destabilization
and weakening of pro-US collaborator states, such as Jordan, Pakistan,
Saudi
Arabia, Egypt etc. and their replacement with anti-US and anti-Zionist
Muslim
states. Such developments, of course, would mean tactical blows at the
US; the
main enemy of the workers and peoples of the world. Strictly guarding
its
political and organizational independence, class-conscious proletariat
and its
party will not and should not flinch from engaging in united action
with such
Islamic groups against imperialists and their quislings.
Of course, being
materialist, the class-conscious
proletariat is against religion and all sorts and manifestations of
idealism.
It also is aware of the fact that, ruling classes and their state
apparatus
have been using and continue to use religion to confuse and dupe
workers and
other toilers for the purpose of perpetuating their reign. Moreover,
the proletariat
and its party defend the gains of great bourgeois-democratic
revolutions have
won in their struggle against the monarchy, aristocracy and clerical
reaction,
including the freedom of the press. On the other hand, it is obvious
that, real
and consistent struggle against fascism, militarism, imperialism and
capitalism
can only be waged under the flag of Marxism-Leninism, that is, under
the
leadership of the Communist Party of the class-conscious proletariat.
Even the
most radical and advanced political representatives of the
petty-bourgeoisie
are unable to wage a determined struggle against fascism, militarism,
imperialism, let alone overthrow capitalism. Therefore, it goes without
saying
that, in the middle and long run, Islamic resistance movements, which
are even
more backward than petty-bourgeois revolutionary democracy
ideologically and
politically, do not really have the prospect of providing real
leadership to
the Muslim masses.
Only the
class-conscious proletariat
and its party will be able to lead the Muslim workers and toilers, in
their
resistance against imperialist oppression, occupation and terror.
The formation of communist
parties of the
proletariat in the Middle East, who will unite under their banners all
workers
and exploited strata of all nationalities, religions and sects, is a
task of
foremost importance. Arab and Muslim masses shall be liberated from the
clutches of imperialism, Zionism and local reaction only under the
leadership
of such parties, which will crown the first stage of revolution with
the
overthrow of capitalism and the victory of socialist revolution.
This is no empty rhetoric. Before the
October
Revolution of 1917 and for some time after it, Russia was one of the
most
backward countries of Europe. At the First
Conference of Industrial Managers in 1931 Stalin said:
“We are fifty or a hundred years behind
the advanced
countries. We must make good this distance in ten years. Either we do
it, or
they crush us… Bolsheviks must master technique. It is time Bolsheviks
themselves became experts. In the period of reconstruction technique
decides
everything.”
“The Tasks of Business Executives”, Problems
of
Leninism, Moscow, Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1940, pp.
366-67;
or: in Volume 13 'Works'; Moscow; 1955 pp.41; 43
And he was
right. Ten years after that speech, Nazi Germany, accompanied by its
vassals
invaded the Soviet Union with a huge army. In spite of initial setbacks
and
heavy losses, workers and other toilers of the land of the Soviets were
repulse
and crush the most formidable war machine of the time. And this was due
to the
correct and courageous leadership of the Communist Party, the
internationalist
fraternity of the workers and peoples of this vast country and to the
gigantic
strides the Soviet Union had taken in the building of socialism and the
conquest of technique. Without mastering technique and as a direct
result of
it, without producing better tanks, airplanes, guns etc., it would be
much more
difficult, if not impossible for the Red Army of the workers and
peasants of
the Soviet Union to defeat Nazi invaders.
If the Muslim toilers and peoples
want to put a stop to the bullying and aggression of the imperialist
West (and
to that of other imperialists), they are obliged to follow in the
footsteps of
the Soviet Union of Lenin and Stalin. That is, they are obliged to
overthrow
the corrupt, reactionary cliques exploiting and oppressing them on
behalf of
imperialists, begin the construction of a genuinely just social order,
that is
socialism and replace private ownership of the means of production with
that of
public ownership and outdo or at least equal the technique at the
disposal of
their imperialist tormentors.
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