My own take on all of these is to reiterate perhaps in a more clearly prsented manner what I see as the available choices, and the one my instinct, my conviction, my politics and my intellectual and ideological committments lead me to take.
As I see it concrete reality and human historical movement in Libya presented us with a mass and popular uprising by a long repressed people against a regime which had long repressed them, but which also responded brutally to their uprising.
This revolutionary uprising was besieged and was going to be drowned in a bloody massacre in Benghazi; the uprising reached out to the rest of humanity for solidarity, for help to prevent the massacre and allow the uprising breathing space to survive and be nurtured; the AU as well as socalled progressive and revolutionary states failed to heed this call and instead gave varying degrees of tacit support to the very dictator they had risen against! Imperialism responded through NATO, but only after it had been dragged screaming by the share force of the tidal wave of revolution sweeping across the region, and ofcourse it must be added, also as a way of ensuring the preservation of its interests in the region!
So where does this leave us? With an imperfect revolution to be sure! But I will rather side with a revolutionary uprising of a people against their own dictator however imperfect, than side either directly or indirectly with the dictatorial regime they are trying to overthrow, no matter its origins, regardless of its rethoric!
And who says that the revolution ended with the taking of Tripoli or the overthrow of Gadaffi? As the activists in Tunisia and Egypt have continued to show and voice out loud: 'the revolution continues',
Now that the common enemy is almost vanguished the internal contradictions in the revolutionary coalition will come to the fore, and new inter and intra class battles will be played out; within this context even contradictions between the objectives and interests of the majority of those making the revolution with imperialism, with NATO will also come to a head!
What is certain is that the Libyan people will determine their history and their future in the context of these multiple contradictions and the contestations within and between them!
It is not an accident of history that outbreaks of widespread revolutionary upsurges usually catch the gate keepers of revolutionary theory and ideology unprepared and napping, so much so that they fail to recognise and relate with real revolution as it is unfolding, while holding steadfastly to the idea of revolution purified and refined in their immagination!
So Plekhanov and Kautsky did not recognise the Russian revolution.
I suppose all of these means or shows that I am in agreement with Ken!
Regards,
Jaye Gaskia
Sent from my BlackBerry wireless device from MTN
-----Original Message-----
From: kenneth harrow <harrow@msu.edu>
Sender: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Date: Sat, 03 Sep 2011 15:32:46
To: <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Reply-To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Libya and African leaders
dear femi,
i never imputed good intentions to nato or the u.s.
i did say that the global system is geared to the benefit of the
dominant world players, and that after the fighting is over in libya,
the regime will have to work out its international relations within that
context.
i too wish a more aggressive au would regulate conflicts in africa. and
i wish the u.s. would not insinuate itself back into african affairs by
hiring ethiopia to do its dirty work in somalia, or deploy africom so as
to control as much of africa as possible.
given that, there are times when i have to applaud the overthrow of a
dictator when the revolt is led by his own oppressed people. this all
began with tunisia and then egypt,and france and the u.s. had to be
dragged kicking and screaming into these struggles since their own
favored subordinates were being ousted. so i suppose i should be happy
that something more than blind force arose in those moments. but in the
long run, the problem remains that we have national states, with
national economic interests, that trump other things like human rights
or democracy or self government. always.
ken
On 9/3/11 9:04 AM, Femi Kolapo wrote:
>
> My frustration was more against an effete AU, yours seems to be
> against what you consider to be lack of appreciation of the good
> intentions of NATO or the US in the Libyan crisis.
>
--
kenneth w. harrow
professor of english
michigan state university
department of english
east lansing, mi 48824-1036
ph. 517 803 8839
harrow@msu.edu
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