Volume One
Nasser Paydar
1.Perry Anderson and the Inverted View
of the Wave of Uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa
Inverted vision and stereotypes are the basis of the thinking of all forces and representatives of non-working-class approaches and outside the circle of the anti-wage labour struggle of the working class. Perry Anderson also does the same with the chain of recent uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Libya, Bahrain and Syria. He says: “Two characteristics have separated the Middle East and North Africa from the political arena of the contemporary world.” Anderson believes that the roots of the widespread uprisings of 2011 in the aforementioned societies must lie in these two characteristics.!! He immediately explains these characteristics. “The first characteristic is the length of time and intensity of the expansionism of the Western empire in the region over the past century.” Perry Anderson explains in detail what he means by the expansionism of the empire and clarifies that he means the colonial period of Western countries in the Arab Middle East and North Africa. He also talks about the second component. “The second distinctive feature of the Arab world is the longevity and intensity of the outright tyranny to which it has been subjected since the beginning of formal decolonization.”
It is no exaggeration to say that the level of knowledge and awareness of the largest part of the masses of the disobedient people of the Middle East and North Africa about the real roots of their pain, suffering and misery is far deeper and more real than the analysis that Perry Anderson puts before them. The tens of millions of workers who went to the streets of Tunisia, Egypt, Algeria, Bahrain, Yemen, Syria to fight the armies and forces of oppression and oppression of capital, unfortunately did not have any level of class alignment against wage labour, but they did not follow the banner of deception and misguidance of anti-colonialism either. What Daneshvar writes with his left hand is a repetition of the same inversions and illusions that once, in the trumpets of communist architects, became the facade of the nascent camp of state capitalism and the hordes of red-clad anti-imperialist people and nationalist movements that built the world and stormed and stormed to bring the global labour movement to the present day.
In legends, it is said that “Majnun” in response to the question of whether the right to the caliphate belonged to Ali or Omar? He declared that “the caliphate is considered by Layla to be the same as the wealth of the night.” Perry Anderson, in the wave of the explosion of tens of millions of hungry wage slaves, who were exhausted by the pressure of the cruelty, injustice, and crime of the capitalist system, has also fixed his eyes on “the long borders between North Africa and the Middle East with the political landscape of the contemporary world” and in this curiosity, he has discovered, first of all, the longer period of colonialism in the aforementioned region. He sees this long-term colonialism as one of the two fundamental foundations of the recent uprisings and revolts of tens of millions of people!! What crimes and atrocities were imposed on the working and subordinate masses of the region in question during the aforementioned period, or what the role of Western governments was in this transition, are clear issues. But the discussion is about the kind of narrative that Perry Anderson has of colonialism and the relationship that he establishes between the chain of daily movements and the long period of colonialism. The theorist and author of the article “Chain of Rebellions” in this passage only mentions the words colonialism and occupation, turns over the scroll of aggressions and occupations, recounts the history of the arrival of the occupiers in this or that country. He points to the persistence of the colonial period in the region. He does not even mention the nature and real existence of the colonial system, he forgets what colonialism was and is, he either does not explain what the colonialists did and what they wanted or portrays it in reverse. But what exactly was this colonialism? And what is it? And how has it been interpreted historically by the bourgeoisie, by the intellectual representatives of the different social layers of this class, by the colourful standard-bearers of bourgeois communism, including Anderson? Which classes, forces, and movements have these expressions and narratives served, consciously or unconsciously, and the most important question is what has it brought to the working class and the international labour movement?
Colonialism was a phase of the historical self-expansion of capitalism and a response to a certain level of internal contradictions in this mode of production. The creation of exchange values through the production of commodities and with the aim of creating surplus value is the essence of capital. The destination and end here is only accumulation and self-expansion and the reproduction of social relations on an increasing scale. Capital knows no limits and boundaries in this transition. What is produced in the form of capital must take the path of re-advancement. The expansion of the general bases of accumulation is among the most inherent approaches of capital, and colonialism was only a concrete level of this approach. The period of the rise of capital colonialism is characterized by the ever-expanding development of the world market and the export of goods, but this process, even at its very beginning, implied the expansion of the general bases of accumulation in the most distant regions of the world and the paving of the way for the export of capital to new areas of labour exploitation. The system of wage slavery has faced many ups and downs, obstacles, and difficulties along this path, but in all cases, everywhere, and under all conditions, it has dug a tunnel of commodities, creating more and more labour, capital advances, and the unbridled expansion of capitalist relations.
“Where the capitalist has the power of the mother country behind him, he tries to remove by force the modes of production and appropriation based on the personal labour of the independent producer. The same interest which in the mother country compels the eloquent speaker of capital, political economy, to present the capitalist mode of production in a theory inverted and exactly the opposite of what it is, leads him in the colonies to speak his mind and to proclaim loudly that these two modes of production are opposed to each other. For this purpose he tries to show that the productivity of labour, cooperation, division of labour, the use of machinery on a large scale, etc., are impossible without expropriating the [independent] workers and converting their means of production into capital. Here, in order to secure the so-called national wealth, political economy seeks to find artificial means to secure the poverty of the masses. And it is here that its Armor of justification falls to the ground like rotten dry wood”. (Capital, Volume I)
Private property based on the exploitation of wage labour has emerged everywhere in the world on the grave of private property based on one’s own labour. In most of the world, in all countries that were once called colonies and semi-colonies, this work was also supported by the bloodiest and most brutal wars, aggressions, and occupations. Capital saw all these atrocities as a necessary and inevitable condition for the development of the general foundations of progress. A process that inevitably and inevitably provoked a wave of revolt by private owners based on their own labour in the countries, but the matter did not end there. From the nineteenth century onwards, some colonies, before becoming the target of the military campaigns and invasions of Western capitalism, witnessed a phase of development of the commodity economy, the emergence of the market, the spread of urbanization, and the germination of primitive accumulation of capital within the geographical boundaries of their day. A layer of the bourgeoisie, which owned local industrial manufacturers, challenged the obstacles to the emergence and expression of its economic and social life. A significant segment of merchants and owners of commercial capital locked their entire capital into the circle of global capital organization. The large landowners, the feudal aristocracy of the day, the kings and rulers of the feudal system welcomed with open arms the partnership with the overflowing capital in these countries. The 19th century bourgeoisie of Western countries faced all these conditions and phenomena in advancing its colonial programs and policies in the three continents of Asia, Latin America and Africa. The fundamental and controversial point in this regard is the fate that these societies, classes and social forces of their day found in the scope of the domination of the colonial power of capital. The fact is that from this very date, while they had a relatively long way to go during the stages of capitalist development, they were practically linked to the development and circulation of global capital. The social forces, classes and layers of these countries also saw the ethereal effects of the class and social alignment of the wage slavery system engraved on the structure of their existence. The capital pole had a long way of birth from the core of pre-capitalist economic relations, bypassing the colonial society and was formed and projected in a very present and ready manner from the place of the annexed and exported capital of Western countries and as an inseparable part of the articulation of global capital. The classical form of the primitive accumulation stage of capital was losing its historical relevance, and the process of dispossession of the small producers and the commodification of labour force with the aggressive, militaristic, and war-mongering role of global capital was taking its historical path to realization.
In parallel with this process and in organic connection with it, the existing class and social alignment of societies was also breaking the threshold of a new arrangement. Statesmen, the landed aristocracy, big merchants, a number of feudal lords and property owners found their interests in close and unconditional partnership with capitalist colonialists, consortiums and huge financial and industrial companies of the colonial power, the army and various expeditionary forces of the invading states. They were practically linked to the international capitalist class. Local governments, if they survived, practically became an inseparable part of this or that part of the political power of world capital. Peasants, artisans and owners of very small properties were plunged into the abyss of bankruptcy and decline, were targeted for dispossession, and the fate of their work and social life was tied to the world working class. In the meantime, the smallest layer of the emerging and born bourgeoisie was in a special situation. This layer came mainly from the upper class of peasants, industrialists and local manufacturers, did not have a special invitation to enter the club of power and ownership and to acquire shares in large international companies, did not consider the course of current events to be in line with their expectations and aspirations, and found what they had entrusted to their hearts, here and there, facing the problem of default. To be more precise, its wishes, horizons and ideals were in every fibre of its being the same as those realized by the invading colonial capital, but this smallest layer of the bourgeoisie felt itself to be the stepchild of the family, was dissatisfied with its small share compared to the mountain of shares of other relatives and considered this to be a humiliation for itself. Its idea was that others were “foreigners” or xenophobic, and that it was the real owner of the house, the home and the only one with the right to exploit the wage slaves of its future “compatriots”, “blood relatives” and “co-descendants”!! This small section of the bourgeoisie, with all its embryonic and immature state, like all other sections of its class, had all its thoughts, memories, intelligence, and senses focused on the development of capitalism and the greatest possible profitability of its society’s capital. However, it wanted the realization and outcome of this process not in the manner of the colonialists and their domestic partners, but in accordance with its own romanticist model and highly reactionary utopia. Wanted to expel the “foreigners” and remove the “xenophobes” and replace their ownership, power, and governmental role with the pleasant prospect of his own ownership and the levers of authority and rule. He chanted the slogan “nation” on earth and in the sky, and adorned every lie, trick, and trick with the suffix “nationality.”
The stratum of the bourgeoisie in the colonies and semi-colonies in question, with the characteristics mentioned above and with all its inevitable historical backwardness, at the same time enjoyed the richest conditions necessary for the field and architecture of the construction of a utopia full of illusion and a magical shrine. Its political representatives and prominent figures, who inherited their personal qualities from the great peasant ancestors, could rally the vast masses of peasants, artisans, and the dispossessed or dispossessed layers and workers under the banner of their leadership. They could raise the banner of “xenophobia”, “anti-colonialism”, “patriotism” and the defence of the “ancestral land” and line up the entire class and social struggle of these strata and forces behind them.
From the core of the inherent and self-perpetuating contradictions of capital, everything emerges, all the potions, caricatures, fetishes, mythologies and anti-colonialism. The anti-colonialism of this section of the colonial bourgeoisie was also one of the caricatured and illusory overtones of these contradictions. Sadr summarized the demands of this mournful “homeland” in a version that was intended to develop the capitalist mode of production, and what he sought from writing this version was the place and place that he expected in the ownership of the capitals being formed, in the state power that would protect the process of expanding the accumulation of capital, and in the structure of the productive, political and social order of the future capitalism. When the spoke of the nation, he meant the military forces necessary to gain advantages from the aggressive rival bourgeoisie and achieve these expectations. He meant by the homeland a specific geographical area whose inhabitants were wage slaves exploited by his capital. In his political vocabulary, the foreigners were the capitalists who threatened the length and breadth of his ownership of the social capital that was advancing his country. He spoke of the “national liberation movement” and described the work of this movement as expelling the occupying army and paving the way for his ascension to the throne of capital power. He chanted the slogan “nationalize resources and wealth,” and the content of this slogan was determined by the consolidation of the foundations of his ownership of all reserves and assets. He linked his every speech, demand, and manifesto to the revolution and interpreted the revolution as his gateway to the supreme throne of political power.
The crippled, deformed, and “inferior” bourgeois class of the societies targeted by colonialism, with these characteristics, utopias, and dreams, became the founders of movements that ultimately rendered the entire history of the twentieth century, the entire class struggle of this important historical period, and most importantly, the entire labour movement of this era, in several great continents of the world, awe-inspiringly, nailing its fields of influence!! Global capital, through military occupation and brutal colonial invasion, ignited the volcano of anger, rage, and hatred of the vast masses of the inhabitants of the countries. The financial aristocracy, landowners, merchants, feudal lords, and rulers of the occupied countries became loyal partners of the colonial power. The labour movement either did not exist or, if it did, was unable to play a significant role. The vast mass of peasants routinely looked for a leader, a leader, and a leader to organize their revolts, and the bourgeoisie in question saw the guise of this leadership and leadership as a reflection of their own inadequacy in every way.
The era of capital colonialism brought about these events and developments. The expansion of the world market to the ends of the earth’s borders, the export of goods to all countries of the three continents of Asia, Africa, and Latin America, the seizure of all underground resources and reserves and raw materials of countries with the aim of reducing the cost of forming the fixed capital sector in the West as effectively as possible, the development of the general bases of accumulation to the greatest extent possible and the opening of the process of dispossession of small producers in the three continents above, the military occupation of countries as a prerequisite for achieving the aforementioned goals, the organic integration of the landed aristocracy, feudal lords, merchants, and the upper stratum of the emerging bourgeoisie of the colonies with large Western capitals, the resistance of peasants and workers against the military occupation and the invading forces of colonial states, the placement of a part of the bourgeoisie at the head of these movements and their hanging on the noose of nationalism and nationalist anti-colonialism are among the most obvious and significant events of this era. The colonial era was a golden era for global capitalism. Seizing the largest markets provided the necessary conditions for organizing production and realizing and obtaining the surplus values produced. New areas of accumulation were discovered one after another and were ready to be conquered. A phenomenon without which there was no prospect of the long-term survival of capitalism, the seizure of resources, mines, lands and natural reserves of the colonies and their exploitation, significantly reduced the cost of goods and made the curve of the rate of profit rise. All of these were of vital importance to capital, but in the meantime another important page was turning in favour of the capitalist system in the book of history, which, although not welcomed by the poles of colonial power of capital, was of greater importance to this system than all the above components. Degenerate nationalist anti-colonialism was the architect of the most harmful deviations in the path of the future class struggle of the working masses and the workers’ movement in the countries being formed. An event that became the cornerstone of the long-term struggle against wage labour of the working class.
In view of what we have said, the word colonialism is not a simple concept corresponding to mere oppression, plunder and occupation. Referring to colonialism without a comprehensive anatomy of colonialism, the system of wage slavery, without a precise explanation of the place and place of colonialism in the historical situation of the capitalist mode of production, without a proper excavation of the real roots of exploitation in the inherent contradictions of the capitalist mode of production, without a precise explanation of which social relations, which mode of production, which social and international class were engaged in colonialism throughout the world, practically means throwing a veil over the real roots of all the crimes and savagery, atrocities and brutalities that have been committed under this name against the working masses of the world and a large part of the world’s population. This is what the bourgeoisie has done historically in various guises and continues to do. When we talk about the atrocities and effects and consequences of colonialism, we must immediately explain that capital has done these things. Otherwise, the only benefit of the discussion will be to give the workers the address of an imaginary enemy, to remove capitalism from the scope of the struggle, and to deeply mislead the working masses. We will return to this issue.
The colonial era of capitalism became the cornerstone of another phase of self-expansion and international development of world capital. The achievements of the aforementioned period provided all the necessary conditions for the unbridled export of capital to the ends of the earth. What had been colonies, semi-colonies, and occupied territories until yesterday were quickly or slowly transformed into areas of capital reserve. Capital no longer needed many of its previous tools and instruments, including the military occupation of countries and the dispatch of armies in the old way. Accumulation in the most profitable areas and the exploitation of quasi-free labour became the basis and main axis of its presence in countries. The process of capitalist development and domination in countries was proceeding towards its conclusion with all possible speed, each former colony became a new capitalist society, and its social capital became a living organic cell in the structure of the valuation of world capital. In short, the imperialist conditions of capitalist production replaced the colonial era of this system. A phase of capitalist development that determined the condition for the survival of this mode of production at this time, and the foundation of its emergence was based on the export of capital to different regions of the world, the ever-increasing and ever-widening exploitation of labour throughout the world, the creation of the necessary areas for the accumulation of wandering capital, and the capitalistization of all societies.
With the establishment of the imperialist conditions of capitalist production, the nationalist anti-colonial movement also entered the field in a new form. This section was still backward compared to its class relatives, its ownership dimensions were limited, its channels for capital accumulation were more or less blocked, its share of the surplus value produced by the working masses was low, and worst of all, its path to the political power of captive capital was blocked by mines. Factors that deprived this layer of the bourgeoisie of peace and quiet and drove its intellectual representatives and pioneers towards protest and militant rallies. Yesterday’s anti-colonial red-clad riders were now, in continuation of the previous struggle and in the context of the new situation of the day, raising the red flag of nationalist anti-imperialistism and chanting the slogan of people’s liberation. This time, the people’s anti-imperialism was also spinning its own version for the process of capitalist development and domination, talking very feverishly and insistently about the establishment of “national industry”, taking the utopia of establishing “free capitalism” out of the archive of historical myths, considering imperialism to be a giant exhumed from the cemetery of ancient Rome that was not only not capitalism, but in protecting the privacy of previous forms of production, it also shot down the shadow of any kind of capitalist industrial accumulation!!! It was making imperialism into an entity that was completely devoid of the essence of capitalism and resembled everything, except that it was not at all the imperialist conditions of capitalist production!!
With the victory and defeat of the October Labor Revolution and the seizure of political power by a party that studied capitalism with the eyes of the Second International and summed up socialism in state capitalism, the building of the Palace of the Pole of Power became a new camp of capitalism under the red flag of architectural communism!! The occurrence of this event opened the door to anti-imperialism and nationalism in developing capitalist countries. From this time on, the united pole of the camp of state capitalism and bourgeois “anti-imperialism” of the world took over the affairs of the labour movement all over the world. The history of the 20th century of this movement is the history of the mentioned pole and the branching generations within it. A history in which the break of the international working class from the conscious, open-minded and transparent struggle against wage labour was its most obvious feature. The defeat of the October Revolution allowed a part of the world bourgeoisie to dress all the bloody and worker-killing exploitation, all forms of brutality and brutality, and the entire world of capitalism’s filth, blood and savagery, to take millions and then billions of the working people of the world hostage from the anti-capitalist class battlefield, and in the desert of ugly profiteering competitions and conflicts between the poles, strata and gangs of capital power, desperate and doomed infantry against each other. make “Anti-imperialism” was a popular cover that determined the basic foundation of this reactionary and anti-worker pact. This narrative of imperialism everywhere played a role as a mechanism for the fielding of the bourgeoisie and the gallows of the anti-capitalist movement of the working-class masses.
The state that emerged from the defeat of October and what was formed with the presence of this state under the name of communism and the Comintern and the camp of socialism and the socialist revolution played the role of a false imam Zadeh full of deceit that everywhere allowed this or that section of the bourgeoisie to turn the power of the anti-wage labour struggle of the working masses into its own army to increase the amount of shares in the joint company of government and ownership of world capital. Layers of the bourgeoisie in all countries of Asia, Latin America and Africa took the greatest advantage of this opportunity. Everything worked in their favour. The bourgeois narrative of Bolshevism and the ruling political power of Russia of capitalism and the imperialist phase of development of this mode of production allowed all the intellectual, political representatives and theorists of the above layers and forces to dress up their reactionary and nationalist dreams in the clothes of communism. It presented a form of capitalist development and a certain formation of the productive, political and social order of the capitalist system before them, the struggle for the realization of this form of development of wage labour relations was induced by the anti-imperialist struggle, and its ideal capitalist formation was proclaimed by socialism. Left nationalism saw all these inversions as the elixir of life, filled the earth and time with the slogan of the anti-imperialist struggle, raised the banner of “socialism” and made the vast masses of workers under this banner of deception, the infantry of its struggle with the dominant sections of world capital, other factions of the bourgeoisie and the political power of the ruling strata of its class to determine the desired share in the ownership and political rule of capital. The people’s camp and anti-imperialism were two allied forces, and the conditions and guarantors of any degree of durability, authority and victory. The latter needed the former. Through it, communist and workers’ baptism took place!! Thanks to this baptism, it went to the vast working masses of society, recruited them, and under the guise of fighting against imperialism, prevented them from fighting against wage slavery. Instead of fighting against capital, the army built a “free growth of capitalism”, instead of fighting against capitalist exploitation, it formed an army of “anti-imperialist united front” of “national capitalists” and “liberal landlords”. The latter also needed the military support of the former and saw the Red Army’s support as a condition for the victory of its people’s anti-imperialist struggle. Apart from all this, it took the camp as a model and saw the establishment of a capitalist type of state as the prospect of its “anti-imperialist” struggle. The theoretical arsenal of the camp also became its tool for fooling the working class. All these were blessings that were bestowed upon the latter in the shadow of the connection with the camp. The former’s share in this connection was no less than the latter. The camp also relied on the authority of the nationalist “anti-imperialist” movements, which took its revenge on the great and the small. It was crushing the Western pole of power of capital. It was spreading the shadow of its rule over half the world. The labour movement made half the world its power force and achieved many other remarkable victories.
All that we have said so far were general and very general outlines of the disasters that were being inflicted on the international labour movement, especially in the countries of the three continents, under the influence of the nationalist and camp narrative of colonialism and imperialism. The basic wisdom of this narrative was the deeper withdrawal of the working masses of the world from the war against the basis of wage labour. In this narrative, colonialism and imperialism were only a code name to disguise the reality of capitalism, to remove the system of wage slavery from the reach of workers’ recognition, protest and struggle, and to conceal the existence of capital as the only source of exploitation and monopolization and the cause of all forms of poverty, hunger and misery of humans. The anti-colonial and anti-imperialist struggle of this narrative also played the role of a trap that was spread by the camp and a part of the bourgeoisie of the countries to block the path of the real struggle of the workers against wage labour relations. To separate the labour movement from the track of the anti-capitalist struggle and make the power of its anti-wage labour struggle the fighting force of leftist nationalism and the camp of state capitalism.
Perry Anderson, in his study of the chain of rebellions, pointed to two characteristics, and he considers the first characteristic to be the long years of colonial domination over North Africa and the Arab Middle East. When Anderson speaks of colonialism, he is directly aiming at and propagating the same nationalist and camp narrative of this concept. He speaks of colonialism but does not mention a single word about the nature of the colonial system. He refers to the colonial control of Morocco to Egypt by the French, British and Italian governments, the British colonial domination of the sheikhdoms on the Persian Gulf, the transfer of the spoils of the Ottoman Empire to Britain and France, the British colonial occupation of Jordan, Iraq, Syria and Palestine, the replacement of British colonialism by the United States, the occurrence of the Nakba, the establishment of Israel, the French, British and Israeli attack on Egypt and a very detailed list of these events, but nowhere does he mention a single word about the capitalist system as the originator, policy-maker, planner, founder and organizer of all these raids, occupations, barbarities, warmongering and massacres. Anderson does not say that the long chain of events were completely continuous and organic conditions for the survival of the wage slavery system. He does not enter into the discussion at all that each event had its own place in the dynamics of the reproduction of global capital. Perry Anderson does not explain that it was capitalism that did these things and that by doing these things it prepared for the establishment of wage labour relations, the ever-wider accumulation of capital, the ever-more deadly exploitation of tens and hundreds of millions of wage slaves in the Middle East and North Africa. His analysis and explanation leave out the fundamental point that all occupation, colonialism, and imperialist presence have been integral parts of the development of the capitalist system in the countries in question. Instead of all this, Perry Anderson suggests that the whole story is about a few Western countries trying to plunder the oil resources of the Gulf countries or having a handful of puppet states, mercenary armies, military bases, and weapons arsenals in the Arab Middle East!! He conceals the fact that during the historical period he mentions and in the context of the same events he mentions, all the countries in the region have become capitalist societies. In all these societies, the two basic classes of workers and capitalists stand in opposition to each other. The interests of the capitalist class in each country have been the same as the interests of the world bourgeoisie, the mass surplus value produced by millions of workers has become the common capital of the bourgeoisie of these countries and the various poles of power of world capital. Anderson does not say that the imperialist presence in these societies was the presence of capital, and that the presence of capital, from the perspective of wage slaves, has no internal, external, colonial, “national,” or Western or Eastern, imperial or non-imperialist. The author of “Chain of Rebellions” makes all these points very simply. I will explain why he does this below.
The second factor, which in Perry Anderson’s analysis ranks the second most important characteristic of the Middle East and North Africa compared to other parts of the world and is considered to be the driving force behind the recent uprisings, is the long-standing rule of dictatorships. The article looks at this factor from exactly the same perspective as the first factor. For Anderson, dictatorships are not dictatorships of capital and the capitalist class, but rather a handful of mercenary governments and puppet gangs of the White House or other major Western powers. The role of these dictatorships is not to defend the essence of capital, nor to plan the productive, political and social order of the wage slavery system, nor to be the institution of power of the capitalist class, both domestic and foreign, and generally international, nor to be the police, military and security apparatus of capital, nor to be the forces of repression and the exercise of violence by the bourgeoisie against millions of people who sell their labour force, who are mainly considered mercenaries for a few Western governments. Anderson says: “The reasons for the exceptional degree of European American surveillance and intervention in the Arab world are obvious. On the one hand, the Arab world is home to the world’s largest oil reserves, vital to Western energy-dependent economies. As a result, a vast axis of strategic deployment has been formed, from sea, air and intelligence bases across the Persian Gulf. From border posts in Iraq to deep penetration into the security apparatuses of Egypt, Jordan, Yemen and Morocco. On the other hand, this is where Israel is located and must be supported….” In Perry Anderson’s explanation, the entire Middle East and North Africa is a colonial region with a few oil wells, a few mercenary states, and a huge power base under the name of Israel, and the mission of the dictatorial governments is to maintain this position for the West. An occupied dry wasteland whose only credit to America, Europe, and the pole of power is the provision of cheap energy!! This is not the region where capitalist societies exist. First of all, this oil itself is not capital at all!! And the huge mountains of values hidden in it are not the surplus values produced by the international working class, including the workers of the Middle East and North Africa. These huge and soaring mountains of oil surplus values are not at all advanced as capital in the world, including in these countries, in various areas. These capitals do not exploit about 120 million Egyptian, Syrian, Libyan, Tunisian, Yemeni, Bahraini, Lebanese, Emirati, Kuwaiti, and Saudi workers to the utmost savagery. The quasi-free labour of these 120 million workers in the Middle East and North Africa does not produce a vast ocean of surplus value. The world of surplus value resulting from the exploitation of this segment of the international working class does not convert into the massive capital of Arab, European, American, and other capitalists in the world. Trillions of dollars of surplus value produced by Egypt, Syria, Tunisia, Libya, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and the Emirates are not distributed among the various sectors of global capital within the framework of the law of the general rate of profit, and these surplus values are not used as collateral to prevent the fall in the rate of profit and to challenge the inherent crises of capital. Perry Anderson has nothing to do with any of these issues. He completely forgets the system of wage slavery. In his view, dictatorships are just a handful of armies, military bases, and garrisons that protect oil wells in a few colonial countries. The dictatorship in each of these societies is just a dictatorship that guards these few oil wells and guards the towers of power of the Western colonialists and imperialists. He says:
“Here, the tyrannical rulers have always been dominant, and the passage of time and circumstances have not changed them. The House of Saud – the most appropriate meaning of the term is the members of the Sicilian Mafia – who have been the main centre of American power in the region since Roosevelt’s pact with them. For nearly a century, they have had full-fledged rule over the peninsula. The petty sheikhs of the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman, who were appointed or supported by the British ruler of India when the “Arab Emirates” were formed, the Hashemite and Alawi dynasties in Jordan and Morocco, the former born of British colonialism and the latter a French vassal – had three generations of despotic kings without any sign of parliamentary semblance. Torture and murder are commonplace in these regimes, which are the West’s best friends in the region. The nominal republics of this period are no less so. Each is a brutal dictatorship like the other, and often no less than hereditary monarchies.
Perry Anderson lists a long line of dictators and hangs a ring of servitude and obedience on each of their ears as far as the eye can see, servants and henchmen who have worked and do everything, but apparently they are not capitalist governments, their dictatorship is not a dictatorship of capital, they watch over the oil wells of Iraq from the heart of Egypt and their job is not to impose a labour price of $70 a month on the 60 million working masses of their country. Their mission is not to set fire to these 60 million wage slaves and hundreds of millions of other wage slaves, whether they exist or not, in order to make the sea of capital’s profits roar. In the view of the author of “Chain of Rebellions”, dictators are only the heirs of the British ruling appointees of India, the Sicilian mafia, the mercenaries of the White House, and they only receive wages from a few Western governments to protect the oil wells of the Gulf and North Africa from danger. Who are the dangerous ones? Again, according to Perry Anderson’s analysis, they are definitely not wage slaves of capital and the elements of the working class who have come to life. They are a bunch of people who are anti-dictatorship, anti-colonialism, anti-Western powers and anti-mercenaries of these powers. Their current struggle is not a manifestation of rebellion against exploitation and the severity of exploitation, and the misery created by the wage slavery system. They have just run out of patience at the hands of a few mercenary guards of oil wells!!
Perry Anderson sees colonialism, imperialism and dictatorship as we explained. From his point of view, whatever these are, they apparently have nothing to do with capitalism. Accordingly, according to him, the wave of protests of hundreds of millions of people in Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, Yemen, and Bahrain is not an uprising against what capital has brought upon them. They are just lovers of democracy, and they are determined to open a water path for “transition to democracy” with their blood. They want to bring democratic capitalist rulers to power instead of dictator Gaddafi, Ben Ali, Mubarak and Saleh!! All the minor and major issues of the “Chain of Rebellions” article are summarized in this. This is what President Obama, Sarkozy, Merkel, David Cameron, and even some of the same Arab sheikhs and all the targets of Perry Anderson’s attack agree and sympathize with. They also keep saying the same thing!!! But the commonalities of the theorizations of the author of the article “Chain of Rebellions” with the most dangerous representatives of the power poles of global capital are not limited to this. Perry Anderson is a pure advocate of democracy. At the beginning of this article, he has divided the world into two parts first and then the last part or the three continents of Asia, Africa and Latin America again into two parts. His first division corresponds to colonialism and colonization!! His next division concerns the achievement or non-achievement of democracy!! He says that some countries had achieved democracy, but North Africa and the Arab Middle East were exceptions. The recent chain of uprisings is supposed to solve this problem and bring everyone back to their hearts’ desire in the spirit of democracy together!! Perry Anderson does not say that the world, regardless of the shape, form, and name of its governments, is in any case a capitalist world. He does not say that this world is divided into the world of workers and capitalists and that the basic basis of the current class struggle in it is the struggle of the working class against wage labour. Anderson does not tell the workers of Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Iran, and everywhere else that whatever deprivation of freedom, whatever massacre of livelihood, deprivation, hunger, poverty, humiliation, imprisonment, torture, and murder, all arise directly from the heart of wage labour relations. Instead, he presents the scarecrow of long colonialism and the dictatorship of colonial mercenaries and instils in the workers that the root of all their suffering lies in the lack of democracy!! As if they, like him, are just die-hard lovers of democracy and as if they have only risen up to work hard and sacrifice their lives for the “transition to democracy”!!
Like the rulers of capital in the world, he shouts in praise of democracy and condemns tyranny and dictatorship. We must be completely fair and distinguish between these voices. Perry Anderson does not intend to be a demagogue, while the rulers of capital only lie, weave tricks, and use these phrases to fool and delude the working masses. This difference certainly exists, but Perry Anderson’s sincere democratization ultimately only throws dirt in the eyes of the working masses of the world and only waters the fields of demagoguery and disillusionment of the capitalists. He does not say a word about what economic and social relations or what mode of production dictatorships and democracies are the institutions of power. He does not say what rights, what better standard of living, and what increased social welfare the Filipino, Chilean, Brazilian, Argentine, and Mexican worker has achieved in the light of his sanctified democracy, that the democracy of Egypt, Tunisia, Syria, and Libya is supposed to offer the same rights and a better life to the workers of these countries??!!! He does not say anything to the French worker next to him and does not tell him why in the greatest cradle of democracy in the world, in France itself, this golden shining democracy does not benefit him at all and capital imposes whatever it wants on him through Mr. Sarkozy through this radiant democracy. Perry Anderson’s fascination with the shrine of democracy is to such an extent that he stares at everything in listing the greatest historical events, but he does not consider the failure of the October workers’ revolution and its disastrous effects worthy of mention at all. Perry Anderson should know that governments, from the most dictatorial to the most democratic, are capitalist governments and institutions for imposing order and power on the workers. The problem of the lives of billions of workers in the world, including those in North Africa and the Middle East, is not the democratic or dictatorial nature of governments, but the world of black lives resulting from the existence of capital. Every measure of human life, freedom, well-being and basic rights of people also depend on the struggle against capital. A mere “transition to democracy” will not solve any problem for any worker anywhere in the world.
June 2011