Against Everyone

More than 20 years ago, when what was later called the black decade started, many Algerians chose to side with those who decided to use violence against the Pouvoir, or the state if you wish. These Algerians didn’t take an active role, I mean they didn’t join those who became the terrorists, but they were glad the Pouvoir was targeted through what they thought were its agents (army, police, gendarmerie, press, etc.), and they thought the victims deserved their fate as they defended the Pouvoir elhaggar. Some of these terrorists’ supporters didn’t even share their “champions”‘ ideology and could have been among their victims but they hated the Pouvoir so much that they were ready to give a hand to the devil in order to suppress it. They chose a side.

Considering the unfortunate events in Syria, I am amazed by how easily people decide which side they support. I am not talking of those who live survive in Syria, I am not even talking of Syrians living abroad. I believe these two groups are the ones concerned by what is happening in their country and, perhaps, they ought to choose a side and they do not do it that easily. I am talking of the people in the street or on the internet.

On imperialism, nationalism and revolutions

I was reading a reply by the millitant communist André Ferrat to a ‘study’ which appeared in trotskyist review “La lutte de classe” in 1935 (that’s 75 years ago!). The ‘study’ in question was entitled “Les problèmes révolutionnaires de l’Algérie” and although I have not read it, it would appear from the response it provoked from Mr. Ferrat that it was an attempt to discredit the Algerian symptoms of the looming national revolution by resorting to a ‘pedantic’ analysis whose only concern was to produce a confused and self-contraditory ‘theoretical magma’. Reading this article, I was amused to find the same old and eternal arguments and the same old eternal replies to them. These arguments are still used today by the likes of Israel and the USA (and even some representatives of the ‘oppressed people’) and presented as ‘studies’ and ‘analyses’ of the palestinian and Islamic terrorism respectively. What also amused me in this article, is that the commies did not seem to all have the same interpretation of what Marx or Lenin had said or written. Reminded me of the recent financial crash and how the economists of the various schools started having a go at each other, each claiming that they detain the right interpretation of capitalist or socialist theories of the distribution of wealth. Nearly a century has passed since the publication of this exchange of ideas, everything seems to have changed so much, and yet, in the end, nothing has really changed.

I include here some excerpts from the article which have reminded me of post-modern arguments we have all heard from politicians in the context of the various violent conflicts which are taking place in the world today. Take excerpt A for example: