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The consequences of 9/11
A world turned upside down
It is ten years since the twin towers came
crashing down in New York. In the aftermath of that terrorist attack, US
imperialism unleashed mass slaughter in Afghanistan and Iraq, leading
some to believe that an era of total domination by the world’s only
superpower had arrived. But today’s global economic crisis and US
impotence in the face of revolution in North Africa and the Middle East
has exposed the falsity of that view. PETER TAAFFE assesses the changed
world situation.
THE BLOODY TERRORIST outrages of 11 September 2001
in New York, Pennsylvania and Washington were one of the defining
moments in recent history. The deaths of thousands of people allowed
capitalist reaction – led by George W Bush and the now discredited
British prime minister of the time, Tony Blair – the excuse to initiate
a new era of terrible imperialist war and foster the poisonous fumes of
ethnic division and racism, directed particularly against those of the
Islamic faith. This resulted in a colossal number of deaths and
destruction which inflicted further untold misery and suffering on
millions of working people and the poor, particularly in the
neo-colonial world.
The Socialist Party, at the time and since,
unequivocally condemned al-Qa’ida, which was behind these attacks,
describing its methods as those "of small groups employing mass
terrorism". At the same time, we gave not a shadow of support to Bush or
Blair and the cacophony of the capitalist media calling for a worldwide
‘war against terrorism’. In reality, they used 9/11 to justify state
terror against defenceless and innocent people throughout the world,
symbolised by the torture chambers of Guantánamo Bay and the infamous
Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
However, this political standpoint was not shared
even by some socialist groups, who were equivocal and refused to condemn
these attacks. This was a profoundly mistaken approach which risked
alienating a majority of working-class people who were repelled by the
carnage in New York and Washington. Moreover, this opened up the
possibility of driving them into the arms of Bush and Blair in the war
preparations for invading Afghanistan and later Iraq.
Historically, Marxism has always opposed terroristic
methods. In Russia, Marxism was compelled from the outset to oppose
these methods in the struggle against the tsar’s brutal, dictatorial
regime. Marxists counterposed the mass struggles of the working class
which, by linking up with the peasants, particularly the poor rural
masses, was the only force that could lead a successful struggle against
tsarism. Not the assassination of even the most repressive government
ministers but mass action, the general strike, a mass uprising to
overthrow dictatorial regimes, could lay the basis for lasting success.
Leon Trotsky compared terrorism to capitalist
liberalism, but with bombs. This seems strange to us today. It is
inconceivable, for instance, that Nick Clegg, leader of the Liberal
Democrats in Britain and deputy prime minister, would be associated with
terroristic methods! But Trotsky’s idea remains valid. Liberals believe
that the removal of this or that minister or even a government can
introduce fundamental change. The terrorist has the same approach but
with violent methods. The replacement of a minister or government is
insufficient to bring about real social change. Would the removal of the
present government in Britain, for instance, and the coming to power of
Ed Miliband and his New Labour party fundamentally change the situation?
Merely to pose the question is to answer it. Because a Miliband
government would be rooted within the framework of capitalism there
would be no dramatic change, particularly in the social conditions of
the mass of the people.
Al-Qa’ida, however, was an entirely different kind
of terrorist outfit. Despite the attempts of some left groups to
prettify the image of Islamic terrorists, al-Qa’ida was rooted in the
doctrines of Wahhabism, a medieval version of Sunni Islam and the
dominant creed of the theocratic regime of Saudi Arabia. In the past,
terrorist groups which based themselves, at least in theory, on
furthering the social interests of the masses, engaged in the
assassination of particular reactionary figures, governments, etc. The
origins of al-Qa’ida, with its messianic non-class opposition to the
‘infidel’ and the ‘great Satan’, the US, meant that it was
indiscriminate in employing mass terror. Not only did it attack the US
and its allies, it also struck down innocent workers and the poor. This
was evident on 9/11 but also in its other terrorist acts before and
since.
The informed correspondent of The Independent,
Patrick Cockburn, pointed out: "One vicious aspect of al-Qa’ida
activities is under-reported in the western media: it has always killed
more Shia Muslims than it did Americans. The group was sectarian before
it was nationalist. The Shia were seen as heretics as worthy of death as
an American or British soldier. Again and again its suicide bombers
would target Shia day labourers as they waited for work in public
squares in the early morning in Baghdad, or massive bombs would be
detonated as Shia worshippers left their mosques". The same picture
emerges from Pakistan with the Taliban there (an offshoot of al-Qa’ida)
slaughtering Shia Muslims wherever they can be targeted.
Moreover, al-Qa’ida has been largely unsuccessful in
the past ten years in scoring any real success either against US
imperialism or its client regimes in the Middle East and North Africa.
The main group around Osama bin Laden was small, so its banner was
‘franchised’ to Islamic terrorist groups worldwide. The claim that it
was a kind of ‘Islamic Comintern’ was a wild exaggeration. The closest
that it came to organising substantial forces was in Afghanistan in the
Tora Bora mountains probably between 1996 and 2001.
Embracing mass struggle
IN THE MAGNIFICENT revolutions in the Middle East
and North Africa, beginning with Tunisia then Egypt, al-Qa’ida was of
little or no consequence. As we predicted – against many left-wing
groups, like the Socialist Workers Party in Britain, which adapted to
organisations based upon right-wing political Islam and exaggerated
their importance – youth and workers rejected the failed terrorist model
and embraced the methods of mass struggle. Mass occupations of the
public squares, strikes and demonstrations were the political weapons
for the Tunisian and Egyptian masses to overthrow Ben Ali and Mubarak.
True, the trigger for the Tunisian revolution was
the self-immolation of the street vendor, Mohamed Bouazizi. But this
individual act had nothing in common with the methods of indiscriminate
mass terror of suicide bombers that marks out al-Qa’ida. Moreover, the
conditions for revolution would have had to be prepared by the whole
preceding period for an accidental trigger to set in motion a mass
movement in Tunisia and Egypt, a feature of all real revolutions.
Where religion still retains a certain base and an
attraction to the masses, particularly in the neo-colonial world, it
partly arises from the conditions of dictatorship or in the
underdeveloped economic character of some countries with a large
agricultural population. In the Stalinist dictatorship in Poland before
1989, it was Catholicism through the churches which provided the means
of organising resistance on the part of Polish workers. Therefore, the
rising had a pronounced religious colouration. This did not lead them,
however, to draw pro-capitalist conclusions, in the first instance, from
their opposition to Stalinism. In 1980-81, the Solidarity movement, with
mass committees and participation, represented at bottom the movement
for political revolution to replace the undemocratic Stalinist state
structures. At the same time, it sought to retain the elements of a
planned economy, nationalisation, etc. In the Iranian revolution of
1979, we witnessed a form of ‘radical Islam’ which appealed to the
working class and poor for a time. It cannot be excluded that such
phenomena can rise again in the neo-colonial world.
In Egypt, initially, the masses were able to
concentrate their forces in opposition to the Mubarak regime around the
mosques and, to some extent, the underground independent trade unions.
But the Muslim Brotherhood was the only organisation which was allowed
to function in a semi-political fashion, and also as a charitable,
social self-help organisation. Naturally, therefore, for some sections
these are the organisations to which they first turned in the aftermath
of the overthrow of the Egyptian dictatorship. While Islamist groups and
parties exist in Tunisia they do not have, it seems, the same roots as
in Egypt at this stage. Post-Gadaffi Libya, on the other hand, could see
a fracturing of the country and the growth of Islamist groups. But it is
not clear that this will be the dominant trend. In Egypt, despite the
recent sizeable mobilisation of Islamists in Tahrir Square, they are by
no means guaranteed to win an absolute majority even in the hastily
organised early elections which would favour them. Moreover, it is not
certain that the Muslim Brotherhood will remain a cohesive, unified
force. There are splits, partly reflecting divisions of a class
character. There is talk of at least four different political parties
being formed from the Brotherhood.
At the same time, the forces opposed to right-wing
political Islam, secularists as well as socialists, are finding an echo
among newly politically aroused sections of the working class in Egypt,
Tunisia and throughout the region. Even in Yemen, which is "widely
assumed to have bought into the al-Qa’ida franchise" (The Guardian), the
February uprising led to the creation of revolutionary committees where
discussion raged about non-sectarian strategies for change. Everywhere
in the Middle East and North Africa the initial impulse in the
revolutions was for a non-sectarian approach with a clear direction
towards class conclusions on the part of the masses. In the unspeakable
social conditions in Yemen, a country of seven million people where one
third of the population is deemed to be ‘food insecure’ and 10% are
malnourished, it will take more than religion to satisfy the demands of
the masses.
Liberated from the yoke of dictatorship, they have
poured onto the political arena and, as the example of Egypt shows, will
be not silenced by the edicts of the discredited military elite. They
will push on to advance their demands for drastically improved living
conditions, democratic rights, trade union organisation, etc. The vital
ingredient which is missing to guarantee success in the struggle is the
existence of mass organisations, of powerful trade unions and
independent working-class parties. But the convulsive movements
experienced and even greater ones to come will be great teachers of the
masses that only through their own independent banner will they be able
to conquer a position where they can begin to realise their aspirations
for jobs, shelter and tolerable living standards.
Al-Qa’ida’s dead end
ONE OF THE big impulses for the revolution – and the
factor which allowed the Committee for a Workers’ International (CWI) to
expect a movement to overthrow Mubarak which we outlined last year – was
the worsening social conditions throughout the region, particularly the
spectacular increase in mass unemployment. This in turn arose from the
deepening of the world economic crisis of capitalism. This was
accompanied by a deterioration in the food supply and the mass import of
grain into the region that, historically, was the very cradle of
civilisation and the foundation of human agriculture in the fertile arc
between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Nothing could better illustrate
the destructive character of modern landlordism and capitalism and their
incapacity to deliver the basics of life to the workers and peasants
throughout the region.
One thing is absolutely clear: al-Qa’ida and
right-wing political Islam have nothing to offer in concrete terms
either for the struggle or the realisation of the aims of the masses in
this region. Not just in North Africa and the Middle East but also in
Pakistan and Afghanistan, al-Qa’ida’s methods represent a political
dead-end. The assassination of bin Laden in July was a non-event for the
mass of Pakistanis. When he was murdered on the orders of US
imperialism, his organisation was effectively already politically dead.
However, the danger of terrorism and terroristic
ideas attracting alienated sections of society, including young people
and even some working-class youth, is not restricted to the neo-colonial
world. As the example of the Red Brigades in Italy in the 1970s and
1980s showed, if the working class and its organisations fail to seize
the initiative for change, desperate people can seek the short cut of
terrorism. The conditions facing the working class today, particularly
the youth, are immeasurably worse. It is therefore necessary to examine
and counter terroristic methods from a Marxist point of view in order to
avert many potentially good socialist forces going down this cul-de-sac.
The attack on the twin towers and the Pentagon ten
years ago was the most spectacular terrorist act in history. It was
also, from the standpoint of al-Qa’ida, the most ‘cost-effective’, at a
price of less than $500,000 to stage, a mere bagatelle for the scion of
the rich Saudi Arabian bin Laden family. At the same time, it humiliated
the seemingly all-powerful and multi-billion dollar financed security
apparatus of US imperialism. But al-Qa’ida has failed in the decade
which has elapsed to realise its aims in defeating American imperialism
and the regimes that support it in the ‘land of Islam’, the Middle East
and North Africa. At the same time, it enabled imperialism to mobilise
through the so-called ‘war on terror’ and all the reactionary
implications that flowed from this.
It allowed imperialism, particularly the US, to
strengthen its military prowess, which then mobilised for militarily
intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq with bloody consequences for the
masses there and everywhere. Robert Harris commented: "The smoke from
the twin towers still lingers over the planet. It feels as if we live in
a darker, more paranoid, less optimistic era than we did in the 1990s
when the cold war was over and the ‘clash of civilisations’ had yet to
begin. America has never fully recovered: nor has the west". (Sunday
Times, 14 August 2011)
Imperialist hubris
BUT THE WORLD balance of forces which was decisively
weighted in favour of American imperialism has undergone a profound
change. US imperialism was initially strengthened by 9/11 as its
representatives arrogantly asserted its dominance. In 2001, it was still
the main economic and military power on the globe. Its ambition to
achieve ‘military full spectrum dominance’ was implemented in the wake
of 9/11. Subsequently, the US spent almost as much as the rest of the
world put together on fiendish weapons, including those of mass
destruction.
This was accompanied by the facile doctrine of the
‘war against terror’. Then US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, said
that this would last for at least 50 years! It has not lasted for ten
years, as we predicted, utterly discredited even among the bourgeois.
Nevertheless, under this umbrella a massive assault was launched on the
democratic rights of people in the US and elsewhere.
The capitalist media in the US and elsewhere debased
themselves even more than usual in lining up behind the Bush regime.
This laid the basis for imperialist intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq
under the hypocritical heading of ‘liberal military intervention’. The
US right had dreamed of reversing the ‘Vietnam syndrome’, and were given
the opportunity by 9/11. This is one further aspect of the reactionary
implications of terrorism: it strengthens the hand of the state in
repressing and undermining democratic rights, including those of the
working class and the labour movement. Even the recent, largely
spontaneous riots in Britain have been used by the government to move
the political pendulum to the right with increased threats of
repression.
Well in advance of the wars that took place, the CWI
indicated that both Afghanistan and Iraq were likely to be invaded.
However, we countered the inevitable fears and disappointment, if not
bleak pessimism, which pervaded the labour movement in particular. Soon
after the attacks of 9/11 we wrote: "September 11, as we have seen, has
clearly opened up a new phase for the world and for capitalism. Despite
the boasts of Bush and his junior partners, such as Blair, this does not
mean a successful, triumphalist period for imperialism. The ‘victories’
which have been gained are shot through with contradictions. Certainly
the US colossus bestrides the world like at no other time in history.
But at the same time it has built into its foundations all the explosive
material of world capitalism". (Post 11
September, Can US Imperialism Be Challenged? – September 2002)
US imperialism has indeed experienced massive
changes which have left all the doctrines of Bush and his
neo-conservative supporters in the dust. Who now can speak of a US
president playing the role of a modern ‘Caesar’, as was the case after
9/11? Barack Obama was a bystander, incapable of intervening in the
first stages of the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions. Only with the
assistance of the counter-revolutionary theocratic regimes in Saudi
Arabia, Bahrain and elsewhere, alongside Nato’s Libyan intervention, has
US imperialism managed to gain a very tentative handle on the situation
in the Middle East and North Africa.
In Syria, it has only been after a protracted period
of upheaval that Obama felt able to intervene against Bashar al-Assad
with the threat of economic sanctions if he does not vacate the scene.
As with all the pro-capitalist forces in the region, however, Obama is
terrified of what would follow if Assad is overthrown. This does not
seem to be posed immediately, with Assad’s regime still retaining a
basis of support in key areas, such as Damascus and Aleppo.
But Assad’s demise could lead to a ‘disorderly’
disintegration of the country and its fracturing along ethnic and
religious lines. This could have immediate repercussions, with Israel,
for instance, acting to secure its position if upheavals in Syria affect
territories it controls, such as the Golan Heights. Turkey is even
threatening military intervention to preserve ‘stability’. This means it
will act if it deems it likely that the Kurdish population of Syria,
free from Assad’s control, could reinforce the opposition of the Kurds
in Turkey to the Erdoğan government.
In this situation, the intervention of US imperialism largely takes the
form of words. This led Independent writer Robert Fisk to comment:
"Obama roars. World trembles. If only".
Imperialism’s terrible legacy
THIS UNDERLINES THE fact that US imperialism, while
still an economic and military giant, no longer possesses the power to
impose its will worldwide as appeared to be the case in the aftermath of
9/11. It is hemmed in by its economic weaknesses, symbolised by the
yawning budget deficit, which is partly a consequence of the imperialist
rampages in Afghanistan and Iraq. A colossal $3 trillion has been
squandered in the catastrophe of US intervention in Iraq and
Afghanistan. This is the equivalent of about one fifth of the total
annual GDP of the US. Much worse is the murderous toll: at least 600,000
innocent Iraqi civilians perished, as well as the troops of the
‘coalition of the willing’, who died in unwinnable wars in those
countries.
And what is the balance sheet of these
interventions? The Taliban remains undefeated. Even worse, its poisonous
influence as a consequence of the war in Afghanistan compounds the
situation of the Pakistani masses, already mired in deepening poverty
and the sheer despair which pervades the major areas and cities of that
country.
The Afghan puppet of Britain and the US, Hamid
Karzai – ‘the mayor of Kabul’ – is increasingly besieged and could be
overthrown if imperialist support and bayonets are withdrawn, as is
likely to be the case. The recent assassinations of his brother and
other pillars of the regime indicate how the Taliban are able to
penetrate the very heart of the capital and just how fragile is the
present Afghani state. Moreover, imperialism is engaged in negotiations
with the Taliban – likened by David Cameron, British prime minister, to
the ‘peace process’ in Northern Ireland. This underlines what we have
said from the outset: the war is unwinnable.
In effect, imperialism is about to ‘declare victory
and withdraw’, probably using the screen of a ‘coalition’ government
involving the Taliban, or sections of them, and some remnants of the
present regime. At the same time, it may well continue to pour resources
into building up the so-called ‘Afghan army’ while maintaining military
bases in the area. A similar scenario exists for Iraq. Again as we
predicted, a terrible legacy has been bequeathed to the Iraqi people by
US and British imperialist military intervention. US forces are
preparing to ‘withdraw’, having helped to lay waste Iraq and not solving
– in effect, reinforcing – all the problems of poverty, the breakdown of
basic services and utilities and, above all, ethnic and sectarian
divisions.
Nevertheless, in the splendid, primarily workers’,
movement this year of all ethnic groups, the Iraqi working class is
beginning to re-emerge from the catastrophe. This development also
reinforces our arguments against imperialist intervention to overthrow
Saddam Hussein. There were some allegedly on the left – particularly
Iraqi exiles – who argued that only outside military intervention could
remove Saddam. We pointed to the potential of the Iraqi working class
but our arguments were dismissed with claims that ‘the Iraqi people are
in chains, incapable of taking action themselves’, and ‘the impulse to
remove Saddam must come from outside’. Many looked to the bitterest
opponents of the working class, the capitalists and imperialists, to do
the job which only an independent movement of the working class is
capable of fulfilling.
Our arguments were borne out in the magnificent
independent movements of the masses which rose and split the army in
Egypt and Tunisia. Moreover, the development of the working class and
its independent organisations, even in poverty-stricken societies such
as Afghanistan and Iraq, will proceed in the next period. The trend
towards non-sectarian movements in all the upheavals we have witnessed
can also develop on a regional scale. No country, even the strongest, is
viable by itself, particularly from an economic point of view. Only by
combining the resources of the peoples in a socialist confederation,
with full autonomy and democratic rights for all the nationalities and
ethnic groups, including the recognition of language rights and of
religious minorities, can the peoples of this region emerge from the
nightmare which already confronts them on the basis of capitalism.
A unipolar world no longer
IN THE IMMEDIATE period after 9/11, US imperialism
was able to impose its will, within limits, because there were no rival
powers within touching distance. During the cold war, the only rival to
US imperialism was Stalinist Russia. Its astonishing economic collapse,
following the demise of the ‘Soviet Union’ and the remnants of the
Stalinist planned economy, has enfeebled this former economic and
political giant.
That world situation and the unipolar position of
the US following 9/11 no longer exists, particularly given the rise of
China, which is estimated to overtake the US in the next decade, at
least in gross economic wealth and production although not in living
standards. China, resting on its new economic power, increasingly
challenges US imperialism even in the military, diplomatic and
geopolitical spheres. This was dramatically demonstrated recently with
the launch of China’s first aircraft carrier, clearly meant for use in
the Pacific, in particular, as a counter to the still dominant US navy.
At the same time, it launched its own stealth bomber and its warplanes
chased US reconnaissance aircraft out of Chinese airspace between China
and Taiwan.
Unlike ten years ago, it has been brought home to
the strategists of US capitalism that it can no longer pursue its policy
of ‘guns and butter’. In the 1990s, the US share of world defence
spending appeared to be steady and sustainable. This was largely because
the US share of global GDP was roughly unchanged over the decade. In the
first decade of this century, however, the US share declined and its
huge defence burden is no longer sustainable. But, because of the
enormously wasteful interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq and elsewhere,
its share of world defence spending actually increased from 36% to 42%.
This now compels Obama’s administration to outline cuts in defence
expenditure of an estimated $800 billion.
Predictably, this has provoked the ire of the
military-industrial complex and its representatives in Congress who are
quite prepared for savage cuts in social expenditure to maintain their
illusions of US imperial grandeur. But, given the weakening of the
economic foundations of US capitalism, it cannot sustain this without
even greater attacks on the living standards of the working and middle
classes. This will mean that the US, while being frustrated on the
international plane, will also experience within its own borders the
same outbreak of ferocious class struggle – with specifically American
characteristics of speed and determination by the working class – as has
Europe recently.
Therefore, rather than the triumphalist new era of
strengthening and burgeoning capitalism, which its strategists fully
expected following 9/11, exactly the opposite is the case ten years
later. Torn by contradictions, facing its greatest crisis economically
since the 1930s, capitalism in the US and globally faces an impasse.
Capitalism is already a failed system. The recent World Bank Development
Report estimates that a quarter of the world’s population now lives in
countries grievously damaged by cycles of political and criminal
violence. Martin Wolf in the Financial Times calmly stated: "The
political and the criminal are closely connected". Mexico and the ‘Mad
Max’ scenario which it symbolises indicate this.
Capitalists’ crumbling confidence
ONE OF THE worst consequences of 9/11 was that it
allowed capitalism, particularly the far-right, to stigmatise all
Muslims as open or concealed supporters of al-Qa’ida terrorism, which
was not and is not the case. As with the conflict in Northern Ireland,
when completely innocent people were arrested and jailed, so Muslims
have been arrested and imprisoned. Divisions and suspicions, which
already existed between those from an immigrant background and other
workers, have widened. This has been reinforced by Cameron with his
criticism of ‘multiculturalism’, a barely concealed attack on
immigrants. Capitalist politicians in Europe – including Angela Merkel
in Germany and Nicolas Sarkozy in France – play the same tune.
Yet, in the aftermath of the recent riots in Britain
and the mowing down of three Asian youth in Birmingham, a
‘multicultural’ approach was adopted by Asian, black and white people.
This was largely due to the magnificent initiative of the father of one
of the dead young men. This provided an opportunity for the labour
movement to step in and give this instinctive coming together a class
expression. This happened in Northern Ireland in 1969 when shop stewards
in Belfast took the initiative to form ‘peace committees’ of Protestant
and Catholic workers. Unfortunately, the labour movement did not act
accordingly in Birmingham and religious organisations were allowed to
step in. Only a class approach emphasising the interests of all workers,
can sustain the mood and movement.
Unless a new workers’ and socialist road is opened
up, the poisonous influence of the far-right can grow, sometimes
resulting in maniacs, such as Anders Breivik in Norway, seeking to
murder innocent people in the name of an alleged ‘war against Islam’.
This creature was just a mirror image in employing the same fascistic
methods as the right-wing political Islam typified by al-Qa’ida.
Humankind is being plunged into worsening
conditions, environmental disaster, and the destruction of all the hopes
of the future by shattering the prospects of young people. The situation
was summed up by Max Hastings, recounting a discussion with a banker
about the governor of the Bank of England’s projection that Britain was
facing ‘seven lean years’. Hastings and the banker concluded, however,
that this may have been too modest an estimate: it could be ‘70 lean
years’! Of course, no-one can give an accurate timeframe of how long
this crisis can last. But one thing is clear: the spokespersons of
capitalism themselves have no confidence in the system. The capitalists
demonstrate this by their refusal to invest the surplus extracted from
the labour of the working class back into production. This is why $2
trillion dollars are lying idle in the vaults of the big companies in
America and why £60 billion is also hoarded by British companies. There
is no ‘profitable outlet’ so they do not invest, unemployment climbs,
poverty spirals upwards and the working class can go to hell in a
wheelbarrow.
If not consciously as yet, the mass of the working
class and poor are instinctively, by their actions, rejecting the
system. They have not yet managed to overcome the legacy of the last 20
to 30 years of neo-liberal capitalism and its ideological campaign to
bolster its system. But, socially, the masses worldwide are swinging
towards the left. Politics will inevitably catch up with the mood,
unless capitalism can find a way out of its present impasse. Even the
stewards of this system, in governments, parliaments, think-tanks – the
modern monasteries of capitalism – hold out little hope of their system
being rescued soon. This is furnishing the basis for dramatic and
convulsive revolutionary upheavals, which will enormously widen the
audience for socialist and Marxist ideas, and mass parties which will be
built on this foundation.
The real lesson of 9/11 is that neither imperialism
nor its mirror image, Islamic terrorism – or any form of terrorism –
offer any way forward for the working class and humankind. It is the
liberating and democratic ideas of socialism which point the way to the
future. |