To: Detroit/Seattle
Workers' Voice mailing list
January 15, 2013
RE: MLk Day, Iran, and Ukraine
* About the article on what the people of the Global South think about the war in Ukraine
* Sub-imperialist positioning, not anti-colonial consciousness, is behind the neutrality of reactionary elites in the Global South, by Michael Karadjis
by Joseph Green, Detroit Workers’ Voice
One of the claims made by the opponents of Ukrainian resistance to the savage Russian invasion is that the Global South and the historic victims of colonialism oppose that resistance. The Australian activist Michael Karadjis has refuted this nonsense in an extensive and well-documented article that goes into great detail. This is important not just to encourage solidarity with the Ukrainian resistance, but to see the difference between the working people and the reactionary elites in various countries of the Global South. As well, the astonishing arguments given by the anti-Ukrainian section of the left bring out the depth of the world crisis of the anti-war movement and the radical left.
For one thing, the anti-Ukrainian section of the left identifies the stand of the working people in the Global South with the statements of their governments. They ignore that various of these governments bitterly oppress the working masses. This makes a mockery of support for revolutionary change or even basic defense of the working people.
It also means lying about what the working people around the world
really think. Since all polls have to be taken with a grain of salt, it
is hard to have solid figures on what the population believes. But
Karadjis shows that every indication is that there is a wave of support
for Ukrainian resistance around the world including in the Global
South. Support for the Russian government in the Global South has
fallen sharply since the invasion began on February 24th last year. The
apologists for Putin’s invasion are, in fact, seeking to reverse the
mass sentiment of working people around the world.
Of course, since China and India together comprise more than a third of
the world’s population, mindless propagandists simply add together
China and India with a couple of other countries to make a claim about
the views of the “majority” of the people in the Global South. But this
is sophistry, which writes off the actual opinion of people in China
and India, while also ignoring the views of people in other countries,
even when their peoples are rising in struggle against local
dictatorships.
Still, the anti-Ukrainian claims dominate various parts of the social media frequented by activists. This creates an inaccurate picture of what the working people, and many activists think. This is why the survey of world opinion by Karadjis is especially useful.
It is also notable that the left-wing opposition to Ukrainian resistance has no embarrassment at all in publicizing similar anti-Ukrainian stands by far right forces that are vicious enemies of the working masses. For example, it is not embarrassed to look for support from the right-wing fundamentalist government of Prime Minister Modi in India, or from the vicious Assad dictatorship in Syria, or from the reactionary theocrats ruling Iran. Indeed, it even embraces far right US imperialist forces. Thus the Stop the War Coalition in Britain pretends that it is opposed to Trump, but circulates a statement from Code Pink giving as one of reasons to oppose Ukrainian resistance that Kevin McCarthy and other Trumpist politicians also don’t care about it. (See point 3 of the the statement by Code Pink’s Medea Benjamin and Nicholas J.S. Davies. Thus the Stop the War Coalition seeks a common stand with the most racist, white nationalist section of US imperialism, thus seeking to lure the left into an alliance with the far right.
Similarly, failure to distinguish between the governments in the Global South and the people also paves the way for unity with reactionary elites and the far right. Karadjis shows how the repressive governments in the South include those which are themselves international exploiters. The article talks of “sub-imperialism”, and with this term, it goes into some detail about the imperialist features of various lesser and formerly colonized powers. This is important material, although I would think that it shows that the term “sub-imperialism” really should be taken simply as a subcategory of “imperialism”; Lenin, for instance, used the term “imperialism” to indicate not just a few great powers, but various lesser powers, and that would still be appropriate today. But terminology aside, the concrete description of these countries in the article shows what is really happening there.
There are excerpts from the article below, but the full article will reward careful reading, and it should be kept as a valuable reference for refuting the lies of the apologists of Russian imperialism. <>
by Michael Karadjis, January 13, 2023
Below are excerpts from the full article.
Time and time again, we have been told that ‘the Global South’ – ie, the developing world consisting largely of former colonies – does not support Ukraine’s resistance to Russia’s barbaric colonial invasion, or is even supportive of Russia. According to this rendition of reality, support for Ukraine is entirely a project of the imperial West, and this very fact is all the more reason that former colonies of western imperialist states do not want to be on the side of their former colonial masters.
Quite apart from the problematic mathematics involved – 140 countries voted to condemn the Russian invasion, the vast majority of which are in the Global South, and only 5 voted against – there is a more significant problem here: the conflation of ruling classes, governments and often dictatorships with the people of these countries, as if people being gunned down by some regime of exploiters would automatically have the same opinions as their oppressors, because they’re all ‘Global Southerners’. While such a boringly pedestrian assumption is normal in mainstream mass media and bourgeois political discourse, it ought to be second nature to anyone proclaiming some kind of socialist or even vaguely left or progressive ideology that such discourse is inconceivable nonsense. ...
Before we look at what people actually think, let’s first establish the facts regarding the votes of these countries and the views of the governments and ruling elites...
Like most myths, these assertions are based on bits and pieces of truths and half-truths. Both the UN General Assembly vote to condemn the Russian invasion in March, and the more recent one to condemn Russia’s outright theft of a fifth of Ukraine, were supported by over 140 countries and opposed by 5, while some 35 countries in each case abstained. Since nearly all the 30 or so ‘white’ nations of the Global North (European countries, North America, Australasia) voted to condemn, it means all of those who abstained were from the Global South – even if they were vastly outnumbered by the overwhelming majority of South countries who voted to condemn. Of the 5 who voted against both times, two were ‘white’ Global North countries – Russia and Belarus, of course – while 3 were from the South: Assad’s genocide-regime in Syria, which relies on Putin for its existence, the grotesque ‘Juche’ regime in North Korea, and, the first time, the extremely repressive dictatorship in Eritrea, and second time, Ortega’s turncoat regime in Nicaragua.
In other words, even just on this basis, we can say that, within the Global South, over 100 nations condemned the invasion and annexations, while three supported them.
However, it is also more complicated than that, because the reasons that countries vote in favour or abstain can have many dimensions; while, as we will see, some of those which abstained, such as Modi’s regime in India, did so because they actually sympathise with Moscow, many others may have had no such sympathy, but for diplomatic or economic reasons – associated with being relatively poor – felt they could not openly vote to condemn Russia, often due to some important economic relationship with Russia, or with China.
Meanwhile, the other core of truth is that it has only been western countries that have sent arms to Ukraine, and have activated economic sanctions on Russia, despite the overwhelming votes to condemn Russia’s invasion. However, this is hardly surprising for many reasons: the major arms suppliers (and producers) in any conflict are richer countries (western countries and Russia), and are wealthy enough to provide large quantities. It is also only countries of the Global North who can afford the pain to themselves of sanctions on a large country such as Russia, whereas in the South imposing sanctions would often mean impossible pain, especially given the importance of Russia in the global food, fertiliser and energy markets; while also endangering economic links and projects which they have built up with Russia, just as they have with the US and western countries; finally, the Ukraine war is in Europe, so it is logical that European nations have more of a direct stake than others, in the same way that African nations all opposed the Apartheid regime in South Africa and all Arab states give official support to Palestine.
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While, as we will see, some abstaining countries are simple Russian neo-colonies under forms of violent occupation (eg, Mali, Central African Republic), there is a bloc of relatively powerful states that either abstained on all votes (China, India, Iran, South Africa), abstained on some votes (Brazil, United Arab Emirates, both in Security Council votes), or officially voted to condemn to satisfy their Washington connections, but in practice have acted in every possible way to demonstrate the importance they place upon their ties with Moscow and lack of commitment to their votes (Israel, Saudi Arabia and to some extent Turkey).
With the exception of Turkey, which has supplied Bakhtiar drones to Ukraine, none of the other “US allies” in the Middle East (Israel, UAE, Saudis) have either helped supply Ukraine with arms, or imposed sanctions on Russia. ...
In Israel’s case, former (and again current) far-right leader Benjamin Netanyahu long cultivated close ties with Putin, so not surprisingly, his equally ultra-rightist successor, prime minister Naftali Bennett, was the first “world leader” to make a high level visit to Moscow to meet Putin soon after the invasion. Bennett’s first statement affirmed Ukraine’s right to sovereignty, but made no mention of Russia. ...
We often hear that, despite the numbers in the UN votes, “the majority of the world” abstained and hence refused to condemn Moscow, because between them, China and India, make up two fifths of the world, so when we add other large abstaining countries such as Iran and Pakistan, as well as Brazil which, despite voting to condemn, has rejected sanctions while Bolsonaro declared his “deep solidarity” with Russia in Moscow on the eve of the invasion, we are covering more than half the world’s population.
But that’s where the nonsense peaks: as the mullah regime in Iran guns down hundreds of women and young people demonstrating against tyranny in the streets every day, we are asked to assume that those being shot, tortured, brutally oppressed, have the same opinion on Ukraine as the regime killing them. ...
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The sheer idiocy of such assumptions should stare anyone in the face. That such class-free analysis could ever be considered by anyone claiming left-wing or socialist politics simply underlines the ideological bankruptcy of much of the Old Left (ie, the degeneration of what was once the ‘New Left’). ...
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... Of course, it is true that the western imperialist powers supporting Ukraine’s resistance to Russian occupation are hypocritical. None have the same view regarding Israel’s decades-long brutal and illegal most elementary human rights of the Palestinians. ...
The same goes for Russia’s previous actions: neither Putin’s slaughter of the Chechens, the horrific bombing of hospitals, schools, markets in Syria on behalf of Assad’s genocide regime, nor the 2014 annexation of Crimea, evoked the kind of reaction we see now in Ukraine.
Then there are conflicts in which huge numbers of people are killed, such as the two-year genocidal assault on Tigray by Ethiopia and Eritrea, killing 600,000 people, which both western governments and media treat with complete indifference. ...
In this sense we can say the Ukrainians are ‘lucky’ (if such a term can be used for a people being invaded and bombed) compared to others in terms of western support. Western powers act based on their own interests, just as Russia does, and this may rarely coincide with the interests of justice. It is not the fault of Ukrainian men, women and children getting bombed and killed in apartment blocks that the West is more supportive of them than of other struggles. They have a right to resist and to get aid from wherever its offered, as do all peoples fighting liberation and resistance wars.
But the argument that rejection of western hypocrisy is the reason for the ambivalent stance of many governments in the Global South is very problematic. Many of these ambivalent governments are violently oppressive, and don’t really care less about western hypocrisy or alleged ‘principles’; they are often leaders in hypocrisy themselves. In fact, often it is the very beneficiaries of western hypocrisy – such as those just mentioned above, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia – which either abstained, rejected western sanctions or otherwise carried out actions that benefited Russia in practice; they have good relations with both imperialist blocs. As for the contention that their stance is a reflection of ‘anti-imperialist’ views among the people they oppress, there is little or no correspondence with popular opinion as will be demonstrated below.
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The idea that the views and UN votes of the collection of thuggish reactionary regimes listed above represent the views of the people they oppress is unlikely by definition, at least for anyone who understands the concept of class analysis. What is the evidence of any correspondence between the policies of this minority of southern governments and the alleged “anti-colonial” views of their people, which are allegedly expressed via supporting Russia’s colonial invasion of Ukraine?
An interesting place to start may be Brazil; since both the outgoing, far-right Bolsonaro regime, and the incoming, soft-left, Lula administration, have been very partial to Putin and Russia’s viewpoint. Bolsonaro was always strongly allied to Putin (and to Trump), seeing both an ideological ally and an important trading partner. .... As for Lula, he criticised Russia’s invasion but claimed Ukraine was “as responsible” as Russia and had not tried enough to negotiate with the aggressor.
Yet, according to ‘Morning Consult’, “the share of Brazilian adults with a favorable view of Russia has plunged from 38% to 13% since the day before its Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine, while the share with an unfavorable view has surged from 28% to 59%.” Meanwhile, 62 percent of Brazilians say they side with Ukraine, compared to only 6 percent who side with Russia. What this suggests is quite the opposite of “pressure from the masses” – both Bolsonaro and Lula, with differing ideological emphases, represent the views of the sub-imperialist BRICS ruling elite and the way it positions itself in the world, not at all the views of the Brazilian masses.
There’s good reason to believe that this is the case throughout Latin America, “despite” (due to?) the strong anti-imperialist traditions throughout the region. ...
[The article then goes into a number of other countries - Southern Africa, Western and northern Africa, and India before proceeding to China.] ....
... It would be foolhardy to confuse the clear and assertive policy choices of a rising imperialist power [China] with some kind of ‘anti-colonial’ consciousness of ‘a fifth of the world’s population’. ...
...Unlike China, however, Iran has become more directly involved on Russia’s side in killing Ukrainian civilians with its supply of killer-drones to Russia.
Can Iran’s position be explained as a reflection of the “anti-imperialist consciousness” of the Iranian masses, due to decades of US bullying? In other words, does the position of the blood-drenched mullocracy “reflect” the views of ordinary Iranian people, such as the youth and women who have been out in the streets for months protesting the reactionary dictatorship, and who the regime has been gunning down and hanging? How likely is such an idea, at least to anyone with an inkling of class analysis?
Not much, it seems. [The article proceeds to analyze polls of Iranians.]
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Far from representing “popular anti-imperialist opinion,” Iran’s pro-Russia intervention is a high-risk strategy adopted by a sub-imperial power. Like Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt, Indonesia and Argentina, Iran is a BRICS candidate state, and it operates within this framework of sub-imperial rivalry. Iran hopes to swing Russia to its side in its shadow war with Israel in Syria; for years now, Russia, which operates Assad’s anti-aircraft system, has allowed Israel to bomb Iranian and Hezbollah positions as long as it avoids hitting the Syrian regime. Russia, for its part, in accepting Iranian drones, risks moving Israel to a pro-Ukrainian position.
Yet, to date, neither change has occurred ...
One country where we might expect the pervasive hypocrisy of western governments to be so overwhelming that a majority may adopt a pro-Russian position simply out of somewhat justified spite would be Palestine. While such a position would not be justified, it would be somewhat understandable and difficult for most of the world to criticise without further engaging in rank hypocrisy. It would be even more understandable given Ukrainian president Zelensky’s sickening pro-Israeli statements, which look all the more pathetic given Israel’s steadfast refusal to lend Ukraine a hand.
So when we read that in a poll conducted by the Palestinian Center for Public Opinion in April, the high figure of 32.3 percent of Palestinians believed Russia had a right to invade, we are perhaps not surprised. However, ... a greater number – 40.2% – believed that “Russia is waging an unjust war against its neighbour.” ... In other words although the Western governments ... condemn every act of justified Palestinian resistance to the illegal and barbaric Israeli occupation and instead arm Israel to the teeth and give diplomatic cover to even its most flagrant violations, still the humanity of Palestine’s anti-colonial struggle shines through strongly enough for the largest part of the population to identify with another victim of a similar war of colonial dispossession and extermination. Western leftists need to remember that Palestinians are people, not just their ‘project’; they are just as capable as other people of weighing complex issues. ...
[The article then goes into Ireland, and the stand of Sinn Fein in support of Ukrainian resistance to the Russian invasion. From there it passes on to overall considerations.]
The above relies on a somewhat eclectic variety of national or supranational surveys and it is difficult to vouch for the degree of validity and reliability without significantly deeper research. However, it is difficult to find any better tentative data, and certainly none at all that suggests any groundswell of support for Russia and its invasion, in the Global South of anywhere else. Despite their significant differences, every survey indicates that majorities around the world condemn the Russian invasion, are sympathetic to Ukraine and have a rather low opinion of Russia; they also all indicate quite strongly that, whatever the situation before 2022, approval of Russia and Putin has crashed everywhere in the world since the invasion.
This is also backed up by global surveys. ...
... Patrick Bond , Ana Garcia , Miguel Borba describe “sub-imperial” powers as “featuring the super-exploitation of their working classes, predatory relations regarding their hinterlands, and collaboration (although tensioned) with imperialism, especially as intermediaries in the transfer of both surplus labor values and ‘free gifts of nature’ (unequal ecological exchange) from South to North.” Bond cites John Smith that “dependent economies like Brazil seek to compensate for the drain of wealth to the imperialist centres by developing their own exploitative relationships with even more underdeveloped and peripheral neighbouring economies,” and David Harvey who notes that “each developing centre of capital accumulation sought out systematic spatio-temporal fixes for its own surplus capital by defining territorial spheres of influence.”
But by attempting to carve out such “territorial spheres of influence,” their collaboration with global imperialist powers will also be punctuated by bouts of competition, as their minor exploitative aspirations sometimes come into conflict with the exploitative needs of larger global powers. ....
It is not surprising that a moment of global crisis such as that
ushered in by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is precisely a perfect
moment for a large string of sub-imperial powers to assert themselves,
to position, to use the crisis to improve their bargaining position in
relation to US and European imperialism – even those often most often
considered “western allies” – and, at the same time, with now decrepit
Russian, and also globally ascendant Chinese, imperialism; a moment
when all are under pressure to do some kind of deal to get them onside.
<>
https://mkaradjis.com/2023/01/13/ukraine-war-sub-imperialist-positioning-not-anti-colonial-consciousness-behind-the-neutrality-of-reactionary-elites-in-the-global-south/<>
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