From Latin America to the Arab World – What’s going on in Libya?
By Santiago Alba Rico & Alma Allende
March 3, 2011
Progressive Latin America, whose pioneering liberation processes constitute hope for world-wide anti-imperialism, ought to support the Arab world right now without reservation, moving beyond the strategy of the Western powers overtaken by events, as well as those that are providing an opportunity for Gaddafi’s return – perhaps militarily, but above all, propagandistically – as a champion of human rights and democracy. That discourse is hardly credible in this part of the world, where Fidel and Chávez enjoy enormous popular credit, but
if Latin America aligns itself, actively or passively, with the tyrant, the contagious popular advances that are already extending toward Europe, and have gone as far as Wisconsin, will not only see themselves irreparably halted but will also produce a new fracture in the anti-imperialist camp, so that the world’s ever vigilant timekeeper, the United States of America can seize advantage in order to recover lost ground. Something like this may already be occurring as a result of a combination of ignorance as well as schematic and summary anti-imperialism. The Arab people, who are returning to history’s stage, need the support of their Latin American brothers and sisters, but above all, it is the relationship between world powers that cannot allow for vacillation by Cuba and Venezuela without having Cuba and Venezuela also suffer the consequences, with Latin America and the hopes for transformation at a global level suffering along with them.
We might say that we know very little of what it happening in Libya and are suspicious about the condemnations coming from the Western media and institutional powers in recent days. We might leave it at that. The imperialists are more intelligent. With many specific interests in the area,
they have defended their dictators to the bitter end, but when they have understood that those dictators were unsustainable, they have let them fall and chosen another strategy: that of supporting controlled democratic processes, choosing and deploying post-modern minorities as a driving force for limited change, a new rainbow of democratic rhetoric, in the sure knowledge that memory is short and leftist reflections quite immediate. Any kind of Western interference must be opposed, but we don’t believe, truly, that NATO is going to invade Libya; it seems to us that this threat, just barely pointed out, has the effect of entangling and blurring the anti-imperialist camp, even to the point of making us forget something that we ought to know: who Gaddafi is. Forgetting this produces three terrible effects in the end: breaking the ties with the popular Arab movements, giving legitimacy to the accusations against Venezuela and Cuba, and granting new prestige to the very damaged imperialist discourse on democracy. All without a doubt, a triumph for imperialist interests in the region.
Over the past ten years, Gaddafi has been a great friend to the European Union and the United States, and its dictator allies in the region. We need only recall the inflammatory statements of support from the Libyan Caligula for the deposed Ben Alí, to whose militias he quite probably provided weapons and money in the days following January 14th. It’s sufficient as well to recall Gaddafi’s docile collaboration with the U.S. in the framework of the so-called “war on terrorism.” The political collaboration has been accompanied by close economic ties with the EU, including Spain: the sale of oil to Germany, Italy, France and the United States has paralleled the entry into Libya by the large Western oil companies (the Spanish Repsol, the British BP, the French Total, the Italian ENI and the Austrian OM), not to mention the juicy contracts for European and Spanish construction firms in Tripoli. Moreover, France and the U.S. have continued providing the weapons that are now killing Libyans from the air, following imperial Italy’s example from 1911. In 2008, the former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice made it quite clear: “Libya and the United States share permanent interests: cooperation in the fight against terrorism, trade, nuclear proliferation, Africa, human rights and democracy.”
The opportunity is great and possibly the last for a definitive reverse in the balance of forces and for isolating the imperialist powers within a new global framework. We ought not to fall into such a simple trap.
We ought not to underestimate the Arabs. No, they aren’t socialists, but in the last two months, in an unexpected way, they have stripped away the hypocrisy from the EU and the United States, have expressed their desire for authentic democracy, far removed from any colonial tutelage, and have opened a space for the left to thwart capitalism’s attempts to recover lost ground. It’s the Latin America of ALBA, of Che, and Playa Girón, whose prestige in this area remained intact until yesterday, that must support the process before the world’s timekeeper manages to turn the hands back and to its favor. The capitalist countries have “interests,” the socialist ones only “limits.” Many of these “interests” were with Gaddafi, but none of these “limits” have anything to do with him.
He is a criminal and moreover, a hindrance. Please, revolutionary comrades of Latin America, the revolutionary comrades of the Arab world are asking that you not support him.Read the full article at:
http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/6035
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