Roger X
& Emma Clancy
It must be a strange coincidence that PM John Howard feels the need to introduce laws that take away our rights to free speech and political dissent at the same time as his government is launching major attacks on the rights and living conditions of the Australian population.
Critics of the government's foreign policy have been targeted by the extension of the "sedition" laws — it is now "seditious" to support in any way organisations engaged in armed conflict with Australian "defence" forces. This could easily be interpreted to include anti-war activists who call for an end to Australian participation in the occupation of Iraq or declare their support for the right of the Iraqi people to resist it.
This criminalisation of dissent is intended to help facilitate the corporate drive for profit, and it is a process taking place not just in Australia, but around the world. The US is leading the global free-market drive to further exploit the people and resources of the Third World, which it backs up with military force.
Cuba's president Fidel Castro outlined the disastrous effects of this recently: "Hunger continues to be a daily reality for 852 million people while trillions of dollars are spent on weapons that will kill the hungry, not hunger. Debt service paid in 2004 was five times what the South received as official aid for development, and 13 million children continue to die every year from preventable diseases, while another trillion dollars is misspent on mind-numbing advertising."
This misery naturally fuels resistance among the exploited, which is why the US maintains 120 military bases in countries around the world. US author Thomas Friedman, a firm supporter of US imperialism, explained the link between free-market economic policies and militarism in his 1999 book The Lexus and the Olive Tree: "The hidden hand of the market will never work without the hidden fist. McDonald's cannot flourish without McDonnell-Douglas, the designer of the F-15, and the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley's technologies to flourish is called the US Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps." Third World countries that have natural resources that can be exploited or public infrastructure that can be sold off to private companies either have to follow the script or risk a military attack.
The invasion of Iraq, referred to by some as "globalisation at gunpoint", is the clearest example of the brutal nature of the capitalist system: it is estimated that more than 100,000 Iraqi people have died as a result of the US-led war and occupation. In its drive to secure Iraq's oil supply and to have an outpost of control in the strategically important Middle East, the US has used extreme violence and demonstrated a total disregard for human life.
Torture of detainees is widespread, and US military documents revealed in January that the wives of suspected resistance fighters have been kidnapped and jailed in an attempt to pressure their husbands to turn themselves in to the occupation forces. If anyone's still looking for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, they need only look to Fallujah, where an Iraqi investigation revealed that chemical weapons — including white phosphorous — were used by US forces against civilians.
However, the Iraqi people will not be beaten into submission and they continue to use demonstrations, civil disobedience and armed resistance to fight for their right to self-determination. In the US, the growing number of US casualties in Iraq (now more than 2000), and the perception that the war is unwinnable, are fuelling the movement to bring the troops home. Around the world, people are resisting the force of imperialism, nowhere more effectively than in Washington's "backyard", Latin America.
The nations of Latin America are waking up one by one, struggling to shake off the legacy of poverty and dependence, and to build a new society. Cuba, Venezuela, and now potentially Bolivia are leading this effort to unite Latin America in an anti-imperialist alliance based on solidarity. In Venezuela, the poor are leading the Bolivarian revolution, which is giving real power to the people and dramatically improving the quality of life for millions of people. Free education (including free transport, two free meals a day and free books), free health care and free food for the poor have all been introduced, and illiteracy has been eliminated.
The successes of this revolutionary process are inspiring people all around the world that an alternative to the capitalist system can be built, a society built on the principles of human solidarity and cooperation rather than consumerism and exploitation. A popular slogan among young revolutionaries in Venezuela is "A better world is possible — if it's socialist!"
As we move closer to social and environmental catastrophe, the struggle to break with the system of capitalism and build a democratic, socialist society — where decisions are made by the majority in the interests of all people rather than by a small elite with no vision for the future — grows more urgent by the day.
From Green Left Weekly, February 8, 2006.
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