A Militarily Resurging Russia

A militarily resurging Russia is now clearly visible.

And, a difficult US position is also seeable. The Syria case is not the latest development. Further developments follow it.

A recent comment by a responsible Russian official is the latest show of an assertive Russia.

Dmitry Rogozin, Russian deputy prime minister, warned on December 11, 2013 that Russia will use nuclear weapons if it comes under an attack. “One should keep in mind that if there is an attack against us, we will certainly resort to using nuclear weapons in certain situations to defend our territory and state interests”, said Rogozin at the State Duma. He said: “We have never diminished the importance of nuclear weapons – the weapon of requital – as the great balancer of chances.”

Rogozin, in charge of the armaments industry, went further: Russia’s Fund of Perspective Researches will develop a military response to the American Conventional Prompt Global Strike (PGS) strategy.

It is told that the PGS is the “main strategy” the Pentagon is nurturing. It will allow the US to strike targets anywhere on the world, with conventional weapons within an hour.

The Russian assertive tone is clear in Rogozin’s voice. It’s not without base.

Moscow’s military moves simply in one region – the Arctic – tells a lot.

The Arctic holding vast untapped oil and gas reserves is the new area of competition. The region is gradually turning into a center of disputes between Canada, Denmark, Norway, Russia and the US. Intensity of disputes, it can be assumed, will increase there.

Russia has made claims on a number of Arctic shelf areas and is planning to defend its bid at the UN. To Russia, the Arctic is a region of significance.

In December 2012, Rogozin said Russia risks losing its sovereignty by the mid-21st century if it does not assert its national interests in the Arctic today. “If we don’t do that we will lose the battle for resources and therefore will lose the big battle for the right to have our own sovereignty and independence.” He warned that toward the mid-21st century the struggle for natural resources will begin to turn “utterly uncivilized forms”.

Russian military officials already have warned against the danger of NATO warships’ presence in the northern seas in proximity to Russian borders. The NATO warships, it has been reported, move through the Northern Sea Route.

Probably this prompted Putin to issue an order in early-December 2013 to boost military presence in the Arctic and complete the development of military infrastructure in the region. He said Russia should have all means for protection of its security and national interests in the region.

With Russian military ships including nuclear-powered guided-missile cruiser in the eastern part of the Laptev Sea, Russia now has a permanent military presence there. “We arrived there or – more accurately – we have returned there forever,” said Arkady Bakhin, Russia’s deputy defense minister.

Russian airborne assault forces and military transport aviation units have conducted an exercise in the Arctic.

Russia has already started deploying aerospace defense units and constructing an early missile warning radar system near Vorkuta, a far-northern town. The Temp military airfield on the New Siberian Islands is also being renovated.

Moscow plans to deploy a combined-arms force in the Arctic in 2014. Goal of this plan is to protect its political and economic interests in the Arctic.

The plan includes reopening of airfields and ports on the New Siberian Islands and the Franz Josef Land archipelago. At least seven military airfields on the continental part of the Arctic Circle will be restored. There is a plan to upgrade and open a round-the-year functioning military airfield on the Novossibirsk Islands. A number of Russia’s air units will start returning to abandoned Arctic airfields. Two arctic brigades in Murmansk or Arkhangelsk will be stationed by Russia.

Putin has also ordered the development of the navy, first of all, in the Far East and Arctic zones.

In other areas, the emerging scene also signals a militarily assertive Russia.

Russia is strengthening its integrated regional air defense network, part of the integrated air defense network of the Commonwealth of Independent States, with Belarus and has set up similar networks with Armenia and Kazakhstan. Moscow is assisting Yerevan to modernize and expand its air force.

The air defense networks “contributes to strengthening peace and stability in Eurasia”, said Putin.

Russia plans to set up regional air defense networks with members of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, a regional security bloc that also includes Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

The resurging military power is delivering S-300 surface-to-air missiles to Belarus. Earlier, Tor-M2 air defense batteries have been deployed in the country.

Within home, Russia’s defense and armament plans are vigorous also as the country is increasing its defense spending. By 2016, it will be increased by about two-thirds. Kremlin plans to increase annual spending on nuclear weapons by more than 50 percent in the next three years.

Moscow’s arms procurement plan for 2014 will find more than 40 of the newest ICBMs, 210 aircraft, and more than 250 armored vehicles. In 2014, Russia will continue deployment of the new ICBMs including 22 land-based ICBMs to the Strategic Missile Forces, tactical ballistic missile to the ground forces, and two new ballistic missile submarines.

Putin said the number of contract servicemen in the Russian armed forces should be annually increased by no less than 50,000 persons.

A comparison between this fact and the number of combat ready units of the superpower and the problem the UK is facing regarding manpower in its armed forces will help perceive a changing reality.

In October, the militarily resurging country successfully test-fired nuclear-capable ballistic missile RS-12M Topol. Moscow now houses 326 ICBMs with approximately 1,050 warheads.

One can easily perceive economic force as more powerful than the force of gun although there are experts, who only count aircraft carriers and canons.

Russia is organizing the Eurasian Customs Union (ECU), its own economic bloc with former Soviet states, a rival to the EU. Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia established ECU in 2010.

There is plan to expand the ECU as a Eurasian Union, an economic-political union of former USSR, which will include Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan. The Eurasian Union could also include Bulgaria, Cuba, Finland, Hungary, Mongolia, the Czech Republic, Venezuela and Vietnam.

Armenia has decided to join the ECU. The Caucasus country has also decided to engage in the Eurasian integration process instead of negotiating a free trade agreement with the EU.

Ukraine and Moldova cases are no less interesting if one looks at these in the perspective of this integration initiative.

The Middle East is witnessing increased Russian presence. There are signs showing increased Russian military presence in the region in future.

Reality in Moscow’s opposite pole is significant.

Washington is experiencing results of its “wise” policy regarding Egypt, which is not a happy one. In future, a Russian military presence in Egypt will not be surprising.

Washington’s Saudi ally is making moves troubling for.

Tel Aviv’s playing with Moscow card is also important.

One can imagine Washington’s gaining a bitter fruit in future from its Al Qaeda ally in Syria.

These will bolster Moscow’s position.

“Backyard” of the superpower is now a treasure of dramatic political events. The Chicago Boys failed to dream these as the Latin American people, like people in other continents, are not cowed down. Moreover, the Latin American people are building up their organizations through long bloody years and after. All of these organizations are not full of stupid, and all of these organizations are not for sale in market. The Latin American people are identifying leadership engaged in chattering, and teaching lessons to that leadership, and trying to get hold on leadership. This internal development reacts in the area of geopolitics.

It’s not now easy to reenact the Bay of Pigs or the Grenada invasion. United Latin America reaction to the Assange-Ecuador London embassy and the Evo-plane-European “civility”, or flagrant aggression, incidents are only two examples.

More powerful, fundamentally, is people, and winning over the Latin American people-mind is now a daydream for forces of status quo. Allies of superpower are having a difficult time there as they are getting exposed. Lackeys in all lands get exposed over time. Over the last decades, the Latin American people have gained experience and are getting organized.

Russian military plane recently made a journey to Venezuela. It was a long journey – from Russia. Venezuela-Russia military exercise is now a regular event. There are other military related growths in the region also.

Nixon’s playing of China card is now part of history as the two former Red countries are not engaged in immediate rivalry, are closer, are having huge amount of trade and initiating gigantic energy cooperation, have resolved border disputes, are united in common strategy, BRICS and Shanghai initiative, and are governed by common ideology – market ideology.

South Asia shows another picture.

In mid-December, Hamid Karzai, Afghan president, said in New Delhi he no longer “trusts” the US. “I don’t trust them”, said Karzai. He accused the Americans of saying one thing and doing another in the war-torn country.

Karzai’s other pronouncements were not also less dramatic. He warned against “intimidation” on security pact, the Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA), related to US troops stay in the country. He said the US was indulging in brinkmanship over security deal. He told pact with the US would not be signed unless his demands were met.

Karzai’s utterances, no doubt, make the superpower angry. But, what can be done? Power has limits, and the limits are imposed by reality, and reality belies imagination. Who imagined Karzai’s tone of anguish about his protector while he was flown from Washington DC?

Within the broader society in Pakistan, especially within its enlightened part, significant developments are trying to gain ground.

On Afghan issue, the US now, in many extents, relies on India. It has to. In the entire south Asia region, from Myanmar to Afghanistan, the superpower needs India. The sole-superpower-days are waning. Its ally on the other side of the Atlantic is also not that much powerful. To many, the UK appears a bit less than a superpower. To some, the UK is the superpower of yesterday.

In the south Asia region, now it appears, brushing aside Indian position is not an easy job. Geopolitical developments in the region, and the present state of India – economy, military power, scientific and technological capacity, etc. – have created the condition.

The incident related to the Indian diplomat has shown the stand the Indian people takes. It’s difficult for the Indian establishment to not consider the public-factor. Washington has already shown its limits, breach within.

These developments will help Russia as parts of the south Asian societies will consider playing Russia card, go closer to BRICS, and the Shanghai initiative. South Asian countries may look for space based on these developments and may have plans in their pockets for ignoring bullying tact by the superpower.

We The People

People survive. People survive surmounting all obstacles, and people survive foiling all conspiracies hatched against them, and people survive defeating all aggressive powers.

It’s people who define their route of struggle, chart their road to victory, delimit their sovereign sphere, proclaim their sovereign rights, and restore their rights in sovereign space around life. People’s sovereign space and practice is a part of democracy, heart of politics.

But what happens when people find their “friends” are not their friends, their “leaders” are not their leaders, their “organizations” are not their organizations? What happens when people find their organizations are being sabotaged as part of a plan to defeat them, their organizations fail to foil sabotages activated against their organizations, their leaders fail to foresee, their organizations tail behind and fail to take initiative? What happens when people are demobilized and depoliticized?

These are crucial questions in the life of people. And, people’s life provides the answers to the questions.

Roman slaves found the answer: Spartacus. The Palestinian people found the answer: Arafat. The people of apartheid ruled South Africa had their answer: Mandela. The Venezuelan people organized the answer in their Bolivarian way: Chavez. The Cuban people created the answer: Fidel.

It’s not the persons, the individual leaders that created sovereign space of people. Its people that create sovereign space, and standing on this sovereign space people give legitimacy. A historic-socio-economic perspective produced and developed the leaders, the collective leadership, the movement the leadership developed and guided.

All these perspectives, the Roman society, the state of Palestinian people’s struggle prior to the emergence of Arafat, the Venezuelan society controlled by thuggish upper echelon drunk with oil money that overwhelmed the entire society with clientele culture, are completely different from one another. And, Spartacus comes from another historical era.

However, in all the cases, it was contradictions that developed the leadership and organizations casting off chattering, old style, etc. Mandela and his friends had to make an arduous effort to shape ANC, African National Congress. Arafat had to face series of bloody fights in Jordan and Syria, conspiracy, subversion and adventurism. Fidel’s charting of course was a lone effort having no help from traditional leadership.

In all the cases, the new leadership was farsighted, not less competent than their adversaries. Otherwise, they could not have organized their struggles.

In all the cases, moral standing was higher than their adversaries. These made them credible and acceptable to their constituencies. In reverse term, their adversaries lost credibility and acceptability. This gain-loss process is slow and long.

In all the cases, the emerging leadership stood for honor and dignity, and for love for life. Hatred was not guiding them. Serving, not dictating people was their motto.

With this leadership, people gained primary space – resurrecting sense of honor and dignity, visualizing goal, questioning around, getting organized in effective way, shedding practice and culture decadent social forces imposed and overwhelmed with, getting rid of clichés, initiating with realistic approach.

These facilitated claiming people’s sovereign space – struggle to shape a dignified, peaceful, prosperous life. Their passive attitude to their sovereign space moved to the stage of actively making claims to their sovereign space.

Despite intermissions of adventurism and missteps the entire approach of these peoples was constructive, positive. There was no place for hatred. Love for humanity, all life and nature led the initiatives.

These shook off clacking, promises without the tinniest grain of sincerity, proclamations entirely hollow, observations without scientific investigation, sweeping remarks, indiscipline, isolation from constituency, showmanship, theatrical heroism. Imagine an undisciplined slave army confronting a Roman army! Slave army defeated “valiant” Roman army in a number of battles. That slave army was disciplined, and all its members meant participation, meaningful participation.

Brutalized space

People lose ground in an opposite situation, where mainstream politics shamelessly throws away all its glittering clothes and denudes its heart: politics-commercialized, politics-terrorized. People’s inalienable rights and sovereign space get lost. Even their political opportunities, in most cases only tiny fragments, gradually begin to wither away. Their democratic rights to life, honor and prospects for prosperity are snatched away, which is manifested in indignity, engineered disunity, craftily promoted and fed illogic, dominance of hoodlum controlled organizations, ascendancy of backward ideas, and lost land, wage, security and peace. A decadent culture facilitating and strengthening dominance of backward concepts and practices occupies people’s cultural space.

In a brutalized situation, people feel betrayed and turn apathetic, and political participation gradually takes a diminishing downturn, a dangerous turn of time that provides dominating forces tighten its grip on people’s entire life, which includes their organizations also. It’s, the imposed condition, like treating people as animal, like considering them as sub-human, and the imposition is made by dominating forces, the consideration is made by forces monopolizing power.

To people, only sounds and no work by those claiming leadership then turns synonymous to betrayal as violence, in its many forms and manifestations, by all or part of forces of status quo ransack people’s life and peace. People then withdraw trust from the high-sounding leadership.

In such a situation, a situation brutalized and overwhelmed with inactivity, a blabbering leadership finds organizing people difficult, sometimes impossible, but it finds no time to search its soul and method. It’s shallow and incomplete if there is any soul searching.

Should it be capitalocracy?

Democracy isn’t universal. It’s either, in the present world system, capital’s democracy or people’s democracy.
Capital’s democracy, irrespective of, fashionably coined, liberal or illiberal, upholds interests of dominating capital. Its arbitrary character, its, where and when necessary, secretive working, its power to hide its workings out of citizens’ sight and supervision, its manipulation with the political system make it nothing but capitalocracy.

Recent developments in the advanced capitalist democracies provide evidences. The reality is crude and coarse if a serious search is made about capitalist democracies in the periphery of the world system. It’s an uncouth reign of capital. Contemporary examples are abundant there in the entire system, where elected government exercises its power trampling primary requirements of democracy, and doesn’t even hesitate to throw away bare minimum flimsy cover of civility, and mainstream politics takes away all of the sovereign space people possess.

Democracies are now considered by mainstream on a yardstick of illiberal and liberal despite all the facts that emerge from contemporary democratic reality in advanced capitalist economies.

And, the reality is:

“An illiberal democracy is a democracy by procedure only; the people elect the government, but they have little influence on government policy. The lack of influence means the government does not accord the full human rights necessary to achieve substantive democracy.” (Hallie Ludsin, “Returning Sovereignty to the People”, Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law, vol. 46:97 2013)

“Liberal democracies”, Hallie Ludsin writes, “are associated with free and fair elections, protection for and promotion of the rule of law, protection for basic human rights, and neutrality toward the determination of the common good.” (ibid.)

Don’t contemporary developments, not only the Wikileaks, the Snowden syndrome and the Guardian experience in and Evo Morales hackling by the so-called liberal democracies show a face of liberal democracy? The engagement of spies to infiltrate organizations active in the area of environment in advanced capitalist democracies, the “role” they played, and the way their misdeed are being “treated” expose the no-space people “enjoy”. Now, there are near-innumerable press reports from advanced capitalist democracies that expose their inner-working, their non-accountability, their all encompassing surveillance, their way of misinforming people, their way of invading other societies.

Manipulation with study results, opinion polls, human rights, and organizations floated for these purposes expose the face of liberal democracies. In so-called liberal democracy, corporations are now treated as person that strengthens role of big money in politics. This puts money on a higher ground than citizens. The entire business of capitalist democracy is opaque, a “mysterious” business as capital strives to deny any limit.

These practices are now “trickling down” to backward societies, where dominating interests are trying to construct a façade of democracy. The donor-democracy designed for underdeveloped economies is now much exposed.

Sovereignty encroached

The question comes: Whether sovereignty of people or of capital?

“Sovereignty lies with the people, as proclaimed by most state constitutions and as protected by international law, including possibly customary international law. Sovereignty in the people means that the people are entitled to receive the benefits of sovereign rights, not the government.” (ibid.)

But, with an army of unemployed, with vandalized unions, with decline in share of wages, with people in debt bondage and having no mechanism to listen to their voice, with financial instability, with control over information and media, with control over culture and leisure time and entertainment, with legislature serving dominating economic interests, with an essentially inaccessible judiciary, with political power and politics shaped to serve dominating economic interests, people find their sovereignty is effectively lost. With capital encroaching people’s life and rights all of people’s sovereign space is encroached.

A reality of spiraling disparity finds millions of people both in matured capitalist and backward economies confronting destitution while the rich protect and expand their wealth. The reality doesn’t allow people to act as source of sovereignty of reigning power, and reigning power thus de-legitimizes itself.

To the people of today’s world, one of the fundamental questions is inequality, an old curse spread over the globe. Now, the issue is being recognized by a part of mainstream as a human rights issue. Doesn’t inequality take away people’s sovereign space?
This fact, the reigning system of creating and perpetuating poverty and equality, tells the state of people’s sovereignty: it’s decapitated.

The rich stash money in suitable bank accounts to avoid tax, The MNCs “innovate” ways and “discover” places, actually the ways were made and the places were created for them, where it is required to pay less or no tax. Corruption, theft of public money and banditry with natural resources go unquestioned in politics and the thieves and bandits go scot-free.

What do people find in this reality? People find their sovereignty lives in utopia.

Referring to the British and Dutch East India Companies, Adam Smith wrote: “Such exclusive companies, therefore, are nuisances in every respect; always more or less inconvenient to the countries in which they are established, and destructive to those which have the misfortune to fall under their government”. (The Wealth of Nations)

Today, don’t MNCs dwarf the “famous” East India Companies in terms of all the “good work” that Adam Smith referred? The task of dwarfing is not only in terms money power. It’s in terms of political power that is germinated by money power.

What about power of and dulcet deals by financial elites, joined together in companies organized with their democratic laws and rules, done with their transparency and accountability? Don’t findings from studies carried out by mainstream research organizations, reports of commissions/committees in a number of advanced capitalist democracies constituted after the Great Financial Crisis, and revelations in even bourgeois press confirm this? Where do they put people’s sovereignty? Does financialization allow people a sovereign space?

What happened with the, now known to public, Iraq lie – “Saddam’s WMD”? Has not been an entire society devastated? Did the Iraq lie upheld peoples’, of Iraq, and other countries including the countries involved, democratic rights, a sovereign space? What happens even in tiny and underdeveloped economies reigned by Lilliputian black maharajas?

Facts tell: People’s sovereignty takes a travel to oblivion. Developments in these societies retain no sovereign space of people. Even, space for organizing democratic struggle gets lost there.

With militarization and/or terrorization of society scope for claiming people’s sovereign space gets lost. No space for people’s sovereignty is left in a society when only war, devastation, death dominate the society. An invaded society turns its first victim while the invader’s society turns the next victim.

People’s sovereignty appears a blue moon as capital’s diabolic power impacts, disintegrates and distorts everything around, all aspects of people’s life, as arbitrary authority, in all forms, formal and informal, rules people’s lives.

This reality takes away people’s sovereign space, effectively a democratic space.

People are put in the eyes of all storms during political and economical crises. During periods of turbulence, political or economic, people are the first victim. They are made scapegoats whenever any crisis makes a “landfall”.

“Stupid, dolt”

The question comes: Who are the people?

“People” is one of the concepts most denigrated by mainstream, the privileged classes. The privileged persons consider people as stupid, dolt, onager, and all the sub-human characters the “sophisticated” taste and “deep” knowledge of the privileged provoke.

Prince Albert once said “the masses on which popular government rests only feel and do not think”. The prince followed James Harrington. About 300 years ago, Harrington perceived people as cannot see, but can feel. There were more or less similar other observers including Carlyle, Mill, Montesquieu, Burke. Disraeli once said: As a political expression, the people are ‘sheer nonsense’. To him people belonged to the realm of natural history than to that of politics. (Cecil S Emden, The People and the Constitution)

On the contrary, to Mao, people are the workers, peasantry, the poor, and all who oppose imperialism. “[M]asses”, Mao writes, “are the real heroes …” (“Preface and postscript to Rural Surveys”) He adds: “The people, and the people alone, are the motive force of world history.” (“On coalition government”)

Private persons turn people as they join together in collective acts and thoughts, in gaining experience and summarizing those, and in claiming and gaining spaces – sovereign space, democratic space.

And, as Alain Badiou, philosopher from France, tells: “An event is political if its material is collective, or if the event can only be attributed to a collective multiplicity.”

Thus people, in their collective interest, think politically, dream politically, and act politically.

People’s silence, seeming inactivity, tolerance, seeming apathy, temporary listless condition changes as quantity changes to quality; missteps are rectified as people gain experience; passive approach is replaced by active approach as reality pulls in burning questions of life; and passive sovereignty takes the shape of active sovereignty.

New leadership and initiatives emerge and hope is renewed. Societies, and times carry evidence of this qualitative change as contradictions can’t be resolved mechanically and through conspiracies, as false assertions can’t replace facts, as lie can’t subdue moral standing, as deceptions ultimately wear out, as “Man does not exist for the law, but the law exists for man”, and as people don’t die. History comes at juncture as people echo Cromwell: “You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately ... Depart, I say; and let us have done with you.” 

This article first appeared in New Age, Dhaka in its Victory Day issue on December 16, 2013. 

Mandela's Long Walk To Freedom

Mandela, the name, needs no annotation, no analysis, no explanation. It stands with its own dignity, own strength, own activity, own journey along the path of humanity. It was his, Nelson Mandela’s journey for humanity, his journey for humanity’s freedom, his Long Walk to Freedom.

Mandela invigorated and emboldened the walk to freedom that humanity cherishes and dreams, and tries hard to achieve. Mandela’s walk towards freedom will not cease. Mandela will live as humanity’s long walk to freedom

Mandela’s journey began at Mvezo, a South African village, as Rolihlahla, troublemaker, the name his father bestowed upon him. He encountered apartheid, a variety of supremacist ideology and practice, an injustice. His journey turned into an integral part of the black people’s fight against apartheid. The journey went through our world’s all hamlets and villages and slums and townships and towns and cities, wherever humanity faces injustice. The journey touched all hearts in the world that stood in the fight against apartheid and injustice. It was irrespective of color as toiling masses have no color, neither black nor white, neither in political fight nor in organizing union.

Mandela was not destined to work in gold mines, to spend entire life mining gold for the rich. His was a destiny to struggle for freedom. South African time politicized him as, Mandela writes, “To be an African in South Africa means that one is politicized from the moment of one’s birth, whether one acknowledges it or not.”

It’s the same with humanity in all lands ravaged by capital that imposes inequality – a variety of apartheid – which is not only on the basis of color of skin, but also on the basis of access to essentials of life, opportunity to flourish as human being, access to the political space essential to practice inalienable rights as human being. Commoners are thus politicized in all lands ruled by inequality. Thus Mandela was of the commoners.

Mandela’s walk to freedom takes him to Robben Island, as prisoner, in the Atlantic. Mandela, transgressing all ocean blue waters of imprisonment and banishment, was indomitable. His job as prisoner in the island was to crush stones. The rulers tried to crush him, bend him down, and subdue him down. But he refused to get crushed, refused to bend, refused to get subdued, and he won, as Mandela writes, “a thousand indignities and a thousand unremembered moments produced in me an anger, a rebelliousness, a desire to fight the system that imprisoned my people”. It’s a dream and desire and defiance of the entire humanity, but capital, but exploiters, but racists. Thus Mandela upholds the spirit of humanity. And, this gave birth to defeat of the supremacists, fascists. It was a defeat beyond the imagination of the supremacists!

The declaration that Freedom Charter, adopted in the Congress of the People on June 25-26, 1955, made was also Mandela’s declaration as he is part of his people:

We, the people of South Africa, declare …:

That South Africa belongs to all who live in it … and that no governance can justly claim authority unless it is based on the will of the people;

That our people have been robbed of their birthright to land, liberty and peace by a form of government founded on injustice and inequality;

That our country will never be prosperous or free until all our people live in brotherhood, enjoying equal rights and opportunities;

That only a democratic state, based on the will of the people, can secure to all their birthright without distinction of colour, race, sex or belief;

Mandela’s walk went on. It was a walk for decades. In the annals of humanity, it’s a walk for centuries. The system of apartheid made a retreat as Mandela and his comrades and his people refused “to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt.” The apartheid system was formally dismantled as “the whirlwinds of revolt” continued “to shake the foundations of” the apartheid rulers.

But scourges and strings of apartheid are difficult to eliminate. Miners, farm workers, the industrial labor, the poor, the unemployed, the fighting youth in South Africa face the difficulty. Whips of capital lash them. Exploitation appropriates them. Inequality in distribution presses them down to the state of inhumanity. Humanity struggles in the dense, dark poverty. They face appeasements by a section. Poverty, exploitation, discrimination, the rich-poor divide persist. It’s a long path with risky turnings. So, Mandela’s spirit illuminates. So, Mandela bestows hope to all fighting spirits.

So, there is urgency; there is the need, as Nkrumah suggests: “act at once, with resolution and in unity.” Mandela united his people. The act of resolutely marching forward still is there.

Mandela dreamed an economically happy people. To be economically free, Nkrumah suggests, there is need to be united politically. For complete “liquidation and collapse of imperialism”, Nkrumah suggests, people’s political unity is needed. The path is long. The path is long in South Africa, in Africa, in all the continents.

So, Mandela concludes autobiography, his Long Walk to Freedom:

I have walked that long road to freedom. I have tried not to falter; I have made missteps along the way. But I have discovered the secret that after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb. I have taken a moment here to rest, to steal a view of the glorious vista that surrounds me, to look back to the distance I have come. But I can rest only for a moment, for with freedom come responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my long walk has yet not ended.

As Mandela’s long walk has not yet ended there is still the call over all of South Africa, over all of Africa to, as Martin Luther King called, let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops …Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains …. Let freedom ring from every hill and mole hill… From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

“To die”, Mao wrote, “for the people is heavier than Mount Tai, but to work for the fascists and die for the exploiters and oppressors is lighter than a feather.” Mandela was for people. Mandela’s struggle is for people.

Leaf Through A Few Old Pages On Bangladesh Politics

A charged Bangladesh mainstream politics now finds flowing blood everyday as the politics is delivering deaths daily. Common persons – public transport drivers, day laborers, low salaried employees, and similar “insignificant” citizens – are being burned to death. The acts reaffirm mainstream’s monopolization of violence.

Deaths of children, young and middle aged persons, mainly burned to death, now overwhelm mass psyche today. Dhaka press carries the numbers daily. It’s a mainstream politics that now finds violence as the main form of political struggle! It’s a mainstream political struggle that hurts the common persons, their life and their bread! Liberty, as it appears, is a pipe dream to the commoners now. Should one despise? Should one lament? Future bears the answer.

None claims responsibility of this sort of political action – spraying of petrol on humans and setting them on fire, and similar acts – and the actors are mysteriously cloaked. The common people don’t know the real political actors as they go unexposed. And, the mainstream’s common people-killing-political struggle, a variety of lynching, roars on.

It’s a politics, and the politics is of the mainstream as no contending class is now wrestling political power. The contending classes have been effectively demobilized and depoliticized long ago. Instead, the ruling elites with all its factions are engaged with itself. It’s a scrap within the same segment that dominates the society.

Its acts create controversy within its system and question the system. The controversy ranges from legislative assembly to court of law to administration, and contravenes all limits of humanity as the deaths declare.

One can leaf through a few old pages to have a hunch of today’s mainstream politics.

An article in Aneek, a Bangla monthly from India, said in June 2001: It will not be strange if the caretaker government system [a poll-time arrangement] turns controversial. Factions of the ruling segments are resorting to violence and blaming each other. Another general election will complicate the situation instead of improving it. (Sadek Rashid, “Bangladesh: the perspective of election”)

Another article in the same monthly said in August 2001: Accusation of election rigging shall not cease as efforts for unity of the ruling factions will fail until a force is used. (Sadek Rashid, “Bangladesh election”)

This reality has not changed since the statements were made about 12 years ago. So, Bangladesh people find them in a despicable and savage situation.

The controversy

Controversy with the form of poll-time government is not only alive; it has compounded with fundamental questions coming to the fore. Now, the debate is: whether a non-party caretaker government or an all-party government will preside over the poll-period? Other issues have joined the debate. From both ends, credibility is at stake. Ultimately, it’s the credibility of organs of a ruling machine, and of the factions of the ruling segment.

In the last days of 1990, immediately after the fall of Ershad regime, the controversy on the issue of caretaker form of government was not in the imagination of the mainstream politics although seeds of the controversy were there.

Now, not only the form of poll time government, but also institutions of the state and principles of governance are pulled into the controversy that constantly questions credibility of a number of instruments of the ruling machine, which in turn also questions acceptability of these. It’s not the classes opposed to the mainstream, but the competing factions of the ruling elites that are raising the controversy and questions, and thus eroding acceptability of institutions and organs of the state. A “strange” act!

It’s a political fight. It’s quite natural. One should not expect an overnight resolution of all political questions as the issue is control over resources.

But the form the political fight takes harms the class rule as institutions of the state are being questioned and ignored by none other than the same class interests, which fail to find a common forum and peaceful form instead of resorting to force, an antagonistic approach, and a political practice that ultimately hurts the common people, and thus sows reasons for alienating the common people. It’s a limitation of the ruling elites irrespective of factions.

Politics of the dominating segment imposes the limitation. Inviting and accommodating of and relying on external interference with variance in level and form are a manifestation of this limitation.

Interference

Moving back to another old page again:

An article in Sanskriti, a Bangla monthly from Dhaka, said in September 1991: The Bangladesh ruling elites shall increasingly rely on external masters with the exposure of their incapacities and incompetence and decline in their credibility.

The observation was made more than 20 years ago.

Now, the reliance has increased as has increased the interference. Sometimes, it’s in a crude and vulgar appearance. Sometimes, it goes to the limit of hurting dignity and honor of a people.

But changes are appearing in the broader society that even factions of the dominating segment can’t ignore. Contradictions are bringing in the changes.

Now

The last few weeks have found articles in Dhaka dailies and online news daily, at least three in number, discussing US role in Bangladesh politics. Tone of these discussions was critical. A few observations and comments were not soft. To some readers, a few of the comments may sound caustic. These came out from mainstream pens.

The articles, in Bangla, discussed working of lobby in US political system, and media, and the style of influencing and manipulating in the system. At least one of the articles discussed, in brief, the working of committees and sub-committees of the US Congress. At least two of the articles discussed a recent hearing on Bangladesh in a sub-committee. There are information, and a tone of criticism in these articles.

At least one of the articles pointed out a Congress member, who recently visited Bangladesh, and identified him as a lobbyist. The tone was not soft.

At least one article mentioned, with not a sweet tone, the US ambassador in Dhaka. A responsible discussant belonging to a mainstream political party made satirical comment, in a panel discussion/dialogue sponsored by an international news outlet, with a foreign diplomat. In the mainstream, this was unimaginable only a few months ago. It’s not a regular experience in this region also.

One report in a Bangla online daily mentioned the ambassador was trying for a long time to have audience with the prime minister. This, a long wait to have the PM’s audience by the ambassador, if factual, is a new development in Bangladesh political scene.

In the mainstream, this tone was absent in the 1980s and ’90s. Now, a critical tone is being heard. All political visitors, mediators or lobbyists, now don’t have an easy ride in Bangladesh. Lobby, committee, etc., and their functioning are now discussed. The information is reaching a section of readers, a part of the people.

Marketing of everything political is not now an easy job in Bangladesh society. Shall this diminish? Or, shall it spread more? The information already presented by a section of the mainstream will reach wider Bangladesh society as conflicting interests will widen its spread. This carries impact.

Further exposure by a part of the mainstream will not be an act of astonishment. Circumstance in future may push a part of the mainstream to expose names of lobbyists, contracts, the amount of money involved, techniques of manipulation with information and presentation of facts, propaganda style. The exposure, if it happens, can be cited as a gift from the mainstream to the political forces outside the mainstream.

This is part of political education of people that helps people understand everything is not black and white and all are not holy souls and many deals are driven by petty interests and many personalities and pronouncements are not as sacred as they appear and the sound they make. Elites like to ignore this process. An exercise with elitist politico-historical “blindness”!

Not a cycle

This controversy and conflict shall continue as the contradictions within the dominating sphere still go unresolved. These are getting intensified, and the intensification is manifested in the form and style of political struggle the competing ruling interests/factions carry on. There are, no doubt, causes, material, which not only keep these unresolved, but also escalate these.

But the factional fight among the elites shall not move in a cyclic form, election-boycott-election or violence-temporary tranquility-violence, as changes entering the scene with further developments in the society will push for new equation between the dominating interests. A politically aware people, a people mobilized politically, a people with its own leadership shall shatter silence of death and change the entire political scene soaked with blood of common persons.

A Bangladesh Politics Rundown

Hastily drawn tact in a fluid situation was charming onlookers of Bangladesh politics for the last few days. It was sharply overshadowed by a seeming drama, but essentially an imperative that exposed limit of the Bangladesh political elites and showed innovative political initiative by a section of the business elites.

Swift swings

H M Ershad, a former president, was overwhelming citizens and political observers. His were always, one can say, “dynamic” moves, never static, as he was always canceling his last announcements, which can be expressed in the following way: “Cancel My Last Announcement”. A counter observation may be: uncertain tact in uncertain situation, not dynamic. Another observation may be: ever bargaining with all in an ever changing political stage as the stage is revolving, which is a reflection of uncertainty in many areas of politics, telling “something” in economy.

The former president led political party, Jatiya Party, joined the Bangladesh poll-time government and joining the coming national election; then he announced decision to leave it and asked his ministers to tender resignation. Press reports said: a number of the ministers obliged while the rest were waiting. Then, he announced boycotting of the coming national election, and said that was his last stand, he would change no more. Then, he expressed his preference to commit suicide than to turn a betrayer to the nation by joining the coming general election. Then, he said: the press reports on suicide did not reflect his exact announcement as he expressed no such preference of committing suicide. The press did not respond.

In between the announcements and cancellations of the announcements and vows, the party was going through changes within its factions, with its splintered part, and with ally turned deliverer of curse turned possible ally.

The swift changes, the announcements and the moves and counter moves, the run, the parley, the hackles can appear bemusing and amusing to someone, but the issues were not lighter than serious.

A country’s governance, a ruling machine’s future, stability of a country with a population of about 160 million, nurturing of an important source of labor and a few types of important products to the metropolis of the world system were involved with the incidents and its future course. There were other issues of geostrategic importance.

Even, as a market, Bangladesh is not negligibly small. Involvement of or observations expressed or suggestions made by other countries including India, China, Canada, Australia, the UK and USA, and by organizations including the EU and UN, discussions in the European Parliament and in Washington DC, the UN secretary general’s letters to the two main leaders of the country and sending of his emissary to Dhaka, and Dhaka visit by important diplomats from New Delhi and Washington signify the country’s importance.

But it was perplexing if one tried to compare the importance expressed by other countries/interests and the political leaders’ announcements that were swiftly swinging balance of political array and sending equations to uncertainty. The fact is: It was a show of a section of ruling elites representing, to put it vaguely, important interests.

How, then, it plans to secure its interests? The question is important not only to the section, but to all other sections as one will affect others, and the governance.

It’s not only a governance of 160 million, but also a governance of the source of labor, cheaper product, and issues of other importance as geopolitical rivalry is knocking at the door and there is scope of playing other cards by section or sections of the ruling elites. Egypt is showing it. A few other African countries are also playing the cards. At least one Middle Eastern country has recently made a similar move.

Railway tracks

The Dhaka press was carrying reports of derailment of railway engines, etc. throughout the week. On some days, more than one such incident was occurring in different parts of the country. The incidents were disorganizing railway communication daily. There was no official announcement by concerned authority on the incidents: whether accident or a planned act. Any of the two carries serious legal implication.

A comparison between these incidents of derailment and the August Movement during the subcontinent’s colonial era will help grasp the magnitude of the current railway-incidents. Had the risings in Midnapur [Medinipur] and other places, at the near-end of the British colonial rule, such experience? Was it during the 1969-Mass Upsurge in erstwhile East Pakistan (Bangladesh)? The 1969-Upsurge was wider and deeper.

Are these acts of subversion? Or, are these parts of political struggle? Has the political struggle gone to the level of hitting railway tracks? Answer to each of the questions has serious implication. The implication is for status quo, a property relation. Are the acts intended against status quo? The answer may provide a picture of a “strange” political equation as, to capital, trade is important, and trade needs railway.

Ignition

Acts of ignition were many during the period. The victims are common people, mainly poor, members of the working class. A press report said a mother was finding no way to take home dead body of her son from hospital as she had no money. Her son was a petrol bomb victim and died in the hospital. Another report said a weeping widow at a hospital was asking people around about the future of her child daughters as she lost her husband, a working person turned victim of petrol bomb.

Shall not these incidents react in broader society? Any of possible answers, nay or yes, have meaning in society and politics, and the incidents, the tact by any of the quarters, will be interpreted in broader society, the masses of people. One can recollect M K Gandhi’s step after an act of mob action on a police outpost. His was a matured act.

People in different parts of the country have already started raising voices against these acts of ignition. How shall the acts be accepted in mass psyche? Should not a politician take this aspect into consideration? Or, is it a “game” of someone played by another one?

An initiative

Entrepreneurs, especially the garments manufacturers, have made demand to end the on-going political impasse. In a rally in Dhaka, they issued an ultimatum and have stated the intention of mobilizing workers to protest the current situation.

It, the mobilization, the plan to mobilize workers, was a political act that the entrepreneurs usually don’t prefer to initiate. It was not a show. It was their imperative. Their interest demands this.

Then, don’t the mainstream political parties care for the manufacturers’ interest? If they care, do their political acts stand hostile to the manufacturers’ interest? Garments manufacturing is a leading sector in the economy. Then, what’s the relationship between the manufacturers and the political parties? Isn’t it a strange reality?

Also strange is, owners, as they announced, were planning to organize workers to defend the sector. Only weeks ago, the workers, in their way, were engaged in economic struggle. That was raising demands to the owners. It’s also a “strange” relationship: workers will be led to political act against a political situation created by the mainstream political parties, which are supposed to uphold interest of the owners, and the workers will be led, as announced, by owners! One should not smile or laugh at the mainstream politics. Politics of the dominating elites is “difficult” to perceive! It’s a Bangladesh political reality.

Soul of the poor

The period has once again exposed souls of ordinary citizens.

In a Bangladesh village, a group of ordinary persons collectively provided food to passengers of a train that was derailed. The passengers were stranded for hours. A farmer, Abdur Rashid Gazi, and his wife, Rashida Begum, of Shahtali village, Chandpur took the initiative, and other villagers came forward.

A reality

Don’t these present a part of Bangladesh socio-political reality? The acts, the utterances, the political characters, the representation, the level of political maturity, the concerns, the perception leading to the form of political struggle – ignite and derail, the deals, the contingent ally, the relations, show a part of the reality. Here, opportunism sometimes takes satiric face and satirical characters play key role. Here, shameless face appears stubborn and hurting people is interpreted as duty. Here, the weaker part of society – working people and women – is victim of ruthless political approach. How shall the reality be coined? How shall the opposing pulls or pushes within the reality be resolved? Is there a possibility within a decadent reality? 

This piece first appeared in New Age, Dhaka in its December 10, 2013 issue