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

Non-Drama And Drama In Bangladesh Politics

Absence of theatrical elements has failed to produce political dramas in Bangladesh politics. Resemblance to drama is not staging of it. Dramatic actors are absent. And, drama is there in another sphere of politics in Bangladesh. Actors are there.

Making alliance and breaking of it and reenacting of it are not drama. Not even part of drama. These are regular parts of vibrant politics and are as old as politics. And these signify a few characteristics of a politics. Often, a few limits and possibilities are signified by these. Sometimes not forming alliances and not making about faces appear drama.

Novices in politics only turn dumb as they encounter moves, counter-moves and about turns, which are regular features.

Forget politics. What happens in business? What happens in the world of finance and banking? What happened in the days of emerging coal, iron and bank giants? Don’t competitors join hands? History of business organizations provides the answers. Recollect the emergence of monopolies and cartels. Does politics defy this business rule if the politics is related to the business?

Imperial courts turned lively and tense with changing alliances and allegiance. Empires in the east and west were full with this politics. Conspiracies and coteries were in company of prevailing politics.

For the time being put aside present Bangladesh political incidents, some may like to tag these as mal-incidents, and recollect formation, breaking and re-formation of political alliances in the colonial days of our subcontinent, pre-1947 Bengal, post-1947 East Bengal (Bangladesh), in post-1971 Pakistan, in post-Indira-emergency India. Even, what about the factions within some of the political parties in those periods? One faction was fighting another, and making understanding the next day. What happens in many other countries? What happens in the voting pattern of legislative assemblies that are not ruled by central command? Shifts and displacements are always active. The political force that supported the Pakistan army in 1971 is now denouncing it.

This is a regular part and pattern of political game. Circumstances, essentially interests determine the path of alliance. Somersault is one of many political acts and a turncoat to one is a friend to other.

Alliances or one may term it as friendship, although friendship actually carries deeper meaning, are formed and broken and re-formed among social classes and factions of these classes also. This is also regular part of politics. Politics losses vibrancy if it turns static enough that disallows it to form and re-form alliances.

Former president Ershad-led Jatio Party (JP-E) leaving Awami League (AL)-led Grand Alliance, announcing plan to form a new alliance, indicating plan to boycott planned national election, then joining AL-led poll-time government to facilitate national election, all happened within days and even within hours, should not make one astonished.

There are similar other acts and speed of acts by other actors also. Similar acts in similar speed by other actors in future should not astonish an observer. A politician sits on horse for hours waiting to make a charge at the opportune moment.

The speed of the events and announcements is not astonishing as circumstances change, sometimes, within hours. It’s a character of a politics.

In politics, incidents move not in regular fashion. These, depending on circumstance, move slowly, and also swiftly.

Drama in Bangladesh politics is elsewhere. It’s with political actors posing non-political initiators.

A situation turns dramatic when a class or classes chart a path that ultimately goes against its interests. A situation turns dramatic when an actor, confident with power, manipulation capacity, image and appeal, finds himself in a tight corner. A situation turns dramatic when an actor confident about self as non-controversial mediator turns controversial. A situation turns dramatic when interferences are made but assurances of non-interference are delivered. A situation turns dramatic when mainstream political parties and public leaders depend on external advices. The drama reaches to its climax when the scene is set in context of a class reality.

Bangladesh found all these: diplomats from a number of countries negotiating and suggesting political leaders, seemingly suggesting the Bangladesh people, diplomats visiting Bangladesh, getting engaged with the issue of the next national election, suggesting to initiate dialogue between political leaders as if the Bangladesh political leaders don’t know the effectiveness and method of dialogue although most of these leaders are in political life for decades and they participated in elections more than once.

Press reports carry the names and describe the acts of interference. These dramas happen in front of a people who had the audacity to defy maharajas of the world system while the people initiated their war for liberation in 1971.

All the acts, advising, etc., have root, and the root is in the class reality, and the class reality is composed of competing classes and factions within the classes, and failure to reach a settlement.

The people of Bangladesh had an experience with the United States in 1971. The super power sent its Seventh Fleet towards the Bay of Bengal while victory was within reach of the valiant people. That was in December 1971. The people made a win and the fleet had to retreat. The super power extended full support to Pakistan while the people were waging their armed liberation struggle against Pakistan. The super power’s role is still not a sweet memory to the people.

But the drama is personalities involved with politics still depend on the super power for political existence. What will happen when the people will turn aware of the game and the players? Personalities involved with politics don’t take this aspect into consideration, rather flaunt the friendship. It’s a political drama. People learn, and people learn through incidents, experiences, debates. Someone will expose the aspect to the people. People ultimately reject personalities with external allegiance.

External interference in Bangladesh politics turned starkly visible in the 1980s. But it was not criticized by the mainstream political parties at that time. Only a few individuals voicing pro-people forces were raising the issue.

But now, a section of the mainstream Bangladesh politics publicly names name, criticizes diplomat. Sometimes satire is made with name. The mainstream Bangladesh press carries these reports. How far it will affect career of the diplomat is another issue as turning controversial narrows down mediating space and touches image. But naming name by the mainstream Bangladesh politics is a new development. One can consider it as a drama as to be critical of world power is not a regular feature of mainstream politics.

Two politics are running parallel in the present day Bangladesh: Of the mainstream with political demands, and of the working people with economic demands. The number of life lost in these two is different. The number is far higher in the mainstream politics although agitation of the working people, now the garments workers, is more intensive, wide, prolonged, although agitation by the later is mostly closer to luddite type, anarchism and vandalism: pelting of stones at factories, ignite fire, vandalism with public and private transport, which are not at all connected with organized labor movement, and which ultimately harm the movement, and which are facilitated to subvert rise of organized, aware labor movement.

The way ordinary persons died during the mainstream political agitation is unparallel in contemporary Bangladesh politics. Many of the ordinary persons were burned to death, not by police firing. Most of the dead were poor, working people, members of lower-middle or middle-middle class. To call it a drama will be a cruel, inhuman expression. It’s toll indifferently charged by the mainstream politics.

Non-heroes are sold as heroes by the mainstream Bangladesh politics. Profit at unprecedented level in the society goes unquestioned in the politics. The Bangladesh people know these, know the names, and yet they are swayed by the mainstream propaganda. This is the drama, a drama enacted efficiently.

Efficiency in incapacities of the mainstream Bangladesh politics is the drama. It’s evolving and resorting to complex moves that are not dug by quarters appearing interested. This is the drama. Stream other than the mainstream politics follows the main. The drama is there as it’s the mainstream’s efficiency to pull along its opposing political force although it fails to always pull all its class friends.

These dramas and non-dramas in the Bangladesh mainstream politics are characteristic of the state of the society. These will follow their courses till people initiate their politics and nullify the acts of making wrongs right. Populist moves give people space required to initiate their politics while denying space for progress exposes backward politics that creates background for rejecting it.

Snowden Is Neither Strange Nor Sudden

Snowden is neither a strange nor a sudden “syndrome”. The incident is not also “mysterious” or mischievous, which may appear to a section. Rather, Edward Snowden is a product of a time, product of a phenomenon in a society.

Once, KGB, the intelligence arm of the rulers in Kremlin, had a role in geopolitics. A sort of “competition” between KGB and CIA, the world famous intelligence arm of the USA, made news headlines. Defections from both sides, USSR and USA, but mostly from Moscow-end, were almost regular incidents. Sports stars/Olympic celebrities, diplomats, dancers regularly defected, and those were not unusual news during the Cold War. Accusations by both the parties were traded: Defection was provoked or induced or allured or coerced. Peace movements or citizens’ movements opposing deployment of Pershing, etc. missiles in Europe by the US/NATO were branded KGB-induced/funded.

But now, that phase has gone to the sphere of memory. Even, immediately-after Gorbachev’s master stoke – the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Warsaw Pact, COMECON, etc. – a section of analysts dreamed: Peace dividend would be reaped as the Cold War went out, as super power rivalry would be absent, as arms race would not be the order of the day, as unipolar world has emerged, as history has reached to its “end”.

But within a short time those dreams turned day dreams as the root of rivalry, expansion, subjugation, aggression, interference were fully alive and active in the world system. Those analysts denied the reality of conflict, competition and contradictions, denied to recognize causes behind competition, contradiction and conflict, and claimed a freehand in world affairs as denial of contradictions and causes of contradictions within society was their only source of optimism.

But the reality of competition denied to get subjugated by those analysts as analysts don’t frame reality, rather reality rules, interests invade and dictate, and the reality is full of conflicting interests and contradictions.

Consequently, in an almost unprecedented way a number of states had to face non-state actors. A bunch of these non-state actors emerged in the ocean blue waters along a part of Africa. NATO warships had to be deployed to charge pirates, primitives compared to NATO-fire power.

How many times NATO war fleet had to face Warsaw fleets or USSR’s fleet although there was at least a case of intrusion by a Russian submarine in the waters of a Nordic country? And, similar cases of intrusion were probably many.

But, amazingly, mighty NATO had to face sea pirates, and the trans-Atlantic military alliance downgraded itself into a sea police force. History behaves in “strange” way while it “terminates”!

How the pirates of Somalia were created? Was it by the NATO-despised KGB? Were not the pirates created by the world system, of which NATO is a part? Was the pirate chasing by the NATO economic? Had NATO designers imagined that the mighty force had to face pirates of seas, had to float in combat ready condition in the Indian Ocean instead in the Baltic Sea or the Mediterranean or the Atlantic? Had they imagined that merchant shipping would turn difficult in a particular corner of the Indian Ocean instead of the Black Sea or the Bosporus Straits? It’s a reality beyond imagination of dictators of the world system.

The entire piracy-scene is not strange; one, a bigger piracy, chased out the other, the smaller one, while piracy is at the heart of the “story”; so, the petty pirates sailed to the sea. The both came out from hunger: the petty ones harbor hunger for daily survival while the monstrous one is owner of an ever widening stomach for accumulation with ever stretching hands towards a continent full of resources and rivalry between black sahibs, compradors of catastrophic capital.

Other non-state actors are also there. Once they were nourished as proxy by a section of states. That was the phase of bleeding the Red Army of the USSR in the rugged terrain of Afghanistan.

After the withdrawal of Russian forces from that bloodied land the proxies wasted no time to find enemies within own camp as there were other designs, other interests and other rivalries by other secondary masters in the wing. The proxies turned turncoats in the eyes of their masters and mentors.

Ultimately, the situation took unprecedented turn: A section of states are always being haunted by these non-state actors. It’s difficult to find a parallel in world history: The most powerful state and its allies are always being hunted, as is told, by a group of persons.

Consequences the situation has brought include (1) Spending of billions of dollars, which is budgetary allocation and which is tax payers’ money, and (2) curtailment of freedom and rights that democracy extends, which is tax payers are bestowed with but are regularly denied. One consequence is economic and financial while the other is political. A political culture stuffed with hatred and scare, 1984 – big brother’s ever open eyes – emerged as an efficient propaganda machine was already there. Accountability, an integral part of democracy, was getting lost in the maze of authoritarian “considerations”. Legalities were conferred on business interests trading with the issue of security, a lucrative market. These business interests – defense contractors – ultimately thrive on tax payers’ money although their activities most of the time move below radar of accountable mechanism.

A clumsy situation appears despite much exposed facts; and the situation is not linear. A few comparisons help find out the real face of the arguments, single dimensional in type, being propagated in this build up to unprecedented variety of war:

(1) A world system with elaborate mechanism “can’t” choke a band of individuals although it effectively imposed economic sanctions and choked a society and “awarded” deaths of children, hospitals without medicines, stores without food, as Saddam-ruled-Iraq experienced, although the system is well aware of all the secret arms cache or secret nuclear arming efforts, as is evident from its publicity related to Iran, although the system can threat with punishment to all business deals with Cuba and carry on human history’s longest ever economic blockade against the geographically small island-country.

(2) The system gets engaged in an almost-indefinite war with its enemy – a band of persons – as it can’t cut supply line of its purported enemy as the system “doesn’t” know the source(s) and supply line(s) of arms, ammunition, cash, know how the band brandish/procure although the system enters into alliance with the band in specific areas of operation, although it has the technical capability of knowing all movements/thought process of millions of individuals, keeping eyes, like a big brother, on the entire Earth, even deep into oceans, although it used to keep eyes on Ho Chi Minh Trail with technology less efficient compared to today’s.

(3) The system can’t identify the state actors, if any, patronizing the band of non-state actors although the system had the intellectual capacity to analyze power-equation by observing who was standing how far from Brezhnev or Mao during their celebrations on the Red Square or the Tien An Men Square.

(4) The system fails to enter into political “games” with the band of individuals and their state-patrons although the system made significant and meaningful inroads into pre-Gorbachev-Kremlin, found friends in East and central European countries well before the Berlin Wall was made to crumble down and well before those countries formally renounced socialism and embraced capitalism.

(5) The present day non-state actors can continue with their activities “without” help from any state actor although the East and central European states, allies of former USSR, turned helpless in the face of Gorbachev’s passive stance.

Are all these possible in reality?

Or, is there an existence of some other equation, or has there begun a process of erosion/decay in the system? Is there something rotten in the state of …? Is it getting reflected in the system of democracy/governance that the states practice? Or, is the decay/erosion in political culture/political practice/governance/practice of democracy output of the economy that dominates the system?

One can argue that the seemingly decay/erosion is an evolution of democratic concepts, ideas and values. In that case, an evolution with a decaying orientation signifies “something” fundamental.

The questions, complex or simple, have answers, and the answers get reflected in the reality. And, the reality, decay of or evolution in governing and democratic system, affects citizens living within the system and paying with taxes for operation of the system.

This can act as background of the emergence of Snowden and other whistleblowers. Snowden had no opportunity of interacting with or getting induced by KGB, as the arch-rival of CIA turned non-existent long ago. The tricking away of Snowden, as is being alleged, by China and Russia signifies further serious questions, which will show inefficiency within. Then, why Snowden behaves or performs in the way that the world now witnesses?

One can, as an attempt try to find out answers to the questions, raise the issue of emotion, sense, conscience, thought process, and sources of these, and the way ideas enter into human heads.
Do these emerge all of a sudden? Do ideas, values, etc. come from void? Does reality plays a role in these areas? What’s reality? Are economy, society, politics, culture isolated from reality? Do these influence human “mind” and actions? And, can reality be ignored while finding out answers to these questions?

Whatever the answer is there a bold fact emerges: The dominating system can’t control and monitor all “minds”, emotions, conscience, senses, persons although it monitors millions of telephone calls and e-mails. Answers to the questions tell Snowden is neither a sudden nor a strange syndrome and not isolated from society.

But a school denies reality and imagines that engineering of human head and society is possible. To this school, Snowden is a sudden, sporadic and isolated case, a sort of failure somewhere in a system.

Whether it’s a sudden, sporadic and isolated case or not the questions are: Is the case part of a reality, part of a society? Why and how a society creates such a case? Don’t allurement or fear desist persons from performing in the way Snowden has performed?

Whistleblowers were always there in the society. The Snowden case reflects state of a society, of a politics, of a governing system where weaknesses lie within strengths, where a mighty system turns vulnerable to an individual, where dependable individuals turn opposite, where a system can’t subjugate conscience. It reflects state of a democracy where a band of individuals, if that is the fact, can compel a state to go in a way that the whistleblower has exposed.

A democracy reflects the dominating economy and economic interests the democracy safeguards. Sovereignty of these economic interests is ensured with democracy of these interests.

Consequently, shall the question arise: Does the economy require this state of democracy? The answer will show a state of decay within. Dealing with the Snowden case as an individual’s act or behavior pattern will be a failure to recognize the state of decay.

A narrative account by Kurt Eichenwald, an award-winning New York Times reporter, rewinds a few facts that help perceive the state of the economy and politics. KE’s Conspiracy of Fools (2005, Broadway Books, New York) is related to the now-probably-forgotten story of Enron, a story of power and politics operated with lies and conspiracy reaching the sphere of crime in the palaces of economic and political power, “that imperiled a presidency, destroyed a marketplace, and changed Washington and Wall Street …” KE writes in the prologue of the book: “It [the Enron debacle] set off what became a cascading collapse of public confidence … Soon Enron appeared to be just the first symptom of a disease that had somehow swept undetected through corporate America … What appeared was a scandal of scandals …. It was not simply the outgrowth of rampant lawbreaking …. Shocking incompetence, unjustified arrogance, compromised ethics, and an utter contempt for the market’s judgment all played decisive roles…. It is, at its base, the story of a wrenching period of economic and political tumult as revealed through a single corporate scandal. It is a portrait of an America in upheaval at the turn of the twenty-first century …”

Governance, and as a whole politics, is not immune from this economy that produces the Enron case. More scandals, stories of corruption in banking and financial world, in the dominating part of the society got exposed during the Great Financial Crisis. It’s decay.

The decay doesn’t spare democracy being practiced. Observation by Al Gore, former US vice president, can’t be ignored. In early-November, 2013, in the public lecture Technology and the Future of Democratization at McGill University, Montreal, Al Gore said the “outrageous” and “completely unacceptable” NSA surveillance revealed by Snowden showed possible “crimes against the Constitution”.

And, this reality interacts with human head – conscience, sense of responsibility of citizens. Citizens turn intolerant to decaying political practice that tramples democracy. Number of such intolerant citizens grows. Thus emerge Snowden and many similar actors, seemingly individuals, but actually a social phenomenon. People join them to protest decaying practice and to uphold people’s rights. It’s a long process that governing eyes and ears miss.

A Few Numbers In A Capitalist Economy

Capitalism in the US is exposing itself with renewed force as it invigorates self-contradictions and faces fracases with appearance of farce, and it fails to resolve these. One of the matured capitalist economies, and the Lord of the World, is presenting the show.

Partial shutdown of the US government is now old news. Near to a million people is out of work. Probably these employed-without-pay-people include the diplomats providing sermons to friendly politicians and poor people in poor countries. From one of NASAA websites to a newspaper clipping board and reduced menu in the White House, the nerve center of the federal machine, to reduced number of staff to the US vice president and untrimmed Washington DC lawn bear the stamp of the failing politics and economy. A deadlocked legislative assembly is failing to come to an agreement. And, the assembly represents the people!

There is the threat of the US defaulting on its debt for the first time in history. If the state’s debt limit is not increased one week from now, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew warns, the entire global economy could be in peril. The debt ceiling deadline is October 17, 2013. And, Jim Yong Kim, the World Bank president, has issued warning: The US is just “days away from a very dangerous moment” because of the borrowing crisis.

In the background, there is a market with competition. And, the competition is in all its senses and forms: from money to politics. And, the competition is for profit: in terms of money and in terms of political gain; and political gain is for economic interests.

President Barack Obama knows, as a Bloomberg report says, the bond market is the boss. Obama expressed the fact of the economy while discussing with reporters the threat of a historic default. (David J. Lynch and Cordell Eddings, “Obama Says Real Boss in Default Showdown Means Bonds Call Shots”)

Journalist Bob Woodward has an interesting story in “The Agenda”, an account of his economic policy-making: president Clinton once said: “You mean to tell me that the success of the program [Clinton was planning to initiate] and my re-election hinges on the Federal Reserve and a bunch of f------ bond traders?” (ibid.)

Yes, in the economy, market has almost mythical power. And, it’s the skipper.

After witnessing the bond market’s power, James Carville, Clinton’s top political operative, joked to the Wall Street Journal at the time: “I used to think if there was reincarnation, I wanted to come back as the president or the pope or a .400 baseball hitter. But now I want to comeback as the bond market. You can intimidate everybody.” (ibid.)

Yes, market intimidates many. Market often doesn’t allow some politicians to act the way they planned if they don’t dare to defy or challenge it. And, their desire and courage to throw challenge is not entirely a subjective force. It’s not their personal choice. Reliance on market doesn’t allow mobilization of social forces that can extend support to challenge market.

In the matured, but troubled economy, market is the disciplining force, and the disturbing force. It’s a cruel creditor also although the creditor has history of failures. It fails regularly although a section of pundits try their best to hide the failure-fact.

The US gov. was forced to pay 0.35 percent for four-week borrowings, up from 0.12 percent. And, in this fiscal year, the US gov. will need to borrow an average of almost $11 billion each week. This borrowing reality makes Obama so sensitive to investors. Moreover, under current law, debt held by the public would exceed annual output by 2038, and this borrowing would be unsustainable. (ibid.) And, this again shows creditors’ crushing power.

However, these will be resolved at the 11th hour. The factional fight, conflict of interests, will come to a compromise as there is election and the discontent electors and as there is common interest. It’s the interest of the ruling elites. A different outcome will be historic.

But the US voters’ mood has already been expressed: An intense aversion, a stronger anger.

Sixty percent of the Americans, an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll finds, would have defeated and replaced every single member of the Congress including their own representatives if they had the opportunity. Only 35 percent had the opposite opinion. The figure, 60 percent, is the highest-ever on the question. The poll shows the voters don’t even prefer own representatives. In August 2011, it was 54 percent; in January 2012, it increased two more percents; and in July, it increased to 57 percent. So, there is a consistent rise. Moreover, 47 percent of the respondents do not strongly identify with either party. A respondent from Mississippi, a strong Democrat, said: “I am prayerful for a revolution.” (NBC News and CNBC, Oct. 11, 2013, Domenico Montanaro, “Fire 'em! Majority want to toss entire Congress: Poll”)

And, a record-low – 14 percent – perceive the economy is headed in the right direction. It was more than double – 30 percent – in last month, the biggest single-month drop since the 1990-US gov.-shutdown. (ibid.)

More data are there: 78 percent of the respondents perceive the economy is on the wrong track, and, to 42 percent, it will worsen, and 63 percent feel less confident that the economy will get better. To some concerned, the figures “are associated with historic lows in public confidence.” (ibid.)

Sometimes, data are disturbing to somebody. It makes one dumb or angry if it’s found: In the richest economy of the world, 146 million or half the population is in poverty (49 million) and near poor (97 million), 18.4 million homes are empty although there are 842,000 homeless in a given week, 22 empty homes for every homeless person but they can’t find homes, wages are stagnant although workers produce more than ever; if McDonald’s can afford to pay its CEO $15 million per year it can afford to pay its workers a living wage of $25K, the contradiction that an Occupy Wall Street journal termed, citing LiberationNews.org, “The Absurd Contradictions of Capitalism”.

Citing the same source the journal identifies the Largest Low-Wage Employers: WalMart, Pizza Hut, Dunkin Donuts, KFC, Staples, Target, Outback, Red Lobster, Subway, Olive Garden, McDonald’s. Then, it says: “They can afford pay better”, and, “78% of the 50 largest low-wage employers have been profitable every year for the past 3 years”.

But the contradictions are not absurd. These are the contradictions the economy normally generates. These are only a few of many such seeming absurdities.

Even, the factional fight and the partial gov. shutdown, the factional fight in home and interferences in other countries to resolve factional fights among the ruling elites in those countries, the factional fight and the possible threat to the global economy, the fight to secure factional interests although the fight threatens bigger interests seem absurd, but normal at certain stage of maturity and abundance.

These absurd-seeming-normal contradictions bring workers and Occupy Wall Street participants and others in protest marches and mobilizations, inspire to initiate alternatives and create spaces and gather knowledge and experience. It is neither a foray into the domain of finance-lords nor an oddity of a few.

These contradictions mobilized protesting people at New York’s Zuccotti Park, the birthplace of the Occupy Wall Street movement, on September 17, 2013 to mark the second anniversary of the movement that blossomed around the country and inspired people around the world and influenced movements in countries. On that day, Occupy Wall Street protesters stood in front of a barricade at Zuccotti Park.

The OWS protesters, the people, marched around the Wall Street. They marched to Washington Square Park. Protesters marched through Soho. Rallies and events across the city were organized.

The socially embroidered movement drifted into wider activities: Feed the hungry in respective communities, mobilize 70,000 volunteers to assist the superstorm Sandy survivors, protect debtors from predatory lending, buy up distressed debt and cancel that, occupy homes for people threatened with eviction, put pressure on banks to renegotiate loans, protest GM crops, support farm workers, occupy farms with demand for fair pay and safe food, organize new economic models that include Occupy Money Co-operative and Alternative Banking Group, which will provide low-cost financial services and return profits to communities, trying to shift the balance of power from bankers to depositors, raise fund for Bangladesh garment factory workers, open artists’ studios to the members of public, sell the book Wobblies! A Graphic History of the Industrial Workers of the World, join struggle for a fair and living wage, march against corruption (Occupy Wall and ALL Streets against Corruption). Alternative Banking, a project of Occupy Wall Street, is dedicated to the proposition that citizens are capable of and entitled to an understanding of how the financial system under which they live operates.

The absurd looking numbers, rational to the system, expose a lot of the system that propagates self-superiority while the numbers teach lessons, enrich experience. This lesson is not only for a single society. The numbers from one of the most advanced, matured capitalist democracies appear as learning materials to others also.

The numbers expose limitations of power of the richest capitalist economy in the world: It fails to eliminate poverty despite having a lot of riches; the ruling elites’ maturity of hundreds of years doesn’t make it capable of not endangering its own ruling system; the system’s all manipulation powers, seemingly magical, that take into service of media, amusement and porn industries and of sciences including psychology are incapable of keeping people always busy with games and porno and baseless dreams and trifling issues including tattoo on this part of human body or on that part; all surveillance and control mechanism at mass scale can’t always restrain people from getting disenchanted and dissatisfied and angry.

Amazingly, despite the failures, the system charges people for its survival: the melting down of financial institutions including banks, the bail out money, the evictions from homes, the unemployment, the failing health care system, the hunger, the closed down schools and jobless teachers, the cut down budget for scientific research, the gov.-shut down, the debt. People pay, in one way or another, for all these. And, that’s the efficiency of the system: It can hide its failures and charge the people. It can hide its failures to a lot of persons, actually a crowd of millions, in home and abroad.

But this efficiency is getting diminished. Incidents, in home and other countries, appear as examples of the diminishing power. Obviously, there are personalities trying to sell the system’s appearance as unchallenged one. But fractures in the torso and weaknesses in the limbs don’t miss many eyes.

Shrewd ruling elites even in some poor countries can take advantage of the reality. Instead, it’s their stupidity if the elites in poor countries are cowed down by blank sounds. This is an opportunity or failure in the camps of the elites in poor and rich economies.

But people in all lands can find shining lines over dark clouds as the numbers turn striking. New political debates and conversations can be initiated, and new approaches can be devised. People in many lands can find and create spaces for forward movement as the Occupy Wall Street moves forward despite its stumbles, failings and fallings.

Syria Expedition

Syria expedition is inevitable. But more dramas are yet to unfold.

The evolving expedition and the expedition related dramas, already staged in London, Washington DC, Paris and St Petersburg, and to be staged again in Washington DC, distinguish days the world is passing through.

The expedition to “deter and degrade” Syria’s chemical weapons capabilities is neither dependent on broad international support nor on UN approval. Nor even it is concerned with a few essential questions related to the much told chemical weapon. It legitimizes itself, by its own act of crossing the limit of legitimacy. It’s the deliverer of legitimacy! Isn’t it a quirk-time? It’s a time of unbridled imperialism.

In this “strange” time, incidents don’t always heed to dictation, and prime actors feel compelled to search new moves as their planned motions face gathering resistance, and unimagined reality emerges.

Who imagined the Commons defeat? And, who imagined Obama’s turning to Congress? And, who imagined Hollande’s revised decision to go slow in his journey to join the planned Syria expedition? And, who imagined the composition in the proxy war alliance – avowed enemies helping each other? And, who imagined power of people voice that is trying to prevail amidst sounds of saber?

The Water and Music Show at the Grand Palace in Peterhof, the czarist summer estate, failed to provide rest to Obama in the G-20 summit. The sole superpower failed to carry all in the summit!

Obama is now going directly to the American people as he finds congressional authorization for “punitive strikes” against Syria is an acclivitous task. Appealing to public is not a surprising turn as Congressional wind was not blowing favorably since he made the dramatic move: Go to Congress.

Tony Blinken, the US deputy national security adviser, told National Public Radio that Obama would not launch military strikes against Syria without congressional authorization.

The statements sound confusing. Or, the public opinion molding strategy is puzzling. However, there is still pressure of public opinion.

It will be difficult for John McCain and Lindsey Graham to make majority in the Congress jump into their wagon destined for Damascus. A revised resolution can be expected.

Senator McCain’s already gathered experience in an Arizona town hall meeting was not so pleasant. In his home state, the senator, known for his support for the Syrian proxy warriors, was forced to repeatedly deny that US troops would be a risk from such engagement. McCain had to insist he still owns an open mind on US intervention.

Syria expedition-mongers find no encouragement from opinion polls in the UK, US and France. Public opinion is against any military action in Syria. In the US, public opinion against the planned Syria War is strongest in decades.

There is shortage of suppliers of soldiers for the Syria war. Jordan? No. Turkey? No. Australia? No. Germany? No. The UK-Commons-story is now old news. Hence, there is, till today, no effective “coalition of the willing.”

The Washington Post (August 30) headlined a story by Ernesto Londoño: “U.S. military officers have deep doubts about impact, wisdom of a U.S. strike on Syria” that carries a deep meaning. Ernesto writes:

The “plan to launch a military strike against Syria is being received with serious reservations by many in the U.S. military.

“[T]he Defense Department has been thrust onto a war footing that has made many in the armed services uneasy, according to interviews with more than a dozen military officers ranging from captains to a four-star general.

“Current and former officers fear the potential unintended consequences of a U.S. attack on Syria.

“Former and current officers, many with the painful lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan on their minds, said the main reservations concern the potential unintended consequences of launching cruise missiles against Syria.

“Some questioned the use of military force as a punitive measure and suggested that the White House lacks a coherent strategy. If the administration is ambivalent about the wisdom of defeating or crippling the Syrian leader, possibly setting the stage for Damascus to fall to fundamentalist rebels, they said, the military objective of strikes on Assad’s military targets is at best ambiguous.

“‘There’s a broad naivete in the political class about America’s obligations in foreign policy issues, and scary simplicity about the effects that employing American military power can achieve,’ said retired Lt. Gen. Gregory S. Newbold, who served as director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the run-up to the Iraq war, noting that many of his contemporaries are alarmed by the plan.”

The report cited a commentary by Marine Lt. Col. Gordon Miller, a fellow at the Center for a New American Security: “If President [Bashar al-Assad] were to absorb the strikes and use chemical weapons again, this would be a significant blow to the United States’ credibility and it would be compelled to escalate the assault on Syria to achieve the original objectives.”

Ernesto adds:

“Still, many in the military are skeptical. Getting drawn into the Syrian war, they fear, could distract the Pentagon in the midst of a vexing mission: its exit from Afghanistan, where U.S. troops are still being killed regularly. A young Army officer who is wrapping up a year-long tour there said soldiers were surprised to learn about the looming strike, calling the prospect ‘very dangerous’.

“‘I can’t believe the president is even considering it’, said the officer, who like most officers interviewed for this story agreed to speak only on the condition of anonymity because military personnel are reluctant to criticize policymakers while military campaigns are being planned. ‘We have been fighting the last 10 years a counterinsurgency war. Syria has modern weaponry. We would have to retrain for a conventional war.’”

Public opinions may appear mysterious and dampening to interventionists. Strategic and tactical plans of big interests don’t always go smoothly with public opinion. It turns difficult if the interest is with oil or pipeline or trifurcating a country.

The chemical question

Chemical weapon has been made the central question in the expedition.

While discussing with The Huffington Post UK Jean Pascal Zanders, one of the world’s leading experts on chemical weapons and former EU chemical weapons expert, expressed his doubts about the identity of the chemical agent widely blamed for the deaths in Ghouta, the Damascus suburb.

“We don’t know what the agent is”, said Zanders. “Everyone is saying sarin. There is something clearly to do with a neurotoxicant [such as sarin], but not everything is pointing in that direction.”

He said the agent used is a crucial piece of information, because the family of neurotoxicants that includes military weapons such as nerve agents also encompasses industrial products like those used to control rodents. Until the actual agent can be identified, any link to the Assad regime is tenuous.

“If say, for example, a neurotoxicant was taken from a factory and used at [Ghouta], then the number of actors who might be responsible for that then increases,” said Zanders.

Zanders argued that outsiders cannot conclude with confidence the extent or geographic location of the chemical weapons attack.

The CW expert pointed to the images of victims that have circulated widely.

He said: “You do not know where they were taken. You do not know when they were taken or even by whom they were taken. Or, whether they [are from] the same incident or from different incidents. It doesn't tell me who would be responsible for it. It doesn't tell me where the films were taken. It just tells me that something has happened, somewhere, at some point.”

Lawrence Wilkerson, who reviewed the intelligence presented by then-US secretary of state Powell as justification for the war in Iraq, told HuffPost that the preparations for a Syria strike seem devoid of authority.

Lawrence likened the current debate to a repeat of the days he spent preparing for Powell’s since-debunked testimony, “with people telling me Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction with absolute certainty.” He added: “It seems like the same thing again.”

Alastair Hay, a chemical weapons expert who helped with the investigation at Halabja, said the UK JIC report added little new information. "There are no hard facts. It is more a case of 'believe us and our experts'," he told the Guardian.

Dan Kaszeta, a former White House adviser on chemical weapons, was “uncomfortable” with the UK’s confidence that sarin had been used. “The JIC statement shows a level of certainty in the absence of physical evidence. But I can’t buy into this consensus. Looking at the same video as everyone else, applying my 22 years of experience in chemical defense, I just don’t share their apparent certainty. We need some physical evidence.”

During the now famous defeated Syria motion debate George Galloway threw a question in the Commons: The Assad regime is bad enough to use chemical weapons. The question is: Are they mad enough to do it? Would they really launch a chemical weapons attack on the day UN inspectors were arriving in Damascus? To launch a chemical weapons attack in Damascus on the very day that a UN chemical weapons inspection team arrives in Damascus must be a new definition of madness. And of course if he is that mad, how mad is he going to be once we’ve launched a blizzard of Tomahawk cruise missiles upon his country?

Galloway said:

The Syrian rebels definitely had sarin gas because they were caught with it by the Turkish government. The truth is this – the Syrian rebels have got plenty of access to sarin.

Galloway’s argument went unanswered.

The most pertinent questions – who used the weapon and who supplied it – are still being avoided. There is political dynamics behind the silence.

“The political dynamics”, Hans Blix, the former chief UN arms inspector for Iraq, said in an interview with Nathan Gardels, “are running ahead of due process. I do not go along with the statement by the US that ‘it is too late’ for Syria now to cooperate. That is a poor excuse for taking military action.”

A Žižekian idea

Confusion is seeded by other quarters also.

Slavoj Žižek writes: “[T]he ongoing struggle there [in Syria] is ultimately a false one.” Terming the Syria intervention as “pseudo-struggle” Žižek argues: This “pseudo-struggle thrives because of the absent third, a strong radical-emancipatory opposition …”

He suggests “the radicalisation of the struggle for freedom and democracy into a struggle for social and economic justice.”

And, Žižek identifies the Syria intervention: “So what is happening in Syria these days? Nothing really special, except that China is one step closer to becoming the world’s new superpower while its competitors are eagerly weakening each other.” (“Syria is a pseudo-struggle”, theguardian.com, September 6, 2013)

Žižek misses the imperialist intervention, a proxy war, and the motive of the masters of the intervention. He misses the proxy war alliance. He misses the new type of proxy war. And, he misses the “pseudo-struggle”’s implication for countries having strategic resources and for geostrategically positioned countries, and for life of people and for democratic struggle.
The intervention appears to him “a false one”, a “pseudo-struggle”. Absence of “a strong radical-emancipatory opposition” doesn’t evaporate the facts of imperialist intervention, the design and motive to control a country/region, the reinvigorated aggressive behavior of imperialism at present time. The reinvigorated aggressive behavior of imperialism at times now is turning reckless, desperate, and at times, it doesn’t exactly know its exact position.

Identifying these facts helps key out strengths and weaknesses of concerned actors and masters and of people. This also helps chalk out program for, using Žižek’s term, “a strong radical-emancipatory opposition”.

Struggle for freedom and justice is not separate from struggle for social and economic justice. So, the task does not arise to put one into another as he suggests: “the radicalisation of the struggle for freedom and democracy into a struggle for social and economic justice”.
Building up a, using his term, “radical-emancipatory opposition” is the first task if it’s absent, and that “radical-emancipatory opposition” can carry on this and that, as Žižek suggests. Actually, his suggestion, if analyzed, is juggling with words and meaningless ideas with an appearance of deep meaning.

Dynamics for intervention

Now, it seems, new doctrines are being created: Liberal interventionism; punishment; legal, proportionate and focused military action. Already there is UN’s R2P – “Responsibility to Protect” – doctrine that requires such action must be through the Security Council.

In the Lords, Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, referred to the Christian theory: “International law is based on the Christian theory of just war”, he said.

But mongers of interventions, expeditions, aggressions don’t lend their hearts to the “Christian theory of just war”. They invent LIP – liberal intervention as punishment.

Exerting dynamism into intervention has its way.

In a letter to the US president Obama, 66 former government officials and foreign policy experts said: The president must respond with military force as the Assad regime apparently did use nerve gas.

But the optimal result of the intervention is unknown to all. What was the post-invasion Iraq and Afghanistan picture imagined by the perpetrators of those invasions before those countries were invaded? Are those imaginations in harmony with the present reality?

It’s being said that credibility of US will be lost if the power doesn’t move into Syria.

Has not that credibility been lost in Iraq, the land suffering from depleted uranium shells and sectarian strife, the land invaded with WMD lie? Has not that been lost by the false intelligence, the “Iraq Dossier”, the exposed memo, the false vial? Were not these traded for the Iraq invasion? Have not these expropriated expedition-mongers’ credibility?

Despite the fact there is still zest for invasion. The cause for this zest is interest, and to a section, interest stands above credibility. And, narrow interest never cares any country, neither Syria nor the US.

With a sad tone, Jack Kelly writes in The Pittsburgh Press:

“To intervene militarily in a conflict between bitter enemies of the United States is madness. To intervene in a deliberately ineffective way is madness on steroids. That President Barack Obama, prodded by most in the political class, plans to do precisely this indicates how frivolous they are, how out of touch with reality they've become.

“On one side in the bloody civil war in Syria is the regime of dictator Bashar Assad, Iran’s foremost ally. On the other is a rebel coalition dominated by al Qaida.

“No matter who wins, America loses. Our interests are served best by a bloody stalemate.”
(“In Syria, no matter who wins, America loses”, August 30, 2013)

Invaders are not spared by dynamism of invasion. The planned Syria intervention shall produce far-reaching implication for all involved.

The upcoming Congressional debate, Bruce Ackerman, Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science at Yale, writes in Foreign Policy, “will signal the beginning of the end of the 9/11 era.”

Bruce adds: “The crucial point to recognize is that something special is happening. A dispute with a minor-league despot is provoking a major turning point in American foreign policy.” (“President Obama’s Middle East bait and switch”)

And, for the world, questions are there:

Shall not the UN inspectors be allowed to complete their report ahead of any military action? Shall UN process be followed? Shall missile strikes and bombing follow legitimacy?

Should the legitimate international institutions be overlooked? Should international law be devalued? Should the Security Council be ignored? Should military intervention outside of UN process be carried out? Shall not that be an aggression? And, does democracy allow aggression? In democracy, people prevail. And, people are not aggressive.

Death Dominates Democracy Egypt

Deaths question democracy’s journey in the land of the Nile. Questions of democracy remain unresolved. Violence has now widened the gap between aspiration and actions for democracy further. And, fundamental aspects related to democracy have once again been reiterated by the bloody, brutal incidents in Cairo and across the country.

For weeks, since the army reasserted its role in politics in Egypt, questions of democracy were turning clouded. Questions revolved around army’s role and external actors’ support in democracy’s journey.

A political move – the army’s re-stepping in – was the yardstick of democracy or militaryocracy to a section while another concentrated on external move – US’ support or not. While one rejected the army’s move as if the army had not played any role in earlier incidents during the overthrow of Mubarak and during election understandings, as if befriending this army was not aspired and was not made during a stage of anti-Mubarak uprising. Another turned staunch anti-US as if US support was never sought in the journey for democracy. What would have happened had the army stood by the Morsi camp instead of deposing him? And, what would have happened had the US extended full-fledged support to the Morsi camp? How would have the question of democracy in Egypt been defined if, for the sake of argument, the army tomorrow reaches to Morsi camp and the US publicly extends its hands of friendship to the camp? How it would have been defined had a people upsurge without army support overthrown Morsi?

Defining democracy on a narrow scale – support of army and of the US or no support – shall not help resolving the question. Questions of democracy in Egypt are rooted in the society, among the classes in the society competing for allocation. While defining democracy ignoring the class question shall only bring reliance on external actors, and role of external actors shall appear as the sole yardstick, a confusing measurement, of democracy. Alliance with the US is not only a Mubarak-act. A recently published book based on historical documents shows it’s an old practice, since emergence of an organization that now claims democratic space.

Election is one of essential components of democracy. But it’s not the only component. What happens when election does not represent majority or it fails to ensure majority’s participation or electoral tactics demolishes possibilities of popular participation? Are not there instances of elections turning tools in the hands of autocrats in countries? How shall it be defined if a popular upsurge in some other country overthrows an autocrat who “won” an election engineered by the autocrat? Shall the expression of “popular” aspiration be brushed out?

The reassertion of army’s role in Egyptian politics is the problem of the state and the ruling elites. The institution – the army – has stepped in as all other institutions of the state have failed to resolve the problem at that moment, and the institution has tried/is trying to resolve the problem. Co-opting all factions of the ruling elites or failure to co-opt them depends on the capacity of the institution and the capacity ultimately comes from the ruling elites. It’s the institution’s capacity or incapacity to address all interests of all factions of the ruling elites, and all the factions house tycoons and magnets, and the interests are the same, and all the factions stand against the toiling masses. Don’t the Egyptian workers striking now for their rights reaffirm this? Has any of the elite-factions stood by workers’ interests – their right over the fruits of their labor, and their opinion on existing production relation, and letting them organized to change the relation in a democratic way? It’s not only the question of the workers; it’s also the question of all the masses of the people – the peasantry, the low-salaried employees, the petty traders, the teachers, the unemployed youth, and the women.

This interest – the interest of the masses – was not discussed and was not made the yardstick of democracy while defining democracy in the aftermath of reassertion of army’s role in the center stage of the Egyptian politics. (Un)fortunately most of the opinions centered on army’s intervention or US support.

A democracy stands with a farcical face, and obviously indignities also, when it depends on external actors, actors not dependent on people. With its sole external-dependence it completes a single job – demolish all prospects of democracy. The act confirms its internal weakness, its incapability. The way external actors from other continents meddled in Egyptian politics show infirmness of the social forces standing for democracy. With this infirmness, and level of dignity also, evaluating their role in ensuring democracy or denouncing them turns a farce.

Democracy in Egypt, as in many other countries, is not only an issue of election or not. The society, as many other societies, also faces fundamental questions that include widening space for democratic struggle by the people and accepting ideas and concepts that facilitate people’s democratic struggle, accepting ideas and concepts that assert people’s opinion over production and distribution, which are obviously progressive, which expose fetters on people’s interests. Today, the society is going through pains of contradictions between way of looking at reality, the society and economy, the questions of power and privilege – forward and backward, behavior and fundamental rights, practices and ownership, authority and subjugation. These questions were not raised by many opinions while welcoming or negating the recent army intervention in the Egyptian politics. Otherwise, at least, after the mass upsurge against Mubarak, women in Egypt would have faced less harassment and felt safe in public life. All the forces claiming for democracy would have ensured a dignified and safe space for women. It’s an important indicator of a society striving for democracy. Other questions of organizing people’s organizations, people’s supervision over commons, questions of tycoons and magnets are there also. Tycoons and magnets don’t befriend people, the wretched. Tycoons are in all camps; it’s not only a Mubarak camp phenomenon. Now, a Mubarak-friend-steel-tycoon is behind bar.

Recent turmoil in Egypt has shown one aspect of global power – its limits, its lack of preparedness. All the time global power can’t ensure all moves conducive to its interests. All its wishes are not easily ensured. All the time it can’t easily satisfy all factions looking at it for support. It’s turning difficult.

And, planting democracy is not an easy job although moves to cast off an autocrat are designed by some Sharp-mind, as is often told. Doesn’t today’s Egypt show this?

The deaths the recent Egyptian days have witnessed, the blood that has flowed through the Egyptian politicalscape, the acts of arson, the brutality and intolerance tarnish endeavor for democracy as these are the products of the political elites’ failure that makes common people fodder of elite-politics. The acts of setting churches on fire nowhere and never upholds struggle for democracy.

Violence moves with its shadow, a darker shadow of counter-violence. Political stroke of violence is made when other political stokes appear useless, a dangerous symptom. Democracy’s journey is complicated and tumultuous. But, the recent violence and deaths standing as obstacle shall make Egypt’s democracy journey more complicated, which will ultimately hinder people’s interest; people will find it difficult to widen their breathing space. And, this is one of the ways ruling elites transfer their burden of failure on lives of the Egyptian people. The pattern shall prevail until people’s own initiatives, organization and leadership for democracy develop.

The Way People Democratize

People democratize their spheres with own momentum, velocity and force manifested in its leadership, organization and politics. Trajectory of people’s democratization process that gets generated from contradictions in the realm of production relation ultimately frees itself from influence and control of dominant interests.

Dominant interest, because of its prevailing paramount position in economy and politics, influences, manipulates, distorts and deactivates people’s democratization process. The attempts persist temporarily, depending on reality; but the power equation changes as people turn matured in term of experience, theory, leadership, organization and ways of initiatives/struggles, and a seemingly frustrating, sometimes hopeless, situation gives way to a new dawn of hope.

An example, in brief, elaborates the way.

In retrospect

On March 9, 1944, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, Muslim League leader in the British colony of India, said: “At present you should just stand by Pakistan. It means that first of all you have to take possession of a territory. …When you have once taken possession of your homeland the question will then arise as to what form of government you are going to establish.” (Some Recent Speeches and Writings of Mr. Jinnah, collected and edited by Jamil-Ud-Din Ahmad, lecturer, Muslim University, Aligarh, and member, All-India Muslim League council, 1947, Lahore) He was delivering speech at the Aligarh Muslim University Union. Jinnah was unwilling to enter into detail of type of government at that moment as that would have raised questions among a portion of his followers.

But Jinnah’s statement was an irrational one coated with emotion and apparent rationality. His audience, the Muslims of this subcontinent, accepted the statement. Their allegiance to and trust on him encouraged Jinnah to say arrogantly: “Fortunately, I came to the rescue of the Musalmans and prevented them from committing suicide.” (ibid.) Jinnah was addressing the All-India Railway Muslim Employees’ Association in Delhi on February 27, 1944. The Muslim League leader successfully hoodwinked analytical capacity of his audience that allowed him to make the boastful claim. It tells his level of influence at that time.

On August 14, 1947, the day Pakistan emerged as a dominion of the British Empire, the sentiment among the Muslim residents in Dhaka (at that time spelled as Dacca) was of jubilation. Jinnah was then unchallenged leader of the Muslims’ in both wings – East and West – of Pakistan.

But, within months, there was a voice of opposition. Courageous Baangaalee students steadfastly opposed Jinnah’s stand on language question. The voice of protest was unimaginable to many Jinnah-disciples. The defiant students, inexperienced in comparison to Jinnah, were standing against Pakistan establishment- leadership heavily loaded with Nazimuddin, Akram Khaa, and similar others in a bundle. Even, in 1948, a portion of Dhaka residents was opposed to the students standing for Baanglaa language.

In terms of political resistance, those were desolate days for Bangladesh, at that time it was East Bengal/E. Pak. The rebel Maulaanaa, Abdul Hamid Khan Bhasani, was passing hard days in Dhaka. Even, it took courage to visit him as there were always the blood-red eyes of Muslim League as the arch rightist party in the seat of governance knew the fire brand Maulaanaa, a leader with rebellious peasant background. Communists in East Bengal were compelled to close down the book store, a single one, they initiated in Dhaka. At day time, Baareen Datta, a communist leader in East Bengal, as he conveyed in his memoirs Sangraammookhar Deengoolee, had to float in boats in guise of a floating hawker in Haor, vast seasonal water body in the north-central part of Bangladesh, as it was difficult for him to have a safe shelter in Sunamganj. His sister Hena Das and their comrades had the same “fate” in varying forms as their memoirs/autobiographies describe. Hired hoodlums, as Tajuddin Ahmad, the first prime minister of the Provisional Government of Bangladesh, narrated in his youth days-diary (now available in book form), assaulted students belonging to non-Muslim League camp. The hirelings used a government vehicle, the number of which Tajuddin noted in the diary. The lumpens went scot-free as Muslim League leaders were their political fathers. Ila Mitra, the Raanee Maa as the rebel East Bengal Shaotaals (mostly spelled as Shantal) used to address her with love and respect, had to face torture in untold term. The Shaotaals had their narration of facing barbarity and brutality unleashed by the Muslim League/Pakistan leadership. The fishers of Sunamganj, the sharecroppers of north-western part of East Bengal waging Tebhaagaa Andolon or Tebhaagaar Laraai, movement for a fair share of produce, the port and railways workers, the beeree (also spelled bidi), hand-made cigarette, workers and many others from the East Bengal working classes had to face police assault, detention, torture, jail and bullets. Killing of political prisoners in Khaapraa ward, a cell in Rajshahi jail, and death of hunger striking prisoners are only two of many such incidents.

But the days of the torturers were going to their dusk. Shamsul Haque, a young man from an ordinary peasant family, awarded an election-defeat to a Muslim League leader. That was unimaginable to the League leaders, aristocrat, in terms of East Bengal society, and powerful. In the election held in 1954, the Baangaalee people made a verdict: the mighty League was wiped out from the face of East Bengal. Only through conspiracy, riot, buy- in, horse trading, and other dirty machinations the rulers prevailed, up to the people’s upsurge in 1969, politically. Only a few months before the upsurge, in 1968, Ayub, the ruler at that time, jubilantly celebrated his decade of tyranny termed as “Decade of Development”.

Long before the 1969-upsurge, there were initiatives, in commoners’ ghettoes, to organize struggle for democracy. A booklet, part of those initiatives, said: “None has the power to push back time. History doesn’t cease moving forward. History is the witness: The flag of freedom shall fly high forever over this land of rivers, the land where swords of Harsavardhana and Man Singh broke down into pieces.” The Banglaa booklet was published in 1949.

How many persons imagined that the statement made in the booklet will turn true within only 22 years?

Jinnah’s Pakistan was rejected by the majority of its population. At least Muslim League leadership of all shades including Ayub, leading a faction of Muslim League, his E. Pakistani quisling Monaem, their bureaucrat advisors and industrialist supporters that included Adamjee, Bawani and co., Ayub’s vagabond-appearing local government wagon riders declined to listen to the murmurs the movement of the Baangaalee people made throughout the period. But their denial was not all powerful. Rather, the denial was standing on a hollow ground. People rose up in rebellion, and threw away the tyranny, and then, the glorious Bangladesh War of Liberation followed.

This dynamic – a population’s rejection of an ideology upheld by a group of elites, and the population tearing down the elites’ state to half – is difficult, sometimes impossible, to perceive by elite-brain.

Similar – people’s rejection of elite-ideology or -politics or -rule while ruling elites fail to gauge people’s discontent – difficulties/failures on the part of the elites were found in other lands also. It was found in Tehran during the last days of Shah. The failure was also present in Manila since assassinating Benigno Aquino.

Shah, his dreaded, elaborate intelligence network, his political allies, scores of journalists from important Shah-ally countries, Marcos, his politically active wife Imelda and their cronies failed to hear “mutter” below the surface under their heavy feet that encroached all spaces for dissent and democracy. Even Marcos and his cronies failed to “smell” changing position – tact in the name “democracy” – of their closest ally. King Farook in Egypt, King Idris in Libya, Samoza in Nicaragua and “Baby Doc”, Duvalier, in Haiti, Mubarak in Egypt, and their ruling machines and external master also failed to perceive the dynamic. Erdogan, the backward looking neo-Sultan in Turkey upholding repressive ideas, failed to perceive the Taksim protest threatening his dream for further dictatorial power.

It’s a dynamic people initiate to democratize their life – economy, society, politics and culture. Set backs and defeats that follow very often only reinvigorate people’s initiative to achieve victory, a long, arduous process.

Move to democratize

People keep on their move to claim democracy despite failures and set backs as democracy is the only space for organizing their life in a decent, dignified way. It’s the only space to get mobilized for resisting encroachers of the space required for organizing a peaceful, prosperous life.

Organizing political movement is their most important and effective way to claim democracy, people’s democracy. But it takes time, etc. to organize such a movement. Instead of spending time in frustration people initiate/can initiate other motions that facilitate their mobilization and forward movement.

A major part of these motions include producing literature. Pre-’69 Bangladesh-years experienced scores of literature mostly produced by students and political activists. Journalists with their political columns played a major role. That was a part of politicization of the masses of people in Bangladesh. In 1815, John Adams wrote to Jefferson: “What do we mean by Revolution? The War? That was no part of the Revolution; it was only an effect and consequence of it. The Revolution was in the minds of the people, and this was effected, from 1760 to 1775, in the course of fifteen years before a drop of blood was shed at Lexington. The records of thirteen legislatures, the pamphlets, newspapers in all the colonies, ought to be consulted during that period to ascertain the steps by which the public opinion was enlightened and informed concerning the authority of Parliament over the colonies.” Other lands dreaming for democracy are not exceptions.

People’s initiatives/moves for democratizing their spheres are entirely and fundamentally different from “democratization” “initiatives” driven by external actors: other states and their organizations, funds, non-governmental organizations in appearance, banks, etc.

Aim of the external actors’ “initiatives” is to secure existing world order – the world market system – based on inequality while people’s initiatives aim to have a political system corresponding to economic interests of people – an equitable distribution, restoring people’s ownership on the commons, securing environment and ecology in the interest of people, a fair international trade regime, etc. As the two stand opposed to each other external actors’ “initiatives” aim to secure market, sources of raw materials and labor while the other one can secure its interest only by breaking the chain of market.

Market stands as one of the yardsticks for determining type of democracy: for the people or for the market, or in other words, people’s democracy or market’s democracy. Market and democracy cannot move together.

Jacques Attali, economist, philosopher and former president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development was special adviser to the president of France for 10 years. He finds “inherent conflict between the market economy and democracy” and says the “two concepts are contradictory” (“The Crash of Western Civilization: The Limits of the Market and Democracy”, Foreign Policy, Number 107, Summer 1997) He also finds “the marriage of democracy and the market economy suffers from three fundamental shortcomings”, and says “these two sets of principles [democracy and market economy] often contradict one another and are more likely to go head-to-head than hand in hand”. (ibid.)

Attali writes:

“In a democratic society, the promotion of the individual is the ultimate goal, while in a market economy the individual is treated as a commodity — one that can be excluded or cast aside for want of the right education, skills, physical characteristics, or upbringing.

“The market economy accepts and fosters strong inequalities between economic agents, whereas democracy is based on the equal rights of all citizens. By depriving some people of the ability to meet their basic economic needs, the market economy also leaves them less able to exercise their full political rights. Witness the swelling ranks of unemployed workers in much of the West who can vote but are otherwise increasingly disenfranchised and alienated.

“The market economy resists the localization of power, discourages coalitions between participants, and encourages selfishness, while democracy depends upon a clear identification of political responsibility, the coalition of citizens in political parties, and a general appreciation of our common fate. Democracies need political parties that are capable of molding platforms based on compromises between individual points of view, while market economies rely on competing individual centers.

“The market economy creates a world of nomads, whereas democracy can apply only to sedentary people.

“The market economy assumes that the aggregation of selfish behavior by all economic agents is best for the group, whereas democracy makes the assumption that the best outcome for any given group will result from the acceptance by a minority of the decision of a majority.” (ibid.)

As example he mentions:

“[O]ur companies and bureaucracies are organized on the basis of fixed plans and strict hierarchies. Can we imagine a real market relationship between divisions of the same company or between a boss and her assistant? Can we imagine an internal referendum on each decision made by a minister or cabinet secretary?” (ibid.)

Attali beefs up the argument:

“[F]ew Western nations including the United States would appreciate an international community where true democracy prevailed. (Imagine, for example, a United Nations where the most important decisions were made not by the Security Council's oligarchy of five nuclear powers but by the entire General Assembly on the principle of ‘one citizen, one vote’ or ‘one state, one vote’.) If international financial institutions had followed such a democratic system during the so-called Global Negotiations of the 1980s, there would likely have been a drastic shift in the global distribution of wealth that would have jeopardized the interests of the West in general, and of the United States in particular.” (ibid.)

By further dissection he adds:

“[A]pplying the principles of the market economy both within and among nations is problematic and undesirable. I know of no Western nation that seeks a free market in justice, law enforcement, national defense, education, or even telecommunications ... Few if any Westerners would want to live in a country where court rulings were for sale, citizenship and passports could be purchased at airline ticket counters, and air waves were auctioned off to the highest bidder without regard to content. And among nations, a free market for nuclear weapons, illegal narcotics, high technology, potable water, and pollution would promote the rapid growth of supranational political bodies and powerful nonstate entities capable of challenging national governments.” (ibid.)

People’s democracy, thus, stands opposite to market as principles and practices of market are opposed to principles and practices of democracy, rule of majority of society. So, people’s democratizing initiative opposes market. Otherwise, people cannot establish and consolidate their democracy, and market gets a freehand in dominating, distorting and encroaching democracy.

To tomorrow

Democracy ultimately stands on force, the force of majority. People in their struggle for democracy develop force of their own. The force initially, at a stage and as intermediate phase, gets manifested sometimes in Bangladesh (erstwhile E. Pak.) 1969-people’s upsurge, sometimes in Bangladesh 1990-urban upsurge, sometimes with yellow color in Manila, sometimes at Tahrir Square and sometimes at Taksim Square. In short, it’s the Tahrir-way, the Taksim-way or the Turkish summer-way, now at Taksim.

People’s democratizing initiative can begin as a demand to have bread or an effort to save a commons, a few trees on a small piece of land, and can act as a spark igniting people’s aspiration and yearning against authoritarian archaic ruler/ruling elites, and can shatter the ruler’s/ruling elites’ seeming invincibility, and can spread like wildfire. The outcome depends on other factors and conditions.

Despite similarities to many extents Tahrir is not Taksim, and Taksim can’t be copied elsewhere as conditions that generated Tahrir and Taksim are different. No imagination should be entertained to copy either of the two. However, the two, and similar others provide lessons, which are, broadly: educate, mobilize, avoid adventurism, find out areas for democratic initiatives by the masses of people.

At initial stage, people develop it through awareness, exchange of experiences. In the process, the democracy of minority social classes propagated as democracy-universal, a myth, gets exposed. Gradually, the development rises to the stage of effective organization. People, in their process to democratize, gradually exercise authority – people’s sovereignty – spanning spheres of culture, society, politics and economy.

In a journey towards a democratized tomorrow, initiating motions for democratizing spheres around include: (1) producing literature; (2) expanding publicity; (3) organizing exchange of experiences; (4) making demand for fair price shop; (5) organizing cooperatives; (6) planning and implementing environmental programs; (7) organizing programs for mitigating effects of climate crisis; (8) formulating demands to democratize credit giving societies/groups, re-/construction work groups, bodies managing educational institutions, storage facilities, health facilities, local government and projects; (9) claiming other commons.

Taksim revolt shows: Simple trees can mobilize people in a mass-based way shunning irresponsible comments hurting people’s sentiment, adventurous slogans and childish incoherent acts. In places and at times, it may be a river, a water body, a flood plain, an encroacher’s acts and connections.

These and similar other activities, people identify as they proceed, facilitate forward movement for democratizing spheres around people, enrich people’s experience, build up leadership, and space for further move. It’s a continuous process with more and more democratizing demands of people.