We are publishing below a resolution adopted on the developments in Kurdistan, adopted by the recent territorial conference of the ICC section in Turkey. Our resolution, aims to explain clearly who the millions of people encircled by this imperialist war are being forced to give their lives for. It is founded on our position that the only solution for the working class which is being forced into butchering its class brothers and sisters for the sake of the imperialist interests of different nations is class war on the basis of internationalism.

The Only Solution of the Kurdish Question is the Internationalist Solution!

1.    The Turkish state is a state which is pursuing imperialist interests both in Kurdistan and in the Middle East in general. The PKK[1], although it hasn't succeeded in becoming an actual state, is acting as the main apparatus of the nationalist Kurdish bourgeoisie in Turkey; it attempts to realize its interests in its area of activity as if it is an actual state and it is bound to rely on the direct or indirect support of this or that imperialist state the interests of which rival those of Turkish imperialism at this or that point. As such, although its forces are weaker compared to those of the imperialist Turkish state and its interests narrower, the PKK is as much a part of world imperialism as the Turkish state. This war which escalated in the recent months in Kurdistan is, like all the wars going on in all parts of the world, an imperialist war.[2] Dying or killing their class brothers or sisters for the interests of their masters is in the interests of neither the Turkish nor the Kurdish workers.

2.    The situation in Iraqi Kurdistan and in other Kurdish regions has changed with the entry of the United States into the region. Turkey is a power in the region, and a partner of the United States and so is also a partner of the relationships stemming from this situation. Also, the region is extremely profitable for the Turkish bourgeoisie. It has been demonstrated that the relationship between Southern Kurdistan[3] and the PKK can become tense as a result of certain pressures of the Turkish state. On the other hand, the pressure created by the Kurdish population forces the Southern Kurdish government to look after the PKK. A similar relationship doesn't exist between Iranian Kurdistan and Southern Kurdistan.

3.    The Kurdish question is completely tied up with imperialist politics in the Middle East. There are two aspects of this: The first is the influence of the United States, while the second stems from the fact that Kurds occupy a key position in the region. When we look at recent developments, it is possible to analyze the situation as regards the Turkish state as follows: while at times there is a partnership with the Southern Kurdish government, these relationships have shown a tendency to worsen at certain moments as well. In the background is the Nabucco project designed by the United States to pump oil to Europe, avoiding Russia. Following the November the 5th talks in 2007, Turkey's perspective has changed. While the perspective before the summit was advancing with completely military methods, afterwards a different course was taken under the guise of democratic reforms. Behind this lies the security of the Nabucco plan. There is a need for the normalization of this problem in order to stabilise the region. For this reason, it is desired for the problem between the Turkish and Kurdish bourgeoisies should be solved, as they have mutual long term strategic partners.

4.    Despite all this, what the AKP[4] government did beneath all the promises of reforms and talks of democracy was nothing but a continuation of the old policy of war. During the process, thousands have been arrested in the KCK trials[5], hundreds of Kurdish guerrillas were murdered while retreating during ceasefire, extremely heavy handed attacks by the police were made on Kurdish demonstrations resulting in the injury of many demonstrators and the deaths of several, social oppression was encouraged in Turkish cities against the Kurds living there, resulting in lynching attempts. Yet, while the AKP government's strategy remained the same as those of the previous governments, its tactics were significantly different. The AKP government pursued an ambitious plan of stalling the representatives of the Kurdish movement in Turkish politics[6] openly with intrigues and false gestures and the PKK in the background with negotiations, while continuing a policy of repression which essentially remained the same. The last part of the gambit was to be winning the support of the Kurdish masses by giving out different sorts of charity such as food, refrigerators, ovens and so forth and by using religious ideology. This, last point perhaps had been the most critical of the AKP government's plan, since like the rest of the Turkish state they had realised that it wasn't possible for them to defeat the PKK by military force alone. For this reason, they had aimed to become a force first rivaling and eventually surpassing and marginalizing the PKK in Turkish Kurdistan; yet this intrigue, worthy of the old Ottoman empire, ended up exploding in the government's face. 

5.    The reason this plan did not work out was not because the Kurdish bourgeoisie didn't bite the bait, because quite the contrary they did for a long time. The strategy of the Kurdish bourgeoisie to integrate into the Turkish state and to rule in Turkish Kurdistan as the local apparatus of the Turkish state forced them to put up with lots of moves of its rival just for the sake of remaining on the negotiation table. Nevertheless, eventually the Kurdish bourgeoisie ended up having to make a strong counter-move, saying: “We've been fighting for the last 30 years, and you know as well as we do that we can't solve this with such methods; but let us remind you once again so that we can go back to the negotiation table”. Contrary to other forces bested by the AKP government by such intrigues[7], what was at the background of the fact that the Kurdish bourgeois movement could make such a daring move was the fact that the Kurdish bourgeoisie is not a part of the Turkish bourgeoisie; that it is a separate bourgeoisie which is based on different economic and social dynamics and which draws its strength from different conditions.

6.    And yet again, despite all this, the Kurdish bourgeoisie wants capital to come to the region. And in this, the Kurdish bourgeoisie and the bourgeoisie of Turkey have mutual interests. The words spoken by Leyla Zana[8] in a conference where she participated with Ishak Alaton, the owner of the Alarko Holding, one of the one of the largest business conglomerates in Turkey, are eloquent: “Until today, they've seen the Kurds only as street vendors and shoe polishers”. This expresses the ambitions of the Kurdish bourgeoisie and for this, the Kurdish bourgeoisie needs foriegn investment in Kurdistan.

7.    The Turkish bourgeoisie also wants to create a new image for itself. This includes turning Turkey into a heaven for cheap labor. Needless to say, an important part of this is made up of the Kurdish working class. The current period is one in which attacks on the living and working conditions of the working class are being prepared, especially with the new measures in the public sector. By trying to give the image of a social state, surplus value is being increased. An example of this is the fact that the Ministry of Work is planning a new law which will make it a necessity for every worker to be unionized. A potential for surplus value not used well (!) enough exists in Kurdistan. Kurdish workers are working for very low salaries in numerous sectors. The implementation of this cheap labor policy in Kurdistan is being prepared with the new regional minimal wage policy.

8.    This point reached as a result of all these reforms and negotiations has demonstrated once again that only war can come of the bourgeoisie's peace, that the solution of the Kurdish question can't be the result of any compromise with the Turkish imperialist state, and that the PKK is in no way a structure even remotely capable of offering any sort of solution whatsoever. The Kurdish question can't be solved only in Turkey. The Kurdish question can't be solved with a war between nations. The Kurdish question can't be solved with democracy. The only solution of this question lies in the united struggle of the Kurdish and Turkish workers with the workers of the Middle East and the whole world. The only solution of the Kurdish question is the internationalist solution. Only the working class can raise the banner of internationalism against the barbarism of the nationalist war by refusing to die for the bourgeoisie.

The pundits of the bourgeoisie include China in their collection of economic ‘powerhouses’ known as the “BRICs”. This also includes Brazil, Russia and India, which are all supposedly going to be the salvation of crisis-ridden capitalism. These countries are painted as being at the other end of the scale to the “PIIGs” (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain). In reality, they’re just two sides of the same coin. The PIIGs have fallen far and fast into open economic crisis, the BRICs are about to, thereby extinguishing the faint hopes of the ruling class of an economic miracle capable of overcoming the mortal crisis of the capitalism. As the ICC's International Review 148 says: “The 'emerging' countries, like India and Brazil, are seeing a rapid reduction of activity. Even China, which since 2008 has been presented as the new locomotive of the world economy, is officially going from bad to worse. An article on the website of the China Daily on December 26 said that two provinces (one being Guangdong which is one of the richest in the country since it hosts a large part of the manufacturing sector for mass consumer products) have told Beijing that they are going to delay the payments on the interest on their debt. In other words, China is faced with bankruptcy”.

In an ominous development for the Chinese economy – and for capitalism more generally – there is a massive building boom/bubble swelling up which, like those in the USA, Ireland, Spain and elsewhere, can only burst, with dire consequences. There is a vast overcapacity shown in the hundred odd million square feet of unusable and unsellable building space in Shanghai. Housing here and in Beijing is priced around 20 times more than an average worker's annual pay. 85% of workers who need one, can't afford a new home. The regime has tightened credit because of rising inflation so, just like Britain, the USA, Ireland, Spain, etc., the soon-to-deflate bubble will threaten the banking system, particularly China's version of ‘sub-prime’, the unofficial grey market banking system financed by the large state-owned businesses of the regime. These losses in turn will adversely impact on the important local authorities of the state who will be unable to meet their obligations. Far from being a beacon of hope, the developing global crisis of capitalism means even more that the Chinese economy is just another factor of capitalist despair.

Developments in working class struggle in China show that it is fully a part of the global wave of class struggle and social protest that has been building up since around 2003. Also, because the extent and depth of the struggles, which now involving second-generation, largely literate migrant workers, events in China have a great potential. Not as an expression of bourgeois self-delusion in any ‘economic upturn’, but to as an important beacon for the world proletariat in the development of the class struggle.

The thousands and thousands of reported “incidents” of strikes and protests in the cities, along with unrest in the countryside are growing in number and intensity. Strikes are getting bigger: the three-day strike early in January in the industrial zone of Chengdu, was, according to The Economist (2/2/12) “... unusually large for an enterprise owned by the central government”. Here the workers gained a small increase of around $40 a month, but buying off strikes in such a way, along with overt repression, is no longer sufficient. The media black-out of unrest is no longer enough given the use of microblogs. The frequency of strikes at privately owned factories has also increased in the last year.

In the Pearl River Delta, which produces about one-third of Chinese exports, thousands of workers in Dongguan last November, protesting against wage-cuts, took to the streets and clashed with police. Photos of injured workers appeared on the internet. In the last few weeks there have been more protests here.

The Economist continues, observing recent and developing protests in Guangdong, as taking on a different form, in contrast to the settled and peaceful strikes that took place here in 2010: “...these days, rather than bidding to improve their lot, workers are mostly complaining about wages and jobs being cut. The strikers seem more militant... A report published this month by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, says that compared to 2010, the strikes of 2011 were better organised, more confrontational and more likely to trigger copycat action. 'Workers are not willing this time to accept that they have to make sacrifices, and secondly, fewer are willing to pack up and go home’”.

Repression is still the main weapon of the Chinese state – non-uniformed police are everywhere. But there are dangers in this policy. When a pregnant worker was manhandled by the police in Guangdong recently, thousands of workers attacked the police and government buildings. These workers are unlikely to go back to being settled peasants particularly when the countryside is raising its own form of protests against the effects of the crisis – as in the village of Wukan recently. There are a hundred and sixty million migrant workers (20 million lost their jobs when the economic shock-waves of 2008 hit China) and they are living in the cities. There is nothing for them to go back to and, given that, as migrants, they are supposed to pay for their children's education and family healthcare (which companies are supposed to pay for, but like the minimum wage is largely ignored), another area of class conflict has opened up.

The world economic crisis is deepening and this will have a significant effect on China and its economy. Given the present and developing levels of class struggle in this country, we should expect to see further developments in the struggles of workers in China, building on a number of strikes and protests reported in January.

Baboon, 2/2/12

On 2 February, the football match between the Port-Saïd team Al-Masry and the Cairo side Al-Ahly ended in a bloodbath: 73 dead and a thousand injured. The final whistle had just been blown – Al-Masry had won it - when local supporters, or people claiming to be, invaded the pitch and terraces, viciously attacking players and supporters of the Cairo team. During all this mayhem, with bottles, stones and fireworks flying all over the place, and in which the majority of dead were smothered or trampled in the resulting stampede, the police did not intervene. Even though football matches in Egypt have often seen very violent clashes between supporters, which is why they are often very tightly marshalled by the forces of order, on this occasion a lot of questions have been asked about the attitude of the police. According to a number of observers and testimonies, the police seemed to be allowing this explosion of hatred to take place. There are photos of police officers turning their back on the general chaos, as though nothing was happening; and the question is clearly posed whether this was a carefully orchestrated provocation, with cops infiltrated into the Port-Saïd supporters to stir things up and push things towards a massacre. “This was a programmed war” was the accusation of Ehab Ali,  Al-Masry’s team doctor who witnessed the passivity of the security forces for a whole hour.  

It looks like the new government was attempting to send out a message to opponents of the new regime made up of the army and the Muslim Brotherhood, via this assault on the Al-Ahly supporters[1]. These supporters, many of them sons of workers, took a frontline role in the fight against Mubarak and were very active in the confrontations with the police in Tahrir Square. They see themselves as ‘ultras’, i.e. a radical part of the rebellious youth which is out to change things in Egypt. One of their favourite slogans is “down with the military regime”, and one of their favourite songs is “All Cops are Bastards” – they often wear the acronym “ACAB”. Some of them have even given out a pamphlet called “The crimes against the revolutionary forces will not stop or scare the revolutionaries”.

During the match on 2 February, the Port Said supporters were chanting slogans in favour of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, and thus in opposition to the Cairo supporters. But what might have been just another episode in the nationalist and localist craziness which is increasingly infecting sport, and which is assiduously promoted by the media, now became a real “lesson” aimed at the opponents of the existing regime.

This was not just aimed at the young people who make up the ultras – many of whom have overcome the divisions between different groups of supporters to fight together against the post-Mubarak regime – but also and above all at the entire Egyptian population[2]. And it seems that the population knew it: the day after the tragedy, Cairo and other towns saw two days of very violent confrontations in which the police responded to the crowd with live ammunition. In the capital, the Interior Ministry was besieged and attacked. Officially there were ten deaths and hundreds of injuries, which made the population even more angry: “they know how to protect a ministry, but not a stadium”, as the demonstrators put it. They also called for the execution of Field Marshall Tantawi.

This reaction by the population was entirely legitimate, but it fell into the trap of responding to repression by rioting. Immediately after the macabre match in Port-Saïd, the town, along with a number of others in the country, was immediately and heavily patrolled by the army, proof that the regime knew what it was doing, that it was expecting riots and was ready to deal with them.

We need to look at things in a sober way. Popular revolt in the street, however ‘ultra’, is not enough to change society and it does not equal revolution. Let’s not forget that what forced Mubarak to stand down last year was not just the social revolt but above all the workers’ strikes which spread throughout the country and really scared the Egyptian and international bourgeoisie. The Egyptian and American bourgeoisie accelerated the departure of the old dictator in order to prevent this class movement from coming to the fore, from developing to the point where it could undermine illusions in ‘democracy’ and serve as an example to the working class across the world.

Wilma 17/2/12