Re: <nettime> Palestinians as Myth

[Craig Brozefsky <craig@red-bean.com>]

richard barbrook <richard@hrc.wmin.ac.uk> writes:

> Hiya,
> 
> All nation states are historically recent inventions. Even the oldest states,
> such as England or the USA, are only a few centuries old. In recent years,
> Palestinians, Kosovars, Bosniaks, Kurds, East Timorese and many other peoples
> have been struggling to achieve the national self-determination which most of
> us on nettime take for granted. 

Who amongst those people were struggling for seperate states, who
benefited from the creation of those states when the struggle
"succeeded", and who paid?  That would seem a reasonable question to
ask, rather than making an appeal to the struggle of an abstract class
of people whose ends we must respect because their greater suffering
brings them closer to reality than "us".

The Palestinian Authority has repeatedly shown that they are not
looking out for the interest of workers on Palestine, but instead are
looking to establish a cheap labor pool and carve out a colony for
themselves.  It would be shameful to confuse the PA with a popular
movement towards statehood and self-determination.

The Kosovar's seccesionist movement is also illegal under
international law, much like the other seccesionist movements that
tore apart Yugoslavia, not that international law is an arbiter of
right however.  The KLA's terrorizing of those Albanians who would
dare vote or otherwise cooperate with the nation-state they already
have indicates at least some disjoint between the KLA and the masses.
Are we to support the KLA's nationalist interests because they are the
"opressed"?  Is ethnic make-up to determine the borders of our states?
What about the existing states, like Yugoslavia, which are being torn
apart?  Well, as a colonizing force, that sure would make things
easier for us.

The Bosnian's have a state, we can't call it their state tho, because
it's basically a colony disguised as a nation-state under NATO and
western finance's control, carefully balancing the ethnic tensions in
the area to keep both sides in line.

The East Timorese have their colonial state too, only this time it's
Australia and not NATO.

It seems that seccesionist movements, particularly ones that make an
appeal to the west for help, or are directly organized by the west, do
little, if anything, to help the people of these new nations. Instead,
they are effectively new colonies with a local bourgeois
administration dependent upon western finance and military
intervention.

So what are some of us on nettime taking for granted?  That those
using the rhetoric of self-determination are good guys.  That ethnic
identities are sufficient reason to support the dismantling of
nation-states.  That the new nation-states which have arisen from
these western interventions actually have self-determination and
answer to their populations rather than the dictates of western
financial powers.

By questioning the efficacy of these seccesionist movements and
new-born nation-colonies, am I advocating that no attempt be made to
express social power?  Of course not.

> For it is only those who live under of the protection of stable and
> independent republics who have the privilege of dreaming about a
> world without states...

Your rhetoric on this topic is rotating around a black-hole of guilt.
Please don't export your self-loathing as theory.

-- 
Craig Brozefsky                    <craig@red-bean.com>
"the sacrifice of real, immediate life is the price paid
for the illusory freedom of an apparent life." Vaneigem

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