Re: [OPE] Challenging the Left on Libya

It's noise, Paul. Personally, I regard Gilbert Achcar as an opportunist
academic faker, who parasitizes the efforts of the workers to advance his
own career, a good example of an ideologist of the Marxist exploiter class.
He is pretty good at rhetorics, but a slip of the tongue usually gives the
game away.

For example, he complains that in Gaddafi's regime, "There was no attempt to
offer any kind of democratic outlet for the population."

What the fuck is a "democratic outlet", you might ask? You have to
understand the perspective from which Achcar views the world. Achcar feels
that the masses should have a "democratic outlet", while a Marxist
exploiter-class rules society; waxes its thoughts about human salvation; and
enriches itself. It is similar to Khruschevism, except that, alas, the
"virgin soil upturned" blows away in the wind, and leaves a barren country
on which nothing much will grow.

Achcar feels "The resolution is amazingly confused." Apparently he believes,
that the signatories of the resolution would unanimously sign a resolution
which is "amazingly confused". This is imbecile. The resolution simply opens
the road to getting rid of Gaddafi, while it also introduces a new principle
for foreign intervention.

Exploiter Achcar, supposedly the expert on Arab affairs, never explains to
you why the Arab countries would endorse the fight against Gaddafi.
According to Achcar, "no one can reasonably oppose" resolution 1973
(although Germany and the BRICs abstained - the resolution text is here:
http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2011/sc10200.doc.htm#Resolution ).
Achcar's reason is that "from an anti-imperialist perspective one cannot and
should not oppose the no-fly zone, given that there is no plausible
alternative for protecting the endangered population." (This is the same guy
who is in favour of more Africans using condoms). From Achcar's perspective,
the anti-imperialist perspective is to support the imperialists.

At the same time, he throws in that "The Western response, of course, smacks
of oil. The West fears a long drawn out conflict. If there is a major
massacre, they would have to impose an embargo on Libyan oil, thus keeping
oil prices at a high level at a time when, given the current state of the
global economy, this would have major adverse consequences."

So although the primary Western concern is allegedly with the oil, not with
people, we have to support resolution 1973! How then does Gilbert Achcar,
with his cranky Trotskyite-Castroist understanding of economics, explain why
Angela Merkel is explicitly in favour of an embargo on Libyan oil? How does
he explain that increasingly oil traders are not dealing with Libya anyway?

Achcar began his faker story with the idea that the opposition to Gaddafi
consists of "a mixture of human rights activists, democracy advocates,
intellectuals, tribal elements, and Islamic forces -- a very broad
collection." It ends with the sweeping, vague non-sequitur "The bottom line
here again is that we should support the victory of the Libyan democratic
uprising."

But anyway why should we support this "democratic uprising", whatever it is?
Because, Achcar says, "Its defeat at the hands of Gaddafi would be a severe
backlash negatively affecting the revolutionary wave that is currently
shaking the Middle East and North Africa."

In other words, the dialectic of the march of world history, on which he,
academic Achcar, is the supreme authority, would veer in the wrong direction
and short-circuit the "revolutionary wave" ...on the crest of which he,
surfie bureaucrat Achcar, would like to ride to power himself. It has
nothing to do with the interests of the Libyan people themselves!

As you can see, the Achcar Khruschevite mind-set has nothing to do with real
people, it is more about an opportunist academic schematizing by a "playtime
politician" professor for the necessary path for his world revolution, to
vest the rule of the New Marxist Exploiting Class. First SOAS, then the
world!

There is always an abstract "dynamic" or there is a "wave" (or a "populism")
somewhere, and then people have to fit into that schema, or else face
catastrophe. You can imagine what it would be like if cranks like Achcar
ever really came to power: it would be like, "either you fit in with my
dynamic or my wave, or you will be dead, imprisoned, expelled or tortured".
When he can only smell a whiff of power, he is a scheming liberal in charge
of academic grades, but when his own political schema is challenged, he
becomes a petty despot.

I suppose that when Achcar lectures at his SOAS rostrum he is regarded as a
pretty harmless idiot dreaming of a more beautiful world. Neverthless,
intelligent people are implacably hostile to opportunist misleaders like
Achcar - because they see through his scam, and realize he is a perfidious
enemy of real human liberation from oppressive conditions, an exploiter of
the workers.

Jurriaan

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Received on Mon Mar 21 13:14:04 2011