12.09.2001

Act of despair

T he appalling acts of devastation, carnage and mass terror witnessed by millions of television viewers around the world this week resulted from the desperate actions of those driven to the extremes of alienation by their powerlessness, driven to acts of inhumanity by their oppression and dreams of a reactionary anti-capitalism.

The September 11 outrages, striking at the heart of US imperialism, will result in a final death toll of many thousands - overwhelmingly working class. There were 266 people on board the four hijacked aeroplanes, while over 50,000 were employed in the giant twin towers of the World Trade Center. Although many escaped in the minutes before the collapse of the buildings, thousands more perished, including hundreds of rescue workers, in ways already described so vividly and shown repeatedly by the mass media. Several hundred also died in the Pentagon.

There is no doubting the dedication, courage, organisation and ruthlessness of the perpetrators - surely the characteristics of religious fanatics, driven by the bizarre belief that they are acting out the will of god and working to destroy his enemies. The targets were carefully chosen: the World Trade Center, which contained the offices of dozens of prestigious companies, has been described as the ?nerve centre of capitalism?. The Pentagon houses the headquarters of the US military machine. In addition the plane which crashed near Pittsburgh was probably heading for Camp David, the president?s retreat.

In terms of propaganda, then, the kamikaze attacks can be described as a spectacular success. But how do they rate in the battle to defeat US imperialism? On that score, not even a pin prick. No matter how you judge it - military, economically or ideologically - its power has not been dented and its world hegemony remains intact. Despite their immensely destructive results, the suicide actions can only have been symbolic. Indeed, if anything, the beast has been strengthened - certainly in terms of  rallying all sections, all classes of US society to the Bush administration. That fact will ensure he has even more of a free hand in the manner in which he carries out the acts of retribution that will inevitably follow.

The USA, the mainstay of global imperialism, can only but react militarily - or using its ?diplomacy?, backed up of course by the threat of crushing military action. It is incapable of finding a social response - the system it defends throws up inequality, oppression and injustice over and over again. It puts profit first and foremost - always ahead of the rights of the world?s people.

In Palestine hundreds of the oppressed rejoiced in the street at what they saw as a blow against their number one enemy?s main ally  and backer - scenes that were repeated on a much smaller scale in several European cities. But the Palestinian Authority of Yasser Arafat quickly condemned the atrocities and was doing its best to dampen down any celebrations. With good reason. It knows only too well that it could be deemed responsible, since it already stands accused of ?shielding? terrorists. Even if the US decides to pin the blame on Osama bin Laden and again hits out at Afghanistan, it is entirely possible that the Israelis could take advantage of what they see as the tide of world opinion to take out leading Palestinian figures.

More to the point, a blow against the US is not necessarily a blow against imperialism, let alone an advance for the cause of human liberation. Killing thousands of US citizens in a terror attack, hitting the Pentagon and ensuring the economic downturn becomes a recession has nothing whatsoever to do with a positive supercession of capitalism and its social relations.

So, although the hijackers will gain enormous prestige amongst the most alienated and desperate throughout  the muslim world, their actions contain within them nothing of the desired future.

Of course, for those whose main aim is to win for themselves a hero?s place in another world, that matters not at all. But for us communists, who work for the liberation of humanity in this world, it is an essential prerequisite for success. The movement we seek to build must not only be mass-based, but must build upon the advance represented by global capital. The role of the working class in the metropolitan capitalist countries, not least the USA, is in the last analysis key.

Only the working class can positively defeat imperialism. Our battle is for the hearts and minds of the proletarian millions - nothing could be more antithetical to that aim than murdering thousands of their number. If we succeed in winning US workers to side with the victims of their oppressor state, then we will have won them to fight for their own self-liberation too.

That is why we unreservedly condemn the barbaric acts perpetrated in New York, Washington and Pittsburgh - just as we condemn the institutions of capital that ultimately bear responsibility for provoking them.

Peter Manson