Why Opposing Imperialism Means Supporting Resistance
by Chris Harman, December 2006

Sometimes there are strange coincidences in history. One occurred last 
month. George Bush made an official visit to Vietnam just as leading figures 
in his own Republican Party were saying that the Iraq war had indeed turned 
into the new Vietnam. The US was in danger of a repeat of the ignominious 
defeat it suffered 31 years ago, and had to find a way of getting out of the 
morass.

In both cases US imperialism overstretched itself, stirred massive 
opposition both in the occupied country and throughout the world, and faced 
the prospect of defeat as a hammer blow to its capacity to get its way 
globally.

There are, however, still people on the left who do not like the comparison. 
The resistance in Iraq, they say, is very different in character to the 
resistance in Vietnam, and therefore we should not want it to win. They 
point to the presence of both Jihadist and pro Saddam Hussein elements in 
the resistance, and to the horrific sectarian murders perpetrated by forces 
claiming to represent Shias and Sunnis.

All this seems very different to Vietnam, where the resistance was led by a 
secular party which spoke of socialism and was intent on uniting the 
country. But support for a movement for liberation should not depend on 
those who lead it at a particular point in time.

A trap many on the left fell into in the 1960s and 1970s was viewing through 
rose tinted glasses the leaders of the resistance in Vietnam - and those in 
many other countries. Those illusions should have passed long ago, not least 
because of the way those who rose to power out of the liberation struggle 
now welcome not just the mass murderer Bush, but also the multinational 
exploiters of which he is the political representative.

At the time of Bush's visit a TV channel interviewed two women who, as 
teenagers, had been held in the US's torture chambers during the Vietnam 
War. They had no doubts about how right it had been to drive out the US. But 
they were also scathing about the corruption of Vietnam today.

The same bitterness is to be found in the brilliant Novel Without a Name by 
the ex-resistance fighter Duong Thu Huong. One of her characters tells of 
those at the top during the war:

"When they need rice, the people are the buffaloes that pull the plough. 
When they need soldiers, they cover the people with armour, put guns in the 
people's hands. When all is said and done, at the festivals, when it is time 
for the banquets, they put the people on an altar and feed them with incense 
and ashes. But the real food, that's always for them."

But neither in Vietnam nor elsewhere in the world was it necessary to have 
illusions in the leaders of liberation movements to support them against 
imperialism.

The mass of people of Vietnam saw war as final phase in a liberation 
struggle that had led them previously to fight French and Japanese occupying 
forces. The US's involvement was part of its overall scheme to exploit 
peoples of the whole world, and there could not be any progress in Vietnam 
until it was defeated, even if the Vietnamese masses then had to fight their 
own rulers.

But that was not all. In weakening US imperialism, the Vietnamese struggle 
gave a boost to people fighting elsewhere - the black and women's movements 
in the US, the rebellions against Portuguese colonialism in Africa and white 
rule in Rhodesia and South Africa, the struggles against fascism that still 
existed in Spain and Portugal, and the workers' movements in Chile and 
Argentina, France and Italy.

The same logic applies in Iraq today, despite the attitude to women of some 
of the resistance groups and those whose religious bigotry leads them to 
direct their fire against other Iraqis as much as against the occupying 
troops.

The US's attack on Iraq was motivated, in the words of those who inspired 
it, to secure "a new American century". The victims of this would be those 
in the barrios of Caracas and the sweatshops of the Philippines, those 
suffering under the dictates of the IMF and those toiling for poverty wages 
to pay off the debts to Barclays and Citibank, those rotting in the prisons 
of Saudi Arabia or going hungry in sub-Saharan Africa.

By the same token, the resilience of the Iraqi resistance indirectly aids 
all those who would be next in line if the US were not bogged down in Iraq. 
This includes forces such as Hizbollah in Lebanon, and also those in 
Venezuela and Bolivia who are beginning to struggle to turn the dream of 
"socialism in the 21st century" into a reality.

In Iraq itself US imperialism has gone out of its way to nourish religious 
sectarianism. Divide and rule has always been a favourite tool of empire - 
Britain's rulers turned Hindus against Muslims in India, Sinhalese against 
Tamils in Sri Lanka, and Turks against Greeks in Cyprus.

The US turned to the same method two and half years ago when faced with 
simultaneous uprisings from Sunnis in Fallujah and Shias in the south. It 
courted certain Shia figures while turning Fallujah into a killing field. 
And then, as if to encourage Sunnis to listen to the sectarian message of 
the jihadist Musab al-Zarqawi that all Shias were corrupt enemies, it 
distributed government posts to the most corruptible Shia notables.

There are forces on the ground in Iraq resisting the poison spread by the 
occupation. No one can guarantee they will ultimately be successful. But the 
precondition for them even having a chance is the removal of the sources of 
the poison - the occupying troops who get their orders from those who resort 
to any barbarity to stop their dream (and our nightmare) slipping away.


http://www.socialistreview.org.uk/article.php?articlenumber=9912

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