Year of Rising Contradictions

The attacks of September 11 produced a year of brutal frontal assault by the ruling elites on the working class and oppressed right across the globe. The dust had hardly settled from the collapse of the Twin Towers when the US rulers seized the opportunity to pursue their long desired objective of taking hold of Afghanistan and the former Soviet states of Central Asia. Containing the second largest known reserves of oil and natural gas, US control of Central Asia gives it tremendous strategic advantage over its rivals (especially China and Russia) and creates enormous potential for profits. Control of Afghanistan and the obedience of Pakistan provide the US with the pipeline route necessary to make that potential real.

Anxious to exploit the moment to its fullest, the US ruling class also "served notice" to the rest of the world of its intention of absolute global domination. It identified North Korea, Iran and Iraq as potential targets of its wrath and likely sites for its experimentation with "limited" nuclear weapons. (The first installment of this wrath may well be delivered to the people of Iraq this fall.) The US also dispatched more "military advisors" and "counter-terrorism experts" to a whole host of countries, most notably Colombia and the Philippines. And it gave Israel the green light to pursue its own version of absolute domination.

While the US, as the sole global superpower, led the charge, its more junior imperialist partners like Canada and Britain followed closely behind. In an Orwellian style, they launched war in the name of peace, unleashed terror in the name of anti-terrorism and passed laws stripping people of their rights in name of protecting their rights and "way of life." Despite their claims to the contrary, an atmosphere of hate and racism was cultivated against immigrants and refugees, especially those from north and east Africa, the Middle East and Central and South Asia. "Civilized world," as the imperialist nations like to call themselves, is thus another Orwellian term to mask the barbarity of advanced capitalism.

The imperialist adventure abroad is connected to the domestic neoliberal project of the capitalist class. Shortly after September 11, billions of dollars were handed over to corporations and their bosses while tens of thousands of working people were sacked. September 11 was thus welcomed by the ruling class as a license to accelerate its attacks on workers at home as well.

Conservative labour and NGO leaders, concerned about losing control of members drawn to the radical politics of the global justice movement, used September 11 as the excuse to rapidly demobilize a movement which was gaining momentum and which they were losing control of. The diminished size of the global justice protests in North America since September 11, including the anti-G8 protests this summer, is a reflection of both this cowardly retreat and general confusion about the political direction to take.

At the same time, growing minorities of radical activists, refusing to succumb to the ruling class agenda, have pressed on with their mobilizing. Only a month after September 11, despite pressure from some on the Left and threats by security officials, the Ontario Common Front (OCF) effectively shut down Toronto's Financial district with a snake march. More recently, on the occasion of the G8 meeting in Alberta, thousands of people marched in Ottawa under the radical banner of "No One is Illegal." And, as we go to press, the abandoned building in a poor neighbourhood of Toronto that was seized by OCAP and its allies remains in our hands and the squatting action has garnered a great deal of popular support.

On a global scale, the economic and military savagery of imperialist powers has produced a growing popular disdain for it. From the streets of Asia and Africa to Europe and Latin America, millions of people have mobilized over the last year not only against imperialism but also decades of ruinous neoliberalism. The militancy and vibrancy of these mobilizations indicate that the ruling class campaign of terror has failed to completely subdue the desire for a better world that had been gaining momentum since Seattle.

In Canada, although the balance of class forces remains decidedly in favour of the ruling class, radical politics have taken root among a small but significant minority and have the potential of spreading quickly. To broaden support for radical politics, more radicals need to become active in the workplace and community struggles of working people in order to learn from them and strengthen them. As well, we must immediately begin to build a broad anti-war movement against US attacks on Iraq. We have to move the resistance forward in these times of massive capitalist offensive or we will be massively defeated. Don't believe the preachers of "moderation"; these are not times for timidity and retreat but boldness, in analysis and in action.