For a critical view of this week's topic, I'm turning over the blog for one week to Antiguan calypso maestro King Short Shirt. Some of the references are a bit dated, but I think the message comes through.
"Nationalism"
Did you ever consider
What a place this world would be
If there was no national border?
You could come and go as you please.
You wouldn't need a visa
To go to the USA
Immigration system will see the end of its day!
But such a change would disrupt politicians' plan
Whose aim it is to control their own young
But so they rise up and say stop the border
Like Hitler, who want all we'll get none
Nationalism
Creating divisions among the world's people
If we never had national boundary
You and I could move about as free as a bird in a tree
Politician would never let this happen
They too power-hungry to control people
They like to have soldiers fighting bitterly
To take over a little more territory
Soldier die, leave their family
Suffering in their country
That's how nationalism is killing we!
Russia put troop in Afghanistan
Iraq invading Iran
But this would simply never be
If they were all one country
Take a look at Germany
People of one family
Separated by political boundary
Suriname, Guyana and Venezuela
Won't have no dispute over a border
And the Trinidadian fisher,
Good fishing anywhere 'long Venezuela
Nationalism
Creating divisions among the world's people
If we never had national boundary
All the oil and gasoline would be shared equally
Politician would never let this happen...
India spent 25 million US
To put a rocket up in the sky
Other nation they trying to impress
While their people starting to die
Each nation must be number one
At the expense of its nationals
So who really benefit? I don't understand
Caribbean people wanted federation
Politician wanted their own nation
So it's love for each other, you see, and not for the nation
Is our only way of survival
Nationalism
Creating divisions among the world's people
If we never had national boundary
Cambodia and China would exist peacefully
Politician would never let this happen...
"Ask not what your country can do for you
But what you can do for your country"
That is what one politician said
But with him I must disagree
See what you can do for your fellow man
Regardless where he come from
Politician would have you kill for their preservation
What we need now is one world government
That will stamp out greed, hatred and discontent,
So Reagan, Brezhnev and all you others,
Step aside, make way for higher powers!
Nationalism
Creating divisions among the world's people
If we never had national boundary
All the food in the whole world would be shared out equitably
Politician would never let this happen
They too power-hungry to control people
Britain want to pass a Nationality Bill
So they will have the right to turn out immigrants at will
They gon' work for them for free
Like their forefathers in slavery
That's how nationalism is killing we!
Friday 13 November 2015
Friday 6 November 2015
Week 5: The Red Army Fraction (a.k.a. the Baader Meinhof gang)
The Red Army Fraction was an armed gang operating in West Germany in
the 1970s, organised around a charismatic leader (Andreas Baader) and a
skilled publicist (Ulrike Meinhof). Claiming to operate in the name of a
revolutionary opposition to Western imperialism, they lived outside the
law and showed no mercy to their opponents - police officers in
particular.
The RAF worked underground and with no connections to any broader social movement. They made a virtue of necessity by arguing that mass opposition to imperialism in Germany was impossible: the masses had already been bought out, and would only rally to the revolutionary cause when state repression had brought society close to Fascism. Vastly outnumbered and outgunned, most RAF members were active only briefly before being captured; the 'first generation' RAF carried out its first actions in 1970 and was suppressed in June and July 1972, with the arrest or flight of all its active members. Most of the 'first generation' members of the RAF committed suicide when in prison - Meinhof in August 1976, having been held for four years awaiting trial; Baader and three others in October 1977, after being found guilty of multiple murders and sentenced to life imprisonment. Sympathisers formed second- and even third-generation versions of the RAF; although these groups carried out many violent actions, they were dedicated mainly to expressing support for the original RAF. The afterlife of the RAF ended only in 1998, when the 'third generation' RAF wound itself up.
Why study a group like this? Their membership was small; their actions weren't very numerous or very significant; their political programme was designed around the group itself (emphasising the need for violence and dismissing the possibility of mass activity); and, perhaps not surprisingly, they didn't change society in any way - except in the sense of justifying police modernisation. All in all it's a thoroughly nasty story, and arguably not a very important one.
I think it is worth studying, though, for two reasons.
Firstly, in prison the members of the first-generation RAF were treated with several different forms of brutality (some of them superficially quite civilised); many died in prison and some may have been murdered. This shouldn't have been necessary: if the RAF's political programme was crazy and their criticisms of contemporary society were overstated (which they very largely were), the authorities should have been able to let them speak freely; they shouldn't have had anything to worry about.
This relates to the second point: the RAF wasn't just a gang of armed robbers. Exploiting their notoriety, they put forward well-worked out criticisms of the West German government and its involvement in Western imperialism, and gained a substantial audience for them. This shouldn't have been possible: officially, West Germany was a peaceful and prosperous country, which had put its Nazi past well behind it and had no concerns about its Communist neighbour to the East. The RAF talked about "heightening the contradictions" within society to the point of provoking a Fascist crackdown. This goal was wildly unrealistic (not to mention irresponsible), but the contradictions were real: they were living in a free society, but one in which Communism was banned; it was a democratic society, but one in which ex-members of the SS held positions of responsibility.
In terms of the typology we looked at last week, the RAF carried out spontaneist violence which - almost despite the RAF themselves - became activist violence: they became figureheads for a section of society which felt itself to be excluded from the political system, and which briefly threatened to develop into a social movement with revolutionary ambitions. The RAF's real achievement was to bring that sense of exclusion to light and give those people's voices some representation, in however distorted a form. It's because of this achievement that they couldn't be suppressed quickly and easily - and shouldn't now be forgotten.
The RAF worked underground and with no connections to any broader social movement. They made a virtue of necessity by arguing that mass opposition to imperialism in Germany was impossible: the masses had already been bought out, and would only rally to the revolutionary cause when state repression had brought society close to Fascism. Vastly outnumbered and outgunned, most RAF members were active only briefly before being captured; the 'first generation' RAF carried out its first actions in 1970 and was suppressed in June and July 1972, with the arrest or flight of all its active members. Most of the 'first generation' members of the RAF committed suicide when in prison - Meinhof in August 1976, having been held for four years awaiting trial; Baader and three others in October 1977, after being found guilty of multiple murders and sentenced to life imprisonment. Sympathisers formed second- and even third-generation versions of the RAF; although these groups carried out many violent actions, they were dedicated mainly to expressing support for the original RAF. The afterlife of the RAF ended only in 1998, when the 'third generation' RAF wound itself up.
Why study a group like this? Their membership was small; their actions weren't very numerous or very significant; their political programme was designed around the group itself (emphasising the need for violence and dismissing the possibility of mass activity); and, perhaps not surprisingly, they didn't change society in any way - except in the sense of justifying police modernisation. All in all it's a thoroughly nasty story, and arguably not a very important one.
I think it is worth studying, though, for two reasons.
Firstly, in prison the members of the first-generation RAF were treated with several different forms of brutality (some of them superficially quite civilised); many died in prison and some may have been murdered. This shouldn't have been necessary: if the RAF's political programme was crazy and their criticisms of contemporary society were overstated (which they very largely were), the authorities should have been able to let them speak freely; they shouldn't have had anything to worry about.
This relates to the second point: the RAF wasn't just a gang of armed robbers. Exploiting their notoriety, they put forward well-worked out criticisms of the West German government and its involvement in Western imperialism, and gained a substantial audience for them. This shouldn't have been possible: officially, West Germany was a peaceful and prosperous country, which had put its Nazi past well behind it and had no concerns about its Communist neighbour to the East. The RAF talked about "heightening the contradictions" within society to the point of provoking a Fascist crackdown. This goal was wildly unrealistic (not to mention irresponsible), but the contradictions were real: they were living in a free society, but one in which Communism was banned; it was a democratic society, but one in which ex-members of the SS held positions of responsibility.
In terms of the typology we looked at last week, the RAF carried out spontaneist violence which - almost despite the RAF themselves - became activist violence: they became figureheads for a section of society which felt itself to be excluded from the political system, and which briefly threatened to develop into a social movement with revolutionary ambitions. The RAF's real achievement was to bring that sense of exclusion to light and give those people's voices some representation, in however distorted a form. It's because of this achievement that they couldn't be suppressed quickly and easily - and shouldn't now be forgotten.
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