Britain, The Anarchist Federation (AFED), Organise! magazine Issue #83 winter 2014 - Features + Editorial

Editorial - War, war, war, and the only real solution. Read in full below. ---- Features: 
---- Chinese Workers Shake the World ---- The Arab Spring - could it turn into the Arab 
Summer? ---- Morocco unbound ---- Statement of the Eqyptian Libertarian Socialist Movement 
---- Slovenia: Uprising in Europe - what happens next? ---- Over the Walls of Nationalism 
and Wars - statement of the 8th Balkan Anarchist Bookfair, Mostar, Bosnia ---- The Phoenix 
of Anarchism - renewed anarchist organisation in Iceland ---- Caribbean Anarchist 
Federation - new beginnings in Cuba and Dominican Republic ---- The French Silk Workers' 
Revolt of 1834 ---- Frans Masereel - anarchist artist ---- Editorial: ---- War, War, War 
?and the only real solution ---- It?s extremely rarely that we anarchists would agree with 
the Pope but this recent pronouncement is accurate enough: "We are discarding an entire 
generation to maintain an economic system that can't hold up any more, a system that to 
survive, must make war, as all great empires have done. But as a third world war can't be 
waged, they make regional wars...they produce and sell weapons, and with this, the balance 
sheets of the idolatrous economies, the great world economies that sacrifice man at the 
feet of the idol of money, are resolved..."

Since the ending of the Cold War the United States as Great Power No 1 has sought for new 
enemies in its quest to maintain world dominance, gain control of important resources and 
maintain its arms economy. It found these enemies in the form of Saddam, Al Qaida, 
Gadhafi, the Taliban and now the Islamic State. This has resulted in a piecemeal and 
regionalised new World War, spreading to new areas all the time. Not only are the US and 
its allies engaged in wars in the Middle East-Syria and Iraq, it continues to support its 
Israeli ally in its murderous campaign against the Palestinian people. More and more 
Western powers, including France, Holland, Australia and Britain, are being drawn into the 
conflict. Meanwhile its Arab allies conduct air raids in Libya whilst US special forces 
have intervened there and in Somalia. War continues to rage in Nigeria. The US-backed 
regime in Afghanistan appears increasingly unstable, while the US continues to intervene 
in Pakistan through its drone attacks on Islamists and of course its special forces 
intervention to kill Osama Bin Laden.

Meanwhile the US?s old enemy Russia, concerned with maintaining its influence in the 
region and fearing covert US encirclement on its Western flanks, is itself engaging in war 
in the Ukraine and continues to support its Syrian ally.

Another old enemy of the US, China, is meanwhile increasing its economic influence 
throughout the world. It is becoming territorially more assertive in the South China Seas, 
clashing with local powers like the Philippines, Brunei, Vietnam and South Korea. Its 
neighbour North Korea remains a potential belligerent threat in the region. Its 
relationship with the USA, which is in heavy financial debt to China, remains ambiguous, 
moving between denunciation and promises of cooperation.

War on the Working Class

At the same time the war on the working class throughout the world continues apace with no 
sign of an end to cuts in services, attacks on pensions and austerity package after 
austerity package. At the same time State powers are being increased at an accelerating 
pace, and everywhere from the USA to Spain and France civil liberties are under threat. 
Capitalism and the State know that increasing discontent can lead to unrest, riots and 
even insurrection, which is why the strong State is increasingly to be seen.

Indeed, the promise of the Arab Spring remains to be fulfilled and could burst forth once 
more in North Africa and the Middle East. The discontent in Europe from Greece to Spain 
still remains as it does in the USA with the recent Ferguson events being a sign of things 
to come. In China, workers have unleashed a wave of strikes and have won many victories 
against the bosses.

One way that the ruling class will attempt to divert attention from internal discontent 
over the worsening economic situation is through the manufacture of an external enemy and 
this is already being built with its wars in the Middle East. In the same way, the ?War on 
Terror? is being used to justify attacks on civil liberties in Europe and North America.

Reforming this rotten, brutal and violent system is not possible. The collapse of the 
social democratic parties- Labour and their fellows throughout the world- as a supposed 
solution for the working class opens the way to the construction of a real social 
alternative. Whether it be Dongguan, Slovenia, Ferguson, Madrid, Athens or even London, 
uprisings are breaking out or could break out anywhere in the coming years. The only long 
term solution is a thoroughgoing social revolution around the world that will topple this 
foul system and create a new just and equal society.

Organise! magazine, issue 83, Winter 2014.

http://www.afed.org.uk