Continuing the story of how leftists became protecting illegal immigrants and why immigration is not necessarily a war consequence
27 March 2016
“Human history has witnessed the epoch of great migrations on the basis of barbarism. Socialism will open the possibility of great migrations on the basis of the most developed technique and culture. It goes without saying that what is here involved is not compulsory displacements, that is, the creation of new ghettos for certain nationalities, but displacements freely consented to, or rather demanded by certain nationalities or parts of nationalities.” L. Trotsky [i]
Vietnam
Vietnam was the story of a country, which, unable to become independent with the collapse of the European empires, ended up in a liberation war with the world’s strongest power on earth at the time, the USA, which led to millions of deaths, near absolute devastation of its land and infrastructure and showed that a country which seeks independence can fight until the end and come out victorious whomever the enemy happens to be. Its tenaciousness, integrity and self-sacrifice have only been matched by the Serbs’ struggle for independence in the 20th century.
The French Left had an abysmal record when it came to anti-colonial struggles. It was in government (1945-1947) when a revolt occurred in Vietnam after the collapse of the Japanese occupation. The Parti Communiste France (PCF) didn’t support the anti-colonial struggle, it voted for war credits and agreed to an expeditionary force going to Vietnam to put down the independence struggle. It’s also absurd to believe that whilst participating in France’s imperialist government from 1945-47, that the PCF had an interest in anti-imperialism when it was in government with the imperialists themselves! Here is what they wrote:
“Are we, after having lost Syria and Lebanon yesterday, to lose Indochina tomorrow, North Africa the day after?” (L’Humanité (24 July 1946)
As early as September 1945, the Saigon committee of the French CP “warned [the Viet Minh] that any ‘premature adventures’ in Annamite independence might ‘not be in line with Soviet perspectives.’” That same month the French government (including several CP ministers) proposed a military budget of 193 billion francs, including 100 billion for the Expeditionary Force in Indochina; the CP voted for the bill. [21] In July 1946, smelling a victory in the next elections, the Communists took up a virulent nationalist stance: “Are we, after having lost Syria and Lebanon yesterday, to lose Indochina tomorrow, North Africa the day after?” wrote L’Humanité (24 July 1946). Two days later the CP deputies voted for a constitutional definition of the French Union which made Vietnamese “independence” purely fictional! [ii]
Once the French were defeated in Vietnam and the country was divided up at the 54th parallel, the Americans initially sent in advisers who then became military personnel and by the time LBJ had taken over as President in the USA, 500,000 troops were stationed there. Vietnam witnessed all sorts of wars - land, air based, chemical warfare, you name it, and more bombs were dropped on Vietnam than on any other place in the whole of WW2, apparently. Yet they didn’t give up. They only went abroad to neighbouring countries to re-group and fight anew. They didn’t leave their country en masse in boats and ask for refugee status. Nixon became infamous for carpet bombing in a secret war in Cambodia where the Viet Minh ran to regroup. Neither did 80% of their adult males leave as is happening in our times. So in what way can one explain the mass movement nowadays?
In analyzing what happened in Vietnam and what the US strategy was we see clearly that it was related to ensuring food independence was at zero and pushing people into cities that couldn’t cope. Let’s see in this statement called ‘Those That Leave’ issued by the Republic of Vietnam, what occurred:
“The American strategy aimed at killing two birds with one stone: on the one hand, to weaken the Vietnamese by 'draining away the water', i.e. the people; on the other, to turn those same people into mercenaries of Washington. For those men who roamed the pavements of the towns had no other recourse than to enlist in Thieu's army and police. In this way 1,200,000 men were pressed into that army and police commanded by more than 50,000 officers, well-trained, indoctrinated and supervised by tens of thousands of American advisers. If one adds to these numbers the civil servants, political agents, and leaders of various anti-communist parties and organisations, one will find that at least 1.5 million people were living from salaries paid by the American budget — not to mention the taxes paid by the local population.
To serve that war machine, a whole commercial network to import luxury goods consumed by the Americans and the privileged strata - a 'tertiary' set-up of banks, insurance companies, coffee-houses, bars, hotels, brothels, and drug traffickers - mushroomed.
On liberation day, 300,000 Saigon households were registered as 'traders' at least twice the number of factory workers. American military aid averaged 1.3 billion dollars a year, economic aid 600-800 million dollars; not to mention the on-the-spot expenditures of the American expeditionary corps and services, the CIA for instance, which maintained at least 30,000 'pacification agents', not to mention, too, aid from other capitalist powers: France, Japan, Great Britain, West Germany. All that money — 2 billion dollars a year on average — allowed several million people to live without participating in any productive work. One understands why there were in South Viet Nam on the day of liberation:
— More than 3 million unemployed people;
— Several hundred thousand prostitutes and drug addicts;
— Several dozen thousand gangsters and other criminals, whose number later increased with the release of the former Thieu police, paratroops and rangers;
— One million tubercular people;
— Several hundred thousand people affected by venereal diseases;
— Four million illiterate people.” [iii]
So the US occupation economy was based on two factors: removing agricultural independence(so the guerrillas could be starved out) and utilising the urban unemployed to become a coercive collaborationist tool in implement US war aims. In what way is any of the above different in Greece today? The farmers are being evicted and destroyed to not be able to provide any form of resistance to the economic genocide unleashed by 6 years of the IMF-ECB by ensuring an independent food supply, and tens of thousands of migrants are being imported to become a reactionary social force to be used against Greeks if resistance becomes armed (indications are that it has started in some isolated areas)[iv]. It was inevitable therefore, when the US occupation ended that a whole layer of Vietnamese society was left exposed and retributions would start, so they made a run for it.
If there were militant solidarity movements in opposition to imperialist interventions abroad in the Western countries, it would have stopped them from invading so quickly. The anti-war movement grew in America in opposition to the Vietnam War, primarily as a consequence of military conscription, and for almost two decades after America’s defeat in Vietnam, there were no significant direct military interventions until the Soviet Union collapsed.
The first big such intervention was for the oil-igarchs of ‘poor little Kuwait,’ where the dictator, Saddam, was burying babies in the sand. Imperialism also learned to avoid conscription and only use soldiers who volunteered to join the military whilst at the same time creating paramilitary organisations like Blackwater, Inc. to further their geopolitical interests. This is where the first big change occurred. Imperialists adopted the Kurds in Iraq for their own geopolitical interests, i.e. to weaken the integrity and viability of the Iraqi state after they had used them in the war against Iran’s revolution. That did not imply that the West had suddenly become pro-Kurdish independence, but they adopted the Kurds as an issue and ensured tens of thousands were given refugee status in Europe. First they came across Turkey to Greece and then they moved further north. [v]
Once the Vietnamese took control in the south of their own country a massive wave of migrants started. It is clear beyond all reasonable doubt that the first wave was comprised of direct collaborators of the US occupation. The second wave was made up of people who were generally small businessmen, probably with a reactionary outlook. None of those that left Vietnam were progressive one iota. The third wave consisted of those returning back to Vietnam from the West.
American leftists were clear at the time and an excerpt from a zero refugee campaign regarding ‘welcoming Vietnamese Refugees’ is cited below:
“The big Vietnamese war criminals and mass murderers were spirited out with the aid of their U.S. masters right after the fall of Saigon in 1975. We were utterly opposed to giving any kind of sanctuary to these butchers, declaring, "No Asylum for Vietnamese War Criminals!" The wave of Vietnamese "boat people," which came somewhat later, originated in a social layer which included former petty traders and entrepreneurs whose shops were nationalized. In the eyes of the U.S. and its allies, these would-be migrants were of marginal use and thus dispensable. At the same time, a racist outcry was whipped up against the "boat people."[vi]
Why is it today that all those that leave Afghanistan for instance, are progressive and not ultra-reactionary? Within the corporate media the Taliban are beyond the pale but the Occupation apparently is ok as it is …liberating women, whilst at the same time doing zero regarding the Bacha boys? Why is it British generals have led campaigns about importing Afghan collaborators of the occupation?
Social Imperialism in the Service of Neo-Colonialism
NATO had adopted the fake left theory of mass migration as a consequence of war, yet I have shown in just three examples that there were no mass migrations as a direct consequence of the war in the three cases mentioned. There was a mass migration after Euro-American colonial entities collapsed and revolutionary regimes took over. Not before. Now NATO argues that because of the Russian bombing of Syria, which started late 2015, Europe has had mass migrant flows despite the fact that they occurred way before the Russian bombing. So it appears everyone has a theory to justify their politics. If you are a globalist, it’s just wars that create migrations so ‘everyone is welcome.’ If you are a globalist but anti-Russian as well, then it’s Russia creating the migrant flows. Either way, it happens naturally, it’s not organised and no single entity is inviting them in like Germany, in an organised manner. [vii]
The irony of history is that we have various globalists today like Eric Draitser of ‘Stop Imperialism,’ Sukant Chandan of ‘Sons of Malcolm’ or various ‘Solidarity with Refugees’ movements whosupport and promote the hyper-globalism of Wall St. and the City of London (re-location of peoples to other continents erg. Afro-Asian continents to the EU) and act as if the various Left parties in the centres of imperialism were actively involved in the liberation of the colonies when nothing is further from the truth. Yet this is the tradition they defend in totality today. Let no one be fooled with the labels or the titles. They are a globalist smokescreen much like Syriza, with the ‘radical left’ label branding by the corporate media, if not something more sinister (Chandan has been in joint publications with ex-Afghan CIA station chief). [viii]
Where were the solidarity movements when the struggles of the colonies were actually going on in the Left Parties (communist or social democratic)? A whole raft of countries had brutal wars for national liberation - Vietnam, Algeria, Kenya, Cyprus, Yemen, etc. There were no solidaritymovements. There were paper declarations. But more importantly, where there was influence in Parliament the votes were always with the powers that be (PCF voting record during Vietnamese and Algerian Independence Labour Party during Kenyan, Cypriot Independence struggles), just like they are today (Syriza supports NATO operations the world over and its Foreign Minister Kotzias was seen singing songs with the other NATO members). [ix]
It’s no coincidence that in a broadcast once more on RT on George Galloway’s programme, which invited Sukant Chandan (of Indian descent)[x] with the misnamed title of “Sons of Malcolm,” Chandan pretends that he agrees with the Mau May resistance, and George Galloway, a staunch Labourite, almost had a heart attack, which is obviously logical as the Labour Party never had, nor ever created a solidarity movement in any parts of its Empire. One cannot find one big solidarity movement for Indian, Kenyan, Cypriot, or Yemen independency from the British Empire. Throughout the present day, mass population movements are presented as if they are part of a global conflict with imperialism. How come those that left Cuba, Algeria and Vietnam were never involved in any subsequent left movement? Why is it in our time ‘solidarity’ movements have emerged by the kilo for ‘refugees,’ supplemented by hundreds of NGO’s? Even Generals are now on board in solidarity with Afghan ‘refugees’ (read quislings).[xi]
Hyper-globalists are nowadays two for a penny and are quick to draw conclusions that imperialism organised the Arab Spring, overthrew all the regimes (that had been in power for decades), and everything is controlled by Washington, but mass migration (isn’t this how the USA was created?) apparently isn’t a US sponsored and engineered event, but is solely the by-product of turmoil, economic dislocation and invasion. In other words, if there were no turmoil there would be no mass migration. So what explains the arrival of 1 million Albanians in the 1990s into Greece or the 3-4 million Poles in the UK? Cheap travel? Or the bosses’ desire to replace indigenous labour? The whole of the Arab Spring is orchestrated from Washington, but mass migration is its natural offshoot. To put it more succinctly, Washington is able to command such day to day micromanagement in distant countries, but it cannot control migration flows. They occur solely as… blowback. This is the type of nonsense that inaugurated the Project for a New American Century and the fake ‘war on terror.’ Allegedly, Saudi hijackers blew up the three skyscrapers in New York and Afghanistan and Iraq paid the price, whilst recently a New York judge ruled Iran has to cough up the cost of the damage to the tune of $10 billion. Shades of Lockerbie again, on a grander level. The fake Left has been selling this line for over a decade. It no longer washes; in particular, with state infiltration of the events around 9/11, which has created an industry of doubters (truthers).
With no class analysis of capitalism in decline, which has features of mass unemployment, mass disparities in currencies, the breakdown of permanent unionised labour, the rise of the black market in labour, the fall of profits by bosses in western countries, etc. and the turn by the ruling class of each country into importing the US model, i.e. migrant labour, we must understand that what is happening is not classless nonsense about a ‘Global South’ (a Kuwaiti oligarch has nothing in coming with an Egyptian labourer other than they are both Arabs). A Russian oligarch arriving in London to recycle stolen booty in the banking and property sector isn’t a political refugee we must ‘all welcome’ despite that being his official status. Now deceased Russian oligarch Berezovsky comes to mind as an example.
Current ‘solidarity’ movements, which adopt a classless approach to mass migration alleging they are all war torn refugees or economic migrants due to imperialist dislocation, justifies all, and that is precisely what their purpose is. Anyone raising objections to the process is branded with the modern fascist ‘antifascist’ stick of racism. Seeking to maintain national independence and integrity is perceived as being reactionary, but those who seek population movements like those of the old British Empire (of Indians into Africa or of European Jews into Palestine) are considered progressive.
Up until the mid-1970s, many working environments had closed shops. One had to belong to a union in order to work there. Now it’s a globalist free for all; a musical chair for labour with conditions akin to those shown in the film of US Dockers ‘On the Waterfront’ with Marlon Brando in the 1950s. This is the actual present that the hyper-globalists want extended into all the areas of social life. That is their political mission whether they are paid or not. They are the ‘left’ promoters of the NWO.
However, history never remembers the turncoats, the quislings, the collaborators, or the defenders of regimes in disarray. Neither will it remember those like Syriza’s Tsipras, who recently stated that “national rights cannot supersede the rights of the EU.” If history is any guide to action, then the current migrants in a situation of severe economic crisis will be isolated and looked down upon as societies descend into an economic free-for-all for non-existent resources.
The extent of this globalist stupidity and the most extreme example in the EU is the idea that they will park a few million migrants in Greece, subsidise them with free housing, food and money whilst the indigenous population languishes in dire poverty and unemployment, and is made homeless due to rapacious banksters. This whole process is a recipe for social conflict and disaster, and as the referendum on Merkel’s policies have shown in three states in less than a year, things will get much, much worse before they can get better.
[iii] ‘Those that Leave’
[iv] Kos http://www.newsit.gr/topikes-eidhseis/Kos-Andras-ton-MAT-se-katoikoys-THa-sas-gam-oloys-Xaos-sto-nisi-KSylo-dakrygona-kai-syllipseis-VINTEO-/571483
[vii] Manual for Migrants W2EU
[ix] http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/video-turkish-greek-foreign-ministers-sing-for-peace-with-nato-head.aspx?pageID=238&nID=82392&NewsCatID=359
[xi] Afghan Interpreters getting asylum in UK
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