THE 14th INTERNATIONAL MEETING OF COMMUNIST AND WORKERS’ PARTIES
BEIRUT-22-25 NOVEMBER 2012
CONTRIBUTION BY THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF TURKEY
Comrades,
We thank the Lebanese Communist Party for convening the 14th Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties. Lebanese comrades have been making a great effort to put this event together.
I would like to start by condemning the recent brutality of Israeli state in Gazza in the fiercest way possible and express our solidarity and feelings of fraternity with the Palestinian people, who are resisting for their lives and lands.
I would like to devote my speech to the changing strategies of imperialist interventions in the world, with a particular focus on the so-called Arab Spring that has altered the power balance in the Middle East. The developments in this region exemplify the new imperialist strategy adopted to carry out changes in political structures of countries.
This strategy is new and old at the same time. It is new in the sense that it does not rest on direct military invasion contrary what we saw in Afghanistan and Iraq. As the US army stuck in these two countries and the US budget allocated huge amounts to sustain the invasions, the US policy makers came to realize the need for a different strategy that entailed less US soldiers and less US money. In addition, the US prefers to stay aloof of the political and social chaos created during imperialist intervention and post-intervention instability. This method of indirect intervention, we think, marked the last wave of political turmoil in the Middle East, the so-called “Arab Spring.”
The precursors of the so-called “revolutions” observed in the Arab world had been staged in ex-socialist countries, where they were named as “color revolutions.” In countries, which had been exposed to color revolutions the political structure had been transformed in a way compatible with the interests of the imperialist powers, without the latter’s direct military intervention. Usually, small groups, financed and trained by the NGO’s of imperialism had started an uprising, or a sort of disobedience movement, against power holders. The imperialists, aside from their covert support to those groups, had simultaneously imposed pressure from outside and forced the governments to give up.
Unlike the ex-socialist countries where tiny youth groups of a few hundred people had been recruited as agencies of imperialist plans, such a strategy of confining the movement to a small group could not be applied in the Middle East. There are various reasons that can be given for the uniqueness of the Middle Eastern societies. The cruel rule of the dictators and the anger of people rooted in decades of oppression could be emphasized as among the features that led to unleashed mass protests in this geography particularly in Tunisia and Egypt. But we must see that on the other side of the coin lays the fact that it would not possible to overthrow dictators, in Egypt for instance, without a great and reckless uprising. And the imperialists were very much aware of that fact.
The initial stage of the mass demonstrations in Tunisia and Egypt, in this sense, can be considered as manifestation of people’s anger against the oppressive regimes. But strikingly, from the very beginning the movement refrained from targeting at the imperialist support that had been so fundamental for the dictators to preserve their rule against all threats they had faced. In the end it was beyond doubt that although the dictators were displaced, it was the imperialist forces that designed the new power structure.
The picture got clearer in Libya and Syria, where imperialists, taking advantage of the tribal or multi-ethnic and multi-religious structure of two societies, backed some groups and encouraged them to involve into a military struggle against the governments. Those groups were publicized as the real opposition of people. At this point we cannot repudiate the contribution of some so-called leftist circles and intellectuals to this imperialist propaganda campaign through constantly creating confusion about the real nature of the conflicts in these countries.
It should be noted that this strategy is not a totally new invention. The US position regarding the so-called “Arab Spring” and particularly the policies in Libya and Syria remind the post-Vietnam US strategy based on indirect intervention into the Third World. Shaken by the war in Vietnam, the US moved the option of military intervention to the shelf and kept it there until the end of the Cold War. Since the 1970s was the era of working class movements and revolutionary uprisings in the Third World, the US government was aware that they could not halt all forms of imperialist intervention. Thus, they started to finance and arm some local groups or collaborated with the military officers of countries to crash the revolutionary movements. At that time it was the revolutionary movements or governments that the US endeavored to overthrow. A careful and detailed analysis would illuminate how the US imperialism adapted its strategy of using domestic actors and groups to realize its own plans to different eras and geographies.
We would like to point out that the Justice and Development Party government in Turkey has undertaken a critical role for implementing the above-mentioned strategy. As we have tried to explain in different occasions, this government, without considering its structural constraints, is dreaming of a new Ottoman Empire in the region. However, theirs would be an empire serving the US interests in exchange for the recognition of its regional leadership. For this purpose, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is constantly exploiting the anger of the people of in the region against Israel. Through harsh criticism, which has almost no material repercussions, he endeavors to gain the moral leadership of the Middle East. However, his performance in Syria shows that his government has already deserved being acknowledged as the leader of warmongers. While he is criticizing Israel, without taking any concrete step against this country, he sees no harm in calling the US to intervene directly in Syria. Contrary to the propaganda of this government, people in Turkey are against war on Syria. They have already demonstrated their desire for peace and brotherhood by organizing various meetings and protests and they will continue to do that.
Our party is one of the leading forces of anti-war protests in Turkey. The struggle against the provocations of Turkish government, its support for the rebel group, the so-called “Free Syrian Army” is at the top of our political agenda. Starting from October we released a daily newspaper which covers the incidents in Syria and discloses the details of Turkey’s provocations. Our daily newspaper is one of the rare sources for the Turkish people to learn the realities about the plot prepared against the Syrian people.
As the Communist Party of Turkey, we think it is our primary obligation to use every opportunity and instrument to stop the war against Syria and put an end to the notorious mission of Turkish government.
International Bureau
The Communist Party of Turkey
