Archive | Armenia RSS feed for this section

Left-Wing Music Continued

9 May

If you turn on the local top 40 or top 100 radio station you are bound to hear many catchy songs of various types. However, if you actually take time to examine the content of current popular songs, you’ll quickly find that many of them seem to be about the same thing. The songs are about chasing cars, money and the opposite sex. More often than not lyrics seem to glorify the bourgeois lifestyle, reinforcing the listener’s belief in the age old lie of the “American Dream.” Where does the leftist find music that focuses on a more revolutionary message?

Luckily enough, there are a plethora of artists around the world whose music carries the messages of social justice, anti-imperialism, anti-fascism, anti-war, pro-labor, equality, and so on in almost every genre.

In addition to being a singer and actor, Paul Robeson was an activist against imperialism, an advocate of civil rights as well as labor rights, and a friend of the Soviet Union. He sings in a soulful, deep voice and the listener hears true feeling in his words. In addition to an English version of “The National Anthem of the USSR,” Robeson also recorded “Joe Hill”. The song was written to honor the memory of the famous songwriter, activist, and Wobbly of the same name who had been framed on a murder charge and executed. The song’s lyrics are truly inspiring.

“Joe Hill ain’t dead,” he says to me,
“Joe Hill ain’t never died.
Where working men are out on strike
Joe Hill is at their side,
Joe Hill is at their side.”

Another of Paul Robeson’s most famous musical contributions was his rendition of “Ol’ Man River” from the play, “Show Boat” sung by the character, Joe. Originally, the song’s lyrics were an insult to black workers. Here is a comparison of the original lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II and Robeson’s revisions. In the original, the opening lyrics was:

Dere’s an ol’ man called de Mississippi
Dat’s de ol’ man that I’d like to be…

Robeson’s version said:

There’s an ol’ man called the Mississippi
That’s the ol’ man I don’t like to be…

The original lyrics said:

Tote that barge!
Lift that bale!
Git a little drunk
An’ you land in jail…

Robeson sang:

Tote that barge and lift dat bale!
You show a little grit
And you lands in jail..

The original song said:

Ah gits weary
An’ sick of tryin’;
Ah’m tired of livin’
An skeered of dyin’,
But Ol’ Man River,
He jes’ keeps rolling along

Robeson sang:

But I keeps laffin’
Instead of cryin’
I must keep fightin’;
Until I’m dyin’,
And Ol’ Man River,
He’ll just keep rollin’ along!

Late in “Show Boat” Scene 7 of Act II, Joe does sing this verse, but rather than singing “I must keep fightin’ until I’m dyin,” he sings “I must keep livin’ until I’m dyin.” As can be seen, Robeson totally shifts the meaning of the song. Robeson’s “Ol’ Man River” turns a song whose original lyrics shamed black workers into one that glorifies their struggle.

Robeson was a very prominent figure of the Harlem Renaissance and as mentioned above, a talented actor. He gained national attention when he landed the lead role of Jim in Eugene O’Neill’s “All God’s Chillun Got Wings.” The climax of the play involved Jim symbolically emasculating himself in order to metaphorically consummate his marriage with his white wife. The play caused such controversy that it was postponed. In the meantime, Robeson would go on to play Brutus in “The Emperor Jones” and later starred in “Othello” as the main character. In late 1934, he received an invitation to Moscow from famed Soviet director Sergei Eisenstein. There, Paul would reprise his role in “Othello.” Robeson would go on to speak about how free the U.S.S.R. was from the poison of racism, and remained a friend of the Soviet people until his death.

One of largest figures of twentieth century rock music has also written music with a left-wing point of view. John Lennon, famous member of The Beatles, was a wonderfully talented musician, a social activist and an outspoken critic of the Vietnam War. Though it is hard to pin down where he stood on the left, Lennon has been quoted in Rolling Stone saying “You know, I really thought that love would save us all. But now I’m wearing a Chairman Mao badge.”

One of his songs that have a very class conscious context is “Working Class Hero.” “Working Class Hero” is about alienation in capitalist society. The lyrics speak for themselves.

“They hurt you at home and they hit you at school
They hate you if you’re clever and they despise a fool
Till you’re so fucking crazy you can’t follow their rules
A working class hero is something to be
When they’ve tortured and scared you for twenty-odd years
Then they expect you to pick a career
When you can’t really function you’re so full of fear
A working class hero is something to be
Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV
And you think you’re so clever and classless and free
But you’re still fucking peasants as far as I can see
A working class hero is something to be”

His greatest masterpiece is “Imagine,” arguably one of the most beautiful songs ever written. The song simply asks the listener to imagine a world without religious superstition, bigotry, borders, greed and hunger. It conjures up a world in which the human race lives in complete peace, harmony and fraternity.

Rap and hip-hop are genres which many progressive artists call home as well. One of rap’s most legendary artists is Tupac Shakur. Tupac was the son of Black Panther Party member Afeni Shakur. The Panthers’ revolutionary message shines through in Tupac’s lyrics, which deal with the hardships of growing up in inner cities, racism, poverty, drugs, the prison-industrial complex, the effects of war on society and many other social problems.

“Changes” examines many of the aforementioned problems that continue to plague society and insists that it is high time to change these ills in any way we can. Another beautiful song by Tupac is “Keep Ya Head Up.” A large portion of the song deals with women’s oppression at home and elsewhere. Its lyrics encourage women to push the abuser out of their life but also to hold on to hope for a better future.

“But please don’t cry, dry your eyes, never let up
Forgive but don’t forget, girl keep your head up
And when he tells you you ain’t nuttin don’t believe him
And if he can’t learn to love you you should leave him
Cause sista you don’t need him
And I ain’t tryin to gas ya up, I just call em how I see em
You know it makes me unhappy (what’s that)
When brothas make babies, and leave a young mother to be a pappy
And since we all came from a woman
Got our name from a woman and our game from a woman
I wonder why we take from our women
Why we rape our women, do we hate our women?
I think it’s time to kill for our women
Time to heal our women, be real to our women
And if we don’t we’ll have a race of babies
That will hate the ladies, that make the babies
And since a man can’t make one
He has no right to tell a woman when and where to create one
So will the real men get up
I know you’re fed up ladies, but keep your head up”

Lupe Fiasco carries on in the tradition of Tupac in that his songs have a progressive message and have enjoyed a great deal of success. “Words I Never Said” is a scathing attack on the War on Terror, the reactionary media, the Israeli attacks on Gaza, the American education system and more. It also touches on how people can sometimes feel afraid to speak out against these things that confront us on a daily basis but urges the listener to start doing just that.

The rock genres of punk and metal have also generated a high number of left-wing music groups. In 2004, Green Day released the album American Idiot. The title track denounces the bourgeois news media and the atmosphere of fear that it creates in the lives of the average Joe or Jane.

Rise Against is another band that has released numerous songs which are leftist in character. “Reeducation Through Labor” is a song about the everyday toils of the worker under capitalism and the coming rebellion and overthrow of the oppressing class.

“We sow the seeds to see us through
Our days are precious and so few
We all reap what we are due
Under this sky no longer blue
We bring the dawn long overdue
We crawl
We crawl
We crawl… all over you”

The Armenian-American band System of a Down has many songs dealing with such topics as police repression, national oppression, anti-imperialism, history, and so many other topics that are prevalent discussion points among the left. System of a Down is also quite fond of putting statistics in their songs. “Prison Song” is a great example of this. In one song S.O.A.D. covers the interrelation of the War on Drugs, skyrocketing prison populations, and the hypocrisy of the United States government which uses drug money to “rig elections and train brutal, corporate sponsored dictators around the world.”

Following the rights movements
You clamped down with your iron fists,
Drugs became conveniently
Available for all the kids,
Following the rights movements
You clamped down with your iron fists,
Drugs became conveniently
Available for all the kids,

I buy my crack, my smack, my bitch,
Right here in Hollywood,

Nearly 2 million Americans are incarcerated
In the prison system, prison system
Prison system of the U.S.

They’re trying to build a prison

They’re trying to build a prison,
They’re trying to build a prison,
They’re trying to build a prison, (for you and me)
Another prison system,
Another prison system,
Another prison system.

Minor drug offenders fill your prisons
You don’t even flinch
All our taxes paying for your wars
Against the new non-rich,
Minor drug offenders fill your prisons
You don’t even flinch
All our taxes paying for your wars
Against the new non-rich

There are many other amazing musicians who, for the sake of brevity, have not been expounded on in this article. However, it is the author’s hope that the reader has been introduced to alternatives to the usual bourgeois clap-trap that is heard on the radio and will continue to find new and equally revolutionary music.

 

In Turkey, hundreds mark Armenian genocide

24 Apr

ISTANBUL, Turkey: Hundreds demonstrated in Istanbul’s central Taksim square on Tuesday to commemorate the 97th anniversary of the Armenian genocide by Ottoman Turks during World War I.

The large group of Turkish, Armenian and Kurdish protesters staged a sit-in, holding pictures of prominent Armenian intellectuals including journalist Hrant Dink, who was killed in 2007 in front of his Istanbul office.

“We are here to say this pain belongs to all of us … We are trying to share the pain of Armenians,” said Senol Karakas, a spokesman for the group.

The group sat in silence, some of them crying.

“We are here to lament, and we are going to do it in dignity and in silence,” Karakas said.

Police tightened security during the protest and an ambulance was on hand.

“This is the third year we are gathering to commemorate the beginning of the genocide,” demonstrator Turgay Cakar said. “The crowd is growing larger every year.”

The Istanbul branch of the Human Rights Association staged a similar commemoration in front of the Museum for Turkish and Islamic Arts, which it said was used as a prison for arrested Armenian intellectuals in that period.

Armenians mark the anniversary every year on April 24, which is accepted as the date in 1915 when the Ottoman campaign began.

Source

Turkish nationalists shout to protest against a mourning ceremony beside a police barricade during a ceremony to commemorate the 97th anniversary of the 1915 mass killing of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire on Taksim Square in Istanbul, on April 24, 2012. (AFP PHOTO/BULENT KILIC)

Over 1000 rally to commemorate Armenian Genocide in Istanbul

Over 1000 people gathered in Taksim Square in Istanbul, Turkey, to commemorate the victims of the Armenian Genocide on April 24 evening.

The rally began at 19.15 pm and lasted about half an hour under the motto “No to racism”. As a source in Istanbul told a PanARMENIAN.Net reporter, the participants, Armenians among them, were sitting on the ground as a sign of protest. Some of the demonstrators were holding photos of Hrant Dink, the slain editor of Agos Armenian-Turkish newspaper.

Meanwhile, representatives of Turkish opposition party Halk Kurtulush Partisi, or HKP (People’s Liberation Party), occupied the center of the square with posters reading “Armenian Genocide is a lie”.

Police officers with batons made up a chain between the two groups to prevent clashes.

Source

Obama Avoids Armenian ‘Genocide’

President Obama is getting heat for his speech honoring Armenian Remembrance Day. The president avoided mentioning the word “genocide” for the fourth year in a row, despite having vowed as a presidential candidate to acknowledge it. In a statement, the chairman of the Armenian National Committee of America voiced his feelings of betrayal, condemning the president and saying his “pledge to recognize the Armenian genocide stands as a stark lie.” While Obama emphasized that his “view of history has not changed” and applauded diplomacy efforts between Armenians and Turks, his speech was criticized by the other side as well, with the Turkish ambassador in Washington calling the president’s statement “wrongful” and “distorted.”

Source

French Senate passes Armenian genocide law

24 Jan

Turks demonstrate in front of the French National Assembly in Paris, France, on 22 December 2011 as the French parliament considers the Armenian genocide law. Photo by EPA/BGNES

The French Senate has approved a controversial bill that makes it a criminal offence to deny that genocide was committed by Ottoman Turks against Armenians during World War I.

Armenia says up to 1.5 million people died in 1915-16 as the Ottoman empire split. Turkey rejects the term genocide and says the number was much smaller.

The measure will now be sent to President Sarkozy for final approval.

The bill’s passage in the lower house caused major tensions with Turkey.

Ankara froze ties with France after the vote last month and promised further measures if the Senate backed the proposal.

In the event the Senate approved the bill by 127 votes to 86.

The BBC’s correspondent in Istanbul, Jonathan Head, says stronger Turkish measures could include the withdrawal of ambassadors and creating more barriers to French businesses in Turkey.

In the first reaction from Ankara, Justice Minister Sadullah Ergin condemned the bill.

“The decision made by the Senate is a great injustice and shows total lack of respect for Turkey,” he told the CNN-Turk television channel.

The Turkish embassy in Paris warned that if President Sarkozy approved the bill, the damage done to relations between the two countries would be permanent.

“France is in the process of losing a strategic partner,” Turkish embassy spokesman, Engin Solakoglu, told AFP news agency.

Armenia described the vote as “historic”.

“This day will be written in gold not only in the history of friendship between the Armenian and French peoples, but also in the annals of the history of the protection of human rights worldwide,” said Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian, in a statement carried by AFP.

Free speech

The Turkish government argues that judging what happened to the Armenian community in eastern Turkey in 1915-16 should be left to historians, and that the French law will restrict freedom of speech.

Turkish officials acknowledge that atrocities were committed but argue that there was no systematic attempt to destroy the Armenian people – and that many innocent Muslim Turks also died in the turmoil of the events, in the middle of World War I.

France formally recognised the killings as genocide in 2001, one of more than 20 countries which have done so.

The current bill means that anyone denying the deaths were genocide would face a jail term and a fine of 45,000 euros (£29,000; $58,000).

The bill was put forward by President Sarkozy’s UMP party.

France has half a million citizens of Armenian descent, and correspondents say their votes may be important in this year’s presidential elections.

Ahead of the vote, a spokesman for the French foreign ministry called for “calm,” saying Turkey was a partner and a very important ally of France.

Source

Turkey Slams France Over Genocide Bill

19 Dec

Image from the Armenian Genocide, 1915

by The Associated Press

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkey’s prime minister on Saturday sharply criticized France for a bill that would make it a crime to deny the World War I-era mass killing of Armenians was genocide.

Saying France should investigate what he claimed was its own “dirty and bloody history” in Algeria and Rwanda, Recep Tayyip Erdogan insisted Turkey would respond “through all kinds of diplomatic means.”

Historians estimate that up to 1.5 million Armenians were killed by Ottoman Turks as their Empire collapsed, an event many international experts regard as genocide and that France recognized as such in 2001. Turkish leaders reject the term, arguing that the toll is inflated, that there were deaths on both sides and that those killed were victims of civil war and unrest.

On Dec. 22, the lower house of French Parliament will debate a proposal that would make denying that the massacre was genocide punishable by up to a year in prison and euro 45,000 ($58,500) in fines, putting it on par with Holocaust denial, which was banned in the country in 1990.

Erdogan lashed out at France during a joint news conference with Mustafa Abdul-Jalil — the chairman of Libya’s National Transitional Council — saying there were reports that France was responsible for the deaths of 45,000 people in Algeria in 1945 and for the massacre of up to 800,000 people in Rwanda in 1994.

“No historian, no politician can see genocide in our history,” Erdogan said. “Those who do want to see genocide should turn around and look at their own dirty and bloody history.”

Genocide and French atrocities in Algeria

“The French National Assembly should shed light on Algeria, it should shed light on Rwanda,” he said, in his first news conference since recovering from surgery three weeks ago.

France had troops in Rwanda, and Rwandan President Paul Kagame has accused the country of doing little to stop the country’s genocide.

There was no immediate reaction from France. Ties between the two countries are already strained by French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s opposition to Turkey’s bid to join the European Union.

Erdogan’s criticism comes a day after an official said the Turkish leader had written to Sarkozy warning of grave consequences if the Armenian genocide bill is adopted. A Turkish diplomat said Turkey would withdraw its ambassador to France is the law is passed.

“I hope that the (French Parliament) steps back from the error of misrepresenting history and of punishing those who deny the historic lies,” Erdogan said. “Turkey will stand against this intentional, malicious, unjust and illegal attempt through all kinds of diplomatic means.”

Erdogan called the proposed bill a “populist” act, suggesting it was aimed at winning the votes of Armenian-French in elections in France next year.

A Turkish parliamentary delegation is scheduled to travel to France on Sunday to lobby French legislators against the bill.

Turkey has long argued that parliaments should not be left the task of deciding whether the killings constituted genocide, insisting on the creation of a joint independent committee of historians to look into the events that started in 1915.

Several countries have recognized the killings as genocide, including Uruguay, Chile, Argentina, Russia, Canada, Lebanon, Belgium, Greece, Italy, the Vatican, Switzerland, Slovakia, the Netherlands, Poland, Lithuania and Cyprus.

In 2007, a Swiss court convicted a Turkish politician under its anti-racism law and fined him for denying that the killings of Armenians was genocide. The case caused diplomatic tensions between Switzerland and Turkey.

Source

Review of “Germany & the Secret Genocide”

3 Aug

It is often said that history is written by the victor. When it comes to the recollections of the past championed within bourgeois society, objective historical realities are obscured (if not omitted or re-written) when the facts and lessons to be gleaned from them challenge the hegemony of its ruling class. As such, we are taught in school and in society certain facts about events, and other events, as monumental as they may be, are conveniently left out. In extreme cases, the denial of historical realities is reinforced with state repression.

Take, for instance, the case of the Armenian Genocide. During the years of the First World War, the Ottoman Empire embarked upon a campaign of the systematic eradication of the Armenian people, with a death toll of some 1.5 million Armenians being murdered. The documentary evidence for this crime, which includes pictures, state documents, letters and the testimony of witnesses, is overwhelming, yet states continue to deny this genocide. In Turkey, there are repressive laws in place which prohibit “insulting Turkish-ness” by acknowledging the “so-called” Armenian Genocide.

The documentary Germany & the Secret Genocide (2003), directed by J. Michael Hagopian, is part of an important effort to battle such denial. Not only does it document in depth the events of the genocide itself, but it also asserts a conscious understanding that imperialism has played a vital role in facilitating the execution and denial of genocide.

Young Turks of the Ottoman Empire

The Documentary: an Effective and Informative Case against the Denial

One strong suit of this documentary is that, unlike others, which are more likely to make statements about historical events to be blindly accepted as facts, this film carefully brings forward official documents, letters, diplomatic cables and other primary source material whenever possible.

This is essential when documenting genocide because there are often those who attempt to deny genocide utilizing a variety of tactics, which often include the underestimation of the population of victims, (which is a regular occurrence when denying the Armenian genocide, wherein the denier claims the Armenian population was one million rather than two) authoring up stories that attempt to explain and justify, while denying, the actions of the genocideres (sticking to the official Ottoman story that the Armenians were being deported “for their safety”) and other such deception and distortion that needs to be challenged with carefully documented evidence.

In providing extensive proof, what the genocide researcher does is expose the true motives for genocide denial: nationalism, national chauvinism and concealing those realities which challenge the hegemony of nation-states and their national bourgeoisie. Modern-day Turkey, as well as other countries that have a bone to pick with the Armenian people, can only continue to deny the Armenian Genocide, despite a wealth of evidence to the contrary, because of their own fetishization of their national origin and national chauvinism towards Armenians.

Map of the Ottoman Empire's territory. It's collapse threatened the interests of imperialism.

Imperialism: Greasing the Gears of Genocide

One strength of Germany & the Secret Genocide is that it places the Armenian Genocide in the context of imperialism, which is essential to its understanding, rather than choosing to focus entirely on the biographies of certain leaders and figures, as is often the case when it comes to studies of genocide.

The destruction of entire ethnic groups and cultures does not happen in a vacuum; it requires a larger mechanism that is willing to fund and execute a policy of ethnic cleansing on a massive scale, which is ultimately an expensive and risky endeavor. It isn’t enough to attach emotional qualifiers to the genocideres (such as their being “savage” or “evil”) in an attempt to explain why individuals would participate in and uphold genocidal policies. Rather, when one only focuses on heads of state and other high-ranking figures in genocidal regimes, the result is an analysis that lends itself to individualism and “great man, evil man” perceptions of history. This is to miss the forest for the trees, so to speak.

Rather than produce a documentary work on how the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed V and his Minister of War Enver Pasha were “evil,” the film discusses the role of the Baghdad Railway, a German project designed to link Berlin and then-Ottoman Baghdad for purposes of trade, was a major factor. Both the Ottomans and the Germans had an interest in securing territory to the west where the Armenians lived. Both powers were allies who had much to gain from the trade that this route would provide, and both were pitted against the same rival imperialist power, Great Britain, whose position of dominance could be undermined with a flourishing trade route between Germany and the Ottoman empire. For their imperialist regimes to flourish in the wake of stiff economic and military opposition from rival powers, it became clear to both sides that the completion of the Baghdad Railway had to be realized at any cost.

German General Otto Liman von Sanders with officers of the Ottoman High Command during the First World War.

Denial and Complicity: German Imperialism’s Role in the Cover-Up

It was because of these clear economic, political and military incentives that Germany was compelled to look the other way while the Ottomans decided to eliminate the Armenians. Indeed, there were those in Germany who championed various anti-Armenian perspectives, from a desire to push the Armenians out of their native territory due to their “industriousness” to “racializes” perspectives which saw the Armenians as being the “Jews of the orient.”

These ideological perspectives emerged not out of some “evil,” some abstract metaphysical problem with the Ottomans and Germans themselves, but because there were larger interests which required the German authorities to turn the other cheek towards the Ottoman’s campaign of mass murder.

Map of the Armenian Genocide

The Railway, which was owned by a German bank, was being built in part by Armenian slave labor and was being used to transport Armenian prisoners in cattle cars to their demise. The film carefully documents communications from this time between various investors, missionaries and German officials, some of whom lodged protest against the unfolding genocide, yet these protests were promptly ignored by the German state.

This denial became state policy, rendering the German forces complicit in the Ottoman massacres. There is further evidence that German soldiers and officers participated in the killings of Armenians asserted by Germany & the Secret Genocide.

Letter by US Ambassador Henry Morganthou about the genocide of Armenians

US Imperialism: Assisting in Genocide Denial for the Same Reasons

The recognition of the genocide of the Armenians during the First World War has surfaced in contemporary politics, yet despite the wealth of evidence of the events of 1915, the United States government has yet to officially recognize the genocide.

Individual states have adopted legislation that acknowledges the genocide (with the exception of Alabama, Mississippi, West Virginia, Indiana, Iowa, Wyoming, and South Dakota) and legislation was proposed in congress to acknowledge the genocide (HR 106) yet debate on the bill has been postponed and Barack Obama’s campaign promise to acknowledge the genocide have yet to be fulfilled.

Secretary of State Clinton has gone as far as to assure the Turkish government that “the U.S. administration opposes both the decision accepted by the (house committee on foreign affairs) and the decision reaching the general assembly” regarding HR 106.

When one examines the chief reason asserted by the opponents of HR 106 for not formally recognizing the genocide, once again the motive of imperialism for genocide denial becomes painfully obvious. The United States, whose wars of occupation in the middle east drone on continuously, requires Turkey’s continued support as a NATO ally, in the usage of its airspace and US military installations in the country. It would be inconvenient to US economic and military interests in the region if their government were to adopt a resolution acknowledging the crimes of Turkey’s past.

Armenians being marched out of Kharpert by Ottoman soldiers in April 1915.

The opportunist policy of US imperialism towards acknowledging the Armenian genocide presents us with a tragic irony when we look back to the history of the genocide as it unfolded and the bravery demonstrated by those who tried to expose it. The American ambassador to the Ottoman empire during the First World War, Henry Morgenthau, Sr., collected reports from Americans residing in various parts of the Ottoman Empire and lodged official protest to the US government, insisting they intervene on behalf of the Armenians. He helped create the “Committee on Armenian Atrocities” to raise funds for the victims, and even admonished Talaat Pasha, the Ottoman Interior Minister, saying “Our people will never forget these massacres.” (3)

Yet, despite his efforts, the US government to this day continues to waffle on the acknowledgment of the pain and devastation inflicted by the Ottoman Empire on the Armenians, effectively forgetting the massacres for what they are as they conflict with their interests abroad.

Talat Pasha, one of the "Three Pashas" which led the Ottoman Empire during the First World War and masterminded the Armenian Genocide

Conclusion: to Remember and Resist Genocide, We must Remember and Resist Imperialism

The 20th century has borne witness to a great many tragedies perpetrated by imperialism. Entire peoples have been colonized and destroyed thanks to the appetites and agendas of capital. The Armenian Genocide is another such example of imperialism deciding whose lives are worthy and what peoples deserve repression and ethnic cleansing. If we are to stand against genocide, to prevent the utter annihilation of peoples by imperialist armies, we need to understand and stand against the forces which facilitate these crimes.

Imperialism, by its very design, is genocidal. It exists and perpetuates itself by advancing a structural violence that produces immense poverty and deprivation for a majority of the world’s working peoples.

"Germany and the Secret Genocide" points out how death marchs and forced deportation into the Syrian desert was a large part of the Armenian Genocide.

When necessary, imperialism has no qualms about utilizing any means necessary to get its hands on the resources it needs to extract profits. Those who stand in the way, be they Armenians, Kurds, Palestinians, Herero, Namaqua or any number of ethnic groups targeted by imperialist powers, are considered expendable, less than human, and candidates for extermination. This applies to all imperialist powers, and those who think that the “good guys” among them will stand in the way of genocide are deluded if they think any imperialist power, no matter how much it prides itself on its dedication to “human rights,” won’t look the other way if it serves their profit interests.

Germany & the Secret Genocide serves an important purpose in demonstrating this reality. While the documentary does contain certain inaccuracies, namely in that it advances the mistaken notion that the Armenian Genocide was the first genocide of the 20th century (the genocide of the Herero and Namaqua people by German imperialism in Africa came first), and another mistaken notion that this genocide was the first in which rail cars were used to transport the victims of genocide (again, the German imperialists did this first in Africa).

Despite these flaws, Germany & the Secret Genocide is the best documentary that we’ve seen on the Armenian Genocide, and the Red Phoenix recommends it highly for anyone with in interest in genocide and the crimes of imperialism.

Sources

1. http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2010/03/29/104363.html

2. http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/R?r110:FLD001:S03144

3. Oren. Power, Faith, and Fantasy, p. 335.

Review: Genocide, War Crimes and the West

1 Aug

Adam Jones’ book Genocide, War Crimes and the West: History and Complicity is an incredibly revealing anthology containing accounts of atrocities carried out by Western imperial capitalism and those who serve its interests abroad. Articles describing the little-known and little-understood history of imperialist actions from Algeria to Vietnam, Armenia to Yugoslavia, and even the genocide of Native peoples by colonialism in the United States and Canada are reproduced in this essential text. Jones’ book serves as an important lesson to its readers about the reality behind the United States and other powers’ attempts to “spread democracy and civilization” at gunpoint, as well as to remind those who advocate “peaceful resistance” to imperialism of the futility of their position.

Imperialism at the Forefront

One strength of this work that makes it useful to those who seek to understand and resist imperialism is how the authors of this text never forget the broader context behind the events chronicled. Unlike some more traditional perspectives on genocide and war crimes that seek to address the issue via the psychology of the perpetrators, these authors correctly connect the geopolitical agenda of capital as the root of these events. In essence, this text provides not only the what, but the why, behind the greatest crimes of the 20th century – and the why is capitalism. Several chapters discuss US interventionism in Latin America and Southeast Asia, and while outlining the extent of crimes committed by Henry Kissinger and other imperialist agents, the context of the Cold War and the yearnings of US capital to maintain its hegemony over what it saw as its “back yard” are not forgotten. Rather than merely catalog the violence in Somalia under Siad Barre, the text talks about how funds and arms from the United States made it possible. Behind the many horrors being perpetrated all over the globe at any given moment, there is the presence of capital, the influence which leads to war, genocide and poverty for much of the world’s peoples, and Jones’ book is faithful in recognizing this connection.

Understanding Vietnam and Iraq as Genocide

This book makes an important contribution to the understanding of the Vietnam War and the sanctions against Iraq as genocidal actions. This is important, because these direct attacks on civilian population centers have yet to be admitted as genocidal actions by the United States. Apparently, the targeting of defenseless villages in Vietnam and the starving of 500,000 Iraqi children do not count as genocide because it was the United States who perpetrated it. If the Soviet Union is perceived as being slow to provide aid to the Ukraine during famine, then it was clearly Stalin who intended to starve the populous into submission, yet when the United States imposes crippling sanctions after bombing raids targeting sanitation facilities and other essentials to civilian life, starvation and illness are merely a convenient accident. And, when it comes to the bombing of civilian population centers within “free fire zones” in Vietnam, the United States would attest that in wartime such atrocities are unavoidable. The double standard put forward by Western propaganda in the context of Cold War does well to whitewash the crimes they committed, and in engaging these accounts of mass murder, Jones’ text serves to reveal the true nature of imperialist violence. Capitalism: Itself a Genocide

The most important chapter of this anthology is an article entitled Collateral Damage: The Human Cost of Structural Violence in which the author, Peter G. Prontzos, outlines how international capitalism itself is a genocide. In this chapter, Prontzos compiles a wealth of statistical data about death associated with poverty world-wide, and argues that this structural violence is generated by the capitalist system itself; that since there is no material reason for the disparities in this world, the ultimate source of this death and despair is imperial capitalism’s imperative to reap profits from the labor and material resources of the rest of the world. Even without warfare, without bombing raids on civilian population centers in the name of profit margins, capitalism itself functions as a system of the organized exploitation and murder of the world’s laboring masses. Prontzos begins his essay quoting Darwin, saying, “If poverty is not a result of nature, then great is our sin.” This quote is appropriate, being that the misery of world capitalism is not the cause of nature and the sin of its structural violence and imperialist warfare falls on the capitalist exploiters themselves.

What about Israel?

This text does well to incorporate important examples of genocide and war crimes throughout the 20th century, but unfortunately makes no reference to the crimes perpetrated by the state of Israel against the people of Palestine. This myopia towards a nationalist state which sees fit to drop white phosphorus on schools and hospitals, or impose an illegal blockade which is driving the standard of living of Palestinians to incredible squalor, cannot be viewed as anything other than intentional. Jones admits that his work is not exhaustive, and makes reference to the fact that material regarding Israel and British crimes in Ireland have been left out, though we at the APL must protest to this decision, being that not addressing such crimes is what allows them to be perpetrated.

Conclusion: This Text is Essential

This book is essential for those who wish to understand the true nature of Western imperial capitalism. Capitalism is a system of organized crime; an economic construction built to allow a small minority of the population plunder and exploit the laboring masses. When this system doesn’t break out into earnest warfare against the world proletariat by shooting and bombing men, women and children at will, it seeks to reinforce its hegemony through structural violence. Adam Jones and the authors of the various articles included in this anthology do a great service by offering these accounts. Poverty and imperialist war, genocide and the multitude of atrocities presented by both, are the crimes of capital. Only when one understands this essential truth is one able to wage an effective resistance to it, and this book is incredibly useful in bettering that understanding.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 140 other followers

%d bloggers like this: