VIRTUAL SEXUALITY BOLIVIAN ELECTIONS

54 NOV-JAN 2005/2006 ISSUE NO. 54 SPECIAL ISSUE ON CANADA & EMPIRE $4.95 HURRICANE KATRINA 7272006 86358 www.newsociallist.org EDITORIAL Canada and Empire

Since the US government reacted to the attacks of No serious analysis of Canadian history or contemporary September 11th, 2001 by accelerating its push for global state polices towards Aboriginal communities can deny the dominance, there has been more talk about empire and impe- colonial nature of Canada or lend credence to a political strat- rialism than at any time since the 1970s. egy based on asserting the sovereignty of the same state that With Canadian troops and police in Afghanistan and denies Aboriginal Peoples and Quebec the right to self-deter- Haiti, the big boost in spending on the military in the last mination up to and including independence if they so federal budget and active government support for the “struc- choose. tural adjustment” policies of the International Monetary In our view, the notion that Canada is some kind of Fund and the World Bank that have inflicted so much harm dependent nation can’t be squared with the reality of the on people in the “Third World,” serious questions about Canadian state’s current role in Haiti or its pursuit of policies Canada’s relationship to imperialism are harder and harder to that destroy the livelihoods of millions of people in the ignore. Global South while giving free reign to multinational corpo- But because most anti-imperialist protest and analysis in rations – including Canadian companies - to plunder their Canada focuses on the US, such important questions often resources. go unanswered. This special issue of New Socialist on Canada This special theme issue of New Socialist aims to and Empire tackles some of them. contribute to the development of a better understanding of In our view, one of the reasons why the Left in Canada has Canadian capitalist society and its place in the imperialist a hard time coming to grips with Canada’s role in the world world order. The articles it presents challenge different today is that most of the broad Left sees Canada as a nation aspects of the view of Canada held by far too much of the under the thumb of the US. Much left-wing analysis has Left. portrayed Canada as a dependent nation (similar to the so- Our theme section begins with an overview of Canada’s called developing world, only richer) with a weak capitalist position within the contemporary global order. Other articles class that lacks a nefarious global reach of its own. consider Canada’s relations with Aboriginal Peoples, the Such ideas are common on the moderate Left – in the activities of Canadian corporations in the “Third World,” NDP, NGOs like the Council of Canadians and among many Canada’s role in Haiti, Canadian military intervention, the labour, peace and social justice activists. Many people on the accuracy of claims that Canada is controlled by US capital, radical Left see things in a similar way. and racism and anti-racism in Canada. The last article looks at why so many people see Canada as an underdog and at This view of Canada leads people to assert that the best what the analysis developed in the other articles means for the strategy for advancing socialism is to organize for a sovereign politics of social change. Canada, free from the controlling yoke of the US, and, furthermore, that the Canadian state can be a vehicle to The editors of New Socialist want to open up discussion realize this goal. and debate with this issue. We’re advancing analysis and argu- ments of a kind that traditionally have been dismissed For the editors of New Socialist, this “left-nationalist” view without the serious consideration they deserve on the Left. In has never really been very helpful in understanding Canada our view, people who want to transform Canadian society and its place in the world order, and it has even less credibil- need a reliable understanding of this society and a political ity today than it did in the past, as the articles in this issue strategy that flows from this. But we don’t pretend that we show. can come up with them on our own. We see this special The very existence of the Canadian state was made possi- theme issue as a first step. ble by the colonization of Aboriginal Peoples within To encourage discussion and debate both with people who Canadian borders. The theft of Aboriginal land and the agree with the kind of perspectives presented in this issue and denial of Aboriginal People’s rights to freely determine their those who don’t, we are planning to feature responses in the own futures have only intensified since the emergence of the next issue of New Socialist. We ask individuals or groups who agenda of privatization, economic restructuring and capitalist consider these matters important to contribute. For the next expansion often called neoliberalism (reflected in deals like issue, we will consider articles received by December 15, NAFTA). 2005, and we will accept letters until the end of the year.★

new 2 SOCIALIST Box 167, 253 College St. new Toronto, ON M5T 1R5 (416) 955-1581 [email protected] SOCIALIST www.newsocialist.org Issue #54: November-January, 2005-2006 NEW SOCIALIST offers radical analysis of politics, social movements and culture in the ★ LETTERS ★ ...... 4 Canadian state and internationally. Our magazine is a forum for people who want to strengthen today’s ★ ★ activism and for those who wish to CANADA AND EMPIRE replace global capitalism with a genuinely democratic socialism. We Canada and empire ...... David McNally 5 believe that the liberation of the Does the US control Canada’s economy? ...... Bill Burgess 9 working class and oppressed peoples can be won only through their own Colonialism and Aboriginal resistance in Canada ...... Deborah Simmons 12 struggles. For more information Haiti: A success story for Canadian imperialism ...... Kevin Skerrett 15 about the publisher of this magazine, the New Socialist Group, please see The Canadian military order ...... Neil Braganza 18 the inside back cover. NDP: Concessions to imperialism ...... Murray Cooke 22 EDITORS Todd Gordon Canadian capital rips off the Third World ...... Harold Lavender 24 Sebastian Lamb Harold Lavender Racism, imperialism and capitalism: The Canadian case ...... Sheila Wilmot 27 Jeff Webber Challenging Canada ...... Sebastian Lamb 30 EDITORIAL INTERNS Dave Brophy Clarice Kuhling Keith O’Regan ★ HOMEFRONT ★ EDITORIAL ASSOCIATES CBC lockout and public broadcasting ...... Susan Ferguson 33 Richard Banner Neil Braganza Jackie Esmonde Susan Ferguson ★ INTERNATIONAL ★ Denise Hammond Alex Levant New Orleans: A social catastrophe ...... R. Caldwell Jr. & J. Dubinsky 35 Morgan MacLeod David McNally Bolivia: Upcoming Elections ...... Jeffery R. Webber 38 Dana Milne Sandra Sarner Hamid Sodeifi ★ ★ Tony Tracy CULTURE AND REVIEWS Virtual Sexuality ...... Alan Sears 40 DESIGN & COVERS Nicole Dzuba & Corinne Napper Pluggin’ Away: Bacteria, Lost (and much more) ...... Mark Connery 42 (Front cover image) Sandra Sarner (Design/Layout). Signed articles do not necessarily ★ TIME TO ORGANIZE ★ ...... 43 represent the views of the Editors or members of the New Socialist As this issue of New Socialist went to press, teachers in BC continued their strike in defi- Group. ance of anti-union legislation and court rulings, and are receiving strong support. Visit New Socialist is a member of the CMPA. www.newsocialist.org for news from this important struggle, and stay tuned for analysis Printed at JT Printing, a union shop in the next issue of this magazine!

new SOCIALIST 3 LETTERS Dove beauty and critical feminism

MY RECENT EXPERIENCE AS AN EXHIBIT attendant in a Winnipeg mall for “The Dove Real Beauty Photography Exhibit” offered an important lesson about the significance of articulate feminist analy- sis such as that provided by Jackie DOVE: Real women Esmonde in the last issue of New have real curves. Socialist. The mass media portrayal of Meet the women selected the beauty ideal is unquestionably very to join the Dove real to the crowds of mostly women who Firming campaign. showed up in the thousands to visit the (www.campaignforrealbeauty.com). Dove exhibit. They were visibly and self- admittedly moved, inspired, grateful and overtly supportive and excited about Dove’s campaign. They openly praised Anti-occupation and socialist-feminist Dove’s efforts with statements like “it’s about time” or “I have been following T-SHIRTS FOR SALE the campaign and love what Dove is doing.” A large number of women talked about the importance of the campaign in securing a better future for their daugh- ters and it was not uncommon to see the eyes of women swell with tears of hope as they enjoyed the exhibit. A general critique of the ideology of Feminist t-shirt: front and back beauty or a healthy suspicion about the campaign’s real motivations of profit were apparently absent from everyone’s mind as they were allowed a few moments to entertain the possibility that they were being witness to the beginning of a new era. Though these responses should not be surprising in a time and place without any significant women’s Anti-occupation/anti-Imperialism t-shirt: front and back movement, the experience was disheart- BOTH SHIRTS ARE NOW AVAILABLE IN “REGULAR” SIZING AND WOMEN’S “FITTED” SIZES! ening. Critical feminist analysis such as FEMINIST AND PROUD (red & white on black): “regular” sizing ❏ XS ❏ S ❏ M ❏ L ❏ XL ❏ ❏ ❏ ❏ ❏ that offered in the last issue of New FEMINIST AND PROUD (red & white on black): women’s “fitted” XS S M L XL END THE OCCUPATION (white & yellow on black): “regular” sizing ❏ XS ❏ S ❏ M ❏ L ❏ XL Socialist will be crucial to maintaining END THE OCCUPATION (white & yellow on black): women’s “fitted” ❏ XS ❏ S ❏ M ❏ L ❏ XL clarity in a time when ‘the word in the mall’ offers little. _____Shirts @ $20.00 Cdn each = $ ______= $ ______7.50 Nicole Dzuba + $7.50 shipping (for up to two shirts) TOTAL = $ ______Name: ______NEW SOCIALIST welcomes Address: ______letters and other contributions. Contact Phone Number and/or Email: ______For shipping costs for orders of more than 2 t-shirts, or to arrange for pick-up Please write to us at in Toronto, contact us via email at: [email protected] or phone: 416-955-1581. [email protected] Please make cheques or money orders payable to New Socialist Group and mail to: Box 167 • 253 College St. • Toronto, ON • M5T 1R5

new 4 SOCIALIST FEATURE Canada and empire

BY DAVID MCNALLY

ARTICULARLY SINCE THE 1960S, MUCH OF THE LEFT IN ENGLISH-SPEAKING CANADA HAS DESCRIBED THIS country as a colony or dependency of the United States. Those who share this analysis Ptypically argue that imperialism in the Canadian context involves a one-way relationship in which the US dominates and oppresses Canada. With the Canadian state thus depicted as a victim of imperialism, the idea of Canada and its ruling class as imperialist is largely dismissed out of hand.

For the most part, this position is highly influential inside the New Democratic Party (NDP), the Council of Canadians, much of the officialdom of the union movement and not infrequently in the pages of publications like Canadian Dimension. To be sure, there are important differ- ences of emphasis among these groups. But the dominant currents of opinion in their circles assume that defending the sovereignty of the Canadian state is a progressive stance. In the last couple of years, for instance, the Council of Canadians has argued that Canada is being transformed from a country to a colony, while Canadian Dimension, which to its credit has also published dissenting opinions, has spon- sored a series of articles arguing for a campaign in defence of Canadian sovereignty. However, this position – often described as left nationalism for the way it embraces defence of Canadian nationhood as oppositional to empire – has always had its critics on the Left. Paul Martin and George W. Bush: two faces of empire And many of these critics have produced powerful analyses that directly challenge the assumptions of left nationalism. tutions - through which wealth is drained from the labour and Moreover, many of those criticisms look especially potent resources of people in the Global South to the systematic advan- today, in the era of capitalist globalization. In what follows, I tage of capital in the North. A nation-state is imperialist, then, offer a summary of some of the main arguments put forward to the extent to which its state and ruling class perpetuate and by those on the Left who consider Canada to be not a systematically benefit from this system of global inequalities. dependency but a middle level imperialist power in its own While this definition is far from exhaustive (and I will come right, and who thus question the progressiveness of politics back to other dimensions later), it is a crucial point of depar- founded on Canadian nationalism. ture. Furthermore, by this definition, I suggest, the Canadian state, and its capitalist class, ought to be described as imperi- alist. DEFINING IMPERIALISM Those who would dispute this tend to argue principally HILE THERE IS NO CONSENSUS OVER THE MEANING OF that the Canadian economy suffers from massive and debili- Wthe term imperialism, I will offer a preliminary formu- tating levels of foreign ownership, so much so that its lation that will meet, I think, with the agreement of many: economic elites cannot be considered an independent class in Imperialism is a system of global inequalities and domination - their own right. This argument is repeated throughout the embodied in regimes of property, military power and global insti- nationalist Left. But does it actually stand up to inspection? Let’s begin with foreign ownership of the Canadian

David McNally is an editorial associate of New Socialist and a economy. In 1971, foreign control of business assets in member of the New Socialist Group. Canada (excluding the financial sector) stood at 37 per cent. new SOCIALIST 5 By the mid 1980s, however, foreign ownership had fallen to CANADIAN FOREIGN INVESTMENT less than 24 per cent – meaning that Canadian business had ORE SIGNIFICANT, HOWEVER, IS THE FACT THAT been buying back large chunks of the domestic economy. MCanadian-based businesses are now among the most Over the same period, the American share of these Canadian aggressive foreign investors in the world. FDI by Canadian assets dipped to less than 17 per cent. Once we include corporations is equal to 18 per cent of the country’s gross financial corporations, like banks and insurance companies, national product, ranking Canadian capital fifth in terms the we discover that only about twenty percent of all business assets relative amount it devotes to investing outside domestic in Canada are foreign owned, and that American capital borders. Judged per capita, Canadian capital has a higher rate controls only about 11 per cent of all corporate wealth in of foreign investment than does big business in either the US Canada. As a result of these trends, by the early 1990s, US or Japan. Only Britain exceeds it among the world’s wealthi- ownership of the Canadian economy was at its lowest level est nations. since the 1920s. It is hard to see, therefore, how left nation- To look at Canadian FDI in slightly different terms, for alists can sustain the idea that Canada is being persistently every dollar of foreign direct investment that flowed into colonized by American capital. Canada in the 1990s, about $1.70 flowed out. In short, Looking for different indicators, some left nationalists have Canadian capitalists are buying up or starting up foreign pointed to the inflow of foreign direct investment (FDI) as a businesses at a much faster rate than foreign capital is doing sign of an ongoing, or even escalating, US takeover of the the same here. As a result, by the mid 1990s the value of Canadian economy. But, again, the facts do not bear out foreign investments by Canadian business exceeded the value these claims. When we compare the amount of foreign of FDI in this country. investment that flows into Canada as a proportion of gross These growing levels of foreign investment by Canadian national product we discover that it is lower than the rate in corporations have generated what is known as a dividend the Netherlands, Australia and even Britain. It is true that surplus for Canadian capital. This term refers to the ratio countries like the US and Japan have lower rates of FDI between dividends that flow out of Canada to foreign inflow, but Canada’s profile by these measures is pretty much investors (because of what they own here), and the dividends what one would expect of a first-tier middle power in the that flow into Canada by virtue of Canadian ownership of world capitalist system. businesses in other countries. In short, a country has a divi- dend surplus if its capitalists make more outside their home country than foreign corporations take out of that same country. By 2000, according to Statistics Canada, this OPPOSING CANADIAN IMPERIALISM country was running a dividend surplus to the turn of $3.5 There are a number of important campaigns against billion per year. the abusive practices of Canadian multinationals in Most of these dividends flow in from investments within other capitalistically developed countries, since most various parts of the world. Here is how to contact Canadian FDI can be found in such countries. In this some of them: Canada resembles all the countries at the core of the world Rights Action has been coordinating much of the system. At the same time, however, Canadian-based banks work against Glamis Gold in Guatemala. Their and businesses are significant investors in the Global South, website can be found at www.rightsaction.org. particularly in Latin America and the Caribbean. Compared They can be contacted directly at info@rightsac- to other core nations, Canada is the second largest foreign investor in Jamaica, Bolivia, Peru, El Salvador, Guatemala tion.org and the Dominican Republic. Canadian capital also has a For solidarity work with the movement against significant presence in Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Alcan in India check out the Alcan’t in India India, Vietnam and the Philippines, among others. In addi- campaign at www.saanet.org/alcant tion, corporations based here have established a foothold in China, Indonesia, Malaysia and parts of West Africa. Information on the struggle against Inco’s actions in Investments by Canadian multinationals in the so-called Indonesia is available from Mining Watch Canada. less developed countries of the South are designed, like all Email [email protected] for updates. Also such investments by core countries, to take advantage of the check out the Mining Watch website: www.mining- cheap labour, readily exploitable natural resources, lax taxa- watch.ca tion systems and weak labour rights to be found in many of the poorest parts of the world. On top of these practices, There is also an ongoing campaign against western banks set a debt trap for countries of the South, Canada’s military intervention in Haiti. The website extending them loans which they repay many times over as a of Haiti Action Montreal is particularly useful in result of payments on interest and principal. Taken in combi- this regard. See www.haitiaction.net nation, activities of western banks and multinational corpo- rations siphon hundreds of billions of dollars out of the South new 6 SOCIALIST The unloading of Canadian troops in Afghanistan, 2003 every year, robbing the world’s poorest to the benefit of Killing: The Corporate Use of Armed Force in Africa. global corporate capital. And Canadian capital is without a Now let us examine the case of Alcan, a Canadian-based doubt one of the beneficiaries of this global system of multinational firm that is among the world’s largest unequal flows of wealth. aluminum companies. In India, Indigenous Peoples, the Adivasis, have been waging a defiant campaign against Alcan, in its role as half- CANADIAN CAPITAL VERSUS THE WORLD’S POOR owner of a proposed bauxite mine and refinery in the NFACT, MANY CANADIAN COMPANIES HAVE BEEN THE SUBJECT Baphlimali hills in the Kashipur region of Orissa. Thousands Iof protest campaigns as a result of their exploitative practices of Adivasis are facing displacement as a result of effluent in the Third World. Let me take four recent examples. discharge, ash disposal and the dumping of overburden – all In Guatemala, Glamis Gold, a subsidiary of Canadian- of which will dramatically degrade the local environment. owned Skye Resources, is in direct conflict with local Mayan Since 1998, Indigenous Peoples have been protesting against communities. In the course of establishing an open pit gold the development of the mine and refinery. They have regu- and silver mine, backed by the World Bank, Glamis is wreak- larly been met by armed police, who have killed at least four ing environmental damage, displacing Indigenous Peoples and wounded hundreds. and undermining their water supply. Sustained protests, Finally, I offer the example of the International Nickel including a march by 1000 Mayan women and men, have Company (Inco). More than thirty years ago, Inco was been greeted by paramilitary responses, resulting in the death involved in displacing the Karonsi’e Dongo community of of one protestor and injuries to many others. Sorowako, Indonesia when it began mining operations in the Consider next the behaviour of eight Canadian mining area. Recently, this Indigenous community has stepped up firms in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. actions to force the company into negotiations over land and Investigations show that these firms have been complicit in compensation. In September of this year, protestors held human rights violations in the midst of civil wars that have demonstrations, a sit-in and a hunger strike at Inco’s regional killed three million people. A 2003 report by the United office in Makassar, Indonesia. Shortly afterwards, 500 people Nations found these Canadian mining companies in violation staged a blockade at the PT Inco mine site in Sorowako. of international standards for corporate conduct with respect In each of these cases, we observe some of the world’s poor to human rights, taxation and other matters. Canadian jour- locked in opposition to Canadian multinational corporations. nalist Madeline Drohan documents the sometimes violently Taken as a whole, these four cases illustrate the violent practices exploitative practices of these firms in her book, Making a of exploitation of labour, plunder of natural resources and new SOCIALIST 7 appalling human displacement characteristic of Canadian corpo- United States, France and Canada. These three countries rations in various regions of the Global South. These are recog- were on the front lines by sending their soldiers to Haiti nizably the practices of imperialists – capitalist firms in the core before February 29 [2004, when Aristide was overthrown], nations of the world system engaged in siphoning wealth from by having their soldiers either at the airport or at my resi- the poorest regions of the world, and cooperating in violent dence or around the palace or in the capital to make sure that suppression of popular dissent. While some might argue that the they succeeded in kidnapping me.” prevalence of mining companies in these examples shows that And since that time, Canadian troops have been on the Canada is not a first-tier capitalist economy, since mining is front lines of violent repression of Haitian resistance. On ostensibly a mere resource industry, William Carroll demon- May 18, 2005, for instance, hundreds of thousands poured strated many years ago in his book Corporate Power and into the streets of Port-au-Prince to demand the return of Canadian Capitalism that mining firms are very much high-tech Aristide and the end of western occupation. Canadian companies operating at the cutting edge of modern capitalism. soldiers, among others, opened fire, killing many. Whatever valid criticisms there may be of Aristide, it is RESORTING TO FORCE hard to disagree with his view that “the Canadian govern- HESE FOUR EXAMPLES ALSO RAISE AN IMPORTANT DIMEN- ment and the Canadian army have Haitian blood on their Tsion of imperialism only hinted at in my original defini- hands.” tion: the use of force by the core capitalist countries, and corporations based there, in order to secure the flow of IMPERIAL CANADA wealth out of the South. And just as Canadian firms have O THE CLAIM THAT CANADA PLAYS THIS ROLE ONLY regularly been complicit with violence in the interests of Tbecause it’s a boot boy to the US, we need to remember accumulation - be it in Guatemala, the Congo, India or that Canada’s rulers refused to go along with the recent US Indonesia - so has the Canadian state. Many Canadians don’t war against Iraq, just as it abstained from the American war like to admit this unpalatable truth. But the evidence is clear in Vietnam. on the matter. The Canadian government helped depose Aristide because, Of course, capitalism always involves the threat of force. in protecting the interests of Canadian capital, it perceives While the day-to-day business of exploitation often proceeds any government insufficiently compliant with the interests of without overt violence, force is readily available should western business to be a threat. And so blood flows in Haiti protest and resistance create instability for capital. That is – just as in Guatemala, the Congo, India or Indonesia – in why militant demonstrations, strikes and sit-ins are defence of Canadian capitalism. frequently met with police violence and arrests. And such This is the reality of Canada and empire. This is the ugly resort to force is especially common in the South, where face of a middle level imperialist power that pretends that, western capital provokes special opposition for its behaviour because it lacks the aggressive capacity of US imperialism, it as an intruder utterly disrespectful of the needs and histories has no imperialist interests of its own. History and geopoli- of local populations. tics tell a different story. And it’s a story we must hear and Since the end of the Second World War, there has been an publicize – if we are to stand in genuine solidarity with those unending string of imperialist interventions in the South. fighting the predatory actions of Canadian capital in the Asia, the Middle East and Latin America in particular have Global South. ★ known repeated military invasions, of which the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq are only the most recent examples. SUGGESTED RESOURCES And the Canadian state has frequently played an active part in toppling regimes and suppressing dissent in the South. While the literature on Canada as a developed capitalist Today, for instance, Canadian troops are actively involved power in its own right is fairly thin, there are some classics in imperial ventures in both Afghanistan and Haiti. The very much worth consulting. Some of these books may be hard to find, so people should be encouraged to share and Canadian presence in Afghanistan, as part of a coalition of circulate them. Others are readily available in major occupying forces, demonstrates that our government is libraries. Here are a few recommendations: completely prepared to override the right of peoples to self- determination. And its role in Haiti, which is less publicized, Steve Moore and Debi Wells, Imperialism and the National Question in Canada (1974) has been especially odious. At first, Caribbean leaders denounced Canada for not William Carroll, Corporate Power and Canadian Capitalism speaking out against the US-backed coup that removed (1986) Haiti’s president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide in early 2004. But Jorge Niosi, Canadian Multinationals (1985) as the dust settled, it became clear that, worse than not There is a growing number of activists and scholar-activists speaking out, Canadian troops were central participants in now working on these issues. We should soon have some the kidnapping of Aristide. major works to stand alongside these classics from an As the deposed Aristide told Naomi Klein recently (June earlier period. 20, 2005), “the coup, or the kidnapping, was led by the new 8 SOCIALIST same as the equivalent “final product” share of manufacturing output in the US. Does the US control Both are around one-half of total manu- facturing. An OECD ranking of individ- ual manufacturing industries by level of Canada’s economy? technology also shows that Canadian industry falls within the norm for BY BILL BURGESS advanced capitalist economies. “High” and “medium-high” technology indus- ost socialists, anti-globalization capitalism away from natural resource or tries in Canada in 1995 accounted for a activists and other progressive- “staple” production towards job-richer, smaller share of total manufacturing than Mminded people in Canada “higher-end” manufacturing activities. in the US, but their share was greater believe that the US controls Canada’s In fact, there is actually little to criticize than in France and Italy. economy. US capitalists are often consid- about the comparative record of capital- The ability to export highly-manufac- ered the “main enemy.” ism in Canada. Yes, Canada is more tured goods is often cited as a measure of If this was true, Canadian nationalist specialized in primary products than capitalist competitive success. The trend demands could play a positive role in other G7 countries (US, Japan, Germany, here is exactly opposite to what left- working-class and other progressive Britain, France, Italy). However, this is nationalists have predicted for decades. struggles. However, the left-nationalist not some kind of “staples” colony: the Figure 1 shows that the share of total understanding of Canada’s economy is resource-extracting primary sector share exports from Canada made up of both wrong on three inter-related points. of the economy (GDP) is less than six primary product and semi-manufactured First, there is less US investment and percent. goods has declined from around one- control within Canada than is widely Nor is the relative scale of manufactur- third in the 1970s to one-quarter. assumed. Second, capitalists in Canada ing in Canada very different than that in Meanwhile, the share accounted for by are not so divided between industrial other imperialist countries. It accounts fully-manufactured goods has risen from sectors or integrated with US capitalists for the same share of GDP as in the US. about one-third to one-half. This share of that they lack independent interests at Left-nationalists predicted that “free” Canada’s GDP is now four times greater home and abroad. Finally, capitalist trade with the US would “de-industrial- than in the US. In short, capitalist manu- industrial development in Canada is not ize” Canada. In 1988 there were 1.99 facturing in Canada has done what left- distorted or underdeveloped. million manufacturing jobs. There are nationalists said it should, but could not, In other words, Canadian capitalists, now 1.93 million. Meanwhile, manufac- at least not without their “national indus- not foreign capitalists control the turing employment in the US has fallen trial strategy.” Canadian economy. Capitalism here is by 3 million. Yes, Canadian capitalism has vulnera- Canadian. What about the concern that, within bilities that constrain its ability to Left-nationalists have argued for the manufacturing sector, foreign owner- compete with imperialist rivals. But the decades that Canada suffers from a ship discourages high-tech, end-product core argument of left-nationalists – their distorted form of economic development manufacturing? Does Canada over- basic pessimism regarding the compara- flowing from foreign control. Their usual specialize in resource-intensive “interme- tive prospects for Canadian capitalist solution has been some form of “national diate” manufacturing products? industrial development – is wrong. industrial policy” to direct Canadian In fact, the “finished goods” portion of What made left-nationalists think that manufacturing output in Canada is the Canada is so different from other imperi- alist countries? The answer is usually FIGURE 1: Composition of exports from Canada, 1971-2004 foreign investment. As political scientist Leo Panitch put it in 1985, Canada is marked by “the implantation within the social formation of a powerful fraction of foreign capital on a scale unmatched anywhere in the developed world.” However, the extent of foreign invest- ment within Canada is exaggerated. Left- nationalists then compound this error by ignoring factors that help the Canadian bourgeoisie retain domination of the domestic economy. The best indicator of foreign economic

Bill Burgess teaches geography at Kwantlen University College in Vancouver. SOURCE: Paul Kellogg, 2004 new SOCIALIST 9 penetration within a country is probably FIGURE 2: Contol of corporate assets in Canada (%) the share of corporate assets ultimately controlled by majority or large minority shareholders whose residence is foreign. For example, a corporation in Canada that is 51 percent owned by a corporation headquartered in France, that in turn is 51 percent owned by a family trust in the CANADIAN US UNITED KINGDOM ALL FOREIGN US, is considered US-controlled. As illustrated in Figure 2, Statistics Canada reports that 78 percent of all Statistics Canada corporate assets in Canada in 2003 were SOURCE: Canadian-controlled. Only 14 percent of All corporations, Financial corporations, Non financial Top 25 enterprises, corporate assets were US-controlled, less 2003 2003 corporations, 2003 1988 than usually assumed. Left-nationalists invariably restrict their attention to the non-financial half of the economy, where FIGURE 3: “Top 25” enterprises in Canada by corporate assets foreign control is higher. and revenues, 2003 While high foreign control in such industries is significant, it is not represen- ENTERPRISE HEAD (Controls Member Corp.) CONTROL ASSETS REV. tative. Canadians control 85 percent of Royal Bank Of Canada Can 1 12 all corporate assets in the financial half of The Bank Of Nova Scotia Can 2 24 the economy. The 78 percent rate of Toronto-Dominion Bank Can 3 15 overall Canadian control is significantly Cdn. Imperial Bank Of Commerce Can 4 25 higher than the 71 percent over non- Le Groupe Desmarais Can 5 1 financial corporation assets, or the 49 Bank Of Montreal Can 6 28 percent control over manufacturing Sun Life Financial Services Canada Can 7 4 assets. And if non-corporate assets (resi- Le Gouvernement Du Quebec Can 8 5 dential, farm, institutional, government, The Government Of Canada Can 9 8 etc.) were included, the rate of Canadian Le Groupe Desjardins Can 10 35 control over all assets in the country Masonite International Corp. Can 11 67 would total about 90 percent. Canada Life Financial Corporation Can 12 29 The strategic role of the very largest and Partners Ltd Can 13 22 most powerful corporations is also rele- vant here. Statistics Canada calls groups of Banque Nationale Du Canada Can 14 78 corporations controlled by a common Manulife Financial Corporation Can 15 30 parent corporation or family an enter- Bce Inc Can 16 3 prise. It reports that in 1998, Canadians The Jr Shaw Family Group Can 17 33 controlled 95 percent of the assets of the Fmr Corp Usa 18 11 largest 25 of these enterprises. The 25 1109519 Ontario Limited Can 19 10 enterprises accounted for 41 percent of all Suncor Energy Inc Can 20 40 corporate assets in Canada. Hsbc Holdings Plc Gbr 21 137 Figure 3 lists the 25 largest enterprises Le Groupe De La Famille Peladeau Can 22 13 in 2003 ranked by assets, plus additional Nortel Networks Corporation Can 23 16 enterprises that complete the “top 25” Weston Group Can 24 2 ranking by revenues. Only two of the 25 The G.W. Schwartz Group Can 25 7 enterprises ranked by assets are foreign- Le Groupe De La Famille Bombardier Can 27 19 controlled. Seven are foreign-controlled Ford Motor Company Usa 31 14 when the “top 25” ranking is by revenues. Ontario Municipal Emp. Retire. Ben. Can 32 18 Another error by left-nationalists is to Stronach Trust Can 35 9 one-sidedly focus on periods and General Motors Corp. Usa 42 6 instances when foreign control increases. Exxon Mobil Corporation Usa 45 17 Data compiled by Statistics Canada on Daimlerchrysler A.G. Deu 47 23 foreign control of non-financial corpo- Mitsui & Co Ltd Jpn 48 21 rate assets and revenues shows that Honda Motor Co. Ltd. Jpn 492 20 foreign control over non-financial corpo- NOTE: Ranking by sum of all large corporation members of the enterprise for which data available. rate assets declined significantly between SOURCE: Calculated from Statistics Canada, Globe and Mail and Financial Post 1970 and 1985. As in most countries it new 10 SOCIALIST has since risen, but both trends should be imperialist form of capitalism. ers provide a link between foreign and considered. A more balanced view is also In other words, Canadian corporations Canadian capital, and vice versa? Such gained by considering long periods of are assumed to be substantially integrated alliances could disrupt an independent time. This requires a different indicator with foreign, especially US corporations. Canadian corporate interest. of foreign economic penetration, the Part of the “Canadian” investment and In fact, there were only 26 instances stock of inward foreign direct investment control cited above therefore reflects among the large 600 corporations where (FDI) relative to the size of the economy foreign rather than Canadian interests. foreign-controlled corporations or their (GDP). Inward FDI in Canada is now Left-nationalists complain that Canadian subsidiaries held significant sharehold- equivalent to 32 percent of GDP, capitalists lack any real interest in defend- ings in Canadian-controlled corporations compared to 33 percent in 1926. By this ing Canadian sovereignty. or their subsidiaries. And there were only measure, Canada is a little less foreign- The main evidence for this line of eight instances where Canadian- dominated, less “globalized” than it was 8 argument was the pattern of directorship controlled corporations were linked decades ago. links between corporations, that is, when through significant share ownership with Finally, it simply is no longer true that the same person serves on two or more foreign-controlled corporations within foreign investment distinguishes Canada Boards of Directors. Sociologist Wallace Canada. from other imperialist countries. When Clement claimed that only weak director- Among the 34 largest enterprises in one compares the ratio of inward FDI ship links existed between Canadian Figure 3, only three foreign-controlled stock to host country GDP in 2003, it is financial and Canadian industrial corpo- corporations (DaimlerChrysler, Ford and found that foreign penetration of rations in the 1970s. He argued that Exxon) had significant share-holdings in Canada’s economy is less than in the UK inter-sector links within Canada were corporations associated with Canadian- and Sweden. The FDI/GDP ratio in disrupted by extensive foreign ownership controlled enterprises. Only three Canada grew 10 percentage points of industry. Canadian-controlled enterprises had between 1980 and 2003, but it grew by However, international comparisons of significant shareholdings in US- an average 27 percentage points in directorship links in the 1980s clearly controlled corporations within Canada. Western European countries. Their 33% showed that the Canadian corporate In short, the evidence shows that left- average rate is now very similar to network was relatively well integrated nationalists are wrong to deny that inde- Canada’s 32 percent. along a financial-industrial axis of pendent Canadian financial-industrial Left-nationalists also pay very little Canadian-controlled firms. As sociologist capital exists. This class is closely allied attention to outward FDI from Canada. Michael Ornstein notes, the Canadian with US capital on many points, but this Canadian capitalists hold more direct network was actually one of the best inte- is a choice. It reflects their perception of investments in foreign countries than grated among advanced capitalist coun- how to best advance their interests. It is foreign capitalists hold in Canada. In tries. William Carroll’s directorship not because they are better connected to other words, it is not large inward foreign studies confirm that the Canadian corpo- foreign capital than to each other. investments that distinguish Canada as rate network in 1996 was still far more The assumptions regarding foreign much as large outward investment by integrated than that in the US. Carroll control, the organization of capital and Canadian capitalists. Of the G7 countries, also tested for divisions along regional the industrial structure of Canada only the UK and France have exported lines within the Canadian bourgeoisie, discussed above have traditionally more capital relative to their GDP. for example, whether the directorship provided the justification for Canadian Finally, Canada conforms to the impe- links reveal a separate Western “oil bour- left-nationalist politics. In recent years rialist pattern of investing in “Third geoisie” allied with the US. They don’t. other reasons have been raised, but this World” countries. In 2002, Canada was His results portray a predominately perspective is logically and historically one of the largest foreign investors in the “national” corporate elite, linking finance rooted in these three points. Americas. In most of these countries the with industry and East with West. They are wrong on each count. Left- US ranked first, but relative to the size of The significance of directorship links is nationalists underestimate the Canadian its economy, Canada held more direct not always clear, so it is also useful to look capitalist class and its imperialist charac- investments in these countries than the at links taking the form of share owner- ter at home and abroad. This is also true US. ship. Among 600 large corporations in of many anti-globalization activists. In The third key assumption by left- Canada in 2003 for which financial data practice, both tend to oppose foreign nationalists is that the Canadian capitalist is available, more than 70 percent had capitalists rather than Canadian capital- class lacks independent interests. As subsidiaries in both ‘financial’ and ‘indus- ists and capitalism itself. economist Mel Watkins describes it, an trial’ sectors. Of the 34 largest enterprises The Left needs to develop a more accu- unequal alliance between Canadian in Figure 3 ranked by assets and revenues, rate understanding of Canadian capital- financial capital and American industrial 23 include both large ‘financial’ corpora- ism. This will more clearly place us with capital prevails within Canada. This tions and ‘industrial’ corporations. the majority of humanity against imperi- country never developed an independent We know that most large corporations alism. More truth is also essential to better capitalist class rooted in both financial are Canadian-controlled. But even if identify the social forces that may join the and industrial sectors. Such a class is Canadians own a majority of shares, struggle within the Canadian state for a considered the domestic base for the could minority shareholdings by foreign- workers’ and farmers’ government.★ new SOCIALIST 11 Colonialism and Aboriginal resistance in Canada

portionate poverty, homelessness, crimi- A SHORT HISTORY BY DEBORAH SIMMONS nalization and police violence in Canadian cities. Far from being a mutually beneficial here is a myth perpetuated by Ten years ago at Ts’Peten/Gustafsen partnership, Canada’s relationship with Canadian nationalists that Lake in northern British Columbia, more Aboriginal Peoples is founded in conflict. TCanada’s relationship with the than 400 RCMP officers surrounded 18 Since the early days of British colonialism Aboriginal Peoples within its borders was occupiers claiming an unceded area that in North America, much ink and hot air founded more than four centuries ago in had been used for Sundance ceremonies. has been expended on how to deal with the friendly “partnership” established A major offensive was launched by the the intractable “Indian problem” which through the fur trade. Canadian political RCMP on September 11 in an operation persists to the present day. Contemporary economist Harold Adams Innis devel- involving armored personnel carriers, right wing ideologues continue to claim, oped this perspective in his book The Fur machine guns and other military as have their forbears through the gener- Trade in Canada (1930). More recently, weapons. This was the most expensive ations, that the “problem” is rooted in the the 1996 report of the Royal police operation in British Columbia special status that has been accorded to Commission on Aboriginal Peoples history at an estimated cost of $5.5 Aboriginal Peoples in the Indian Act, the claims that the first phase of British million, with 77,000 rounds of ammuni- treaties, and the Canadian constitution. policy aimed to “protect” Aboriginal tion fired. According to this perspective, the solu- peoples from the encroachment of Fifteen years ago last March, protesters tion to the “Indian problem” is “equality” settlers. This is contrasted to the brutal set up a blockade at Oka, Quebec to and the supremacy of individual rights – wars of extermination waged against prevent bulldozing of a historic burial meaning the elimination of collective Aboriginal Peoples in the United States. ground for the expansion of a municipal Aboriginal rights and the inherent right However, Aboriginal Peoples mourning golf course. Four months later, one to self-government, and the assimilation the impacts of more than a century of hundred Quebec police armed with tear of Aboriginal People as ordinary citizens. gas, concussion grenades and assault rifles dispossession and assimilationist policies THE FAR RIGHT AND carry a very different view of Canada’s were sent to enforce a court injunction to THE “INDIAN PROBLEM” origins. tear down the blockade. As the conflict And it is not necessary to look far back escalated, two thousand military troops This was the position taken by the late in history for evidence of the racist were called in as reinforcements. The Mel Smith, who was constitutional violence on which Canada is founded. standoff finally ended on September 26, advisor to the British Columbia govern- This fall marks the tenth anniversary of six months after the barricade went up ment for over thirty years until 1991. two armed offensives by Canadian police with the surrender of the Mohawks. During this time the provincial govern- against Aboriginal People in Ontario and EVERYDAY OPPRESSION ment steadfastly refused to recognize British Columbia, and fifteen years since Aboriginal title, despite the fact that the Canadian military was called to These three conflicts are symbolic of legitimate treaties had not been negoti- confront Kanien’kehake/ Mohawk systemic violence and injustice against ated in the province. Smith was protesters near Oka, Quebec. Aboriginal peoples in Canada. But the contracted as a paid consultant to the Ten years ago in southern Ontario, contemporary Aboriginal experience of Reform Party’s (anti)”Indian Task Force” more than 200 Ontario Provincial Police oppression in the Canadian state extends before his death in 2000, the year that the (OPP), including a riot squad and an beyond high profile events such as these Reform Party dissolved into the elite assault force, confronted forty to countless humiliations, injustices and Canadian Reform Conservative Alliance. unarmed occupiers at Ipperwash acts of violence that have become so Smith’s book Our Home or Native Provincial Park who demanded the normalized as to be virtually ignored by Land?, published in 1995, became the return of an historic Aboriginal burial the mass media. bible of the Federation for Individual ground in traditional Aazhoodena terri- As Aboriginal artist and writer Stewart Rights and Equality (FIRE). FIRE tory. On September 6, 1995, Dudley Steinhauer recently put it, “What if your sprung up in the area surrounding George was killed by police. conditions of life make suicide appear to Ipperwash Provincial Park one month be an attractive option? Suicide is after the murder of Dudley George to Deborah Simmons is a member of the epidemic on reserves across Canada.” defend settler “rights” against Aboriginal Winnipeg Branch of the New Socialist Aboriginal People seeking to escape the land claims. FIRE chapters were formed Group. hopelessness of reserve life face dispro- in British Columbia, Saskatchewan and

new 12 SOCIALIST the Canadian state to rule within its territory. Aboriginal lands have always been an important obstacle to the expan- sion of capitalism in Canada. CAPITALIST EXPANSION

Aboriginal land rights were established under British colonial law not because of any benevolence on the part of the Queen, but because a major rebellion led by Chief Pontiac threatened the very survival of the colonies in British North America. The Indian Territory set aside in the Royal Proclamation of 1763 was meant more to appease the Aboriginal rebels and thereby secure the colonies than to protect Aboriginal People from encroach- ing settlement. The British needed Aboriginal allies not only as fur producers, but as combat- ants in the battles first against the French colonists, and then against the American revolutionaries. As soon as basic territo- rial control was established over Quebec and peace was forged with the new Manitoba under an umbrella federal THE ANTI-ABORIGINAL STATE United States, the military alliances organization (CAN FIRE), boasting The current anti-Aboriginal rhetoric became unnecessary. Canadian colonists thousands of members. (Interestingly, on the right echoes the perspective immediately began to formulate ways to FIRE propaganda seems to have disap- outlined in the “White Paper on Indian get their former allies out of the way of peared from the web since the dissolution Policy” introduced in 1969 by Minister settlement. Genocidal wars and mass of the Reform Party.) of Indian Affairs Jean Chretien under relocations such as occurred in the Tom Flanagan, professor of politics at Pierre Trudeau’s Liberal government. The United States were out of the question – the University of Calgary and former White Paper, which proposed termina- the British colony was militarily weak, Director of Research for the Reform tion of Aboriginal rights, was met with and the settler population remained a Party, has gone beyond Smith to argue outrage and militant protest by minority. Major General H.C. Darling, that special Aboriginal rights are in fact Aboriginal People across Canada, and as a military secretary to the colonial the cause of Aboriginal oppression. In an result was quietly withdrawn. However, Governor General, was commissioned to article entitled, “Why Don’t Indians various Liberal initiatives since Jean conduct the first formal inquiry into Drive Taxis?”, Flanagan argued that Chretien’s election as Prime Minister are Indian conditions. His 1828 report estab- Aboriginal People should follow the widely perceived as sneaking termination lished a framework for assimilationist example of immigrants and take menial policy in through the back door. Indian policy in Canada, in the guise of a jobs rather than expecting “government The record of provincial NDP govern- “civilizing” mission. He recommended handouts.” His book First Nations? ments on Aboriginal issues is not much that Indians should be established in Second Thoughts (2000) opposed the better. It was an NDP government that fixed location, educated, converted to concept of Aboriginal nationhood and supported the RCMP offensive at Christianity and transformed into collective rights. Flanagan’s influence on Gustafsen Lake. And it is an NDP farmers. the mainstream Right rapidly increased government in Manitoba that is now The basis for the dispossession of after publication of the book. He rose promoting a series of major new hydro- Aboriginal lands was developed a decade through the ranks of the Conservative electric dams on Aboriginal lands. later in a document that made virtually Alliance to become Chief of Staff for the The fact is, there is a grain of truth in no reference to the original inhabitants of federal opposition party in 2002-2003. the anti-Aboriginal ideology. Insofar as the colonies. Lord Durham was Following the creation of the new they are instruments of the Canadian appointed High Commissioner of British Conservative Party of Canada through state in conjunction with capitalist inter- North America in 1838 with a mandate the merger of the Canadian Alliance and ests, federal and provincial governments to quell rebellions that had taken place in Progressive Conservatives, Flanagan was must by nature work toward the elimina- both Upper and Lower Canada. hired as Chief National Campaign tion of Aboriginal rights. The persistence Durham’s recommendations published a Manager for the 2004 federal election. of Aboriginal rights has always repre- year later involved establishment of a sented a major weakness in the power of single government to rule over the two

new SOCIALIST 13 Canadas, along with a program of capi- peoples whose lands they were encroach- talist development based on the theory of Aboriginal lands ing upon, and only treaties could ensure “systematic colonization”, conceived by some level of stability and security. his collaborator, Edward Gibbon have always been Aboriginal negotiators were notoriously Wakefield. obstinate, and government officials According to Wakefield’s theory, stabil- complained of their “extravagant ity and economic development must an important demands.” Often they were able to derive from the deliberate creation of a obtain more than they were originally capitalist class, capitalist landed property obstacle to the offered by the government. Compromise – involving the commodification of the in negotiations was a reflection of the land – and the recruitment of a landless expansion of weakness of the Canadian state, which (or commodified) labour force. remained unable to rely on military Aboriginal People were clearly not yet an capitalism in might in establishing sovereignty. appropriate mass labour force precisely Some Aboriginal groups resisted because of their ongoing connection with concluding treaties, and those who the land: their resistance to settlement Canada. accepted them demanded guarantees of along with their ability to escape wage subsistence harvesting rights, as well as labour and subsist independently on Act is the outcome of ongoing Aboriginal compensation for extinguished title country food. The priority was thus to resistance to dispossession and assimila- including monetary payments, agricul- push Aboriginal People aside so that tion. The purchase of Rupert’s Land from tural implements and food. This was arable lands could be sold to capitalist the Hudson’s Bay Company by the crucial, given that expanded settlement agriculturalists. At the same time, Canada Dominion of Canada in 1869 precipi- had led to the depletion of the wildlife on was to launch a major campaign to tated the first Riel Rebellion. This forced which Aboriginal People had depended recruit immigrant labourers from the new state to establish a new province for subsistence. The state made every Europe. This would pave the way for the of Manitoba, and to negotiate the first of attempt to violate its treaty obligations, Canadian wheat boom at the turn of the the numbered treaties. Enfranchisement using its control over food supplies as a century. policy, which provided for educated indi- weapon. And a policy of “sheer compul- ASSIMILATION AND RESISTANCE viduals to acquire private property sepa- sion” was briefly adopted on the prairies rate from reserve lands in return for relin- in 1884, using an expanded Mounted Of course, the expansion of agricul- quishing Indian status, was a dismal Police (MP) force. However, this use of tural capitalism did require the displace- failure, as were a number of policies force was met with threats of a massacre ment and impoverishment of Aboriginal forbidding traditional practices such as of MPs, along with numerous physical Peoples from arable lands. It thus became the potlatch and the sundance. The resi- attacks against authoritarian Indian more urgent than ever to find ways to dential school system, which aimed to agents. The following year the second eliminate Aboriginal resistance, and forge generations of children into assimi- Riel Rebellion erupted bringing together assimilation was seen as the most efficient lated and disciplined workers by eradicat- Métis, Aboriginal and white settler inter- and cost-effective solution. ing their culture and identity, failed on its ests in the mid-West, and posing a new The first legislation explicitly aiming own terms. Those who survived the threat to the expansion of the state. It was toward assimilation was the Civilization brutality of the schools often continued clear that force would be required to of Indian Tribes Act of 1857. This was the to resist assimilation despite the trauma create stability and reassure capitalist precursor to a dizzying series of acts and of not knowing their language or the interests, and a military buildup had been amendments specifically relating to skills necessary for survival once they prepared to crush the rebellion. Indians that followed the establishment returned to their home communities. Despite this defeat, the persistent of the Dominion of Canada in 1867, threat of rebellion prevented the state TREATIES AND CAPITALIST beginning with the 1869 Act for the DEVELOPMENT from establishing control on its own Gradual Enfranchisement of Indians and terms. As a result of ongoing resistance, the Better Management of Indian Affairs The negotiation of numbered treaties Aboriginal lands have remained a and the first Indian Act of 1876, which extinguishing Aboriginal land title bulwark against unfettered capitalist consolidated all previous legislation. The followed the trajectory of capitalist devel- expansion into the present. Rebellions current version of the Indian Act (1985) opment in Canada, starting principally such as those at Oka, Ipperwash and removes some of the most offensive with the expansion of wheat farming in Gustafsen Lake have served warning to aspects of earlier versions, but preserves the 1870s, followed by mineral and the Canadian state that Aboriginal rights the original framework. The Act remains petroleum extraction at the turn of the will not be eliminated without resistance. essentially contradictory in that it must 20th century. Recent research has demol- Clearly, movements in opposition to recognize Indian status, while at the same ished the myth that the Canadian state Canadian imperialism must centrally time aiming to eliminate the existence of initiated the treaties out of the goodness involve solidarity with Aboriginal Peoples Indians. of its heart. Settlers faced the constant in their struggle for land rights and self- The contradictory nature of the Indian threat of violence from Aboriginal determination.★ new 14 SOCIALIST Haiti is ‘fixed’ A success story for Canadian imperialism

BY KEVIN SKERRETT

ecent Canadian policy in Haiti has CIDA is doing a tremendous job [in Haiti]…We’re already getting involved been remarkably successful, in governance … The credibility of Canada, as you know, and the specific Rhaving achieved most of its objec- and very special relationship between Canada and Haiti are also an added tives. This is the case in much the same value to resolve the situation … We’re not colonialist. We’re not way that US policies in places such as El Salvador and Nicaragua in the 1980s imperialistic. were smashing successes – quite literally. Denis Coderre, Liberal MP & “Special Adviser on Haiti”, 14 June 2005 At first glance, such an assertion would appear terribly wrong. Any serious those of us aiming to challenge and reading of the existing situation in Haiti subvert this unconscionable agenda. (available almost exclusively outside the mainstream media, within explicitly left- OBJECTIVE 1: wing vehicles such as New Socialist) indi- FURTHER DEBASE THE ESTABLISHED cates that when Canada, the US and CONCEPT OF NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY France initiated the February 29 2004 Having joined the coup brigade in coup d’état that ousted the elected Haiti, Canada needed a rationale to government of Haiti and installed an explain why such a patently undemocra- unelected puppet regime, they unleashed tic assault on a poor country was in fact a terrifying wave of repression against the PROJECT © HAITI INFORMATION quite legitimate. This rationale would Hatians give five-finger salute (calling for desperately poor majority of the country need to be able to overcome the estab- the President to fulfill his five-year term) (see NS issues #46,49, & 52 and exten- lished attachment to the concept of sive coverage of the coup on Znet). Along respecting democracy in Haiti. In fact, national sovereignty and make it revoca- with uncounted thousands killed, inde- the recent episode in Haiti offers us rich ble, under certain circumstances (to be pendent human rights groups report that evidence for the view that Canada’s actual defined by the powerful). As eventually over 700 political prisoners have been foreign policy agenda is to work in articulated in the May 2005 jailed without charge, mainly leaders and tandem with the US and a few other key International Policy Statement, and in supporters of (deposed) President Jean- military allies in entrenching and stabiliz- various speeches to the UN, Canada has Bertrand Aristide’s Lavalas party. The ing a world economic system where safe used its Haiti intervention (along with Canadian-trained Haitian National investment outlets, cheap labour produc- the bombing and occupation of Police have been repeatedly seen shooting tion zones and unfettered access to Afghanistan) as positive illustrations of unarmed demonstrators, and – most natural resources and export markets are the doctrine now known as recently – collaborating with machete- not only established but locked-in by “Responsibility to Protect” (R2P). For wielding gangs engaged in a terror trade agreements which trump national some, this concept is merely an update of campaign targeting all those calling for a constitutions. the racist “white man’s burden” – the return of the constitutional government In what follows, I advance this argu- notion that wealthy, militarily powerful that most Haitians elected. ment by examining three central objec- countries have an obligation to “protect” However, to conclude that such tives of Canada’s Haiti policy. In the populations of poorer countries outcomes signify a policy failure assumes concluding that these objectives were unable to protect (or govern) themselves. that Canada’s agenda was actually the met, I then offer a brief reflection on Canada’s Haiti policy also shows us establishment of a peaceful, human rights what lessons this “success” might hold for how deeply-set racist perceptions of other (non-white) countries can be effectively The author is a trade union researcher, active with the Ottawa Haiti Solidarity Committee mobilized to advance this concept. The and the Canada Haiti Action Network. For further reporting and analysis of Canada’s role in established view of Haiti’s (formerly Haiti, or to get involved in local organizing efforts, check out www.canadahaitiaction.ca. To enslaved, extremely poor, African) popu- join the Canada Haiti Action Network (CHAN) listserve, email [email protected]. lation – as “incapable of self-govern-

new SOCIALIST 15 ment” – was renewed and refreshed. of Haiti’s elected government, they many have argued persuasively that while When Ottawa Citizen columnist David invited representatives of the US and President Aristide accepted some of the Warren lamented on the eve of the coup France, and brought along senior staff dictates of Canadian and American that Haiti had failed to create “a people from Canada’s international development neoliberal conditionality, he also resisted who are susceptible to self-government,” agency – CIDA. A careful examination of some, such as the demand for wholesale it elicited no particular notice. His racism CIDA’s recent programming in Haiti privatization of state enterprises. (On was echoed more recently by Liberal MP reveals that in politically sensitive areas this, it is worth recalling that in a recent Beth Phinney, who asked during a June (human rights, women’s rights, media, interview with journalist Naomi Klein, 14 Foreign Affairs committee hearing: etc.), the Haitian NGOs and agencies Aristide summarized the reason for his “How can you change the will of the that CIDA was funding were without overthrow in three words: “Privatization, people [of Haiti] to want to be able to exception active players within the elite privatization, privatization.”) govern themselves?” Such repugnant minority political opposition to Haiti’s Of course, none of this has ever been views require total ignorance of Haitian government. reported in any detail in the Canadian history, during which the population While CIDA continued to boast media, and in fact, Prime Minister liberated itself from slavery, occupation publicly that it was providing substantial Martin was able to point to Haiti as his and dictatorship, and then managed to assistance to Haiti, the reality was that in main foreign policy “success story” democratically elect a president (three the several years leading up to the coup, it during the June 2004 federal leadership times!) that the US government overtly was quietly supporting the US-led debates (to no response from NDP leader opposed. If the people of Haiti have embargo on aid to the highly dependent Jack Layton or anyone else for that proven one thing in their tragic history, it Haitian government, in an effort to matter). In this sense, the con – disguis- is their burning desire – and their capac- destabilize it through financial strangula- ing an utterly cynical and self-interested ity – to “govern themselves.” tion. A look at recent international aid imperial game as a humanitarian inter- But of course, this is the threat that the flows to Haiti – coming primarily from vention led by CIDA – has worked quite coup in Haiti ended, and that the R2P Canada, the US and France – clarifies the well. It has shown that “international aid” doctrine is designed to counter. And, severity of this murderous embargo. can do more than just feed and dig wells: with the concept now “field-tested,” it is it can provoke (and legitimize) regime ready to serve usefully in the future External aid to Haiti change. should the need to violate another in $US millions 1994-2002 OBJECTIVE 3: country’s sovereignty (or support the 1994-95 611 ESTABLISH CANADA’S REPUTATION violations carried out by an “ally”) arise 1995-96 427 AS TRUSTED ELECTION MONITOR again. 1996-97 378 Following the coup, it was recognized 1997-98 371 OBJECTIVE 2: that the installed puppet government 1998-99 330 DISGUISE IMPERIAL DOMINATION would not enjoy the full legitimacy that 1999-2000 266 AS “DEVELOPMENT” would be required to truly move Haiti 2000-01 170 Unfortunately, fond recollections of onto the “correct” neoliberal path. What 2001-02 136 some of the original redistributive ideals was therefore required was what Noam attached to international development Source: World Bank, International Chomsky and Edward Herman have programs have blinded some progressives Cooperation Framework (ICF), July 2004 referred to as a “demonstration” election to the true function of “development” – a tightly constrained and controlled and development agencies within the With the election of George W. Bush voting exercise that projects the imagery current international system. As a result, in the US in 2000, US aid to Haiti’s of liberal-democratic institutions, but we have the social democratic NDP and government actually stopped altogether, whose actual function is to legitimize the many well-intentioned progressives leaving the nearly bankrupt Haitian “elected” government. A key function following the lead of Bono, Bob Geldof, government defenceless and incapaci- within such elections is the “observa- and the recent “Live 8” showbiz against tated. It is telling that the thousands of tion/monitoring” process, which world poverty concerts calling more or Haitians who surely died or suffered Chomsky and Herman describe in less blindly for “more aid.” Progressive badly as a result of these “aid sanctions” Manufacturing Consent as follows: critics of the Liberals point to their failure have never even been counted – “unwor- “Official observers are dispatched to the to reach the hallowed development aid thy victims” of an aid policy turned election scene to assure its public-relations target of 0.7% of GDP – and often just policy sledgehammer. success. Nominally, their role is to see that stop there. What must be realized is that this result the election is ‘fair.’ Their real function, Canada’s relationship with Haiti is a was intentional. It was the design and however, is to provide the appearance of stark indicator of the simplicity of these intended consequence of a program in fairness by focusing on the government’s calls. When the Canadian government which CIDA and its American equivalent agenda and by channeling press attention to hosted a secret meeting in early 2003 in USAID participated directly. The ques- a reliable source. They testify to fairness on order to (it was later revealed in tion of why this destabilization was the basis of long lines, smiling faces, no L’Actualité magazine) plot the overthrow carried out continues to be debated, but beatings in their presence, and the assur-

new 16 SOCIALIST ances and enthusiasm of U.S. and client- state officials.” Such elections were recently organized in both occupied Afghanistan (October, 2004) and occupied Iraq (January, 2005).

What is interesting to recall is that in HAITIACTION.NET Iraq, Canada’s Chief Electoral Officer, Jean-Pierre Kingsley (head of Elections Canada) played a leading role in precisely this process. Barely six weeks prior to the January 30, 2005 vote, Kingsley was called upon to form an expert “assess- ment mission” to evaluate the quality of the planned election. To no one’s surprise, this mission dutifully issued the needed blessing on the day of the election itself (surely drafted in advance, and released prior to any possible detailed reporting as to the vote’s fairness). Remarkably, the definitive conclusion brought forward was widely cited in the Protesters march against the UN occupation. pro-war corporate media, despite having been reached by an “assessment” team held in Haiti that “meets recognized stan- Washington and Ottawa. The profits physically located in Jordan! dards,” it will be necessary that the assess- available to Canadian companies When a similar blessing was needed for ment team minimize or ignore the signif- engaged in Haiti’s “reconstruction,” or a post-coup occupation election in Haiti icance of certain key aspects of Haiti’s taking advantage of its re-disciplined in late 2005, the relevant powers turned political climate, such as: hundreds of labour market, are already flowing, with once again (in June 2005) to Jean-Pierre political prisoners including prominent more to come. Kingsley to head up an almost identical leaders of one party in particular group of “election experts,” this time not (Lavalas); state terror exercised through LESSONS FOR THE LEFT IN CANADA even offering to “assess” (as in Iraq) but police squads who target victims on a One of the obvious lessons from the merely to “monitor.” Kingsley was an political, as well as class/race basis; the foregoing is simple: “Don’t believe the especially good choice for advancing the arrest or even police execution (Abdias hype.” But the fact is that far too many Canadian and American agendas in Jean) of journalists willing to report on “progressives,” including some involved police atrocities; politically selective in the anti-war movement and within An utterly cynical exclusions of vast sectors of the electorate otherwise quite progressive NGOs, have through insufficient registration and swallowed the government and the and self-interested polling station access; the judicial exoner- corporate media messaging about Haiti. ation and release of convicted paramili- In part, this is because certain trusted imperial game tary killers such as Louis-Jodel groups – such as CIDA-funded NGOs Chamblain; reasonable and legitimate like Development and Peace, Rights and Haiti. He is a Board member of a “pro- boycotts of both registration and voting Democracy and Alternatives – supported democracy” NGO called the by parties who are targets of state terror, the coup. Trust in such groups needs to International Foundation of Election etc. be reassessed. Systems (IFES), which has been very We should anticipate that yet another Further, much more work is needed to active in Haiti in recent years. In fact, as sham occupation election will be carried undermine and expose the carefully a detailed report from the University of out, buttressed by the foregone conclu- constructed and maintained mythology Miami Law School has shown, IFES was sions of the Kingsley/Elections Canada of Canada as peacekeeper and democ- centrally involved in the organization of led monitoring mission, and Haiti will be racy-builder. If anything, our Haiti Haiti’s small, elite-led political opposi- placed neatly in the Afghanistan/Iraq policy illustrates that neoliberal and neo- tion, and was an active supporter of the category – embarking on a “bold new era colonial rot has infected and transformed forces that brought about the coup. (It is of democratic life.” Paul Martin and the even some of the government programs hardly surprising to find that IFES Government of Canada will take much and NGOs about which we may have receives funding from such renowned credit for having “democratized” the thought better. In some cases, they now democracy-lovers as Exxon-Mobil, unruly masses of Haiti – and a new pro- serve as key cogs in the machinery of Citibank and Motorola). US, pro-Canadian government will be Canadian imperialism, no less vital than In order to reach the foregone conclu- installed, ready to embrace the economic Foreign Affairs and its corporate part- sion that a “free and fair” election was policy agenda designed for it in ners.★ new SOCIALIST 17 The Canadian military order

NEIL BRAGANZA argues that if we want to understand the role the Canadian military plays in the world and in Canadian society itself, we have to consider how it is possible for a “soft power” like Canada to have an imperialist military order with global aspirations.

t is widely believed that military inter- Racist bumper- ventions can serve the ends of human- sticker from a Iitarianism, peace and goodwill. This Canadian military faith in “humanitarian intervention” base (posted on a came to the fore after the end of the Cold right-wing website). War with the idea, popularized by British PM Tony Blair, of “nations without enemies” who have the moral duty to intervention is not enough: we have to the Persian Gulf and Afghanistan, where “save” failing states. This kind of hunt the terrorists. Humanitarianism is the number of Canadian troops is “humanitarianism” is a major source of replaced with pre-emptive attacks. A boy surpassing 2000 in the coming weeks. Canadian nationalist pride. becomes a (white) man. Second, in April 2005 the Liberal But today, Canada’s self-image is being It is true that the idea of “nations government released an International remade. It is being called a naïve “Boy without enemies” is a naïve distortion of Policy Statement (IPS) that, much to the Scout” on the world stage who must grow the world. But not for the cartoonish delight of the military lobby, has a clear up to face a new dangerous world. The reasons offered by Hillier. Rather, the emphasis on overseas operations against critique is coming from Canadian mili- problem is that the so-called “humanitar- terrorism and in defence of the global tary sympathizers and lobbyists, like ian” state depends on and reproduces the economy. The IPS is seen as heralding the Chief of Defence Staff, Lt. General Rick very global system that creates threats end of the long decade in Canada Hillier, who sound alarms that the against it: collapsing governments, crimes between the end of the Cold War (1989) country is under attack by people of against humanity, mass displacement of and the beginning of the “War on colour who hate our freedom. The alarm peoples, civil conflict, HIV/AIDS and Terror.” goes something like this: Boy Scout other pandemics, weapons proliferation, Third, there is the recent hike in nations need to wake up and realize that environmental crisis, mass starvation and government investment in the military. they are potential victims of evil terrorists terrorism. Many of these problems are In June 2005, the Liberal minority who hate the good work they do. Waking aggravated or directly caused by the mili- government, with the help of the NDP, up means going on the offensive against tary order that is said to keep freedom passed a budget that promises to double the terrorist threat. secure. Nationalist tales of benevolent defence spending over the next five years. Indeed, just as Superman and wars and noble soldiering cover up this Collectively, intervention by the mili- Spiderman tried to pull out of crime- vicious circle and allow their storytellers tary, international policy favouring the fighting, but re-entered the fray with a to justify almost anything. military and investment in the military vengeance when evil-doers got in their A MATURING MILITARY ORDER form the basis of the Canadian military faces again, so have the terror attacks of order. To understand how these factors September 11th forced humanitarian The growth of war-mongering in work together, we need to retrace and interventionists to wage an infinite war to Canada is but the latest sign that military explain some steps in history. avenge their own goodness. Now that the defence and security are becoming top The Canadian state was the world’s world villain of terrorism has revealed priorities in civil and political institutions fourth largest military power at the end of itself, the nation that thinks it has no across the country. Three other signs are: WWII. It was a part of the North enemies must shed its naiveté if it is to First, there has been an increase in its Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) survive. It must realize that humanitarian international interventions since the end formed in the late 1940s in opposition to of the Cold War. Canadian troops have the “Communist” bloc in the Cold War. Neil Braganza is an editorial associate of been deployed all over the world, with But with the collapse of the USSR in New Socialist and a member of the New major engagements in the former 1989 and the end of the Cold War, the Socialist Group in Toronto. Yugoslavia and Kosovo, Haiti, Somalia, Canadian government withdrew its forces new 18 SOCIALIST from NATO Europe in 1993 and coordinating and focusing military reduced the military budget. Between industrial production. In 1947, they AFGHANISTAN 1989 and 1998, 52,000 personnel were developed exchange programs for train- cut, the number of bases was reduced ing and observation, common designs There are currently about 1000 from 54 to 27 and funding was chopped and standards in arms equipment and Canadian troops in Kabul and by $1.1 billion. organization, and they committed to Kandahar. Another 1000 will soon Interestingly, however, after the end of being available to each other militarily. the Cold War the Canadian Forces This relationship was concretized with join them. By Feburary 2006, became even more active. They partici- the development of weather station Canadian officers will be pated in a series of multinational inter- networks. commanding a NATO brigade ventions, such as in the former Interoperability has progressed far past (including Dutch and British Yugoslavia, Somalia, Haiti and the these early beginnings, especially since troops). This greater Canadian Persian Gulf. The Mulroney govern- 1958 when it acquired an institutional involvement in the occupation of ment’s participation in the Gulf War basis in the North American Air (later against Iraq in 1991 and ratification of a Aerospace) Defence Command Afghanistan assists the US military, free trade agreement with the US deep- (NORAD). It also extended into NATO. which is stretched to the limit by ened the economic and political integra- Ottawa uses its privileged relationship the occupation of Iraq. It also tion of the two countries. One would with the US to work on turning NATO signals the Canadian government’s have thought that this would trigger from a loose coalition of military forces commitment to playing a larger more defence spending in Canada, but playing niche roles into a standardized role in the US-led “War on for several years it did not. Why? system interoperable with the US. Today, Terror.” It’s predicted that INTEROPERABILITY interoperability is clearly the dominant perspective in the Canadian military Canadian troops could be in The answer lies in how the evolution establishment. No new equipment will Afghanistan for years. of military technology and organization be purchased or developed unless it gave Canada more bang for its military builds interoperability. buck by allowing it to interface with US Interoperability with the US, however, forces and thereby avoid the costs of is a chase after a constantly receding goal. fore precise and clean, but that’s delu- becoming operationally self-sufficient. Since the US spends more on its military sional). Today, radar and communica- This “interoperability” allows a “soft in absolute terms than do all its allies tions systems allow a US commander to power” like Canada to join campaigns combined – annually over $400 billion, target and fire missiles from a Canadian that would otherwise involve prohibitive compared to Canada’s $13.2 billion – it ship by remote control. logistical difficulties. develops cutting-edge technology that is The revolution in military affairs also Canada has been moving toward full difficult to keep up with. The US is involves greater emphasis on waging war interoperability with the US since the leading what is known as the “revolution “out of theatre,” in the economic, tech- early 1940s, when the two countries in military affairs”: war is said to be nological and cyber planes. This requires began sharing military intelligence and computerized, urban and fast (and there- a deeper alliance between public and private sectors around military priorities and a greater emphasis on military research and development in addition to operational capacity. It means that the Canadian military is not assessed in terms of its present capabilities, but in terms of how fast in can grow to keep pace with the US. The advantage this has for the US is clear: it allows the US to set the global pace. This is important because catching up with the US involves buying military technology and equipment from US companies. It also reinforces the central role the US plays in the world politically. It is no wonder, therefore, that the only directive the Bush administration needed to give Paul Cellucci, its former ambassa- dor to Canada, to advance US interests was to push Canada to spend more on its The Reagan-Mulroney era is seen as a sort of Golden Age for military lobbyists. military.

new SOCIALIST 19 There are fears amongst Canadian If Canada is a liberals, nationalists and social democrats Boy Scout that interoperability threatens the auton- nation, this Boy omy of Canadian foreign policy and Scout is hard to decision-making in military operations. distinguish For instance, NORAD, which involves from soldiers Canadian and US forces, was put on like Lt. General active alert by the US after 9/11 without Rick Hillier consultation with or report to the (pictured right) who want to Canadian government. increase The perceived threat to Canadian Canada’s sovereignty has long been cited as the involvement in main reason why Canada must defend a imperialist war. multilateral coalition-building approach in international relations as a check to US dominance. The main theorist of What’s more, fears that interoperabil- arbiter of free trade agreements around Canadian multilateralism in the post- ity threatens Canadian autonomy can the world, strikes down government Cold War era was Lloyd Axworthy, actually fuel arguments for more defence spending that restricts foreign investment Minister of Foreign Affairs under spending. Interoperability threatens the and limits corporate profits. But it doesn’t Chretien and now President of the sovereignty of the Canadian state only touch defence programs. Thus, military University of Winnipeg. Axworthy when the military is under-funded. This spending is a way governments can championed the idea of “human secu- happened during WWI when Canadian circumvent WTO restrictions to create rity”: security isn’t just about acting interoperability with Britain meant polit- jobs. against destructive forces but about creat- ical subordination to the latter. More In 2000, Canada’s 1559 companies in ing and reconstructing community infra- funding means interoperability will be the defence industry generated almost $7 structure, communication and legal and more complete and therefore less billion in production and services. In political institutions. dependent on the US for various logis- 2002, 59 percent of their revenue came From this perspective, “soft powers” tics. Thus, defending Canadian sover- from within Canada itself. SNC Lavalin (Axworthy’s phrase for countries like eignty against the US does not necessar- was recently hired on massive contracts Canada) cater to the needs of others and ily exclude the idea of increasing the (to a value of $400 million for up to 10 have a “responsibility to protect” victims Canadian state’s participation in endless years) to provide logistical support to the of the world. This requires developing and pre-emptive war. Canadian Forces in Afghanistan (there is multilateral institutions and interna- The doubling of defence spending no public scrutiny of the company’s tional laws that keep superpowers and with the Liberal-NDP budget will surely profit margins). As the country’s soft powers on the same level. Axworthy’s extend the reach of the Canadian Forces. economy becomes more dependent on approach is often derided by the military Coupled with a commitment to multilat- the arms industry, military spending will lobby as the end of the Mulroney-Reagan eral organizing, it will also increase the be increasingly difficult to curtail, attract- honeymoon and a return to a Boy Scout Canadian state’s leverage internationally ing more companies to the defence moralizing that ignores the reality that as it styles itself as a facilitator of an inter- industry and pressuring Canadian diplo- the US’s interests are our interests. operability going global. This is how the mats to use their office to persuade But when we take military interoper- Canadian state benefits both from the foreign powers to spend more military ability into account, the distinction gap that exists between the US and the money on Canada. between Boy Scouts and soldiers falls world, and from any pressure to bridge The Canadian government’s financing apart. Axworthy’s multilateralism is diffi- that gap. of the war industry gains support, cult to distinguish from efforts to mili- GLOBALIZATION AND WAR furthermore, whenever its troops partici- tarily and politically integrate more soft pate in multilateral interventions. Any powers with the US. The Canadian state What’s more, Canadian companies are joint operation inevitably exposes tech- is uniquely positioned to help broaden becoming major military providers who nology gaps between the parties. This multilateral interoperability – a task that can help countries catch up to the US gives political ammunition to the becomes more urgent as military occupa- standard. They are growing with huge Canadian military lobby, allowing it to tions become more difficult to manage. assistance from the Canadian govern- complain about embarrassing delays and Canada is a leader in developing political ment. As Steven Staples from the Polaris the dangerous ineffectiveness of the and technical ways for soft powers to Institute has shown, the government can forces. The drive for more Canadian interface with the US military on a tight award sweetheart deals to Canadian defence spending is thus tied to the drive budget. Far from weakening the companies like SNC Lavalin and for a more aggressive foreign policy and Canadian state, interoperability with the Bombardier International without more Canadian military interventions US gives it a special role to play in the fearing any penalty from the World Trade around the world. imperial order. Organization (WTO). The WTO, as Furthermore, the war drive and war new 20 SOCIALIST industry belong to the neoliberal capitalist modern history of Somalia is one of a tion by shattering the balance of forces in system that also creates the very problems struggle between an indigenous popula- Somalia as various factions settled scores that military interventions are supposed tion rooted in a peasant economy with before the arrival of the international to address. Take the case of Yugoslavia. In kinship-based social regulation, and police. This caused more health crises, the 1980s, the International Monetary successive European colonial powers each deaths and damage to remaining commu- Fund (IMF) required the Yugoslav state to seeking to impose a central state in nity infrastructure. pursue a series of “reforms” that involved Somalia and modernize agricultural When it was discovered that Canadian reducing its costs by privatizing services. production to suit international capital. troops in Somalia tortured and executed To ensure these reforms were carried out The emergence of a central state created Somali teenager Shidane Arone, and ritu- systematically and comprehensively, the competition for control over that state ally humiliated and tortured other IMF also required Yugoslavia to shift and its funds, leading to rivalries between Somalis including children, an inquiry more control over monetary policy to the successive dictators. As this “moderniza- into what became known as the “Somalia federal state and out of the hands of tion” happened, the Somali state became Affair” was launched. Like current discus- Yugoslavia’s six republics. Resistance from dependent on foreign loans, which in sions underway in the US around Abu the governments of the republics gave rise turn led to cuts in education, health care Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, controver- to nationalist movements that came into and other services. With the pressures of sies like the Somalia Affair create oppor- conflict with the federal state and each neoliberalism and strains of competition tunities to challenge the military political other. This led to efforts to disperse between rival clans fighting for control order. But as Sherene Razack has shown minority populations from different over state resources, the Somali state in her book Dark Threats & White regions (often by means of mass rape and collapsed in 1992 and famine spread Knights, the inquiry only absolved every- killing). The Yugoslav state eventually one by portraying Canadian soldiers as collapsed in 1991. victims of an impossible situation. The Canadian state played a central Spectacles like the Somalia Inquiry role in the international intervention in illustrate the depth of allegiance to the Yugoslavia under the UN flag in 1992- military order in Canada. It goes deeper 1995. The intervention added another than formal declarations like the recent military presence to the fray. This esca- IPS, mentioned earlier. It is rooted in lated the situation as rivals competed for practices that cut across levels of govern- international support. Nationalists some- ment, the media and daily life in the times even allowed their own people to be Canadian state. It is this systemic alliance slaughtered in order to paint their that allows the military order to weather enemies in a negative light and influence storms of controversy or changes in the direction of international “peacekeep- government. ing.” Though this gave Western militaries The alliance, however, needs to be a chance to practise in the field, develop nurtured, and the military lobby knows interoperability, learn how to manage this. Though it sees the IPS as a solid occupations and later argue for more basis for military growth, its fear is that defence spending at home, it made a the IPS won’t do enough to build disastrous situation in Yugoslavia worse. alliances between politicians and the mili- One of the more glaring examples of tary to ensure defence growth through this effect occurred when NATO nations, different governments and controversies. looking for an excuse to act independently The way to ensure military growth is not of the UN (and particularly of Russia), only to seek legislative guarantees for bombed Serbia in 1999 in the name of Comic warning Bosnian children about long-term funding, but to discipline defending the Albanian claim over land mines: US soldiers circulated this Canadian politics and everyday life so Kosovo. The dreadful irony was that it in 1995 as part of a campaign to win that security and defence are always top was mainly after the bombing that Serbs local support for military intervention. priorities. Preparations for possible moved to drive hundreds of thousands of terrorist attacks or natural disasters in ethnic Albanians from their homes, creat- Canada, for instance, are examples of ing the food, health and shelter crises that rapidly. 700,000 Somalis died of hunger how an alliance is built between the mili- the bombing was somehow supposed to in 1992 according to the Red Cross. tary and politicians, medical professions resolve. Eighteen Canadian CF-18 jets It was only after the famine ended that and the media. rained down 530 bombs in 682 sorties Washington, looking to increase funding But as long as consensus around the over Serbia. Only in a neoliberal world to the Pentagon after the Cold War and military order needs to be actively can bombing be offered as an effective before the “War on Terror,” announced managed, there will be opportunities for strategy for community development and in November 1992 that it would deliver anti-war activists to challenge that conflict resolution. humanitarian aid to Somalia under the consensus by calling attention to the Another example is Somalia. The UN banner. But this escalated the situa- barbarism upon which it rests.★ new SOCIALIST 21 NDP SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC POLITICS Concessions to imperialism

BY MURRAY COOKE

he New Democratic Party (NDP) On March 10, 2004, the House of cupied with Canada’s “dependent” rela- has never seen the Canadian state Commons had a special debate on Haiti tionship with the United States and too as an imperial project. Being social and New Democrats raised important enamoured of the myth of Canada as a T questions about the Canadian role. The peacekeeping middle power to question democratic, the NDP naively views the state as a neutral instrument that can NDP questioned the government about Canada’s place in the world. an international meeting held in Ottawa easily be wielded for progressive purposes. THE NDP AND FIRST NATIONS This ultimately makes it incapable of the previous year that discussed removing In 1969, Pierre Trudeau and Jean consistent support and follow-through Aristide, the fact that Aristide himself Chrétien introduced their assimilationist when it does “get it right.” had stated that he had been forced to “White Paper on Indian Policy” that A clear recent example is the NDP’s resign and the perception by many coun- proposed the removal of any special position on the involvement of the tries that Canada was acting as an “occu- status for Aboriginal Peoples. Initially, the Canadian state in the events of the pying force” in Haiti. After that one NDP supported the proposal. It wasn’t February 2004 coup in Haiti that over- debate, however, the NDP did not until after the angry reaction from threw Jean-Bertrand Aristide. mention the issue in the House again nor Aboriginal groups that the NDP joined Days before the coup, Alexa did Layton raise it during the federal the opposition. The fact that the NDP McDonough, the NDP’s foreign affairs election. McDonough has subsequently did not anticipate the Aboriginal reaction critic, had warned that: “The democrati- pointed to the continuing violence in is not surprising. Up to that point, cally elected president appears powerless Haiti without any reference to Canada’s Aboriginal issues had never been a prior- to defend against their march to the role in the coup. ity for the NDP or its predecessor, the capital … Rumours swirl about American The history of the NDP abounds with Co-operative Commonwealth Federation backing of armed insurgents … If examples of the problems of a social (CCF). President Aristide is removed unconstitu- democratic reformist approach to issues The record on Aboriginal issues of tionally, that would amount to Haiti’s around imperialism. While the NDP has Tommy Douglas’ CCF government’s in 33rd coup d’état.” In the days after the attempted, in a limited and contradictory Saskatchewan was not particularly coup, however, NDP leader Jack Layton fashion, to address the demands of impressive. The CCF’s paternalism and supported sending Canadian troops to Aboriginal groups and Quebec national- liberal integrationist approach did little Haiti under a UN flag, although he did ists, it has never truly recognized the to foster Aboriginal self-determination. call for an investigation into how Aristide colonial nature of the Canadian state. Subsequent NDP governments in left office. Generally, the NDP has been too preoc- Saskatchewan and Manitoba have main- tained colonial relations with their north- While the NDP has attempted, in a limited ern resource hinterlands. An example is the current controversy over Manitoba and contradictory fashion, to address the Hydro’s Wuskwatim Dam project which threatens to destroy sacred Indigenous sites and wreak havoc on bioregions near demands of Aboriginal groups and Quebec Manitoba First Nations. The rise of Aboriginal militancy in the nationalists, it has never truly recognized the 1970s did have an influence on the NDP. As a result, the NDP played an important role in entrenching Aboriginal treaty colonial nature of the Canadian state. rights in the constitution that was “repa- triated” in 1982. However, the new Charter of Rights had been established Murray Cooke is a PhD candidate in political science at York University, currently teaching at without written agreement from Quebec the University of Western Ontario.

new 22 SOCIALIST and this led to two subsequent efforts to amend it. The first was the 1987 Meech While the NDP has attempted to address Lake Accord which NDP federal leader Ed Broadbent embraced despite its the demands of Aboriginal groups silence on Aboriginal issues. Later, in 1992, the NDP did push to get Aboriginal self-government recognized in and Quebec nationalists, it has never truly the ill-fated Charlottetown Accord. During the 1990s, there were two recognized the colonial nature of the major stand-offs in which the Canadian army was called in to crush small numbers of Aboriginal protesters. In Canadian state. 1990, NDP leader Audrey McLaughlin went to Oka in a show of support for the Mohawks of Kanesatake. However, in Quebec have the right to determine their between the Canadian state and the 1995, Mike Harcourt’s NDP government future without coercion from the rest of major imperialist powers. The founders in BC called in the army to confront a Canada. of the CCF favoured Canadian auton- small group of Secwepemc Nation Unfortunately the NDP often ignores omy within the British Commonwealth. members at Gustafsen Lake. The political its own official positions on Quebec. Not They sought to develop a sense of pan- success of this hard-line approach against only did the NDP embrace the Canadian identity and build the institu- Aboriginal sovereignty gave the NDP Constitution Act of 1982 that was tions and symbols of nationhood. As the Attorney General Ujjal Dosanjh a boost entrenched without the consent of leadership of the capitalist world shifted toward eventually becoming BC Premier. Quebec, but then Saskatchewan MPP from Britain to the US, New Democrats The BC NDP government’s greatest Roy Romanow was one of the chief grew obsessed with Canada-US relations. achievement in Aboriginal rights was the architects of the “night-of-the-long- CCFers hotly debated Canada’s partic- ratification of the Nisga’a Agreement. knives” when agreement to pass the Act ipation in the Second World War, with And while it was a landmark treaty that was secured by excluding Quebec and many members opposed to the war effort frightened the right-wing opposition, leaving it isolated. Since 1982, the NDP for isolationist, pacifist or anti-imperialist Nisga’a also has serious limitations – a has continuously fudged its position, reasons. The party rejected the opposi- reduced land base and restrictions on occasionally reaching out to Quebec tion of its leader, J.S. Woodsworth, and Aboriginal self-government. through its support for a distinct society supported Canada’s entry in the war. The clause and asymmetrical federalism – war years saw Canada become closely THE NDP AND QUEBEC both of which give at least token recogni- aligned with US foreign policy, while the Since its formation in 1961, the NDP tion to Quebec’s special status within the Canadian economy, including defence has struggled to come to grips with Canadian state — but never really industries, was increasingly integrated Quebec nationalism, swinging repeatedly promoting these positions in the rest of into a continental framework. In the between recognizing Quebec as a nation Canada. postwar period, under the leadership of in theory and ignoring this fact in prac- Despite the party’s policy of recogniz- M.J. Coldwell, the CCF embraced Cold tice. At its founding convention, the ing Quebec’s right to self-determination, War anti-Communism, membership in NDP recognized that the Canadian state the majority of the NDP caucus NATO (North Atlantic Treaty was formed on the basis of an agreement supported Chrétien’s Clarity Act in 2000 Organization) and NORAD (North between two nations. By the late 1960s, – an attempt to define the terms and American Aerospace Defense) and partic- the NDP supported a form of special thereby undermine any act of secession ipation in the Korean War. A particular status for Quebec within Canada. by Quebec. During the 2004 federal low point was the party’s acquiescence in In 1970, during the so-called October election, after voicing his opposition to the face of the US-backed military coup Crisis, members of the NDP caucus took the Clarity Act, NDP federal leader Jack in Guatemala in 1954. a bold stand against Trudeau’s imposition Layton backed down in the face of an The late 1950s saw the slow emergence of the War Measures Act – in essence an immediate firestorm from within his own of concerns about the degree of American excuse to smash a growing radical inde- party. Earlier this year, Layton showed influence upon Canada. When the NDP pendence movement in Quebec. In that he was not above demagoguery, was formed in 1961, it reflected this 1971, the NDP rejected a proposal to when he criticized the Conservatives for emergent Canadian nationalism. The recognize Quebec’s right to self-determi- “getting into bed with the separatists” in NDP opposed Canada’s acquisition of nation that had been put forward by the their opposition to the federal budget nuclear weapons, opposed NORAD and Waffle, a left grouping within the party. questioned NATO, but it stressed that it However, at that time, it did at least allow CANADIAN FOREIGN POLICY remained firmly on the side of capitalist that the country should not be held In terms of Canada’s place in the freedom against Communist totalitarian- together by force. By the late 1970s, the world, English-Canadian social democ- ism. NDP recognized that the people of rats have focused on the relationship See NDP: Page 34

new SOCIALIST 23 Canadian capital rips off

the Third World BY HAROLD LAVENDER

CAPITAL IS FLOWING ACROSS national borders at an accelerating pace. As the world’s fifth largest foreign Canadian capitalists are playing a promi- nent role in the globalization rush, behav- investor, Canada fits the description ing no differently in their imperative to maximize profits than US, British, of a mid-size imperialist power. German, Japanese, French and other foreign investors. Canadian nationalists focus on the developing or Third World countries. Few people are aware that half the large amounts of US capital invested in The largest part – 15 per cent – goes to world’s mining companies are based in Canada. However, they ignore or mini- Latin America and the Caribbean; Canada, and account for 40 per cent of mize the astronomical rise in Canadian another 8 per cent goes to the Asia global mining exploration. Nor do they direct foreign investment and its nefari- Pacific. realize that the Toronto and Vancouver ous role in the Third World in such areas As the world’s fifth largest foreign stock exchanges are world leaders in as mining and resource extraction. investor, Canada fits the description of a raising mining capital. Statistics Canada defines direct foreign mid-size imperialist power. A look at how such companies as investment in terms of ownership control Canadian foreign investment is Vancouver-based Glamis Gold operate and permanence (ownership of more centered in the spheres where domestic serves as a useful corrective. On January than 10 percent of a company in another capital is strongest. For example, 46 per 11, some 800 Guatemalan police and country). Over the last 15 years, total cent is in the financial sector. But even army troopers escorting a piece of mining investment by Canadians in other coun- where there is substantial foreign capital equipment to Glamis’ Marlin mine tries has risen 500 per cent. invested here at home – as in the oil and attacked a Mayan roadblock on the Pan Throughout the 20th century Canada service sectors – Canadian investments in American Highway, killing one had significant foreign investments, these sectors abroad are greater. Not campesino and wounding others. primarily in the US but also in the surprisingly, the Canadian government is Another person died March 13, after Caribbean and Latin America. Although a leading proponent of the General being shot by the company’s security the value of those investments was much Agreement on Trade in Services. guards. Death threats have been issued less than the total amount invested by Canadian foreign investment in manu- against community and church leaders other countries in Canada, since 1997, facturing is less prominent due to the opposing the mine. the reverse has been true. And the gap is smaller scale of the domestic industry. Meanwhile, Glamis had received a US widening. In 2004 Canadian foreign However, it is increasing in some areas. $75-million World Bank loan for the direct investment grew by 10 per cent – The Montreal-based transportation project. As a condition of the loan, it was far faster than the economy as a whole. It company Bombardier AeroSpace has supposed to consult the community. The now stands at $445 billion, nearly 40 per significant foreign holdings, as does consultation consisted of telling the local cent of the Gross Domestic Product (up another Montreal company, Gilden population what it planned to do – a from 5 per cent of GDP in 1970). Sportswear (Canada’s largest maker of T- process that would have been illegal in A substantial majority of global foreign shirts), which operates sweatshops in Canada. direct investment occurs within imperial- Haiti. Community members are concerned ist countries. Canada is no exception. that the huge quantities of water required MYTH VS REALITY About 43 per cent of Canadian invest- to support the company’s mining opera- ment is in the US. Today, 25 per cent (up WIDESPREAD MYTHS ABOUT CANADA THE tions will rob them of what is needed for from 17 per cent in 1990) goes to a Good, and Canada’s domination by the their crops, while environmentalists warn heterogeneous group of countries vari- US empire tend to severely distort public the cyanide used in the process will ously described as non-industrialized, perception at home and abroad. contaminate soil and ground water. Despite a huge outcry in Guatemala, Harold Lavender is a member of the Vancouver branch of the New Socialist Group, and an the Canadian Embassy has leapt to editor of New Socialist magazine Glamis’ defense. Ambassador Lambert new 24 SOCIALIST said in January that protesters were However, the report may simply gather rewrote their mining codes to favour “breaking the law,” adding, “we had dust. James Knech of Mining Watch foreign investment. people complaining to us that they could Canada wrote, “Despite Canada’s domi- The ideologues of the free market not get their products to port.” nant role in the global mining industry, would have us believe that they are The embassy has also published pieces the government has consistently refused pursuing a model of “development” and in the national dailies selling the benefits to develop the necessary tools to hold now “poverty reduction.” Canadian mining companies will bring Canadian companies accountable for The Canadian government continues to Guatemala; debated environmentalists what they are doing in other people’s to vigorously promote such initiatives as (whom they blame for manipulating the backyards.” the New Economic Partnership for local indigenous communities) on televi- African Development as the road to REWRITING THE RULES sion; and sponsored pro-mining forums salvation. The NEPAD model relies and seminars. It even used a BC band IN THE NEO-LIBERAL ERA, RESOURCE heavily on attracting foreign capital, chief to promote the benefits First exploration and development has spread including investment in resource devel- Nations receive from mines on their terri- to the remotest corners of the globe and opment. tories. Ironically, this was Chief Jerry Asp often to lands occupied by Indigenous What’s wrong with this picture? To of the Telegraph Creek Band whose office Peoples. Mining Watch Canada begin, foreign investors are invariably has been occupied by the Tahltan Elders (www.miningwatch.ca) offers critical lured into a country on the basis of major Council who are demanding a morato- material on the activities of Canadian concessions. These include huge tax rium on mining on their lands. mining corporations in Canada, the US, breaks, very low royalties, lifelong access Latin America, Asia Pacific, Africa and to large tracts of land, unlimited access to INCREASING SCRUTINY eastern and southern Europe. water and minimal environmental regu- UGLY INCIDENTS LIKE THOSE IN Canadian capital is second to the US lations. Mining companies are allowed to Guatemala have led to increased scrutiny. in Latin America, which is in the midst repatriate the vast majority of their This spring, the House of Commons of a mining boom. This boom coincides profits (with little remaining in Third Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs with the triumph of neoliberal economic World economies). Most of the equip- held hearings. Their conclusions were policies. The main cannons of neoliberal- ment is not purchased there. Export critical, calling for more regulation of ism include trade liberalization, deregu- Development Canada provides generous Canadian mining abroad. They called for lation, privatization and slashing of state loans to domestic companies to facilitate stopping Canadian taxpayers financing social spending. the export of their products to mining destructive projects abroad and making Third World economies were forced operations abroad. Canadian corporations legally account- open after running up large foreign debts Mining, once built upon the harsh able for environmental and human right in the 1980s. The International labour of many thousands, has become violations in “mining related conflicts Monetary Fund and World Bank increasingly capital intensive. Huge where regulations governing the mining imposed harsh interfering conditions for open-pit mines cast a large swath of envi- sector and its impacts on the economic loans through so-called Structural ronmental destruction but now employ and social well being of employees and Adjustment Programs. Economies were relatively few workers. local residents are nonexistent or not reoriented to exports to earn the foreign Meanwhile, thousands are displaced enforced.” exchange needed to pay the debt. As part from their homes or threatened with of this process, country after country disastrous consequences like spills from

“No to economic colonialism!” Guatemalans protest Glamis Gold.

new SOCIALIST 25 Manhattan Minerals of Vancouver Half the world’s mining companies sought to dig an open-pit mine in north- ern Peru at a site containing an estimated are based in Canada, and $2 billion worth of silver, copper and zinc. Local villagers, whose homes and farms were threatened, went so far as to account for 40 percent of global destroy the model homes in which they were to be relocated. The Peruvian mining exploration. government was sufficiently alarmed by the vigorous response that it cancelled Manhattan’s concession on a technicality. This September, Calgary-based contaminated tailings (or residues) and court action in the US from victims of EnCana, Canada’s largest producer of dams containing such toxins as arsenic. the war who accuse it of complicity in natural gas sold its Ecuadorian oil opera- The notion of national, community genocide. tions to a Chinese company for $1.4 and Indigenous control of resources and This September, 500 people blockaded billion. As the deal was being negotiated, self-determination that could interfere the PT INCO mining site in South there was a revolt against foreign oil with profits is anathema to foreign Sulawesi, Indonesia despite intimidation companies in Ecuador’s largely indige- investors. Instead they insist on writing by hired men. Toronto-based INCO, the nous Amazonian provinces. A civic strike the rules. One example is Honduras, world’s second largest nickel producer, was launched to call for higher wages, which passed a new mining law in 1998 has refused to settle with local Karonsi’e more jobs, local purchasing, construction that was written by the Mining Dongi Indigenous People or to compen- of better roads, funding for school and Association – a group primarily consist- sate those whose land they took – land health clinics and more tax revenues for ing of US and Canadian companies. that once was used for community the provinces. Some strike leaders wanted And in January of this year Colombian gardens. Ecuador to take half of the foreign President Alvaro Uribe issued Decree INCO’s Goro and Prony concessions companies’ profits. Others went so far as Law 254 that liquidated the state mining in New Caledonia, a territory of France, to demand outright nationalization of company Minerol Ltd. The measure contain the world’s largest nickel reserves. the country’s leading oil producer. wipes out its employee union and allows Last February, Indigenous Kanaks block- President Alfredo Palacio proclaimed a for a wholesale turnover of exploration, aded the Goro entrance. After a few days, state of emergency suspending human exploitation and administration of a number of leaders were arrested and rights. Thousands protested in Nueva mineral, energy and public resources to later charged. The Kanaks were demand- Loja and other centres. The police and foreign capital. Nongovernmental organ- ing INCO negotiate with their recog- army attacked protesters with teargas izations funded by the Canadian nized authorities. They noted INCO had bombs, water canons and rubber bullets International Development Agency agreed to such negotiations with the Innu causing numerous injuries and made played a key role in drafting this law. in Voisey Bay, Labrador. They are also mass arrests. On August 25, an agree- demanding an independent, environ- ment negotiated between the companies MANY RESISTANCES mental assessment and a halt to construc- and the national and provincial govern- BURMA’S MILITARY GOVERNMENT IS tion until then. Meanwhile, the company ments (largely behinds the backs of strike among the world’s worst human rights has found the funds to open a multi- leaders) made enough concessions to abusers. Among other things, it makes million-dollar INCO Innovation Centre temporarily end the conflict. But it did widespread use of forced labour to build at Memorial University in St. John’s. not address the fundamental issues. roads, etc. The largest mining investment At the Utkal project, Montreal-based Sentiment is growing that private is Montoya Mines owned by Ivanhoe Alcan would build a bauxite mine and direct foreign investment is not a solu- Mines, a Canadian company registered in smelter on tribal lands in Orissa state in tion to development. the Yukon. The company receives gener- India. The community (where three In Canada, corporate activities are ous tax breaks in Canada for foreign tribal villagers were shot in 2000) is being monitored. Activists have launched exploration and development. Canadian engaged in ongoing protests. small-scale solidarity protests at corpo- and Burmese activists are now targeting rate headquarters. And there are efforts such foreign investments. MILITANT FIGHT BACKS to link these companies’ international For years one of the world’s deadliest TORONTO-BASED NORANDA MINES records to bad labour and environmental civil wars raged in southern Sudan. Oil wanted to build a smelter in Chile, in the records in Canada. However, a larger revenues helped the Sudanese govern- Aysen region of Patagonia where the movement targeting Canadian capital ment wage war. One of the main produc- population is dependent on fishing and and state activities that support it ers was Calgary-based Talisman. Talisman sustainable farming. A “No-Alumysa” remains to be built.★ has since sold it interests, but a story (No-Aluminum) protest campaign forced tucked in the back of the business pages the Chilean government to ask Noranda reports that the company faces ongoing to look for another site. new 26 SOCIALIST THE CANADIAN CASE Exploring intersections of racism, imperialism and capitalism

BY SHEILA WILMOT

any leftists would readily say that imperialism and racism Mare deeply and historically intertwined, and continue to evolve together today. Yet, part of the analytical challenge for understanding the relation- ship is developing an integrated analysis that functions on multiple levels. For example, an analysis of the relationship between the power relations of racism and imperialism could integrate social processes in three ways: • in the relationship between everyday and structural forms of racism; • in terms of the various power relations and how we experience them, particu- larly racism, sexism and class-exploita- tion; and • with respect to how these power rela- tions function and are reproduced bickering and buck-passing, each creating economic crises that started in the 1970s. within the historical context of imperi- themselves as the most socially- This has meant the gutting of social alism and capitalism. concerned, fiscally-sensible player while programs, the scrapping of trade “barri- A large part of our context for anti- blaming the other for not looking after ers” such as cross-border import and racist organizing today is one of fiercely Canadians well enough. export taxes, and plunging big business systemic anti-Middle Eastern racism, tax rates. As Employment Insurance, AN IMPERIALIST POWER from new “security” laws to increased welfare, day care, health care, repression of immigrants and refugees. In While this implicit acceptance of being English/French as a Second Language our organizing efforts, the racism itself is ruled changes over time and looks differ- programs and non-profit housing have not our only challenge: we also have to ent in various parts of the world, on the bit-by-bit been made inaccessible to deal with our society’s collective response whole, big business owners, high level more and more people, bank profit to these and other neoliberal attacks, financial managers, members of parlia- margins and CEO’s incomes soar. responses that happen in a context in ment, economists, politicians and news- Canada also has an odd place in the which we continue to accept the domi- paper owners continue to set the agenda world as an imperialist power that is still nant idea that electoral politics is the only for the “way things are” for the rest of us. quite subordinated to the self-appointed way democracy can function at the same The Global South has been ravaged for global banker, decision-maker, cop and time as we are disillusioned by it. So, we centuries by various forms of genocide executioner on its southern border. To “the people” get to choose one pro-capi- and the siphoning of natural and finan- understand Canada as an imperialist talist party or another and, like it or not, cial resources, including the structural power, we need only to look at the “we” get what “we” voted for. In Canada, adjustment programs (SAPs) of the last diverse and lucrative activities of this is compounded by the ruling class few decades. Meanwhile, the North’s Canadian multinational corporations strategy of constant federal, provincial lesser form of SAPs hit us in the 1980s as (MNC) abroad and the expanding pres- and municipal intergovernmental public part of the elites’ response to the ence of Canadian banks in the Global South. MNC activity ranges form This article is adapted from Sheila Wilmot’s upcoming book, Taking Responsibility, Taking telecommunications to forestry to shoe Direction: White Anti-Racism in Canada, published by Arbeiter Ring Publishing.

new SOCIALIST 27 manufacturing. And these Canadian enough to deal with the racism inherent the state to deny, revoke or annul citizen- businesses are quite healthy in relation to in: the failure to settle land claims; the ship of non Canadian-born people. As US ones: between 1994 and 2001, 384 number of Native deaths in police noted in a February 2003 press release by more US businesses were bought by custody; and the lack of access of the Canadian Arab Federation, this Canadian ones than the reverse, at a cost Aboriginal People to the legal system. would have been possible “without of $46 billion to Canadian capitalists. The same report also criticized the state consultation, disclosure of evidence, With investors enjoying a dividend for “ethnic stereotyping” of various independent review or the opportunity surplus of $3.5 billion in 2000, it is easy immigrants and people of colour as to appeal the decision.” (The bill died to say that Canadian imperialism is alive terrorists. Quite an important statement, after second reading following an elec- and well. but what teeth does the UN have to tion call.) All these measures amount to nothing DISCOURAGING RESISTANCE transform the concern into change? As we saw with the UN security council’s slow short of a dangerous intensification of Along with mythical notions of the although difficult march to be part of the legal racism. The social and political Canadian nation’s politeness and peace- US-led war on Iraq, the answer seems to space for these vile laws has been opened loving ways, the idea is created, main- be just about none. by the hysteria of the so-called war on tained and driven home that, because of terrorism. It has been whipped up by our place in the world, particularly in imperialism to justify its expanded relation to the US, we can do very little to Immigrant and Refugee control of natural resources and land, change the direction of globalization and wealth, people’s rights to movement and are quite powerless to make fight-back Protection Act...gives even to their very existence. efforts matter. This is not to say that no one is fighting back or trying to change INTERSECTIONS OF RACISM AND immigration officials CAPITALISM IN IMMIGRATION things. Many do actively dissent, in ways that also change with time and place, but more power to detain In terms of people’s right to migrate, a it is still in small numbers and with little clear example of how racism is integrated continuity. immigrants and with capitalism is found in two contrast- We also cannot underestimate the ing cases of Chinese migrants to British impact on us of how highly privatized, Columbia, discussed in Kathryne individualized and commodified human refugees as well as Mitchell’s article, “In Whose Interest? life has become in our time. The collec- Transnational Capital and the tive problems caused by social program more powers to decide Production of Multiculturalism in cuts and bloated corporate profit margins Canada” (in Global/Local Cultural are continually defined and redefined as refugee claims are Production of the Transnational Imaginary, individual impediments. Apparently, a eds. Rob Wilson and Wimal better resume, attitude and sheer tenacity ineligible. Dissanauche). Mitchell reviews the late is what we all need to just get out there 80s’ purchase of a number of Vancouver and make it. From employment and RACIST AND IMPERIALIST LAWS condominiums by Hong Kong-based ruling class people and the Canadian other support services, to the explosion in Clearly, ethnic stereotyping barely state’s role in easing the burden of racism business training “opportunities” (from describes what is happening in Canada to challenge the mainly white middle and careers colleges to whole new wings of today. In June 2002, the Immigrant and working class local outcry against these universities), the daily message is that Refugee Protection Act came into law with purchases. The basis of local concern change in our lives comes from doing it the passing of Bill C-11. It gives immi- seems to have been a contradictory mix all on our own and in the way that suits gration officials more power to detain of a legitimate wish for affordable the needs of business. immigrants and refugees as well as more housing in the area rather than more Even though the balance of forces is powers to decide refugee claims are ineli- private, expensive homes, and a racism- excessively tipped in favour of the ruling gible. The interaction of this law with Bill fueled demonstration of anxiety over class, there is ongoing resistance in the C-36, the Anti-Terrorism legislation, and “individual and national identity as well face of intensifying racism. As such, it is the Safe Third Country agreement as a concern about urban change.” As not strategic for state organizations, between the US and Canada is nothing such, the usual cross-class alliance based nationally and internationally, to short of frightening. Terrorism is itself on white supremacy failed to meet ruling completely ignore racism, so on occasion left undefined in C-36 and C-11 allows class objectives in this case: the priority they do turn their rhetorical attention inadmissibility of claims and detention was to smooth the way for ruling class toward it. As a result of First Nations’ on the basis of ill-defined “security risks” purchase of real estate so the BC govern- focusing part of their struggle on the and refugee claimants coming to Canada ment took the role of decrying racism to international stage, in 2002 the United via the US can and will be turned back. discredit Vancouver-based protesters. If Nations Committee on the Elimination And it does not stop there. Bill C-18, The one buys the race relations model of of Racial Discrimination criticized the Citizenship of Canada Act, would have eradicating discrimination, this could Canadian government for not doing created a two-tier citizenship by allowing new 28 SOCIALIST Sentiment is something or failing to so something – women of colour on this basis is a key from the white supremacy that is funda- piece of good organizing, as they are the mental to the organization of the capital- targets of the many layers of everyday, growing that ist political economy that our society commonsense and structural racism, continues to be based on. Since we are sexism, class exploitation and often other private direct enrolled in the club, like it or not, we all forms of oppression. A political relation- have a social responsibility to challenge ship is not one based on superficial short- it, both individually and collectively, and term alliances of convenience such as foreign the racism that results from it. what we experience in a lot of coalition However, often we seem to understand work. Nor is it based on a narrow idea of investment is not this “responsibility” as a heavy sense of someone’s social or cultural identity; we moral duty, embedded in a strange need to avoid politically homogenizing remorse-based anti-racism: we just feel so all people of colour and see political a solution to bad about it all, and about our very selves differentiation amongst non-white in it all. The political responsibility then people. Building political relationships is development. often becomes highly individualized and about constructing a solid basis for paralyzing: many white activists, of working towards shared political goals. appear as a positive step forward on the various generations, seem to be unable to This is not to say that white activists part of the state in getting rid of racism get past invoking the words “white privi- cannot take initiative in any project rather than an example of how when lege” to describe the situation and their unless there is 50 percent leadership of racism gets in the way of “the social remorse. women of colour. On the contrary, the networks necessary for the integration of When we do take action, given the way our society is structured by racism international capitalisms,” it has to be nature of the superiority complex that we means we can easily find ourselves in the selectively managed. get taught as part of white racism, we majority when we’d rather not be – for To grasp this, one need only contrast white activists also often seem to inter- example, in our workplaces – so we just this case with the one of Chinese pret taking responsibility as taking over. have to do the work where we are. It does migrants who arrived in Vancouver by This combines with remorse, so that we mean that the act of creating the condi- boat in 1999, without money to invest, feel we have just got to power through tions for and building such relationships, but with a legitimate need and desire for and get the things done that we believe the making visible and respecting refuge. The Canadian-state response in will fix racism. That is where the direc- whoever has been marginalized by this case was to fan the flames of white tion needs to come in: to be effective, we oppression, should be a foundational Canadians’ everyday racism to buttress must also constantly be looking to seek principle of our political projects. All of structural forms of racist exclusion in the out, follow and encourage the leadership this will often require many white union- face of progressive demands for asylum of people of colour, particularly non- ists and community activists to rethink for the migrants. Calling the people white working class women. our strategies and tactics, and our “illegal” and focusing on the fact that Developing political relationships with certainty about “what is to be done.”★ they were “smuggled” in, and invoking the usual kinds of images and ideas about who has a right to be here, a legitimate claim to safety and to share in “our” national identity, the state played the opposite – and more well-known – role than that of 10 years before. These migrants’ applications for refugee status were fast-tracked; indeed, most were deported within a rather short period of time. ANTI-RACIST ACTIVISM As leftists, as community organizers, how do we respond to all of this in an emancipatory way? As a white commu- nity activist since the mid 1980s, I have come to think of my approach to this as constantly shifting the balance between taking responsibility and taking direc- tion. All white folks benefit – whether actively or passively, whether by doing

new SOCIALIST 29 Challenging Canada

SEBASTIAN LAMB looks at why so many people see Canada as an underdog and draws some political conclusions from the analysis provided in some of the previous articles on “Canada and Empire.”

he preceding articles give us a very ogy is medicare. Public health care is different understanding of Canada widely believed to somehow express the Tthan the ones that most leftists and essential identity of Canada as a nation. activists have. They make a powerful case Obviously it’s important to defend public for seeing Canada not as an underdog on health care against privatization. But the the world stage and a country oppressed proposition that medicare defines by the US, but as an advanced capitalist Canada is inadequate and misleading, society, a colonial-settler state and an not least because the federal Medical imperialist power. When we break out of Care Act (covering physician insurance) the narrow perspective that looks at was only introduced in 1966, almost a Canada mainly in relation to the US century after Confederation. instead of placing Canada in relation to The New Left that sprang up in the entire global system, we can appreci- English Canada in the 1960s as part of Demands for Canadian sovereignty ate how Canadian capitalists and govern- an international wave of protest and radi- ignore Canadian imperialism ments are globally dominant, not domi- calization was strongly influenced by this NATIONALIST PROBLEMS nated. kind of nationalism, and contributed to it. English-Canadian left-nationalists saw Nationalism involves the belief that all OBSTACLES TO UNDERSTANDING English Canada and Quebec as neo- members of a nation share something in Why don’t more people understand colonies of the US, and many thought of common, just because they are part of the this even on a gut level, even on the Left? themselves as fighters in the global move- same imagined national community. This One reason is that within English ment of anti-imperialist resistance spear- obscures the irreconcilable antagonism Canada the usual way of thinking about headed by the Vietnamese. New Left between rulers and ruled, exploiters and Canada is in relation to the US, not the nationalism shaped the political genera- exploited. That’s why all nationalisms are world as a whole. It’s obvious that tion that radicalized from the mid-1960s problematic from the perspective of Canada lies in the political shadow of its to the mid-1970s. People from this group socialism from below. imperialist super-power neighbour to the have become influential as left-wing But some nationalisms are worse than south. It’s less obvious that Canada’s rela- researchers, teachers, union officials, others. The nationalism of imperialist tionship to most of the world is one of NGO and community agency executives powers is the most objectionable. The domination. and journalists. nationalism of oppressed nations can play Another reason is nationalism. All A fourth reason has to do with how a progressive role to the extent that it nations have their myths, their stories English Canada’s opposition to an expresses a liberation struggle. about what makes them unique. English increasingly aggressive US ruling class is Canadian nationalism is the national- Canada is no exception. One of the expressed. The increasingly crude and ism of a colonial settler-state founded on central ideas of the kind of Canadian arrogant drive for global dominance the conquest of Aboriginal Peoples and nationalism that has flourished since the mounted by the Bush administration and the people of New France. It perpetuates 1960s is the notion that Canada is at its the US ruling class more generally (under the smug lie that Canada is fundamen- core a caring society, nicer than the both Democratic and Republican presi- tally a peaceful, caring and sharing society neighbour south of the 49th parallel. The dents) since the collapse of the USSR at - and, thanks to state multiculturalism greatest symbol of this supposed caring the end of the 1980s has increased the policies, not racist. In this vision, class nature in Canadian nationalist mythol- likelihood that opposition to neoliberal- divisions, racism, sexism, heterosexism ism, war and imperialism in English and the domination by English Canada Sebastian Lamb is an editor of New Canada is expressed in Canadian nation- of Aboriginal Peoples and Quebec are all Socialist alist terms. erased, obscured or downplayed. new 30 SOCIALIST Canadian nationalism creates a huge 1 For people living in Canada, the investmet and intellectual property.” blind-spot for the Left, one which hides rulers of Canada are our main This suggests a bad case of tunnel the exploitation and oppression that goes enemy vision. Passively? The federal government on every day within the borders of has been anything but passive in its There is a well-developed capitalist ruling Canada and which is projected by efforts to make Canada a more profitable class in Canada. The much greater power Canadian capital and its state outside place to do business and to help of the rulers of the US should not distract these borders. Canadian capital make greater profits us from our responsibility to challenge The belief that Canada is an underdog abroad. It actively champions the initia- what Canada’s rulers do, both within and oppressed by the US is part of the tives to which Cameron refers, such as outside its borders. Opposing what they “common sense” of the Left because the the General Agreement on Trade in do goes against the grain of English- Left’s ideas are drawn from the same pool Services – not because it is subservient to Canadian culture more than denouncing of ideas from which everyone socialized the US but because of its commitment to the US does, but that’s no excuse for in English Canada draws. This pool is fed neoliberal capitalism. letting Canada’s rulers off the hook. by powerful, deep-rooted streams of Equally striking is the complete absence ideology. Nationalism is one such stream. of class analysis in such appeals. Cameron 2 Anti-racism and solidarity with Ideologies aren’t simply delusions, but argues “Gas prices rise because we have a struggles for national self- systems of thought which provide US-led continental energy policy, not a determination must be central misleading interpretations of reality. In policy made for Canadians.” Which English Canada, the four previously- The oppression of Aboriginal Peoples is Canadians? What exists is an energy mentioned factors, along with the low as old as the European presence in what policy made for US and Canadian capital. level of class struggle and the feebleness of is now the Canadian state. Racism is The fact that political figures who are working-class politics, help explain the pervasive, corrosive and divisive in this anything but opponents of neoliberalism strength of nationalism among left-wing colonial-settler state. Anti-racism and have been coming out with similar salvos people. Recognizing this helps guard support for the right of Aboriginal of nationalist indignation should make against simply dismissing people who Peoples to determine their own futures people on the Left think twice. Lloyd hold nationalist ideas. That said, under- must not be “add-ons” for the Left. The Axworthy, a cabinet minister under Jean standing why left-nationalist ideas are same is true for support of Quebec’s right Chretien and now President of the influential should not lead anyone to buy to self-determination (a subject unfortu- University of Winnipeg, published a into them! nately not addressed by a specific article newspaper article in August 2005 entitled An effective approach to fighting for in this issue). “No More Mr. Nice Guy.” social change needs to be informed by a Axworthy argued that “we are dealing sound analysis of what it is we’re trying to 3 Canada is not a force for peace with an American political system change. The preceding articles on and justice currently steeped in the ideology of “Canada and Empire” in this issue offer ‘empire.’ It recognizes few rules, adheres Bono is wrong: the world does not need the foundations of such an analysis of only to those treaties that are expedient to more Canada. The Canadian state needs Canadian society. They point to some basic interests, and believes that the only to be restrained from intervening militar- important political conclusions: political currency that counts is the exer- ily and politically in other countries, not cise of raw power.” Music to the ears of encouraged, as articles in this issue left-nationalists! demonstrate. Ideologies aren’t But what exactly did Axworthy propose? “Let’s begin by seriously consid- 4 Appeals for Canada to stand up ering an end to NAFTA and reliance simply delusions, are misguided and harmful instead upon the World Trade but systems of The US government’s decision to ignore Organization to regulate the terms and the NAFTA dispute resolution ruling in provisions of free trade.” In other words, Canada’s favour on softwood lumber has switch to a different neoliberal treaty to thought which sparked a new round of such appeals regulate North American capitalism! from people on the Left. Instead of shouting for the Canadian provide For example, Duncan Cameron government to play hardball with the US, argued in the online magazine Rabble the Left should raise demands that misleading that “Canada must abandon its oppose neoliberalism and fight for them subservience to the US.” Cameron wrote through campaigns of mass mobilization. that “Canada sits passively in the The federal government acts as it does interpretations NAFTA protectionist fortress, emerging because it is charting a course for only to champion ill-conceived, danger- Canadian capital in the global economy, of reality. ous and downwright criminal American not because it’s unpatriotic or subservient trade initiatives on public services, to George Bush.

new SOCIALIST 31 Nationalist criticism of neoliberal poli- 5 Canadian sovereignty is not a is quite unlike the many independent cies is misleading and strengthens a reac- progressive goal nation-states, such as Mexico, whose tionary ideology. Because it advocates a national sovereignty is undermined by Many people who want to defend public stronger federal state, it has a proven imperialism, not to mention occupied health care and who oppose Canadian track record of dividing the English- countries like Iraq. participation in wars, occupations and Canadian Left from the Quebecois Left, To say that Canada has national sover- other “regime change” interventions like which does not see the federal state as its eignty doesn’t mean that the people who the one in Haiti argue in favour of friend. This has been clear from the run Canada can do whatever they want, defending or achieving Canadian sover- campaign against the Canada-US Free free of outside influences. The actions of eignty. Trade Agreement in the late 1980s every state in the world, even the USA, In order to assess this kind of argu- through the debates around the Meech are limited by the deep interconnections ment, we need to clarify what sovereignty Lake and Charlottetown constitutional between societies that have been woven means. Sovereignty can mean more than deals of the early 1990s to Jack Layton’s over centuries by the development of the one thing. “National sovereignty” refers backing down from his opposition to the capitalist world economy and state to a nation having its own state, with its Clarity Act in 2004. system. The fact that Canada’s rulers are own government, central bank, judiciary, The fact that the nationalist website subject to the influence of economic and police and military. “Popular sovereignty” notacolony.ca posted Axworthy’s article, political forces they don’t control does refers to the relationship between a alongside nostalgia for the Canadian Avro not prove that Canada lacks national people and those who rule (“the sovereign Arrow fighter jet of the late 1950s, speaks sovereignty. power”); in a capitalist democracy, the volumes about the politics of Canadian Demands for Canadian sovereignty are claim by political philosophers that the nationalism. So too does the publication regressive in the way that they bind people are sovereign masks the reality of without comment of “Wounded, the popular sentiments of opposition to class rule. Interim Report by the Senate Committee neoliberalism, capitalism and imperial- Canadian national sovereignty already on National Security and Defence,” on ism to Canadian nationalism. In English exists: there is an independent multi- the left-nationalist website Canada, such progressive sentiments are national state called Canada with its own vivelecanada.ca. It’s little wonder that far often expressed in nationalist terms. The institutions (Quebec and the First right elements have been active in such Left should be trying to disentangle these Nations are subordinated within this nationalist circles (as documented by sentiments from nationalism, but left- state and do not have national sover- Will Offley’s article in the Jan-Feb 2001 nationalist arguments for sovereignty tie eignty). As an imperialist power, Canada issue of Canadian Dimension). them together. ★

For several years, the editors of Canadian Dimension have been advocating a radical version of the left-nationalist argument for Canadian sovereignty. In the words of the editorial of CD’s July-August 2005 issue, “there are two distinct and contradictory class claims to sovereignty – the claims of the ruling corporate elite and the claims of the Aboriginal peoples, the Quebecois and ordinary people in the rest of Canada. The former is oppressive while the latter is liberatory. In order for Aboriginal peoples, Quebecois and the people of the rest of Canada to exercise their sovereignty, they must unite to end the sovereignty of the corporate elite and overthrow the colonial foundations of Canada.” CD’s position is less objectionable than that of left-nationalists who ignore or skim over capitalism and the oppression of Aboriginal Peoples and Quebec. But there is a major confusion at the heart of CD’s argument between two completely different things: national sovereignty and class rule. This confusion makes it harder to clarify the central political issue for people who want to change the world: social struggles by working-class and oppressed people are the key to effective resistance today and to future possibilities for progressive anti-capitalist change. Workers and oppressed people in the Canadian state democratically taking power into their own hands and beginning to transform society would be a truly radical assault on class rule (this could be called a revolutionary appropriation of popular sovereignty). It is an entirely different matter than Canadian national sovereignty.

It is vital to popularize the kinds of analysis and politics presented in this issue. The most effective way to do so is not abstract condemnations of nationalism, whose appeal is limited. Instead, by conducting educational campaigns that expose what Canadian corporations, governments and other state institutions are actually doing at home and abroad, we can help people to understand that fighting for social change means challenging Canada, not strengthening it.

new 32 SOCIALIST CBC lockout and public broadcasting

BY SUSAN FERGUSON

hank you, CBC workers. Your Most significantly, the lockout helped Locked out CBC workers walk the threat to picket the ceremonial break down the division within the picket lines in Yellowknife. Tswearing in of Canada’s new CMG between technical staff (who tend Governor General kept the airways free to be more union-conscious) and jour- essentially a means of promoting national of such stupefying pomp and circum- nalists (who tend to see themselves more identity, the glue connecting stance in the latter days of an eight-week as “professionals” than as “workers”). The Newfoundland fishers to Ontario immi- lockout. split in the ranks that management grant nannies and Alberta oil magnates – Of course, there are plenty of other believed would undermine the union deepening everybody’s appreciation of reasons to be less sanguine about the never materialized, lending the union each other and creating a sense of lockout of 5,500 CBC and Radio- negotiators much needed strength at the community greater than the sum of its Canada workers – virtually everyone bargaining table. parts. Yet, since the beginning, that involved in producing, airing and sched- Yet there is the troublesome develop- nationalist vision has systematically uling its TV and radio shows outside of ment of the cap itself. Prior to the deal, excluded the voices of people of colour, Quebec and Moncton. The most impor- CBC and Radio-Canada were required to women, Aboriginal Peoples, working tant being management’s push for a more consult the Guild about new contract people and, in English Canada, “flexible” workforce. Despite real gains positions. The 9.5% cap is of course Quebecers. for the union, management did indeed much lower than management’s stated A better basis for support is that a achieve its objective in a down-to-the- goal of no limit, but it’s unlikely the top “flexible” workforce undermines the wire compromise with the Canadian brass really believed they would get that. broadcaster’s mandate to deliver Media Guild (CMG): the proportion of And the thing about setting limits is that programming in the public interest. That full-time contract workers will rise from they can be stretched. If you give them an requires taking risks that might offend its current 5% to 9.5% of the permanent inch . . . advertisers and those in power – risks staff of 3780. There’s little reason to doubt manage- that someone looking to renew a three- Where the CMG succeeded was in ment won’t push for that mile in the next month or one-year contract is unlikely to improving provisions for contract round of negotiations. Insecure and flex- take. workers and the 1000 or so casual, ible workforces are nothing new in the temporary workers at the broadcaster. media, including at CBC and Radio- PUBLIC BROADCASTING POTENTIAL Among other things, the union Canada. The lockout was really a case, as The potential for public broadcasting prevented management from undermin- one picketer said to a Globe and Mail to be a powerful means of democratic ing seniority rights and won the right for reporter, of them sticking the knife in a communication and a celebration of contract and casual workers to convert to little deeper than it already was. creativity can’t be denied. Brazil’s permanent staff over time (after four Support for the locked out workers Landless Workers’ Movement, for years for contract workers and 18 months was considerable. Much of it, however, example, has sprouted some 30 radio for casuals). pandered to a creepy, white-washed stations in recent years. Freed from nationalism, in which the dispute repre- commercial restraints, journalists, artists sented a threat to our “Canadian way of and others can express themselves Susan Ferguson is an editorial associate of life.” In this view, public broadcasting is without worry of censorship from big New Socialist

new SOCIALIST 33 business or government. Ottawa’s low level of place at CBC/Radio Canada, however, Still, let’s be clear: the CBC and Radio puts the question of public broadcasting Canada are hardly vibrant examples of funding has drained on the table. such broadcasting. Ottawa’s low level of On that issue, US media critic Robert funding (less than one per cent of GDP, CBC/Radio Canada of the McChesney makes an important point. much lower than the amount spent in resources to produce timely, So long as the commercial media exist Britain, France, Germany and even the side by side with public media, the latter US) has drained CBC/Radio Canada of hard-hitting and entertaining will be squeezed for money and relegated the resources to produce timely, hard- to filling in the holes in the programming hitting and entertaining programs and programs. provided by commercial media. forced them to compete with commercial Inevitably, that means keeping a respect- stations. ful attitude toward government (who And it’s an intensely competitive before. Convergence (the term describing ultimately pays the bills); emphasizing marketplace. With five corporations companies with stakes in more than one information over entertainment (laud- accounting for 84 percent of the busi- media, such as TV, telecommunications able, but often boring); and, in cases ness, Canada has one of the most and print) means they’re also expected to where fundraising pays some of the bills, concentrated media sectors in the world. contribute to web sites and make televi- serving the well-to-do. “Broadcasting,” Job insecurity is becoming the norm. sion appearances for their sister organiza- writes McChesney, “has to be removed Frequent “makeovers” of newspapers, tions. As their work intensifies, they have from the marketplace altogether to begin magazines, TV and radio stations have even less time to chase down a story and to fulfill its social promise.” led to considerable layoffs and the spread the “news” is often hastily gathered, In the meantime, any attacks on the of precarious employment in the private cribbed straight from company or scraps of public broadcasting that now sector over the last ten years. Those who government news releases. exist have to be fended off – for the sake remain find their workload intensified. In this sense, the workers affected by of the workers first and foremost, but for Reporters and writers, for instance, now the CBC lockout symbolize a much the sake of the airways too. ★ file more stories, more quickly than ever broader trend. That the conflict took

Parliament in opposing the first Gulf War responsibilities for Middle East issues. NDP in 1991. Alexa McDonough opposed As explained earlier, the NDP’s silence Continued from Page 23 American invasion of Afghanistan in on Haiti is the most distressing aspect of As nationalism grew within the party 2001. When he became leader of the the NDP’s foreign policy under Layton, and the country, the NDP took a more party in 2003, Layton actively supported but there are other problematic signs. critical approach to American cold war the anti-war movement in opposition to Layton struck a deal with Paul Martin on foreign policy. In 1965, the NDP criti- the American invasion of Iraq. the federal budget in exchange for NDP cized the Vietnam War and the US inva- However, the NDP’s perception of support. Yet, that so-called “NDP sion of the Dominican Republic. Finally, Canada as a benign middle-power and its budget” contains provisions for a $12.8- in 1969, pushed by the left-nationalist acceptance of the myth of Canada as billion increase over five years in defence Waffle, the NDP called for Canada to peacekeeper have led the party to support spending. As Martin has bragged, this is withdraw from NATO. In 1973, the (or ignore) Canada’s role in a number of the largest military spending increase in NDP condemned the US-backed coup imperial campaigns. the last 20 years. in Chile while the Trudeau government The NDP initially supported The NDP view of the state as a neutral accepted the US line. Canadian participation in the NATO-led force with progressive potential takes a Through the 1980s, the NDP attacked bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999. When particularly ludicrous form when US president Reagan’s foreign policy, the so-called “humanitarian intervention” extended to the military. This summer, as especially towards Central America. On escalated the crisis, the NDP backtracked Canada announced it was sending 2000 the other hand, NDP leader Broadbent but, by that time, it was too late to have troops to Afghanistan, Canada’s Chief of softened the party’s position on NATO. an impact on the public debate. Defence Staff, General Rick Hillier, Riding high in the polls in 1988, the The NDP has insisted on maintaining commented on the military’s role: “We’re NDP declared that it would not with- a dubiously “balanced” approach to the not the public service of Canada, we’re draw from NATO in its first term as Israeli occupation of Palestine. In 2002, not just another department. We’re the government. after NPD MP Svend Robinson travelled Canadian Forces, and our job is to be To its credit, in the post-cold war to the Middle East, called Israel a “terror- able to kill people.” Unfortunately, the period, the NDP has frequently resisted ist state,” and voiced his solidarity with NDP fails to recognize the blunt accuracy Canadian participation in US-led mili- the Palestinian people, he was of the General’s comments and continues condemned by his party and to promote the myth of Canada’s benign tary interventions. Audrey McLaughlin ★ and the NDP were alone in the Canadian McDonough stripped him of his caucus peacemaking.

new 34 SOCIALIST NEW ORLEANS The making of a social catastrophe

BY ROBERT CALDWELL JR. AND JOANNA DUBINSKY

ost residents of New Orleans were unaware of the potential destruction of Katrina until less than 48 hours before land- Mfall. In New Orleans, violent tropical storms are routine and hurricanes are a seasonal reminder of nature’s power. As residents of the city, we have often been faced with the choice to stay or go, always weighing whether it will be the fabled “big one.”

What started as a category one hurri- on the very edge of survival. A rescue worker views the flooding cane that grazed Miami, quickly turned What becomes of New Orleans and its following Hurricane Katrina. into the most deadly hurricane the Gulf refugees is tied up in the social causes of Coast has ever seen. But the toll is not the catastrophe, as well as the govern- preparedness was woefully under-funded simply the wrath of “nature.” The cata- ment, corporate and community by President Bush and Congress. strophic consequences of Katrina were response. These reactions are not shaped The Federal Government ignored mostly social in their dimensions. in a vacuum. They operate within a social expert testimony presenting the need for The social factors contributing to system that puts profits and the whims of critical infrastructure to prevent New Katrina’s death blow to New Orleans are the market above human lives. Social Orleans from becoming inundated with many: funding for levies diverted to the planning left to the market failed New flood waters in the event of a levy break. war in Iraq; deployment of the Louisiana Orleans. Allowing the market to decide Contrary to Bush’s recent assertions that National Guard to Baghdad; lack of an New Orleans’ future is the recipe for this catastrophe in New Orleans could evacuation plan for the poor, who prima- another disaster. It is also the recipe for not be predicted, the Federal Emergency rily live in flood-prone areas; slow federal cultural genocide and “racial-cleansing.” Management Agency (FEMA) had response with a focus on securing prop- Developers want to create a white- warned that a hurricane striking New erty over people; environmental degrada- washed French Quarter Disneyland, but Orleans was one of the three most likely tion increasing the frequency and wrath the heart of the city – the people of New disasters in the US. of hurricanes and the vulnerability of the Orleans – will not cede it without a fight. Nevertheless, the Bush administration city. MISGUIDED PRIORITIES cut New Orleans’ flood control funding Threaded throughout these factors are by 44 percent to pay for the Iraq war. At the complex ways class, race and gender New Orleans is a city in which social the time of the hurricane, almost half of shape people’s social position. For days, services are chronically underfunded, and the Louisiana National Guard were national news reports of the developing many New Orleanians are locked in a deployed outside the state. Some were crisis in New Orleans highlighted what is cycle of poverty spurred by inadequate reportedly with critical high water equip- often invisible to media but well known schools and lack of living wage jobs. ment in Iraq. to the women and men who change the Despite its once massive port, a seventy sheets in French Quarter hotels, cook mile petro-chemical corridor, and its A PLANNED CATASTROPHE gumbo for tourists, and operate the cash historical significance, the city has The poverty and blackness of those registers in the Lower Garden District depended upon the tourism industry for most affected by the disaster was obvious Wal-mart: to be poor in the United sustenance. to anyone watching CNN in the days States, especially Black and poor, is to live So it is no surprise that hurricane following the levy break. The plight of these victims underscores the existing Robert Caldwell Jr and Joanna Dubinsky are residents of the Ninth Ward in New Orleans and race and class inequalities in New are members of Solidarity and the Louisiana Green Party. They plan to return to New Orleans Orleans, but also provides a lens to to work with Community Labor United’s People’s Hurricane Fund in their effort to rebuild a examine racism and poverty and a socially and economically just New Orleans. You can contact the authors at persistently growing underclass in the US [email protected] as a whole. new SOCIALIST 35 WWW.INTERNATIONALVIEWPOINT.ORG LACKLUSTER RESPONSE The response from Federal agencies was too little too late. While the United States has a history of dropping humani- tarian relief to disaster affected areas, media reported that supplies were being diverted because helicopters could not land, or because of reports of hostile gunfire (accounts that could not later be substantiated by rescue pilots). But if the United States is capable of sending planes that can withstand enemy fire to drop bombs in Iraq, certainly they are capable of air-dropping supplies into a US city. Homeland Security Czar Michael Chertoff dismissed a National Public Radio field reporter’s claim that 2,000 or Hurricane Katrina refugees waiting for and demanding relief. more stranded people were at the Convention Center without food or water, No government hurricane prepared- ideology – including many working class suffering increasingly unsanitary condi- ness plan, and none of the doomsday whites – to blame the victims hit hardest: tions. Subsequent reports verified that exercises of federal, state and local agen- poor African Americans. 15,000-20,000 were at the convention cies, made provisions for those who Both (former) FEMA chief Don center in deplorable conditions, including could not evacuate. Disaster planning Brown and the dominant media spin mounting casualties due to lack of water, officials knew that 112,000 people in indicated that the high death toll would food and medical aid. The Convention New Orleans were without any private be attributable to people who did not Center was on dry ground and would have form of transportation. In 2003, the New heed the advance warnings. The reality is been accessible by military transport Orleans Times Picayune produced a five that tens of thousands – the 113,000 ground vehicles or helicopters. part series that predicted that this without cars, the sick, the disabled or Although local government can segment – upwards of 100,000 people – elderly – of New Orleanians did not have certainly share in some of the blame of would likely face death in the event of the means to comply with an evacuation the catastrophe, once the Federal direct hit by a category 5 hurricane. order. Government was alerted to the dire situ- Despite this warning, city and public Reporters and right-wing internet ation of thousands in the city, its promise school buses flooded while residents were trolls have filled news outlets and message to react was sluggish. stuck in the city with no way out. boards with racialized stories of looting, Media reports exuded frustration at the Hurricane evacuation plans reflected a while tens of thousands of the city begged federal response. Journalists were embed- characteristic neoliberal ideology – let the for help. The lawlessness of looting ded with the people, not the government. market decide who survives – that provided a way to shift focus away from FOX News reporters – usually spin increasingly pervades institutions in our the political decisions that kept people doctors for the Republican Party – called society. It’s not surprising that the private without food, water or medical interven- attention to the stranded thousands at Tulane Hospital was evacuated well tion – the very reasons that people had to the Convention Center who had not before Charity Hospital – the region’s turn to “looting” to survive. received aid or any attention from trauma hospital – used primarily by Officials comforted tense onlookers government officials. On location at the uninsured, poor and overwhelmingly with a promise of order: they would use Convention Center, Geraldo Rivera cried Black patients. troops to protect stores from looting. But while holding a dehydrated baby and Katrina was not the first hurricane by doing so, they shifted scarce resources urged the stranded thousands to march where social decisions influenced the away from the search, rescue and evacua- across the bridge into New Orleans’ West devastating outcome. During Hurricane tion of residents whose lives they deemed Bank. Fox correspondent Shepard Smith, Betsy, the low-lying Lower Ninth Ward, less important. also on location and equally distraught, an area almost entirely under the poverty As convoys of National Guard rein- told Rivera and the viewers that the line and 98 percent black, was intention- forcements finally rolled into New people couldn’t march across the bridge ally flooded to “save” the wealthy white Orleans, Louisiana Governor Kathleen as they would be pushed back at uptown neighborhoods. Blanco used the occasion to warn looters gunpoint. They were truly trapped. and assure the ruling class that troops BLAMING VICTIMS were under her orders to “shoot and kill” ENVIRONMENTAL TRIGGER Institutional policies favour ruling if needed to restore order. Meanwhile, The ecological component of this class interests, but the flipside of these people were dying of dehydration disaster is central to its cause. New policies is for purveyors of ruling class throughout the city. Orleans, like many major cities, was built new 36 SOCIALIST in a place that poses natural dangers. toxic floodwaters and dehydrating heat of advantage of the opening to execute Though, danger is inherent in any port or New Orleans. But the ruling class aban- economic development plans that would coastal city, human-made environmental doned New Orleans long before Katrina white-wash the city and permanently problems have severely exacerbated the hit. Racism, environmental disregard and eliminate the Black underclass. But New precarious position of the city. capitalist deference to “the market” for Orleans community organizers, them- Marshes and wetlands help to slow a social planning have long been the hall- selves scattered with the rest of the New hurricane’s effect as it approaches the city. marks of New Orleans. Orleans diaspora, have also come But erosion has diminished the size and Despite assertions that a flood-prone together to fight for the city. Community ability of the coastal marsh and swamp to city filled with so many poor people Labor United, a long-standing commu- absorb a hurricane’s force. Coastal should not be rebuilt, the city will, nity coalition, has established a People’s erosion has two central causes. First, the indeed, be rebuilt. In the coming Hurricane Fund and is seeking to estab- once rich river silt that built the delta is months, public money will trickle into lish a strategy to organize refugees and now being directed to deep waters off the the state. Hotels, casinos, chain stores demand that the city be rebuilt in the continental shelf to allow for easy river and “Disneyfied” developments will interest of the people. Central will be the navigation. A second reason is the salt compete for the sorely needed money and right of return for refugees, training and water intrusion from canals built for oil serve to reinforce a system that was jobs for New Orleanians and community and natural gas drilling and pipeline unable to respond to peoples’ needs input in all aspects of the reconstruction needs. before, during, and immediately after the process. Global warming has contributed to a hurricane. Building a city that responds to deadly hurricane season that is far from people’s needs instead of corporate and over. Global warming generates longer The struggle in New business interests will be an uphill battle. droughts, more intense downpours, more New Orleans was a city in economic frequent heat waves and more severe Orleans offers an decline before the hurricane hit. Bush’s storms. While Katrina began as a rela- recent executive order to disregard tively small hurricane that glanced off opportunity to prevailing wage rates guaranteed by the south Florida, it was supercharged with Davis-Bacon Act for federally-funded by the high sea surface temperatures in promote a different construction projects ensures that many the Gulf of Mexico. jobs generated by the reconstruction And while environmental degradation vision for social efforts won’t be good living-wage jobs. set the stage for Katrina, the aftermath of But living wage jobs are exactly what environmental contamination in the city planning – one that New Orleans needs to bring back is far from clear. While the city will likely displaced residents and give them the be clear of water just a month after the challenges cities chance to rebuild their lives and commu- levy broke, the city will still be awash in nity. The Disney-fication of historic New toxic chemicals, due to a nearby petro- developed for profit Orleans would provide the same low- chemical refinery corridor, a landfill site wage jobs that ensured the cycle of in one of the poorest, predominantly and not for human poverty that existed before Katrina hit. black, and therefore most flooded areas, The challenges are enormous. But and dormant heavy metals in the need. there are also many possibilities. New Industrial Canal. This, combined with Orleans’ unique culture, one of resistance untreated fecal matter and other germs, to the homogenizing forces of world could bring health concerns for years to But New Orleans can be rebuilt with a capitalism, could facilitate the commu- come. different ethos, one with environmentally nity organizing that must happen to save sustainable planning, a vast transporta- the city. REBUILDING NEW ORLEANS tion infrastructure upgrade including The struggle in New Orleans offers an The Bush administration fiddled while public evacuation plans, a bolstered opportunity to promote a different vision New Orleans flooded. The government public works system, creation of stable for social planning – one that challenges failed twice: first to provide basic preven- union jobs, new and improved public cities developed for profit and not for tative infrastructure to protect New schools, renewed investment in the human need. In addition to demanding Orleans and then to enact a plan to public healthcare system and cultivation community control over the city’s recon- rescue those victimized by poor social of participatory neighborhood councils struction, we must link local and planning. An administration built upon as incubators for a new, participatory, and national priorities, such as demanding the promise of “homeland security” could radical democracy among the working that troops deployed in Iraq come home, provide no security for the worst, but class, poor, and oppressed. so that a burgeoning military budget can most predictable, disaster this country The well-heeled of New Orleans are be redirected to social priorities. We – the has seen. meeting with government officials, people – must rebuild New Orleans and Hurricane survivors rightly felt that corporate leaders and developers to the US Gulf South. But we must not they had been abandoned to die in the discuss the fate of the city, eager to take stop there.★ new SOCIALIST 37 The Movement Toward Socialism and Bolivia’s Future: Upcoming Elections and the “Crisis of Democracy”

BY JEFFERY R. WEBBER

n December 4, 2005 Bolivia will already well-advanced patterns of self- was an incredibly vital and democratic be holding a presidential and organization in parts of the countryside political party which served as the Ocongressional election, called in and some urban areas. The MAS, mean- vanguard of considerable sections of the the wake of the massive popular mobi- while, has played along willingly with Left. Its primary focus was on extra- lizations this past May and June that this ruling class strategy and no inde- parliamentary activism rather than elec- brought down ex-president Carlos Mesa pendent political “instrument” on the toral politics. Gisbert. The three central contenders for Left has emerged outside the MAS. One key turning point in the sad the Bolivian presidency are Jorge “Tuto” The key now is to understand the recent history of the party was the 2002 Quiroga, Samuel Doria Medina and Evo political and social landscape as it exists elections when Evo Morales came second Morales. The first two candidates repre- today. To do so, we should have a closer by a hair to Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada. sent competing elements of the divided look at the MAS, as well as the social With this major electoral gain, the party Right, while Evo Morales and the movements, as everyone anticipates the started to shift dramatically toward Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) elections. After that, I offer some guesses winning over the “middle class,” which party represent the largest electoral force on what the near future. has turned now into a fanatical faith in a on the Left. The MAS, it must be said, The MAS grew out of and maintains non-existent progressive national bour- becomes less leftist by the day. its strongest constituency in the geoisie. In the most recent polls Morales led in geographical region called the Chapare in The turn after 2002 was poignantly popular opinion with 27 percent support. the department (province or state) of demonstrated by the absence of a mobi- Simply because the MAS is leading at this Cochabamba. During the 1980s, the lized MAS on the side of social move- point does not mean that they will form Bolivian state, in addition to carrying ments in the key junctures of October the next government, however. The through neoliberal economic restructur- 2003 and May-June 2005. In October, constitution stipulates that when no ing, initiated its “war on drugs” which the MAS was central to facilitating the single candidate for the presidency wins a very obviously was in response to a direc- acceptance of a constitutional exit from majority of the popular vote the President tive from Washington. the situation, allowing Sánchez de must be chosen by Congress from the Cocaleros, or coca growers, bore the Lozada’s neoliberal vice-president Carlos leading candidates. This means that even brunt of the militarized assault on coca Mesa Gisbert to come to power. The in a case where Morales won a plurality – growing in the Chapare region. Through MAS then accepted a truce with Mesa, the most votes of any candidate, but less their struggles to maintain their source of supporting him through the first few than 50 percent – Quiroga and Doria livelihood, organized mainly through months of 2005, until he decided he’d Medina could form a pact between their rural coca growing unions, these peasants had enough with the pact. parties in Congress and ensure that one – a mix of re-located ex-miners of the In May and June of this year, the of them becomes the next President. altiplano and longstanding Indigenous nationalization of gas emerged again as a The ruling class has effectively used the peasants from the region – developed a key popular demand. Evo Morales new election cycle to dry up the social strong ideological mix of Marxism, eclec- refused to take a clear position in favour movement activity that had reached tic Indigenous activism and anti-imperi- of this, and indeed frequently came out historic heights in October 2003 and alism directed overwhelmingly at the against it, instead proposing that only 50 May-June 2005 and to focus demands United States. percent of royalties go to the state. The from the Indigenous poor toward elec- Out of this courageous but relatively MAS also demanded a constitutionally toral, representative “democracy” and localized resistance would eventually be acceptable exit when the masses were, at away from building alternative forms of born the MAS in 1996, with noted various points in May and June, organiz- revolutionary power based on their cocalero leader Evo Morales as its head. ing for control of state power even if this For much of its early history the MAS project from below was never clearly articulated or sustained long enough to Jeffery R. Webber is an editor of New Socialist, a PhD candidate in political science at the make it feasible. University of Toronto, and a witness to the last several months of revolt in Bolivia. Since the elections were called in July

new 38 SOCIALIST however, limits this possibility. The other scenario is more positive, but the threat of a coup would remain a possibility. This is the Venezuelan exit. When Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez first came to power there was no talk of socialism. While the Chavista project still has its limits, it is clearly the most interesting new regime in Latin America in terms of the possibilities for a future of radicalized socialization and the deepening of radical and popular democ- racy, including a growth in self-organiza- tion from below. We can hope that despite the completely instrumental and pathetic electoral politics of the MAS over the last few years, once in power they would be incapable of avoiding at least substantial reforms due to the advanced self-organization of the Bolivian social the metamorphosis of the MAS was made movements will take to blockades and movements. They may be able to buy the complete. It first dallied with the idea of mass marches almost immediately after compliance of some sectors of the move- an electoral coalition with the Movement the elections. Both Quiroga and Doria ments with clientelist hand-outs, but Without Fear (MSM) party, a deplorable Medina are likely to use force, perhaps many social movements are showing political instrument led by La Paz Mayor substantial force, in repressing these signs of independence from the MAS Juan del Granado, who effectively was developments. This may lead to further already. arguing for neoliberalism with a human radicalization and social movement face. advance, or could wipe out social move- POSTSCRIPT These dealings fell apart, however, and ment activity as we’ve known it for the It is now unclear whether the it was eventually decided that prominent last five years. Either of these two candi- December elections will actually take left intellectual and former guerrilla, dates would have the support of place. Two challenges to the constitution- Álvaro García Linera, would be the new American imperialism, though the ality of the elections were recently vice-presidential candidate. This raised Empire prefers Quiroga. brought before the Constitutional Court. the profile of the MAS considerably, with If Evo Morales and Álvaro García One ruling has already passed which the explicit tactical role of the Linera win I see two broad possible declares the upcoming elections to be white/urban García Linera to bring in the scenarios. The first, and worse scenario, is unconstitutional. Under the constitution, “middle class.” a sort of Brazilian exit from the revolu- the 130 seats in the lower house of He has since been on television tionary process. In Brazil, Lula effectively Congress are to be distributed between constantly talking about the necessity of abandoned the working class, socialist each of the country’s nine departments being friendly with the completely and roots of the Workers Party (PT) and has according to demographic shifts, as docu- unalterably reactionary capitalist class of continued with force the neoliberal mented in the latest census. the Santa Cruz department. He also project that preceded him. The results of the latest census in 2001 announced – in a gross invocation of the Social movements would likely react to dictate that seats be taken from the crude and Eurocentric idea that history is the Brazilian exit by mobilizing to departments of La Paz and Potosí (the a series of stages that correspond with the enforce their demands. The MAS would heart of Indigenous-popular struggle) development of capitalist Europe – that lose all legitimacy if it used force to and added to the department of Santa socialism is impossible in Bolivia, except repress these movements. At this point a Cruz (the centre of counter-revolution). perhaps after hundreds of years, when the military coup and the re-establishment of The future is now even more unpre- country will have industrialized through a far-right regime supported by the dictable. What is fairly evident is that “Andean capitalism.” Until then, appar- American state would not be difficult to deep right-wing political and economic ently, socialism is but a utopian dream. imagine. To speculate even more wildly, interests are behind the recent legal actual invasion by the Americans in the tactics of constitutional challenges, POSSIBLE FUTURES case of a revolutionary situation is not out orchestrated to avoid what could be a Speculation on anything but the of the question, especially as they have MAS victory in December. President immediate future in politics is always recently established a military base in Rodríguez is still promising elections. He difficult. But here are some potential Paraguay within 200 kilometres of the is wise to fear the social explosion that scenarios. If either of the two Right wing Bolivian border. The occupation of Iraq, could erupt if they do not take place.★ candidates win, it is likely that the social

new SOCIALIST 39 Virtual Sexuality

BY ALAN SEARS

This article continues the discussion in the article “Sex after Marriage” in the last issue of New Socialist.

e live in a society where sexual that are bought and sold on the market. able person into a thing to be watched, possessed and used is one of the impor- imagery abounds while actual VIRTUAL SEXUALITY sexual practices are secreted tant dimensions of masculinity in this W The virtualization of sexuality on the away, surrounded by walls of privacy and culture. Sexual imagery fits well into this shame. There have been very real gains in internet is one of the many forms in masculine sexual universe. sexual freedom, won through the hard which sexual imagery has proliferated. The internet seems to add a particular struggles such as those waged by women This virtualized sexuality seems to bring inflection to this pattern, one that is for reproductive freedom, by lesbians and out some odd patterns of behaviour. related specifically to commodity gays for human rights, by people of There are people who spend so much fetishism in capitalist society. The inter- colour against forced sterilization and by time consuming internet pornography net presents an excellent medium for the young people for increased autonomy. that they describe it as an addiction. They flight from our actual bodies that capital- But these gains are still very limited, as we actually feel powerless to control the ist social relations stimulate. Video are a long way from having the informa- amount of time they spend on-line games, virtual sexuality and various tion, power and resources required for seeking sexual images. simulated chat communities all include dimensions of leaving our body to enter into the realm of exchange, leaving behind our earthly presence and becom- This virtualized sexuality seems to bring out some ing information. The urge to flee our bodies is very odd patterns of behaviour. There are people who strong in a society where commodities seem to hold all the cards. The experience spend so much time consuming internet of human existence in a capitalist society is largely defined by the experience of pornography that they describe it as an addiction. mindless toil without intrinsic reward, under the control of others. Our life They actually feel powerless to control the amount energy is sucked out of us by work, studies and household labour so that at of time they spend on-line seeking sexual images. the end of the day we just want to be distracted or soothed. Our bodies are full sexual freedom in an environment often wracked with pain as a result of free of harassment and coercion. Romantic attachment has also been repetitive strain and other workplace There seems to be a disjuncture virtualized. I recently heard about injuries, while our minds are numbed by between the proliferation of sexual someone who left a long-term relation- routine and endless boredom. imagery and the code of silence that ship to run off with someone she had This daily experience of bodily drudg- surrounds actual sexual practices (exclud- never actually met in person. The only ery contrasts sharply with the afterlife of ing locker room bravado). In this article, prior contact had been through internet the things people produce. These prod- I am continuing the argument I made in chat. So what is it that makes internet ucts seem to have extraordinary powers, the last issue of New Socialist that this contact and imagery so alluring? most particularly in the realm of disjuncture is grounded in particular Obviously, there are a lot of dimen- exchange where they seem to dictate to us characteristics of capitalist society, specif- sions to this. Men often express the terms of access to them. Gas says, ically commodity fetishism which is the masculinity in sexuality through an “Sorry, no heating oil this winter unless attribution of mystical powers to things objectification of the person who is you cough up more money.” The dollar desired. The transformation of the desir- goes up, stocks go down, suddenly you are out of a job or freezing in the dark. Alan Sears teaches at Ryerson University and is a supporter of the New Socialist Group. The realm of exchange seems to be pretty

new 40 SOCIALIST This fight has many aspects and has been expressed in many ways in feminist, anti- racist, queer and workers’ mobilizations. It is certainly not only about commodity The internet fetishism, but is also about masculine presents an dominance, racism, heterosexism and the excellent oppression of children and people living medium for the flight from our with disabilities. But commodity actual bodies fetishism reminds us that capitalism that capitalist organizes a particular relationship with social relations our bodies that is interrelated with other stimulate. experiences of oppression. Play can take many forms and imagi- nation is a beautiful part of human expe- rience. The struggle to take our bodies back is not about condemning virtual chatting on-line or sexuality, fantasy, shopping or gym great compared to our own humdrum working out at the gym is a flight into membership. Rather, it is about trying to existence. exchange. I am arguing that part of the understand the sources of the particular FLIGHT INTO EXCHANGE allure of these activities comes from the circumstances in which sexuality is It is understandable in this situation fetishism of commodities and the attribu- openly expressed in images while it is that we try to flee our bodies and enter tion of magical powers to the realm of repressed or suppressed in practice. This into the realm of exchange. There are exchange. can only change if we challenge the fundamental social relations that create many ways we can do that. While we are TAKING BACK OUR BODIES shopping, we feel the magical transforma- this experience as we struggle for sexual One of the dimensions of socialist tive power of things tantalizing us. This freedom and against violence and coer- theory, then, needs to be an understand- ★ lasts right up to the moment when we cion. ing of the fight to get our bodies back. actually purchase the thing and get it home, at which point it becomes a mere use value out of the realm of exchange and loses its charms. Another strategy for entering the realm of exchange is to turn our bodies into a product, making it like a thing. We can tattoo our skin, dye our hair, work out at the gym or use make-up and fashion to make our body a product and take it out of the realm of everyday toil in exploitive relations. Seen in this perspective, body- building is about wiping out the actual body and making it into an image-like thing. Virtualization is yet another way to leave our bodies behind. Here we seek to become information, flowing like money through the wires. Desires are inflamed by the very unreality of the virtualized image, which seems to inflect the human body with the magic of commodification. On-line chat allows for disembodied communication, so we can connect with others as if in the realm of exchange. Video games allow us to enter a world of dematerialized interactions, where the dead do not rot. I am not claiming here that the only thing going on when we are shopping,

new SOCIALIST 41 PLUGGIN’ AWAY BY MARK CONNERY Bacteria, Lost and much more

erms! Yuck! Don’t worry: The Field sectarians will enjoy debates on gamma empiricist. A fansite for the character can Guide to Bacteria (Cornell and delta proteobacteria vs cyanobacte- be found at: http://www.inner- GUniversity Press 2003), won’t ria), their role in ecosystems and in moppet.net/locke/. I look forward to hurt you. It might not save your life, but human and other animal bodies. hearing what other lefties think about it will give you a better understanding of It does stand in a good line of scientific this program. what the late Stephen Jay Gould recog- writing accessible to the layperson. Embroideries (Pantheon, 2005) by nized as the dominant life form on Earth. Exercises are centered on bacteria that Marjane Satrapi, author/illustrator of Betsey Dexter Dyer does an exceed- can be seen macroscopically or smelled or Persepolis, reviewed in issue 46 of New ingly fine job of promoting an under- tasted. As she writes in her introduction: Socialist, provides a lovely exploration of standing and appreciation for the diver- “My primary goal throughout has been Iranian women’s sexuality. The premise is sity and utter strangeness of bacteria. ‘bacteriocenticity’ – that is to put myself a tea party where a number of women, of Because of their pervasiveness and invisi- in the place of bacteria. [...] I have tried varying ages, and one older man are bility, they are a subject which many of to see myself as enormously large (as present. The man leaves and they start us don’t do much about except for trying indeed I am – most organisms on Earth talking! About sex! Satrapi captures the to get rid of them. The book is quite are microscopic) and strangely multicel- feel, or at least what I’d imagine the feel, technical and detailed, outlining the lular (most organisms on Earth are of such a conversation with lusts different kinds of bacteria (hardcore unicellular). My range of metabolism is rewarded, thwarted and punished. She quite limited – centering only explores what the no longer left around oxygen respiration – and it Christopher Hitchens has called Iran’s “as takes me years and years to repro- if” culture. “As if” in the sense of the duce...How strange that I don’t Iranian theocrats really not having a hold bud or divide with bacterial on the people. Her quirky and seemingly frequency and efficiency.” plain illustrations are wonderful as are the The book would be perfect for retold stories. It also talks about the biology teachers and students and sexual oppression of Iranian women and anyone else interested in life conveys the jubilation at discovering all processes. Humanity’s hubris is these “dirty” secrets. taking a beating with last year’s Finally, I’d like to recommend shameless tsunami and Katrina and Rita. (http://shamelessmag.com/) magazine. The lovely editors at New Based out of Toronto and produced “for Socialist were kind enough to let girls who get it”, shameless explores issues me see the season debut of Lost. It, relevant to young women. Their summer along with Desperate Housewives, issue has a cover story about female are sign of intelligent life in comics creators, mainstream and alterna- American television. Is it true? tive. It also features articles on an all Picking up on the paranoiac female skateboard crew, Montreal-based themes which underpin late capi- band Lesbians On Ecstasy, Zoe Whittall’s talist culture, Lost features excep- Hot Fat Girl Manifesto, info on War tionally intelligent writing and Child Canada and other really cool stuff. editing. The show is part Survivor, While this reviewer is not keen on Xmas, part No Exit, and part Canterbury a subscription to shameless would be a Tales. My own favourite character perfect gift for thoughtful young women is the namesake of John Locke, the or pro-feminist boys in your family or “great” British imperialist and community. The website also features a message board allowing for dialogue on the magazine or whatever cyber conversa- Mark Connery is a childcare worker and library enthusiast from Toronto. Pluggin’ Away is an tions need arise.★ ongoing column of reviews in New Socialist.

new 42 SOCIALIST TIME TO ORGANIZE

Branches and members of the Germs! Yuck! Read about the New Socialist Group are active in diversity and a number of cities. Call for strangeness of the world of bacteria information about our activities. on the opposite page.

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FOR ALL OTHER AREAS [email protected] (416) 955-1581 Box 167 253 College St Toronto Ontario M5T 1R5 www.newsocialist.org THE NEW SOCIALIST GROUP is an organization of activists working to renew socialism from below as part of today’s struggles. Our socialism is revolutionary and The NSG works with the Québec democratic, committed to working-class self- organization GAUCHE SOCIALISTE emancipation, internationalism and opposition to all forms of oppression. We reject bureaucratic and MONTRÉAL [email protected] authoritarian notions of socialism and look instead to QUÉBEC CITY [email protected] the radical tradition of socialism from below, which and the OUTAOUAIS [email protected] believes that liberation can only be achieved through the activity and mobilization of the oppressed GAUCHE SOCIALISTE themselves. Ideas need to be put into action. So if you CP 52131, Succ, St-Fidele, Québec, G1L 5A4 like what you read, get in touch with us. www.lagauche.com new SOCIALIST 43 Copyright 2004 Haiti Information Project

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