Terror in Paris is the Result of Imperialist Terror in the Middle East!
Stop France’s and other Imperialist Powers’ Warmongering! No Mobilization of the Army inside France! Defend the Muslim Peoples against Chauvinist Hatemongering and State Repression!
Statement of the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT),
14.11.2015, www.thecommunists.net
1. On Friday evening, 13 November, terrorists – most likely members of Daesh (the so-called Islamic State) – committed six coordinated attacks in Paris which killed 128 people and injured about 200 others. Most of the victims died in the Bataclan concert venue in the French capital during a metal rock band concert after special police stormed the hall where terrorists had taken members of the audience hostage. In addition, attacks were also carried out on three restaurants and a shopping centre. France’s President Francois Hollande declared a state of emergency and deployed 1,500 additional soldiers in Paris. Public transportation has been halted and people have been instructed to stay at home.
2. The Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT) condemns this attack as utterly reactionary. It was not directed against a military target, not even a symbolic target like the racist journal Charlie Hebdo. It was directly against ordinary youth and working-class people. We send our sincerest condolences to the friends and families of the murdered. The attack demonstrates once more the particularly reactionary character of the salafi-takfiri organizations like Daesh/IS, which sets them apart from other reactionary Islamists (because they are mainly fighting against the oppressed and our working class, and not against imperialism or reactionary regimes).
3. The attack is also thoroughly reactionary because it will serve the ruling class to justify and intensify its reactionary offensive against the oppressed people in the Middle East, as well as domestically against the working-class in general and Muslim migrants in particular. President Hollande, the imperialist war-monger in social-democratic disguise, will use this attack as a pretext to send even more warplanes and warships to the Middle East to bomb the Syrian and Iraqi people. The ruling class, led on by the right-wing media, will whip up chauvinist hatred against the sizeable Muslim migrant minority in France, and justify an intensification of the already massive state repression.
4. The truth is that attacks such as these most recent ones in Paris are the direct result of the increasing terror of the Great Imperialist Powers and their local lackeys in the Middle East, combined with the intensifying oppression of migrants in Europe. The Great Powers – including France – have already been occupying and terrorizing the Afghan people for nearly one and a half decades. Then, after having first starved-out the Iraqi people with a cruel war of sanctions that lasted more than a decade after 1991, the imperialists summarily destroyed their country during the war of 2003 and the ensuing occupation. Currently, the Western powers and imperialist Russia are working hand in hand to bomb into submission the resistance in Syria and assist the regime of the serial killer Assad. French imperialism has been particularly vicious in its military offensive. It not only participates in the imperialist offensive in Syria and Iraq, but has also invaded Mali and sent troops to suppress the Muslim minority in the Central African Republic. In addition, imperialist Israel is intensifying the starvation and expulsion of the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank. While in Yemen, the reactionary Al-Saud gang and their local allies – supported by the Great Western Powers – is waging a vicious war of aggression against the people of Yemen. In addition, France and Western Imperialism had no problem with Russia during its mass-slaughter of up to 200,000 persons of the heroic Chechnya people.
5. The combination of unrelenting imperialist state terror and the ongoing rule of arch-reactionary dictatorships allied with one or more of the Great Powers have resulted in an unprecedented wave of terror against the popular masses in the Middle East. The Assad regime – a key ally of imperialist Russia and a long-time collaborator of Western imperialism – alone is responsible for at least 300,000 dead in Syria. At least 450,000 Iraqis have died as a consequence of the US war and its subsequent occupation of that country. The majority of the Palestinian people are forced to live as refugees and/or under the terror of the Zionist war machinery. The imperialists have created a regime of state-sponsored terror throughout the Middle East, and the terror blowing back in the faces of the imperialists is a direct result of the far more violent state terror. Therefore, it will be no surprise if similar terrorist attacks like the most recent one in Paris will take place in other imperialist countries as well.
6. Daesh/IS is a product of years and years of imperialist aggression. The failure of various petty-bourgeois nationalist and Islamist leaderships has resulted in the creation of such a vile, reactionary organization. However, we repeat, it is not the task of imperialism to fight Daesh. However, we repeat that it is not the task of imperialism to fight Daesh, not only because it will only strengthen them, but because the masses of the Sunni people in the Middle East have had to learn in recent years that, in practice, imperialist rule means open terror against them. The US, France and Russia are cynically using this war against Daesh as a pretext to extend their influence and their business interests in the Middle East. No, fighting Daesh/IS is the task of the workers and peasants themselves organized in popular militias, and only the forces of progress can be victorious and achieve the interest of our class.
7. The RCIT emphasizes, yet again, that the current task of socialists is to oppose the pro-imperialist mobilizations – both domestically and abroad – of France as well as other Great Powers. Socialists must not participate in the patriotic, pro-imperialist mobilizations which the Hollande government will certainly now be organizing. Instead they should organize independent rallies which condemn the terrorist attack alongside the racist and militarist policy of the Hollande government.
8. Socialists must defend Muslim migrants and mobilize against the imperialist war drive of the Hollande government as well as those of the US, UK, Israel, and Russia. Socialists must state clearly that the main enemy is not the reactionary jihadists, but the Hollande government and the Great Powers. They are responsible for the killing of far more people, and bear on their backs many more evil crimes. It is urgent that socialists make a serious effort to win the workers’ movement over to a resolute campaign in solidarity with the liberation struggles in the Middle East, as well as with the refugees, and against the imperialist war-drive. Obviously, such a campaign has to include a sharp denunciation of all those reformist and centrist forces which fail to take a consistent anti-imperialist and internationalist position.
9. Finally, we stress the necessity of building new revolutionary parties – in France and world-wide. Only such parties can provide revolutionary leadership as the only alternative to both reactionary Islamists as well as reformists. Without such parties being united in a single, new revolutionary International, the working class in France and the oppressed peoples of the Middle East cannot hope to succeed in fighting effectively against their enemies. Only such parties – as part of the Fifth Workers International – can fight for a consistent program of equality for migrants and for the defeat of imperialism in the Middle East. Only a revolutionary world party can succeed in the international struggle for socialist revolution.
Death to imperialism! Down with Daesh/IS! Avenge the murdered by fighting against imperialism and all forms of oppression!
International Secretariat of the RCIT
On our position on the terrorist attack on Charlie Hebdo in January 2015 see:
RCIT: France after the Attacks in Paris: Defend the Muslim People against Imperialist Wars, Chauvinist Hatemongering, and State Repression! 9.1.2015, http://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/europe/statement-paris-attacks/
Michael Pröbsting: France: “Communist” Party fails to Vote in Parliament against Imperialist War in Iraq! 15.1.2015, http://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/europe/french-pcf-iraq-war/
Michael Pröbsting: After the Paris Attack: Socialists must Join Hands with Muslim People Against Imperialism and Racism! Reformist and Centrist Forces try to derail the Workers
Movement by Failing to Stand up for Solidarity with the Muslims and Against Imperialist War-Mongering! 17.1.2015, http://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/europe/france-defend-muslims/
Michael Pröbsting: The Racist Character of Charlie Hebdo and the pro-imperialist campaign “Je Suis Charlie”. Solidarity with Muslim People! NOT Solidarity with Charlie Hebdo!
17.1.2015, http://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/europe/racist-charlie-hebdo/