14 ^th International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties

Comrades,

We have witnessed mass uprisings in the Arab world over the last 2 years. The people have stood firmly against the autocratic aparatus of royal, czar and even republic dictators in many countries of North Africa and Middle East, where one country has on the one hand affected its neighbours while at the same being affected by them.
Inequality in its law and lack of democracy and freedom is the general character of autocratic regimes, which plays a vital role as one of the reasons for the uprisings. The impoverished people have filled the streets with slogans of freedom and justice.

While each uprising undoubtedly comprises authentic and different developments from one another against the autocracy, a special feature that is common to all is the 2008 crisis which has been deepened by monopolised capitalism with its neoliberal attacks, leaving an unbearable consequences that eventually burst out. Another slogan of the uprising then, became employment and livelihood.
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While the revolt against autocracy and capitalism started in Tunisia and eventually spread to Egypt, without exeption, each of the countries that underwent such experience had a special characteristic, which earned its place in history as victorious revolutions. The anger of the people was not sacred or as some people put it “a game of America”; it was real. Although millions of working people, the oppressed, took practical responsibility of the revolution to express their yearning, they were unable to act as the vangaurd of their class due to class consciousness and low level of organisational skills. Therefore the people were unable to give the revolutions, which was a product of their labour, a distinguishing feature; making the revolutions to the advantage of their class interest. They were unable to prevent the bourgeioesie (those who were previously pushed to the opposition) and their conservative religious ideological flows and political organisations from taking the revolution out of their hands.

Without a doubt, revolutions in the Arab world are still far from reaching an end. And again without a doubt, the fruits of the revolution are being enjoyed by exploited masses who are the real forces behind it, not by the change of regime between the bourgeois classes who exlude the masses from participation but as a result of a series of advantages gained by the revolution; it cannot be doubted during the fall of the autocrats that the democratic rights earned are not result of the revolutions. Perhaps the establishment of non-cooperative trade unions, the road towards free-elections and freedom of press is a manner of motion experiences of independent class actions and this is a representation of the achievements. The millions who came on the stage of history gained self-consciousness with joyful initiative and tested their ability and strength of the struggle with (almost) newly formed organisations. The exploited masses continued to protect the advantages which they gained from various attacks of the bourgeoisie, and for this reason the people have not abandoned the struggle; revolution has not ended.

The emperialists and their agents learned from the lessons when they were caught off-guard in Tunisia and throughout the period of the uprisings intervention of these powers grew larger and successfully shifted the product of the revolutions to their advantage.

It was irrefutable that the defeated autocratic dictatorships relied externally on Western imperialists and internally on a minority of monopoly owning bourgeoisie who marginalised political Islamists with their so-called modernist political agenda. Contrary to what they would have us believe, there was no “democratic”, “reformist” reasons behind the imperialist support for overthrowing these dictatorships, furthermore the imperialists had no such concerns, and neither will they ever have.
The autocratic dictatorships were relied upon by the imperialists for tens of years for the purposes of pillaging, looting and furthering their hegemonic aims. However when these dictatorships became unable to control and suppress the popular uprisings, they lost their meaning and importance for the western imperialists. The western imperialists, like the popular Turkish proverb, ‘discarded them after squeezing them like lemons’. They had never stopped interfering in the world and the Middle East. It was not because the western imperialists had moved away from supporting backward ideas, it was precisely for this reason that they continued doing exactly as they had done in the past and this time in an environment of uprisings they saw this as an opportunity and tried to use it as a lever and were successful because of the lack of consciousness and organisation amongst the population. They did not side with the ‘spring’, neither did they organise the ‘spring’ as a ‘colourful revolution’ or social engineering; but they did seek to strengthen their dominance in the region by paving the way for political Islamist groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood to benefit from the uprisings by participating or appearing to participate in the rebellion in order to further their own interests. Secular autocratic regimes had finally become unable to control the public and a need had arisen to broaden the remit of the restrictive foundations of the dominant regressive politics. And the Muslim Brotherhood, even the Salafis, were ready for this because for the last few decades they had worked to align themselves with neoliberal politics, had grown economically, and had been seeking to improve its relationships with the West. Thereafter the exploited masses, would become participants, and duped into being controlled using force and repression. For example, in Egypt, since the withdrawal of the generals, the Muslim Brotherhood and their partners are benefiting from the gains of the revolution in order to challenge those supporting the generals. In Tunisia, the progressive’s democrats and the revolutionaries are challenged first and foremost by En Nahda.

Imperialist interventions following the popular uprisings have mainly been achieved by using political Islam to further imperialist aims and has been following different unique methods in each country. Whilst in Tunisia and Egypt the Muslim Brotherhood have been complicit in quelling the uprisings, in Libya the imperialists have claimed to support the uprising and have forced those rebels stuck in cross-fire to invite them in for support with direct military intervention. In Syria, the imperialists have not been able to do this but such attempts are being made via alternative means. This is because the Assad regime is strong enough to stand up to the imperialists and because the Syrian public are against foreign interventions. The formula found against this, is to support and organise political Islam, arm them so that they can begin to dismantle the regime and reduce its stronghold. In order to achieve this the Saudi and Qatar reactionary regimes have been key supporters and Turkish reactionism has been assigned as the officer, and the Turkey-Syria border has become a pro-Muslim Brotherhood, Salafi, Al-Qaeda source of safe passage for these anti-establishment terrorist groups. For some time, the terrorist organisation, Free Syrian Army (FSA) headquarter was in Hatay in the Apaydin Camp and this opposition was supported politically by the Syrian National Council in Istanbul. Unlike the other Arab countries, in the case of Syria there was an attempt to weaken the Syrian regime by using sectarian tactics.

We, the communists from Turkey, first and foremost declare that no country has a right to intervene in the internal affairs of another country and condemn the Turkish reactionary attack and promotion of the violence against Syria and confirm that we do not approve of such action. Firstly we respect the sovereignty of our neighbours and stress that it is an essential principle for neighbours to be able to live in peace together. There is no need to support the regime of other countries in order to respect a country’s right to sovereignty. Changing of a regime in any country is a right and decision solely for the people of that country and no ‘higher moral purpose’ can give any external forces the right to deprive the people of this right. Claims about ‘Assad oppressing the public’, and for freedom and democracy cannot justify the intervention by one country into another country’s internal affairs.

On the other hand, it is the sacred right of the people to oppose the bourgeoisie powers that rule them. The power lies in the people against imperialist intervention and destruction, and the first lesson to be learnt from the Arab popular uprisings is that internal and external reactionism, imperialists and their collaborators must be fought by a united struggle for independence and democracy. However, another valuable lesson is that for national and social emancipation, the battle against imperialists and their collaborators must be fought together with the anti-capitalist struggle and jointly with people’s independence movements. For the exploited masses the fundamental lesson must be this: It is not sufficient to fight just for freedom and democracy. To prevent being deceived by the bourgeoisie movements the exploited masses must have their own programme and organisation with represents and defends their own interests. It is only in these circumstances that the blood they have shed for the revolution will reach a successful outcome and their emancipation can be used to establish their own government and set up a government of the people.

Mehmet Ozer
Member of the Central Committee
of the Labour Party (EMEP), Turkey