Skeleton Coast

 

Credit: BigSugarDaddy

"Namib: Skeleton Coast and Beyond" is a BBC nature documentary in the series "Eden: Untamed Planet". This time the BBC crew did manage to find an area almost devoid of Homo sapiens: the Namib, a coastal desert in southern Africa. Unless I´m mistaken, the docu is taped in the Namibian-Angolan border region. 

For a "desert", I have to say that the Namib is teaming with life, both large and small. Among the larger are lions, enormous flocks of ostriches, oryx, giraffes, elephants, fur seals, jackals and hyenas. The elephants consume seeds containing water, while the jackals and hyenas (unsurprisingly) eat dead seal cubs, the seals themselves of course consuming fish. 

100 days of the year, the sand dunes of the Namib are watered by sea fog, the same fog that makes the coastal area dangerous for ships, earning it the nickname "Skeleton Coast". All kinds of smaller animals thrive on the dunes (and in them): termites, ants, frogs, scorpions...

After seeing this, I wonder whether humans might be the only life form that usually avoids this region! 

"Namib: Skeleton Coast and Beyond" ends with the usual climate change pitch, the temperature in the desert rising, but I somehow suspect that these creatures will survive or even thrive regardless...or simply move. The Namib desert has apparently existed for 55 million years, so it´s not clear to me why it would need "saving" at all. 

Yes, this is Eden.   

Veckans Strasser

Är det här sant? Jag tänker på det han skriver om MPLA och UNITA. Bland annat...

"När ska afrikaner be om ursäkt för slavhandeln?"

Don't show this to Uncle Charlie

"Nation or Class?" is a pamphlet published by the International Communist Current (ICC), a small and somewhat peculiar left-wing radical group. The ICC claim adherence to the so-called Left Communist or ultraleftist tradition, associated with Anton Pannekoek, Herman Gorter and (rightly or wrongly) also with Amadeo Bordiga. The ICC's most immediate ideological precursor seems to be the Italian Left Fraction in Exile, an ultraleftist group in France during the 1930's. The Left Communists were anti-Stalinist, but nevertheless rejected the Trotskyist movement. The Trotskyists, in turn, accused the Left Communists of being hopeless sectarians. This is somewhat ironic, since - of course - Trotskyism was accused of pretty much the same thing by stronger anti-Stalinist left parties such as the Spanish POUM, the British ILP or Norman Thomas' Socialist Party in the United States. Scattered Left Communist groups of rather diverse kinds still exist today, with the ICC being one of the more visible groups. Well, at least if you use a magnifying glass! The ICC has always been strongly sectarian and completely isolated from most of what counts for leftist politics, something the group apparently takes a certain pride in.

"Nation or Class?" is an ICC pamphlet arguing against any kind of support for national liberation movements. The ICC admits that national liberation could sometimes play a positive role during the "ascendant" epoch of capitalism, but with World War I capitalism definitely entered its epoch of "decadence", making genuine national liberation struggles impossible and presumably undesirable. The ICC criticizes Lenin and the Bolsheviks for their support to national liberation struggles, while arguing that Rosa Luxemburg's position on the matter was better. They make a connection between Lenin's and Luxemburg's different analysis of imperialism, and their respective positions on national liberation. To the ICC, the world of decadent capitalism has been decisively portioned between imperialist great powers. Even worse, *all* nations - even the smallest - are forced to conduct an imperialist policy. Thus, "national liberation" either means that a nation passes from the control of one great power to another, or becomes an imperialist bully in its own right, or both.

It should be noted that the ICC regards the regimes in the Soviet Union, China and elsewhere as "state capitalist" and hence just as imperialist as the United States, Britain or France. Thus, national liberation struggles during the Cold War were, to the ICC, simply a way of former Western colonies to become hirelings of Russian imperialism instead. In rare cases, the trend went in the opposite direction, as when Israel went from Soviet asset to Western ally, or when Siad Barre's regime in Somalia switched its allegiance from the Soviet Union to the United States. In even rarer instances, formerly subjugated nations managed to become imperialist great powers in their own right (China).

The ICC attacks Vietnam with special venom, presumably because most of the left supported North Vietnam and the NLF during the Vietnam War. ICC's attacks on Vietnam sound surprisingly "right-wing": peasants in North Vietnam resisted collectivization, peasants in South Vietnam fled before the North Vietnamese army, the reunited Vietnam has forced labour as in Pol Pot's Cambodia, and its bullying of Cambodia or the Chinese minority is "imperialist". Another target of the pamphlet is the Congolese rebel movement which attempted to invade Katanga from bases in Angola. Apparently, the rebels were former supporters of pro-Western strongman Moise Tshombe, temporarily allied with the pro-Soviet MPLA regime in Angola. Angola, of course, was another favourite nation of leftist solidarity activists...

Obviously, "Nation or Class?" wasn't intended to win any leftist popularity contest!

Since the ICC rejects *all* support to national liberation movements, no matter how temporary or tactical, the only alternative is a "straight" working-class revolution, during which the workers reject, once and for all, all forms of nationalism and imperialism, both domestic and foreign, and strike out on their own, with soviets and red guards, in a kind of simplistic reprise of the 1917 October revolution in Russia. Then, the revolution must be immediately spread around the world, with force of arms if necessary. National self-determination will not be granted after the revolution either. Here, the ICC supports Rosa Luxemburg's position. Luxemburg criticized the Bolsheviks for having granted national self-determination to Finland, the Ukraine and other non-Russian regions after the October revolution. The only alternative to national liberation is the "world-wide civil war" between the working class and the bourgeoisie, and the subsequent construction of a "world human community" after the victory of the world revolution.

I admit that "Nation or Class?" is somewhat more interesting than ICC texts on average, so I will therefore grant it three stars. But no, I can't say I agree with ICC's truly ultraleft position on matters national...

Another excellent collector´s item

"Ornitologia de Angola" is a voluminous work on the birds of Angola, published in Portugal by Instituto de Investigacao Cientifica Tropical. The publication date given is 1983. The author's name is Antonio Augusto Da Rosa Pinto. This is the first volume, "Non Passeres" (i.e. non-passerines). It's possible that no sequel was ever published - I haven't seen one.

The introduction is bilingual (Portuguese and English), but the species presentations are in Portuguese. The plates are excellent. Each plate only shows one specimen, and could almost be considered works of art in their own right. Besides, many of the Angolan birds are exotic or just plain bizarre, at least to those of use more used to house sparrows or crows! What are we to make of Macrodipteryx vexillarius, for instance? Otherwise, I found it striking that a book on Angolan avifauna isn't published in Angola, but in the old colonial power of Portugal. Presumably, Angolans had other things on their mind that studying the Macrodipteryx...

Be that as it may, I give this book four stars. It's probably of limited use to non-Portuguese speakers, but could be an excellent collector's item, and would sure impress any jaded bird-watchers in your area.

Back to the future

"In defense of socialism" is a collection of four speeches given by Fidel Castro in 1988-89, during the celebrations of the 30th anniversary of the Cuban revolution.

The speeches are relatively uninteresting in and of themselves. They mostly deal with two subjects. First, the Cuban-MPLA-SWAPO military victory in southern Angola. Second, the so-called rectification in Cuba itself, a kind of "anti-perestroika" in which Castro attempted to bring back the early, "heroic" period of the Cuban revolution. The rectification emphasized voluntary labour in the form of "microbrigades" and special building workers' brigades, and took its cue from the economic ideas of Che Guevara, largely scrapped during the 1970's.

Both topics covered in this book seems to have been dealt with more extensively elsewhere, and it's not clear why anyone should buy this particular volume, except perhaps for nostalgic reasons.

"In defense of socialism" was published in 1989 by Pathfinder, the publishing arm of the U.S. Socialist Workers Party (SWP), an ex-Trotskyist organization which acted as a virtual propaganda arm of the Cuban regime during this period. The book therefore has a foreword written by a leading member of this party, Mary-Alice Waters. It deals almost exclusively with the rectification campaign, emphasizing the differences between the Cuban and Soviet models (the SWP, somewhat idiosyncratically, was anti-Soviet while being pro-Cuban).

I was actually present at the public launch meeting of this book in Sweden, at which the Cuban ambassador spoke for several hours (almost like Castro himself). I don't remember the exact month, but 1989 was the year when the Berlin Wall came tumbling down and socialism collapsed in Eastern Europe. This and the collapse of the USSR two years later forced the Cuban leadership to change course once again, scrapping rectification and the economic thought of Che Guevara in favour of "the special period" and eventually, market reforms. This made "In defense of socialism" seem very dated almost from start.

But yes, Cuba is still broadly socialist, and the SWP still support it...

For how long, remains to be seen.

Push the button

"War, Peace and the Function of the Socialist Countries" is a small book published by Scientific, Cultural and Political Editions, an arm of the Posadist international organization. It contains a selection of articles by Juan Posadas on the threat of nuclear war. Except, of course, that J Posadas didn't see nuclear war as much of a threat. This guy literally wanted the Russians to push the button!

The Posadists were originally a pretty regular left-wing current (give or take a few ideas), which supported workers' and peasants' struggles in Latin America. Or so they claim. They were involved in the MR-13 guerillas in Guatemala, embezzling most of that organization's money. The guerrilla subsequently had the Posadistas expelled.

Around 1968, Posadas and his dwindling band of followers definitely went mustang. In a rambling speech in France, Posadas declared his belief in UFOs and aliens, claiming that these beings, described as "two metres tall, fair haired and with transparent clothes", must be socialists from other star systems. He hoped that the aliens might land and help us overcome our present problems. Naturally, this socialist ufology made the Posadists the laughing stock of the entire left. (In fact, the rest of the speech is even more bizarre. See Matt Salusbury's article on Juan R. Posadas at the website of Fortean Times.)

The Posadists soon became notorious for another idea as well, and this time their opponents weren't amused. Posadas believed that a nuclear war was inevitable, that it would lead to socialism, and that China or the USSR should therefore launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike to speed up the world revolution. The Soviets actually started to mention Juan Posadas in their propaganda, as a particularly egregious example of a "Trotskyist" and enemy of peace. At least according to rumour, Posadas had sent a telegram to Soviet leader Brezhnev, calling on him to nuke the United States ASAP. According to Salusbury's previously mentioned article, Posadas had toyed with ideas such as these already during his pre-UFO period.

Which finally brings me to the present publication under review. "War, Peace and the Function of the Socialist Countries" contains articles by Posadas written in 1978-81. On one point they will disappoint the reader. There's no explicit call on Moscow to launch World War III. Rather, Posadas puts all the blame for the future war on the Western powers. However, he claims that the Soviet bloc is militarily stronger, and will retaliate by launching nuclear war heads against Western Europe. Posadas even believes that the Russians are stashing nuclear weapons onboard the Soyuz space station, and that these can wipe out the United States within minutes. It's not clear how anyone is going to survive a nuclear war, but Posadas is confident that although hundreds of millions of people will be killed and large parts of the technological apparatus destroyed, human "intelligence" will remain and no scientific gain lost, making it possible to swiftly rebuild everything again, and usher in world socialism on an even higher level than capitalism. Of course, the aliens could help, too, but they are not mentioned in this book. (It just struck me how similar this is to doomsday scenarios of certain religious cults!)

There are many other delusional claims in this pamphlet. The Polish workers are hailed for their "Bolshevik-Soviet" behaviour. This was written during the high tide of Solidarnosc! Posadas died in 1981, and hence didn't get the opportunity to comment on Jaruzelski's state of emergency. It's possible that he actually supported a negotiated settlement between the regime and Solidarnosc - his statements are unclear on this point.

Further, Posadas believes that Carter was much stronger than Reagan. Above all, he believes that the Soviet Union is much stronger than the United States (in 1981!). The masses all over the world support the Soviet Union, and a Soviet military conquest of the West will therefore be very swift. The Russians already have the support of about half of all soldiers in the NATO armies, and even much of the military high command is going to defect once the Soviet Armed Forces start moving. Germany and France will be the first to turn coat. Apparently, even Thatcher's Britain is on the verge of breaking with the "Yanks". (It's unclear how all this is connected to the previously mentioned nuclear war.)

It's obvious from the pamphlet that Posadas, despite claiming to be a Trotskyist, actually supported the Soviet Union. Naturally, he couldn't support Stalin, but he somehow wanted to believe that "Stalinism" ended when Stalin died. Khrushchev (whose name the editors consistently misspell) was somewhat better, and Brezhnev is apparently the best of them all. At times, Posadas' pro-Soviet attitude becomes truly demented, as when he exclaims that there are no murders or violent crimes in the Soviet Union, whereas in the United States, even presidents are assassinated. (Well, perhaps there *are* fewer random murders in police states? I mean, who wants to end up in Siberia?) This man strikes me as a kind of parody on Soviet propaganda.

Otherwise, I was struck by his strong determinism and fatalism. World history inexorably marches on, and there is nothing anyone can do about it. This strong determinism also strikes me as parody (or perhaps caricature) of dogmatic Soviet Marxism. Otherwise, I always get the impression when reading Posadas that he doesn't really believe in "the revolutionary role of the working class", but rather looks to scientists, engineers, technocrats and perhaps bureaucrats to change the system and save humanity. Yet, he has no real conception of how difficult and protracted societal changes can be. Posadas seems to think that places such as North Korea, Angola or Ethiopia went from literally nothing to advanced socialism overnight, and is honestly impressed by this fact. Small wonder he assumes that humanity can rise, as a phoenix, from the ashes of a nuclear conflagration.

"War, Peace and the Function of the Socialist Countries" isn't the most graceful read around, but its somewhat more well-written and somewhat less rambling than many other texts by this curious author, and for that reason I give it three stars.