"Resisting the Clash"

Marhaba Europe Tour

Fear is quickly becoming again the main foundation for power in the
post-sept 11 world. For a long time, thanks to the living memory of
colonialism and World War II, those in power had to pay lip service
to the values that stood at the core of liberation struggles in all
continents, such as equality, freedom, justice, anti-racism, a fair
distribution of wealth, democracy of some form or another, etc. But
people are now bombarded all over the world on a daily basis with
messages designed to provoke a shift in their priorities. Human
rights and emancipatory social values, which for 50 years were held
as the goal by most of the world's population, are losing ground at
increasing speed as mainstream media and so-called 'experts'
and 'academics' continue promoting the security paranoia, the idea
that we need a strong state that is able to keep suspicious strangers
under control, and the racist notion that we are at the beginning of
a long-lasting conflict between 'cultures' or 'civilisations'.This change in priorities happens at a time when, despite all
attempts at beautification, global capitalism can no longer hide its
outrageously violent, destructive and divisive character, and now
that its effects are also starting to be felt by the white middle
class of Europe and North America (who were previously protected
against it by the welfare state, the remains of the New Deal, etc).
History has shown that oppressive systems can be strong and stable if
a large share of the population supports them, but if they lose their
legitimacy, the same systems become volatile, expensive to maintain
and vulnerable.
However, history has also often proven that in the absence of
legitimacy, the status quo can nonetheless still be preserved by
fostering fear, and that there is nothing better to distract
attention from injustice than using all means available to focus this
fear (and the corresponding hatred) on an external (or
internal) "collective enemy". This is the beginning of quasi-fascism,
and it is what we are witnessing today, as mutual hatred between
different cultural, religious, national or 'ethnic' identities is
encouraged all over the world.1

On a much more positive note, this is also a historical opportunity
to strengthen alliances of resistance all over the world. We are
living through times of rapid change, and the direction which these
changes take depends primarily on the response of our societies to
them. One of the few good things about the 'divide and rule'
strategies is that they can only work if the people who are being
pitted against each other don't know much about each other and hardly
have any contact or cooperation. This kind of isolation, which
enabled the cold war to last so long, is something that we can
successfully fight against. Grassroots groups cannot compete in
militaristic terms with the established powers, but we can dismantle
the mental framework on which their authority is based.

The speakers tour "Marhaba Europe!" is precisely a rallying call
against the racism and violence fostered by the 'clash of
civilisations' agenda, a cry to increase the contact and cooperation
across the Mediterranean through a better mutual knowledge between
people and grassroots groups in Europe and the Middle East. We are
focusing on this part of the world for obvious reasons (such as the
brutal violence inflicted by ruthless colonial regimes in Palestine
and Iraq and by corrupt neo-colonial regimes in many other countries,
the demonisation of people of different religions, nationalities or
cultures among increasing sectors of the population of the Israeli,
European and Arab states, the almost generalised growth of the
extreme right that this provokes, the increasingly inhuman and
disturbing nature of responses to oppression across the region, etc)
We would like to contact people interested in working on these lines
anywhere in the world. We are already in contact with people who are
planning a similar initiative in North America, and would love to get
in touch with people wanting to work in a similar direction
elsewhere.

The main objective of this project is to contribute to undermining
the imposition of the "clash of civilisations" agenda by promoting
more contact and solidarity between grassroots struggles across the
region, all over the world. The incredibly rich forms of grassroots
resistance and creativity that we want to help connect include anti-
colonial struggles, emancipatory struggles of women, queers and
minorities, the rejection of racism and xenophobia in all its forms,
and the efforts to overthrow authoritarian or oppressive regimes and
social practices everywhere. Although Palestine and Iraq are (again
for obvious reasons) in the focus of attention, we hope to motivate
groups all over Europe to collectively shape international
cooperation projects together with diverse organisations in the
Middle East and the North of Africa.

With these tours we would also like to foster connections with lots
of untapped cooperation potential. For example, most groups working
in Europe against the corporations and governments that determine our
energy policy focus on environmental questions (climate chaos, oil
spills, transportation policy, etc). These same corporations and
governments are behind the neo-colonial regimes of the Middle East,
which provoke widespread resentment and frustration among their
populations. Although this is a well-known fact, often denounced by
the environmental groups in Europe as part of their texts and
protests, most of them do not have any direct contact with grassroots
organisations in Arab countries. Connecting the different forms of
resistance against those governments and companies would certainly be
one of the best ways to challenge the oil economy. We are totally
aware that making these connections is easier said than done
(particularly to groups with less access to resources and
technology), and that maintaining balanced relationships across
continents is probably even more difficult. But we also believe that
it is totally possible if it is given enough priority. This project
aims at inspiring all kinds of grassroots groups in Europe to give
priority to this kind of connections, and to strengthen those already
existing and the obvious first step is to get to know a small sample
of the wealth of emancipatory struggles in the Middle East.2

We are aware that many important struggles and issues related to the
Middle East and the North of Africa have been left out of the
speakers' tours and this magazine due to lack of capacity. Among them
are the Almazigh (aka Bereber), Kurdish and Saharahoui struggles, the
resistance against ruthless regimes in countries like Algeria, Saudi
Arabia, etc. The ones that are included (Palestine & Iraq, feminist
and queer struggles, independent media, etc) will be treated
superficially. Furthermore, this magazine uses concepts that we
reject, since it would become extremely obscure and difficult to read
if we didn't use words such as, for instance, 'civilisation' (an
extremely dubious and ideologised way to classify people in abstract
categories that are useful to the 'divide and rule' game). We do not
see any of this as a problem, since we do not claim (nor desire) to
have an all-encompassing analysis or ideology. We rather want to
foster a process of increased cooperation and exchange in a framework
that has room for diversity, while being based on a number of clear
principles, which will develop over time.

Among these principles, one that we consider particularly important
is to promote the self-critical analysis of our societies and
struggles. Comments boxes 1 to 3 (below) provide brief examples for this kind of
analysis from Palestine, Israel and Europe. These excerpts relate the
domestic growth of racism, the extreme right and neo-colonial
policies to the development of global capitalism.

The speakers tours "Marhaba Europe!" will finish with an
international networking meeting to plan future projects and actions,
and find ways to make this process of resistance against the "clash
of civilisations" agenda more broad-based, inclusive and effective.
It will take place in Easter 2005 and you are all invited.

Footnotes

1. It should be noted that
this is not a symmetrical situation, since people from the South have
been exploited, oppressed and exterminated by people from Northern
countries in ways that have never been experienced in the opposite
direction. But while this is an important fact to bear in mind and it
is vital to reverse this vast historical injustice, it does not
justify any form of collective hatred based on nationality, skin
colour or cultural affiliation.

2. In August 2003, grassroots social movements from all over
the Mediterranean area and other parts of the world met in Barcelona
for a gathering at which this project was conceived. Many movements
that attended this gathering didn't have previous contact with other
movements in the region. For most grassroots organisations from Arab
states, international networking is difficult due to mobility
restrictions and economic disparities. Most European grassroots
groups were already internationally connected, but their contacts in
Arab countries and Israel are extremely limited (except in
Palestine), and their knowledge about social dynamics in these
countries is often influenced by mainstream stereotypes. Anti-Zionist
grassroots movements in Israel hardly have any contact with
grassroots organisations in Arab states, other than in Palestine.
This was one of the main reasons for us to facilitate this project.