Reading an article in The Observer recently brought my thinking back to the nature of political struggle and the party structures that we have in the nation state.
Lester Brown, an environmental analyst and president of the Earth Policy Institute in Washington has an article in the paper. He has a new book out - Full Planet, Empty Plates– in which he predicts “…ever increasing food prices, leading to political instability, spreading hunger and, unless governments act (will lead to) a catastrophic breakdown in food.”
On one level, we can see this already reflected in price hikes on basic staples like Rice, wheat and other cereal crops. Brown, however, focuses on the geopolitical fall-out.
"Food is the new oil and land is the new gold," he says. "We saw early signs of the food system unravelling in 2008 following an abrupt doubling of world grain prices. As they climbed, exporting countries [such as Russia] began restricting exports to keep their domestic prices down. In response, importing countries panicked and turned to buying or leasing land in other countries to produce food for themselves."
"The result is that a new geopolitics of food has emerged, where the competition for land and water is intensifying and each country is fending for itself.”
We know that millions of people have been killed in wars to control oil supplies. We have been thinking out loud for years about land grabs for the control of water supplies. Is it really such a great leap of imagination to consider ‘interventions’ and regime change to secure the best paddy fields? Palestinian farmers have seen their best land grabbed for years – and not just to house Israeli settlers. Land grabs are far more strategic than that.
Having been involved in the politics of national liberation as well as socialism, I spent many years inside a party based in Ireland, albeit not without international connections and solidarity with other national liberation struggles. For all sorts of reasons, localised, regional or national party political structures matter.
All struggle is relative I suppose, but it is not a cliche to say that indeed times they are a changing.
Do I believe that having national political parties matter as much in the current political dispensation?
I have given this a lot of thought in recent years. Yes, it is true that there is unfinished business here in Ireland. The Good Friday Agreement offers one framework in which republicans and others can pursue a strategy of national unification and deliver social change. There is plenty of argument as to whether these objectives can be successfully delivered. That’s another article.
Progressive people have been elected to chambers, assemblies and parliaments to try and force the pace of change. But, national governments are ignored when it comes to international capitalism. Don’t take my word for it, just observe how the dictate of capital, articulated by the IMF/ECB and others and slavishly implemented by parties of the centre left and/or various shades of right.
We are compartmentalised into our geographical blocs in term of struggles. The fight against the redistribution of wealth to the wealthy is fought at the local, while the enemy operate on the global – or at least the continental. Local and regional democracy, such as it ever existed, has been largely relegated to the distribution of tiny budgets to garner localised political support. Increasingly, local authorities have become useful adjuncts in the privitisation and profiteering of what had been hard won essential services.
We have tried joining together in ideological blocs at European level – within those parliamentary structures, but these are remote structures, distant and aloof from ordinary activists.
In Greece we have seen progressive socialist parties put aside sectarian differences to join battle against a common enemy. That they are fighting largely on their own without the assistance of 'international brigades' is another matter. Things have slid so far and so fast that the challange has become far too big to be left to any individual grouping, however ideologically sound or strategically brilliant.
All activists on the progressive left need to consider the widest possible contact on an international basis – and this should be encouraged and facilitated by political party leaderships. I am afraid that party self-interest is fast becoming an irrelevance given the challenges facing us.
Nationalism is being encouraged – for all the wrong reasons. Instead of facing down fascist, centrist parties and their allies in the media are pandering to rascism and patriotism to steal the thunder and hang on to whatever power they have left - or feel they have left, even if that is only the saleries and trappings of office.
When struggle returns to the that of securing the basics for ourselves and our families (as of course it is and has been for many people in large chunks of the world on a consistant basis) Then 'normal'politics has failed. We need to be creative. Oil, water and food are mere commodities to the capitalist. They will only secure these commodities by ensuring that we – the ordinary folk – are pitted against each other. There has never been a better time to be an internationalist in outlook.
It must be time for (at the very least) a pan European progressive left front – wider than a collection of political parties. Individuals, community organisations, Unions, the creative sector -the arts, film, theatre and literature - and all advocates of progressive political change need to feel that they belong to a large group fighting against a common, deadly enemy.
‘Maybe it’s because…’
by Vincent Wood is available as an eBook from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk and all
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