Daily Times

There has been a never-ending chorus on the virtues of democracy and human rights by Pakistan’s liberal, secular and the ex-left intelligentsia, especially since the fall of the Berlin Wall. US imperialism’s democratic credentials are projected as a solution to the horrors of fundamentalism. Imperialism’s naked and brutal aggression in the region is overtly and covertly being peddled as a panacea whereas the dirty and long history of US imperialism’s tyrannous colonial subjugation is conveniently ignored.

The record of US imperialism at home is not far behind their record abroad. The US proletariat and working class youth are also its victims of economic oppression and state atrocities. US society suffers from extreme inequality, food inflation, wage freezes, expensive health and education, crime and corruption of the elite and a relentless exploitation of labour. On top of this, African American and Hispanics, the most exploited section of the population, are facing racial discrimination. John Peterson, a US Marxist writer, exposes the reality of the US’s ruling classes and the myth of ‘differences’ between the two main bourgeois parties that have dominated US politics till now.

He writes, “The ugly face of Obama’s ‘hope we can believe in’ has been starkly revealed. The extrajudicial killings of Michael Brown, Eric Garner and 12-year-old Tamir Rice, all unarmed black males killed by white police officers, have set off an emotional firestorm of protests and outrage on a scale not seen in the US in many years. Even more than the deaths themselves, it was the refusal of two separate grand juries to indict the police who killed Brown and Garner that pushed things over the edge. In particular, the video of the murder of Garner, choked to death as he begged police to stop with cries of, ‘I can’t breathe!’ has shocked the US and the world.”

There has been a spontaneous response to this cruelty with tens of thousands of people from virtually every ethnic and cultural background participating in this massive upheaval. Many protesters in solidarity with Ferguson and Ayotzinapa have linked these killings with the state’s brutality and collusion with drug cartels in Mexico. The videos of police shootings and abuse are now widely available and the lie that the police are here to “serve and protect” has been exposed. Mainstream media coverage has, predictably, shifted from a somewhat more sombre portrayal of the initial facts and public response, to sensationalised focus on the few violent window-smashing anarchists and police provocateurs. These are the early beginnings of a sea change in cognisance of real class interests and balance of forces in US society. It represents the emergence of a new wave of united working class, youth action and solidarity, albeit at an embryonic, individual and uncoordinated level. Reflecting the ever-greater integration and concentration of the economy, changing demographics and increased access to culture and media, attitudes towards race have shifted dramatically over the last few years. Not only has a black president been elected, but also it will be far more difficult for the ruling class to crassly play the race card and drive a wedge amongst workers in the future.

It was a necessity that expressed itself through this cruel accident and made its way to the surface. Indignation over unremitting racism and abuse has tapped into a deep reserve of frustration. Millions of US citizens, particularly the youth, have long felt impotent in the face of social and economic powers seemingly beyond their control. Illusions in the impartiality of the US justice system or in an allegedly post-racial US have been shattered. While movement is limited mostly to raw anti-racist solidarity and anger against police brutality, it nonetheless marks a qualitative change. More and more people are drawing the conclusion that the problems they face have deeper roots that cannot merely be ignored or wished away.

The US has a long and sordid history of racism and state brutality. The differential treatment of black and white rebels after Bacon’s rebellion in 1676, hanging, whipping and sectioning of Nat Turner following his failed slave uprising in 1831, the police dogs set on peaceful marchers in Birmingham in 1963, the police bombing of MOVE activists in Philadelphia in 1985, the 1991 videotaped beating of Rodney King in Los Angeles, to the cold-blooded murder in 1999 of unarmed immigrant Amadou Diallo, shot 19 times by the NYPD are some of the harrowing episodes of the bloody thread of repression and horror that can be traced back for centuries and continues even today.

According to the FBI’s own figures, there are over 400 “justifiable homicides” each year involving the police killing citizens. The Wall Street Journal recently investigated officer-involved deaths at 105 of the nation’s 110 largest police departments and found that federal data failed to include or misinterpreted hundreds of fatal police encounters. John continues, “Although legalised discrimination and segregation were formally ended through mass struggles in the past, crushing inequality and discrimination remains at poverty levels, access to healthcare, housing, education, incidence of heart disease, diabetes and overall quality of life and expectancy have gone down. But it is perhaps most outrageous when it comes to the use of police violence. Institutional discrimination means blacks and Latinos are generally more concentrated in poorer areas where a cycle of crime, racism and police brutality is perpetuated.”

Scarcity leads to struggle over limited resources. Those who have massive wealth are in a minority and must therefore hire a force able and willing to unleash devastating brutality against the majority to “keep them in line”. However, sheer violence is not sufficient. Other, far subtler means must also be employed. The development of a system of skin colour based discrimination during the rise of capitalism and the revival of chattel slavery became an indispensable weapon in the “divide and rule” arsenal of US capitalists. By getting the exploited and oppressed to fight each other over scraps, attention can be drawn away from the real relations of wealth and power in society.

It is the structural racism of the capitalist system that leads to a racist outlook and ideology. There is no lasting antidote to the venom of racism or religious bigotry within the limits of capitalism, which has tailored and compartmentalised this society to benefit the rule of the bourgeoisie. Only in a society of superabundance, in which there is no scarcity, and therefore more interaction leading to erosion of prejudices and divisions, US society has also a marvellous history of class struggle. Once that leap of class consciousness takes place, the US proletariat can be in the forefront of impending revolutionary upheavals. Decades ago, Trotsky wrote, “The American revolution is the foundry in which the fate of mankind will be forged.” This historical prediction shall have to be vindicated by US workers and the youth under a Marxist leadership.

The writer is the editor of Asian Marxist Review and international secretary of Pakistan Trade Union Defence Campaign. He can be reached at ptudc@hotmail.com