DAILY OPINIONS

From Latin America to Lebanon

What is taking place is resistance to fascism with the call, “Venceremos-venceremos” and a new stride forward by a people who scream that they will overcome.

Protests in Chile.

Despite the thousands of arrests and dozens of deaths, the people of Chile are continuing their street rebellion. Women and men workers and wage earners, who would supposedly never rise up again under the bourgeois barbarianism that followed the transformation of the dictatorship of the Americanist Pinochet dictatorship into a human slaughterhouse, have once more set out to take charge of the streets with youthful energy’s never-bowing rebellion. This is not the first appearance of such examples. The fresh examples come as further appendages to the experiences forged by history. Apologies from the head of state on behalf of supreme power and the ousting of minsters from their posts have been incapable of halting those who have stood up in rebellion. The economic, social and political impositions that fed the explosions of pent-up anger have fanned the flames once more, eliciting cries of “that’s more than enough!”  There has been a further addition to the social “notches” made in a progressive direction in the complex visage of the history of the country and humans/humanity. What is taking place is resistance to fascism with the call, “Venceremos-venceremos” and a new stride forward by a people who scream that they will overcome.

The synchronic appearance, even if not of the same size, compass and ferocity, at great distance from one another from Santiago to Beirut, from Spain to Argentina and from Iraq to India of these resistances, these clash-laden interventions, similar yet variously imbued with national and popular temperaments is directly related to the international character displayed by the destructions attributable to the “neoliberal” aggressiveness that has been implemented on a world scale for long decades. Even if they are happening far away, television brings these resistances to the very inside of homes everywhere. Had they taken place in Turkey, the general question again poses itself of who would be inspired and how and in what direction by the mass protest movements, which the owners of large capital who run Turkey along with their representatives would, as is their wont, be eager to portray as being “externally sourced.” Considering that the bourgeois ruling force, having adequate “local” and international grounds to trouble them, accused through Erdoğan’s very mouth the millions of participants in the Great June Resistance known as the “Gezi Resistance” of being “treasonous terrorists” and “pawns of foreign lobbies,” it is a matter of guesswork how much greater the anger will be that consumes them in the face of a similar fresh occurrence.

Protesters in Lebanon.

There are many reasons for those who every day and several times a day pontificate about “virtues,” culture and “attachment to the state” that are at variance with the otherness of “our nation” to regard the rebels with hatred as they observe the images that breach the walls of our homes, coffee shops and cafeterias and reach right inside, even if the events are as yet far off, and with concern and fear over those in “their own country:” The socio-political and socio-psychological bows have been tensing for years. High rates of tax and price increases are announced under daily decrees by branch entities of the Palace civil service. Inflation is heading towards thirty percent. Unemployment is in the thirteens percent (said to be eight million). Even if operations to keep a squeeze on the Kurdish working masses through land and air raids produces a troubled calm and a significant portion of workers and wage earners along with the small and medium-sized bourgeoisie having Turkish roots are kept in a “manageable” position through the policies of the monopolistic reaction that are inimical even to nationalist and bourgeois democracy, when it comes to societies, the pent-up energy of heated waters will inevitably lead to an explosion somewhere. All that remains is the “time” factor. Undoubtedly, peoples’ experiences of struggle vary. There are strong and traditional reasons and underpinnings for the mindset of the kind in our country that portrays and deems subservience and subordination to the ruling class state to be a “national virtue.” Propaganda and its objective underpinnings castigating class struggle and having bourgeois “national” content may facilitate the class enemy’s task of governing.

However, this is all variable. And the turning of the wheels of history – even if it sometimes breaks down or zigzags in reverse and stages regressive slip-backs – is destined to roll forward across the legs and arms of the oppressed and downtrodden and by their hands and unity of strength in a way that will confound the naysayers.

The rebellions and resistances of different dimensions and intensities taking place in various places in the world come as harbingers of the resolve for fresh gains dependent on but the first steps, stirrings and quests of this law of history in the time segment we occupy. But “venceremos!-venceremos!” (we will overcome!-we will overcome!).


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