NSG Pamphlet - Introduction

The terrorist attacks in New York and Washington on September 11th, 2001 ushered in deep and far-reaching changes to our world. A war is being waged on many fronts. The U.S. leads a campaign of destruction against Afghanistan. In the Middle East, opposition to the war and to the U.S. is demonstrated and governments crack down on it. And in the West, including Canada, governments and corporations opportunistically take advantage of the fear, anger and disruption of the events to push forward a neo-liberal economic and political agenda. Corporations are asking for government bailouts and laying off thousands of workers. Governments have also taken the offensive, attacking immigrant and refugee rights and security and threatening established civil liberties.

The seriousness of the situation is masked by the outrageous media and government propaganda campaign that argues everything must be sacrificed for the sake of the "war on terrorism". Little is really known about the perpetrators of the September 11th attacks or of those responsible for the anthrax campaign. However, corporate interests and the government and media's virulent propaganda campaign of language and misinformation has created a war of good versus evil, "us" against "them".

The campaign has been successful to some extent. Labour movement actions such as the planned September 29th global justice mobilizations in Washington were called off or downscaled in a defensive response to the furor of September 11th. It has also opened the door to increasing racist attacks.

There has also been large and visible opposition to the war. People are discussing the role of U.S. foreign policy and of imperialism in the region. They are also discussing what will bring about peace. Activists wanting to build a broad and mass opposition to the war need to be able to talk about these issues.

We also need to argue that peace is not just the absence of war, but it is the absence of the causes of war. For socialists, eliminating the causes of war requires fundamental change to the way societies are organized, economically, politically and socially, across the world. We need strong movements that build the collective power of ordinary people to struggle for peace and freedom. Ultimately, only revolutionary change will uproot the causes of war.

Anti-war anti-racism activists have organized rallies and marches and produced literature across Canada and the rest of the world as part of a broader anti-war and anti-racism movement. This pamphlet is intended as a resource for people who are developing an analysis of and strategies to oppose the U.S. - led war against Afghanistan and the war's racist and imperialist agenda.

The pamphlet brings together articles by individuals in different places across the world - feminists, anti-racists, socialists. The articles are intended to inform, to further people's thinking, and also to agitate.

There is much we already know about the region that has become the most recent target of U.S. military aggression. The first section of this pamphlet maps out some of the relevant history of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq as well as the Palestinian liberation struggle. It also makes explicit the role of U.S. imperialist interests and of U.S. government interventions in shaping the economic, social and political context for this war. Activists need to understand this context in order to frame our arguments against the war and to develop demands that will address the devastating impact U.S. imperialism has on these countries, this region and the rest of the world.

The second section of the pamphlet tackles some of the key concepts the anti-war movement needs to be able to explain. In particular, articles in this section seek to contribute to answering the question "What is imperialism?" and "What kind of anti-imperialism?" Understanding why this war is really happening is a first step of a growing movement. However, we also can learn a lot from past anti-imperialist struggles about what kind of anti-imperialist struggles are needed to bring real liberation.

The third section brings the war abroad home to Canadians. We should not only pay attention to the impact on Afghanistan and its neighbours, but also to the advance of the neo-liberal agenda. The racism that underpins the military campaign (and the media campaign that accompanies it) is connected to the racism that is central to the wide-ranging legislative and program changes national, provincial and local governments are bringing in at a rapid pace. Our anti-war movement must be, at its core, anti-racist.

It also must wage a campaign against the war at home as well as abroad. This section begins by drawing on the experience of one of the first voices of opposition, Sunera Thobani, to begin to expose the "war on terrorism" by examining the use of language in the war and the agenda that the war is actually furthering.

The articles examine the comprehensive attack on human rights and civil liberties that is happening across Canada, for example, Bill 36, the "Anti-terrorism Bill". People of colour, of Arab descent and Muslims have been attacked and targeted. The economic downturn that preceded September 11th is turning into a massive attack on the jobs and security of workers. This "war on terrorism" threatens immigrants and refugees, as well as union, community and anti-war activists organizing against racism, against poverty, against privatization, etc.

What kind of anti-war movement will be successful in opposing this war? The articles in the fourth and final section of this pamphlet reflects on early anti-war and anti-racism organizing to emphasize the multi-racial and multi-ethnic backbone of the movement. Our analysis and our tasks need to ensure that we can both build a radical understanding of the situation as well as the widest possible mobilization around a series of concrete demands. For revolutionary socialists, our goal is the creation of an international alliance of the oppressed and the exploited. We stand with our brothers and sisters around the world who are building an international response against war and racism.