Chomsky on Cambodia.

In the late 1970s Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman were following the Western reception of atrocities in Cambodia alongside the case of East Timor. The figure of 2 million killed was repeatedly deployed in US media, it originated in a book review by Jean Lacouture of Ponchaud's work Cambodia: Year Zero which was published in 1978. Lacouture said that the Khmer Rouge boasted of killing 2 million people, yet it was not in Ponchaud's writing which claimed 800,000 people died in the US bombing from 1970 to 1975. Since the emergence of the Khmer Rouge, amidst the devastation of the bombing, an additional 1.2 million had died according to the US embassy in Bangkok. When Chomsky pointed this out to Lacouture he soon published corrections in which he conceded that the killings may have been in the thousands rather than in the millions. American intelligence confirms that the slaughter was in the tens of thousands and may well have ran into the hundreds of thousands. But it was too late and the figure of 2 million remains stuck in the minds of many even three decades later.

Ever since then Chomsky has been tarred as a defender of Pol Pot's atrocities. The charge has become a favourite tool on the Right who have regularly deployed it to bash Chomsky. Yet it was Noam Chomsky who points to the 1978 invasion of Cambodia by Vietnam as perhaps only one of two instances of ' humanitarian interventionism' since the Second World War. The other example he highlighted was in 1971 when India invaded East Pakistan, ending a massive slaughter and did so out of less than benign self-interest. Likewise, the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia came just as Pol Pot's crimes were really picking up. By 1979 the capital of the country was in Vietnamese hands and the Khmer Rouge had fled to the Thai border. The Vietnamese would be condemned internationally as "outlaws" and "gangsters" for this invasion, the United Nations would support the Khmer Rouge in its claim to govern Cambodia while the US would lead the international effort to starve Cambodia as long as the Vietnamese occupied the country. Later William Shawcross would bemoan the silence over Pol Pot's crimes, that he imagined, pinning the blame on the scepticism of the Left.

The point that Chomsky made was that the West has never concerned itself with questions of human rights, only when it is convenient to do so. The crimes committed by Pol Pot in Cambodia constitute 'nefarious bloodbaths', which are condemned in the strongest terms because they are committed by the enemy, whereas the crimes of the Indonesians in East Timor were 'constructive bloodbaths' and therefore worth our support and our silence. The US, Canada, Britain and Holland supported the Indonesians all the way, while the West continued to pose as humanitarians over the atrocities in Cambodia. Suharto had slaughtered hundreds of thousands of people in Indonesia in the 1960s, but the US supported him because he was open to American influence and investment. This helps to illuminate the "dramatic shift" away from condemnation to outright support of Pol Pot during the Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia. As the Khmer Rouge became a force of opposition to the occupation, thereby becoming an opponent of Russian influence, the US shifted its support as part of its new-found alliance with China.

Near the end of her reign, Margaret Thatcher said in an interview "Most people agree that Pol Pot himself could not go back, nor some of his supporters who were very active in some of the terrible things that happened. Some of the Khmer Rouge, of course, are very different. I think there are probably two parts to the Khmer Rouge, those who supported Pol Pot and then there is a much much more reasonable grouping within the Khmer Rouge." The Iron Lady went on to qualify her statement, that this is what the experts on Cambodia have told her. She didn't go as far as to admit that the British government had been training the Khmer Rouge through the SAS for several years. That would come out in 1991. All of this was later confirmed on the Cambodian side by Ta Mok when he was arrested in 2000. Yet the Right still have the audacity to accuse Noam Chomsky of taking the side of Pol Pot in the midst of 'Year Zero'. It remains the favourite means of vilification for the neoconservatives who describe themselves as "revolutionaries" while they are nothing less than chickenhawks.

Protest, a Tragic Tradition.

"Kings and political leaders are remembered for the ideas they imposed on those they governed, but all real progress comes from ideas that begin at the bottom and force their way to the top." - Tony Benn

Why bother protesting? It won't do any good and nothing will change. Nothing ever changes and you best not to focus on meaningless attempts to bring about radical change. It's just a waste of time and effort. Those who commonly hold this position include potential fellow-travellers, the people who would be marching but don't see the point. It is a self-defeatist position in which the amount of change failed to be achieved is equal, regardless of whether or not we march and then from here it jumps to the conclusion that we might as well not bother. If people had not fought for the rights we enjoy today, such as the right to vote, we would not enjoy such privileges. This is the reason that voting is not just a right, it is a civic duty because it was gained after centuries of struggle and to not vote would be to trivialise the suffering to which we owe the vote. Radical change comes from the organised masses and rises to the top, it's true that this is not easily accomplished but it is the only way forward. To sit in apathy and avoid protest would be to assume the inherent goodness of history, that attempts to push for change are unnecessary.

It is not that there is never progress but that progress comes at a horrifying price and an even greater debt, to the struggles and misery of the past. There is nothing inherently good about history and it is not a tale of progress, in fact we move from one form of exploitation to another. But without pain and without sacrifice we would have nothing. Whilst this is not a case of "the ends justify the means", every advance made by civilisation which lead us to new possibilities of emancipation. We ought not forget that each step forward is also an advance in barbarism, let alone that these advances often arrive drenched in blood and gore. The capitalist system pushes this to a surreal extreme and so demands a dialectical analysis of it's detractors. To arrive at a positive outcome we have to be dragged through hell first, kicking and screaming. Resistance is not comfortable but uncomfortable. For the benefits of individual freedom and rights we pay in blood and sweat. This is the reason that activism and civil disobedience are part of a tragic tradition, in the same vein as Marxism.

Through the tremendous toil and misery of millions in past centuries the material resources, which may provide a pre-condition for socialism, are refined and accumulated. The amassed material resources are the fruit of slavery, the price of progress is suffering and injustice. The liberal order of rights and freedoms is predicated on a past of slavery and feudalism which had to be transformed, often through ultra-violence, into a neutral framework for free individuals to compete in the marketplace. Though it is not clear-cut, if you look at the US slavery lingered on into the 20th Century. Similarly socialism is predicated on the surplus amassed under capitalism, gained at the exploitation and oppression of human beings. This is not to say that socialism is guilty of the crimes committed under capitalism, nor are those crimes justified by the advent of socialism. Whether or not the price of such immense suffering in history would be worth the end is debatable. After all the blood spilt by countless generations that had to be forced brutally into subservience is irretrievable.

Thoughts on 26th March.

Ye are many - they are few.

The demonstration organised by the Trade Union Congress with the Coalition of Resistance on March 26th was far higher than expected. Initial expectations were for 100,000 but it looks like there may have been over 500,000+ on the demonstration. It was a grand spectacle which symbolises the potential for the working-class to act in it's interests and as a class for itself. It consisted of trade unionists, students, feminists, Greens, socialists, Labourites, anarchists and sympathetic religious groups. There were also unaligned leftists (like myself) and people who do not usually march, like librarians, teachers, railway workers, bin-men and even single-mothers. Nearly 1,000 coaches were booked and people from across Britain came to demonstrate against the cuts. The huge march came through Whitehall and culminated in a rally in Hyde Park, at which Ed Miliband spoke and compared this movement with suffragism, civil rights and the anti-apartheid struggle. This ignores the fact that all of those struggles were won through committed civil disobedience.


In Trafalgar Square there was a lively atmosphere, a great deal of optimism due to the size of the protests and the spectrum of opinion represented on the day. From where I was stood it seemed like a predominantly union-based march, in terms of banners at least. The members of various leftist organisations congregated and leafleted in the Square, at which point something rather strange occurred. A lone protester waving around a sign that read "Socialism is Theft" and as we found out when we spoke to him that he was an anarcho-capitalist opposed to all forms of government, deeming any form of state to be "socialist". We left him to the many socialists circling him. The sign soon disappeared and he moved on, later claiming to have been spat on repeatedly. Later we saw a procession of activists in black, faces covered and waving anarchist flags heading through Trafalgar Square towards Oxford Street. Later I ran into Greg Philo, a professor at the University of Glasgow who claims to have come up with a better alternative to cuts.

In a media frenzied masturbate-a-thon over the havoc reaped by anarchists on Oxford Street, the worry about the damage done to the Queen's beloved marmalade and the broken windows of banks. But it is always maintained that there is a "violent minority" which spoils it for the peaceful majority. The press needs a "violent minority" to focus on and skim over the issues, in this sense the actions of anarchists were a harmful distraction. If it was not a "violent minority" it would be something else that the press would fixate over in order to dismiss the goals of the demonstration as utopian. This is especially true of the right-wing press, who depicted angry chants at Aaron Porter as anti-Semitic. If the demonstrations can't be dismissed face on the media will act to ignore the march completely. We often want the thing itself without the harsh element, so we buy decaff coffee and Bibles with all the misogyny censored. Here a chunk of the movement wants demonstrations without the acts of vandalism to public property and clashes with police etc.

The violence on Oxford Street was subjective violence, in that it disturbs life as we know it. It is not even close to the scale of the objective violence of cuts, which will dispossess millions of people, or the slaughter of Afghan civilians - both of which are totally ignored. This is the violence which the Con-Dem Coalition stands for, not smashing windows but shooting Afghan farmers. Yes, the anarchists trashed fancy shops and sadly police officers were hurt. But who will be hurt by the decline in standards of health-care and education in this country. The standard of living will be lowered for a great deal of people, opportunities removed, a greater gulf between rich and poor explodes and even life spans shortened. The only reason that violent acts are condemned by the Establishment is because it is violence against the system and not on the behalf of the system. Accordingly, smashing windows at Millbank to defend the welfare state is more violent than bombing dozens of children in Afghanistan in the name of counter-terrorism.

The original plan was for an occupation of Trafalgar Square over night, though 4,500 police officers went in and "dispersed" the hundreds still in the Square after the vast majority of activists had moved. Though some would say it was more like a party than an occupation. A similar protest was held by UK Uncut on Oxford Street, though for the good of consumerism it was soon cut short by the police. According to Laurie Penny, the police crackdown began with an attempt to arrest a man suspected of defacing shop windows and a scuffle followed on into a fight. The reaction of riot police was to swarm in, batons and shields first! The situation quickly deteriorated, with both sides panicking and resorting to force - mind you, the police were best prepared for it. Soon the Square is closed off before arrests can be made. We should keep in mind the stories of Jody McIntyre, Alfie Meadows and many others when we hear the press telling us that the police were outnumbered and injured by activists. At the same time, we should note the student protests seem to have led to greater momentum in the anti-cuts movement and we have to keep going. The government can be defeated.

Britain is not Broke.

 A Note on an Alternative to Cuts.

During the national demonstration organised by the TUC I ran into Greg Philo, the man behind a very interesting alternative to austerity measures. Philo offers a tax-based alternative to the slash and burn solution of the Coalition. After all we do live in the sixth richest country in the world, so it would seem strange to say that "all the money has run out." The richest 10% of Brits have accrued £4 trillion in wealth, with an average of £4 million per household, it is mostly concentrated in paintings, antiques and pensions. Not to mention in property and financial assets, both of which might be linked to inflated property prices and the financial crisis. Keep in mind that the total personal wealth of the UK is £9 trillion and the bottom half of society has less than 10% of that wealth. Funnily enough, a visitor to this blog implied this proposal was "something similar" to what the National Socialists initiated in Germany. Apparently Hitler was clearly trying to combat a national debt when he was persecuting the Jews. But I digress from right-wing hysteria to the details of the proposition.

It would be a one-off tax of 20% on the wealth of the richest 10% could rake in an estimated £800 billion. The tax can be paid off over time, a lot like a student loan for riches, with a low rate of interest or even make it a charge on their property after they have passed on (if they wish to do so). With calls to "Tax the Rich!" it is not surprising that this proposal would be particularly popular. According to YouGov, 74% of the population would support such a tax and only around 10% are strongly opposed to the idea. No doubt the proposal has the disapproval of politicians and the commentariat, with Labourites differing and Conservatives shouting about "death tax". It would have the TaxPayers' Alliance foaming at the mouth, let alone the 18,000 people who support and donate to the Alliance. The common argument against the proposal would be that it will drive away Britain's best, while it's true that some people could leave it seems unlikely that 6 million people would flee to Belize to avoid the tax.


Interestingly, it was the high earners sampled in the YouGov poll who were slightly more supportive of the policy than the poor. The reason being that the social disorder which may result from cuts could have negative consequences on the stock market. The country's resources have been directed to inflated property values, which is where fat cat bonuses end up. A tax of this kind could help recirculate this "dead money" and that would stimulate economic growth. The people who would pay this tax will not miss the money, in fact the 20% paid could be regained in the long-term from a consequently stabilised stock market. Note that the Conservative Party only have 3% more votes than they had in 2005, which was the year when Tony Blair won an election on less votes than Joe McElderry. So the mandate of the Coalition to initiate cuts is highly questionable, especially given the unpopularity for the complicit role of the Liberal Democrats. Economists like Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz are wary of the austere craze sweeping the West at the moment.