SENZA CENSURA n.11
Italy, June 2003

EDITORIAL

"If the present war rouses among the reactionary Christian socialists, among the whimpering petty bourgeoisie, only horror and fright, only aversion to all use of arms, to blood shed, death, etc., then we must say: Capitalist society is and has always been horror without end. If this most reactionary of all wars is now preparing for that society an end in horror, we have no reason to fall into despair. But the disarmament "demand", or more correctly, the dream of disarmament, is, objectively, nothing but an expression of despair at a time when, as everyone can see, the bourgeoisie itself is paving the way for the only legitimate and revolutionary war -- civil war against the imperialist bourgeoisie".
(The military programme of the proletarian revolution, Lenin 1916)

During last months the Italian and international political scene was characterized by the anti-war movement, composed by multi-coloured no global people, symbolically born some years ago in Seattle.
Nevertheless, after many demonstrations, some strikes (which were only some hours abstaining from work), many blocks and little sabotages, it seems to be flowed back: they stay only some symbols of what has been, like peace flags at windows. The end of the anti-war movement has been sanctioned by the surrender of Saddam Hussein's regime. Paradoxically, who told that the American imperialism was equal to Saddam's regime, withdrew in front of invasion and victory of USA troops.
The pacifist criticism to armies and militarism, soon dozed off in front of the new scenery which presents on the field only one regular invader army. Now, weapons seem to be less dangerous if grasped only by USA…
We think that the most of this movement( both Catholics and extreme Left) understood that the war was an imperialist act, but often we risked to give only an empirical explanation to the deep reasons of this war.
It is right to say that the occupation is for oil, but it is not enough, above all if we analyse the economic crisis of capitalism, which is a fundamental aspect for those which want a different and possible world.
Beyond war TV shows, the conflict in Iraq is not stopping. If Saddam's government and army disappeared, the popular Iraqi resistance is going on. From kamikaze actions (often used by the imperialist propaganda to justify USA's moral superiority ), they have passed to partisan actions to hit invaders causing a greater damage with the smaller effort.
Maybe it is starting a guerrilla nightmare, while the TV war is finished!
For a regular army it is difficult to use the whole territory to fight; instead, the popular resistance has got the opportunity to organize actions inside every home, every demonstration.
Even western information is starting to fail and it is making leak out the unsteadiness of the zone occupied by the USA. Every day we hear about killed soldiers and destroyed means by Iraqi anti-imperialist people.
We can see the same situation in Afghanistan. We have no news about partisans operating there, but we can value the ability of reaction of these peoples on the base of how many actions they do and how many imperialist soldiers they kill.
The Palestinian scenery, the permanent war caused by the Zionist invasion, seems to reflect in those zones, and it is giving many problems to the invaders. The American imperialist strategy can also have considered this situation, and let its control only to interesting territories. To do this, however, they can favour the war among little "war monsters" to stop a possible unification of the anti-imperialist popular resistance. Maybe.
The fear of a new Palestine, with relative problems of organization and ability to fight, is a well-known problem by American imperialism.
We don't want to apologize these fact: we well know that the middle-east proletariat has got limits and is late in defining its own autonomous program; nevertheless, the popular anti-imperialist action surely represents the most dangerous enemy of the USA government, making stand out the false conscience of the anti-war movement about ways of struggle used by millions of people to fight against imperialism.
We can state that this permanent war and the consequent definition of different imperialist blocks, like for Europe, has left behind the anti-war movement, which was not able to overcome its generous but limiting ethical spur.
Peace flags, which were thousands on Italian windows and in international demonstrations reclaiming a vague peace, could not give effective answers in front of imperialism and its arrogance.
The only possible present answer, the armed Iraqi resistance to the invader, has also made vague the non-violent approach of a great part of this movement.
So. If peace flags phenomenon has surely been an important first step, and after many years it has come back as a public question from which part to stay; if mass demos have given strength and courage to a Left relegated to have a smaller position and to pursue Berlusconi: the whole of this has not allowed a passage from the symbolic level to the real one of the imperialist war; the difference between pacifist sensitivity and concrete anti-imperialist struggle is too much! This deficit has emphasized the real essence of the movement which, started from metropolises in the imperialist centre, with difficulty has linked to resistance forms used (also at the present moment) by peoples bombed by the USA.
Here, metropolitan worker struggles have not a perspective and are left by the most of the "movement". The so much invoked peace is there useful to hide the present social conflict, which is concealed but real.
Subjects like trade-unions stutter in front of precise attack manoeuvrings carried on by the Confindustria against the working class.
France, like Italy, but also Sweden, Austria and Belgium, are crossed by social movements contrasting precariousness in the whole society . Nevertheless these movements have not again a strong autonomous expression, and it's difficult to find among them a working Left able to have a revolutionary perspective. Protests towards regime's trade unions in Italy, fires at French Industrial Unions' seats during workers demos, are to be considered important but rare moments, to represent a changed tendency then the spread passivity of metropolitan proletariat, who is living again a relative well-being period. However precariousness is going on, caused by such a crisis process that makes some parts of class unsteady, parts from which are starting some signs of a more intense anti-capitalist struggle.
This phenomenon happen only among the homogeneous block which has been for years the greater part of the population inside imperialist metropolis, is crumbling slowly.
This interclass dimension of the movement could only bring to an under-evaluation of the metropolitan crisis, and it has not allowed to link anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist struggle.
In front of this, the movement has given only symbolic answers, often smaller than the expectations expressed by enormous demonstrations.
Those organizations more emerged from the anti-war movement, have not been able to collect so much in terms of territorial rootage.
Union and territorial disputes, even if moved by full squares, have not had the same affect, from a local point of view.
The symbolic has overcome reality, avoiding to scratch the present strength relationship inside metropolis.
Now we are facing a scenery with an anti-imperialist resistance and break signs into the metropolitan front. The present crisis has caused a worsening of repressive measures by the preventive counter-revolution. Let's make an example. The ban of Batasuna in the Basque Country is an important passage to analyse, if we relate it with the movement's silence now.
An official party is put into the USA anti-terrorism list: a party present in the Parliament with a very great approval. Harri Batasuna is paying for its real presence, expressed through active resistance. Its existence favoured a process of independence and autonomy for the class and the Basque people, in way to crack the present strength relationships in the Spanish state and in the new European imperialist pole.
So, we can see that for revolutionary people they are closing every edge of political action; and reformist limits are more evident. The greatest part of the movement is not ready for such a hard clash, which is expressing in terms of repression.
We have to see good those many antagonist parts of the movement aiming to make a balance of what has happened during last months.
The constitution of an imperialist European block, the nature of the anti-imperialist struggle carried on by Arab Islamic mass, and workers' resistance to social precariousness, are important elements on which reflect.
A reflection and confrontation breaking with opportunism, and understanding present social phenomenon.
We hope that this checking will be able to go out from show politics which have belonged to the anti-war movement itself, overcoming an useless spirit of organization and speculation.
It will be a lively debate only if it is able to link movement's needs with real steps of independence and struggle by the metropolitan proletariat.
"Senza Censura" wants to give its contribution to this check, going on in defining imperialism and proletarian resistance. Our contribution, nor enough neither propagandistic, tries to reach a comprehension of present social events, underlining the break points emerging through the anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist struggle.
Our aim is to give an incentive to restart the political initiative of metropolitan proletariat.