This is an old revision of the document!
This article is the second part of a two-part article. The first part appeared in Issue 39 of Entos ton Teihon.
This translation was created for the purposes of archiving and does not originate from the original creators of the text.
the "self-evident truths" of social patriotism (part b) (dialogue)
publishing group ergatic democracy
This article was received in "Within the Walls" in November '88, and the first part was published (without, because of lack of typographical oversight, mentioning who the authors were) in March '89. Thus dates mentioned at the end of the article, which were then received belonged to the future, now belong to the past. However, since then, important events have occurred that strengthen the politics of the article. —- The “incompetent” Greek Cypriot bourgeoisie became self-sufficient very quickly after 1960. From '64 onwards, the development of the Greek Cypriot bourgeoisie was such that it allowed it to take over the “neo-colonial” state of Zurich and turn it into its own independent centre of control of capitalist accumulation in the Cypriot region and a base for economic infiltration in the “underdeveloped” surrounding region, neutralising the “restrictions” imposed on it by the Turkish Cypriots and the Zurich agreements. Even the British bases that remained were never an obstacle to its development, on the contrary, they ensured “peace” and “tranquility” in the same areas of the Middle East where it was also extending its small but imperialist hands to grab what it could. What else was left to do to realize “national independence” so that Eliades and others would not consider it “incompetent”? The union of “all of Cyprus” with Greece? The forced “reunification” of Cyprus against the will of the Turkish Cypriots? Or being able to “look after” its own interests in the region with its own, “independent” bases and not with those of the British or with accommodations to the Americans? However, the myth that it is “imperialist dependence that nurtured and created the conditions of intercommunal bloodshed, chauvinism and intolerance” as Eliades writes, prevails. But no one has a convincing explanation why American and NATO imperialism would want to create a split in its south-eastern wing. Instead, this convenient patriotic insistence on blaming everything on “foreign” imperialism prevents them from seeing something much more fundamental. That ethnic conflicts like the one in Cyprus are the result of capitalism, of the factionalism and competition that lies at the heart of the system itself at all levels, in all its individual parts, and appears wherever it finds the opportunity. The “foreign thumbs” may shape them in one way or another, but to believe that they are the ones causing them is at best patriotic naivety and complacency, if not racism in reverse (“WE wouldn't have been fooled if we were left alone”). Analysis of the particular” 3: Were the French colonialists in Algeria “cheap labour”? Where Ch. Eliades gives a great example of how not to avoid “ ahistorical generalisation” is by equating the Turkish settlers, the vast majority of whom are migrant workers, with the French colonialists in Algeria before '62: “But apart from the Cypriot “social patriots” and the Palestinians, the Algerian revolutionaries showed similar “racist” feelings towards the French settlers whose removal they sought and achieved with the independence of Algeria (1962). … the French revolutionary workers' organisations not only did not consider the removal of the French settlers as 'barbarism' but considered their removal as an expression of the implementation of the principle of self-determination of the Algerian people!” What relationship can French landowners, senior state officials, oil company executives and privileged French workers of colonial Algeria have with the Turkish “settlers” whom they all accuse of causing problems for Turkish Cypriots as “cheap labour”, working even below the legal minimum wage? For the “marxism” of Ch. Eliades, it is not the actual economic and social situation that determines the character of the Turkish settlers and separates them from the French in Algeria, and thus the attitude we should take towards them, but the common factor that they are both foreigners. And this seems to be the only thing that Ch. Eliades considers. Both the French colonialists and the Turkish settlers, after all, crossed the sea from the north to come here. Since it was progressive that the local Algerians sent the French northwards, it would be equally progressive for us to send the Turkish settlers in the same direction. The fact that Algerians were the “cheap labour” in Algeria is of no importance to Ch. Eliades. To the extent that Ch. Eliades understands that this contradiction exists, he solves it by baptizing the Turks as “settlers”, instruments of Turkish imperialism, and gets rid of the issue. That the Turkish and Turkish Cypriot bourgeoisie are trying to use the “settlers” for their own purposes (one of which is to use them as cheap labour) there is no doubt. God forbid if the only thing determining the Marxists' attitude towards a section of the working class was the goals the bourgeoisie wants to serve by using this section, unless we are told that the “settlers” are organised fascists and cops posing as cheap labour. But then how do you explain that in Davlos the “Turkish Cypriots and the Turkish settlers living in the area” took on the big businessman Asil Nadir and his multinational company “Polly Peck” and clashed with the police to resist their plans to “develop” the area? (“NEA” 22/12/88). Such would be the attitude of the settlers if they were “instruments” of Denktaş and the Turkish and Turkish Cypriot bourgeoisie? After all, if the settlers and Turkish Cypriot bourgeoisie want to use the settlers to serve the goal of demographic change that will further their reactionary national interests, their expulsion would serve the reactionary goal of violent demographic reversion that will serve the equally reactionary national interests of the Greek and Greek Cypriot bourgeoisie. What should determine our attitude is the economic and social reality, the class position of the settlers as one of the most oppressed sections of the working class in northern Cyprus. The solidarity of the workers of the different ethnicities is not a “Christian” feeling, as Ch. Eliades wants to describe it. It is the essence of workers' internationalism. Analysis of the particular 4: The State of Israel is similar to the TRNC In this “specific analysis”, of course, Ch. Eliades has not been a pioneer at all. The hypocritical propagandistic exploitation of the Palestinian struggle by Greek Cypriot patriots is on the agenda, especially in the last year with the heroic “intifada”. The catchphrase of the campaign is 'Cyprus Palestine common struggle'. And Eliades' corresponding words are: “It would be extremely interesting if Workers' Democracy could enlighten us as to whether by the same reasoning it recognizes the right of the Zionist state of Israel (1947) to exist, which under the pretext of securing the democratic rights of the Jewish people…. placed the whole of Palestine under Zionist occupation.”