Delegates from 15 countries say: Capitalism endangers human civilization
Published Nov 14, 2010 8:54 PM
By John Catalinotto
Serpa, Portugal
Now a laid-back town of 5,000 in Portugal’s Alentejo agricultural region,
Serpa was established by the Roman Empire. Later it was ruled by the Moors as
part of the Islamic civilization before it became part of the Portuguese
nation. In Portugal’s fascist period Serpa, as well as the entire
Alentejo, was a center of resistance led by the underground Portuguese
Communist Party and a stronghold of the agricultural working class. Since
Portugal’s 1974 democratic revolution, Serpa and the surrounding
municipality have been administered by a PCP-led coalition.
This history made Serpa an excellent location for an international conference
of communist militants and Marxist thinkers. They met the last weekend of
October to discuss the dangers that imperialism holds for human civilization
— and the possible means to counteract this threat.
It was the third in a series of international meetings in Serpa entitled
“Civilization or Barbarism: Challenges of Today’s World.”
Others were held in 2004 and 2007. It was the first since much of the
world’s capitalist economy went into a downward spiral in 2008. Its
organizers were Vertice magazine and the website odiario.info, whose editors
include Filipe Diniz, José Paulo Gascão, Miguel Urbano Rodrigues and
Rui Namorado Rosa.
One vital invitee was forced to cancel, but her letter underlining the
sometimes tragic choices one must make moved the audience to an ovation. Heroic
Colombian Senator Piedad Córdoba, currently under attack by the repressive
regime there, was attending the funeral of former Argentine President Nestor
Kirchner in Buenos Aires.
Many participants believed the real choice humanity faces is between increased
misery and wars on one side and the struggle for a socialist future on the
other. The capitalist collapse and persistent decline for the working class
make this choice ever more urgent.
Contributing to the conference were dozens of Marxists, journalists and
militants from 15 countries, mostly from Europe and Latin America, with some
representatives from North America and the Middle East. The largest group of
contributors was from Portugal itself. The participants included those more
oriented toward an academic examination of historical data and contemporary
society, along with communist activists on the front lines of the class
struggle.
Despite the breadth of opinion, participants agreed in a final declaration that
this is not just a cyclical capitalist crisis, but it is “social,
financial, economic, military, energy, cultural and environmental;” that
“capitalism, with its precipitous increase in aggression, has become an
absolutely regressive factor for human civilization;” and that
“Marxism-Leninism remains the most precious intellectual weapon in the
hands of the workers and peoples who resist and advance the
struggle.”
The declaration also expressed solidarity with Cuba and Venezuela and with
“the progressive governments of Evo Morales in Bolivia and Rafael Correa
in Ecuador;” saluted the resistance struggles in Iraq and Afghanistan, as
well as that of the Palestinians; and warned of the threats against Iran as
well as from the U.S. Fourth Fleet in Latin America. It also hailed the
workers’ struggles in Europe and the anti-war activities of people in the
U.S.
Impact of current class struggle
Though the conference didn’t aim to evaluate the most current events,
these had an impact. In Portugal an upcoming NATO summit on Nov. 19-21 brought
home the increased militarization of the imperialist world — and will be
the target of a demonstration set for Nov. 20. Then on Nov. 24 the Portuguese
workers will hold yet another general strike, in an attempt to stop the
onslaught of the European capitalists to slash every gain workers have made
since the 1974 revolution overthrew fascism.
The splendid struggle of the French workers to defend their retirement rights,
the election in Brazil, the imminent electoral setback for the Democratic Party
in the U.S., the recent attempted coup in Ecuador, the ongoing wars in the
Middle East and Central Asia, along with the rampant unemployment in Europe and
the U.S., were part of many private discussions as well as those at the
podium.
Cape-Verde-born historian Carlos Lopes Pereira raised once more an appreciation
of African Marxist Amilcar Cabral and the oppressive role of Portuguese
colonialism in Africa.
Leila Ghanem, a key organizer of the January 2009 Beirut conference, made the
important point that the role of the mass organizations Hezbollah in Lebanon
and Hamas in Palestine is not necessarily determined by their religious
ideology, but develops under the influence of the mass social struggle in those
regions as they resist the Israeli settler-state and imperialism.
This is a small sample of the many contributions available in Portuguese and in
their original language at odiario.info. The final declaration is available in
English.
Catalinotto, a managing editor of Workers World newspaper, presented a
paper entitled “Amid capitalist collapse and imperialist war: The
challenge of reviving Marxism in the center of the empire.”
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