03/04/2024
“Indeed, those of us in the international left need to recognize that the leading adversaries of Western imperialism today are not what they were during the Cold War. While the national liberation struggles we supported back then may have been more militaristic and authoritarian than our ideal, there was no question that, compared to the right-wing dictatorships and the colonial/neocolonial forces backed by Washington at the time, they were the progressive alternatives. Today, many of the dominant challenges to the West are reactionary — Salafi Islamist groups like al-Qaeda and ISIS, the Iranian regime and its allies, and Putin’s Russia. And it’s critical to recognize that Moscow also has imperialist ambitions and engages in imperialist wars.
This does not mean we pull back on our opposition to U.S. imperialism or that we don’t point out ways that U.S. policy has helped give rise to such reactionary forces or international conflict. However, neither should we defend these forces or repeat their lies to justify their aggression. To do so not only harms our credibility in terms of winning allies in ongoing anti-imperialist struggles elsewhere but also undermines the moral necessity of rejecting all forms of national chauvinism and imperialism, regardless of their source.”
Ten years after Ukraine’s Maidan Revolution, what should the left make of it?
