Call for the Anti-imperialist Camp 2002
Assisi, Italy, August 3-10, 2002
Since their most sacred symbols – immeasurable wealth, military omnipotence and invulnerable despotism – have come under attack at their very centre, the USA has launched a hysterical military campaign in order to reinforce their supremacy over the world instead of making a step backwards. Bush has made it clear that the aggression against Afghanistan, carried out after the attack on Yugoslavia, was only the beginning. The next victim of his imperialist megalomania will be Iraq, a country which has already been severely hit and devastated by a cruel embargo. And who will be next? On the Emperor´s black list there are North Korea, Iran, Somalia, Cuba and Colombia. Any country that is not willing to submit to the US, not willing to renounce its national sovereignty has to be wiped out. Palestine is the place where all explosive contradictions of the “new world order” converge. In fact, Israel is the symbol of absolute injustice, of illegality that has been made a system, of a war of extermination that has become a habit, of racist violation of the most elementary human rights. All this is being fully supported by the US and encountered by the complete indifference of the so-called “international community”. As long as Palestine will not be free, the whole world will remain in slavery.
We are already experiencing a systematic and uninterrupted world war. The final aim is clear. Since capitalist globalisation is a system which produces chaos and conflicts (Afghanistan), which increases injustice and inequality (Argentine), the US believes that the only way to remain in control is to reinforce the chains they are using to subjugate humankind. Their aim is to become the first world empire of history, with a totalitarian pyramid system where the White House is the central governmental headquarters with a number of satellite states as their allies located around it. Those will have to defend the threatened borders or to suppress any kind of opposition from time to time. We are confronted with the fact that Bush has listed about 70 organisations from all over the world which are considered “terrorist organisations” and have to be persecuted by any means. Many of these organisations are national liberation movements, guerrilla movements with mass support, and communist or Islamic organisations. Their only crime is to have contradicted US arrogance. The Emperor has given himself the right to hit whenever he wants, wherever he wants and the way he wants. And since we must not let ourselves be intimidated, we will invite these movements to participate in our summer camp this year again so that everyone will be able to hear their voices and to get to know the truth about them.
We are faced with a terrorist plan to destabilise the world. Bush forces mankind to make a decision : we may either stop this paranoid plan through our struggle or accept it. We may either fight for freedom or accept tyranny. By stating that “whoever is not with us, is against us”, the US forces humankind to choose between imperialist despotism or fight it. There is no third way. Those who side with dictatorship may sit back and close their eyes, may pretend not to hear the screams of pain coming from all parts of the world. But those who consider it unacceptable to leave the destiny of mankind in the hands of Dr. Strangelove have to show the courage to support the liberation struggles of the oppressed peoples, regardless of their methods.
In order to suffocate any oppositional voice, Bush did not hesitate to assign himself dictatorial powers. Whoever dares to support the liberation struggles of the oppressed peoples in the US is being labelled a terrorist, considered the enemy´s agent, persecuted and finally imprisoned. The US allies, among them Europe, are eager to apply this theorem. Consequently, they are adopting repressive legislations which transforms the citizens into subjects without a voice and democracy into oligarchy. Globalisation has thrown humankind into a melting pot. Imperialism is tearing down the wall that used to separate the struggles in the North from those in the South of the world. The struggle is the same everywhere. Everywhere freedom, democracy, the possibility of a future in brotherhood, justice and social equality are at stake. It has never been so important as today to overcome differences, to unite anti-imperialist forces as well as labour organisations and the fighting movements of the World Social Forum. We have to fight for this aim not to “democratise” globalisation, but to put an end to imperialism.
A different world is possible.
Humanising capitalism is not.
March 3, 2002
