From Counter Punch (Sep 9):
Burning Questions: Talking With José María Sison About Climate Change, Capitalism and Revolution
José María Sison is a living legend. Born in 1939 in
Cabugao, on the island of Luzon in the Philippines, to a wealthy and
connected family, his education
and compassion led him to become a revolutionary activist by the age of 20.
Today he remains, at the age of 76, a leader of what has been called
by the New York Times “the world’s longest running communist insurgency.”
1969 he founded the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP)
with 12 delegates, representing only a few scores of party members, and he has
stayed the course through thick and thin – today it has 10s of 1000s of members.
And at no easy price: his revolutionary works earned him nine years in prison,
including a year and a half in solitary confinement. Released in 1986, he has
lived in exile ever since, and remains on the
US terrorist watch list. While no
longer involved in operational decisions, he remains a chief consultant for the
National Democratic Front of the Philippines,
and chairperson of the
International League of
Peoples’ Sruggle. Not just a politician, Sison was also a professor of
English literature, is an esteemed poet, and a winner of the Southeast Asia
WRITE book ward.
Some have recently
alleged
that the CPP has stagnated intellectually. However, the party’s ideological
leadership seems to be effective, as even the detractors admit. As
previously
reported on
Counterpunch,
the New Peoples Army operates throughout 20% of the countryside of the
Philippines, on
100 fronts, across 70 provinces, 800 municipalities, 9000 barrios and 8000
villages. Is this 21st century Maoism a blast from the past, or is it the only
promise of a future for a country with the highest income disparity in
Asia, where a quarter of the population lives on less
than $1 a day? Benedict Anderson has written of the
“historical
vertigo” of the
Philippines:
as visionary forerunner of anti-colonial movements in the region, today it is
home to arguably the strongest Left in
Southeast Asia.
Here we learn from Sison about how he translates vertigo to victory, as he
responds the burning questions of 21st century politics and revolution.
How have ecological crises, and particularly the
catastrophe of Haiyan, effected the ideology and practices of revolutionaries
working above and underground in the Philippines?
JMS: The revolutionaries in the Philippines who work in both
the urban and rural areas have always been conscious of the necessary
relationship of nature and society or that of the environment and the people
who produce new things of use and exchange value from the objects, means and
conditions provided by the environment. The ecological crises and particularly
the catastrophe of Haiyan serve to raise and sharpen the consciousness of the
revolutionaries about the environmental issue and the urgent need to act on it.
The monopoly capitalist firms have been responsible for the
wanton use of fossil fuel and carbon dioxide emissions in the Philippines, for
the rapid deforestation – which has removed the shield to typhoons, caused soil
erosion, prolonged droughts and floods together with landslides – and for the
rapid expansion of mining and plantations, which use chemicals that poison the
streams and kill marine life. Due to global warming, the surface of the Pacific
Ocean has warmed and become the speedway for more frequent and stronger
typhoons hitting the Philippines.
As a revolutionary strategist, what advice do you offer
to those who are dedicating themselves to the global struggle for climate
justice?
JMS: I wish to advise all those who dedicate themselves to
the global struggle for climate justice to stand for it militantly as a
distinct cause, and at the same time, to seek solidarity and cooperation with
those who dedicate themselves to the struggle for social justice. They face a
common enemy in monopoly capitalism and the imperialist powers which are the
cause of climate and social injustice.
The global struggle for climate justice is interconnected
with the global struggle of the people for social justice. The environmental
crisis and the threat to the very existence of humankind are coming to the
fore, concurrently with the recurrent and ever worsening economic, financial
and social crises of the world capitalist system. The constant attempts of
monopoly capitalism to seek superprofits and accumulate capital by increasing
the organic composition of their capital – adopting higher technology,
disemploying so many workers everywhere and using cheap labor and buying dirt
cheap raw materials from the underdeveloped countries – have wrought havoc on
the people and the environment.
The grave abuses and injustices inflicted by monopoly
capitalism and by its local agents are driving the broad masses of the people
to revolt against their exploiters and oppressors and to fight for a
fundamentally new and better world. Thus, the forces of anti-imperialism,
democracy and socialism are resurgent. Within this context, the exponents of
climate justice must unite with those of social justice. In this regard, I
invite them to participate in the
5th
International Assembly of the International League of Peoples’ Struggle,
because this league pursues the struggle for both climate and social justice.
JMS: Monopoly capitalism is the plunderer of
both the labor power of the working class and the natural resources used in the
process of production. It is driven by the profit motive to exploit, pollute
and destroy the environment without minding the lethal consequences to the very
existence of humankind. As the social and environmental crisis worsens, it is
necessary for the working class and the rest of the people to struggle against
monopoly capitalism, to establish the power of the working class, to protect
the environment and fight for socialism.
The International League of Peoples’ Struggle, which I
chair, studies the various perspectives, like those in publications that you
have mentioned, to adopt points for strengthening our own perspective. We
advocate the most effective line and measures for stopping and rolling back
global warming, and we strive to arouse, organize and mobilize the working
class and the people for the anti-imperialist and socialist cause against
monopoly capitalism, which is clearly the biggest culprit responsible for the
social and environmental catastrophe that we face.
What should the ideological orientation of the
revolutionary movement be to mining in the Philippines? Many indigenous
peoples and environmentalists oppose mining altogether, in favor of an
ancestral mode of production in harmony with the ecosystem, a perspective which
found internationalist expression this year around the
International People’s Conference on Mining 2015. Others in the
revolutionary movement see mining not only as an indispensable source of
revenue, but as prerequisite for passing through the necessary “stages” toward
socialism (primitive accumulation, industrialization, formation of proletariat,
etc). This is also a burning issue from India
to Ecuador,
where indigenous cosmovision confronts proletarian developmentalism over what
course the revolutionary movement should take. As Arundhati
Roy asks about the future of revolution in India, “can we leave the bauxite in
the mountain?”
JMS: The given situation in the Philippines
under the hegemony of the US
and other imperialist powers and the local exploiting classes of big compradors
and landlords, is that mining firms can be owned totally by foreign monopoly
firms. Limitless truckloads of raw mineral ores from so many parts of the
country are being shipped out at a rapid rate to China,
Japan
and other countries for processing. Some mining firms specializing in precious
metals like gold, silver, platinum and palladium fly them out by helicopter to
ships waiting at sea.
Under the present circumstances, it is just for the
indigenous peoples and for environmentalists to oppose totally the unrestricted
mining by the imperialist and local reactionaries for their own narrow benefit
at great damage to the entire people, economy and environment. But it is wrong
to glorify underdevelopment and condone the social environment of widespread
poverty, malarial swamps, malnutrition and disease in the name of a romantic,
idylicized communalism. The new democratic or socialist system, shall guarantee
the wise utilization of natural resources, protection of the environment and
the free and prior informed consent of the indigenous communities as well as
the prior provision of benefits and sharing of prospective benefits.
There would be wiser utilization of natural resources and a
higher level of environmental protection and conservation of the national
patrimony if the Filipino people themselves, under a people’s democratic or
socialist government, process the raw materials from the primary stage to the
secondary and tertiary stages. It is sheer nonsense to reduce the Filipino
people to a choice of underdevelopment under Filipinos who merely keep their
rich natural resources in the ground or foreign monopoly capitalists who take
away the nonreplaceable raw mineral ores. Socialism entails a further
development of the forces and relations of production.
Under present conditions of big comprador-landlord rule in
the Philippines,
the foreign monopoly capitalists freely get large areas of mining concessions
from the national government. And in collusion with corrupt government
officials, they often use traditional chieftains of indigenous communities to
circumvent the requirement of free and prior informed consent of the entire
community, and get a series of small mining permits to escape formal
environmental regulations by the national government and cover large areas to
mine. But when the revolutionary forces are around to arouse, organize and
mobilize the people against the mining companies, then the indigenous peoples,
their revolutionary kinsmen and even the traditional leaders unite against the
mining companies.
What are your perspectives on the left-wing governments
of South America? Is it just state capitalism and
bourgeois democracy, or do you see genuine revolutionary potential and promise
in the governments of Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela, etc?
JMS: I see a certain measure of what is revolutionary in the
left-wing governments in South America. They
are assertive of national independence against imperialist impositions and they
carry out feasible measures of social justice and social welfare. But the Left
in power co-exist with the exploiting classes in society and these also have
representatives in government who are in active opposition. No revolution has
yet brought down the exploiting classes definitively. Such exploiters make
trouble against the Bolivarian government in Venezuela, especially because the
oil income has decreased. They also do so against the other progressive
governments.
But while these left-wing governments stand and fight for
the interests of their people, they have our solidarity and support. We cannot
give them up, especially because the imperialist powers are now being buffeted
by a new crisis that is worse than the one that started in 2008. The
revolutionary potential of workers and the rest of the people is growing and
can become a real force on an unprecedented scale. The neoliberal policy has
been so extremely exploitative and so destructive that social upheavals and
revolutions can burst out soon enough on an unprecedented scale.
What are your perspectives on the recent ideological
transformation of Kurdish revolutionaries (in particular the YPG) in Rojava and
other parts of Turkey, towards a feminist, ecological and anti-nationalist
ideological orientation?
JMS: Even if the Kurdish revolutionaries speak of stateless
democracy and repudiation of the nation-state and nationalism under their
concept of democratic confederalism, I would still say that they have what
amounts to organs of political power at various levels. Otherwise there would
be anarchy and no sufficient level of political unity, government and command
over armed personnel in order to fight powerful enemies. In fact, I am hoping
that the Kurds in Iraq, Syria and North Kurdistan will compose a confederation
of states someday. The very prospect of that should be terrifying to Erdogan
and the Turkish reactionaries. As regards feminism, gender equality and concern
for ecology, these can be adopted as guiding principles and as active factors
in any coherent and effective system of governance or administration.
Many credit the Zapatista uprising of 1994, and
subsequent international gatherings hosted by them, as game-changers in the
world of radical politics, from repudiating traditional vanguardist parties to
affirming the revolutionary subjectivity of indigenous peoples. How was the
Zapatista uprising received and understood by the movement in the Philippines?
JMS: The revolutionary movement in the Philippines welcomed
the Zapatista uprising of 1994 and was impressed for a number of years by the
ability of the Zapatistas to receive so many foreign visitors and even host
international gatherings. But subsequently we also became concerned that the
leadership of the Zapatistas was assuring the Mexican central government that
they had ceased to extend or encourage armed struggle beyond Chiapas and were
already receiving big amounts of NGO funding from abroad.
It can suffice to have a broad united front to bring about a
successful popular uprising against the local authority in Chiapas, or even
against an authoritarian government like that of Somoza, Duvalier, Marcos,
Mobutu or Suharto. But there is yet no proof of a fullsome socialist revolution
without the leadership of a revolutionary party of the proletariat. The party
form of political organization is still the favored way of concentrating the
revolutionary will of the proletariat for socialism. And of course, there is
yet no class other than the proletariat that is most determined to wage a
socialist revolution against the bourgeoisie.
In the fields of art, culture, and literature, what do
you believe are the most important and inspiring works which help us to
comprehend and confront the challenges of 21st century?
JMS: I am sure that there are already important and
inspiring works in the fields of art, culture and literature which help us
to comprehend and confront the challenges of the 21st century. These
works are being created as a reflection of and in conjunction with the
suffering, sacrifices, struggles, successes and aspirations of peoples, such as
those in the Philippines and India, who are waging new democratic revolutions,
with a socialist perspective. Such creative works are waiting to be recognized
and appreciated on a global scale.
I am most acquainted with revolutionary literary and
artistic works in the Philippines. These are imbued with the spirit of serving
the people. They expose the forces of oppression and exploitation and inspire
the workers, peasants and the rest of the people to wage revolutionary struggle
against imperialism and reaction, and for a fundamentally new and better world
of greater freedom, democracy, social justice, development, cultural progress
and international solidarity. There are many excellent writers, artists and
cultural workers. They are well organized and join the protest mass actions as
well as the people’s war in the countryside.
They are guided by Marxist aesthetics and by Mao’s Talks at
the Yenan Forum on Literature and Art and his other works on cultural work and
propaganda. They have studied the works created under the guidance of socialist
realism when the Soviet Union was still socialist, the creative works of Left
American writers in the 1930s and the revolutionary works in socialist China up
to the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. At the same time, they break new
paths in adopting and developing subjects and styles in the various literary
and art forms.
It is not surprising that the most important and inspiring
works are being done in countries where the revolutionary struggles are most
intense. In this regard, I am optimistic that as the social and ecological
crises worsen, more people will rise up in both underdeveloped and developed
countries. Their revolutionary struggles will generate the impetus for literary
and artistic creations by the people and for the people through various forms
and means – real and digital. The writers, artists and cultural workers are a
growing major component of the revolutionary movement on a global scale.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/09/09/burning-questions-talking-with-jose-maria-sison-about-climate-change-capitalism-and-revolution/
