11) HISTORIC MEETING OF COMMUNISTS IN BEIRUT
By Kimball Cariou
For the first time, this year's International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties (IMCWP) took place in an Arab country. Delegates representing sixty parties from five continents took part in the 14th IMCWP, held Nov. 22-25 in Beirut, Lebanon.
The event was hosted by the Lebanese Communist Party, which draws its membership from all of the country's cultural and religious communities. The LCP was an important force in popular resistance against past Israeli invasions, and its members take great pride in their military and political role in helping to drive the aggressors from their homeland.
Large areas of Beirut have been rebuilt after the devastating civil wars of 1975-1991 and 2005. Some of the city's historic mosques and churches still remain, not far from the Hamra neighbourhood where the IMCWP delegates met at the Hotel Commodore. Many of us arrived a day early, and took a few hours to explore nearby neighbourhoods with very different demographics, from poor to wealthy. Beirut's reputation as a financial centre is seen with gleaming bank buildings, casinos, and upscale retail shops familiar to North Americans. Nothing says "transnational capitalism" quite like a Macdonalds or a Starbucks!
The IMCWP began on the evening of Nov. 22, with a meeting of the "Working Group" of parties which organize the annual event. Other delegates used the time to share news from our respective countries over a delicious Lebanese-style dinner.
The full meeting started the next morning, with ten-minute contributions by each party, going in alphabetical order. As we moved from Azerbaijan to Bahrain, Belgium to Brazil, Britain to Canada, several themes emerged.
One was the confirmation of the Marxist analysis of the nature of capitalist economies, especially the crisis of overproduction which is at the root of the "boom-bust" cycle of the system, leading to constant inter-imperialist rivalries and intensified exploitation of the working class.
In nearly every major capitalist country, the crisis which erupted in 2008 has continued. Unemployment levels are again rising, living conditions are falling, and austerity policies are being implemented ruthlessly, especially in the European region. At the same time, working class and popular resistance to austerity keeps growing. On Nov. 14, just a week before the IMCWP convened, general strikes shook six European countries, and demonstrations against austerity were held in many more (see page 12). In Latin America, the left and progressive forces have made important gains in recent years.
Many of the contributions in Beirut revolved around a crucial question: how to transform protests against austerity into a powerful movement for fundamental social change, and for socialism? There are no easy answers, but in most countries, the Communists are fighting for immediate measures to defend working people, while also warning that social democratic parties have usually abandoned anti-austerity platforms upon taking office.
A second theme of the Beirut meeting concerned developments in the Middle East and the Arab world: how to understand the origins of the "Arab Spring", and how to ensure that these popular uprisings win real gains for democracy and working class rights.
There was a broad consensus among the delegates that the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, which helped spark wider popular movements, were based in the anger of working people against unemployment, inflation, falling living standards, lack of human rights, and the widening gap between rich and poor. These uprisings were not the result of "conspiracies," as some have suggested. But imperialism and the regional capitalist elites - such as the rulers of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states - have had some success in redirecting popular anger into forms of so-called "political Islam", for example the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Such ideologies, the delegates agreed, are a reactionary diversion from genuinely revolutionary struggles for working class interests.
This has been seen clearly in countries such as Libya and Syria, where legitimate popular discontent around certain problems was channelled into reactionary alternatives. The result was the imperialist-backed overthrow of the Gadaffi government in Libya, and the current attempt by outside forces to topple the secular-oriented Assad government of Syria. There was strong agreement by the IMCWP that communists will continue to condemn the intervention against Syria by imperialist powers and the Gulf states, at the same time as helping to build genuine popular struggles for political freedoms and improved living standards.
Since the IMCWP convened just as the latest Israeli aggression against Gaza was ending, solidarity with the Palestinian people was a third major theme. The delegates strongly condemned the attacks by Israel, and its refusal to negotiate a peace agreement which would end its "settlement" policies and allow the establishment of a viable Palestinian state within the pre-1967 borders.
On the first full day of the meeting, delegates adjourned in mid-afternoon to travel by bus to United Nations House in central Beirut, for a rally and news conference to condemn the bombing of Gaza. There was a large turnout by local media and by Al-Jazeera, which reported the protest on its website.
Following two days of presentations, the meeting concluded on Nov. 25 with a plenary to consider a final statement (see page 6 for full text). Several concrete proposals were made to strengthen the initial draft, but much of the discussion focused on the complex and critical issues of how to resist imperialist interventions in the region.
With consensus reached on the final wording, delegates went by bus to Batroun, a historic town north of Beirut where a new office of the Lebanese Communist Party was being opened. We packed the building together with local members and supporters, and the party's general secretary, Dr. Khaled Hadadah, gave a powerful speech, thanking those who helped make the new office a reality, and outlining the work of the LCP in the current conditions.
Possible venues for the 15th IMCWP are still being considered, taking into account the need for geographic diversity of this important annual event. The Working Group is expected to announce the date and location for the 2013 meeting early in the new year.
(People's Voice editor Kimball Cariou represented the Communist Party of Canada at the Beirut meeting. Readers can find the Final Statement and contributions by most parties at http://solidnet.org.)
(The above article is from the December 1-31, 2012, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50 CDN per year. Send to People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, BC, V5L 3J1.)