Re: reformist or pacifist is suicidal

I am a Turk following the discussion on forming a World Party among core
countries' intellectuals on this network, and I think Mr. Kohler's 
suggestion
one of the most useful so far.
    Socialists in Turkey (and this probably holds true for many in the Third
World) are facing an uphill struggle because of the (1) capitalist 
ideological
hegemony (globalization rhetoric and propaganda holding sway over workers,
intellectuals, bureaucrats etc.) (2) the adverse psychological impact of the
demise of the Soviet system - due to a superficial understanding of 
socialism,
(3) ethnic and religious conflict fueled by the center countries (the US  
is a
haven for and the supporter of very pernicious "peaceful" Turkish Islamist
movements such as Fethullah Gulen, who rubs elbows with the Pope and the 
Moon
movement) (4) the defeatism arising from the  psychological impact of center
countries' show of military force in the Third World (recurrent bombing of 
Iraq
etc.).
    Yet the soft part of the world system -its weakest part-  is the Third
World. It is crucial that socialists in the center countries and in the
periphery should seek new modes of cooperation and solidarity in a World 
Party
or some other form of organization.
Respectfully,
C. Somel
Dep of Economics
Middle East Technical University
06531 Ankara Turkey

g kohler wrote:

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Elson E. Boles <facbolese@usao.edu>
> To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK <wsn@csf.colorado.edu>
> Date: November 13, 1999 2:00 PM
> Subject: reformist or pacifist is suicidal
>
> >It seems there are two key items on the table:
> >
> >1.  minimum core principles of a World Party
> >2.  the question of tactics: ....
> ....> snip
>
> COMMENT
> I think we have a problem here, not only because of what is *on* the 
>table,
> but also with respect to who is *at* the table, or, more correctly, who is
> *not* at the table.  I am looking at this in terms of "global apartheid" 
>(my
> way of saying center-periphery hierarchy or imperialism). We are lucky to
> have a small number of contributors from Latin America, the rest are
> speakers from core countries. An importing subject like designing a 
>leftist
> world party (or network, or umbrella organization) cannot be left to
> Euro-Yankee speakers, no matter whether they (we) are Marxist, social
> democratic, or liberal. What is missing is more input from the majority 
>part
> of the world. This is like a group of men trying to design a strategy of
> women's liberation or like a group of leftist white South Africans (let's
> say, 40 years ago) trying to design a party for the Black majority of the
> country.
>
> I propose that, after this round of exchanges is wound up, wsn would
> organize a second round of internet exchanges in a different format, 
>namely,
> by having a joint debate with various Second and Third World networks, so
> that the average number of participants from the First World would be a
> minority. The people who should also be heard in such an exercise, in
> addition to the wsn crowd,  would roughly be those identified in the
> left-hand column in Patrick Bonds typology. (See, my post of yesterday,
> entitled "implications of Bond's typology").
>
> Respectfully,
> Gert Kohler
> Oakville, Canada