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Now
By now, much of the world is familiar
with the Disney produced Pirates of the Carri bean films
starring Johnny Depp as the pirate Jack Sparrow. These films
portray pirates as men with humor and a desire for freedom and
a sense of honor. Tariq Ali's newest book borrows the title
of these films, while utilizing a more politicized definition
of the term pirate. The most succinct definition of Ali's view
of piracy can be found in the footnote he provides during a discussion
of Simon Bolivar. In that note he quotes the author William
S. Burroughs on the pirates of the 17th and 18th centuries from
the introduction to his Cities of the Red Night trilogy:
"Imagine such a (pirate) movement on a worldwide scale,"
writes Burroughs. "Faced by the actual practice of freedom,
the French and American revolutions would have to stand by their
words....." At the same time, Pirates
of the Caribbean: Axis of Hopeelucidates the perception
of Chavez, Morales and Castro held by the capitalist nations--that
these men and their followers are thieves, stealing what rightfully
belongs to the already wealthy.
Throughout this short work,
Ali acknowledges the connection between the states and movements
in the Arab and Muslim world opposed to the one-world-under-US-capitalism
project and the so-called Prates of the Caribbean in his
book's title: Venezuela, Bolivia and Cuba. He is also quite
careful to note that there are major differences between the
two forms of opposition, the most important difference being
that the Latin American movements represent a socialist and democratic
movement that looks towards the future, while the Muslim movements
have certain millenarian and capitalist urges that limit their
abilities to transform the future for the hopes of those groups
both movements claim. Those groups being, of course, the poor
and disenfranchised of the planet.
The sections dealing with today's
Venezuela and Bolivia are essentially brief political histories
with a particular emphasis on the hopes raised by the Bolivarian
revolution after decades of betrayal by local politicians, the
national bourgeoisies, and Latin America's overly powerful northern
neighbor. The section on Cuba is a pleasant travelogue
cum history of that country's revolutionary staying power. No
sycophant, Ali points out the lack of various civil liberties
and rights at certain times in revolutionary Cuba. However, unlike
the western former radicals turned neoliberal apologists that
he castigates throughout the book, Ali correctly points the finger
at the hypocrisy of those who would criticize Cuba. The only
detention without charges taking place in Cuba, Ali reminds us,
is taking place in the US version of Great Britain's H-Block--the
detention center at Guantanamo Bay Navy Base.
The questions Ali asks regarding
the governments Chavez and Morales defeated have a relevance
to nations once referred to as first world nations--the US, UK,
Germany. Indeed, the remarks scattered throughout regarding
the bankruptcy of what Ali calls consensual diarchies has extreme
relevance (Democrats-Republicans , Labor-Conservative, et al)
to the ongoing bourgeois politics in those countries. Underlying
this is the overriding success of the neoliberal capitalist globalization
project--a project Ali calls the WC (or Washington Consensus)
which many believe has made these parties the only game in town
and simultaneously pushed the poor, young, indigenous and other
disenfranchised further out of the circle they run. A circle
which is shrinking, thanks in no small part to the successes
of the popular movements symbolized by the victories of Morales
and Chavez.
As I write this, it appears
that Rafael Correa of Ecuador will be joining the cadre of Latin
American leaders in the fleet determined to undermine the Washington
Consensus on their continent. Meanwhile, reports are coming
out of Venezuela of a huge rally supporting Chavez's opponent
in the December 3, 2006 election, while US polling companies
continue to show Chavez with a 30 percent lead. Although Correa,
Chavez and Morales all ran democratic campaigns and won through
elections considered among the fairest ever seen by all non-aligned
observers, the pro-WC media continues to cry foul and, in some
instances, actually seem to instigate violence against these
popular governments.
Ali saves some of his bitterest
sarcasm for those former revolutionaries who jumped ship and
joined the imperial forces represented by the WC. This doesn't
mean he is sycophantic in his reportage of those that didn't.
Indeed, the section on Cuba does not spare that country's government
from its Stalinist excesses and paranoid overreaction to homosexuality
and criticism of its polices. But his real wrath is for men
like Venezuelan newspaper publisher and politician Teodoro Petkoff,
a former guerrilla and socialist whose hatred of Chavez and the
Bolivarian revolution led him to support--editorially and otherwise--
the 2002 coup against Chavez. Prior to this, Petkoff supported
every neoliberal economic measure that has come Venezuela's way
since the early 1990s, including those policies that ensured
most of the country's oil profits went to foreign companies and
wealthy Venezuelans.
The writing is vintage Ali.
Acerbic and even caustic at times, funny and witty at others,
a sentiment of hope underlies it all. The primary drawback to
this book is its brevity. ON the other hand, this is exactly
what makes it a good introduction to the tortuous history of
the nations discussed and the positive aspects of those nations'
current governments. If one is familiar with the radical movement
represented by Morales and Chavez, and aware of the inspiration
Cuba has provided to revolutionaries throughout Latin America,
then this text is interesting for its language and the various
threads and literary inspirations Mr. Ali pulls together. There
are other books on this subject written from a perspective similar
to Ali's that contain more information and analysis, but there
none that are written in a manner as lively as this one. Besides
the writing style to recommend it, Pirates of the Caribbean
is highly recommended reading for one who is just developing
a curiosity about these nations and their politics.
CounterPunch
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CounterPunch Editors Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St Clair
are available to speak forcefully on ALL the burning issues,
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CounterPunch Speakers Bureau, 1-800-840-3683. Or email beckyg@counterpunch.org.
