In
an important essay, entitled "The Pitfalls of
National Consciousness", the Algerian writer and
revolutionary, Frantz Fanon, warned his readers
that, after the struggle against imperialism,
there is a danger that the revolutionary party
will transform itself into a conservative elite:
After independence, the party sinks into an
extraordinary lethargy. The militants are only
called upon when so-called popular manifestations
are afoot, or international conferences, or
independence celebrations. The local party leaders
are given administrative posts, the party becomes
an administration, and the militants disappear
into the crowd and take the empty title of citizen.
Now that they have fulfilled the historical
mission of leading the bourgeoisie may carry
out its mission in peace and quiet. But we have
seen that the national bourgeoisie of underdeveloped
countries is incapable of carrying out any mission
whatever. After a few years, the break-up of
the party becomes obvious, and any observer,
even the most superficial, can notice that the
party, today the skeleton of its former self,
only serves to immobilize the people� The party
is becoming a means of private advancement.
This essay, expressing Fanon's deep anxiety about
the political direction that the Algerian struggle
was taking is perhaps his most significant piece
of work. Yet it is also a single piece in a corpus
that is dedicated to explaining the dynamic of
struggle, standing alone as a warning to anybody
engaging in revolutionary struggle. But it is
for this piece that Fanon should be most remembered
because in it he explicitly elevates independent
political thought over "the party" and criticises
emerging elite for its dishonourable pursuit of
political office as "a means of personal advancement".
Fanon died shortly before the liberation of Algeria
from French colonialism, so he did not witness
the country's descent into post-colonial authoritarianism
but his most pessimistic projections, outlined
in "The Pitfalls of National Consciousness" were
fulfilled by the very party that promised freedom
there.
More recently, Edward Said has committed the greater
portion of his political writing to a critique
of the Palestinian authority and its failure to
provide any kind of strategic or moral vision.
Edward Said has consistently spoken against and
written about the Israeli occupation of Palestine
and, since the signing of the Oslo Accords he
has opposed the fraudulent "peace process" in
the Middle East. When the deal was done, and another
formerly revolutionary elite was rewarded for
its surrender with a stake in power, Arafat, Rabin
and Clinton shook hands on the Whitehouse lawn
on September 14, 1993. Edward Said stayed away
from the event and instead warned Christopher
Hitchens: "This is a sell-out; a shabby and abortive
thing. Stay clear of it." In response to these
criticisms, Arafat's junta confiscated every one
of his books from all of the bookshops in West
Bank and Gaza in August 1996. This is the kind
of freedom that the Middle East peace process
has guaranteed for Palestine. His most recent
book, "The End of the Peace Process", is a collection
of brilliant essays and articles that are focussed
on the sell-out of the Palestinian people by the
Palestinian authority, and their oppression by
this elite. Most importantly, Edward Said offers
a means of resisting the new repression. "These
essays have been written as testimony to an alternative
view," he writes in the introduction, "another
way of looking not just at the present and the
past, but at the future as well." There has to
be an alternative, Said argues, because "no paper
arrangement, such as the one being projected now,
can be transformed into peace." In response to
these criticisms, Arafat's junta confiscated every
one of his books from all of the bookshops in
West Bank and Gaza in August 1996. This is the
kind of freedom that the Middle East peace process
promotes in Palestine.
What makes Edward Said such an interesting and
important writer for any Irish republican who
wants to help formulate an alternative strategy
to the Stormont sell-out is the absolute relevance
of his writing to our situation. The primary goal
of Oslo, Said maintains, has been the depoliticization
of Palestinian society and its integration "within
the main current of American-style globalization".
One has only to replace "Palestine" with "Ireland",
"Oslo" with "Good Friday", "Palestinian authority"
with Sinn F�in", or "Arafat" with "Adams" or "McGuinness"
while reading this book to see how striking the
analogy is. And because of this, Edward Said's
writing is a powerful tool and an immense source
of hope for anybody who stands up to power anywhere.
The sense of empowerment that he offers jumps
out at the reader in the very first essay entitled
"The First Step". There are always alternatives
to tyranny and authoritarianism, Said writes,
because the first step towards defining an alternative
is a shift of consciousness. The road to an alternative
begins with the individual's refusal to swallow
official doctrine and lies: "The first step in
liberating the occupied territories is to determine
that they are to be liberated. Just because Israel
and the United States have decided that annexation
and the peace process are irreversible is no reason
to accept injustice. The first step therefore
is to admit that such a process is indeed reversible
and that in order to achieve it there has to be
real mobilization and preparation." This book
opens with the theme of free and independent thought
and throughout, Said argues that this is the real
alternative to Oslo. In the face of establishment
propaganda that declares that there can be no
other way than the one that the state forces upon
people, the individual can think, can criticise,
and can make a difference.
In another article, "Where Do We Go From Here",
Said explains that the critical role of the individual
who disagrees with authority is vital:
There are alternatives� as there always are
to incompetence and dictatorship� criticism
does in fact make a contribution. When a situation
occurs in which one person rules according to
his own ideas, there is always room for someone
to say out loud that that is dictatorship� There
can be no such thing as solidarity before, or
without, criticism; everyone is fallible� The
point is that criticism heightens awareness
and recalls leaders to their constituency. Above
all, I believe, criticism of authority is a
moral duty. Silence or indifference, or compliance,
in such a situation is immoral.
He then goes on to provide an alternative to Oslo,
calling firstly for action by diaspora Palestinians,
and, then secondly, for the revival of the Palestine
National Council (which Arafat ignores) as an
alternative to the neutered Legislative Council.
This, Said suggests, should be organised through
adherence to ideals that cannot be bargained away
by secret councils - "a set of unbendable and
unnegotiable principles should be articulated
to which negotiators must be held." In other words,
a negotiating team should not have the power to
represent national interests without reporting
to the people of Palestine who appoint it. He
also calls for reparations for Israel's crimes
against the Palestinian people.
Echoing Fanon's premonitions in "The Pitfalls
of National Consciousness", Said criticises the
use of nationalism to conceal social inequalities,
economic injustices and to disguise a generally
inadequate quality of life in Palestine. In the
essay "On Visiting Wadie", in which he describes
his son's work in Ramallah with the Democracy
and Workers' Rights Center, he notes how nationalism
is used to block discourse on social justice for
Palestinians. This, he explains, is the result
"of a poverty, of reason and responsibility� critical
thought is much more useful now than flag-waving,
a rhetorical ploy which I have always thought
is one of the cheapest political tactics ever
invented." Irish republicans don't need to watch
images of Palestine on television to relate to
this criticism; sterile images on murals, along
with the meaningless, stencilled, slogans reflect
a similar paucity of thought in our own country.
Sinn F�in-sponsored paintings on gable ends in
Derry, Belfast and now even in Dublin, project
vague nationalist icons instead of transmitting
ideas. Just as in Palestine, ideas might threaten
party hegemony and instead people are subjected
to an Orwellian attempt to focus attention away
from Stormont, decommissioning and Sinn F�in's
wholesale abuse of the human rights.
Said consistently points to the necessity of deconstructing
the Oslo sell-out through the refusal of individuals
to conform: "we cannot fight for our rights and
our history as well as for the future until we
are armed with weapons of criticism and dedicated
consciousness." The act of criticism, the assertion
of individual consciousness against the party
machine and its propaganda, is the first alternative
to the Oslo accords. It is also the first step
toward replacing the farce of Stormont politics
with a real alternative that values people and
not prestige. For republicans, Edward Said shows
that there can be an alternative to the squalid,
partitionist, authoritarian, little Sinn F�in
junta that enforces its will through murder and
the use of nail-studded baseball bats. This is
the reason why Edward Said's books are so important,
and it is the reason why every serious republican
should own a copy of this one. Although we don't
have a national government in the six counties,
it is worth considering the closing words of Frantz
Fanon's essay because they tell us what a government
should be:
The national government, if it wants to be national,
ought to govern by the people and for the people,
for the outcasts and by the outcasts. No leader,
however valuable he may be, can substitute himself
for the popular will; and the national government,
before concerning itself about international
prestige, ought first to give back their dignity
to all citizens, fill their minds and feast
their eyes with human things, and create a prospect
that is human because conscious and sovereign
men dwell therein.
The
End of the Peace Process by Edward Said, Published
by Granta, �15.99 Sterling
