April 2011 - Centre for Civil Society - University of KwaZulu-Natal

HORACE CAMPBELL: Yes. And one of the major challenges is for the
people who call themselves progressives to be very careful in their
language about this so-called revolution in the Arab world. Libya is on the
African continent, long historic ties to Africa. Tunisia is on the African
continent. Egypt stands at the headwaters of the Nile River that comes out
of Central Africa. All of these states work very hard to be citizens and
members of the African community. We only need to look at the African
nation—Cup of Nations Cups and to see the role that Tunisia and Egypt
plays in African soccer. So, these are African societies. In these African
societies, they have citizens who are of an Arab extraction, and many of
these people call themselves Arabs. So what we can see is that the
revolution in North Africa links the Arab revolution of Arabia and North
Africa.
This intersection of Arab and Africa has been positive in the past during
the period of Nasser, when Nasser was anti-imperalist. What we have to be
very careful about in this period is those who call themselves Arab carry on
the arrogance and chauvinism and racism of Western Europeans who look
down on Africans. And it is in a revolutionary process that revolutionaries
themselves have to have a higher standard of ethics, morality and racial
and gender consciousness so that they do not reproduce the hierarchy and
racism that looks down on Africans who are called black Africans, because
Tunisians, Libyans and Egyptians are also Africans.
AMY GOODMAN: Professor Campbell, the issue of Saudi Arabia? We are
hearing protests in Yemen, in Oman, in Bahrain, in Jordan. Saudi Arabia,
we have heard there have been some strikes, but what about how Saudi
Arabia fits into this?
HORACE CAMPBELL: This is the real clincher for the revolutionary process
underway. I have been following the writings of Robert Fisk, and Robert
Fisk has said that the real challenge will be the extent to which the
revolutionary process gets underway in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia, like
Egypt under Mubarak, like Gaddafi’s police state, like Ben Ali’s police
state, these are police states where the political leaders have billions of
dollars to repress the people, where the political leaders use the resources
of the state to recycle for Western armaments companies. And the leaders
of Saudi Arabia are very conservative, oppressing not only the people, but
particularly the women of Saudi Arabia. So there are large and huge pentup
sentiments and hunger for freedom within Saudi Arabia.
It is precisely because the Western strategic thinkers understand the
potential for revolution in Saudi Arabia, along with all over the Arabian
Peninsula, why it is urgent for them to intervene in North Africa, because
from the time of Cleopatra right down through the Nazis in Germany, the
occupation of Libya, right next to Egypt, was strategically important for
access to North Africa and Arabia. So the strategic thinkers in Washington,
in London, in Paris and Brussels are considering that with the impending
isolation of Israel, with revolutionary processes all over Arabia and North
Africa, it is very important for the West to have a foothold.
It is in this very moment they need ways to divert the working peoples of
North America and Western Europe from the practice of capitalism. As
we’ve seen in Wisconsin, the workers in Wisconsin gained confidence,
gained support, gained courage from the peoples of Egypt. We’ve seen
signs where the people say they’re standing up for their rights. In moments
like these, when the Governor of Wisconsin is cutting back on expenditure
on health, on education, for the poor, and the Pentagon is spending over a
trillion dollars in its budget, it is times like these that the conservative
forces need to whip up a new militarism in the United States of America to