Al-Intiqad´s interview with
Swedish intellectual and writer Jan Myrdal
Alintiqad is the official paper of Hizbullah
28 feburary, 2006 ; Posted 6 : 21 PM
Summary: Jan Myrdal, born in 1927, is one of the most renowned intellectuals and writers in Sweden in the last 40 years and is also an important voice in Leftist circles in Western Europe. Jan Myrdal has earned himself a name as a writer engaged in questions concerning the Third World, National Liberation struggles, anti-imperialism, as a vehement critic of the US so called ”War against Terrorism”, and also as a writer engaged on issues of freedom of speech and intellectual freedom. Jan Myrdal has written 80 books and countless of articles on this and other subjects and has on several occasions been confronted by the repressive forces of the Zionist thought police.
Jan Myrdal stems from a family who has made huge
imprints in modern Swedish society: his father Gunnar Myrdal was a professor of
International Economics, Minister of Commerce and a Nobel Laureate in Economic
Sciences in 1974 (sharing the so called ”Nobel Prize of Economics”). Jan
Myrdal´s mother Alva Myrdal, on the other hand, was also a politician, top
ranking UN diplomat and peace activist, who received the Nobel Peace Prize in
1982. The elder Myrdal couple were also something of the founding fathers of the
visions of the Social-Democratic Party, the leading political party in Sweden.
It is a great honour to present Al-Intiqad´s exclusive interview with Jan
Myrdal, where he to our readers speaks out on important current issues such as
the Palestinian question, the imperialist schemes against the Middle East and
the Moslem world, and the need to resist these strategies.
- AL-INTIQAD: Welcome Mr Jan Myrdal and thank you for this
interview in Al-Intiqad.
- JAN MYRDAL: I am glad to have this opportunity to discuss
with and express my opinions on general questions to an anti-imperialistic,
Moslem audience. I am not a Moslem; it is important to state that from the very
beginning because there is a very strong imperialistic propaganda saying that
there is an unbridgeable gap between people like me and the Moslems. I hold that
this is not so.
I am now by this discussion trying to continue what I have tried to say at
different conferences in Stockholm, Paris, Istanbul and in Jordan: the present
conflicts are not a clash of civilisations, a war of cultures.
Let me be concrete. During the Istanbul Tribunal on the Iraq war Bush and Blair
were found to be guilty of the type of crimes that were condemned in the
Nuremberg Trials against the Nazi leaders. Both of these political leaders often
talk about their beliefs and ideals; Bush is what is called a reborn Christian
and Blair is said to have prayed before taking the decision to go to war. But
their actions are not expressions of any Christian faith. If nothing else they
are hypocrites.
Their war is not a religious Christian war against Islam. My late grandmother
was a devout Christian. We have millions like her in our countries. These
Christian believers are not enemies of your countries and your peoples, they are
not the ones going to war.
Bush and Blair and their likes have an agenda which is very simple. Theirs is a
struggle for keeping domination, for economic supremacy and for securing natural
resources; in your countries specifically oil.
In this the present situation is not very different from earlier modern history
during the 19th and 20th centuries. You in your countries as well as we in our
countries must see it clearly, for what it is. We should not let us be fooled
talking as if the policies of Bush were decided by his interest in ”human
rights” or ”democracy” or his Christian religious beliefs. Because that is what
it is not; it is a question of oil and power, economics and military might.
Halliburton gets tremendous income from this war in Iraq as you all know.
This must be clearly borne in mind. Let me remind you that Cheney, the present
vice president of the United States (and the former chief of Halliburton) in May
2001 presented a report on the oil security of the United States. According to
Cheney the internal production would fall from then 8,5 million barrels per day
to 7 million per day in 2020, at the same time consumption would increase from
19,5 million barrels to 22,5 million barrels. Securing these energy resources
would have to be the top priority in the United States foreign policy. We all
know - and you have felt it on your own persons - how these policies have been
implemented. If you on a world map mark the 570 military installations of the
United States you will see how they are clustered around oil reserves and pipe
lines all over the world. Of course the leaders of the predatory United States
try to cloud the issue. As the Moslem countries of the Middle East are rich in
oil they try to mask their struggle for this oil in an anti-Moslem campaign or a
”war between cultures” (”a Crusade”, as Bush said or ”installing democracy and
respect for human rights” as Blair could put it).
That campaign against Islam as a religion and Moslems as believers is a reality.
It colours the mass media and the political discussions in our countries. It is
used in internal politics against minorities in our countries in Europe (the
people of the ”banlieus” in France for instance). That is why it is necessary
for us through articles, discussions, conferences to show that it is a false
ideology.
Let’s go back. If you go to the history books you will read about the wars of
religion in Europe in the 16th, 17th centuries. True there was much talk of
religion. In the propaganda the Swedish king Gustavus Adolphus, the big
Protestant hero from the North entered Germany for the sake of religion. But did
he? Well, he said so, and he was a Protestant, he fought against Catholic
generals but he did so in the pay of Cardinal Richelieu of France. That Catholic
Cardinal used the Protestant Swedish king in his struggle against the Catholic
German Emperor in Vienna. The truth behind that facade of a religious war is
that it was a new phase of the power struggle for supremacy in Europe!
I’m saying this because we should be clear about the fact that it is not the
Christians as such (the millions in Europe - and other parts of the world - who
are believing Christians like my grandmother was) but imperial powers, who in
their selfish interest are utilising different ideologies. They call it ”human
rights”, they can talk – as the religious ultra-Right in the United States –
about their religion, but in fact it is a question of profit, domination and
natural resources.
This means that the common people in the West in reality have the same interest
of peace and respectful co-operation - not predatory war - as those in your
countries. It is up to us as writers and intellectuals to clarify this and go
against the false consciousness.
Let me take another example to make this clear. Sweden has a rather small
population, but we are sitting on 15 % of the worlds uranium resources. We have
politically decided not to use this. The United States even once put great
pressure on us not to develop our - at that time scientifically interesting -
own atomic technology programme but to stay dependent on them. As I said in
1964: If Sweden tries to go her own way the United States and the Soviet Union
will unite to bomb us!
But at a certain stage, the United States – when the oil resources are running
low and their energy needs remain high - will surely try to grab these Swedish
uranium deposits. Prospecting is already going on despite local protests.
If we do not accept to let the United States utilise our natural resources in
their own interest and for their own profit but stand on our right to national
independence and do not have prepared a real defence that can (like North
Korea!) deter them the United States will surely try to get hold of our ore.
They could use one pretext or another. For instance they could say that Sweden
for more than seventy years has had a more or less middle of the road
Social-Democratic government that according to them was lacking in respect for
private property and that Swedes needed to be liberated into a true market
economy. Or - as the uranium deposits are in the North - they could point out
that the Same people (the indigenous ethnic minority in Sweden) is being
oppressed and has to be helped by the United States military might to build an
independent national state.
I say this because you must understand that you are not the only ones being
subjected to their policies. Look at Yugoslavia! As long as the United States
during the Cold War had use for Tito against the Soviet Union they supported
Yugoslavia politically as well as economically and praised the Yugoslav state.
When they had won that cold war they changed policy. It was in their interest -
together with that of Germany - to divide the Yugoslav state. Divide and rule!
- AL-INTIQAD: By which strategies do imperial powers of
today exert their control and dominance, indirectly by local agents or through
direct rule, and by which slogans do they try to mask their dominative
ambitions?
- JAN MYRDAL: In your countries as in our country there
will always be certain groups who make a profit on imperialist domination. They
were called ”Compradors” in colonial times in China and other countries. They
were called ”Collaborators” in Occupied France. Intellectuals and businessmen
directly linked to the ruling - colonial or occupying - power.
If you look at the colonial history of India you will see there was always a
large segment of Indian society that was closely bound to British Imperialism
and profited by it; feudal princes, mercenaries, bureaucrats, businessmen. This
you have had in all your countries. These social groups still exist and we of
course have similar groups too. In certain situations they can be extremely
dangerous. Today they will probably dress themselves, more or less consciously,
in terms like ”NGO:s for human rights” etc. The history of the break up of the
former Soviet Union and the role of foreign funded ”human rights groups” is very
enlightening.
As for human rights, you should remember that when the leaders of the West today
talk about ”human rights”, the only human right they really care for is the
right to property but not in the sense of individual property (a house, a
savings account, a small shop) but of private control of natural resources and
banks, monopolies, trusts. They are quite prepared to imprison and torture
outside any legal framework as long as these their property rights are held
sacred. Take their campaign against Cuba as an example. The leaders of the
United States have never forgiven the Cubans that they lost the dominant United
States suzerainty over Cuba (and that the brothels and gambling houses they
owned there were closed down). But then you can look at the survival rate of
Cuban children. The Cuban children live because the United States influence was
abrogated (and their collaborators thrown out).
Which is the main human right? The main human right is the right to exist, the
right to survival. You can see the horrors of the Neo-liberal agenda all around
the world. See poor Russia – I was not very fond of the Soviet polices as you
might know – but now the decline of population has become a real genocide! But
the leaders of the West call the fate of the Russian people - how their common
wealth was stolen by a handful of corrupt individuals, and the life expectancy
of common Russians drastically fell - after the implementation of the market
economy a triumph of Democracy and Human Rights!
One should thus be very careful with ”human rights”. They are valid in the
struggle against torture and exploitation, illness and poverty, for the right to
survive and for a decent life. These are human rights. But those who now more or
less openly and consciously are serving imperial interests will today dress up
their intrigues as ”Human rights”, ”Democracy” or whatever you have.
- AL-INTIQAD: Are not these so-called ”human rights”
issues very selective, that some people according to the West are more worth
than others?
- JAN MYRDAL: Of course. If a struggle for reclaiming
stolen agricultural land in some country in Africa leaves 10 White settlers dead
that becomes a major human rights issue in the West whereas 100 000 dead African
children are uninteresting; they are just a normality.
If you own the patent of a drug for a common deadly illness you make a
tremendous profit. You keep the price up. You don’t allow cheap drugs that can
make the children survive. If a country in the Third World begins to make the
drug itself to save its population from illness and death the United States
government screams against this crime and will use all the instruments in its
power against this thieving country.
The very simple truth is that some small groups in the imperialist powers in the
West (to which also countries like Japan and small predatory powers like Sweden
have to be counted) profit from oppression and exploitation (both directly and
through what is euphemistically called ”terms of trade”) in what is called the
Third World.
In saying this I once more want to point out that you have to see the difference
between the common people of our countries and the ruling circles.
- AL-INTIQAD: What is you perception of the question of
Palestine?
- JAN MYRDAL: This is a very serious question. What did we
on the Left in Europe say before and during the Second World War? What we at
that time thought was that when the anti-colonial struggle got the British out
of Palestine there would be a Palestine for the people of different religions
Christians, Moslems, Jews – a unified Palestine – liberated from the British.
This is not what happened. The reasons for this are to be sought in what in
legal terms is called a pactum turpe - a dirty political deal you could say -
specially between the United States at the time, and the Soviet Union who both
but for different reasons wanted to disrupt and supplant what was still the
British Empire. Some leaders of what was becoming the Socialist camp had the
strange illusion that a Zionist state would be them a socialist friend. The
United States realistically counted on such a state to become a faithful beach
head.
There is also something you in your countries have to understand. There was a
cynical use of the latent anti-Semitism in Europe in order to create a mass
emigration to Palestine. Jews who had survived the German persecution were in
Western Europe held in camps for Displaced Persons in miserable conditions.
There were shameful pogroms in Poland and of the 80.000 surviving Jews in Poland
30.000 had already a year after the end of the war fled westward to these camps.
No country in Europe - and decidedly not the United States - wanted the
multitudes in the camps of DP:s. Of the 335.000 Jews in Romania and the 200.000
in Hungary the majority were destitute and - despite official governmental
phraseology - were being pushed out towards Palestine. These poor and oppressed
multitudes were used as tools to open Palestine for mass immigration. It was an
extremely cynical policy.
The result has been that the new state was not created as a post-colonial state
for the population of Palestine - people of different faiths - but as an
artificial and racially defined colonial and dependent entity whose original
population was driven out. The Palestinian people became refugees or subjugated
natives. Israel thus was made into a strange racist state in perpetual conflict
and expansion. This is an extremely unstable situation.
It has already led to a continuing war in several phases. In 1967 when I, after
the Six Days War, spoke on this at the protest meeting we held in Stockholm, I
pointed out that this war could last for 100 years or more.
One should always remember that whatever we hope there are also negative
possibilities. Six hundred years ago neither the people of what is now called
Australia or of North America could envisage that they would (partly as south of
what is now the border between Mexico and the United States and totally north of
that border and in Australia) be exterminated. But they have been. The genocide
in what is now Mexico was numerically one of the largest in recorded history.
The genocide in what is now the United States next to complete. There it was
carried on until the beginning of the 20th Century and there are now only small
clusters left of the indigenous population.
We should keep in mind that the Palestinians too could be exterminated. A people
can disappear. For certain groups in Israel - certain settlers for instance -
this disappearance of the Palestinian people is an option. For cultural reasons
there is in the United States also a traditional acceptance of such a genocide.
- AL-INTIQAD: How should the Palestinians react in the
present to this situation?
- JAN MYRDAL: In this situation it is of course very
important for them to make a very careful analysis of the whole situation. The
struggle is necessary if they are to survive but struggle and heroism is not
enough. Nobody can say that the indigenous population of what is now the United
States - the so called Indians - did not struggle and did not conduct a heroic
defence.
One difference is that there is now such a factor as international solidarity.
The indigenous population of North America did not have strong neighbouring
peoples. But the Palestinians do. Also there is a growing understanding in all
our countries that what is happening to the Palestinians these last sixty years
could happen to any of us. As John Donne said in 1622 - and Hemingway quoted in
his novel from the war of the Spanish people against fascism - ”never send to
know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee”. Solidarity is one factor. But
we all know its limits both in our countries and among the ruling circles in the
Middle East.
Another factor is time and demography. The indigenous population in what is now
the United States was sparse; they could be eliminated. South of the border the
situation was different. The Palestinians are many - and they multiply like the
indigenous population has done in Mexico and Bolivia. An entity such as Israel
built on a race theory is not viable in the long run. In a hundred years - or
two or three - it will crumble like the Crusader state or the South African
republic crumbled. Not in the sense that the people living there will disappear;
they will be assimilated as the remnants of the crusaders were assimilated and
as the Afrikanders are being assimilated after their statehood vanished.
But for the moment the support for Israel in the United Nations and the European
Union seems strong. Even Sweden co-operates militarily with Israel. But as this
is against the interest and wishes of the majority of our people, we ought to be
able to abrogate this. Thus there can be changes in European policies, there can
be changes even in Israel. After all there are social and political
contradictions in Israel that are apt to lead to a changing situation. Nothing
is certain.
The main international support for the state of Israel comes from the United
States. It is now using Israel as a beach head. But there is no friendship, no
loyalty, no love, no eternal allies in international politics. If it would be in
the interest of the United States to switch sides in the question of Israel -
there are several possible scenarios - Israel would over night loose that
support.
- AL-INTIQAD: How come Japan and Germany after the Second
World War, when occupied, capitulated totally to the occupying power, offering
no more resistance, even co-operating with the occupation force. This whereas
the Moslem examples of occupied Palestine and Iraq are showing a fierce military
and ideological resistance against the occupation power. On which grounds does
this difference rest, on the ideology of the countries occupied, on historical
factors?
- JAN MYRDAL: There is no similarity. The present struggle
against the occupation forces in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine is like the
struggle against the German occupiers in Europe, against the Japanese occupiers
in Korea, China, Vietnam, Burma. That is these struggles were and are national
liberation struggles. Often complicated of course - remember that the situation
in Burma was very complicated.
- AL-INTIQAD: But why didn’t the people of Germany or
Japan resist the occupation of their countries?
- JAN MYRDAL: The situation was - as I said - totally
different. The people had been harshly repressed by the Nazi and imperial
rulers. They neither wanted the Hitlerites or the imperial rulers back. At first
they thus believed the Western phrases of democratisation. The ruling circles
switched sides and thus kept their position as rulers. If you look back you will
see that it is the same capital circles who are determining in Germany today as
during the Nazi era. In Japan too; there the West even kept the war criminal
Hirohito as an emperor. The old rulers and the occupiers also co-operated
intensively; the whole United States space program was built by the Nazi
specialists. The bacteriological warfare capability of the United States was
more than reinforced with bacteriological experts from Japan. The United States
did not - like the Soviet Union - bring them to court; they incorporated them
and the results of their experiments (also on the tissues from Allied POW:s).
- AL-INTIQAD: What is your opinion on the present war in
Iraq and the present attempts to occupy that country? What is the grand strategy
in this scheme?
- JAN MYRDAL: The United States are trying to colonise
Iraq and of course certain groups inside Iraq will collaborate with them,
because it is profitable. But they are not stupid enough not to remember the
French saying that one can use bayonets for much - except to sit on. They will
thus try to instigate the ”Balkanization” of Iraq. It is in their interest that
Iraq is divided at least into three states, maybe more. In the best of cases,
from their point of view, those three states would be in continuous state of
tension and maybe war, then their domination would be more or less complete.
Balkanization is a method to rule.
I remember when I lived in India, United States officials we considered to be
from the CIA - ”the Friends" as they were called - used to say that India could
be divided into 16 states. China divided in 6 Chinese states (which explains the
violent reaction of the Chinese government to the 1989 Tien-an-men
demonstrations) and Iran could be divided into at least 5 entities. These United
States officials called it a democratic possibility. But in reality it was a
recipe for United States domination. Divide and rule. Create weak states. Client
states.
Just now Washington is leading a new campaign against Iran. If they can invade
Iran or once more engineer an overthrow of the Iranian government – like they
organised the overthrow of Mossadeq once upon a time – they will do it. Not for
ideals or for religion. Only for profit and oil! The reason why they are making
such a fuss about the Iranian atomic energy policy is not just because they can
fear that Iran is building an atomic bomb but because if Iran enriches its own
uranium it will have a greater control over its own energy resources. (Compare
with the situation in Sweden!)
I and Gun Kessle lived in Iran during the time of the Shah. We liked and
respected the people and the culture but the United States influence was very
strong and the social oppression very evident. We believed there would be a
revolution at any moment. We were not alone in believing this. Also the Swedish
ambassador - Ragnvald R:son Bagge at that time - believed so. But it took many
years before it happened. One can never predict exactly what will happen even
though one can see certain great lines, and you can also see lines of conflicts.
- AL-INTIQAD: Will other regional and international powers
in silence just watch the United States implement its aggressive policies and
expansionism in the region?
- JAN MYRDAL: Neither Russia nor China are happy about
United States military bases in Central Asia. It is once more like when Russia
and the British Empire were struggling over limiting the other’s sphere of
influence in Persia, Afghanistan and Tibet. The empires were competing; the
British at that time wanted to have the cotton and the trade routes, and Russia
wanted trade routes down to the warm sea. This led to three British Afghan wars.
The price the Afghan people had to pay was very high but in all three wars the
British militarily lost. And at last - after the third war - the Afghan people
managed to regain its full sovereignty.
The imperial ambitions that led to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and then
the United States invasion are similar. The popular struggle is also similar and
I fully trust that the end result will be similar - but the Afghan people will
once more have had to pay a high price.
But neither the tsar nor the British King-Emperor, Bresjnev and Bush had other
motives than pure greed. The Afghans fought and the British gentlemen considered
them uncivilised and cruel - but they won their independence.
- AL-INTIQAD: The phenomena of Hezbollah, the phenomena of
Islamic resistance in general, how come the United States in its imperialistic
ambitions has not met such resistance before?
- JAN MYRDAL: On Hezbollah I think that I in general can say
that it is a broad based popular movement that managed to throw back the strong
Israeli occupying army.
But there lurks a danger in your question. Hezbollah is valiant. But it is not
the first popular movement against US imperialism. Remember the heroic
Philippine armed resistance against the US imperialism after what is called the
Spanish American war. Remember the Mexican Revolution. Remember the heroic
Korean war against US aggression. Not to speak of the struggles of the South
East Asian peoples. At certain times during the last century the US seemed
ever-victorious but during later decades the US imperialists have several times
been militarily defeated by a people in arms!
The Second World War was both a war between different imperial interests and of
people fighting for their independence. In Europe the Norwegians, the French
resistance, the guerrillas of Northern Italy struggled for their national
liberation as do the Palestinians, Iraqis, Afghans today.
Where there is oppression people will rise in revolt. The ideologies will be
different according to the time and the history but if people are oppressed they
will react and revolt and their struggle will be just.
Today in many countries of the world - especially in Asia - Moslem or Islamic
ideology has become a driving force in the popular resistance against
oppression. The situation and thus the ideologies were different for the
patriots of Europe or China during the second World War. But then as now: To
revolt against oppression is just.
I believe that you will ultimately prove successful. Imperialism will in the
long run not be able to sustain itself. It conducts its wars on borrowed money.
In the long run theirs is a no-win situation. Though the run can be long!
- AL-INTIQAD: You once said in a speech that if you cannot
win outright over an occupation force, at least you should try to make the
occupation uncomfortable for the oppressor.
- JAN MYRDAL: Yes, this is true. Let us take the reason
why it is correct to struggle in a situation where it is not immediately
profitable. You can take a simple situation from European history; during the
Second World War, you had the ”Résistance” – de Gaulle and others – in France.
They struggled with popular support but without strong military means. Then you
had the really militarily strong Allied invasion in Normandy in 1944.
The United States had already printed occupation money for a France liberated by
the Allies. France was going to become a minor European state under United
States suzerainty. Then de Gaulle managed by nearly a ”coup” to re-establish the
independent French state when the Allies allowed him to step ashore in Normandy.
After that de Gaulle and the Communists agreed that the population of Paris had
to liberate themselves, in armed struggle. The Americans said that it was not
necessary. The Allied armies would do it. But de Gaulle and the Communists
organised the armed rising in Paris, many people were killed. One can say that
if the Parisians had been sitting quietly on their bottoms they would have been
liberated anyway by the Americans. Thus many would have survived. But in a
subordinate France!
In the rising of 1944 many died, others were disabled, but the French liberated
Paris by themselves and went on to fight against the German forces and France
thus exists today as a nation.
- AL-INTIQAD: The Palestinians are fighting for a
democratic state, also the Islamists envision that; a state with equal rights
where Moslems, Christians and Jews can live. Israel is not for a democratic
state. Should this be accepted? Should the Palestinians just capitulate to the
stronger part and accept this Apartheid state?
- JAN MYRDAL: The decision what the Palestinian people
should do must be in the hands of the Palestinian people. They can get support
from abroad, also from us in Europe, but they have to decide.
The demand for a democratic state with equal rights where Moslems, Christians
and Jews can live is one that before 1948 had strong support from the circles I
grew up in. It still seems to me the only solution for a peaceful development in
the region. But how to reach that aim, to decide which struggles that are
necessary, must be for the Palestinian people to decide.
- AL-INTIQAD: How come it is the Islamists that today
carry the torch of resistance against the world hegemony, against different
forms of domination, imperialism and neo-colonialism?
- JAN MYRDAL: This is an important question. The United
States imperialism has long been a direct threat to the interests of the peoples
in different parts of the world. Take the Philippines as an example. The United
States occupation was a focal point for the anti-imperialist movement a century
ago. The indigenous Christians struggled against that. Mark Twain wrote about it
(the United States soldiers tortured Christian priests in the same horrible way
they now torture Moslems).
Now, due to a popular struggle the United States has had to leave their bases.
The struggle still goes on. It has thus kept on for many, many generations under
different slogans, partly armed, partly political.
In Bolivia the ideologies behind the struggle for liberation from United States
imperialism have other roots. In many parts of Latin America the Christian
Liberation Theology has - as Castro said - played a positive role against the
rule of United States imperialism. All this can be analysed just as the
behaviour of the different classes in society can be analysed. In many countries
in what is called the Third World the middle class, the ”bourgeoisie”, they too
want to have independence. So it is a very complicated situation.
It is evident that Moslem - Islamist if you want to express it that way - groups
have taken the lead in large areas of the world. To a large part it is because
important segments of the intellectual Left decayed as revolutionaries (their
social background was often from the middle classes), became co-opted to the
Compradore class and lost their legitimacy as representatives of the oppressed
masses. But remember that the present Islamist movements conduct the struggle
against United States imperialism for religious reasons. That has to be
understood.
I’m of course not a Moslem and I’m not religious but I am not a liberal. I see
religion as a very real and important force in society. If you go to Swedish
history, you will note that the first popular democratic movements in the early
19th century were religious; Christian.
As I pointed out in Jordan, the whole structure of Swedish ”Folkrörelser”, i.e.
”Popular Movements”, that have shaped modern Sweden, also the Labour movement,
was formed by these religious movements of the early 19th century. Most Swedes
don’t realise this today, but that’s another thing.
If you go back still further, to the period of the large peasant struggles in
the 15th, 16th centuries, you will see that they were successful in Sweden,
Switzerland and Northern Finland. That made our countries somewhat different
from the rest of Europe.
But in Germany the peasant wars were religious movements. Take a great
historical figure and democratic martyr like Thomas Müntzer; he was a leader of
the peasant revolution. But he was so as a religious teacher. His translation of
the Bible was of importance, it was there he found his truth which drove him to
lead a revolution. If I had been suddenly transferred to the 16th century and
gone up to Müntzer and said; ”Dear friend, I know that you are a peasant
revolutionary”, he would have looked at me and said; ”No, no, no. I’m fighting
for God!”
I want you as Moslems to understand that from the outside - as a non-Moslem - I
can se the role of an organisation like Hezbollah as mainly anti-imperialist. I
can say that this is an objective reality. But I know and respect that the
motivation for the anti-imperialist stance of Hezbollah is religious; the Divine
Word. To say this is not to denigrate religion in any way.
- AL-INTIQAD: The Zionists demand a humiliating
capitulation for the Palestinians, Iraqis, Lebanese and the Afghans. To just
capitulate and share the same fate as the North American native Indians – will
not such a capitulation just give birth to even larger conflicts and wars?
- JAN MYRDAL: I don’t think the question of capitulation
exists. It is not an option. You can say that many of the feudal rulers in India
in the 18th, 19th centuries accepted the British rule. In the official
propaganda the British ruled peacefully until they left India out of their own
will. But that is a lie!
First the British got the big war of 1857– the First War of Independence – they
struck back with sadistic mass-violence. Then there was a continuous popular
struggle against British Imperialism. Gandhi was a very great historical figure.
But the struggle of the Indian people was conducted by all methods - peaceful
and violent. My first father-in-law was what the British seventy-five years ago
called a ”Bengal Terrorist” and he had much to tell. Then in 1942 the ”Quit
India” Movement was both strong and extremely violent. And why did the British
five years later have to leave India, the ”Crown Jewel” of their empire?
Because:
a) they had lost their investments during the Second World War,
b) in the Bombay Mutiny their fleet rose against them,
c) they had lost the control over their army. They were not able to sentence
even the leaders of the Indian National Army that Subhas Chandra Bose - Netaji -
had led in war against them. The British were not able to keep India without a
bloody war - that they would lose.
But why did not the German people rise against Hitler? The reason is the same as
why the British people did not rise against the empire builders or why only a
fraction of the people in the United States rise against Bush and his imperial
wars. It is a simple one; the German population had the best living standards in
Europe during the Second World War. As the Nazi regime robbed all of occupied
Europe and gave a small share of the plunder to the German people their protests
against Hitler were muted. When it pours on the hen, it drips on the chicken!
Hezbollah like the Afghans and the Palestinians and the Chinese, Koreans,
Indians and all others before them, can not put their trust in a change of heart
among the oppressors and their kin.
The imperialists can give their own population certain benefits of imperial
rule. As long as they do that they have a certain support. When the war goes
bad, when, like during the Vietnam war the losses become too great, then the
imperialists can be forced to retreat.
What will happen in Iraq? It depends partly on how great the losses - in men and
dollars - for the United States will be. You could say that every dead GI
increases the possibility of a retreat. But first they will try to get their
willing allies do the dirty work (see Afghanistan). At the same time the United
States will try to Balkanize, incite one group against another; if they can
achieve a civil war between different groups among the people of Iraq, then the
US could continue making profits and their troops could stay in their
cantonments for a long time to come.
Mao, who was a clever politician, said that imperialism is a paper tiger, but
one with real claws. One thing is to say that the United States domination is
doomed, no tree grows up into heaven. Or to look to the economic side; an empire
like the United States that lives on borrowed money will crash sooner or later.
One day China or Saudi Arabia or Japan will have to refuse to take paper
currency without real value. As yet they are afraid to make the international
monetary house of cards tumble down. But sooner or later they will have to, to
protect their own interests. But to wait for that can be a long wait.
Take the experience of my generation in Europe during the Second World War. We
knew from December 1941, when Hitler could not take Moscow and had to retreat,
that the Third Reich was doomed – but it took a long time, many years and
millions of dead before the end came.
- AL-INTIQAD: The conflict is no more between Israel and
Palestine, the wars that are being prepared against Syria, Iran and Lebanon have
their basis in the fact that they support the resistance of the Palestinians and
the Hezbollah. What are your views on these coming conflicts?
- JAN MYRDAL: The United States is forced by the very
momentum of the struggle for energy resources and military bases to protect
these, to continue the wars. On the other hand their military resources and
their monetary base is already getting strained. It is touch and go. Which way
the cat will jump is not self evident.
If the United States can blackmail the European Union to become a willing
supporter it is of course possible that it extends the armed conflict to Iran
and/or Syria. But it is easier to start a war than to end it.
I think they might be a little careful before they start a new war. They made a
mistake in Iraq. They could tumble Saddam Hussein, but they have not been able
to achieve a victory. If they extend the war certain people will get very rich
in the United States, the Halliburton crowd, oil companies and armament
industry, but many in the United States, among the pro-imperialists too, are
already uneasy. This seems not the best way to secure profits. Also their
present policies lead to ever increasing contradictions between the United
States and powers like Russia, and China. Even those states of the European
Union that recently behaved as servile client states are getting un-easy.
What we can do in our countries that is of course to increase the knowledge of
this, to increase the solidarity, strengthen the Anti-war Movement.
- AL-INTIQAD: You have civil courage and say what most
people dare not. Your engagement in these issues gives the Palestinians and
other oppressed peoples hope. How come you are so engaged in these issues, and
can you really work freely, or are they trying to restrain and censor your work?
- JAN MYRDAL: I might be stubborn. That is all. Like many
in my generation in Europe I had to take a stand as a young man - a boy you
could say - during the Second World War. Thus I had the good fortune to be
branded as a ”red” by the Swedish Security Police (and the United States
embassy) even before I was eighteen; this effectually stopped me from becoming a
normal loyal and serving European intellectual - even if I had wished to be one.
(Which I did not!)
What then happened was that I and my wife travelled and lived during several
years from the fifties onwards in Asia - Iran, Afghanistan, India, China, Burma,
the then Soviet Central Asia and later on in Cambodia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and
North Africa - and as you can see from what we published our perspectives
changed. Our book on Afghanistan from 1960 has now had its sixth edition in
Sweden and has been of a certain value in creating solidarity with the Afghan
people.
In certain periods - like the McCarthy years that also in Sweden were difficult
- I had to be careful in order to get printed at all, not that I lied but I had
to write in an ”esopian” manner. In other periods it has been easier. And Sweden
has been one of the more open societies in Europe. I have only been brought to
court once for not being careful enough in my choice of words. And we won
against the government.
Of course it is possible to make a career in Sweden as in other countries by
keeping your words in check. But it is not very fun. Presently for me it is very
simple; when you approach 80 years of age and have a certain position there is
not much they can do. Not that they do not try.
Four times they tried to throw me out of the Swedish PEN-club, the association
of well tempered writers. But they were not successful. In the end I did not
care and just stopped paying membership dues.
- AL-INTIQAD: Do you think that with the help of the
Internet there has been a democratisation of the media, that via the Internet
you also can spread the message? Will it break the monopolisation of information
of the mainstream media?
- JAN MYRDAL: It is possible to use the Internet, but it
is extremely difficult to know what is true and what is not true on the Net. I
was checking something on the Net the other day. Suddenly I found a serious
article stating that my parents had been Nazi agents and that I had written so!
It is not only a lie, it is an idiotic lie. But someone might believe it.
When it comes to printed matter, you know that to fake a book is extremely
difficult. You can check when was it printed, where was it printed. But on the
Net you can never really check the validity of the statements. But of course I
use it. With great care.
- AL-INTIQAD: Does democracy in Sweden work today?
- JAN MYRDAL: ”Democracy” is a dangerous word. It can be
used to stand for anything. You have the democracy of ancient Athens where nine
tenths of the population were slaves. At the same time we know what we mean by
it.
Sweden is a country where there are large areas of independence and free speech.
We also have traditions going back to our successful peasant wars of the
Fifteenth century that still are of importance. But of course it would be untrue
to say that people can decide. If we with a majority of 90% would decide
policies against unemployment, for better care of the aged, for better health
care that go outside the cold market rules our decision would be null and void
because it goes against the rules of the European Union.
Do I like that? No!
- AL-INTIQAD: Is the regime in Sweden representative and
legitimate, or is there a gap between the rulers and the people?
- JAN MYRDAL: The Swedish democracy has been developed in
a plebiscitarian way, a little like Napoleon III, i.e. the elections are no real
elections any longer but plebiscites. The choice stands between different shades
of yes; between different state financed groupings. (Even for the former
Communist party - ”Vänsterpartiet” - the Party of the Left - contributions from
members and sympathisers only constitute 5% of the party finances.) Remember
that the population of France voted for Napoleon III, in the formally correct
plebiscite before the war 1870. But as you can see from history - that says very
little about the political sentiments of the French people at the time.
You can’t have a Swedish government sitting directly against the will of the
people. On the other hand the government is since many years mainly a
bureaucratic structure defined by market economy laws. The parties are
politically very weak state funded structures with fewer and fewer members.
Already some years ago, I heard a leading Social Democrat say that the Social
Democratic Youth Movement is no movement, it is a queue – to get posts.
- AL-INTIQAD: You have called the present Swedish Prime
Minister Göran Persson a”municipal politician”. Could you explain this?
- JAN MYRDAL: A municipal politician in Sweden can be
honest as such honesty goes he can try to do the best of the situation. But what
he can do is always prescribed from above, by the rules of the game. Göran
Persson is not a man with great visions. He has also unfortunately got a hang up
on Israel. That makes him differ from a predecessor like Olof Palme. But this
leads me to something that can explain Sweden:
Olof Palme was internationally important and interesting as a politician. Not
that he and I always agreed. But he had a vision. But when you speak about Olof
Palme and Sweden you have to remember three facts:
1) we all know that Olof Palme is dead,
2) we all know that he was murdered,
3) we also all know that there was no real police investigation.
After that we know nothing. Every explanation is a hypothesis. But that is not
unique in Sweden. The greatest catastrophe in recent decades occurred the night
of September 27 1994 when the m/s Estonia sank during a storm in the Baltic Sea
and 859 lives were lost.
We know that Estonia sank.
We know that 859 persons died.
We know that the governments of Estonia, Finland and Sweden decided not to make
any real investigation and to forbid any examination of the wreck. Anyone who
tries will be liable to prosecution.
Why they reached that strange decision we do not know. Also this is Sweden! As
Sweden is a free country there are meters and meters of books in the libraries
and book-shops giving different speculative answers to both these mysteries. But
the authorities have closed the door on any real knowledge either on the murder
of Olof Palme or the sinking of Estonia. As far as I understand for reasons of
state.
- AL-INTIQAD: If you were a leader of Hamas or the
Hezbollah, how would you act?
- JAN MYRDAL: That is a very hypothetical question. Of
course I feel that the victory of Hamas is important but:
a) I’m a Swede sitting in Sweden, I’m not a Palestinian. I have no real
knowledge.
b) It is not for me - or anybody outside Palestine to give that kind of advice.
This is a matter of principle. If Hamas is a true representative of the
Palestinian people they have to answer to the Palestinian people and not to well
wishers from this or that continent however friendly! Still less of course to
politicians in Israel, the United States or the European Union or even the
United Nations!
The same goes for Hezbollah.
The question of international solidarity is in fact very simple. We formulated
it during the war against US aggression in South East Asia:
- Support the Liberation front on their own conditions!
This is a principle valid for our period. We must remember that this is a
long historical period. Imperialism and its genocidal politics began a hundred
years before I was born, I’m now 79, I will be 80 next summer. If I said that I
hoped to see a decisive popular victory in my time I would be stupid. My
grandchildren are around 30. When their great grand-children approach my present
age it might be that they will se the end of this evil age!
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