Tricontinentalism is the lens through which we should analyze the anti-imperialist movement, not only to understand the past but to build the movement against imperialist domination today.
Radical economist Samir Amin understood well that revolutionary offensives against the imperialism of the triad (USA, EU, and Japan) will come from the tricontinental sphere of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The peripheries of the world-system are where the contradictions of capitalist-imperialism are the most heightened, and where the fissures can be exploited. According to Amin, we must analyze social struggles at three levels: the popular classes, nations, and states. This essay seeks to validate Amin’s argument by highlighting the anti-imperialist victories in the tricontinental sphere, while also providing a dose of hope and vitality against the defeatist attitude present in much of the US left since the victory of Trump, the Zionist massacres across West Asia, and the renewed attempts by imperialism to dismantle anti-systemic movements and States.
While the 20th century saw socialist revolutionaries take state power in the USSR and China, and the ideological development of Marxism on a world-scale, Amin argues that “[T]he ‘revolution—or transition—before us is not necessarily the one on which these historical visions were based. Nor are the strategies for surmounting capitalism the same”. This is evidenced by a twofold and polarized tendency on the world scale. On the one hand, the growth of an academic and sclerotic ‘Western Marxism’ divorced from social revolution and labor has poisoned the well in the capitalist centers. On the other, a diverse and revolutionary program of transition away from imperialism is occurring in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The diverse tendencies I wish to explore in this essay are the renascent Sahel, led by a ‘Free Officer’ movement in the militaries of Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mali; the Palestinian revolution which encompasses the whole of West Asia and the Axis of Resistance; and finally the growth of a multipolar Latin America which is increasingly aligning with China and delinking from the North American Republic.
In the Sahel region of Africa, long dominated by the French neo-colonial system, the renascent Alliance of Sahel States (AES) are taking matters into their own hands. Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger are undergoing a sovereign reclamation of their territory. Here, the State is being used as a vehicle to develop the productive forces which have long been maldeveloped and oriented towards export to the capitalist center (Paris). Amin argues that the State remains a necessary tool in the long transition to socialism and away from capitalist-imperialism because “‘to advance on the long transition’ also requires ‘developing productive forces’…the goal is to achieve that which imperialism has been preventing in the countries of the periphery, and to obliterate the heritage of world polarization”. This is being done through strategic relations with Russia– which was never a colonial power in Africa historically or in the present. The development of mass electrification projects, food sovereignty, and indigenous urbanization paired with real industrialization are the order of the day. While these projects are ambitious, and remain in their infancy, the popularity of this project is clear. As of the last week of November Chad and Senegal are providing a supporting role by vowing to expel the French military from their countries much like the AES.
The Palestinian revolutionaries, too, are embarking on a project whose end goal is the expulsion of the Zionist settler state and all imperialist military forces from the West Asian
region. Since the heroic Operation Al Aqsa Flood which began on October 7th, 2023 the seat of imperialism in the region has been shaken. This, of course, has been met with immense violence and destabilization of the region by Israel, the USA, and the UK. Despite this, the Axis of Resistance remains deeply embedded and popularly supported in their respective countries and across the world. The Palestinians and their allies in Hezbollah, Iraq, the Syrian Arab Army, the Islamic Republic of Iran, and Yemen are fighting what Palestinian martyr and revolutionary scholar Basel Al Araj termed ‘the flea war’. Seeking to exhaust the Zionist military and society, the Palestinians are using mobile, lightly armed forces to confuse and spread thin the Zionist-imperialist behemoth. Yemen’s use of speed boats and drone swarms overwhelmed the US and UK led ‘Operation Prosperity Guardian’ which relied on large and vulnerable aircraft carriers. The renewed imperialist aggression against Syria can be seen, then, as a cornered tiger lashing out while the walls close in on it.
The walls are also closing in on the North American Republic’s ‘Monroe Doctrine’ in Central and South America. The opening of the Chancay Port in Peru is widely seen as a key node in China’s Belt and Road Initiative which will reduce travel time for large container ships ferrying between Asia and South America from 35 to 25 days. According to Carlos Martinez of Friends of Socialist China, “[I]n Peru alone, the port is expected to generate an additional 4.5 billion US dollars of revenue –just under 2 percent of the country’s GDP –and to create thousands of jobs”. This port is also a smart port, with green technology and automation which aids workers instead of replacing them. This opening of a key land-sea corridor between China and Latin America is vital for overcoming the ‘development of underdevelopment’ enforced by the Yankee empire on our southern neighbors.
Amin left us with a trove of revolutionary analysis to consider in our joint struggles against imperialism. All three levels of analysis (popular, national, state) must factor into any serious contention about the trajectories of the various revolutionary movements worldwide. The first wave of uprisings against the capitalist-imperialist system which continued from the late 19th century until the late 20th gave us a push in the right direction. Armed with this history and analysis it is clear that the Tricontinental sphere carries the revolutionary initiative whether in Gaza, Niamey, or Havana. Our task is to break free from the spell of anti-communist propaganda which isolated our forebears in the countries of the imperialist center. This involves critical support for the revolutionary peoples, nations, and states of the South and the formation of our own unique revolutionary culture to complement it, especially in the face of the massive terror wrought on earth by the Yankee empire and its subaltern NATO allies.
Hanna Eid is a Palestinian American writer, researcher, and Union electrical worker. His writing concerns mainly imperialism and anti-imperialism in west Asia and west Africa.
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