DYING
FOR IMPERIALISM IS NOT A PRIDE FOR PEOPLE.
{This article is published in "CLASS STRUGGLE", monthly organ of CPI(ML) Central Committee.}
According to the
First World War (FWW) Inventory Project, there are some 10,000 FWW
memorials across the country in US. Most prominent among them is
217-foot “Liberty Tower” near the Kansas City- close to the birthplace of the top US FWW military Commander General John J. Pershing.
A Vietnamese war memorial had come up in 1982, a Korean War Memorial
and a Second World War memorial also had come up in later years in US
capital.
In 2008, Frank
Buckles- who worked as a teenage ambulance driver of US in the FWW,
raised the question : “What do you say to the last FWW veteran when
he asks why there is nothing to commemorate the pivotal role
Americans played in the final two years of 1914-18 FWW ? “ The
question was debated. The US ruling circles finally agreed in 2014 to
build two national memorials, one in Kansas City and another in
Washington. The FWW Centennial Commission eventually settled on
Pershing Park. The work on the project is expected to begin by
November 11, 2018.
The point here is:
The colonial and the imperialist powers fought with their imperialist
rivals in the First and Second World War in the territories of other
countries to retain or expand the areas of control to plunder and
oppress the people there. They used the words like patriotism and
national interest to rally the people into the imperialist war.
The US wars in
Vietnam and Korea were the wars of aggression and occupation. So,
there is nothing for the American people to feel proud of these wars.
The US imperialists had imposed these wars on the American people.
The instances are plenty where the USsoldiers felt ashamed, painful
and unethical to act like a tool of the imperialist wars and engage
themselves in killing Vietnamese and Korean people. . They even
revolted against their imperialist rulers. It is no secret that the
democratic and peace-loving forces and people in America, many a
times, came into the streets in a massive way opposing the unjust and
aggressive US war against the Vietnamese people. They also extended
their support and solidarity to the just struggles of oppressed
people against the US aggression and occupation.
The imperialist
powers in general and the US imperialists in particular have learnt
nothing from the disastrous policies of invasions and occupations and
their countless defeats in the hands of oppressed people in various
countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America. The US imperialists now
are pushing through a strategy of world domination. As part of this,
they had built up a big empire of most sophisticated and destructive
weapons. They maintain dozens of military bases in the world on land,
seas and the outer space. They had built up the military alliances at
regional as well as world level. They are indulging in acts of
threats, coercion, bullying, intervention, armed invasion and
occupation against the small and weak countries in an attempt to
force them into subjugation. The wars of invasion and occupation
waged by them against Afghanistan and Iraq are only a part of this
drive. Their so called global war against terrorism and their so
called crusade against the Weapons of Mass Destruction and for
democracy and democratic regimes in some countries like Syria by
playing toppling games are only the vehicles to realize their wild
ambitions of world domination. Several millions of poor people in
soldiers and technicians uniforms are drawn into this whole gamble of
imperialists for world domination. One must, however, be clear that
these poor people are used to serve an unjust cause and as a
mercenary force.
The imperialist
powers, for that matter any reactionary ruling classes, would be
generous to‘honour’ and reward the ‘heroes’ and ‘martyrs’
in every conceivable form who laid down their lives in the service of
imperialists and reactionary classes. The national memorials that are
built or proposed to be built in US are only a pointer to this. We
know that, in the period of FWW (1914-18) the British colonialists
used the people of their colonies including that of India not only as
mercenary armies to suppress the national movements inside the
colonies, but also in their predatory wars with their imperialist
rivals to retain and win new colonies. The same British imperialists
are now busy in celebrating the Centenary of FWW. They had built up a
memorial and museum in Britain for those who died in the FWW serving
the British colonialists. They are also conducting various programmes
in Britain as well as in the erstwhile British colonies including
India to honour and reward the ‘martyrs’ and ‘heroes’ of this
war.
We must express our
sympathy and sorrow for those starving and unemployed poor who were
compelled to join and serve the colonial mercenary armies or other
trades of work and lost their precious lives. At the same time, we
cannot and must not forget the fact that the imperialists had used
them as cannon-fodder in their unjust wars to subjugate and colonise
the people of other Countries. The American people, for that matter
the people of all the imperialist countries must realize that they
can be free only when they break the shackles of imperialism. They
must join the working class, oppressed people and peace loving
forces who are waging various forms of struggle to wipe out the demon
of imperialism from the face of the earth.
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