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KEYNOTE SPEECH OF THE ILPS CHAIRPERSON
TO THE NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF ILPS-AUSTRALIA
By Prof. Jose Maria Sison
Chairperson, International Coordinating Committee
International League of Peoples' Struggle
March 23, 2008
First of all, I wish to thank you for inviting me to speak on this occasion and I extend my
warmest and most militant greetings of solidarity to the leadership and member
organizations of ILPS-Australia. I wish you the utmost success in this conference and hope
that this will serve to further consolidate and expand the work and organization of ILPS in
Australia.
I appreciate that you have asked me to give you an overview of the world situation. I
understand that you need to know the international environment in which ILPS-Australia is
operating and striving to act in the service of the people along the anti-imperialist and
democratic line.
Today, the peoples of the world both in the imperialist and underdeveloped countries face
more difficult conditions of exploitation and oppression under the US-dictated policies of
“neoliberal globalization” and the “war on terror”. At the same time, the objective conditions
are favorable for the development of people’s resistance.
The crisis of the world capitalist system is worsening. It has been deepened and aggravated
by the policy of “neoliberal globalization” which tries to conceal the fact of monopoly
capitalism with the gibberish of “free market”. This has been wrongly supposed by the US
and its allies as the cure to the problem of stagflation, which has been blamed on so-called
wage inflation and social spending by government under the Keynesian economic policy.
Under “neoliberal globalization”, the concentration and centralization of capital in the US and
a few other countries have accelerated and have aggravated the global crisis of
overproduction and the financial crisis that is now gripping the attention of the people of the
world. There is now a global depression, afflicting both the imperialist and the
underdeveloped countries, even as the economists and business journalists of world
capitalism are still quibbling whether the US and the world economy are moving into or are
already in recession.
Under “neoliberal globalization”, the illusion of global economic growth, especially in
imperialist countries and a few other economies like China and India, has been conjured by
sheer financial flows generated mainly by the overstress on consumerism, trade facilitation
and excessive credit for consumption and corporate speculation. But the real global
economy has kept on plunging into chronic mass unemployment, widening trade and
budgetary deficits, unrepayable debts and imposition of heavier tax burden on the people.
The Bush administration has further aggravated the crisis of the world capitalist system by
trying to stimulate industrial production and consumer demand by stepping up war
production and further encouraging consumerism based on borrowed funds from abroad and
from a domestic housing bubble (overvaluation of private homes to support consumption
loans).
The ongoing mortgage meltdown is the result of the easy credit offered to workers and other
people for consumption during the housing bubble from 2001 to 2006. After the bursting of
the high-tech bubble in 2001, the US monopoly bourgeoisie promoted the housing bubble by
offering low-interest sub-prime mortgage rates with little or practically no collateral and
misleading the mass of homeowners to borrow money for consumption spending against the
inflated value of their mortgaged homes.
The mortgage meltdown has acquired global dimensions because US mortgages were
repackaged and sold as financial products to foreign banks and investment houses. There
has been an epidemic of write offs and write downs, resulting in the evaporation of more
than USD 400 billion. This has led to the tightening of international credit as federal and
commercial banks become more cautious in lending. The mortgage meltdown alone is
expected to result in a global credit crunch of a trillion US dollars and sharp reduction of
import orders by the overdrawn US consumer market.
The present financial crisis generated globally by the US is not only because of the
mortgage meltdown. The US national debt has risen so fast from the level of USD 5.7 trillion
in 2001 to USD 9.4 trillion at present. The US trade deficit has rapidly grown to the annual
level of USD 850 billion because of the US industrial decline and outsourcing of consumer
goods. The US budget deficit has also grown rapidly because of the tax cuts to corporations
and the wealthy and the unbridled spending for the Pentagon and the wars of aggression in
Iraq and Afghanistan.
The rising levels of the US national debt, debt service and budget and trade deficits have
seriously undermined global confidence in the US dollar and is causing its drastic
depreciation. The US has lost lustre as the main engine of global economic growth and as
the global market of last resort. The financial crisis of the US is undermining its standing as
the sole superpower in economic and politico-military terms.
In the US and other imperialist countries, the monopoly bourgeoisie are using all kinds of
maneuvers to deflect attention from the root causes of exploitation and oppression and to
push down the working class, immigrants, the youth and women. They play up and generate
chauvinism, racism and fascism in order to divide the working class and to pit the people in
the imperialist countries against those in other countries. They use the mass media and
various forms of entertainment to conjure the illusion of democracy and deflect public
attention from the most important social issues.
But the working class and the rest of the people in the imperialist countries are fighting back.
There have been widespread strikes by workers, protest rallies and marches by migrants
and militant street actions by the youth in various imperialist countries. We can anticipate
greater protest mass actions against monopoly capitalism on international and domestic
issues in the months and years to come. The current crisis of world capitalism will further
worsen.
The imperialist powers are still united in exploiting and oppressing the proletariat and
peoples of the world, especially the third world. They have institutions and mechanisms to
harmonize their interests through the IMF, the World Bank, the WTO, the UN and its
Security Council, regional and bilateral trade agreements, the NATO and other regional as
well as bilateral military treaties and alliances.
But the contradictions among them are steadily building up. The increased number of
imperialist powers and aspirants for imperialist status has made the world too small for their
economic competition and political rivalry. The US is taking advantage of its position as the
sole superpower and has been most aggressive in pursuing its ultra-national interests at the
expense of its allies. At the same time, the US is exposing its own overextension and
weaknesses, which embolden other imperialists to undertake initiatives at variance with
those of the US.
France, Germany, Russia and China have shown serious differences with the US on major
issues. They have differences with the US over the US invasion and occupation of Iraq and
Afghanistan and over the current US monopoly of the spoils of war. They contradict each
other over the issues of Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Iran and other countries in the Middle
East. Together with the border states in Central Asia, Russia and China have formed the
Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) to counter US incursions in Central Asia.
The main contradiction in the world is still that between the imperialist powers and the
oppressed peoples and nations who comprise 80 per cent of humankind. This is most
acutely manifested by the unbridled exploitation and oppression by the imperialists with the
assistance of the dependent and puppet states. This is also manifested by the people’s
resistance through revolutionary armed struggle and other forms of struggle.
The wealthiest 20% of the world’s population are in the imperialist countries, and the poorest
20% are in the third world countries. The income of the former was 30 times larger than that
of the latter in 1960. Then it became 74 times larger in 1995. Today, the overwhelming
majority of the people in the third world live on less than two dollars a day. In 1973, third
world debt was only US$130 billion. In 1982, it jumped to US$612 billion. In 2006, it further
leaped to US$3.2 trillion. Imperialist plunder has caused the rapid impoverishment and
indebtedness of the peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America.
Due to the demands of the people for national independence and democracy certain
governments in the third world have taken the anti-imperialist stance. The Iraqi government
under Saddam Hussein tried to play off some imperialist powers against the US until the
latter decided to unleash a war of aggression. The government of Venezuela under Hugo
Chavez is currently outstanding in challenging US imperialism in order to gain the support
of the people and carry out reforms. The governments of China, Cuba and the People’s
Democratic Republic of Korea have consistently invoked national independence and the
socialist aspirations of the people in order to contend with US imperialism.
Revolutionary armed struggle and other forms of struggle against imperialism and local
puppet regimes are being carried out in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Armed struggle is
increasingly being regarded as the most important weapon in achieving national liberation
and democracy against imperialism, obviously because it responds to the central question
of seizing political power and breaking away decisively from the clutches of imperialism and
feudalism. Among those persevering in armed revolution are the peoples in Colombia, the
Philippines, India, Tamil Eelam and Turkey. In all third world countries, militant mass
movements of workers, peasants, youth, women and other sectors are raising antiimperialist and democratic demands.
You are aware that preparations are under way to hold the Third International Assembly
(TIA) of the International League of Peoples' Struggle in Hong Kong on June 18-20, 2008. It
is notable that it is being held in Asia where most of the oppressed peoples and nations are
and where the most intense revolutionary struggles are being waged against imperialism
and reaction.
The theme of the Third International Assembly is "Strengthen the People's Struggle, Unite to
Build a New World against Imperialist Aggression, State Terrorism, Plunder and Social
Destruction!" It is a theme of urgent importance because of the acute need of the people to
resist the unbridled plunder under so-called neoliberal globalization and the escalating state
terrorism and imperialist wars of aggression in the so-called global war on terror.
The ILPS has played an important and prominent role in the international anti-imperialist
struggle. It has initiated many successful international conferences, campaigns and other
activities against imperialism and issues involving the various concerns of the ILPS.
At present, the ILPS has 363 participating organizations in 42 countries plus Hong Kong and
Taiwan and seven global regions: East Asia, Oceania, South Asia, Middle East, North
America, Latin America and West Africa. We now have some national chapters and global
region committees. These are being built along the line of the broad united front of antiimperialist and democratic struggle.
The Third International Assembly will discuss and assess the work of the ILPS over the past
three years and adopt the plans to further strengthen and expand the ILPS to be able to face
the challenges and effectively advance its work in every arena of the anti-imperialist
struggle.
We call on ILPS-Australia to actively promote the participation of its member organizations
and to attract other progressive mass organizations to join the ILPS and send delegations
to the Third International Assembly. We are confident that ILPS-Australia will achieve more
successes in the future in advancing the peoples’ struggles against imperialism and all forms
of reaction and for a new and better world. ###