The "Two Outmodeds" and Tens of Millions of Refugees
July 20, 2015 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
Syrian refugee camp in Jordan. More than 750,000 Syrians, displaced by the conflict in their country, are refugees in Jordan. (Photo: UNHCR)
The intensifying clash of two outmoded reactionary forces—U.S. imperialism and Islamic jihad—has driven tens of millions from their homes into hellish refugee camps.
* Syria—As of the end of 2014, 11.6 million Syrians had been displaced from their homes, 7.6 million within the country and another 3.9 driven outside Syria.
* Afghanistan—3.7 million people have been driven from their homes.
* Iraq—An estimated 5 million people have been displaced from their homes.
What we see in contention here with Jihad [Islamic fundamentalism] on the one hand and McWorld/McCrusade [increasingly globalized western imperialism] on the other hand, are historically outmoded strata among colonized and oppressed humanity up against historically outmoded ruling strata of the imperialist system. These two reactionary poles reinforce each other, even while opposing each other. If you side with either of these “outmodeds,” you end up strengthening both.
While this is a very important formulation and is crucial to understanding much of the dynamics driving things in the world in this period, at the same time we do have to be clear about which of these “historically outmodeds” has done the greater damage and poses the greater threat to humanity: It is the historically outmoded ruling strata of the imperialist system, and in particular the U.S. imperialists.
Bob Avakian, BAsics 1:28
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