The crisis in the Middle East has activated the pedlars of fear… fear created by «reactionary terrorism», that tool of the Middle Eastern bourgeoisies that has come uncontrollable, and that has no scrupule in massacring helpless workers and in stirring up fanaticism and racial hatred… and the fears agitated in return in Europe and the West, either through xenophobic populism used calculatedly to grab votes, or by imperialist Europeanism, delighted with the opportunity to try out its mass ideologies, from «Fortress Europe» to the revisited myths of the «clash of civilization». The common sense distilled by newspapers and TV channels suddenly changes. It is now the moment of speakers’ platforms and demagogues, of turncoat intellectuals, of the smart journalist in search of editorial opportunities, and even of the priest. Take notes, it is an exercise – this is how they will stir up tomorrow’s imperialist mobilisations, when Europe will have to stand up for itself as the giants of imperialism clash.
And yet, all of this is not inevitable. There is an alternative to war, terror, fanaticism and the ideologies with which they want to subjugate consciences. The proletariat has the colossal force of its numbres. In North Africa and the Middle East, from Morocco to the Persian Gulf, wage earners have risen from 25 million to almost 70 million in thirty-five years – they would be strong enough to throw off the corrupt, ruinous bourgeoisies. And what a power they could be, united to Europe’s 200 million wage earners, India’s 220 million, China’s 350 million, to the proletariat of the whole world! The proletariat, a world power, against the powers of capital and imperialism – this is the only answer to a world of fear.
