Cross-posted from Judeosphere
Hugo Chavez is continuing with his plans to convene a Fifth Socialist International in Venezuela. (World Utopia, here we come!)
The Chavezistas inform us that Caracas is the ideal venue for this event, “due to the role that Venezuela is playing as the epicenter of the great transformations that have occurred since the beginning of this century.” (Such as terrorism, nuclear proliferation, pandemics, climate change and global economic recession?)
Anyway, all good parties need a theme—but curiously, the main theme of the proposed Fifth Socialist International is not socialism.
So, what is the grand, unifying theme? In this interview, Julio Chavez, a delegate to Venezuela’s United Socialist Party, explains:
Why is anti-imperialism being proposed as the common element and not just socialism?
We say that this call has to have a broad character, and it is possible that in some countries, such as in the Middle East, there are organizations and movements fighting against some expressions of imperialism and international Zionism as such, but that are not socialist in essence, in the programmatic sense. But, undoubtedly, they are fighting imperialism. That’s why we say that it could be that in some Islamic countries that do not have socialism as an ideological element, for example the case of the Islamic Revolution of Iran, which is anti-imperialist, that this element will be an element that will convoke as many parties, organizations, movements of the world to raise the battle, the confrontation with imperialism.From this perspective of an anti-imperialist character….it is possible to call as many parties, movements, and currents in the world….in order to agree on a plan, a minimum transition program, to move concretely towards a socialist project at a world level.
I’ve noted this before, but it bears repeating: anti-Zionism on the far-Left is not simply ideological, it’s tactical. Opposition to Israel is one of the few themes that can unite so many disparate movements—including, apparently, the ideologically “backwards” Islamic countries that are not as enlightened as Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela.
