Hmmm... as much as I hate the Tongan monarchy, and as much as I oppose the NZ & AUS military being in Tonga, I certainly think it would be silly to support a "pro-democracy" movement.

No doubt some of these aspiring politicians have amicable aims. But if there is anything to learn form nationalist independence movements and anti-monarchist/pro-democracy movements the world over, it's that politicians will be politicians.

They will maintain the status quo, people will be forced to submit to wage slavery the next morning, and freedom and self-determination will be just as illusive as before. Whereas it is the King's businesses that are being burned today, sometime in the future it will be the politicians' and Tonga's new economic elite that will see their little economic empires burning. And when this happens, just as the King called in NZ/AUS military support, so too will this next generation of political and economic elites turn to the barrel of the gun for their power.

while your criticism of the pro democracy movement are true, the way to change that is to support and get involved. by sitting on the sidelines waiting for a more politically pure movement to coem along you willl achieve nothing.

anarchists and revolutionaries should get involved in this and help overthrow the Monarchy, while arguing for a more radical politics. Arguments from committed active participants tend to get more respect than comments from the sidelines

Mr G

I don't think aligning ourselves with something we don't believe in, and that we know very well is going to lead nowhere, simply to have an influence further down the road is very good politics. It seems more manipulative to me - the sort of political manoeuvring you'd expect from aspiring parties!

There are some quite radical groups in Tonga that I'd much rather work with than wannabe-politicians... I think it'd be better for us to continue oopposing the NZ/AUS incursion, and support those groups.

Without external trade partners whether its China or Australia and New Zealand, Tonga like the Solomons, Fiji, and TPNG cannot progress anywhere far. The people may take over the regime, but what can they do for developments without the advanced machinery of the West?

I have also seen these guys protest, and man I’m not sure if I want to be nearby when they get going!

Yep. All or nothing. That's really stupid. A bourgeois national democratic revolution is a step forward on the road to socialism. It gives labour activists more space.

One could have made a similar argument for the South African situation.

...and some could argue that political aparteid in Sth Africa has been replaced with economic aparteid.

"anarchists and revolutionaries should get involved in this and help overthrow the Monarchy, while arguing for a more radical politics."

Yeah exactly, a revolution has to start somewhere.
Marx, in the manifesto said the communist movement should ally with the bourgeoisie in order to defeat a common enemy (feudal class).

This is basic common sense. This happened in the french revolution.

as much as anyone commenting on indymedia hates the tongan monarchy they probably don't have to live under it. maybe if you lived in a feudal society and you too wouldn't have the patience to wait for an anti-statist revolutionary movement to sweep away capitalism, the state etc etc. if i was a tongan living in tonga i too would be out fighting for representative democracy as part of a longer term aim of moving towards real democracy.
maybe just so i could have a bit more say in the running of my nation and the king a lot less.

Um, read what I wrote. There are two parts to this, one destructive and the other constructive. I support any attempts to get rid of the Tongan monarchy (which so far has only amounted to protesting against the NZ/AUS troop incursion) but I think it is extremely short-sighted to support the construction of a new State that runs under the aegis of a parliament. As I said, it seems there are already groups more radical than the democratic politicians - surely we should be bolstering and supporting them, rather than condemning Tonga to just a new sort of enslavement?

I have absolutely no time for the vulgar Marxist notion of "bourgeois democracy" being a necessary precursor to socialism/anarchism that others are implying here. I think every opportunity can and should be pushed towards the radical decentralisation of power and socialisation of property, and not the pragmatic/cynical "bit more freedom" of the democratic State, which in any case seems to be vastly overestated here… at least in my experience living under one.

Please give more info on these radical tongan groups then. otherwise I will have to pop along to the rally and find them myself!
Mr G

we'll find them!

I agree with Omar. The Russian February revolution of 1917 started as a revolution against tsarism, but the working class and poor played a huge part in it, discovering their own power and setting up workers councils. They then became a class for themselves, finishing the job in October.

Revolutionaries, socialists and class struggle anarchists should have the same approach now in Tonga- with the people against the monarchy, but supporting the development of a combative movement of the workers and the poor. We talked to the PSA union of Tonga last year and helped organise the march of 3000 in Auckland. People around the Labour party wanted to seperate economics and politics at the time, but we got the "This is what democracy looks like" chant on the go. NOw could be the time for "One solution- revolution!"

If draconian sentences, long term imprisonments and hangings are handed down to the rioters and street fighters of this month's uprising, then Tonga could see its own Bastille Day. The French Revolution was led by an emerging bourgeois class sick of feudalism, but it was the Sans-Culottes, the urban poor, who poured onto the streets and delivered the deathblow to the Monarchy. The word Mob to describe a demonstration bent on revolutionary action comes from that time- from the word Mobilisation in French. Many royalists claimed that the French revolution was led by nothing more than a drunken, violent "mob" of the poor. This ruling class contempt is still with us, over 200 years later.

BUt like the revolutions against monarchy in France and Russia before them, any future revolt in Tonga will see the workers and the poor flood onto the streets. We must be with the people in this movement, helping them develop their own political independence from the "progressive democrats". Trotsky's theory of Permanent Revolution is well worth a look!

Kia kaha
JOe C
www.anticapitaliste.blogspot.com


Lessons of October
www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1924/1924-les.htm

WAS THERE A PARLIAMENTARY ALTERNATIVE IN RUSSIA IN 1917?
pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk/isj76/haynes.htm

Permanent Revolution?
www.swp.ie/resources/Permanent%20Revolution.htm

and maybe their needs to be a stronger a anti racism movement in Aotearoa and more grassroots connections made with the Tongan community who are resident there, or else you sound like missionaries,by not asking Tongans what support and resources they need for their struggle

The majority of Tongans want democracy, right?

The reason that they hav'nt won it so far is that it because that would threaten the cosy relationship between Royalty, their business buddies and the monopoly corporates sucking out Tonga's life blood.

Clark and her mates Howard and Bush know this so they put the troops into Tonga to keep the lid on the people.

All talk of increased democratic representation that falls short of one vote one person is an attempt to preserve the power of the Monarchy and its neo-liberal policies.

If its wasnt for those Aussie and NZ troops, the Tongan people would easily win over the tiny army and make the changes they want relatively peacefully. They would take back the property stolen by the Monarchy, and put Tonga's vital resources under the control of the people.

It is the presence of Aussie and NZ troops backing business interests that turns this relatively peaceful revolution into a potentially bloody affair like what has happened in East Timor and the Solomons.

We have to convince NZ workers that the troops in Tonga are not there to 'keep the peace' but to 'keep the profits'.

We have to campaign to get the CTU and the ACTU to immediately organise political strike action to get the troops out so that the Tongan people can determine their own future democratically.

Dave

Alani, tuku a ho'o 'ulu fulihi. 'Oku ke hange koe ko Hitler. 'Osi 'ae muimui 'ae kakai 'o Siamane 'i he tangata ko 'eni. Toki ma'u hake ia tana'e vale, fakasesele, ka kuo mate 'ae kakai ia 'e lau miliona. 'Alani Taione, 'oku ou pehe keke 'alu 'o totongi ho mou'a 'ihe Funaki Enterprise, kake toki ha'u 'o feinga ke fakatonutonu 'ae Pule'anga Tonga.

We don't have to form a "popular front" but we can co-operate with bourgeois forces on the immediate aim.
Progressive people must keep their own resistance democratic and independant.
I think the revolution in Tonga needs to be permanent but this next hurdle will need the co-operation of all forces.

The speed of revolutions need to be determined by the capacity of the oppressed classes and the parity of forces.

Triocfaidh Arla!

-Andrew

"The speed of revolutions need to be determined by the capacity of the oppressed classes and the parity of forces."

Well said. We can apply this to the current situation in this way.

The majority of working Tongans made some important headway in the big PSA strike last year.
Then they faced a setback when the PM delayed the vote on the reforms. The more militant pro-dems countered with the targeted destruction of the class enemies property last week. This produced an immediate concession by the Cabinet to increase the peoples' MPs from 9 to 21 but not until 2008.

Then the King seized on the 'riot' to justify calling on the ANZ military to prop up his regime. We can see what is coming next, Tonga will be classified by Howard and Clark as a 'failed state' to justify a permanent RAMSI-type intervention to keep the people down.

This move by the King has quite a lot of support as the 'violence' has damaged the pro-dems and isolated the militants from the conservatives. But it is at the cost of a state of emergency and the presence of foreign troops.

This is a necessary but risky move by the King. First it tells us that he couldnt rely on the Tongan army to control the people. Second, blaming the riot on the pro-dems and suppressing the movement will bring about a more militant resistance. The role of the troops as 'peacekeepers' to suppress this resistance will be clearly demonstrated as propping up the King.

This will renew the challenge to the King and the fight for democracy. Pohiva's call for all MPs to be elected by the people who would then elect the PM and Cabinet, may get more support. The problem is that this does not do away with class distinctions and the old constitution.

But even this limited reform won't happen unless the pro-dem movement opposes the presence of foreign troops, organises their own defence guards to keep 'law and order', and succeeds in winning over the rank and file of the Tongan army to the cause of democracy.

The way to do this is get the pro-dem movement behind the demand for a Constitutent Assembly based on one vote for every person over 16. A Constituent Assembly is the most radical bourgeois constitution which would mobilise individuals as equal citizens regardless of class, status and gender, and at the same time prove in practice that such democracy is impossible in a tiny semi-colony ruled by a pro-imperialist ruling class.

So the more militant left would fight in the Constituent Assembly for a republic, to repudiate the foreign debt, get out of WTO, renationalise public assets, and nationalise land, without compensation and under the control of workers and farmers.

Opposition to this program by the ruling class and imperialism would prove to the majority that they have two choices - live under the domination of a reactionary bourgeois regime, or going beyond a Constituent Assembly to form a Workers and Farmers Government, or a socialist republic.

Dave

Dave well said and truly inspiring, however a little text book. But accordingly accurate in construction with a hell of a lot less violance, than the current state.

I think that your perseption of the Kings over all plan aT this point is correct. To put it simply however, "how can I get what I want and make it look like its someone else doing it". I am only the King and I have given you a chance and you boched it up which forced me to step infor your own well being.

The best way out of this mess is in fact to win over all secutors of government, then kick the king out. The other way which I personaly like better is this, kill the bastard, then take into arrest the remaining heads of government, ploice and military and ask for United Nations assistance in rebuilding a new government, not NZ and AUS, but the united nation itself, a more nutral positioned mechine, with no second agenda. That is what will have to happen for a new government to take effect someone will have to die it is just that simple. The Current King is not going to want to lose a dime, not event o rebuild his owm crown, if this was a lie he woulD have already hit up his personal bank book to start clearing and building.
Again DAVE these are my thoughts, KILL THE BASTARD and the country lives, he lives the country dies!

Good luck with your campaign to get the CTU to organize immediate political strike action to bring the troops back Dave.

It does make more sense than working constructively with government and employers to create a high wage high skills economy, but I'm afraid Ross will want to get that one out of the way first.

I agree with your suggestion that we make efforts to convince New Zealand workers that the troops are there for private profit rather than people's peace. I think time spent on that would be more productive.

Don Franks

Is this the smart guy who burned the flag in 'Atalanga ?. He should be in Tonga helped out his mates burned Nuku'alofa. You people don't protest, your movement are racist. You burned those poor chinese shops. What have they done to the democracy movement ?. You people remind me of Mugabe and Idi Amin.

The chinese need to stop funneling money out of tonga.They have to get out of tonga and let tongans run the stores and keep the money in tonga.They shouldn't complain because the reason they were tolerated was because of our beloved late king Tupou Fa.The chinese were kicked out of Vietnam and other countries for the same reason.They better get out before it is too late.Tonga is too small of a country to let foreiners run businesses."Tonga is for tongans" said Tupou Uluaki.

Don I don't think Ross (and his mates) will be running the union movement for ever.
Time for us to challenge their rule and throw them out.
Tongans are a big part of the industrial workforce here, I'd rather have them on our side than not. May as well start with something really basic like democracy at home and then try to win it in the unions here, don't you think? Breaking some leading Tongan workers away from the Labour machine over troops propping up the King would be really something to make Ross and Helen weep.