Kia ora koutou to our comrades across the Tasman! I write into Partisan from across the ditch both to extend a hand of friendship, and to (I hope) see the spirit in which it is offered blossom. It has seemed, in the decade I have spent amidst the socialists and anarchists, that there is a lot of talk of international solidarity, and even great action, but little effort to solidify these impulses into permanent and durable political infrastructure beyond a scant few (necessary) causes. To be fair, those of us who have come into political maturity over the last 25 years have had scant taste of victory and a great deal of defeats. In such a setting, is it any wonder the minimal resources and labour available have not matched our political ambition?
Capital has drunk itself grotesquely full in the 21st century, the Pacific being no exception to this. However, as it sets down the infrastructure to sustain its great weight, fuller every day, it has made possible an array of methods and efficiencies in travel and communication that could yet facilitate its demise. To be blunt, the technical capacities to facilitate communication, education, and organisation across the socialist forces of the Pacific have arguably never been greater. Yet these advances come in an era of defeat, alienation, and confusion.
Say that one writes from my country to yours in the interest of fostering a greater cooperation across the churning seas. To whom do they write? Does extending an olive branch to one organisation in turn spite the others? What domestic factors and bitter rivalries might one stumble into for their earnest effort? Ideally, we might agree, that some central or at least widely bought-in project could act as a node of communication between organisations and individuals across national lines. That project might assist in coordinating actions, disseminate news and periodicals with a regional focus, and generally assist in sharpening the connections between and efforts of likeminded political forces across the Pacific.
This is not a matter which we can afford to fail in. As the great seas which geographically divide us start to boil and froth in a faltering climate, the peoples which populate its many islands find ourselves at the centre of imperial competition. The resources, labour, and strategic value of these small countries and territories are magnified over and over again by the threat posed by the ever-expanding empires of Capital, as they gear themselves toward open conflict. These seas may yet be stained with human carnage and military pollutants, as the domestic affairs of these small states and statelets become key zones of conflict between the great powers of our age. It must be reiterated; we cannot afford the choice to ignore these matters. It is my hope that in every tentative attempt to forge across vast distances a comradely embrace which no national rivalry could ever break, that we might yet see these crises through.
In a politics of intransigent love,
Tyler West
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