    The Vision of No-State

    By Israel Shamir

    In his discussion of a future desirable condition for Palestine/Israel,
    Noam Chomsky proposes to consider, besides the One State and Two State
    solutions, the possibility of “No-State.” He writes:

    “No-state settlement, generalizing multi-nationalism (in the broad sense
    indicated) beyond the borders of a state… based on the recognition that
    the nation-state system has been one of the most brutal and destructive
    creations of Europe … For the region, it would mean reinstating some of
    the more sensible elements of the Ottoman system (though, obviously,
    without its intolerable features), including local and regional
    autonomy, elimination of borders and free transit, sharply diminishing
    or eliminating military forces, etc. “

    The No-State option should certainly be considered, but Chomsky actually
    proposes to ‘reinstate’ the Ottoman system of millets as a form of
    no-state. Millets were self-governing ethno-religious communities in the
    Turkish Empire, including Palestine. Thus, the Jewish, Armenian, Greek
    communities were rather autonomous, had their own courts and
    administration, collected taxes and instituted punishments. They formed
    non-territorial states within the Empire. In Europe, the Jews formed a
    millet until 18 c. and their leaders were quite content with it. Not so
    their dissidents: Spinoza suffered a lot after being pushed out of the
    Jewish millet.

    If Noam Chomsky's proposal were to be implemented in the US today, he
    would find himself under the gentle rule of Messers Bronfman and Foxman,
    the titular heads of American Jewry. This idea is so close to apartheid
    that is indeed Tribes with Flags, in the idealised American pre-1950s
    form. While some cultural autonomy is created naturally, by people’s
    preference, it would be a big mistake to legalise the segregation of
    peoples sharing the same territory. Chomsky proposes to use this idea in
    the partly Hispanic states of the US. He writes:

    “Applied to North America, it would entail reversing Clinton's
    post-NAFTA militarization of the (previously quite porous) Mexico-US
    border, and dealing in a humane way with the fact that the US is sitting
    on half of Mexico, acquired by brutal conquest.”

    This sounds good but it is not: the Hispanic residents and Mexican
    immigrants would have to share their meagre resources and manage their
    “autonomy” facing the much more prosperous Anglos. Parallel systems of
    welfare would make the inequality even greater. In Europe, such a system
    would entail the creation of separate Muslim millet complete with its
    own courts, welfare, schools; it would set back the attempt to integrate
    immigrants.

    Does this critique mean that no-state idea should be discarded? Not at
    all. But instead of non-territorial millets, we may support small
    semi-independent territorial communes, as envisaged by Marx in his Civil
    War in France and by Lenin in his The State and Revolution, or indeed by
    Plato in his Republic. Such a solution is extremely suitable for
    Palestine and for the US, and for the rest of the world.

    In the US, it would solve many problems; people would be able to choose
    whether to live in a mixed or a separated community, a liberal or
    conservative one, with or without abortions and gay marriages, and would
    not be imposing their social vision upon others.

    The federative framework consisting of independent units would not be an
    aggressive state prone to send troops to Iraq, but it would be able to
    organise its mutual self-defence. It would mean undoing the lifework of
    a Bismarck or Garibaldi, and good riddance, too!

    Full autonomy for every commune would slow down if not eliminate
    migration flow and would help people to regain their roots. Indeed, let
    the people of Boston or Atlanta decide whether they want to accept
    immigration from Ghana or Sweden, instead of having this question
    decided for them by the New York-based media and Washington lobbies.

    This was the rule in Switzerland: Alexander Herzen, a Russian noble and
    dissident of 19th century, discovered that the Swiss federal government
    had no power to grant citizenship or even rights of residence to a
    stranger; it was a prerogative of a local commune. This wise rule can be
    implemented today everywhere.

    For the US, such transfer of power from Washington downstream to the
    grassroots, to states and to small autonomous communes, is extremely
    desirable. The current Presidential election campaign with identical
    twins Bush and Kerry is a clear sign that the political process in the
    Republic has reached an impasse. The preferred solution would be to
    leave Washington to care for the US Mail, while all other functions
    would be transferred to the states, during the first stage, and to
    communes during the second stage.

    Relationship to local autonomy allows us to form a meaningful criterion
    to understand political groups in modern society, in addition to the old
    left-right division. Parties and movements supportive of local power
    form a localist wing while parties supportive of the central government
    express the centralist tendency. Thus, the modern American liberal Left
    is in full union with the flag-worshipping right as they both prefer
    centralism and the federal powers against these of the states. On the
    other side, there is libertarian radical Left and ‘paleo-conservative’
    individualist and traditional Right who have much in common.

    Arms to the People

    The centralists have an obsession with disarming people. This obsession
    begins with our manicure scissors being taken away at the airport
    check-in, it continues with Hollywood’s paranoid hatred of American
    militias; it comes into full bloom with the drive to disarm Iran. This
    disarmers’ obsession was characteristic of medieval Jews who feared most
    a moujik with an axe, who is liable to dismiss the legal intricacies and
    sweep away the carefully woven web of debt and deceit with one mighty
    blow.

    The way to a new setup of independent communes lies through empowering
    of people by shifting the weight down to grass roots. In the American
    controversy of Montana militias, Vladimir Ilich Lenin would support the
    right of local folks to bear arms and to form militias. Like George
    Washington, Lenin considered the right to bear arms as an unalienable
    and most important right of people. Lenin would reject Bowling for
    Columbine as bourgeois demand for monopoly on arms. Indeed, it is a
    misunderstanding that Lenin, the leading libertarian of 20th century,
    is considered totalitarian, while totalitarian American liberals,
    enemies of militias and of arms are considered proponents of freedom.

    A leading American libertarian, Noel Ignatiev writes[i] in his magazine
    The Race Traitor:

    “Time was one might have expected opponents of official society to
    welcome a grassroots movement arming to defend individual liberties
    against federal encroachment. Contrary to such expectations, many who
    are pleased to locate themselves on the “left” have raised a cry of
    alarm at the militia movement surpassing even that from government
    circles. A flyer published by a group that describes itself as 'Against
    Hate' seeks to warn the public about the militia movement. 'Blood will
    be spilled in the streets of America,' it quotes one militia leader
    saying. People join militias for various reasons, explains the flyer:
    'They see the violence at Waco, Texas or the incident between white
    supremacist Randy Weaver and federal officials and believe they too will
    be attacked; others see the ban on assault weapons in 1994 as a sure
    sign that the Federal Government is out to subvert the Constitution.'

    “'The Government did make mistakes at Waco and with Randy Weaver,'
    admits the flyer. So the incineration of eighty people and the
    assassination of a woman and child by federal officials are 'mistakes,'
    when they happen to people these opponents of 'hate' disagree with. But
    the militias are paranoid, we are told. 'They believe that there will be
    an armed confrontation with the Federal Government sooner or later.
    Militias say that our [our?] government and the United Nations are going
    to create the New World Order, where Americans will be slaves to
    international bankers and if you resist, militia leaders claim, you'll
    be hauled away to a concentration camp.'

    “If the authors of the flyer expect these views to turn us against the
    militias, they will be disappointed. So far we have agreed with the
    opinions cited above. The flyer advises us, 'The key to protecting the
    rights and civil liberties of all Americans does not lie in forming
    armed paramilitary groups who want to take the law into their own
    hands.' We can think of no better way. We think it was Dwight Macdonald
    who said that what gave him hope for the future of this country was the
    deeply ingrained tradition of lawlessness.”

    In an American context, “arms-to-the-people” was and remains a valuable
    slogan. Activists-for-disarmament like Daniel Lazare of the Nation
    weekly manifest their deep distrust of the general populace; they are
    ‘Hobbesian’ in their belief that the State acts as an arbiter and a
    benevolent policeman. Indeed, Lazare wants people disarmed and forced to
    conform to his set of ideas focusing on gay marriages and active
    anti-racism. In order to enforce this vision, Lazare accepts a high
    degree of centralism. Thus he constructs the left leg of the centralist
    and aggressive America of Pentagon and Wall Street.

    For left and right radicals, the State is a form of Mafia-like control
    in the interests of the rulers; it should be limited and eventually
    dismantled. Let people bear arms; let them decide their civil matters
    locally, let us shift power to the grassroots, whether in Palestine, in
    Europe or in the US. There is no chance within the two-party system to
    have a good president of the US: both Bush and Kerry will bomb Iran and
    suppress freedom. Thus the office of the president and of the central
    government should be emptied of its powers; in order to achieve it the
    localist left and right should join forces, confront and reject
    centralist tendencies.

    -------------------------------------------------------------------------

    [i] Aux Armes! Formez vos Bataillons! The Race Traitor No.5