Peter Mertens - Interview by Loren Balhorn
Jacobin
Western hegemony is in decline, the Left has to reckon with a new international balance of power. Peter Mertens, general secretary of the Workers’ Party of Belgium, spoke to us about what the “mutinies” in the Global South mean for socialist strategy
Peter Mertens, general secretary of the Workers’ Party of Belgium, gives a speech during the party’s electoral congress in Brussels on March 10, 2024., James Arthur Gekiere / Belga /AFP via Getty Images
For a decade or so, the idea of a “world order” led by the West has been coming apart at the seams. The United States is increasingly unable to play its self-proclaimed role as global policeman, its legitimacy stained by disastrous illegal wars abroad and the rougher edges of its own domestic political combat. Rising powers like China and India are no longer content to play second fiddle to the world hegemon.
These developments are still in their infancy, but it’s increasingly clear that a new balance of power is emerging on the world stage. This is the subject of Mutiny, a new book by Peter Mertens, who is general secretary of the Workers’ Party of Belgium (PTB). He spoke with Jacobin about how our world is changing and what he thinks it means for socialists in the West and East alike.
Loren Balhorn
Your new book, Mutiny, isn’t quite what I would have expected from the general secretary of a Marxist workers’ party. I guess I was expecting something a bit, well, wordier. Can you say a bit about how it came about, and what you sought to achieve with it?
Peter Mertens
Two things were important to me when writing the book: first, understanding today’s tilting world order, because a lot of things are happening — there is a war in Europe, a genocide in Gaza playing out in real time on our smartphones, the far right exploding in France and Germany, and more. Fifteen years ago, you’d hardly have imagined it. So I wanted to understand for myself what is happening both politically and economically.
The second thing was to translate that into an understandable language. My books are about democratizing knowledge, including here in Belgium. A lot of things are happening right now — Audi intends to close its plant in Brussels, for example. It’s one of two car factories left in this country, whereas fifteen years ago there were five — and a lot of people want to understand why.
I’m pleased that the book is being used in some parts of the Belgian trade unions to understand things like Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, the growing rivalry between the United States and China, and what they could mean for Europe. The biggest compliment I get is when a worker writes me and says, “This was my first time reading a nonfiction book. I thought I was too stupid to understand it, but I did.” People want to understand, and they can, but you have to give them access to the information.
Loren Balhorn
Let’s unpack the metaphor in the book’s title a little bit, “mutiny.” What exactly are you referring to? Where is this mutiny happening?
Peter Mertens
There was this idea after the Soviet Union disappeared in 1991 that we had reached the end of history — the United States would be dominant forever. After that, there were of course various tipping points, or what I call “watershed moments,” but today something else is happening: for the first time, the economies of the Global South, of the five BRICS countries — Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa — are larger than those of the G7. That’s remarkable and completely different from the 1950s and ’60s, where you had a Non-Aligned Movement that was of course politically much more radical, clearly anti-imperialist and anti-colonial, but economically still very dependent on the Global North.
The shift is happening at the economic level. But it also has consequences on the political level. Who would have thought, fifteen years ago, that Iran and Saudi Arabia would reconcile thanks to Chinese mediation? Or that the fourteen Palestinian factions would come together and sign a joint statement, also brokered by the Chinese? Or that the Namibian president would rebuke Germany on the world stage?
Don’t get me wrong: I’m under no illusions that these governments are all progressive. It’s very mixed. But to stick with the metaphor, there is a mutiny happening on the upper decks. There is a new self-confidence and assertiveness growing in the Global South.
Loren Balhorn
You mean among the ruling elites of the Global South?
Peter Mertens
Yes, exactly. Within the state apparatus. There is also power from below, with grassroots movements trying to push through a progressive agenda. That’s the mutiny below deck. But above deck as well, the Global South is in turmoil, searching for a new form of nonalignment, a realpolitik that serves national interests. That’s why I call it a “double mutiny.”
For example, Narendra Modi’s government in India is obviously reactionary — it attacks the peasantry, it does nothing to protect the rights of women, and it unleashes racist pogroms against Muslims. You could almost call it a kind of Indian fascism. Below deck, you have a peasants’ movement, a women’s movement, and a working-class movement opposing that government. But at the same time, above deck, on the international stage, you have this kind of mutiny by the Indian government against the current world order, with the foreign minister S. Jaishankar telling Washington in no uncertain terms that India will never join NATO, even if the United States would like it to.
South Africa’s government is not reactionary, but it’s also clear there that the African National Congress (ANC) was responsible for a lot of privatizations and neoliberal policies that vastly increased the gap between the rich and poor. I was in Soweto for a presentation of my book, and I spoke with members of the NUMSA (National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa), who broke away from the main trade union confederation and protest against the government. The level of corruption and inequality there is crazy — it’s like two worlds in one state. But at the same time, South Africa is the only country to stand up against Israel at the International Court of Justice, and it is doing so in a very serious way.
That’s the dialectical approach I take in the book. I think we have to support this mutiny on the upper deck without having any illusions that it will necessarily lead to a more progressive politics. The world is tilting, but it can tilt in any number of directions.
In Europe, on the Left, we tend to have a very defeatist and pessimistic view of the future that is based on nostalgia for the past.
Loren Balhorn
You alluded to the politics of the Non-Aligned Movement, the last time the world order began to “tilt.” Another historical precedent we could look at would be the revolutionary wave after World War I, when the world order not only tilted but was almost overthrown.
You said yourself that the current mutiny is primarily economic and, in terms of its political radicalism, quite tame indeed. Given that reality, to what extent does it really pose an opportunity for socialist politics?
Peter Mertens
I think the first thing is to develop a sense of hope and self-confidence again. In Europe, on the Left, we tend to have a very defeatist and pessimistic view of the future that is based on nostalgia for the past, for the socialist revolutions of the twentieth century. And yes, the working-class movements of the twentieth century gained a lot of things — social security systems, for example — at least partly because our ruling classes were afraid of a socialist revolution.
But we have to live in the present; 2024 is nothing like the period after World War I, with mass working-class movements in Italy, Austria, Germany, Hungary, and so on. We are not in that situation. But things are changing — objectively, economically — and people are looking for explanations. As Marxists, we should have the self-confidence to provide those explanations.
Why are prices so high? Why are government ministers telling us to turn our heating down in winter? Why is Western Europe suddenly threatened with deindustrialization? We, as the Left, as the movement of the working class, have answers to those questions. We don’t have solutions to every problem, but we have a vision of a world that is more equal, more ecological, and more democratic than the rotten system today.
The most important thing, though, is that we have to have the self-confidence to struggle, to go into the working-class areas and fight the battle of ideas against the far right, against the religious fanatics. Conditions are getting worse for working people all over Europe, and I think we are in the beginning of a longer phase — five years, ten years, I don’t know — of struggling over their ideas, of struggling over the working class. We aren’t yet at a point where we have a world to win — first we have to win over the class.
Loren Balhorn
Okay, but if we’re talking about winning over the European working classes, what does the global mutiny have to offer them? If we look at the specter of deindustrialization, for example, one could blame that on the sanctions against Russia, but there are also broader, irreversible trends at work, like the growth of the Chinese electric vehicle industry. Isn’t this kind of a zero-sum game for many workers?
Peter Mertens
I don’t think protectionism is the answer, but what has happened over the last five years, and especially since Russia’s illegal war against Ukraine, is that Europe has become more and more economically dependent on the United States. In that sense, the US has been the biggest winner in Russia’s war so far.
What we need, what the European working class needs, is a vision for a Europe that is independent of Russia, but also of the US and China. Europe needs a bit of self-confidence as a continent — not an imperial continent, but a continent that follows its own path, because I think we will lose if we are caught up in a conflict between the United States and China.
We need a plan for social and ecological investments on a massive scale as part of a broader European industrial strategy. I mentioned Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act — Europe has an answer to that, the Green Deal, but it mostly consists of incentives and subsidies for the private sector. That’s not what we need to address the challenges we face.
I went to Berlin while doing research for the book, and as a Belgian, I naively expected that German trains would be on time. It was a catastrophe! But it’s not just Germany, it’s not just Belgium — everywhere in Europe, our transportation systems are underfunded, our schools are underfunded, our hospitals are underfunded. We need massive investments in public infrastructure across the board, which, incidentally, will also create a lot of jobs.
It’s not a revolutionary approach or a socialist approach; it’s basically a neo-Keynesian approach. But that’s the phase we are in right now, a phase of chaos, and we have to put forward tangible democratic, social, and ecological proposals to get out of that chaos.
Loren Balhorn
I don’t disagree, but couldn’t you say that, in Europe, our mutiny has already come and gone? Jeremy Corbyn was defeated and expelled from the Labour Party; the Left in Spain has taken a series of electoral beatings; in Germany, Die Linke is on the verge of collapse. Meanwhile, the far right is winning elections in country after country. Hasn’t the momentum shifted to the other side?
Peter Mertens
No, I don’t agree. We may have lost some momentum, but the potential is still there. On the social and economic level, all of the problems are still there, and the class anger is still there. It expresses itself in many ways. Look at France: first you had the gilets jaunes movement, then you had some of the biggest strike waves since 1968. In my book, I describe the “winter of discontent” last year in Britain, which was much bigger and lasted a lot longer than the racist riots organized by Elon Musk’s friends on Twitter.
Even in Germany, you have a lot of strikes and industrial actions. The question is whether they are translated into a political expression and whether there is a political organization that wages the battle of ideas. In my city, Antwerp, the far right used to get 40 percent of the vote. But the Workers’ Party of Belgium spent decades campaigning in working-class communities, going door-to-door, talking to people about their problems, and explaining why they are class problems. You can’t get into social housing? The problem is not your Sudanese neighbor, but the fact that we don’t have enough social housing. In the last election, we beat the far right and won 23 percent of the vote.
There are workers with racist and fascist ideas who really are lost to our cause, but a lot more of them are not, and we have to fight over them.
Of course, there are workers with racist and fascist ideas who really are lost to our cause, but a lot more of them are not, and we have to fight over them. People are hurting, but people are isolated. We have to organize, organize, organize if we want to reach them and bring them together. That doesn’t mean we can’t lose, or at least face temporary setbacks, but at the end of the day, we can’t leave the working class to the far right.
Loren Balhorn
It sounds like what you’re saying is that, at least in Belgium, the momentum of the 2010s “mutiny” was captured by an organization and thus did not dissipate in the same way.
Peter Mertens
Yes, absolutely. It’s like the story of the three little pigs. The first pig builds a house of straw, the second builds one out of wood, and the third builds his house out of bricks. When the wolf comes, he blows down the straw and wooden houses, and only the brick one is left standing. In the Workers’ Party, we say we are building a brick house, because the wolves are coming and we want to be prepared.
Now, it takes a lot longer to build a brick house, and it can be very tempting to build one out of straw instead — one that relies on social media and charismatic spokespeople — but at the end of the day, without durable structures, you are lost. You need a party rooted in communities and workplaces, that meets on a regular basis, that intervenes in the community, that educates its members and serves as a kind of university for them. We shouldn’t be naive: if we are going to confront capitalism, if we are going to organize real ruptures in how our societies are governed — not just participate in a coalition, but lead a government that actually improves working people’s lives — we will need a strong organization behind us.
Ultimately, I think what we saw in the 2010s was the last gasp of a kind of movementism rooted in the collapse of the Soviet Union and the triumph of neoliberalism. I have a lot of respect for the people who built movements like Podemos, but I never thought they could last.
Loren Balhorn
Assuming we manage to get our house in order in time and build those working-class parties you describe — what then? Your book ends by saying if the mutinies in the Global North can lend a hand to those in the Global South, we can move the world in the direction of a social, ecological transformation. What would that look like? The days of truly international socialist movements are so far back in time, it’s hard to imagine one today.
Peter Mertens
For now, I think it is important to open windows for those kinds of discussions, because ultimately we will have to recreate those movements ourselves. That’s what the book is trying to do.
When I was in South Africa to present it, some people came up to me and said, “You poor boy, it must be so tough in Europe with all of those fascists.” But I responded, “Are things any less difficult here?” Look at India, look at the new government in Argentina. Fascism is not just a European thing, it’s a global thing — and so is class struggle. The class interests of a British nurse and a South African miner, or an Indian farmer and a landless peasant in Brazil, are ultimately the same.
The BRICS are not socialist, they aren’t even anti-imperialist, but they are a game changer in terms of how the global economy is structured.
There is a very institutionalized way of doing trade unionism, a very top-down way, where the only international exchange is at the executive level. But there is another way, an internationalist way, where you draw the links between struggles in other countries. I think that is what’s happening in some ways right now around Gaza. Some people call it a Vietnam moment. I don’t think it’s reached that level, at least not yet, but it’s certainly a moment where all kinds of people — students, but also workers — are opening their eyes to the international dimension of politics and coming together to oppose a grave injustice. That, I think, opens up the possibility of a more global movement.
The BRICS are not socialist, they aren’t even anti-imperialist, but they are a game changer in terms of how the global economy is structured. The Left should critically support them to the extent they challenge the current world order, while also building our own forums and institutions that go beyond them.
Loren Balhorn
The last two years have seen a number of terrible wars — not only in Ukraine and Gaza, but also in Sudan and the Congo, to name just a few. Is there not a danger that the end of the unipolar world order will also be very violent?
Peter Mertens
Like I said, right now we are in a phase of chaos, and chaos always kicks up a lot of dust. But the Left should not be afraid of that dust. If you look at all the disasters imposed on the countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America — not only during colonialism, but also in the neoliberal period — it’s clear that the current order is already very violent.
This process is just beginning and is currently in the most difficult phase. It could go in a far-right direction, but our job is to ensure that it doesn’t. I realize there are people in Europe who feel like they have stable lives and are afraid of the chaos, but that chaos is caused by capitalism. We have to show people a way forward, through the chaos, to a new kind of stability — a socialist stability.
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Peter Mertens is general secretary of the Workers’ Party of Belgium.
Loren Balhorn is editor in chief of Jacobin’s German-language edition.
