Dear Stan
I think you have taken some of the points that were made by me and others earlier way
too personally. It seems to me that if I got to know you I would like you a lot, so
don't get so easily insulted by strong debate. The points of disagreement are purely
political, and seeing as they are rather important points of principle I will reply
once more.
>>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] 01/08 3:21 PM >>>
No one said anything about "stages." You're putting words in my mouth.
What "stages" might be appropriate in what places at what times depends on
a host of variables. The question is what mobilizes masses in a
progressive direction. Are you seriously arguing that the overthrow of
codified apartheid was not progress, even with all the difficulties not yet
overcome?
Tahir: What is instructive about the South African case is how an essentially
nationalist settlement BLOCKS any social progress beyond underdeveloped capitalism.
Since 1994 unemployment has increased and so has economic inequality, mainly due to
the highly intensified levels of commodification with the liberalisation of the
economy which the ANC government presides over so enthusiastically. None of the
country's targets in housing, health, education or security have even come close to
being met.
I believe that this is not an unfamiliar scenario - it is basically the outcome of any
nationalist led struggle. Check out Africa and tell me which countries have shown
social progress in the post-colonial epoch. If they haven't shown any, then then one
perhaps has to ask whether this is possible within the global division of power as
estalished by capitalism and the system of nation states. This is why I cannot agree
that a national liberation struggle which is divorced from the social question can be
described unproblematically as "progressive".
One needs to be clear here - it is not just that one is disappointed about a struggle
being arrested at a particular point. It is arrested by design. Leaders of national
liberation movements, once they take power tend to enter into a whole new shift in
their class identification. It is a cultural, psychological and political phenomenon
that has been described by many African intellectuals, such as Cabral and Fanon, and
is not exactly a mystery at this time. Read Fanon's chapter in The Wretched of the
Earth on the pitfalls of the national consciousness. In South Africa today we witness,
for example, a public discourse that is extremely hostile to socialist thought or even
intellectualism of any kind.
But I would like to go further and to say that 'national liberation' is a
contradiction in terms. An essential part of the global oppressive machinery of
capitalism is the system of nation states. You work within that system and then you
become an oppressor, maybe a slightly more or less oppressive figure than some other,
but that's just a matter of degree and detail. "Progress" in any substantive sense
needs to shift the dismantling of nations states right up the agenda.
Stan: anyone who claims they know what socialism
will look like, provided we are wise enough to get THERE at all, is a fool
or a liar. Now you've put me in a category, then you tell me I have a lot
to answer for. This is all fallacy at its best.
Tahir: I dunno what the last bit whas referring to, but surely you are not saying that
we don't have a clue as to what a socialist society should be like. If that were the
case we shouldn't use the word and should indeed confine ourselves to a discussion of
democracy and equity. And we would get precisely nowhere because we would not have
challenged the system that oppresses us in any way. Capitalism can live with
non-racialism, with democracy, with non-sexism, etc., etc. on a purely discursive
level. I see no reason why Bill Clinton or Al Gore, or even Bush for that matter,
would disagree with what you have said on a rhetorical level. But that rhetoric is
just peeing in the wind, because the system at a deeper level reproduces every kind of
chauvinism, discrimination and petty prejudice. What it cannot live with is socialism
and communism in the marxist sense, because the latter means an end to wage labour, to
commodity production, to nation states. It is in that struggle that there is a real
chance of ending the last vestiges of backward consciousness. But you know this, don't
you Stan? Or do you think that "national liberation" is attainable as an end within an
unreconstructed global capitalist system. If you think so then you should come out
clearly and say so, but after about 100 years or so of talk of national liberation
within the communist movement and about 80 years since Lenin branded as 'infantile'
any talk of staying outside of electoral politics there's not an awful lot to crow
about. Affirmative action maybe?
Stan: Marx gives us a toolbox, not a blueprint.
Tahir: A toolbox to do what?
Stan: Leninist-schmeninist! Instead of decrying how people's struggles haven't
moved in a direction you approve of, wouldn't it be more productive to
figure out why they moved in the directions they did? And to do that with
real research, not only emphasizing the "facts" that support our
theoretical preconceptions?
Tahir: What are these facts? You seem to regard the role of the communist movement,
one of the defining features of the 20th century, as unimportant. Do you know about
the role of the Soviet Union or China in the world? About the Third International?
Apart from being pretty short on facts yourself, you seem to be blind to your own
theoretical presuppositions of when you use phrases like "national liberation", etc.
Stan: Can you give examples of revolutions that
didn't begin with misery and repression--not one, but both? Can you give
examples of mass mobilizations around a comprehensive theory? Pretend I'm
not here to be assaulted with terms like "mumbo-jumbo," and address the
merits or weaknesses of the argument.
Tahir: The question is what is effective and towards what end. The question of "misery
and oppression" is not the issue. We all know how oppressive the world capitalist
system is and the misery in which the great majority of the world's people live. What
will change that?
Stan: One should never go into a gunfight without ammunition. And one should
never engage in a debate with theory and no facts. The struggle against
slavery in Haiti was anything but a struggle for capitalism. You obviously
have no idea what you are talking about. Haiti adopted a feudal economic
form, which still holds sway over many sectors today--a fact directly
responsible for its backward development. The situation--as I pointed out
earlier--was and is far more complicated than someones pre-ordained social
teleology.
Tahir: Unlike you, I'm not reading a book about Haiti right now and I must confess I
never have either. I wasn't aware that I had said anything at all about Haiti. The
debate we were having was about the historical significance of the franchise,
remember? I presented this as part of the historical movement to capitalism, together
with certain other bourgeois democratic freedoms, such as equality before the law or
abstract right. I do not, and did not, deny that there are many cases in the world
where this movement is incomplete even today. Remember I live in South Africa, so I
know what backward pre-capitalist thinking is like, believe me. And it has many
interesting facets, including racism, tribalism and xenophobia (all of which
nationalism does nothing to alleviate in my experience). No-one is saying that extreme
forms of backward consciousness must not be struggled against. What I seriously
questioned was the utterly preposterous notion put forward by Mark and apparently
supported by you that the franchise should be the key to all efforts of struggle right
now. I think the key is anti-capitalism and the target should be its key institutions.
I think furthermore that the struggle is tending in this direction, or at least the
most significant events are.
Stan: The point I was making is that a hypocritical document/idea, like the UDRM
or the franchise today, can become something its framers do not intend.
Tahir: Vague Stan, very very vague.
Stan: I feel so chastised. I didn't realize I was such a
counter-revolutionary. Now that you've defined me, I feel much better.
Identity crisis resolved.
My failure to sign a post earlier was a mere oversight. I figured most
people knew who I was, or at least my name. Who I am is far more
complicated than we can cover here, if anyone even had such an inclination.
Tahir: But you should realise that when you rail aginst Trots and anarchists and use
terms like "national liberation" there is just a bit of baggage that comes with this.
You are thereby taking a position, even if somewhat unwittingly as it turns out. I
have in my own thinking been moving towards a position which I am quite prepared to
defend - neither Trot nor anarchist, but definitely as far left as I can go. Be proud
of what you are too Stan, and if you can't then be something else. There might be more
options out there than you realise right now.
Cheers
Tahir
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