I am writing about the 73rd anniversary celebrations of the Iraqi Communist Party for a few reasons: first of all, because we are in need of another image of the Iraqi occupation and resistance. It is not exclusively religious, perhaps not even predominantly. The idea that the whole thing is about Sunni/Shia conflict to the point of exclusion is just another Clash of Civilizations lie. Certainly, it has it's importance, but it is not the end-all, be-all of Iraqi resistance and struggle.

Furthermore, the ICP is both a hope and something of a quisling. To take part in the imperialist government and not be fighting the occupants is a terrible mistake. Certainly, they always hated Saddam, but building a mass movement of liberation during imperialist occupation isn't done through collaberation.

Lastly, I myself visited the ICP 73rd anniversary as celebrated here in Lund. It was an interesting experience, if nothing else. For all it's problems, the ICP must remain a group we on some level support, even if we wish they built a secular liberation front rather than sit in the cabinet.

The Dogma of "Anti-Political Correctness"

From time to time we find individuals assaulting "political correctness" but their definition of it seems to be a little vague. Now, I am no fan of the de-politicized liberal public debate - any readers of this blog must have understood that much - but I cannot help but see the American reactionaries behind these statements, endlessly regurgitated by American comedians and conservative groups alike.

I believe that there must be some political correctness: at least in the sense of social acceptance. If our prime minister told a joke about homosexuality in the parliament, or indeed (to take a petty example), if someone were to boisterously make obnoxious jokes about socialism when I was merely trying to find peace to read I would be indignant: and for a good cause. There are certain social rules which should be respected. Anger or reaction when they are broken is not silly, or being touchy, it is part and parcel how humans work.

With that said, a communist is the last to be happy about what you can and cannot say in the public sphere. The Swedish state's official historical revisionists "Centrum för Levande Historia" (Center for Living History) are the latest regiment in the anti-Communist armies that serve to make it impossible for anyone to maintain that political stance.

To get to my point, however, there is often a reactionary claim that since it is alright for black people to refer to themselves by various old, derogatory slurs, it is okay for everyone to do so. They simply cannot understand what would be the difference between homosexuals making jokes about their own social group and others, non-homosexuals to do so. We who react against these things that touch these, and many other matters (I recently saw a commentator in a blog post who wondered why people reacted against a newspaper stating that an "Israeli" was a hero in a specific situation noted the newspapers report on just that, while hypothetically not reacting against it if it would have said "Canadian" instead) are said to be stupid, or touchy, or whatever it might be. Indeed, there are few quick responses to that attack since most people only subconsciously realize why they react in one manner or the other rather than being able to put it into words. This is also the reason why this argument appears so oftenly - particularly in reactionary circles ("Why is it so wrong to talk about the problems of immigrants if we always talk about problems of Swedes/Americans/etc?") where special delight is had over it.

This idea is the product of an imbecile understanding of social hegemony and power worthy of the very conservatives that embrace it. In society various groups hold various power, to assault one of lesser status than you is an affront. For it to discuss itself is a completely other thing; for it to "kick upwards" is much the same. It is the same as someone else cracking jokes about your family; unless a close friend whom you are certain is not aggressively inclined against them, it is incredibly rude.

Furthermore, there is no 1-1 relation when it comes to social groups. For us to react against the use of, say, "Jewish" instead of "Israeli" casualties in the reporting of one or the other bomb raid in Israel is not racism - it is a reaction against the media situation and the sliding of words used by that very same group in an attempt to subvert and propagandise.

To attack immigrants or others under the banner of free speech or anti-political correctness remains racist, there are substantial differences in the relation of power and what you are actually doing by the statement (in many cases, putting a stigma on a group or crime "black rapists" as Angela Davis takes up in her book, for example) than our reactionary understands by their blind view of society.

Intersectionality.

Readers of this blog might have understood the periphereal status of both feminism and anti-racism in it. To a great extent this has to do with my own lack of experience and learning in these matters. This is, of course, an easy alibi for a white, working class man.

So what I am going to do is that I am going to discuss intersectionality: the new academic hope. Though it might have something of an intellectual fad over itself, it is critically necessary. We live, today, in a world suffused with imperialist wars, a world where women are raped, mutilitated and killed for attempting to lead their own lives, a world where a foreign-sounding name can mean segregation, alienation and isolation for years, or potentially life.

We are also facing a Left that is tattered; bloodied, but not broken. The dreams of '68 have fallen by the wayside, lost in a haze of neoliberalism, drugs and the Soviet collapse. One of the great problems of theorists of that time, beyond sectarianism and all of that, is the pervasive ideology of humanism. I connect to Althusser in this matter: humanism is ideological, it is not Marxist. To open the door for humanism is to open the door to a great manner of conflicting and confusing ideas that serve only to weaken class consciousness for the abstraction of 'Humanity'. The anti-racist and feminist movements of the 60's and 70's were typically suffused with humanism and we are still labouring under it. The Left means, to a great deal of people, that you should be nice to kids and dogs.

This is, quite obviously, not my own standpoint. One of the greatest theoretical struggles and challenges that we have is to incorporate anti-racism, feminism and revolutionary socialism under one, explosive banner, without all turning into burgeoise humanists (vaguely against an undefined oppression). To find the Archimedean space from where we can lift the entirety of human exploitation in it's various guises is no easy feat; which is why ever since the Frankfurt School's attempts we have failed to offer a conclusive view. On the one hand, we have overestimated the status of the class struggle, and on another, we have underestimated it.

Though I rarely (if ever) manage to give any kind of solution to anything that I write about when it comes to theory, I am going to say this. Perhaps we are starting in the wrong end. Perhaps what we truly need to do is to engage, more fiercely and more bitterly than we have ever done before, in the struggle for liberation. The key to the solution might be in the collective praxis rather than a direct, academic solution. Not the turn of an abstract key, but the erasure of borders between individuals engaged in the same concrete situation. Praxis erases the sharp line between theory and practice, and it unites individuals in new constellations.

We must never forget the lessons of the past. Currently, I am engaged in reading Angela Davis book "Women, Race & Class". It illuminates in many sharp examples the mutual betrayals of the working class men towards women, of petty burgeoise women towards working class women, of those towards the Black women, etc. None of these lessons can be forgotten.

We must realize, again, that all of these things are connected, and we must manage to find a principle - or set of them - from which we can make a concrete analysis rather than the chopping work that we so often find. We must also avoid chauvinism from both men, from white groups, and from the petty burgeoise in doing so. Though I must reiterate my partisanship for the revolutionary struggle to create a grassroots analysis, so to speak, we must remember that the different types of oppression are not the same. The development and structure of capitalism suffuses and even breeds racism and sexism, but they are rather upheld by the praxis of existing collectives rather than an economical model as such. That is to say: we can change the internal political subjects and 'solve' (aufheben) gender roles and racism - capitalism is a problem that needs to be overthrown with mass political action in revolution.

However, even as we state that, we are bound to remember a few things about capitalism that will weaken the divide between the class struggle and gender/race conflicts. If the political subject in capitalism (the working class) simply ceases to engage in it's usual, concrete action (working) the entire system will fall apart (the old syndicalist idea). If we decide to organize our society in an entirely different manner tomorrow, then so it will be, we will enter into a new praxis. Of course, this will never happen, but neither will racism end without struggle, and without the Fanonian changes in the oppressed subject's psyche. Praxis continues to be the integrating link between individuals and collectives that make up and are made up of collective action.

Tidning och recensions/boktips.

Gled in på Efter Arbetet, ett webbprojekt som på något sätt är fortsättningen på den sedan länge döda och begravda Arbetet. Jag kommer ihåg hur jag för många år sedan, som en nybliven Ung Vänster aktivist utan större ideologisk medvetenhet, såg de sista löpsedlarna för Arbetet. "Arbetet huggen i ryggen". Av något skäl har jag aldrig riktigt kunnat glömma den bilden någon gång runt år 2000 i Kristianstad. Det jag kanske undermedvetet förstod då var hur mediasituationen i Sverige blev än mer beklämmande.

Hur det än må vara med det så finns nu Efter Arbetet som sagt. Det finns en helt okay recension av ett ny utgåva av Franz Fanons Jordens Fördömda. Fanon är en av mina favoriter, framförallt på grund utav hans starka språk och hans skarpa psykologiska-politiska iaktagelser. Recensionen i sig är ganska bra, även om man kan tycka det är lite märkligt ibland, eller lite sossigt. Eller både och. När Petter Larsson skriver att Fanon romantiserar kolonialinvånaren så är jag inte riktigt säker på var jag är någonstans. Fanon anknyter till vissa underliggande åsikter som jag själv sympatiserar med: solidariteten i frihetskampen. Omvandlingen av människor som innan varit förnedrade och nertrampade, behängda med religion, fördomar, rasism och annat - effekter utav det förtryck de lider av. Men i revolution efter revolution har någonting flammat upp: någonting liberaler inte kan hantera. Det visar sig att människor, knytna tillsammans av intressegemenskapen och av den psykologiska förändring som sker när man inser att man har makt över sitt eget liv, samarbetar lätt och otvunget. Howard Zinn skriver om det i de tillfälliga sovjeter som uppstod av och till under klasstriderna i USA på 1800 och tidigt 1900-tal, men vi har exempel även ifrån ryska revolutionen eller dagens Venezuela. I hiskelig takt utplånas de problem som bara är effekter av förtrycket. När orsaken är funnen och man bekämpar den löses en mängd problem, framförallt igenom en intern förändring i det politiska subjektet själv.

Sedan, det här med vapen och nation. Jag är inte ett fan av varken eller. Men precis som mänskliga rättigheter kan vara väldigt progressivt (även om jag inte tillerkänner det någon ontologisk status som sådan) kan också nationer vara det. Kritiken mot Fanon här verkar märklig.

Vapen, då, och revolution. Vad Fanon lär oss är att revolution inte sker utan kamp, våldsam sådan. Detta framförallt kanske för att förstörelsen av herren är en grundläggande nyckel i slavens emancipation, i hennes inre själsliv. Dock tror jag inte att Fanon ansåg att varje revolution måste ske med just AK-47:or och bomber, men jag tror varje revolution kräver sin våldsamma kamp. Inte för att det är eftersträvansvärt - inte överhuvudtaget - men allting annat är naivt. Borgarklassen ger aldrig upp sina privilegier. Vi ser överallt runt oss hur de offrar varje ideal om individens frihet och vi ser deras tullmurar mot pereferin. När vi bekämpar dem, och när vi vill ta makten över våra egna liv, kommer det gå än snabbare för dem att bruka våld.

Men jag måste säga att jag inte är så kritisk mot recensionen egentligen. Den är ganska bra. Framförallt behövs den här boken nu. I en tid då imperialism och rasism vandrar fram över världen och då de fattiga runtom i världen utsätts för allt hårdare grepp - från de svältande i Zimbabwe till liken som flyter upp på Spaniens sydkust - behövs böcker som kan sätta människor i brand och som kan få dem att ta makten kollektivt. Vänstern har ett stort arbete framför sig i att återta det som är förlorat och att omformulera gamla sanningar och finna nya. En av de viktigaste sakerna vi kan säga, för oss själva och för världen, är att vi vill göra revolution och omdana hela samhället - och att vi är beredda att gå igenom hela den långa, svåra kampen detta kommer betyda. En kamp som förts innan och som kommer igen. För vissa av våra kamrater - kvinnor och rasifiera grupper - är förtrycket med än fler dimensioner. En gemensam frihetskamp måste ge dem en priviligerad front. Fanon är kanske mer aktuell idag än någonsin tidigare.

We hold these truths to be self-evident...

As my previous post was about postmodernism I believe I owe it to my Third Way-ism to attack modernism as well. To reiterate a few things I said before: Marxism is not a modernist doctrine, though it is influenced by it. Marxism is also not a postmodernist doctrine, though it is influenced by that too.

In many discussions and part of our society we find a de-politicizing ideology. That is to say, organizations ("NGO:s") do not dare to attach themselves to a specific party and they do not dare to say anything that would rock the boat. To this mindset there is a sharp divide between going out to vote every four years and the civil society wherein we move. Opening up to political ideology, then, is impossible, it is a partisan choice.

As Zïzek so aptly puts it, however, there are no more ideological (in the Marxist sense) choices than just that. We live in a world where we face an original position heavily influenced by burgeoise liberal values and views. This mindset says that a movie is just a movie, it enforces a status quo in the hegemonic middle. This can be as much seen by the insistance that we shouldn't care so heavily that all the bad guys in American movies are either Russian communists/criminals or Arabic terrorists, mindlessly blowing themselves up, as it can be seen in how we talk about mankind or society at large. This reification is typical of the hegemony of the burgeoise: they have turned themselves into the archetype of man - and if you're not part of that, then there is something wrong with you. When you talk about mankind, you are truly talking about the male gender, when you are talking about society, you are actually discussing burgeoise society. The conflicts are hidden by turning the privilieged into the archetype of humanity.

Modernism is infected with certain positivist influences that can be detected more or less everywhere when you look for it. It comes from the idea that we are observing brute facts when we wander around the world. A door is just that, a door. Economy is just that, economy. There is no interpretation, no underlying conflict. What you see is what you get.

However, that is not at all the case. We require certain ideological filters to at all work in the world and in a social context. We interpret one thing to mean another, to be part of a certain causal scheme.

The postmodernist condition

Something that I have been thinking of for a long while was the connection between modernism, marxism and postmodernism. Many have said that socialism is a modernist ideology, with a belief in progress and history and so on. Others have accused the Left of obscurantism that belongs to the continental-postmodernist tradition. I believe that neither of these are right, just as modernism and postmodernism are ideologies in themselves, so marxism remains a Third Way alternative (and one that is less ideological than the two as well).

I recommend reading Lenin's Tomb on Baudrillard's recent death and postmodernism. It has a few interesting points, but I do believe that it is ultimately flawed. I do not believe that the hatred of postmodernism is only a hatred of the West's privilieged position. Why? Let me outline a few critical notes:

1) Postmodernism prevents individuals and groups from action. With it's defeatalist attitude it fosters inaction, navel-gazing and cynicism. Like certain 'moral' socialist ideologies in the past, it prevents the necessary action required to change society.
2) Postmodernism is modern (pardon the pun) philosophical idealism. It shares with it's earlier neighbour the same clouding of reality, the same call to inaction of previous mysticism that is my first criticism.
3) Postmodernism opens the door to obscurantist ideologies and praxis. Whether these are religious, political, social or a combination - anarchist vegan collectives eating from discarded garbage are in some sense a product of the postmodern ideology wherein this sort of confused action, really only meaningless and lame, grows.

With this said, postmodernism, like almost all ideologies, can teach us many valuable lessons. I do not share the same instinctive hatred that so many of my analytical colleagues do. I am in agreeance with Ian Hacking in that matter: it is not all so dangerous or obscurantist. The ideas of narratives, what it teaches us about construction of social differences and so on is very valuable and should not be discarded.

In my opinion, postmodernism is a product of a Left which collapsed ideologically after the Soviet Union and the confusion and panic that came after it. It is also a product of a society that is ever more alienated. Listen to what the postmodernists are talking about. Confusion. Chaos. Panic. "All that is solid melts into the air..." old Marx said, and it could be a slogan of the postmodern movement. I believe, however, that it is rather a suitable slogan for the postmodern condition.

Reification and existentialism.

George Lukács writes in his premier work History and Class Consciousness about reification; about what it does to the working class and the burgeoise. What it turns people into. Though Lukács has been assaulted by two as different figures as Louis Althusser and Jean-Paul Sartre for his humanism contra his Stalinism (the 'denounced' Lukács against the 'official' Lukács) I believe that there is much to take to heart in the manner of which he presents his philosophy.

Humanism might be a product of burgeoise thinking, and certainly something that will serve to dampen the revolutionary spirit in practice, if not in theory (consider the person who idolizes the 'Revolution' but shyes away from revolutionary praxis). However, I do not believe that what I am going to focus on here is actually humanism itself, but rather an existential-proletarian situation, to speak in Sartrean terms.

To restate in less pompous, and less burgeoise terms: the situation that every labourer faces.

Lukács then, in his writings on class consciousness and the individual worker focuses on reification. That is to say, the ideological process in which categories are 'frozen' in our minds and in the manner on which we view the world. This ranges from gender categories, to the manner in which society is formed economically (one-way neoliberal politics is an example) and further. The misunderstanding of the world as given, once and for all. Since reality, especially not social reality, is like this we find ideological crisis and problems. Marx writes that famous phrase about how all that is solid vanishes into the air in capitalism. And he is right. This is no contradiction, it is simply a dialectal struggle between the categories in which we try to interpret the world (or rather: the categories imposed on us by the upper classes production of ideology, which in itself is reificated, produced from the lofty peaks of society on which they see themselves as 'free').

So, what, then, does any of this have to do with individuals and existentialism? Simply this: liberty and free development is given from the class struggle, from the ideological and political struggles of the organized working classes. If someone does desire "life, liberty and happiness" then it is simply impossible for capitalism to truly provide that for any greater number of time, simply because the ideological system as a whole reaches periodical crisis of faith: questions that have no answers, situations which inspire dread and developments that seem to come from nowhere. To truly find any safety in all this, and any meaning, practical-critical activity is a necessity. Both to gain the sense of community and mutual dependance and interaction that humans so desperately need, but also to be able to grasp the world intellectually. That can never be provided by the burgeoise; their own intellectual traditions collapsing in postmodern confusion (read: alienation) and neoliberal perversions.

Resistance in Center and Periphery

I just read a newspaper article about Somalia: another crisis that sends the tremor of imperialism out from it's center of Baghdad into the Horn of Africa. I was about to write about both the hubris of the American ruling class and their constant inability to retain and administer their frequent, if bloody, victories. I was also going to write about my own fears that the violence in especially Iraq, but also beyond that, is as much engineered and directed as unforeseen. That perhaps it is just more divide-and-conquer tactics that so many colonial groups have attempted before. But then, I saw something else that caught my eye.

Lenin's Tomb presents an incredibly interesting piece on Egypt and what is occurring there. A nation that still retains it's socialist legacy. I must share lenin's enthusiasm for what could occur: a victory against the egyptian upper class could change the hegemony of resistance in the Middle East. Indeed, it could be one of the first outbreaks of the newer socialist movements on another continent than it's home in Latin America and the Caribbean (not counting the Oaxaca soviet: the first surge of popular resistance that was not Zapatista, but not the last).

If anyone has more information on the Egyptian situation, I would be more than grateful for that.