The Bullet or the Ballot.

I was first going to finish a collection of Malcolm X's speeches before I wrote about it. But then, something caught my eye. Scribbled alongside a passage was "us/them fallacy". The passage was this:

But the United Nations has what's known as the charter of human rights, it has a committee that deals in human rights. You may wonder why all of the atrocities that have been committed in Africa and in Hungary and in Asia and in Latin America are brought before the UN, and the Negro problem is never brought before the UN. This is part of the conspiracy. This old, tricky, blue-eyed liberal who is supposed to be your and my friend, supposed to be in our corner, supposed to be subsidizing our struggle, and supposed to be acting in the capacity of an adviser, never tells you anything about human rights. They keep you wrapped up in civil rights. And you spend so much time barking up the civil-rights tree, you don't even know there's a human rights tree on the same floor. - Malcolm X, the Bullet or the Ballot (1964)

To be fair, it had struck me just before, as I was reading the speeches the amount of rhetorical devices employed by Malcolm X. But to be fair, I was going to finish reading and then make up my mind. Speeches and other political commentary and discussion convey images and pictures that are bound together more easily through a package of symbolism and rhetoric. There is nothing wrong with that. Lying is one thing, speaking in a specific manner for a specific group is another.

Anyway, my point was more about liberalism, universalism and propaganda. Burgeoise ideology has always contained a good portion of universalism - a free market, a free state and so on. Important ingredients in the self understanding of the upper classes. Making themselves universal and rational, the typical response of the liberal to incendiary speech is - if not badly hidden class hatred for the unwashed masses - the accusation of partisanship and particularly in the form of deception.

The ruling class fears it's privilieges threatened and to maintain the status quo - a status quo enforced by the hegemony of the society in question - it clings to the ideology of universalism, and rational, calculated thinking. I am not opposing an anti-populist stance - populism is shallow and pointless, a refuge for the right rather than an authentic left - but we must realize that any attempts to summon the spectre of rhetorical fallacies, particularly the us/them fallacy is partisan in itself: just like every defence of the status quo is a defence of the burgeoise.

To conclude:

Let the world know how bloody his hands are. Let the world know the hypocrisy that's practiced over here. Let it be the ballot or the bullet. Let him know that it must be the ballot or the bullet.