Ahmadinejad is the Leader the World needs Now!
By Saswat Pattanayak
Obama administration has two vital interests in Iran: continuation of war and imperialistic expansion. And neither of these remotely relate to establishment of a democratic society or any other fanciful distractions that most Americans are being spoon fed to believe in through their reactionary media propaganda.
In fact, a democratic society already exists in Iran. It is more vibrant and expressive than many other nations, including that of the United States. Iran’s democracy is so vibrant and strong that it has been able to produce a visionary leader such as Dr Mahmoud Ahmadinejad – a leader who has singularly challenged the capitalistic hegemonic barbarism inflicted upon the world through Wall Street scamsters, whereas on the other hand, as a starkly unfortunate contrast, these are the conmen that President Obama has been sheltering from day one of his taking over the office at White House.
Ahmadinejad is a leader of global influence whose stands against American militarism and Israeli occupations have widest reverberation among the majority in the world. Ahmadinejad has also been a national leader of Iran who has steadfastly refused to let Iran go of its sovereignty, its self-respect and its fundamental right to develop scientific and nuclear researches. Ahmadinejad has been the leader lending a spirit of solidarity to all the oppressed nations and peoples of the world who have been either trampled upon geographically by expansionist NATO forces or held captive psychologically through the media warfare unleashed by corporate media masquerading as liberal free estates.
Ahmadinejad is a necessity for the betterment of the world at large not simply because unlike any other leader in the world today he alone has the ability to challenge the globalized yet monopolistic power corridors of capitalistic combines, but also because he has displayed acute amount of perseverance in managing a civil war at home abetted by foreign interests, deep sense of political acumen to understand international relations imbalances, profound ability to confront the reactionary interventionist assaulters with calm understanding. Western corporate media as well the so-called liberals’ constant vilification of his personality, on his political career and public honesty merely suggest a targeted attack on a sovereign country’s head – an ugly and criminally abominable tradition continued in United States and much of western Europe since several decades now. So why do the NATO block countries – including their educated youths, often think the way they do.
History of Holier-Than-Thou Democracy:
Along with racial genocides, enforced slavery, interventionist militarism, illegalization of human beings, minimum wage exploitations, and civil rights suppressions, American power structure while oppressing its own working class people at home has also pioneered one other aspect that has been demonstrated to morally overshadow everything else: “Holier-Than-Thou Democracy”.
This “Holier-Than-Thou Democracy” – a political system of democracy which constitutionally never worked for all the people residing in the country – not even in 2009 – is intrinsically flawed. A system that excludes a huge section of people based on their naturalization status (even while they enrich the country through manual labor and income taxes) is intrinsically elitist. A system that runs to the politically appointed judges to decide fates of popular electoral results is intrinsically corrupt. A system that decides its head based on how much fund-raising that person is able to evince, how much of friendly corporate class alliance can that person exhibit, how much of media propaganda can that person muster to demonstrate – is a system that is intrinsically pro-capital, anti-people.
This is the nature of American democracy – evolving since well more than two centuries and still lands up being far from a decent one, let alone being a perfect model. To call American democracy decent would be to celebrate wealth disparities. It would amount to rejoicing marginalization of the poor who never have the means to receive Ivy league education as the presidents have, or when they do, most of them do not choose to align their class affiliation with the bourgeois. To call American democracy decent would be to amplify a mockery at the largest undertrial prisoners in the world; to emulate the dumbest people on the earth who are systematically deprived of a necessary knowledge about the true history of their collective struggles. To call American democracy decent would be to cheer on the military onslaughts by the NATO forces routinely demolishing cultures to shreds, relegating heritages to rubbles, raping women to objects, killing children to the untold history and torturing prisoners to unthinkable states.
To call American democracy decent would be to convey resounding support to the war declarations of its president – one after the other – each one of them. To glorify the culture of war against innocent people in far away lands. To call American democracy decent would be to assume Obama as the voice of an exhausted nation whereas he clearly represents the interests of the bankers who have financed his party while bankrupting the country. To call American democracy decent would be the biggest hoax of this century, and the last.
A much much bigger hoax it would be than what the world media are accusing Iranian elections to be. To call American democracy decent would be to declare the United Nations dead.
And yet, this is exactly what we have been doing all these years. All these decades since the beginning of the so-called Cold War. Each American administration has worked overnight to protect the interests of the greedy corporate class that is integral to maintaining the phony democracy operated through networks of ill-gotten wealth. American political system has been a necessary tool in the hands of the capitalist class to maintain a status quo of private wealth accumulation by the historically privileged or their recent converts. American political system has been the backbone of the world capitalistic system.
And in turn, the capitalistic combines have gifted to the American political system a corporate press – one which will stand away from the dirty political diplomatic quarters and instead extend its support externally. The American media – along with the religious and educational institutions which are otherwise amply funded by the state to also support the system from the outer- carry out their daily duties to inform people of the events through such packaging that would enhance a sense of security. The American media have in the process established a sense of political knowledge hitherto unknown to the human beings. A brand of political knowledge that begins with definitions and ends with definitions. A series of definitive prepositions regarding what constitutes “democracy” , “equality” and “justice” that are void of political logic, of ethical dimensions, of moral duties and of socialistic thoughts.
America with its utterly indecent form of political manipulations – where only the wealthy participates within a two party monopolistic system which involves little to none differences in their core adherences- ends up producing a nation of blatantly ignorant citizenry that have been designed to be kept away from emancipatory knowledge – lest they challenge the consumeristic exploitations, the standards of privatized education, healthcare and employment sectors. One of the magnificent ways in which this trickery continues is in celebration of the system itself. An obviously unequal system of political governance which fosters class societies and debt-ridden passivity of the majority is bombarded every day as having the authenticity from the very people it oppresses.
Just as outlandishly unrealistic Hollywood flicks become household names owing to advertisement galore, just as a political candidate becomes legitimized simply by utilizing the sheer reach of campaign wealth, the America democracy is heralded as the greatest political process in the world magnified through the lens of the media moguls it protects. The people – the active audience starts perceiving itself as “smart” since they are told they are indeed getting to “choose”: no matter if it is only within Pepsi and Coke or New York Times and New York Post or McCain and Obama. The freedom of choice – within the choices permitted by the system to prevail in the race – is celebrated as the mark of brilliant liberty exercise.
Anything that slightly or vastly opposes this system in a level of implementation then is viewed as the “other”. This “they” can no longer be tolerated to exist, let alone prevail upon. Taking cue from the individualistic philosophy that shapes capitalistic economy, the power structure of capitalism unleashes its attack on those that differ from it, not by degree, but by type. The entire saga of Cold War was written with bloodshed caused by America’s interventions in the sovereign countries whichever among them thought of adopting a non-capitalistic system. Every time a nation freeing itself from colonialists would deliberate upon adopting a socialist economy, American political system – the very system that would on one hand sing rhetoric of self-proclaimed land of the free and on the other would be crushing its minority populations under police dog attacks at home – would send its young innocent troops to emerge as habitual war criminals in countries they had never dreamt of visiting as a tourist. From Korea, to Congo, from Vietnam to Chile, from Greece to Algeria – the United States has always invariably become the country of attackers, plunderers, rogues and intruders. Not to mention, world’s only atomic power bomber. The biggest hawkish nuclear power holder. The strongest voice against disarmament. The most immoral example in the history of civilization.
Subsequent to the cold war, it was America which funded the Islamic extremists to wipe out remaining secular people of Afghanistan. It was America which funded the Gulf War through Kuwait’s adamance to Iraq’s occupation to capture of Iraq itself. Its interventionist strategies have annihilated nations and disrupted normalcy of lives among millions of people across the world. But such strategies have succeeded not because America had one war president or the other, but because the system of American democracy is inherently militarist, which no president, no matter how well meaning the person may be, can prevent from actualizing year after year.
Continuing with the disastrous war against Iraqi people is Obama’s enthusiasm for war against people of Pakistan, Palestine and Iran. Any amount of fundamentally autonomous protest against Americanization of the world is not subject to toleration by the American president. Like the ancient Kings and Emperors, Clinton, Bush and Obama appear to be calm and ethical. They have spoken the same lines of ethical duplicity and yet the statement is abundantly clear: One is either with America or against America. And while being with America one is with justice and democracy. Or else.
Unfortunately for the American presidencies, not every leader of the world has succumbed to their implicit threats. It is true that to remain world’s sole superpower, a country’s leader must mobilize all forces, direct all provocative speeches to unite the people, and needs to expand the sphere of influence in the world. But what is also true is that this ambition to remain as global superpower, to hold the position of being the biggest militarist in the world is not necessarily acceptable to the others. At least, not any longer.
Peoples everywhere, from New York’s Harlem to corners in Tehran have exhibited deep angst and disrespect towards American imperialism. To suppress that, naturally enough, as has been done in the past and as is expected in the future, American intelligence agencies have infiltrated into progressive camps and have done everything possible to turn the tides. America has witnessed the failure of its domestic youth movements for social justice, from Weather Underground to Black Panthers – the relevance of whom are felt now than ever before especially since there is no one left today to speak on behalf of the oppressed communities following the victory of tokenism. The failure has been brought about by the system against the progressive peoples everywhere – at times through sheer force and at times through intelligence tactics involving infiltration, pamphleteering, and at most times simply through the power of money and intimidation.
History is replete with instances of FBI’s investigations against peace-loving American citizens and of CIA’s interventions in foreign countries’ affairs when the latter have fundamentally differed with America’s stands.
Iran merely happens to be the latest victim (albeit, once again).
Tomorrow: Iran: America’s Battle Playground
Michael Jackson will forever live on!
By Saswat Pattanayak
They finally killed Michael Jackson.
The music industry giants of America with their racist press collaborators took away the life of the greatest entertainer, the world has witnessed in recording history.
Michael Jackson was on a slow death since several years now. Most notably ever since he raised his voice against Sony Corporation and the exploitative music industries. Ever since he, more than anyone else as influentially, highlighted the plights of black artists as victims of racism: “The record companies really, really do conspire against the artists. They steal, they cheat, they do whatever they can. Especially against the black artists.” Unable to accept how Sony’s chairman Tommy Mottola referred to one African-American artist as a “fat black nigger”, Jackson condemned him as “mean, a racist, very, very, very devilish” person. Michael Jackson had taken a stand against racism within music industry in a manner no musician had dared to take before. Nor after.
But that was not all.
Michael Jackson had also emerged as the most widely recognized human being in the world.
Unlike anyone else in human history – way more than any icon of the western world, more than any president of modern times or emperor of the ancient age – it was Michael Jackson who was recognized and respected by people all across the globe. The most “popular” American was increasingly transcending the limits of fame set by the power structure. He was rising taller than the Washington Monument in nation’s capital, and World Trade Center in New York City. Micheal Jackson was a bigger ambassador of American love than Kennedy or Lincoln ever were. He was a bigger American poet than Walt Whitman was. A greater performer than Frank Sinatra. A better dancer than Fred Astaire. A grander legend during his lifetime than Elvis was following his death.
And yet, as his good friend Elizabeth Taylor often remarked, inside America, Michael Jackson was “treated as dirt”. Why would he be not? He had surpassed every limits ever set forth: by America for the black peoples.
Michael Jackson was the black man who steadfastly refused to walk the ropes, to plead with the press, to sell his musical soul to the corporate copyrighters. He was the black man who took over the Elvis and the Beatles and shattered every myth revolving cultural purities. He was the black man who challenged the white hegemony over recording business and historiography. The musical pundits had to be forced to rewrite the list of greatest entertainers. Through “Thriller”, he won the world and then a record number of records. From the greatest music video the world had ever witnessed, to the Moonwalking steps the world had never known so gracefully existed, to the songwriting of “Man in the Mirror” that no one knew millions would cry to – Michael Jackson redefined everything that the world of music had hitherto known and did not.
They could not categorize him. In fact, he would not allow that to happen. His creations were not merely rock or pop, soul or blues, dance or music. But they were all soul-lifting. They were breathtaking. Mesmerizing. His “Beat It” red jacket was as much revolutionary as his “Heal the World” pleas to make the children smile. Everything he did, he did with a sense of dedication that shook the foundation of the common knowledge. And this violated the principles of status quo in the western world that could “allow” him to exist, but not “emulate” him now that he had vanquished the protected heritage masters to oblivion.
Thus, Michael Jackson, the de facto cultural ambassador of the United States of America emerged more popular worldwide than he was back home. He made friends with the Islamic nations that America despised. He was crowned by the African tribes that America ignored. He befriended more people and gave rise to more dreamers than America as a nation did. The more America became isolated in the map of the world, the more acceptable became Michael Jackson to the world. Michael Jackson became the internationalist – the singer more powerful than the recording industries, the man more acceptable than the press reports, the heart more profound than all the charities. Little surprising that as Jackson went on winning hearts of the world majority, the elite press minority of America unleashed their fury back home.
How do you stifle a legend while he is alive? Especially, if the person is the greatest philanthropist – more consistent than Oprah Winfrey and Bill Gates put together. Charity in the modern age began with Michael Jackson. Whereas every billionaire would squander away token money in order to evade taxes and earn immortality, Jackson would give away the entire proceeds of his shows to cause of black children in America and for the dispossessed in Africa – without a mention in the press. If charity meant not blowing the trumpets on celebrity TV shows, if charity meant giving without expecting, perhaps charity in its grandest term has ended as well with Michael Jackson.
It is not the legend and the myths of Michael Jackson that made him. It is in fact, the plain human being which he was that was exemplary. He loved children and he made no qualms about it. He did everything in spirit to address the needs of children. Heal the World Foundation is the single largest voluntary organization sponsoring the cause of the oppressed children worldwide. Greater than any country on this earth, greater than the United Nations’ duplicitous endeavors and certainly greater than the neoliberal rhetoric by the free market champions – are the contributions of Michael Jackson to making the world a better place – “for you and for me and the entire human race”.
How do you stifle such a man when he is alive? A man who defied the media conventions of masculinity. A man who refused to carry out the gender roles of prescribed American macho cowboy image. A man who played into no racial stereotypes. No black exploitation of his racial image. A refusal to be an essentialist. How does one stifle a man who defies national boundaries? Not a national hero, Michael Jackson would be. The singer poet of the “Earth Song” was a global crusader against neocolonial expansions, who amplified the cause sung in his crying voice:
“What have we done to the world
Look what we’ve done
What about all the peace
That you pledge your only son…
What about flowering fields
Is there a time
What about all the dreams
That you said was yours and mine…
Did you ever stop to notice
All the children dead from war
Did you ever stop to notice
The crying Earth the weeping shores”
How do you stifle this environmentalist? The pacifist? Or the humanist, as exemplified by the immortal poetry of his in “Man in the Mirror”:
“I’ve Been A Victim Of A Selfish
Kind Of Love
It’s Time That I Realize
That There Are Some With No
Home, Not A Nickel To Loan
Could It Be Really Me,
Pretending That They’re Not
Alone?”
How do you stifle the political activist? The supporter of Roosevelt’s socialist policies? The fighter for social justice? In “They don’t really care about us”?
“Tell me what has become of my life
I have a wife and two children who love me
I am the victim of police brutality, now
I’m tired of being the victim of hate
You’re raping me of my pride
Oh, for God’s sake
I look to heaven to fulfill its prophecy…
Set me free
Tell me what has become of my rights
Am I invisible because you ignore me?
Your proclamation promised me free liberty, now
I’m tired of being the victim of shame
They’re throwing me in a class with a bad name
I can’t believe this is the land from which I came
You know I do really hate to say it
The government don’t wanna see
But if Roosevelt was living
He wouldn’t let this be, no, no”
They would do to Michael Jackson what they did to Paul Robeson. When Robeson had become more popular and rewarded abroad as an internationalist fighting for social justice, he was condemned back home in America. His passport was snatched away so he would not be able to perform. The only platform for an artist is an ability to express. Robeson’s expressions were taken out of contexts and the press vigorously mounted an ugly war against him, portrayed him as an enemy of freedom and democracy – the very ideals that Robeson held closest to his heart.
That is how the system kills an artist. The very core of their philosophies is scandalized. In instances of Michael Jackson, his philosophy of life did not revolve around political economy. He had no aspirations to mobilize the masses for revolutions. He was not a fighter against market capitalism. But he had a potent weapon in his hands nevertheless, to transform the world after his vision. Children. For him, children were the past, present and the future. If the world was in a mess it was because of the grown-up militarists. The children were left out of the agendas set by the men. Children were neglected world over. Their rights trampled, their dreams refused to take shape, their imaginations murdered everyday.
Children, Michael Jackson theorized, needed the love and the attention. They were the center of the universe. It was the children for whom Michael Jackson acted in movies, made the music videos, wrote innumerable songs, danced to be imitated, and built the most beloved amusement park in the world. It was not merely about Michael Jackson’s lost childhood. It was about the childhoods that were yet to shape up. It was for the future that Jackson wrote in “Heal the World”:
“We could fly so high
Let our spirits never die
In my heart I feel
You are all my brothers
Create a world with no fear
Together we’ll cry happy tears
See the nations turn
Their swords into plowshares
We could really get there
If you cared enough for the living
Make a little space to make a better place.”
And it was the children they did abuse to get back at Michael Jackson. Trial after trial after trial. Months after months, Michael Jackson defended himself. The mainstream press which he refused to cooperate with, ridiculed him through cartoons and staged demonstrations and judicial overtures. King of Scandals, they called him. Even today, as he is no more, the press headlines Michael Jackson thus.
The scandals never really left him alone. Neither did the millions of loyal fans who despised the media as much as they loved Michael. I grew up learning about Jackson through the sensational press and just like any other admirer of his, I learnt soon to disregard the press reports as fabrications and targeted accusations. It was a constant refusal to believe in the press reports over what they projected democracy and liberty as just as they projected what a monster Michael Jackson was. Like millions of his devoted fans, I have deliberately and proudly refused to go beyond what the man stood for. I have every reason to believe Michael Jackson over the mainstream press reports. Every reason to trust Michael Jackson over the racist judicial system. Every reason to celebrate Michael Jackson over the monopolist music industry whims.
Jackson did not speak much to the press. Like Bob Dylan, he too did not trust them. But unlike Dylan, Jackson did not permit himself to be isolated. Unlike everyone else, Michael Jackson was a black artist owning the license to his own music, producing his own albums, refusing the media an entry into his life, controlling his gender roles, his paternal duties, his marital status, his appearances, his sexualities, his imaginations and their cumulative expressions. Michael Jackson was the artist, everyone of us aspired to be like.
It was necessary that they had to let him die just when he was enthused over his return to the stage this summer. They could not have allowed the return of the legend in the age of the complacent. They could not have left him in peace any place in the world. The mendacious reports and mawkish bullshit manufactured by the press can continue no longer, now that Michael Jackson is no more.
What will remain now on are his immortal songs, his inspiring messages to save the trees and prevent the wars. And most of all, his immense love for the world’s children. A deeply personal love, only he could fathom in “Childhood”:
“People say I’m not okay
‘Cause I love such elementary things…
It’s been my fate to compensate,
for the Childhood
I’ve never known…
Have you seen my Childhood?
I’m searching for that wonder in my youth
Like pirates in adventurous dreams,
Of conquest and kings on the throne…
Before you judge me, try hard to love me,
Look within your heart then ask,
Have you seen my Childhood?”
I shall miss you, my beloved childhood hero. In many ways, its good that you are no more amidst us. Because rest assured, before you are judged again, you shall be only loved now on.
Communists Must Win, Now That the Election is Lost
By Saswat Pattanayak
Elections are social, not political events. Whereas social functions entail an understanding of, and adherence to established norms, effective political actions require empowered state of conscientious being. Democratic elections – from ancient noble Greece to enslaved corporate America – take place independent of mass empowerment, most often, by keeping the participants oblivious.
People are kept sufficiently ignorant about the repercussions of their actions by not only the political parties, but by their media cohorts in general. What is instead propagated at an almost constant level comprises pure trivia: the equations of wins and defeats, the seats and the states, and the number games to legitimize a victor.
What results is a triumph of the end-product of elections, than an exposition of process complexities so as to challenge existing structures of power. Every mass-based hierarchical election that claims to have democratic character in turn produces a winner which revels in celebration of conquest as a finality of purpose, not identification of its purpose as worthy of celebration.
After all, identification of purpose in political sphere takes shape through solidification of an ideology. Since every ideology is backed by distinct political-economic theory, it inherently distances a section of people from embracing it. To evade this dialectic nature of political action, the so-called democratic election of the day, in its systematic pursuit of sustenance, necessarily has to shed the elements of ideology. At a social level, since the masses are kept ignorant of the systematic nature of the process that legitimizes one party or the other, the ideological components are dissolved in favor of encouraging consensus and its accommodating functions. The natural conflict that must ensue between an ideology that supports bourgeois electoral system and one that rejects it, is crushed down in favor of projecting the multiplicity of politics through democratic election that pits one comfortable party against another one.
Thus, political action plans for the people are orchestrated by the very entities that stand to benefit from them. Instead of letting people decide the system which can produce ground for equitable redistribution of worldly accesses, several political parties, often floated by a handful of seasoned ruling class elements carve out a system that produces visions for society as shaped by one winning party of a given time in an electoral drama that is designed to produce another victor the next time. In this game of changing hands between various rulers, the parties must blame each other once the they fall off the mark. The constant blame-game between the parties continue within the framework of existing political system which rely on an assumption of hailing the public decisions as the absolute one.
After keeping the masses ignorant in spheres of political education, the parties shower their gratitude to the people for keeping them in the contests. These electoral contests between various political parties ceremoniously take place every few years form the heart of this reactionary and retrogressive movement. This is retrogressive in its affinity with practices of royal, colonial, and feudal eras where representatives were chosen from among the exploiters. Mere transfer of power from colonial agents to capitalistic ones may not be sufficient sign of progress, but it should not appear so alluring that any sign of fundamental protest is obliterated.
And yet, in the recent elections in India, a continuance of political tradition has resulted. It does not matter who has won the polls insofar as some parties have emerged winners. In the victory of the electoral system as a sustained thread for unified Republic of India lies the defeat of the majority of people, destitute of dignified lives and yet heralded as architects of the country’s growing economy.
Such is the humongous irony in Indian elections that the poorest section of the society has chosen to be represented by the agents of the richest section. Even as ironical, this should not come as a surprise, since every country that lays its political foundation upon the so-called democratic elections has a ruling class exact opposite in its economic nature from its majority subjects. But unlike most such countries, India’s second largest organized political party is actually proclaimed as Communistic. The aspirations of this political base are naturally ambitious when they vocally champion the causes of the oppressed – the huge majority of Indians. In fact, so much is their sphere of influence that for the first three decades of India’s sovereign status, it was the Communist Party of India and its sympathizers within the ruling Congress regimes that led the country through a certain Nehruvian Socialistic/Internationalist way of life as opposed to a fundamentally different, yet more naturally inclined considering the cultural givens – nationalistic, religious, reactionary way of life as envisaged by the Hindutva forces after their successful attempt at ensuring a creation of a Muslim nation separated from India. During the period of so-called Cold War, India was guided mostly by leftist philosophical overtures thereby cooperating with the Soviet Union on most grounds so much so that it went to war with American interests in Pakistan, and East Pakistan while submitting to Chinese communistic dominance. In Indian academics, the leftists thoughts prevailed. In scientific progresses, collaborations were made with Soviet Union. In business, India maintained a huge public sector reserve. In other words, the communists significantly influenced Indian way of life, managed the largest trade unions and despite their comparatively minimal presence inside the Parliament, they steered several ruling class policies to overtly show sympathetic tones towards pro-people, not pro-profit legislations. Subsidies, rural employment schemes, agrarian incentives formed the major portion of Indian political interventions.
In a way, the Communists in India had a sway over both the elected leaders and the Indian population in an unmatched manner in the history.
And yet, 2009 elections mark the biggest blow to the organized communistic movement in Indian political space. What then has resulted in such a mandate?
What is left of the Indian Left?
The answer obviously is not obvious. But contrary to media beliefs, Communists have probably not been defeated in this election season. The parties have certainly lost considerably in their seat-gathering momentum. But in this defeat of theirs lies their eventual victory.
Since the dissolution of the USSR, like every other Communist Party in the world, the organized Indian left started to crumble in its orientation once more (the first major blow was over Sino-Soviet split). In a desperate attempt to survive, the Indian communist parties evolved strategies of fighting the system within the system. Extending “outside support” to the ruling parties formed part of an instinctual decision of the leadership which was a radical shift in the leftist position. A blurry line between outside support and coalition network dissolved in no time and the party in its ambitious best decided to actually take charge of the power if thus granted at the national level. There is nothing inherently wrong in aspiring to win the mandate if that is the goal of political activism, irrespective of ideologies. But what went missing was the self-evaluation of the philosophy of communism as an emancipatory tool for the working class from the vestiges of capitalistic utopia.
Instead of acknowledging the necessity to unite progressive forces for the sake of replacing a political system that was soon becoming subservient to imperialistic interests, the leading communist parties employing tactics of survivalism chose to seek and appease a public that was intoxicated through post-modern bliss of uncontested capitalism. These leaderships were readily embraced by the the media houses as representatives of the Indian left, to the exclusion of the extremists, Maoists, the Marxists-Leninists. Two major communist parties and few left leaning outfits which were legitimized by a ruling government to be able to participate in the popular system grew electoral wings and their media acceptance. In an almost desperate bid to exhibit their power position, they supported Manmohan Singh’s Congress-led coalition, even if upon their own terms. The class agitators became the class reconciliators.
Shedding every bit of Marxist conclusions, the official communists joined the market-driven Congress-led coalition to form a Common Minimum Programme (CMP). The CMP aimed to dissolve the differences between working class needs and bourgeois aspirations, with an enviable ability to eventually deny the fundamental nature of conflict between classes. The idea that the official communists agreed upon was that it was possible to reconcile the differences between classes by forging common alliance and following a market economic model with a ‘human face’. Joseph Stiglitz and his likes became difficult to ignore as their humanitarian pleas for the rich nations to help the poor ones were projected as the biggest dissent against World Bank philosophies. Communists, alongwith their role in attempting for reconciliation also declared their politically amicable positions when it came to support neoliberal market forces.
With “reforms” replacing “revolutions” in the literature of the communist parties, and with supports for selective privatization plans of Manmohan Singh – the chief architect of neoliberal economic policies in India – the legitimized leftist forces fell out of line with their ideological distinctiveness even as they fell into the power paradigms of the nation. India was soon evolving into a nation that proclaimed its own brand of wars on terror against its dissenting peoples. And communists, once accused of being the internationalists, now stood vulnerable as identifying with reactionary nationalist anthems. When Manmohan Singh on his several addresses to the nation including on Independence Day celebration of 2006, declared that the biggest threat to India was not the poverty or unemployment, but the Naxalites- the dissenters against a failed political system he was heading, the Communists were supporting him. Dr Singh’s words included, “We cannot rest in peace till we have eliminated this virus. We need to cripple Naxalite forces with all the means at our command…The Naxalite threat was the biggest internal security challenge ever faced by our country.”
Biggest internal security challenge ever faced by India? For such a learned man like Manmohan Singh (who of course credits with gratitude the Colonial Crown for all his knowledge in his infamous speech in Britain), even a cursory look at security threats in India would have suggested glaringly different realities. Atrocities committed by Indian defense forces against their occupied lands of the North-East are just a passing reminders about priorities India must set before claiming the moral high. The farmer suicides – the highest act of insecurity – owing to failure of loan repayments would perhaps stand in the line of top internal security threats in India, a country whose national reserves are way higher than the debts and yet which, thanks to the market fetishes of MacMohans have to keep borrowing from the international monetary organizations at rates that must corrupt the country and thereby impoverish it to the extent of subjugated living for at least decades without end. Not only has the economist in Dr Singh been blatantly wrong in his market assessment of India’s financial situation (employing this ignorance, his finance minister provisions more than 80% of the budget towards repayments to World Bank and the likes), the militarist in Dr Singh has been entirely wrong in assessing the security needs of his country (employing this arrogance, his regime provisions for more than 15% of the rest budget towards defence expenditure to fight the dissenting poor). In his militarist speech to curb the “virus” of India, Dr Singh was merely echoing sentiments of another militarist predecessor of his, A B Vajpayee’s.
Vajpayee wrote in India Today dated December 26, 2005, “The activities of Naxalite and other extremist forces sound a warning bell for India’s future. These forces, which have no faith in the power of the ballot, not only endanger India’s democracy, harm India’s socio-economic growth, condemning the poor and backward areas in which they mainly operate to continued poverty, and imperil India’s unity and integrity, but also their ideologies and actions pose a threat to everything we value in India’s cultural and spiritual heritage. Political parties and governments must sink their differences in evolving a united and comprehensive strategy to neutralize this peril.”
Sure, the communists were not alarmed at the profound similarity in opinions between Vajpayee and Singh. The extremists in both Singh and Vajpayee’s opinions were agitators from the left who organized the masses for violent protests against continued oppression. Whereas the Hindutva extremists managed to contest elections and rule over commercial capital of India for years, and whereas the Market extremists managed to contest elections and rule over the political capital of India for decades, the alarming virus was noticed only within the rank of the Left extremists who continued to be seen as the biggest threat to India’s internal security because they organized the poor for proactive measures for their welfare which the government failed to provide for. One gets reminded of how the FBI used to consider the Black Panther Party as the biggest internal security threat to the United States because they used to offer free mid-day lunch program for black children in poor school districts. But, no, the official communists did not get reminded of the history.
Communist party, whose elementary functionings depend on theorized goals and strategies to struggle for social justice, always commanded respect among a section of people, consisting of working class poor, idealistic students and patriotic seniors who were well informed about the party’s role in India’s struggle for independence against the colonialists, and in its internationalist alliance to fight the forces of imperialism. Struggles for social justice do not easily translate to power corridors. In fact, they are incompatible aspirations. Especially, if the power is not wrested by force or consent from the private monopolist consolidators and their agents, and instead be granted via a ballot system that thrives through ignorant masses and financially sponsored candidates.
What needs to be Done?
Even as the romancing with bourgeois parties have ended, the communists need to remind themselves that their role in human history is not of becoming agents for reconciliation, but rather to emerge as the torchbearers of revolutions. To that effect, they must officially extend supports to all progressive forces in India that are oppressed today by the corporate and political power structure sustained through electoral processes. Exercising vote may be a free idea, but it is not a step towards achieving freedom for the oppressed. A choice mechanism that revolves around one bourgeois party and another, between one corrupt politician and another, between one religiously divisive force and another, between one exploiting regime and another, between one coalition of opportunists and another, between one capitalist enterprise and another – no matter the differences between their religions, castes, or nationalities- is not a mechanism that can ever be used to create a socialist society.
When winning an election within a neoliberal setup is no more a goal, when appeasing a growing middle-class opportunistic urban youths is no more a mission, when becoming politically correct to address issues of caste, gender and religion is no more an option, the communists will find them by the sides of the oppressed in India – these people may be the unpaid housewives, unemployed engineers, agitating teachers, misdirected youths, displaced indigenous peoples, marginalized dalits, exploited domestic housekeepers, non-unionized software mechanics, faceless rape survivors, undertrial prisoners, street theater activists, legal sex workers, illegal child laborers….indeed, with the majority of people in India. Poor peasants, organized naxalites and factory workers are just a fraction of the solidarity network. Redistribution of property is the only necessity at this and at every historical stage in order to enforce social justice. This is an aim that require massive political education and emancipation of the working class. Only then will voting make any sense as a political act. Voting as a means to gain power is a feeble attempt at securing status quo. The communists are by nature inclined to destabilize the status quo.
This so-called defeat of communists in Indian elections is actually a victory for the organized communism. It is a call for carving out a unique niche once again with the historical opportunity it provides. To choose its side with the very people it has been despising each time the communist party has faltered into forming coalitions. To recognize that there indeed are class antagonisms, and not every interest needs to be catered to in quest of winning a democratic mandate. To strengthen the progressive forces everywhere in India, and in the world in a collective struggle against maintenance of imperialistic forces that spread their reach through global capital. This is the opportunity to stay away from power corridors and go back to the peoples in educating, organizing and agitating them against the system that perpetuates class society through poverty, unemployment, and divisions along lines of race, caste, sex, religion, and nationalities. To form a classless society requires, not an election, but organized revolution against the winners of elections that hold the national posts in order to facilitate international trades. The communists must not forget where they came from: from a fundamental difference with the existing world structures, with an intent to replace it, not aspire to becoming a collaborator. The communists must never forget what Karl Marx and Frederick Engels wrote in the Manifesto exactly 160 years ago:
“The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.”
Revolutionary May Day Greetings!
By Saswat Pattanayak
(Written for publication in Radical Notes)
Relevance of this day never was greater than it is today – as a celebration of collective human progress, as a reminder of historic labour struggles, as an occasion to reaffirm class allegiance with the working poor, and the majority strugglers.
Not an allegiance to exploitative ruling class demarcations of geographical boundaries drawn and redrawn through manipulative gestures of status-quo diplomacy. Not an allegiance to standards of academic, material, knowledge society thus distinguished and rewarded by the handful corporate czars to effectively facilitate their spheres of influence. Not an allegiance to normative philosophies of spiritual and religious practices aimed at bringing calm and internal peace through aggrandizing state of ignorance, indifference and ineptitude.
An allegiance to organized human labour necessarily requires obliterations of several convenient divisions mapped thus by the ruling class combines, while recreating new necessary ones.
Class allegiance in action must uproot the notions of purity attached with the cultural high-handedness in the form of canonic texts, classical arts and holy scriptures. Owing to lack of time from life’s labour, indulging in critical reflections on societal upbringings often becomes impossible or inadequate. As a result, the majority’s thought processes of any time are mostly conditioned by the simplistically offered explanations of recognized experts, not reshaped through rigorous testing by the self of acquired knowledge and incidental experiences. Such a propensity towards contentment by not subjecting oneself to question the foundations of belief systems helps maintain the glorification of cultural produces that puts the peoples in their oppressed places: that is, at the level of passive observers.
Authoritative texts irrespective of how patriarchal, discriminative and violent they are – all religious scriptures fall into this category – are passively consumed as holy and irrefutable. Ongoing texts of necessary collective resistance do not find a publishing house or a review on the mainstream liberal media. Classical as well as postmodern arts depicting both the royal past and confused future are heralded as containing “high” artistic value, while realist arts depicting peoples revolutions in the past or existing organized working class movements are discarded as socialist propaganda. Labour union songs, films portraying human labour as protagonist, and books about organized revolutionary history are forced out of circulation. If elite culture is limited to incomprehensible museums, popular culture is defined in terms of vulgar exhibits of indiscriminate media consumption. After dumbing down people through trivia overloads, they are praised for being free to choose what works best for their lives. After conditioning popular thoughts through uncritical materials, subjects are offered options to choose – between Coke and Pepsi, Disney and James Bond, McCain and Obama, Drama and Romance, Oprah Winfrey and Ellen Degeneres, Rock and Pop. Choices vary only by degrees, because they simply cannot vary by kind. Such wide array of similar choices offered by corporate greed must necessarily be a substitute for the limited options necessary for establishment of a classless society. They cannot be supplements.
Classical/postmodern and socialist/realist choices cannot co-exist harmoniously. In their realized state, the monumental and fundamental conflicts must surface. Just as haves and the have-nots cannot co-exist peacefully. In their emancipated states, revolutionary struggles must take over. Political systems that claim otherwise and preach possibility of peaceful coexistence between economically disparate classes merely work overtime to deceive their subjects through propagandist media which conveniently redefine economic classes (hence, a creation of “Middle Class”) and reposition boundaries of dissent by forming among themselves mutually respecting groups of liberals and conservatives – as a result, annihilating the possibility of communistic discourse around property relations.
Political systems such as these – the wide array of “Democracies” rule over a comfortably numb, blissfully ignorant, uncritically religious, and eternally grateful mass of people who are preached the merits of self-centric career growth, domestic peace and personal saving accounts over the high costs they cause – endless cycles of poverty, unemployment, lack of healthcare, absence of socially relevant education, continuation of escalated wars, and unquestioned acceptance of accumulation of private wealth as a necessary virtue. This hegemonist worldview not only widens its own sphere but in the process closes the alternatives. As a result, individual comforts take precedence over collective good and external aggression is justified in the name of internal peace. The wealthy section is heralded as deserving, the poor as resulting high-crime neighborhoods. The rich are rewarded with tax-breaks and bank loans while the poor are condemned to be credit-unworthy and liabilities. The true majority comprising the working class is treated as a minority when it comes to effecting administrative changes, policies governing education, house ownerships, business labour practices and environmental concerns. The true minority consisting of the historically privileged and their recent elite cronies express and install the legislations that suit their interest while masquerading them as national interests. Hence the president of a given country declares wars in these times under the advice of the friendly military-industrial lobby without taking into account the interest of majority of people in the world. What is worse, the majority of people are in fact attributed as the ones who wanted to go to war in the first place. After all, in the democracies – the system where the leaders are elected by virtue of how much money they have gathered – people deserve the kind of government they elect. Since people have exercised their voting options – no matter how uninformed they were kept in their choices not just to vote one leader or the other but about their stance on the process of farcical elections themselves – the leaders carry out most heinous of acts relegating the consequences of responsibilities to the masses.
Under the conditioned pretense of being active deciders of their destinies, people support their elected heads in all unfortunate decisions – just as inside houses the children do not question their reactionary parents, students do not confront their ignorant teachers, followers do not challenge their religious preachers. In effect, narratives of socioeconomic history are authoritative when they speak through the ruling class lenses. Students grow curiosity about the hairstyles and handbags of the First Ladies of White House, than pose critical questions concerning the reason why their own working mothers toil so hard and yet feel they do not deserve the similar treatments as the rich presidential wives or their corporate guests at grand banquets. A “free” society based on rhetoric of individual liberty suffers from being inherently an unfree, ignorant, selfishly passive one. Women are defined by gender roles prescribed to them by men. Their loyalty is defined in terms of how much of the body they cover, and their freedom is defined in terms of how much of the body they expose. From their menstrual cycles to pregnancy months, their status as workers is defined as a liability by norm and disability by law. When the entire workforce strives to accentuate the greedy private capitalist bank accounts, the sense of contribution to societal developments is felt through the merciful charities – disguised as tax evasions – of rich individuals, and through painfully slow legislations of judicial systems that offer drops of justice from time to time. Legal amendments to grant freedoms to minorities – that conveniently divided group of oppressed world majority – offer quotas in lowly paid jobs in form of so-called affirmative actions and reservations. Not as reparations to the historic damages.
Demands for reparations lead to revolutions. Revolutions are prevented by means of granting of charities. Status quo of the privileged is maintained through shedding of material grants, and guilt, from their surplus. World Bank loans and grants to the landless in the world is an act of charity on behalf of the greedy bankers, financiers who put their poster-boys at the helm of political power just to prevent any step toward reparations. In these days as always in the past, private bankers help their political weapons to rule over the people. They do so by granting credits and loans to people for essential needs that otherwise should be taken care of by the governments. Instead, availing of housing, healthcare and education facilities are privatized in order to keep people debt-ridden throughout their lives. Debts and interests accrued on them create a majority population that is unable to conceptualize the demands of reparations. On a May Day today it is only important to note that Bank of America which has received billions of taxpayers money not only spends them for its own profit motives by pursuing a credit war on the hapless consumers; it also lets the CEO Ken Lewis receive $35 million salary in the past two years; and what is worse, it fires thousands of employees who cannot avail of the so-called Employees Free Choice Act – yet another false promise from the American President Obama, known better as the lasting friend of the corrupt banks.
It is not enough to say the economic class war on majority of world’s peoples is an indictment for the freedom and equality envisaged for our world. Indeed, it is only natural that in order to keep the world unfree and unequal, it is important that the economic class war waged by the rich upon the poor continues in this manner. For the ruling class of individualistic corporate, political, judicial, academic, religious profiteers who assume the world does not need revolutionary replacements whereby they must be prepared to give up their private houses, businesses and mansions, it is necessary for them to continue exploiting people – directly and indirectly- by preaching peace while waging war, teaching lies while educating the youths, celebrating private properties while pretending to be moral and religious.
Those of us who must realign or strengthen our class allegiances with the oppressed and the exploited, must sympathetically understand why the ruling class does what it is doing. Only then can we unite together to transcend barriers and divisions instilled among us by the exploiters and empathetically revolt for the classless society that we strive for. May Day is an occasion to stop wondering in surprise. Only yet another day we need to rise above and beyond the divisions. And working class must still continue to unite even more and reach out to those workers who have doubts choosing which side they must be on.
Laal Salaam!
New American Magic Realism
By Saswat Pattanayak
Now that some time has passed since the United States stopped rejoicing a routine election fanfare necessitating short term relief from the economic war the capitalist government has unleashed upon the media consumers, one needs to critically attend to the repercussion of the events that passed by.
Not only Bush-McCain administration was unacceptable to the American people, they were equally unwanted by the corporate czars. Fixation on Iraq had to shift gears as not much excitement was left following brutal murder of Saddam Hussain. The military-industrial complex, tired of its “reconstruction” missions in Iraq (despite the profitability factor that leads them to continue seizing the land to this day) needed to focus elsewhere. And the new war mission needed to find a new leader. A differently appearing, yet positioned similarly in direction, an attractive personality, with a deceptively mixed agenda needed to be given charge. From nullifying the necessity to contain electoral budgets to promoting imperialistic expansions in the “post-war” period, from conveying an impression of rendering public service through recreation of “big government”, to facilitating spending of the public money for further private monopolistic accumulation – the corporate America needed a government that will prevent collective anger from taking a revolutionary turn.
In the history of last one hundred years, every time American military has invaded a foreign land, popular resentments inside the country have threatened the very basis of capitalism. Democratic Party, that holy cow banner maker of pacifism has suffered the worst of public anger. Be it during the time of Woodrow Wilson or Harry Truman or John F Kennedy or Lyndon Johnson or Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton, each Democratic President has faced numerous protests from peaceniks inside the country. Sometimes, the peace lovers have even turned violent in their demonstrations in order to appeal to the consciousness of their favored self-proclaimed world leaders.
Today, the scenario is no different. President Barack Obama has raised the military budgets to unprecedented levels during the most unusual time of economic collapse. His seeking of $75.5 billion for the wars is a supplemental-spending request. Wall Street Journal reports that the president is increasing the budget as well as the force in Afghanistan by more than 20,000 new recruits (totaling American presence to 58,000). And despite the reinforced corporate presence in Iraq, sustained military assault on Pakistani civilians, significant infiltration into Afghanistan, reliance on Japan to silence North Korea, breadcrumb diplomacy in Latin America, there have been no rigorous criticism of the administration. In fact, there have been no demands from the publicly pacifist sections of the society either. No “Bring our Boys Home”. No “War is Over” narrative.
Such misdirected are political sentiments and such doleful are peace education that amidst the wave of celebration surrounding new American leadership, basic tenets of radical protests have been buried within frameworks of false hopes and unnecessary optimism. In deeply myopic stance of understanding progressivism, left intelligentsia has fallen for the media engineered leadership wheel. Absent from the conversation is the proposition that singular heads elected in modern western democracies are best leaders money can buy. These leaders obliged as they are to the military industrial complex must necessarily sustain the very system that lifts them up to a level worthy of glorification.
The series of gratitudes showered by President Obama to his election is a symbolic validation of the virtue of White House irrespective of its everlasting dark ages. Declaration of America as land of the infinite possibilities in wake of recent results is a celebration of wealth accumulation that must decide fate of aspirants preaching race blindness. Drawing parallels of an electoral victory for a person of color as a probable end of race discourse in white societies is normalization of privilege denial.
The issues that are being projected as resolved with the new president’s arrival are the very issues that are problems of the future. Like Wilson, Obama continues to be a fervent anti-communist publicly bashing the philosophy. Like Truman, he is yet another proud “War President” cheering the onslaughts in Iraq by his troops. Like Kennedy, Obama is an interventionist who minces no words before deciding to target yet another sovereign country. Like Johnson, he drafts one policy for North Korea while creating another for China (LBJ’s infamous speech goes on to validate American quest to combat Korean communism while not intending to attack Chinese communism). Like Carter or Clinton, Obama’s peace pledges have been convenient in form and impractical in content. Be it the lingering silence over Israeli show of strength in Middle East or American lingering show of strength in South Asia.
Liberal media takes fancy in comparing Obama with Bush and scoring brownie points. Where they need to make a substantial headway instead is in comparing Obama with Kennedy and Clinton. That is, after the necessary critical historical scholarship has gone into researching the so-called Cold War and why President Obama inherits an unenviable experiential heritage. The ease and comfort with which Obama proclaims moral world leadership to bomb Pakistan and Afghanistan, and the skillful oratory that carves his presence among capitalist bigwigs at G-20 summit are necessary consequences of the system that allows him to preside at the helm. Obama’s espousal at the London summit that “In America at least, people don’t resent the rich; they want to be rich. And that’s good,” was not merely his support for Wall Street monopolists. It is fundamental a philosophy for the growth of capitalism at the cost of oppressing the majority poor.
The usual resentments associated with such sick statements advocating Wall Street riches and bonuses have been declared dead. The otherwise anger resulting from hawkish mentality of world leadership while bombing civilians in the guise of locating a hooligan has been voluntarily suppressed. The necessary methodically critical analyses of imperialistic world leaders have been shoved to irrelevance. The hegemony is ideological this time. Self-censorship is the icing. Normalization, in the Gramscian sense, has come to stay. Hope is the magic. And the realism.
