| Dmytri Kleiner on Mon, 11 Jan 2021 21:40:36 +0100 (CET) |
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| Re: <nettime> The Left Needs a New Strategy |
On 2021-01-11 19:02, Ryan Griffis wrote:
Can you help explain how we should be understanding the MST alongside the CCP, as related strategies of a global left?
Both the CCP and the MST are direct movements of the oppressed, and fight to improve their material conditions.
I guess the CCPs role in the decimation of the lives of both peasants and indigenous peoples in the Brazilian interior for the sake of cheap soybeans is forgivable since the CCP is technically a Communist Party?
Why do you think anyone should care about our opinion about agricultural policies of the chinese interior? Do you not think that maybe the Chinese know a little more about the circumstances they face that we might? What entitles us to an opinion? I'm not a chinese worker, nor an agricultural expert.
The CCP has many millions of members, why should I take our opinons and not theirs about the ideological nature of their party?
Maybe that’s the cost of “winning” in your analysis?
What does my analysis have to do with anything? Since I have no insight and no stake, I defer to their leadership, as should you.
Of course, I’m being rhetorical… the MST has commented on this already. "When they got rid of the European empires, their oil still went to them and to the Americans. But a new empire is arriving to exploit their natural resources: China. China is taking everything: coal, trees, mineral resources of all sorts, foodstuff, to sustain its economic growth. Maybe the next anti-imperialist revolt is going to be against China.” (MST leader João Pedro Stédile way back in 2008)
If you had personal contact with MST you wouldn't need to depend on quotes from 2008, nor would you mistake the (former) opinion of a leader as representing the movement, or it's current position.
And what is your stake in this? Are you with the MST? With China? Or just an entitled third party passing judgements?
Is that just the MST playing “both sidesism”?
MST is certainly not, MST is a direct movement of the oppressed, and firmly rooted in improving their material conditions. It is you that seeks to instrumentalize them as a third party to "prove" that your judgments of China are somehow interesting.
the CCP and the Chinese state do not necessarily (or generally) represent Chineseworkers or peasants
Of course the CCP and the Chinese state represents the workers and peasants. This is just a racist trope that the chinese masses are victims of their own revolution and the only support for it is yellow scare propaganda and western chauvenism
This is, as always, evident by the outcomes, the people are getting what they demand and broadly support their government's policies. This is not the case in either liberal western states or repressive governments like in Brazil, where neither human development outcomes nor approvals indicate democratic outcomes.
Of course, western chauvinist prefer to evaluate other countries according to doctrinaire idealism, not democratic outcomes, and are happy having their views shaped by imperialist media and intelligence.
Does your leftist imagination not include the world in which you, yourself, live?
From what you write, I think we largely agree on what groups and coalitions are doing good work here, and deserve praise and support, including the black liberation movement, of course.
And, yes, we must operate where we live and in the communities in which we are resident.
My comments come from the point of view of strategy. Despite my support for, dedication to, and praise of, local movements such as you mention, if it is these groups that are are our horizon, then my point is we have lost, and we will keep losing, these groups are heroically doing their best to slow the worsening conditions, they are not making forward progress.
After 30 years of activism everything is worse by every material measure and every measure of democratic outcomes.
However, if we extend our horizon to embrace the global left, including the CCP and the others I mentioned, and the militant movements like the MST, then the bottom line changes substantially. Then we are on the winning team.
Sadly, few will extend their horizons in this way, and this makes it easier for the same governments that endlessly attack our groups and coalitions here, to also attack socialist countries and movements abroad, with our tacit support.
If we want a new strategy for the left, we should embrace the global left, be on the winning team and embrace as a core idea that only the oppressed can liberate themselves, so trust them to overcome their contradictions there, while we focus on the ones here, and that we do not judge them, but defer their affairs to their leadership with respect and solidarity.
I’m really not interested in some snarky back-and-forth, but your assumption that many here don't know what strategies exist on the left because they “are not involved" is just patronizing and unproductive.
What it should be is a wake up call, because it's true. Your repeating the chauvinistic claim that the Chinese state does not represent the Chinese people illustrates this. You ignore the democratic outcomes that prove this is not so, and instead offer doctrinaire idealism and judgements derived from no insight and no stake.
I don't mean this as insult, or to single you out. I suggest that this is the key strategic mistake. If we reject the largest and most successful groups in the global left and instead take as our model the brave but struggling ones around us, we are making a grave strategic mistake.
What’s a more privileged position than leveling criticisms about global ideological alignments while basically letting yourself off the hook by claiming that "none of us in the imperial core will actually join the global left, even when we would want to, we are resident here and this limits our ability to be involved”?
I'm not letting myself off any hooks, but it is peak-liberalism to make this question of my personal merit. I'm not campaigning for anything.
Come on, take a walk with Freire and McAlevey and actually grapple with your relationship to the oppressions around you. I promise you, like them, you won’t find a way out in the embrace of a state.
I take both very seriously, especially Freire. If you study his work, you would know he is a student of Che, Lenin, Fanon and Mao, among many others. He has plenty of critical views, including of socialist countries, but he doesn't get lost in chauvinsim nor doctrinaire idealism, the state is just people and develops dialectically, and the people who make it up must be engaged with dialogically.
Best, -- Dmytri Kleiner @dmytri # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@kein.org # @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject: