Some brief reflections on Nelson Mandela, his politics, and legacy.
I must admit to having a lump in my throat when I found out that Nelson Mandela had died (although not sure why) Whatever my thoughts are on him as a person, the ANC, or his legacy, the passing of such a towering international figure deserves honest reflection.
As a man he was loved and respected by millions around the world, as evidenced by the outpouring of grief today – some of it phoney, some genuine. As expected there is the - ‘Mandela was a terrorist’ accusations from the right wing media, - and the - Mandela was a great statesman, peacemaker, and inspiration to millions, - from pretty much everyone else.
I am no authority on Mandela’s politics or legacy so please feel free to add your own thoughts or information to this post.
How anyone with any kind of analysis can label Mandela as a terrorist is beyond me. What should the victims of one of the most despicable regimes in history have done to fight back against their oppressors, start a petition? Yes, I am sure his rap sheet has some unpleasant sounding convictions, but consideration of time, place, and context, is required.
Those who immediately use the ‘terrorist’ label are no different to those who heap huge praise on Mandela, two of whom I have spoken to today, neither of them could actually offer me any explanation as to why he was a great man, other than to say “He just was!” It seems that ‘brand Mandela’ has done its job.
As far as Mandela’s politics goes, I believe he has changed his position on things several times since the 1930’s, from ardent Stalinist to democratic socialist. As an anarchist I am not going to criticise Mandela’s early political radicalisation and views because they should be viewed in time, place, and context. However, if he defined himself as a ‘socialist’ since leaving prison, then he has failed miserably.
Again, I don’t claim any expertise on Mandela or apartheid, but to laud him as the man who ended apartheid (as many seem to be doing) seems a bit disingenuous. Surely there are many other factors and individuals that led to that change.
Mandela should be seen as the poster boy for the failure of political parties and for reformism. The ANC – whatever they consider their achievements, are nothing more than a party of gangsters, careerists, and anti-working class scumbags. Apartheid ended over twenty years ago, so what has changed? The black working class of South Africa has a new set of spivs, bosses, and politicians to oppress them.
You only have to look back on the various mine massacres by the security forces last year to see that not a lot has changed – I am given to understand that Mandela’s grandson is a part owner in one of those mines. Thirty years ago it would have been just white police officers shooting unarmed black miners in the back, now it is a mixture of white and black police officers doing the killing. Truly a massacre fit for apartheid.
Apart from an end to apartheid/segregation, has the lot of working class black South Africans improved? Not at all, unemployment, homelessness, and poverty are rife. However, there are a group in South African society who have benefited since the collapse of apartheid. They are of course the Mandela family:
“Company information showed the Mandela children and grandchildren had, over the past two decades, been involved in about 200 companies extending over a wide range of sectors, including real estate, investments, railway engineering, minerals, medical firms, fashion, and entertainment. Mandela's eldest daughter, was an active director in 16 companies, including the South African subsidiary of the Swiss multinational food giant Nestle, a shopping centre in Kimberley, two railway engineering companies, and four companies apparently engaged in mineral exploration.”
Nelson Mandela himself – who left prison penniless – has a fortune that his family are now fighting over like vultures. Clearly a far cry from the lives of the average South African who generally do not have a pot to piss in!
Anyway, Nelson Mandela has died, and these are my brief reflections.
Hopefully, there will be an in-depth and critical obituary from the South African Anarchists appearing here at some point in the coming days - http://zabalaza.net/
Comments
Thanks for your post, it has
Thanks for your post, it has given me the opportunity to reflect in a slightly more purposeful way than the punkesque spewings that have been firing from my mouth this morning.
I've never thought to much about Mandela himself, I guess it was my opinion that he was well meaning and a generally admirable sort but for me his name has always been kind of detached from the man himself. To me, at first, he was a fashion accessory to the right on, reformist lefty tossers that blighted my life as a teenager. 'Free Nelson Mandel' played ad infinitum on the pub duke box as a background to the condescending witterings of faux middle class students with bad dress sense and even worse haircuts.
Over the years his elevation to divine status has been sickening to watch whilst the ANC failed miserably in it's promises. To question his greatness has been fairly taboo amongst 'nice' folk for years but now he is dead that will be a concrete position.
There will now be a spectacle equally revolting to that which occurred when Princess Diana popped her clogs and rightly or wrongly, my gut reaction is to want to shut my eyes, put my fingers in my ears, and scream at the top of my voice 'FUCK NELSON MANDELA!'
Here's some useful articles
Here's some useful articles to help assess Mandela's true legacy:
'Exposing the Myths of Nelson Mandela and the ANC'
Brilliant, thanks Leonnap
Brilliant, thanks Leonnap
Abahlali baseMjondolo
Abahlali baseMjondolo
Abahlali baseMjondolo - Nkululeko Gwala Murdered in Cato Crest
Better to be smart like the red shirts, and use his history to help lead people toward self-organisation and away from trust in an enlightened leadership. 'Exposing the myth', however much it might be irritating that it exists, is an approach that isolates you and leaves you talking only to yourself.
edit: unnecesary post, points
edit: unnecesary post, points replicated in my next post.
Quote: 'Exposing the myth',
Pragmatism is all well and good, but not at the price of brushing the truth under the carpet.
The myth is horseshit and it is horseshit that needs removing from the believers minds before any truth can be digested.
Quote: Pragmatism is all well
I argued that just recently on another article, and i'd generally agree with it. I suppose the issue that bothered me was how easy it is in the UK and US to criticise the liberal love for mandela, contrasted with the continued popularity of mandela amongst working class south africans in the shack communities (the same south africans that get beaten and murdered by ANC thugs), and that struggle organisations created there have to build on the existing mentalities and find a way to transform them, since they don't have the luxury of critique from afar. If being threatened with violence and murder from the ANC doesn't dissuade them from still admiring mandela, i'm not sure a leaflet would.
I also think it would be good
I also think it would be good to mention that when the leaders of the ANC, including Mandela, were negotiating the handover of power and the ending of apartheid, they agreed to let officials from the World Bank do most of the economic planning. The results from this disastrous compromise are well known, and poverty is just as miserable now as it was when apartheid ended. Of course, the man spent decades in prison, it's pretty easy for me to sit here at my leisure criticizing him.
Haha also I just read this
Haha also I just read this article about how the CIA helped arrest Mandela in 1962.
http://fair.org/extra-online-articles/cia-role-in-mandelas-capture/
Also there's the fact that the Reagan administration was secretly supporting the South African government even after congressional sanctions were placed on them
http://libcom.org/library/%E2
http://libcom.org/library/%E2%80%9Cbrand-mandela%E2%80%9D-steamtrain-rolls
I think the question of
I think the question of Mandela's legacy has to be seen in terms of how the apartheid regime ended. I am taking it as read that the end of apartheid was a good thing, even though racism and economic inequality persists in SA. That being the case, how important was Mandela to that end and what other outcomes could have happened.
To my mind there are a range of possible outcomes - the current neoliberal class system that is on paper colourblind but in reality not is by no means the worst. A quick glance over the border at the chaos in Zimbabwe or the civil wars that raged for nearly 30 years in Mozambique or Angola show how much worse it could have been.
Could it have been better? Probably yes, but the whole point of the transition to democracy was that a significant chunk of the business class saw the writing on the wall - they were facing workforces that had revolutionary intent and were militant and combative. Siege capitalism had made them vulnerable. They needed to undermine the revolutionaries and end the siege (I'm not suggesting no companies broke sanctions, but the extra associated costs had a significant effect on the economy).
Mandela was that solution personified. He had enough credibility among black South Africans that he could deliver a deal, and he had enough pull among white political and business leaders to do likewise. There's no shame in it, far from it, just no one should pretend it is anything to do with socialism. I also think it was unlikely any similar figure could have done the same, simply because no one else in the ANC had the same credibility: it's not like they could have turned to Oliver Tambo or another Stalinist hack.
Once elected, most of Mandela's role was to be a figurehead, and it's something he's been doing since. The "sainthood" is definitely a bit far fetched, and as for the people calling him a pacifist, blimey!
His legacy was the transition from a judicially racial capitalism to one that is neo-liberal and racist in effect, rather than intent. I hope the poor and oppressed of SA take note of his words as quoted by the AbM and continue their fight.
Why are you so sure that no
Why are you so sure that no one else could do it? Social structures taken as a given, spaces open up and people occupy them. I think the liberal media is fond of calling it a "power vacuum" with the idea being "someone will fill it". If not Mandela, someone else. Or do you have encyclopaedic knowledge of the various actors who might have been candidates for the "Mandela role", and are thus qualified to say they could not have done it?
martinh's post is very
martinh's post is very good.
Whilst no doubt the transition to a neo-liberal model is racist in effect, its interesting that Abahlali make note of how the repression they face is largely at the hands of fellow black south africans, and their political message is to talk about a 'new apartheid', of rich and poor.
In other words, they have taken the spirit of the anti-racist movement that gave South Africa one of the highest levels of political protest, and pushed an important sector of the rank and file (shack communities were hives of unrest during the anti-aparteid years) toward an independent movement along class lines (although the language of class struggle isn't explicitly used).
South Africa, 1970s,
South Africa, 1970s, 1980s,early 1990s ---- Viva the Soweto Uprisings! Viva Shantytown community organizing. Viva workers resistance....that's what lead to Mandala's freedom and the structural dismantling of apartheid. Created through community and worker self-organization. Viva the self-organized struggles of the people and workers!
martinh wrote: A quick glance
martinh
ironically, Zimbabwe was hailed as an example how South Africa could do it up to ~1987 by many in the West
I would think it is rather
I would think it is rather racist to suppose there is no class system among African people...in fact a rather large chunk of the African 'countries' were designated by the colonial powers, South Africa of course included....
And all this is not exactly a
And all this is not exactly a new phenomenon...Jomo Kenyataa any one?
While I may have quite a few
While I may have quite a few critisims of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa
and national liberation, I thought this quote gives as sense of the key role that the workers movement played in paving the way for the release of political prisoners and Mandala.
And I look forward to solid anarcho-syndicalist and left communist articles on the 1970s-early 1990s period.
http://mg.co.za/print/2013-12-05-numsa-split-could-liven-up-the-left
I am sure that there are not
I am sure that there are not many things harder on this planet than working in a mine in South Africa...working in a mine anywhere really...
Actually, I really don't
Actually, I really don't think anyone else could have taken that Mandela role. It was a very particular set of circumstances that needed someone who could deal with both sides, credibly. Most of the ANC old-timers really were Stalinist hacks. The younger ones were more radical or not well-known enough. Sometimes individuals really do make a difference and you can't reduce everything to impersonal forces. This is one, IMO. I think the FW De Klerk role in the story is one that could have been played by lots of different people and was a matter of a role that was required by wider forces.
Syndicalist is right as well to highlight that it was grassroots organising that brought the SA bosses to the negotiating table.
I am quite sure also that
I am quite sure also that Mandela made a difference.
syndicalist wrote: And I look
syndicalist
Try: http://dialectical-delinquents.com/?page_id=225
Quote: Actually, I really
I am not at all sure. The South African pattern is not unique. There were a whole number of countries around that time moving from open dictatorship towards forms of liberal democracy. Same story with variations: regime coming under pressure because of protests and strikes, wich pushes them to reforms. Part of the leadership of the protests and strikes offers itself as negotiating partners, and - more or less smoothly, with more of less complications - the move is made. South Korea: military dictatorshop, strong student protests in 1986, a wave of strikes pushing wages upwards from 1987 - military leadership announcing elections and opening ip the political set-up. Brazil: same story with variations. If the regime feels the need to open up, there w ill always be opposition leaders connected with mass movements, available to negotiated with. Pland artopund 1988, where Walesa played the Mandela role, profiting from prestige he had gained in the 1980-81 strike/ Solidarnocs period and his subsequent arrest. If there is no Mandela on the scene, he will be invented, maybe not as a person but as a social force. Of course, things can get out of hand, negotiations can fail, the mass movements can gain independence and autonomy and become uncontrollable. But it needs more than one person, however suited for the role, to hold that process back. Mandela was good at it, no doubt. But if a role is there, an actor will always be found.
Try also GCI-ICG's article
Try also GCI-ICG's article about the struggles in 1985-86,
available on their website: http://gci-icg.org/english/communism3.htm#south_africa
and on Libcom:
http://libcom.org/library/south-africa-class-race-struggle-communism
Another text published by them in 1994 only exists in French and Spanish but I'm translating it. Will upload it this week.
Pretty fitting that Israeli
Pretty fitting that Israeli leaders wont go to Mandela's funeral given the fact that Obama's hero Ronald Reagan was funneling money to the South African government through the Israeli government in order to bypass congressional sanctions. Maybe they'll include that little factoid in the next cbs documentary about Reagan's life.
Rooieravotr: ‘But if a role
Rooieravotr:
‘But if a role is there, an actor will be found.’
Yes, though Mandela played his role with style – from the BBC World Service last night, Mandela phoned the queen and she answered:
Says Mandela, “Hello Elizabeth - how’s the Duke?”
Court protocol, what court protocol?
Auld-bod
Auld-bod
haha :D got to hand that to him.
when does farming today start, auld-bod? I've made a special effort.
rooieravotr
rooieravotr
Not convinced that either Brazil, South Korea, Poland, (or one you didn't mention - Chile), are good parallels to the SA situation. It has to be remembered that there was extreme possibilities for civil war between the ANC, Inkatha, and, as Michael Schmidt points out in his article*, AZAPO and the PAC. If it was just a question of getting ANC/SACP to cut a deal with De Klerk, your point might be valid, but it was Mandela's unique credibility (built up by the resistence movement's use of him as an icon - not by his own activity n.b., lots of political prisoners survive over 30 years of prison without achieving any particular widespread recognition or status) that allowed him to overcome the party and tribal divisions - cynically fostered by decades of Apartheid divide-&-rule - and appeal to black South Africans as a whole. Like MartinH I can't think of any figure that had the necessary status, charisma and nous to do that. No-one outside of the ANC could have done it (ovs). And within the ANC, who else could have appealed to enough of the ANC's black enemies?
Also the form of your argument - "if the ancien regime needs negotiators amongst the opposition, they will find them" - is formalist and apriori, rather than derived from the specific historical conjuncture. (*cough" unmarxist! *cough* :) )
* http://anarkismo.net/article/26519
Apologies for the de-rail
Apologies for the de-rail (blame Picket) and I do suspect I’m being gulled.
‘Farming Today’ is 5.45am, on BBC Radio 4. In the good old days it used to be a full 30 minutes now sadly it’s only 15 with less market nitty-gritty and more ‘diversification’ into b&b, farm shops, etc.
Ah, yes, those halcyon days
Ah, yes, those halcyon days of 30 minute long Farming Today! I remember them fondly and miss them terribly. What I don't miss however, is the absolutely appalling Radio 4 UK Theme which we were subjected to just before the dazzling shipping forecast which pre-empted the commencement of the show. Listen if you dare!:
http://youtu.be/rF7kzj4lCnE
Webby wrote: Ah, yes, those
Webby
I used to wake up to the UK theme, and I enjoyed it! this was before the fog cleared and I saw Anarchy. Now I wouldn't dream of waking up that early.
I really am terribly sorry for taking this thread off topic. But I wasn't "gulling" Auld Bod, just checking, and connecting with fondness over the internet ether, because I was up really early.
Picket wrote: Webby
Picket
Show some respect! Morgan Freeman spent thirty years in prison!
Quote: Show some respect!
Lol x 50!
To say that black people's
To say that black people's lives have not improved since the end of the white supremacist regime is grossly unfair. Under Mandela people of colour (blacks, 'coloured' and Indians') gained political freedom and equality - one person one vote.
Mandela's aim was to free the fast majority of South Africans from political oppression a goal that he achieved. You can not expect to overturn almost four hundred years of white racial domination and 46 years of white supremacy in twenty years. It's not possible. It's been more than 50 years since the black civil rights movement in America and African Americans have still to achieve full equality. So why are people so harsh on South Africa?
Yes economic power still lies in the hands of white South Africans but change is happening at a slower pace than many people would like but it's still happening. Under the white supremacist regime only whites had access to political power, economic resources, high status jobs and unrestricted civil rights. Thanks to Mandela, the ANC and other activist these privileges are available to all. This is something to celebrate.
Quote: Under Mandela people
I know very little about South Africa and even less about being a victim of racism but I know for certain that there is no freedom at all in having the right to vote which particular clique of the state represent it publicly.
I've used the following analogy many times but it always seems fitting - you should NEVER be grateful for a smack in the mouth just coz you're not getting kicked in the nuts.
MynameisPeaches, as far as
MynameisPeaches, as far as bourgeois or liberal democracy goes, Mandela was probably as good as it gets. However, as this is a libertarian communist website, why would you think we would be even remotely sympathetic towards a bourgeois politician or the ANC?
Serge Forward
Serge Forward
Actually you're committing here exactly the same mistake as MynameisPeaches. Mandela and the ANC are definitely NOT as good as even middle of the road liberal democracy could do.
Let's take the example of squatter camp land. It would hardly threaten SA capitalism or the general ownership of the means of production to have declared an amnesty on "illegal encampments", and made moves to compulsory purchase (or simply expropriate) the land titles for existing, long-established squatter camps and pass these own to some body representing the tenants with relevant securities (i.e. to stop gangsters appropriating the title and then selling the land to developers). Instead what has happened is the ANC gangsters have allowed the original landholders (including public bodies) to retain title and now are helping the process of evicting the black residents of camps that are in areas that developers now think they can get a profit on.
Even without the socialist moves of proper land redistribution and seizure of the major means of production - including confiscating the mines and other natural resources from Anglo-American, de Beers and their ilk - that could realistically never have been agreed with the existing SA capitalist class. Even without those means, there was plenty that could have been achieved by even a moderate liberal capitalist government that actually had some kind of social-democratic or anti-racist commitment to improving the lot of SA's black majority. Instead the ANC have opted for pure neoliberalist moves to make the rich - including a small select band of new black ANC oligarchs - richer and the poor poorer.
As as for you, MynameisPeaches, when you say "these privileges are available to all" - you sound more like MynameisAynRand. Not even the briefest, most tangential encounter with the actual SA reality could be compatible with that provocatively obscene statement.
Fair play, Ocelot. Point
Fair play, Ocelot. Point taken.
"Mandela can go to hell!" Two
"Mandela can go to hell!"
Two extracts:
- from "Dialectical Delinquents"
MynameisPeaches wrote: To say
MynameisPeaches
Universal suffrage - that is the default setting for modern capitalism, there's little liberatory about it. Those who benefit are the ruling clique, black or white. But universal suffrage has been quite compatible in SA with declining working class living conditions and brutal repression of struggles against that decline.
And that’s why the ANC were a bourgeois organisation with the goal of reforming class society along non-racial lines without challenging that society. To privilege political equality over all other social relations only helps reinforce the inequality of those other relationships of class society.
Because we don’t have illusions that when a leftish opposition comes to power that this means capitalism’s exploitations are over. Equally, the emergence of a US black middle class, some black politicians and entrepeneurs etc has done little for the conditions of most US blacks who are in many ways materially no better off than in the 1960s; http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/08/28/these-seven-charts-show-the-black-white-economic-gap-hasnt-budged-in-50-years/
SA blacks have also suffered a material decline post-apartheid; http://www.nber.org/digest/jan06/w11384.html
“...why are people so harsh on South Africa?” Cos people like you gloss over the exploitative realities of class society with reference to the existence of full voting rights. And cos the ANC is only another form of capitalist rule whose rise to power leftists often claim to be an advance for the working class, even as the ANC’s repression and exploitation of that class intensifies.
Still at least black miners have, under the ANC, maintained the right – as under apartheid - to be massacred when they dare to go on strike; http://libcom.org/news/marikana-massacre-premeditated-killing-24082012
Much economic power now lies in the hands of an emerged black sector of the ruling class, now enormously rich; centred around the ANC elite and the Mandela family in particular.
Only if you desire to join the ruling class – whereas the real celebration would be to abolish class society. Your views are just typical leftist mythology wherein saintly/heroic icons like Mandela are a thin veil for capitalism as usual.
Quote: heroic icons like
Good post, but these few words really sum it up. It is so sparkling clear that this is the case - no matter how hard I look for an explanation I just can't figure out why people can't see it. It's so fucking depressing.
Red Marriott wrote: Your
Red Marriott
You end an otherwise impeccable post with this throwaway snipe at some "leftist" strawman. I say strawman because I have yet to see an identifiably leftish* obit of Mandela that didn't go on to focus on the role of Mandela and the ANC in implementing neoliberalism in SA, implementing a multitude of measures attacking the living standards of the working class majority and so on.
Who exactly do you mean by "leftist" then? Members of the US Democrat or UK Labour party? What does it mean this term "leftist"? Does it actually have an analytic and principled definition? Or is it instead, a vaguely-defined shibboleth of your own conjuring whose principal function is to be the target of your animosity, and whose shifting borders conveniently allow its projection onto whatever the momentary target of your ire is?
Attacking enemies in the abstract without naming or properly defining their identity (other than by an accumulation of slurs and accusations) is a bad habit on the left, raised to an art by the stalinists, but no less indulged in by the trots (SWP and "autonomism" or "creeping feminism" anyone?). People who consider themselves to the left of either should really know better than to imitate or appropriate this particular weapon in the arsenal of bad faith authoritarianism.
* i.e. advocating for the end of capitalism, even if only nominally, for the emancipation of the proletariat, ditto, and the common ownership of the means of production
Definitions... I go with that
Definitions... I go with that one that sees myself and the likeminded as generally outside “the left”. That left wing of capital which - whatever it may think of itself – we can see actually defends capitalist relations and is for the continuation in practice of nations, states, wage labour, hierarchical relations etc, even if under a red flag of its ”vanguard”. Among anarchists, non-leninist Marxists etc there’s quite a historical tradition distinct from what it defines as leftism – as you’re surely aware. A radical analysis of society will generally try to identify the existence of those false exits to radical change.
Sorry, but my earlier post is not a review of recent Mandela obits – but specifically a response to comments by MynameisPeaches who doesn’t focus on the ANC’s neo-liberalism at all; in the course of which I comment on the historical development of iconic representatives and their use by leftism.
The adoption of neo-liberal policies was an unsurprising development of what the ANC always was; the goal had long been state power/command of the economy. That the same “left” who now may make some criticism of their neo-liberalism were often the ANC’s biggest cheerleaders is unlikely to be something they’ll usefully reflect on. That “leftist mythology” existed long before now and helped iconise Mandela, regardless of what now appears in leftist obits. Peaches’ views are representative of a wider tendency.
But I don’t think in every context we have to be held to as absolute definitions as you demand – that would make for very longwinded expression and would wrongly assume that there are never any commonly agreed concepts one doesn’t need to explain at every usage. (To try to lump me in with stalinists etc just for using a broad general term might be seen as an amalgamation technique more common to ... er, stalinists.) Whereas I think “the left” as “left wing of capital” is quite commonly understood on here and in common usage. And more so in the context of what had already been said on this thread. To say most of what I said is “impeccable” is surprising if (as a long time user of this site) you really don’t have some grasp of that critique of “leftism” that it is based on. But maybe you really think it doesn’t exist except as strawman and it had nothing to do with support for the ANC ideology nor the deification of Mandela. Maybe you see yourself/”us” as part of a Left of some description. Or maybe you’re just being pedantically argumentative, perhaps due to some past imagined grudge, or whatever. Regardless, I’ll have to differ.
It does seem a little contradictory though that you here demand an absolute definition when you’ve used the same term recently without providing one yourself, e.g;
ocelot
Well my usage of "left" in
Well my usage of "left" in the first quote - re Greece - is defined by the people who would be rounded up by a fascist government for being "leftists". It's a simple enough definition, and arguably guessable from the context. And in the right (or wrong, depending on your pov) circumstances it becomes a very materially real category.
The problem I have with your "leftist" = "left wing of capital" = "objectively capitalist" definition is two-fold. Firstly it obscures the degree to which distinguishing between those subjectively anti-capitalist political tendencies and individuals who are really "objectively capitalist" or not, is effectively a subjective political judgement and therefore not objective at all. i.e. it becomes a political catch-all for "people who call themselves anti-capitalist, but I think are wrong". Secondly it effectively lumps together anyone outside your chosen circle of communist correctness as an un-individuated mass of reaction, from trots, left unity-ists, to labour, spd to die linke. That indeed is a giant amalgamation and indicative of a certain gnostic affect or self-image as the pure few in the world of corruption.
It is also not a term in general use amongst working class people, and as such is an expression of specialist, in-group language. As to your assertion that " Among anarchists, non-leninist Marxists etc there’s quite a historical tradition distinct from what it defines as leftism". This is incorrect, this specialist term does not come from anarchists and non-leninist marxists in general, but from a specific tiny tradition emanating from the bordigist and councillist milieu. As such it carries the associations of a resolutely sectarian outlook along with the negative things that go with it - i.e. a messianical belief in the "invariant" revoilutionary gospel, etc. A form of dogmatism, n.b, that is generally incompatible with non-authoritarian political creativity (which has to start from the position that not all questions have yet been answered correctly already).
This:
Is quite good. Chapeau! The concept I was looking for in the practice of "Attacking enemies in the abstract without naming or properly defining their identity (other than by an accumulation of slurs and accusations)" (which as you may note, is quite different from simply using a broad general term) is clearly the same as what you refer to as amalgamation. So you defend your use of the term "leftist" from the charge of being a use of the technique of amalgamation as being itself an amalgamation. Good jiu jitsu there.
Anyway. Meh. Not a particularly productive discussion. But to answer your question, clearly I am a "leftist" by your definition because I reject your political outlook. I'm cool with that.
Here is finally the rough
Here is finally the rough translation of GCI-ICG's text published in French and Spanish in 1994 as a chapter of a text entitled "The more it changes, the more it stays the same".
ocelot wrote: Well my usage
ocelot
Well there are other similar quotes that further indicate a degree of inconsistency in your position. But when is an inconsistency not (perceived as) one? Generally, when you commit it yourself.
Some, at least, ‘subjective’ judgements are based on observations of objective practice and their history (and therefore find their own objectivity insofar as that is possible). But, yes, every human observation and its conclusion can be criticised or dismissed for being “subjective” if you want to pursue a quite fruitless form of argument. I don’t mind if you determine its degree of subjectivity or objectivity one way or other; except that you reduce an inevitable part of theoretical and practical choice and judgement - the formation, evaluation and development of ideas and practice - to a philosophical exercise. The question is – do such people and groups exist? I believe they do and that circumstances demand that choices have to be made of how they are related to. Not necessarily static or eternal choices, but depending on circumstances one shares with them. But there is an institutional left that tends to have a regular social function in that way; if you don’t think such institutional forces exist, I’ll disagree and wonder why then you agreed with my critique of what happened in South Africa with statements like this;
Red
But presumably, according to what you now say above, that can only be seen by you as “a subjective political judgement”?! And a “sectarian, dogmatic” one, at that.
ocelot
Your description of “anyone outside your chosen circle of communist correctness as an un-individuated mass of reaction” fits a common practice of much of the left you defend rather than my position! That most political theories/ideologies and the groups that hold them don’t have a critique I agree with very much is one basic way of defining a relationship between myself and others – if I really believe that as a reality I have to make that definition. Why to make that definition is defined by you as inevitably elitist is bizarre. Seems to veer toward some kind of left-humanist (or left-buddhist – ‘we’re all one really’) position.
You seem to resent that people inevitably make distinctions and use broad categories sometimes – inevitably, because that is part of defining oneself in relation to others and to historical events, institutions and actions. To identify "people who call themselves anti-capitalist, but I think are wrong" is apparently divisive; yet what you say of the Greek left - that “in the right (or wrong, depending on your pov) circumstances it becomes a very materially real category” - can be equally true of the left for other reasons. It’s not only the right who sabotage struggles or act in counter-revolutionary ways. One could argue that historically the left have had a more fatal role at many crucial moments of class struggle (and that libertarians have often borne the brunt of it). You seem to want to gloss over all “materially real” distinctions in favour of some less distinctive (arguably less well-defined) immaterial big-tent leftism. Which, in some “materially real” situations can be fatally disarming.
But equally, I assume you’re not that naïve – and that you too make those kind of distinctions, evaluations and choices regarding which left institutions and persons you’ll engage with, on what terms and to what degree. And that, eg, your presence on this site rather than others is part of your own “chosen circle”.
I never said it was, but meant that it was in common usage on this site. But so what, your regular language on libcom isn’t “in general use” either. You seem concerned to try to project some populist anti-elitist pose even when your “critique” applies equally to your own behaviour. This ‘noble defender of the masses against (strawman) elitism’ pose is unconvincing and belied buy your own practice.
You misunderstand again – I was referring to the “historical tradition”, not the particular specialist term. Though – for those who don’t fetishise words in themselves - the concept the term describes has arguably been shared more widely than the term itself. But maybe that’s part of the problem here – that you’re projecting all your dislike of that tradition onto me for the sake of a phrase. (All absurdly stemming from my passing use of one phrase that you yourself have also used.)
This is you doing that strawmanning you previously complained of. There is no necessary association between the use of “the Left” etc in that way with the above negative description; that’s a ridiculously dogmatic assumption and amalgamation that would only equally condemn yourself and most libcom posters. Of course some leftists and anti-leftists will have those traits but it’s a poor argument to suggest it’s uniformly so. You resent what you wrongly perceive to be blanket assertions about people but then go and make your own!
I’m equally cool with that. Though there was no 'question to answer'. But I still think
Mandela v the working class
Mandela v the working class (Subversion – 1991)
http://www.autistici.org/tridnivalka/mandela-v-the-working-class-subversion-1991/
Mandela vs. la classe ouvrière (Subversion – 1991)
http://www.autistici.org/tridnivalka/mandela-vs-la-classe-ouvriere-subversion-1991/
Mandela versus dělnická třída (Subversion, 1991)
http://www.autistici.org/tridnivalka/mandela-versus-delnicka-trida-subversion-1991/
I agree with those who say
I agree with those who say Mandela was a great statesman, peacemaker, and inspiration to millions. It is my own personal view and I am fortunate enough to be able to share this part of his Legacy with others. He serves as a constant reminder of unity and hope for future generations, and that is how I personally remember his legacy.
Others disagree - and that is fine as well.
I saw him in a Punch and Judy
I saw him in a Punch and Judy puppet show last weekend! Who said he's dead, his legacy lives on?!
Mandela is the father of
Mandela is the father of Obama, symbolically.