silentism is a crime

silentism is a crime

AKM Shihab

“The age-old battle between the exploiters and the exploited has taken on a forbidding dimension. Omnipotent capital once again raises its monstrous head. Despite the internal struggles that tear apart the cosmopolitan managerial and bourgeois classes, these forces have created a powerful relationship that enables them to throw themselves with more unity and strength against the proletariat and chain it to Capital’s triumphant chariot.”-(IWA-AIT)

The world is a nightmare. Half of humanity lives and dies on less than 3 dollars a day. There are more people in South Asia making 80 cents a day than even exist in the United States.. 22,000 children die due to poverty each and every day. Approximately 800 million people in the poorest country world are chronically undernourished. The disparity between the wealthiest countries and the poorest ones is about 72 to 1. For the vast majority, for the global poor in the poorest countries, daily life is a struggle to survive. By contrast, life is relatively easy for the global bourgeoisie in the wealthy countries. Wealth in the Wealthy countries is a result of poverty and suffering in the poorest countries. The consumption in the Wealthy countries is so great that it threatens global survival.

There are those amongst the global bourgeoisie who are completely oblivious to the fact that their lives are based on the exploitation of the global poor and the Earth. They happily or unhappily go about their days unaware of the impact of their lives. This describes many ordinary people in the wealthy countries. However, there are others who do understand that their privilege is connected to the suffering of the vast majority and plunder of the Earth. Even though they realize the truth, they still choose to do nothing. They make a conscious choice of inaction. In many ways, it is the former group that is less morally reprehensible than the latter. Both groups enable oppression, but only the latter group has made a conscious choice to do so. Those who see suffering, but choose to walk away are more reprehensible than those who fail to ever notice it. Those who recognize global suffering, but fail to act against it, fail to support the people and their organization, are guilty of silentism. Those in the Wealthy countries who are aware of the great problems facing us yet do nothing, who stay aloof, are “parlor pinks,” social-imperialists despite what they may think. silentism is a major form of Crime today.

We strongly assert that to be a supporter of the method of direct action, and aids and encourage all struggles that are not in contradiction to its own goals. Its methods of struggle are: strikes, boycotts, sabotage, etc. Direct action reaches its deepest expression in the general strike, which should also be, from the point of view of revolutionary path, the prelude to the social revolution.

While revolutionary struggle is opposed to all organised violence regardless of the kind of government, it realizes that there will be extremely violent clashes during the decisive struggles between the capitalism of today and the free communism of tomorrow. Consequently, it recognizes as valid that violence may be used as a means of defense against the violent methods used by the ruling classes during the struggles that lead up to the revolutionary populace expropriating the lands and means of production. As this expropriation can only be carried out and brought to a successful conclusion by the direct intervention of the workers’ revolutionary economic organizations, defense of the revolution must also be the task of these economic organizations and not of a military or quasi-military body developing independently of them.

Only in the economic and revolutionary organizations of the working class are there forces capable of bringing about its liberation and the necessary creative energy for the reorganization of society on the basis of libertarian communism.

There is no excuse to turn away from reality. There is no excuse to not fight for a better future. We must take on the burden of leadership. We must put pettiness and ego aside. We must dare to do what needs to be done. Revolution is not easy. Creating a whole new world of peace, justice, and sustainability will not happen overnight. Success will only come if we stand together as one. Victory will only come through organization, Federation, discipline, loyalty, Direct Action, Mutual Aid and self management etc. It is not enough to be willing to die for Libertarian Communism, to die for the total liberation of humanity and the Earth. We must be willing to live, patiently, everyday for revolution. We must be willing to take on the small burdens, the small tasks, the invisible tasks, that are required. We must be willing to give our time and resources. It is not enough to declare our commitment, we must prove it through action. Duty demands of us every day. We must answer. We can wake up from the nightmare of State & capitalism. We must always remember that revolutionaries are optimists.