Obama And The Revolutionary Moment Without Revolutionaries – Part 3

(This is the concluding section of a three-part series – Read Part 1, Part 2)

Revolutionary moments and revolutionary ruptures

Generally a revolution is defined as a sudden overthrow of the existing social, economic and political order. But these revolutions (such as the Cuban Revolution of 1959, the Iranian Revolution of 1979, the Chinese Revolution of 1949, the Russian Revolution of 1917, the French Revolution of 1789 or the Haitian Revolution of 1804 etc) arose out of moments when the ideas supporting or propping up the old order had become unsustainable. Usually there are events that mark the maturation of a revolutionary process but this process begins in the womb of the old society. The maturation to the critical break from the old takes place when the ideas, organization and leadership of the new rising forces can decisively remove the old order from political and social power.

For example, in the case of the French Revolution, the principal ideas of feudal absolute monarchy based on the total centralization of power in the hands of the Bourbon kings had been overtaken by the accumulation of capital and the rise of egalitarian demands from below. This process gave rise to the ideas of liberty, equality and fraternity. There were theoreticians articulating the ideas which for that moment were revolutionary. The bourgeoisie and the working class temporarily unified to overthrow the outmoded feudal structures and leaders. Because of the weakness of the working classes (and their theoreticians), the revolution was hijacked by militarists such as Napoleon and channeled into imperialistic pursuits. The most outrageous aspect of this imperial pursuit in the name of revolution was the failed attempt to re-establish slavery in Haiti. Scholars in Europe who celebrate the revolution in France failed to link this weakness of the French revolution when it came to Africans and the crimes against the peoples of Haiti.

The second but more profound example of the revolutionary moment is from Cuba. The old ideas of semi- feudal land ownership (latifundia), white supremacy, cultural repression through the church in alliance with imperialism had been overtaken by the demand for real independence in Cuba since 1933. Though the outmoded ideas of the plantation owners had worn thin, a brutal dictatorship was kept in power by the military (with the support of the government of the United States). From 1955, with the assault on the Moncada barracks, Fidel Castro sought to clarify the ideas of independence and reconstruction in Cuba. His speech, “History Will Absolve Me” served as the intellectual and ideological marker for consolidating the revolution and defeating the landed property owners in Cuba. Che Guevara deepened the theory of revolution and independence by linking the fortunes of Revolution in Cuba to a world wide revolution.

Despite its temporary extension into the Soviet orbit in the period of the cold war, the ideological commitment to revolutionary change had such deep roots in Cuba that the Cuban leadership and the Cuban experiment survived to serve as the forerunner for the modern revolutionary moment in the Americas. Che Guevara had advanced and supported one of the central principles of Ubuntu when he declared that, “the true revolutionary is guided by strong feelings of love.”

Fifty years after the victory of the Cuban revolution, the peoples of the Americas are at the cusp of a different revolutionary moment, one moment where there are new political movements in the Caribbean and Latin America which are again raising the question of revolution and revolutionary change. The Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA) is only the embryonic form of this new movement towards revolutionary rupture. In these discussions from Venezuela, Bolivia and other parts of Latin America, there is an entirely new feature that has been brought into the discussion. That is the role of the ideas of the indigenous peoples in shaping the new political cultures that can emerge out of the challenges to the old ideas of domination over nature and dominion over other human beings. In these discussions, it is no longer possible to write and deliberate on revolution as if the indigenous and former enslaved are non-persons. The debate on revolution involves a fundamental transformation in people’s consciousness about the worth of all humans and radical feminist consciousness has deepened the understanding that revolutionary ideas must challenge patriarchal ideas about the state and human relations.

My proposition is that we are not speaking of revolution in the traditional sense today; we are talking about fundamental transformations. These are transformations at the levels of consciousness, transformations at the level of material organization, transformations at the level of gender relations and transformation at the level of our relationship to the planet Earth and the Universe. Already in the case of traditional politics, the new networking technologies (Web 2.0) has empowered new social forces. This new form of self mobilization and self organization from the bottom is transforming the political process and the nature of political struggles. These transformations in consciousness are taking place at the same time when the old ideas that legitimated capitalist exploitation are now in disarray.

Grasping the moment

It can be stated that, globally, the collapse of capitalist ideological hegemony is taking place in slow and imperceptible forms. Inside the United States the conjuncture is still dominated by the counter-revolutionary ideas and the counter-revolutionary impulse outlined in the first part of this three part series. The peace and justice activists have punctured the chokehold that was held by the neo-conservative forces. Briefly, there are numerous areas in the US political and economic life where one can discern the exhaustion of the old ideas. There are many but we want to highlight five.

When, in September 2008, Alan Greenspan testified before Congress that the old monetarist ideas were wrong, it was a public admission of the failure of the neo-liberal economic mode of organization. Both liberal ad neo-liberal economic thinking and organization are now going through a deep crisis. The stimulus package of the Obama administration is a profound acknowledgement that only massive state intervention can save capitalism in the United States. Gone are the ideas of the supremacy of the freedom for unlimited accumulation by the capitalists without regulation (called Reageanomics and practiced to the hilt by Wall St.) This has collapsed like a house of cards and the financial bubble is having a cascading effect on all aspects of social and economic life. There is now a desperate attempt to save capitalism through nationalization without accountability and control by workers, communities and the mass of producers.

Secondly, and tied to the first is the idea that the US society can consume the wealth and resources of the planet by the militarization of the planet earth (with a promise of domination from space – Star wars) and the unlimited expansion of wars and military bases. (This expansion had been justified in the name of rolling back Communism in Reagan’s time and in the name of the ‘war on terrorism’ in the Bush era).

The Third is the restriction on scientific research and creativity by Newtonian concepts of hierarchy and conservative religious values. The choices for the US citizens in this Newtonian hierarchy led to the bottling up of the vast potential offered by grasping complexity and nuances of quantum mechanics. In its crudest forms, the government imposed a choice on the citizen to pick ‘good over evil’ (Ronald Reagan) and the slogan of ‘you are either with us or against us’ (George W. Bush) The emphasis on finance, Insurance and real estate reinforced the belief that science and scientific appreciation was secondary to greed and speculation.

The fourth is the end of the fordist consumer-led economy that is destroying the planet earth. Millions of citizens are aware that there must be a fundamental break with the US “Affluent Society” model that is exacerbating global warming. In 1959, economist John Kenneth Galbraith argued that the power of advertising and consequent over-consumption had created an artificial demand for goods and services above the individual’s basic needs. This realization that the existing ‘American way of life’ is unsustainable is at the pivot of the breakdown of the old order. It is here where the youths are being most creative in their opposition to environmental racism and environmental destruction.

Environmental justice and green consciousness are challenging old ideas of those who trumpet the development of the productive forces. The linearity of certain Marxists has also been challenged by this moment.

The fifth element of the old order was the effort to entrench the most sexist, racist and eugenic ideas to support masculinist and racist government policies at all levels. This primordial ordering principle of US society precedes the above four and there are pressures from everywhere to shatter the chauvinistic assumptions embedded in US philosophies of democracy and freedom. The election of Barack Obama has not changed the racist or sexist structure of the US society, but it demonstrated that the permanent division between the working peoples cannot be supported to maintain the hegemony of the capitalist class.

These elements of the revolutionary moment have not reached the climactic stage in the society. But these challenges are apparent to the working peoples and the contradictions are breaking out at a pace where the old media and instruments of psychological warfare and mind control cannot control the information conveyed to the citizens. What is missing so far is the clarity of the revolutionary ideas, the new forms of organization and the resolute leadership that can mobilize the energies of the youth for a prolonged popular struggle for a fundamental break with the old politics, economics and militarism that is associated with U. S exceptionalism.

Obama tapped into the deep yearning for change away from the counter revolutionary period and a glimpse of the revolutionary energy was seen on the mall in Washington on January 20. Obama himself dug deep into the revolutionary memories and ideas of Tom Paine in order to inspire the millions who wanted to make change real. Obama was being pushed by the momentum of the demands for peace and justice.

Is the old left old?

One of the many limitations of the US left in their discussion so far is that they do not completely relate the complexities and multi-dimensional layers of the collapse to the unsustainability of capitalism as a system. While making very good statements on the nature of the sub-prime crisis, there has not been a direct challenge to the hegemony of the capitalist class over the ideology and politics of the white working class. Racism had been the weapon of choice of the ruling class and the Obama campaign has opened one new possibility for all workers, black whites, Latinos, First Nation and Asian to see that they have a common goal in challenging capitalism. Without a historic base in the white working class movement, this old left do not see themselves as agents of change and have become the fiercest critics of the Obama transition, even before Obama was inaugurated. Moreover, while championing class struggles there are some sections of the left who have been blind to the historical consequences of white nationalism and institutionalized racism. By accepting the determinism of the idea of historical materialism, some internalize the idea that European stages of growth are necessary for revolutionary transformations. Implicit in this worship of Europe is the reverence for aspects of white supremacy. These progressive forces from the white left forgot the adage of Marx written at the time of the US Civil War, “Labor cannot emancipate itself in the white skin when in the black it is branded.” Will the white left combat whiteness and the new slavery-like conditions in the twenty first century? At the same time, will the black revolutionary move from developing a black agenda to the point of building an inclusive revolutionary and anti-racist agenda?

The role of the anti-capitalist forces in this period is to be able to build new politics, new ideas and new networks, building on the ideas of self-organization and self-mobilization that had grown inside the Obama campaign for change. It is here where the alliances between the peace movements, the workers movement, the environmental justice movement, the Transgender movement, the anti-racist movement, the women’s movement and the reparations movement have room for building new militants and new sites of politics beyond elections. Such an alliance will be necessary to hold the Obama administration accountable, building as a new force inside the USA while aligning with the peace movement globally. This movement must continue to champion the call for the reduction of the US military budget and the dismantling of the offensive military planning of the war on terror. The US working class has no stomach for the kind of patriotism that supported the Patriot Act and the illegal invasion of Iraq. There must be intensified work in the peace movement for the United States to withdraw from Afghanistan.

One of the weakest aspects of the old left is their failure to embrace the call for repair and reparation. In the United States, the white left has consciously distanced itself from the reparations movement. Reparations involve atonement, healing, justice, reconciliation and the repairing of what has been broken. In essence, the reparations movement requires a break with past crimes of capitalism and racism. Like the Civil Rights movement of 40 years ago, this reparations movement is broad with a progressive wing working for the overthrow of capitalism and one wing that consider reparations in relation to monetary compensation. In reality, monetary compensation is only one form of repair. The others are restitution, rehabilitation and guarantees of non-repetition. It is on the question of the guarantee of non-repetition where the left and revolutionary forces of the African descendants have joined with indigenous peoples and other oppressed peoples to redress the crimes of colonialism, slavery, imperialism and occupation.

The ruling class in the United States has cut off the people from the international discussions of the World Conference against Racism. It is significant hat no section of the white left in the United States has supported the call for the United States government to re-engage the forthcoming second round of the World Conference against Racism to be convened in Geneva in April 2009. In the absence of a large call from the US left for this new revival of anti-racism globally, the conservative forces in Congress is seeking to block US involvement in this important meeting.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa called on Barack Obama to apologize to the people of Iraq for the illegal invasion and occupation. Tutu is calling on decent humans in the USA to embrace the politics of truth and healing, basically calling for the politics of ubuntu. As if in a response to Desmond Tutu, Obama declared in his inauguration address that, “we will not apologize for our way of life nor will we waver in its defense.” It is the position of this author that the revolutionary moment is held back by the absence of healing in the US society. This healing will only be possible when there is public recognition and apology for the genocide of the first nation peoples and the enslavement of Africans.

Ubuntu and the revolutionary moment

Reparations and repair are elements of the philosophy of Ubuntu especially in relation to atonement, healing, justice, reconciliation and the repairing of what has been broken. The call by Archbishop Tutu for reparations joins with the world wide campaign of the reparations, peace and justice movement to accelerate a new vision of politics that is based on human cooperation and solidarity. It is important here to reiterate the core principles of Ubuntu. These are forgiveness, willingness to share, reconciliation and love. Earlier, we acknowledged both the contribution of Che Guevara and Martin Luther King to the principles of Ubuntu.

Ubuntu exists in all languages and cultures but was suppressed by the individualistic creed of ‘modernity.’ Ubuntu is now needed to halt the headlong rush to deepen the hierarchies and divisions between humans in the era of artificial intelligence and biotechnology. Martin Luther King Jr. had warned against the deepening of materialism in US society at the time of the Vietnam war. In his speech Beyond Vietnam he had warned,

America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing, except a tragic death wish, to prevent us from reordering our priorities, so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war. There is nothing to keep us from molding a recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood.

t is the brotherhood and sisterhood of all that is at the heart of the principles of Ubuntu. How can the revolutionary ideas of Martin Luther King be mobilized to heal the society from spiritual death? Ubuntu seeks to inspire spiritual renewal that is based on a sense of community among human beings. Ubuntu is also based on the principles of revolutionary non-violence. The violence of capitalism on a day to day basis has alerted revolutionaries to the reality that the past revolutions that were based on armed struggles consumed the revolutionaries. Violence in the revolution can now only be supported in the realm of self-defence. Ubuntu is breaking out, but at the economic level, the ideas of sharing and cooperation has not yet reached the old left that believed in the need for the development of the productive forces so that the class contradictions can become clear.

Whose Stimulus and whose recovery?

Barack Obama has no organization at the moment that is independent of the electoral machine. Currently there is no revolutionary movement in the United States that can politically challenge the old ruling classes. But in the case of the financial crisis, even before his inauguration on January 20, there was unprecedented state intervention. Newspaper headlines are now routinely using the term nationalization. On Sunday January 25, the principal mouth piece of the ruling class the New York Times noted in the article, “Nationalization Gets a New, Serious Look,’ noted that,