Marxist Idealism and the Arab Spring
'The bourgeois-democratic revolutions known as the Arab Spring have ruthlessly exposed the methodological and analytical deficiencies of many Marxists. Evidence-based, detailed, rigorous, and critical evaluation of the social, political, and human contradictions driving these revolutions is rare (rarer still is any sense of *what is to be done* to aid these struggles) while lazy thinking, abstractly correct positions, and we’ll-have-to-wait-and-see-how-things-turn-out passivity are common. (...)'
[Maar weer eens wat te lezen. Zie van dezelfde auteur bijv. ook het eerdere "Libya and Syria: When Anti-Imperialism Goes Wrong" (juli 2012), http://www.thenorthstar.info/?p=1097 , en overige artikelen voor The North Star op http://www.thenorthstar.info/?tag=pham-binh .]
http://www.thenorthstar.info/?p=5759
'Marxist Idealism and the Arab Spring
by Pham Binh, February 7, 2013
The bourgeois-democratic revolutions known as the Arab Spring have ruthlessly exposed the methodological and analytical deficiencies of many Marxists. Evidence-based, detailed, rigorous, and critical evaluation of the social, political, and human contradictions driving these revolutions is rare (rarer still is any sense of *what is to be done* to aid these struggles) while lazy thinking, abstractly correct positions, and we’ll-have-to-wait-and-see-how-things-turn-out passivity are common.
These deficiencies became painfully obvious once the Arab Spring spread from Tunisia and Egypt to Libya and Syria. The revolutions that swept Ben Ali and Hosni Mubarak from power were “clean” and “pure” for Marxists because they were against U.S.-backed dictators and vindicated our bias towards general strikes and working-class action.
This was the good Arab Spring.
The revolutions in Libya and Syria, on the other hand, were unclean and impure, tainted by U.S. imperialism, backed by reactionary powers like Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and quickly devolved into armed struggle, with little or no role played by the working class acting as a class. These revolutions were not nice, worker-based, and peaceful but vicious, militarized, and complicated by foreign powers and Islamic extremists who played a prominent role.
This was the bad Arab Spring.
Missing from both the good and bad Arab Spring narratives are the complex layers of interlocking contradictions between and within classes, parties, governments, and peoples as well as any appreciation of the intangible, non-material factors that revolutions involve (the moods of the masses, the feeling in the streets). Instead, Marxists have used each revolution as fodder for pre-set political morals – “strikes are more effective than arms” (Syria), “no to U.S. intervention” (Libya), “the need for a revolutionary Marxist workers’ vanguard party” (Egypt) – without any regard for the actual political, social, or historical terrains or even the wishes and aspirations of the people making these revolutions.
Every revolution could be Russia 1917 all over again, if only (fill in the blank).
By refusing to grapple with these revolutions as they are, the self-proclaimed proponents of historical materialism have turned out to be practitioners of its opposite: ahistorical idealism. (...)'
... Verder lezen op http://www.thenorthstar.info/?p=5759 .