Identity by Ignorance
Marx sees a society in the grip of a savage and brutal economic system.A system which has taken the essence of humanity from the masses and turned them into selfless numbers used to maximise profit.
Capitalism is both evil and destructive said Marx, to counter that he envisaged a society based on the values of solidarity and corporation. This collective community of individuals would build a utopia on the ruins of a bourgeoisie regime which is bound to be obliterated by a universal spontaneous explosion of the proletariat rebellion.
To bring about revolution one should educate the masses about the ills and evils of the very system which has subordinated and enslaved them, in other words to raise class consciousness among the people and make them aware of their miseries and encourage them to revolt.
Whether class consciousness is a necessary precursor for the revolution or whether it is inevitable that a structure based on an old means of production would gradually be destroyed by a new order, is an academic debate.
Marx’s simple dialectic is based on historical determinism, the idea that every thesis will have an antithesis and this internal opposition will destroy the thesis until history reaches it’s pinnacle where dialectic stops because the antagonistic forces and factors which were acting as a catalyst for antithesis disappears.
The day I read Marx and his brilliant critique of capitalism was introduced to me through a very passionate Marxist-Leninist activist who happens to be a close friend; I was impressed by his breadth of work and the depth of his analysis.
My passion and love affair with Marxism was short lived when he presented his alternative system in a famous piece of literature which still adorns my shelf today with it's gripping red cover. The communist manifesto is a well written pamphlet, it has a confident tone and an epic note ; in short it promises everything but delivers nothing, it is a sad tale of a genius that got it all wrong.
However Marx’s grand idea was spectacularly off beam, at least he morphed a system and curved an identity based on consciousness and education.
The key to success according to Marx is to educate the masses that they are subjected to exploitation and abuse by the ruling class. The status quo is maintained by stupefying the people, denying them knowledge and access to the means of information. The book ends in a climax ‘workers of the world unite you have nothing to lose but your chains’.
Nationalism and love for the motherland also give people a sense of belonging and identity. Each individual feels a part of a whole a piece of a collective entity. What is nationalism, its history, development and influence in the world specifically in the 20th century and what constitutes a collective identity and finally what are its subjective and objective parameters is not my concern here and it’s purely academic.
What I intend here is to show that a hysterical, blind love for something you quite do not know, sometimes gives you an identity which I call it ‘identity by ignorance’. Your proud and made to be proud of your identity but what exactly defines that and how you can explain it , is not known and maybe not meant to be known.
George Orwell first in his 1945 ‘Notes on nationalism’ and then in his seminal work '1984 ' went through nationalism and its different forms with great insight that was characteristic of him. He describes nationalism as ‘power hunger tempered by self-deception’ this is at least for the rulers that use this phenomena to demand an unconditional subordination to power and hegemony as was demonstrated in Mussolini’s Italy and Hitler’s Germany ‘Germany is Hitler , Hitler is Germany’.
A friend once said that an English woman was so distraught by what she saw as a rapid erosion of Englishness by mass migration that she joined a far right party. When asked what constituted Englishness she was honest to reply 'going to the pub with her husband and drinking until late'.
Like that woman patriotism is an inseparable part of any Afghan’s identity. As an Afghan I was taught to be proud of my culture, country and nation which I am but most of my pride stems from the values which are either not exclusive to Afghanistan or it got it from a higher culture over the course of history.
I have read volumes of history written by often very jingoistic patriots and cannot see a trace of anything distinctly characteristic to the inhabitants of current Afghanistan before Islam. However I don’t deny the fact that certain behavioural characteristics like hospitality, bravery, persistence and heroism are better associated with Afghans than other people of the region which is perhaps due to weather,nutrition and other geographical factors.
The rest is more complex, most of what Afghanistan has in terms of culture, art and knowledge it owes to Islamic civilization which reached the country and made it the centre of knowledge and commerce for several centuries. Afghans soon assimilated Islamic values into their own and gave it an Afghan feel and taste.
It is natural that those aspects which were more compatible with the physical and spiritual traits of Afghans were developed and incorporated better. The geographical realities of Afghanistan with its harsh climate and terrains, the genetic nature of its inhabitants made them brave warriors adapted to doing hard manuel labour.
Over the last two hundred years Afghanistan has been a hub of social and political unrest most of which were imposed wars by superior powers that wanted to dominate and control this part of the world.
continued
Capitalism is both evil and destructive said Marx, to counter that he envisaged a society based on the values of solidarity and corporation. This collective community of individuals would build a utopia on the ruins of a bourgeoisie regime which is bound to be obliterated by a universal spontaneous explosion of the proletariat rebellion.
To bring about revolution one should educate the masses about the ills and evils of the very system which has subordinated and enslaved them, in other words to raise class consciousness among the people and make them aware of their miseries and encourage them to revolt.
Whether class consciousness is a necessary precursor for the revolution or whether it is inevitable that a structure based on an old means of production would gradually be destroyed by a new order, is an academic debate.
Marx’s simple dialectic is based on historical determinism, the idea that every thesis will have an antithesis and this internal opposition will destroy the thesis until history reaches it’s pinnacle where dialectic stops because the antagonistic forces and factors which were acting as a catalyst for antithesis disappears.
The day I read Marx and his brilliant critique of capitalism was introduced to me through a very passionate Marxist-Leninist activist who happens to be a close friend; I was impressed by his breadth of work and the depth of his analysis.
My passion and love affair with Marxism was short lived when he presented his alternative system in a famous piece of literature which still adorns my shelf today with it's gripping red cover. The communist manifesto is a well written pamphlet, it has a confident tone and an epic note ; in short it promises everything but delivers nothing, it is a sad tale of a genius that got it all wrong.
However Marx’s grand idea was spectacularly off beam, at least he morphed a system and curved an identity based on consciousness and education.
The key to success according to Marx is to educate the masses that they are subjected to exploitation and abuse by the ruling class. The status quo is maintained by stupefying the people, denying them knowledge and access to the means of information. The book ends in a climax ‘workers of the world unite you have nothing to lose but your chains’.
Nationalism and love for the motherland also give people a sense of belonging and identity. Each individual feels a part of a whole a piece of a collective entity. What is nationalism, its history, development and influence in the world specifically in the 20th century and what constitutes a collective identity and finally what are its subjective and objective parameters is not my concern here and it’s purely academic.
What I intend here is to show that a hysterical, blind love for something you quite do not know, sometimes gives you an identity which I call it ‘identity by ignorance’. Your proud and made to be proud of your identity but what exactly defines that and how you can explain it , is not known and maybe not meant to be known.
George Orwell first in his 1945 ‘Notes on nationalism’ and then in his seminal work '1984 ' went through nationalism and its different forms with great insight that was characteristic of him. He describes nationalism as ‘power hunger tempered by self-deception’ this is at least for the rulers that use this phenomena to demand an unconditional subordination to power and hegemony as was demonstrated in Mussolini’s Italy and Hitler’s Germany ‘Germany is Hitler , Hitler is Germany’.
A friend once said that an English woman was so distraught by what she saw as a rapid erosion of Englishness by mass migration that she joined a far right party. When asked what constituted Englishness she was honest to reply 'going to the pub with her husband and drinking until late'.
Like that woman patriotism is an inseparable part of any Afghan’s identity. As an Afghan I was taught to be proud of my culture, country and nation which I am but most of my pride stems from the values which are either not exclusive to Afghanistan or it got it from a higher culture over the course of history.
I have read volumes of history written by often very jingoistic patriots and cannot see a trace of anything distinctly characteristic to the inhabitants of current Afghanistan before Islam. However I don’t deny the fact that certain behavioural characteristics like hospitality, bravery, persistence and heroism are better associated with Afghans than other people of the region which is perhaps due to weather,nutrition and other geographical factors.
The rest is more complex, most of what Afghanistan has in terms of culture, art and knowledge it owes to Islamic civilization which reached the country and made it the centre of knowledge and commerce for several centuries. Afghans soon assimilated Islamic values into their own and gave it an Afghan feel and taste.
It is natural that those aspects which were more compatible with the physical and spiritual traits of Afghans were developed and incorporated better. The geographical realities of Afghanistan with its harsh climate and terrains, the genetic nature of its inhabitants made them brave warriors adapted to doing hard manuel labour.
Over the last two hundred years Afghanistan has been a hub of social and political unrest most of which were imposed wars by superior powers that wanted to dominate and control this part of the world.
continued
posted by sharif at
2:32 AM
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