BUTTERFLY
“Here on the slopes of
Hills, facing the dusk and
The cannon of time
Close to the gardens
Of broken shadows,
We do what prisoners
Do,
And what the jobless
Do:
We cultivate hope.
Mahmoud Darwish
From the poem Under Siege
In 1871 the capitalists, the bourgeoisie or whatever you want to call that greedy vermin, all over Europe if not the world, shat their pants at the sight and the roar of the Paris Communards. The people took the power, freed themselves and took control of their lives. When I say people I mean all the oppressed and exploited so that a few leeches on top could live in luxury.
This piece is not about the history of the Paris Commune. It is about why one of the most beautiful people power movements in history of class struggle failed and lasted only a couple of months. If you really want to know more in details about the Paris Commune, do a little research yourself.
Communists, left wing socialists, anarchists and others have seen the Commune as a model for, or a prefiguration of a liberated society, with a political system based on participatory democracy from the grass roots up, the prototype for a revolutionary government of the future, the form at last discovered for the emancipation of the proletariat (Marx).
According to some literature on the mistakes of the Paris Commune, Karl Marx found it aggravating that the Communards lost precious moments organizing democratic elections rather than instantly FINISHING OFF Versailles once and for all. France’s national bank, located in Paris and storing billions of francs, was left untouched and unguarded by the Communards. TIMIDLY they ASKED to BORROW money from the bank. The Communards chose not to seize the bank’s assets because they were AFRAID that the world would condemn them if they did. Thus large amounts of money were moved from Paris to Versailles, money that financed the army that crushed the Commune. Marx wrote that the Commune might have saved itself had it dealt MORE HARSHLY with reactionaries.
Lenin criticized the Communards for having STOPPED HALF WAY…led astray by dreams of…JUSTICE; he thought their EXCESSIVE MAGNANIMITY had prevented them from DESTROYING the class enemy by RUTHLESS EXTERMINATION.
I didn’t know what “magnanimity” means (I’m a high school drop out) so I looked it up and found the adjective “magnanimous”. MAGNANIMOUS means generous and noble in forgiving; above revenge or resentment. [L magnanimus, “great-souled”].
Again, among a few other mistakes, the most important failure of the Paris Commune was its LACK OF RELENTLESS AND DECISIVE ACTION AGAINST THE BOURGEOISIE. The very MAGNANIMITY and HUMANITY of the Commune proved fatal. Only RELUCTANTLY did it use force, take hostages or keep the prisoners it captured. The Commune’s MODERATION left the way open for the vicious, vengeful retaliation the Versailles government inflicted on the workers of Paris.
“If they (the Communards) are defeated only their GOOD NATURE will be to blame” Marx
“The right moment was missed because of CONSCIENTIOUS SCRUPLES” Marx.
According to Lenin again, two mistakes destroyed the fruits of the splendid victory. The proletariat stopped half-way: instead of setting about expropriating the expropriators, it allowed itself to be led astray by DREAMS OF ESTABLISHING A HIGHER JUSTICE…such institutions as the banks, for example, were not taken over….
The second mistake was EXCESSIVE MAGNANIMITY on the part of the proletariat: instead of DESTROYING ITS ENEMIES it sought to exert MORAL INFLUENCE on them…in certain conditions the armed struggle assumes the form of armed conflict and civil war; there are times when the interests of the proletariat call for RUTHLESS EXTERMINATION of its enemies in open armed clashes.
In the end, the Paris commune was drowned in the blood of the Communards and of all those who had supported it in any way. The number of killed during “The Bloody Week” can never be established for certain, and estimates vary from about 10 000 to 50 000. According to Alfred Cobban, 30 000 were killed, perhaps as many as 50 000 later executed or imprisoned and 7000 were exiled to New Caledonia.
We on the Left have to stop being nice, not all of us. Peaceful methods are very important but peaceful methods alone will lead nowhere. It’s like M. L. King without the Black Panthers and Malcolm X. Unrealistic! Peaceful methods must be combined with more aggressive and violent methods.
“Early in life I had learned that if you want something, you had better make some noise.” Malcolm X
A combination of methods to get rid of, first, capitalist and imperialist institutions has the best chance to succeed. And I don’t even want to hear, especially from someone from a Western country, how violence doesn’t pay off. The West got filthy rich through systematic use of violence. Right now, in Irak, do you think the Yankee dogs are applying the Dalai Lama method to liberate the Irakis of their oil?
“If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning.” Frederick Douglass
LIP is a French clock company whose turmoil became emblematic of the conflicts between workers and management in France.
The LIP factory, based in Besancon in eastern France, was having financial problems in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and management decided to close it. However, after strikes and a highly publicized occupation of the factory in 1973, LIP became worker-managed. All the fired employees were rehired by March 1974, but the firm was liquidated again in the spring of 1976. This led to a new struggle, called “the social conflict of the 1970s” by the daily newspaper Liberation.
Confederation Francaise Democratique du Travail (CFDT) union leader Charles Piaget led the strike. The Unified Socialist Party (PSU), which included former Radical Pierre Mendes-France, was then in favor of autogestion (self-management), or worker-run businesses.
Charles Piaget testified in 1977, in the Quotidien de Paris, about the self-management experiment: “A few more than 500 workers are effectively in battle, gathering every day, and this, nineteen months after having been fired. It is living proof of democracy. It is impossible to have such a collective force without the sustained practice of democracy, without sharing responsibilities, and without participation of all sorts. It must be pointed out that at LIP, the workers are in charge of approximately thirty jobs, from the restaurants, which serve 300 meals a day for 4 francs, to a hairdresser for the unemployed, to various artisanal activities….”
But as is to be expected, the ruling capitalist class reacted. And when they react, they mean business.
In May 1974, Valery Giscard d’Estaing, representing free enterprise, had been elected President of France, with the support of Jacques Chirac. They OPPOSED this union victory at a time when downsizing was happening all over France. The previous Minister of Industrial Development, Jean Charbonnel, testified that Giscard had declared: “ LIP MUST BE PUNISHED. LET THEM BE UNEMPLOYED AND STAY THAT WAY. OTHERWISE THEY WILL INFECT ALL OF SOCIETY.” According to Charbonnel, the employers and Chirac’s government had deliberately assassinated LIP.
This was done by confronting the left-wing employer, Neuschwander, and the firm with unforeseen difficulties. Renault, a state enterprise, withdrew its commands, and the Ministry of Industry refused a promised fund. In contradiction to the Dole agreement of January 1974, the trade court requested that LIP honor a debt of 6 million francs owed by the former firm to providers.
Again, if you want to know more about how it all ended for LIP, do your own research.
As you can see, capitalism is not about a good life for everyone and capitalists are mean and greedy bastards. Just picture the likes of Dick Cheney. If it were up to me, I would reactivate the guillotine just for Giscard and Chirac. They are scum!
I personally have had it with that crap on the Left about being careful in our methods when trying to recruit new people, about being careful not to alienate people. What people? The middle class? Those defenders of capitalism, the buffer zone of capitalism who would betray anything and anyone to keep things the way they are or get into the upper class by climbing on the shoulders of the rest of us. Hell, I don’t even want them on our side, those sneaky bastards! They are the kind that go turn coats according to the stock markets. They are even worse than the capitalists, at least with the capitalists you know what you are dealing with. But the middle class, they are the kind that stabs you in the back when you least expect it. Alienate the middle class? They have already alienated themselves as human beings anyway. But, as J.F.K, one of my heroes, once said: “Those who make peaceful evolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable.”
How many times I have marched in protest against some injustice with various groups here in Tokyo, through huge, crowded avenues without ever seeing, I mean not once, one of those so-called undecided or (still) sitting on the fence types (probably brain dead) joining us in solidarity. Some of them, Japanese as well as foreigners, just stand there on the sidewalk like statues waiting for pigeons to shit on them, looking at us with a stupid grin on their face as if we were from Mars. Although, I have to admit that often our peace parades are confusing, with all the balloons and the colorful things flying around, they do tend to look like some festival which may cause onlookers to smile and laugh.
We on the left have to get through our heads that this might be it. The number of committed people on our side is not growing and we don’t have all the time in the world to continue screwing around so we’d better find ways to do with what we have. The eco clock is ticking, and fast. We who live in the belly of the capitalist beast, and therefore the most responsible for the misery around our world, have to start hitting the beast in the belly. Some of us can stick to organizing and “educating”, others should carry violent actions against capitalist targets. I am under the impression that every single group on the Left is busy with only organizing and “educating”. That’s all we do. We do so much of it and with so much care not to alienate people who don’t give a shit anyway that we have lost sight of the actual goal. Organizing and “educating” have become our goal! And when we go out to march, parade against..whatever..we stop at traffic lights! We allow the police to cut through our line and divide us into smaller and weaker groups because of a fucking traffic light! We actually wait for the light to turn green! It is pathetic! At least THAT day should be OUR day and the couple of avenues we take should be OUR avenues! Come on people! For crying out loud, our space of action is shrinking! When was the last time we had a taste of victory? Just a taste of victory for Christ’s sake! When we actually pushed back and said “not today pigs!” Today is our day!!
“When in 1956…the Front de Liberation Nationale, in a famous leaflet, stated that colonialism (capitalism and imperialism) only loosens its hold when the knife is at its throat, no Algerian really found these terms too violent. The leaflet only expressed what every Algerian felt at heart: colonialism is not a thinking machine, nor a body endowed with reasoning faculties. It is violence in its natural state, and it will only yield when confronted with greater violence.” Frantz Fanon
Remember, right now people around the third world, at this very moment in Irak, people are paying with their lives the real price of our comfort, our freedoms here in the West They are the ones doing the real resisting. They are resisting OUR capitalist beast so that it wouldn’t swallow all of us and the best we can do for them to help them is endless organizing, educating people that should know by now and stop at traffic lights when parading.
Julia Butterfly Hill, born in 1974, is an American activist and environmentalist. Hill is best known for living in a 180-foot-tall, 600-year-old California Redwood tree for 738 days between December 10, 1997 to December 18, 1999. Hill lived barefoot in the tree, affectionately known as “Luna”, to prevent loggers of the Pacific Lumber Company from cutting it down.
Hill spent a little more than two years in that tree! Now, that’s what I call tough and determined. That’s emotions in action.
A resolution was reached in 1999 when the Pacific Lumber Company agreed to preserve Luna and all the trees within a 3-acre buffer zone (I guess beyond that they could go on rampaging). In exchange, Hill agreed to vacate the tree. The tree was later attacked with a chainsaw by “someone”. The gash to the 200-foot-tall redwood was discovered in November 2001. It was treated with an herbal remedy and the tree was stabilized with steel cables. As of spring 2007, the tree is doing well.
“One day, they were cutting down trees all around me, and I started crying and hugging Luna. I was crying because I felt ashamed to be in white skin. I felt ashamed to be part of a race of people who perpetuated genocide thousands of years ago and have now made it our mission to perpetuate genocide on the rest of the planet and life in all its forms. It was eating me alive from the inside out. I was so angry and so hurt and ashamed, and I held onto Luna and was crying and apologizing over and over, saying: I’m so sorry.”
Julia Butterfly Hill
While Julia Butterfly Hill was up in the tree risking her life to protect and save it, the Pacific Lumber Company should have been attacked by activists and severely damaged as a punishment and a warning with a message left on its doorstep saying that its practices are unacceptable and that next time it would be burnt down to the ground.
“It is not light that we need, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder.
We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake.” Frederick Douglass
Now, I cannot finish this ranting without mentioning Irak and the 1 million killed Irakis, so far, for oil by the U.S-led whatever is left of that coalition of the willing, one of the most shameful coalitions in the history of mankind. I cannot ignore Irak because 1 million dead Irakis kind of sticks out. 1 million on top of 1.6 million (of which 600 000 Iraki children) dead due to the U.S-U.K-imposed-wrapped-in-the-U.N-flag economic sanctions. And all those Irakis died just so that we in the West and here in puppet Japan could get very cheap (if not free) oil. I got a mail about one of my articles the other day from an angry guy in the US, telling me to shut up. So, I’ll shut up and let this poem by the Haitian poet Paul Laraque speak:
REIGN OF THE PEOPLES
You say democracy
and we know it is Bolivia's tin
Chile's copper
Venezuela's oil
Cuba's sugar
raw materials and profits
You say democracy
and it's the annexation of Texas
the hold up of the Panama Canal
the occupation of Haiti
the colonization of Puerto-Rico
the bombing of Guatemala
You say democracy
and it's America to the Yankee
it's the rape of nations
it's Sandino's blood
and Peralte's crucifixion
You say democracy
and it's the plunder of our wealth
from Hiroshima to Indochina
you spread the slaughter everywhere
and everywhere ruin
You say democracy
and it's the Ku Klux Klan
o hidden people
inside your own cities
an ogre is devouring your children
Ubu from the empire of robots
you let your ravens fly
from Harlem to Jerusalem
from Wounded Knee to Haiti
from Santo Domingo to Soweto
the people will be waving
the torch of revolution
Night is a tunnel opening on the dawn
Viet-Nam stands like a tree in the storm
the frontier which marks the place of your defeat
history's lessons have no recourse
a footbridge stretches from Asia to Africa
the reign of the white race is ending on earth
and the reign of the peoples in the universe is beginning.
Paul Laraque
(Translation from French by Rosemary Manno)
And since I am for victory in Irak because it would be a step closer to total victory against imperialism around the world, here is what I hope will happen to “the greatest purveyor of violence on Earth”:
“For my part, I would not care if, tomorrow, I should hear of the death of every man who engaged in that bloody war in Mexico (IRAK), and that every man had met the fate he went there to perpetrate upon unoffending Mexicans (IRAKIS).” Frederick Douglass
Brkic Sulejman 3/7/08
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