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Originally Posted by Majadi  I have usually thought of Socialism in any form as an invader's idea to Afrika, that was before Dr. Clarke stated that Africans have always practiced Socialism. I have a friend who always describes me as a Black Nationalist, through and through! He is more in the lines of a pure Afrikan Historian so I found this distinction quite funny. Now these terms African Socialism, Scientific Socialism, even after having read, Handbook of Revolutionary Warfare and Dark Days by Nkrumah yet remain confusing to me! I would love if you all would enlighten me as to these terms or point me in the right direction. I adhere I think to some of those concepts of Socialism I just can't make a proper determination on that without correct information, besides you cats are off the hook with this discussion!!! |
Cde Majadi. Now for you,
si vous plait. Socialism never invaded Africa. Altho Karl Marx was a European, socialism was a tool which he gave to the world for its liberation from European colonial and Imperialist domination. While this seems contradictory, while it appears a paradox. it also shatters the idea that white and blacks are diametrically opposed, that we are natural enemies, if you will, and must annihilate one another.
I use to hold onto this idea, despite having grown up with white friends and schoolmates. This idea assumes that the primary contradiction in society is racial, that races are monolithic social formations born out of nature and unable to harmonize between themselves. You have to cleanse your mind of this assumption. Racial harmony is necessary only in capitalist society which invented race and racism, because if forced races together when it conquered entire continents and relocated millions of people onto foreign lands. It forced Africans and Chinese and East Indians and Europeans together in the Caribbean and the US. Then it devised a belief in the inferiority of non-European peoples. Capitalism did that. Had the system of capitalism not arisen with its antagonisms, we would harbor no ill will to European. We would have no reason to.
Marx, in some way, recognized this. Remember Frederich Nietsche, who developed the philosophy of existentialism? He also came up with this idea of the European as superman. Not a natural superman, as the reactionaries like to believe, but a superman who became one based on the massive wealth, power and knowledge accumulated from the European's vast colonial empire. Marx was a product of that process (he was a predecessor of Nietsche, who really did not subscribe to any form of Marxism). Marx had the ability to define society in objective terms because he was exposed to the wealth, power and knowledge accumulated by Europe from Africa, China, India, the Americas, etc. This is what Marx has given back to the world thru his theory. Thru his theory we will all regain our wealth.
Now you have to get into your head that no social system is monolithic -- except ant society, or bee society -- but the society of human beings is not monolithic. By a monolith, I mean it is made of a single substance and have one nature. Society is made of composite parts which may or not operate in harmony. While ant society is monolithic, it does not have to operate on ideas, on politics, on verbal communication. There are no chinks in ant society which can be exploited other than physically. I mean you cannot swindle, deceive, infiltrate, split or use any strategy born of a political concept to overthrow ant society. But you can with humans.
For this reason, the US says that it never lost a battle in Vietnam, that it was defeated politically. The mightiest country in world history defeated by a nation and people who were vastly inferior on a material basis. Not a natural basis, but materially, economically. Their resolve was forged thru a socialist theory derived from Marx and articulated by Ho Chi Minh and Vo Nguyen Giap (you gotta read Giap's books on Vietnam military struggle)! When the infinitesimally small country of Guinea-Bissau took on the colonial empire of Portugal, the world thought those niggers were crazy. Amilcar Cabral led the protracted armed revolution and they eventually defeated the Portuguese in an amazing feat. It was a Marxian class theory which helped liberate Africans, and articulate by people like Cabral, Fanon, Machel, Mugabe, Biko, Nkrumah, Rodney, Huey Newton. Only a class theory has ever liberated African people from colonialism. While some countries have been "de-colonized", they weren't necessarily been LIBERATED.
Plus, the class society existed before the racial society. While races existed, they did not have friction between one another (a few isolated examples like the Hyksos, and the Hindi invaders of the Indus Valley make the exception). But class society existed wherever you found king and peasant, master and slave, capitalist and worker. This goes way back and is more pervasive than racial struggle, and is the definitive form of struggle within society. This struggle is defined by starvation, homelessness, warfare, public construction of pyramids and great walls, dams, roads, etc. Those who take credit for such activities differ drastically from those who made them possible. The great pyramids were built by peasants. The great wall was built by peasants. Commerce was carried out by farmers and merchants. And so on. I hope this helps you. But socialism is revolutionary, and the world can only be defined between socialism and capitalism. All modern societies are either part of one or the other; there is no "third way" no mothership and no rapture to solve the crisis in social relations. Revolution.