The attraction of a first world enemy

Hello comrades. I'm a leftist schoolteacher that lives in Pakistan. Though I'm non sectarian, I generally lean towards Maoism/ third-worldism, mostly because that is the way all left wingers I know lean.

I mean, even without pulling out ancient texts, there a visceral attraction to this line of thought. I have never lived in the west or been there, but I know many people who have. And they describe a kind of fantasy world where a huge majority live comfortably (from lurking here, I realize this may not be entirely true, but there is an element of truth in it)

I'm sure you're aware of the state of Pakistan so I won't go into much detail, but the living conditions for the vast majority are just horrible. There are no illusions here that you may better your conditions with "hard work". You will never leave your income bracket, and neither will your kids. (Except by immigrating to the west)

I'm actually a religious minority here (Shiite Muslim) and we are killed at a rate that would astonish you by salafist terror groups like lashkar e jangvhi.

Given these considerations, I find it extremely difficult to have some notion of solidarity with the western proles. It feels like a joke, on a human level, that these people who lead a luxurious life in comparison to us are our brothers in the fight against capitalism.

I've heard people here criticizing the naxalites for being mauist and that mauism is not the solution, but you people fail to see the subjective context of them accepting this ideology in the first place.

You know, recently I got a call from one of my cousins who is working in Dubai as a welder. His arm was hurt so bad at work the doctor says he will not ever be able to work as a welder. The company he worked for gave him about 1 year in salary (even though they already owed him 6 months worth) and now he is pretty much done for. He told me he wants to kill himself.

Its all just one horrible joke isn't it? And over all this is a thought that "if we just moved to the west…" but for most that's an impossibility.

I'm sorry that was quite long, but I hope now you'll understand our plight better

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You're assuming that those advancements in the quality of living happen because they're legitimate walthy and not because they're economies have made those commodities cheaper.
An Iphone costs just 8 dollars to make but the inflated prices in america and europe and the even more inflate prices on a country like pakista show how alienated are the proletarians from their labor.

I think Lenin wrote how capitalism pushes the bad part of it into other countries, that'll be imperialism.
If you see it in that frame those are even bigger reasons on why be solidarian with the workers on developed countries because they are nor producing the commodities they use and so they are just as alienated as a worker on any subdeveloped country

Actually, no. We aren't. I know where it is, but I don't have a slightest idea of what is actually going on there. Apparently, you have internet.

Also, I thought Naxalites were in India.

As far as I'm aware (not an expert) Naxalites don't intend to overthrow the state, limit their activity to terrorism and consider rural areas their focus (not urban). I.e. they are effectively Anarchists and do not have a "win condition". I would criticize them for this.

Several hundred people get burned alive or beaten to death in a broad daylight in a middle of city. Survivors forced to flee the state, so as not to endanger their families. Mass-media treats this as a righteous anger of the people. Police doesn't even bother starting formal investigation. Government forcibly stops the vigil for the dead. That was Ukraine.

Why should you, in the first place? Have solidarity with organizations, not geographic locations. Vanguard party, yes.

P.s. "mauism" is Maoism, I think.

Stop fucking your cousins. Seriously your inbreeding, and all the negatives that come with that including mental retardation, has a lot to do with how shitty the country is.

...

I'm sorry. I'll answer any questions you have about the state of Pakistan

The naxalites are in India but there are small similar groups in Pakistan with the same ideas

That's a decent summary of our plight.


Is class solidarity among the international proles not extremely important to the advancement of socialism? All I'm saying is that this principle is very difficult to uphold given our subjective material conditions

Well, the problem is I don't even know what to ask.

Do people own flats/houses they live in?
What are political movements? Freedom of speech?
Will you get arrested for openly wearing Socialist/Communist symbols?

I.e. killing policemen and robbing rich?

That's not how it works. Solidarity has different meanings, depending on context.

1) Empathy
People live in the same conditions (same class) => they empathise with each other
If you really live that differently from the West (personally, I wouldn't be too sure about that), you can't force this.

The best you can do is to avoid actively hating West. I.e. harming yourself to harm them for the benefit of capitalists - that's what happens with radical Muslims. Basically, anti-Western movement of radical Muslims is used to grant Western elites more power. Not being that part of this nonsense is good enough for the purpoese of class solidarity.

2) Organization
People share the common enemy => they coordinate their actions with each other
This one is an international cooperation that you can (and should) do. But it requires organizations from both sides dealing with each other. If you don't have your organization that can cooperate with western proletariat (who should be organized as well), you can't have any meaningful solidarity.

This is what I was talking about and it is not some abstract solidarity, but a very concrete and specific activity that is limited to very specific people, not the general "good feelings" towards the whole strata of proletariat in the West.

nope. Except for villagers
There are many, and wide ranging. You have the political islamists, who are by far the strongest. It is actually very well known that saudi arabia, as soon as they had the sweet oil money, began to accept students from pakistan and india to educate them in islam, all expenses paid, so they could go back and teach in thier own countries. So you had almost every mosque leader who was educated in toxic wahabi teachings, and taught it to the people through sermon. This laid the groundwork for the wahabi political islamists and the salafi terrorist groups that operate all through pakistan.

you've also got the liberal capitalists (who are funded by wealthy expatriates)

and then, an extremely small number of "islamic socialists" (social democrats) and a small but not negligible amount of socialists
no, but you'll beaten up. This is because they are percived as anti-religous symbols

they aren't even numerous enough to do even that


I agree completely. Thanks for the information

Listen to him. This user knows alot about inbreeding.

I had no idea. This makes so much sense

Islam is just another religion. Real leftists see religion as another tool to keep the prolies from questioning their masters.

GO WEST!

And find yourself in the exact same situation, only with slightly better living conditions.

I disagree with third worldism (as do the naxalites; they're MLM, not MTW) but I'm a Maoist. We're a minority but we're here.

You're absolutely right, workers in the first world are nowhere near third world workers in terms of exploitation. However, this doesn't mean that workers in the first world aren't exploited. We don't face the effects of imperialism by our countries the way you do. Because of this, first world leftists should be principled anti-imperialists, and harshly criticized if they're not. Really, it boils down to the fact that we aren't accountable for the imperialism of our countries. It seems a bit silly to me to just blow off a large portion of the wider global movement (and lord knows you'll need allies in the first world when your revolution succeeds.) Workers in the first world face exploitation too, and it's just petty to ignore that fact because there's a more intense exploitation elsewhere.

Thanks for posting here, it was interesting to hear this issue from your point of view.

Sorry OP.

nice thread OP, lurking to see more

What Pakistan needs to do

this is not just theoretical revisionism, but directly contradicted by the facts as well. People stop having lots of kids AFTER they become economically developed, not before.

People here mainly base their ideologies on representatives of them in the West. If ideology has too stupid followers it's not cool enough, so it gets dismissed. So, maoists for example are autistic in the west, therefore first world labour aristocracy can throw around the false notion of universalism, like if we are in the same boat, and dismiss any divisions/contradictions which arises because of third world existence.

Where did it all go wrong?

Yes, that is true but mortality rate also has an influence and smaller populations are less dense which lowers risk of contracting diseases because everyone is more spaced out. Although I am not aware of any contagious disease going on in Pakistan so I suppose that wouldnt make a difference if there isn't.

I've lived in both the UK and Sri Lanka (I know it's not the same country as Pakistan, but it is in the same subcontinent and has similar status as "third world") and yes, the average quality of life in the UK is far higher.

In the UK, I am not rich by any means, and I exist fairly unarguably in the white-collar working class. In Sri Lanka, aided by virtue of being white, the same amount of wealth placed be unarguably in the upper class - but certainly at the poorer end of that spectrum. Many of the people that I mingled with, native Sri Lankans, were a lot richer than I was, living there. In Sri Lanka, most people that I mingled with had house servants. With the exact same amount of money, they would not be able to afford that in the UK.

What matters when it comes to the question of class consciousness is not so much exactly how much money you have, exactly what inanimate objects you own, or exactly how big your house is. What matters is your class - that is, your relation to other people in that society.

The working class in the UK and the working class in Sri Lanka live very different lives; one fairly unarguably worse than the other. But they exist in the same relationship to the rest of their society, no matter what the actual numbers are. This is what class is; class is not wealth, it is a social relation.

good post

Wow someone on Holla Forums who's actually read Marx

Understandable. Ironically the most likely way that your life will improve over your lifetime is embracing neoliberalsim. One of the effects of neoliberalism (intended or otherwise) is moving money from the west to the east.

The problem with third-worldism isn't just the antagonism you mentioned it breeding between the 3rd and 1st-world working class, but its ideological worship of failure. The 1st-world's existence isn't wholly the result of stolen wealth from the age of colonial empires (some former colonial powers like Russia and Turkey are 3rd-world, some former colonial subjects like South Korea and Ireland aren't), it is instead the result of accumulated victories by various leftist movements (primarily organized labor) with tremendous difficulty against everyday conditions that were largely identical for the masses everywhere in the world.

Wherever the 3rd-world exists today, one can look back on their history to see not only exploitation by external foes, but the repeated failure of labor agitation, and victories by the politically corrupt or autocratic. In this respect, 1st-world workers shouldn't be seen as enemies, but as a model to study. To be sure, for instance, 21st-century Pakistan isn't the same as the 19th-century USA, but many of the same struggles we won are ongoing in the 3rd world, probably with many of the same solutions.


Not always true. Aside from the arguable example of China, I can't think of any intentional examples, but the downfall of absolute monarchy in Europe is commonly credited in part to the massive number of people who died to the black plague shrinking the reserve army of labor.


Neoliberalism simply siphons wealth away from the 1st-world poor, does so using the labor of the 3rd-world poor, gives a cut to the 3rd-world elite, and dumps the majority into bottomless maw of the 1st-world elite. It also strengthens the grip of the 3rd-world elite, while abusing the slim gaps within the 3rd world (Africans are poorer than Asians are poorer than South Americans are poorer than Eastern Europeans…) to keep the 3rd-world poor more firmly in line.

Every good lie contains an element of truth.


Oh, no. We get the appeal. We just recognize that the ideology itself fails to resolve the nature of the problem. Any proposed solution that does not attempt to eliminate class will always fall into the same trap. Also, allowing the creation of a fictional great enemy (the First World) definatively obscures the nature and identity of those who actually work against you. You end up hating other slaves instead of your shared masters.


It is a shame that this myth has not died yet. The truth is that there is no more economic mobility in the economic center than there is in the periphery.

thanks
(checked)
Neoliberalism tends to keep money in the west; even the IMF has admitted that it's a complete and utter failure recently.

telesurtv.net/english/news/-Neoliberal-IMF-Admits-Neoliberalism-Causes-Inequality-20160601-0016.html