On being knowledgeable about the writings of Marx
Editorial
A LITTLE over a week ago, Minister of Information Mr Moses Nagamootoo dropped a literary bombshell. The Minister, who was addressing Parliament during the 1999 budget debate, lambasted two Members of the House, Mr Winston Murray of the People's National Congress (PNC) and Mr Manzoor Nadir, leader of The United Force (TUF) for accusing the People's Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/Civic) of being socialist in its economic policies. In a Guyana Information Services report published in this newspaper on Tuesday, the Minister in turn accused these members of using an ideological stigma as a necessary obstruction to development. The sum total of development, the Minister said, must take into account all available knowledge in the whole world, and not to become narrow or parochial. "... those who have not read Marx or Engels or Lenin or Hegel of Feuerbach or Kant, they are all ignoramuses!" Although up to now there has been no reaction from the PNC or TUF to Minister Nagamootoo's astonishing assertion, the statement did kindle in some minds a remembrance of the mental stranglehold, the various forms of socialism and communism exerted on persons less than a generation ago. Every other person was a Marxist, and many fervently believed that in time, the entire world would be governed by the tenets of socialism. Capitalism would die an ignominious death; all religion would be marginalised; poverty and unemployment would be banished; caste and class systems would be eradicated forever; there would be no super-rich industrialists lording it over humble peasants and exploited workers; and the social relations of production would be transformed forever. Oft-quoted phrases and slogans included: "Religion is the opiate of the masses"; "From each according to his ability; to each according to his need"; "The withering away of the state"; "class consciousness"; and the inevitable clash between the two great classes - the "bourgeoisie and the proletariat", which clash would end in the victory of the masses of workers. Almost all the progressive intellectuals in the Caribbean embraced the broad tenets of socialism especially through the decades of the 60s and 70s. The campuses of the University of the West Indies and the University of Guyana were hotbeds of socialist thinkers and their disciples who were convinced that socialist revolution in all the territories was imminent. Dr Walter Rodney, surely one of the most brilliant minds of this generation, was able to galvanise into action persons of all strata of society by his capacity to interpret and impart the concept of historical materialism. Rodney's mastery of language and his humanness helped him to reach the hearts of both university students and ordinary working people. He illustrated to people their importance in the schema of modern society and the methods by which they could empower themselves and dignify their existence. It is now a decade since the USSR and the eastern European countries have abandoned socialism as a viable state system and have joined the ranks of countries with free market economies. China, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and Cuba are three countries which have maintained socialism as a state system. Yet, both China and Cuba have instituted several economic mechanisms which would have been unthinkable two decades ago. Although socialism as an ideology for world revolution now seems as dead as a doornail, several thinkers would unhesitatingly agree that aspects of Marxist theories constitute an effective tool of analysis for understanding history and society.
|