Saturday 5 May 2012

There will be no revolution without money by Malaika wa Azania

by Malaika Wa Azania on Saturday, February 26, 2011 at 5:04pm ·
There is a false conscious notion doing the rounds in the minds of activists and comrades, a notion that begs for critical debate and dissection. The problem could be that the role of money is underestimated in the struggle, or it could be that the ideology of Socialism is misunderstood. I would like to address this issue in my personal capacity as a young activist and as a pan-Afrikanist Socialist.

The belief that a revolution can happen without money is false, misleading and very myopic. It is because of such beliefs that Socialism as an ideology is misinterpreted and pan-Afrikanism as a philosophy is badly educated. What i need to highlight at this point is that i am in no way saying that money is EVERYTHING.I am saying that money is necessary, for it provides us with the tools that we need to advance the struggle. It enables us to do things for the revolution that we could never do if it was unavailable. The problem is NOT money. The problem lies in the distribution of it, the ownership of it and the accumulation of it.

SOCIALISM VS CAPITALISM
We are facing a crisis of civilisation that is born from the greed of mankind. Capitalism is easily defined by myself, stealing from a famous George Orwell phrase as "All animals are equally hungry, but some animals eat more hungrily than others."
Socialism is thus defined, again by myself, as "All animals are equally hungry, and all animals eat equally."
Ours is a capitalist state run by capitalists that is breeding young materialistic persons. Our role as Socialist activists and pan-Afrikanists is to ensure that we reverse this naturalised order, that we undo 400 years of economic class divisions, that we correct the inequalities born from this division and that we lay the foundation for a pan-Afrikanist Socialist state that could later metamorphosise into a classless society, illustrated by what Marx termed "primitive Communist society".
To achieve this, we need to fertilise the ground for revolution.But to achieve revolution we need to have resources.Not in abundance, but sufficient for the accomplishment of the Afrika that we envisage.

WHAT DO WE NEED MONEY FOR?
There is still disagreement as to how revolution will be achieved in Afrika and particularly in Azania. There are people who are of the opinion that an armed struggle needs to be waged to ensure revolution and there are those who are of the opinion that revolution can be negotiated, only this time, there will be no erroneous zones. I am still theoretically exploring both options, because i understand the potential ramifications of both.
However, what is important in this is the issue of money, for i believe that in both cases, it is very important.

>ARMED REVOLUTION
If we are to have an armed struggle, we would need a lot of resources. For starters, to mobilise on the ground, money is necessary. Transportation to communities where guerillas will be recruited, basic necessities such as food for all persons, money for things such as airtime and data bundles to network and communicate with external forces (such as comrades in the diaspora), money for the location of training,for access to certain information and ofcourse, for ammunition. Weapons of war do not come cheap. Developing countries spend BILLIONS of dollars annually on military machinery as it stands. So if we say money is not a factor, how will these needs be covered?
>NEGOTIATED REVOLUTION
There is no way that we can negotiate a revolution without first creating/grooming a cadre-ship of conscious young men and women who will sustain the revolution. (Let it be understood that revolution is not a destination but a journey, and it is infinite.Even if we are to repossess the stolen land and re-agrarianise Afrika, a lot of work must still be done to ensure that the victory is sustained. Understand that the removal of a dictator does not end dictatorship the same way that the fall of a regime does not annihilate the constructed order.)
To groom these cadres, we must go on an intense conscientisation drive. Mass education must happen.But to conscientise the masses, we must go down to them. It is a LOT of money to do that. It is a LOT of money to access and distribute revolutionary material, to outsource material and to reach material.
And after that land, which is the fundamental question and struggle for pan-Afrikanists, has been reclaimed, how do we reverse the damage that capitalism has dealt Mother Nature with? Capitalism has dealt a major blow to our environment. Climate justice remains an unsolved issue despite numerous Conferences of the Parties (COPS), the latest which was held in Cancun,Mexico in late January 2011 (note that COPS 17 will be hosted in Durban this coming December).
So if we say money is not a factor, how will these needs be covered?

It is very important that we address the issue of money as pan-Afrikanists, especially us young ones on whose shoulders the revolution lies. Whether we like it or not, Capitalism has planted its roots very deep in our society that the only way to annihilate it is to use it against itself. We are in a situation where we must use money to ensure the equal distribution of money. Chairman Mao Tse-tung once said:
"We are advocates of the abolition of war. But it is important to understand that in order to get rid of the gun, one must take up the gun."
This very well applies to the Capitalist situation.

It would do us no good to pretend that money is not important in the struggle.But it would do us a lot of harm to believe that money is everything-it isn't.
We want a society where all are equal-not where all are equally poor!

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