Matty_UK
21st November 2009, 05:19
I've been thinking hard recently about new ways to combat capitalism in the developed west, because you may have noticed we don't seem to be having much success - we are stuck in our miniature sects, latching onto and supporting struggles when they occur, distributing propaganda, or organising futile protests. I've been thinking, with the exception of the occasional struggle with concrete demands we might take part in, (e.g. a strike) there is nothing about leftist activism that offers some sort of practical result, or anything to offer ordinary people rather than just idealists or those who enjoy speculating about ideas.
A second problem is the atomisation of communities which makes it very difficult to organise people.
This idea might be unpopular, but a solution to both these problems could be to form an alliance between socialists and church/mosque/synagogue goers. The church is the last remnant of a communal life where people congregate freely without any money changing hands, therefore if we want to organise people this is a good place to start.
Furthermore, people who still go to church (and especially those who go to mosques) are likely to be disillusioned about modern life, i.e. capitalism. I've often found the leftist literature that apolitical friends of mine find interesting is things like those situationist Spectacular Times pamphlets, or The Coming Insurrection, things that critique modern atomised consumer lifestyles that I think almost everyone hates in some way. We should offer a critique of how capitalism is responsible for creating a culture where people care about nothing but themselves, where people rot away their potential by relying on passively consuming commodities for entertainment rather than doing something more active and positive, and where everything is superficial and decadent. It's easy to show how capitalism flies in the face of any religious belief.
We could find common ground with them in attempting to do positive community work which we can push in a more subversive direction - we can organise means of socialising that don't rely on spending money, such as sporting events, or creating genuine public spaces for people to hang out, like a youth club or whatever, dance/singing/music classes, (anyone who has been to a caligh knows these can be a lot of fun) daycare, etcetc. Churches/mosques often do things like this anyway, but we could work to secularise and broaden these activities, and introduce new activities in a more subversive direction - get people to rally around problems facing the community and organise protests, work to convert disused buildings into something with a function for the community, give support and solidarity to workers' struggles, and so forth.
Do you see where I'm coming from here? What do you guys think? I don't think we would have anything to lose by trying this approach - we could start it by talking to people leaving their church/mosque about our ideas, distributing leaflets to them, and organising a public meeting between different religious sects and political sects in our area. If nothing else, it's a good platform to air our ideas and we could definately reach a lot of people this way.
Opinions?
A second problem is the atomisation of communities which makes it very difficult to organise people.
This idea might be unpopular, but a solution to both these problems could be to form an alliance between socialists and church/mosque/synagogue goers. The church is the last remnant of a communal life where people congregate freely without any money changing hands, therefore if we want to organise people this is a good place to start.
Furthermore, people who still go to church (and especially those who go to mosques) are likely to be disillusioned about modern life, i.e. capitalism. I've often found the leftist literature that apolitical friends of mine find interesting is things like those situationist Spectacular Times pamphlets, or The Coming Insurrection, things that critique modern atomised consumer lifestyles that I think almost everyone hates in some way. We should offer a critique of how capitalism is responsible for creating a culture where people care about nothing but themselves, where people rot away their potential by relying on passively consuming commodities for entertainment rather than doing something more active and positive, and where everything is superficial and decadent. It's easy to show how capitalism flies in the face of any religious belief.
We could find common ground with them in attempting to do positive community work which we can push in a more subversive direction - we can organise means of socialising that don't rely on spending money, such as sporting events, or creating genuine public spaces for people to hang out, like a youth club or whatever, dance/singing/music classes, (anyone who has been to a caligh knows these can be a lot of fun) daycare, etcetc. Churches/mosques often do things like this anyway, but we could work to secularise and broaden these activities, and introduce new activities in a more subversive direction - get people to rally around problems facing the community and organise protests, work to convert disused buildings into something with a function for the community, give support and solidarity to workers' struggles, and so forth.
Do you see where I'm coming from here? What do you guys think? I don't think we would have anything to lose by trying this approach - we could start it by talking to people leaving their church/mosque about our ideas, distributing leaflets to them, and organising a public meeting between different religious sects and political sects in our area. If nothing else, it's a good platform to air our ideas and we could definately reach a lot of people this way.
Opinions?