What exactly does 'Fakir' mean?

[Zanthorus]

I've seen this word in ZeroNowhere's sig, which has a quote by DeLeon talking about the 'Labour Fakir' as the left hand of capital. I just came across it in an article by Eugene Debs talking about why the early American socialist movement should've supported revolutionary unions and not the AFL:


The Republican and Democratic parties both consist mainly of workingmen. Why not turn them into working class parties? The workingmen have a majority in both—why organize a Socialist party?

The workingman who reasons in that way and attends Republican and Democratic conventions as a delegate is by Socialists set down as ignoramus or fakir

Just wondering what this actually means. According to wiki it has something to do with Islamic mystics starving themselves, which isn't particularly enlightening.

[∞]

I've seen this word in ZeroNowhere's sig, which has a quote by DeLeon talking about the 'Labour Fakir' as the left hand of capital. I just came across it in an article by Eugene Debs talking about why the early American socialist movement should've supported revolutionary unions and not the AFL:



Just wondering what this actually means. According to wiki it has something to do with Islamic mystics starving themselves, which isn't particularly enlightening.

No its not, I'm an ex-muslim and it undermines the real issues of the working class.
Oh you mean charity, it's the Islamic charity people have to give. Its only like 3%.

Or it could just mean a poor person. Pronounced "fuck-eer", really, it is.
could mean 1. fasting 2. charity 3. being poor or poor deliberately.

[Zanthorus]

I think it's pretty clear from the way DeLeon and Debs were using the term 'Fakir' that they weren't referring to any kind of Islamic usage though. It looks like some kind of colloquial working-class term, like 'scab' or 'blackleg'.

[∞]

Then you mean the form of depriving yourself from worldly things and finding refuge in whatever. (though in actual usage, to find refuge with allah).

[Kléber]

I think it's supposed to be a play on "faker," as in , labor fakers. With some kind of orientalist twist... it may also be one of MIA's many inexplicable errors.

[Zanthorus]

I think it's supposed to be a play on "faker," as in , labor fakers. With some kind of orientalist twist... it may also be one of MIA's many inexplicable errors.

Well, the word 'fakir' appears twice in the Debs piece, so if it's a typo, it's a consistent one.

[Obs]

While you were on the wiki, did you take notice of the first picture on the page?

http://www.energyenhancement.org/India-Fakir-Varanasi.jpg

My take on it would be that it has to do with workers who collaborate with bourgeois parties performing some kind of self-torture. Of course, I am an idiot, so I'm probably wrong.

EDIT: That picture was waaay larger than I thought.

[∞]

While you were on the wiki, did you take notice of the first picture on the page?

http://www.energyenhancement.org/India-Fakir-Varanasi.jpg

My take on it would be that it has to do with workers who collaborate with bourgeois parties performing some kind of self-torture. Of course, I am an idiot, so I'm probably wrong.

EDIT: That picture was waaay larger than I thought.

I wasn't on wiki...

[Homo Songun]

Fakirs were thought to be petty con artists who relied on dazzling their marks with mummery and superstition

[mikelepore]

Fakirs were magicians, snake charmers, sword swallowers, etc. in India. Prounounced fah-keerz.