Greetings from Paris, comrades!

[ThePeoplesProf]

Hey comrades! I've been lurking on RevLeft for a while now and I'm excited to finally join you all. I'm a big fan of this forum and have learned a lot here. I have some questions that I'll post in the Learning section in the near future but I'd like to introduce myself here first. I'm an east coast grad student in the U.S. currently doing some research abroad. To get a little more personal, I'm a multi-racial (though I pass as white), gay/queer, working class immigrant, revolutionary Marxist with a Trotskyist bent (though I'm still figuring out the specifics of my tendency and politics) and I'm in my mid-twenties. I've been an ISO "contact" for about a year now (more on this in my Learning post) and have been involved in some anti-racist and anti-sexist work with them and other comrades in addition to union organizing with fellow exploited grad students. My anti-capitalist radicalization started via anarchism when I was an undergrad and though I'm at a different place politically and intellectually, I did learn some valuable lessons through that experience. Prior to getting seriously involved in activism in the past year, my radicalization has mostly been academic and intellectual although having been raised by a poor, immigrant single mother in the ultra-neoliberal United States has always kept me very much anchored in the working class struggle.

I'm hoping to become a professor ("the people's professor" ;)) but here at Rev Left, I intend to be mostly in student mode and learn from the experience of my fellow comrades on this site. My research interests include the Haitian Revolution, the Algerian War of Independence, French imperialism in general and anti-colonial movements (all subjects that I would be happy to discuss with anyone who's interested). I'm a fan of Francophone literature, particularly written in former French colonies (e.g. the Caribbean, North and Sub-Saharan Africa), by immigrants living in France and Quebec, by marginalized non-bourgeois "urban writers" and, increasingly, by French-speaking First Nation/indigenous authors in Quebec.

I'm fed up with the stifling tenure rat race, publish or perish, aloof academic world that I'm being prepared to enter... Rather than write a pointless dissertation that will just collect dust in an Ivory Tower library and also rather than doing work "on" or "about" any of the courageous people involved in these anti-colonial struggles and their descendants struggling today, I'm yearning to do work "with" and "for" them. I'm hoping to do work in other media (perhaps documentary film) so that it can be accessible to a wider audience. I'd love to ensure that my research can be useful to the working class. I'm hoping to glean as much insight about a handful of distinct though interrelated anti-colonial struggles and about the history and development of capitalism in the context of French imperialism in particular (slavery, colonization, industrialization, etc.). I'm an Ivy League Ph.D. student and yet I'm seriously considering investing my career in teaching at community colleges in the belly of the beast that is the U.S. of A. or, regardless of where I end up fortunate enough to find employment in this increasingly abysmal job market, I want to put into practice a critical/alternative/"pedagogy of the oppressed" type of approach to my work.

Anyway, you might be able to imagine (and some of you might even be able to relate with) how stifling academia can be for a radical Marxist these days. Needless to say, I'm happy to stay engaged with comrades out in the streets and here on Rev Left and to continue reading, sharpening my revolutionary politics and being as involved in local organizing and activism as possible. Feel free to say hello and to drop me a line if we have any similar interests (in addition to our shared material interests, of course ;)). I'd love to chat and meet new comrades on here. Thanks a lot for hearing me out and for being such a great community!

Solidarity,
ThePeoplesProf

[Q]

Welcome :)

If you have political questions, you can ask them in the Learning forum. That's why it's there after all!

If you have questions about your account, don't hesitate to send me a PM or ask here.

I can only hope you continue your academic research. Our class needs much more deep thought, scientifically researched and peer reviewed. Especially the latter is hardly done ever in many left groups, which are often structured vertically, with untouchable 'thinking' leaderships and 'footsoldier' members. On the other hand, it is exactly academic work, like that of Lars Lih (an independent academic) what we need right now.

I hope therefore you do share your insights with us and not just stay in 'student mode' :)

[the debater]

Higher education is definitely due for a revolution sooner or later. Welcome comrade.

[Le Socialiste]

Welcome to the site! ISOer here, so feel free to ask me any questions about the organization. Looking forward to some of your posts in the Learning forum.

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

I am most especially looking forward to your posts, please make yourself welcome and explore the forum and don't hesitate to ask questions and what have yous.

[IBleedRed]

You're most welcome, comrade!

How's the struggle in France? I bet being a radical leftist is easier in France than in Texas :grin:

[ThePeoplesProf]

Wow, thanks for the warm welcome, comrades! I really appreciate it. It's 5am in Paris right now and I've been up all night on RevLeft; looks like I'm off to a good start. :lol:

I'll be back soon to post about the struggle in France and to chat about other interesting and important topics. Once again, I'm really excited to be joining you all!

Solidarity,
ThePeoplesProf

[ThePeoplesProf]

Thanks again for the comradely welcome everyone, and for offering to engage with my questions and ideas!


You're most welcome, comrade!

How's the struggle in France? I bet being a radical leftist is easier in France than in Texas :grin:

Yes, generally speaking, being a radical leftist is far easier in France than what I imagine it's like in Texas, but it's not without its own unique set of challenges. That said, major props to radical activists in Texas who have in recent years made some impressive and urgently-needed gains, most recently around women's reproductive rights.

I can go into more detail via PM if anyone has specific questions about the struggle in France, but in general I can say that much is happening on many fronts. In the five months or so that I've been here, I've been particularly in solidarity with sex workers fighting against a law that would penalize their clients (and, consequently, plunge these already precarious workers, who are often undocumented immigrants, into further instability and vulnerability); I've been pretty involved in anti-Islamophobia organizing: I organized a forum on Islamophobia where we watched a great documentary called Un racisme à peine voilé ("A thinly veiled racism") after which three awesome grassroots activists (two of them veiled Muslim women) shared their experiences and ideas about possible directions organizing might take from here on out, which led to a very constructive and comradely dialogue; I helped to mobilize folks to the 30th anniversary of France's first antiracist march, which explicitly made the connections between racism, xenophobia, fascism, capitalism, sexism, etc. It was great! However, just like 30 years ago, this time it was also co-opted/interfered with by the status quo-maintaining establishment. What follows is a bit more historical context about this movement.

In 1983, a new generation of suburban youth -- primarily the descendants of France's North African immigrant labor force -- living on the outskirts of major cities in abject conditions, facing crushing unemployment, discrimination and police brutality (the "banlieues" or "suburbs" in France being vastly different from the suburbs in the U.S.) took to the streets and marched from all over the country to Paris to challenge French society to empathize with their struggle. They were able to mobilize over 100,000 people and became very visible and vocal, so much so that the President (François Mitterand) begrudgingly met with delegates of the movement to concede a residence and working permit, which was one of his campaign promises to begin with, and which, unsurprisingly, he never followed through on. Given the lack of progress and betterment in their situation, these marginalized youth organized yet another march the following year, however another group emerged called "SOS Racisme" which completely co-opted the movement, widely distributing pins that said "Touche pas à mon pote" ("Hands off my buddy"), which unfortunately, despite the good intentions of many involved, ended up being a paternalistic predominantly white takeover of a genuine grassroots movement that was quickly sidelined and silenced. If anyone wants to read more about this, look up France's March for Equality and Against Racism.

This past December, the weekend before the 30th anniversary march was to take place (and it's important to note that it had been planned significantly in advance), the same group (SOS Racisme) in conjunction with the presently-ruling Parti Socialiste (PS) launched a separate anti-racist march, supposedly in support of the Minister of Justice Christiane Taubira (a woman of color originally from French Guyana) who was ignorantly insulted by far-right wing idiots; unfortunately this separate march was completely devoid of political arguments other than "racism is bad" (with no focus on concrete socio-economic grievances). On the far left, we see it as yet another attempt to wrest the movement out of the hands of the people. It's no surprise that the leaders of SOS Racisme back in the 80s ended up making comfortable careers for themselves in the bourgeois "democratic" electoral system (particularly in the PS). Furthermore, as anyone who's been following French politics lately can see, the PS is far from being authentically "socialist" and is instead just another branch of the EU's austerity-focused neoliberal agenda which has been actively persecuting and deporting immigrants, crushing workers' living standards, pensions and retirement benefits, and slowly but surely privatizing the education system à l'américaine (in the style of the U.S.). It's so shameful that I don't even call myself a "socialiste" here, just to avoid people assuming that I'm a card-carrying PS member (perish the thought!). Many radical comrades here even have anti-socialist (anti-PS, to be clear) chants during protests and I don't blame them!

One more quick, telling anecdote about my experience at the antiracist march last month: I marched with a group called "Mamans Toutes Égales" ("Equality for all Mothers") which fights against discrimination towards veiled Muslim mothers in their children's schools where they are often explicitly excluded from participating in activities with other parents, in the name of protecting France's beloved "laïcité" (secularism) from being corrupted by the threat of these veiled mothers. Ironically enough, the very women who wanted to be present at the march to voice their grievances were stuck at theirs kids' schools as they were needed to help out with Christmas party preparations! I kid you not! So much for French secularism! #doublestandardmuch?

So much more is going on right now, nationally (and throughout Europe really), and I'd be happy to address any specific movements here or via PM at some point. One last promising detail I'll add is that despite the worrying reactionary shift of a lot of youth in Europe, there is also a very noticeable leftward shift among youth; in France alone, thousands of high school students have been protesting the xenophobic deportation of their classmates, tying together many interconnected issues with an exciting openness to revolutionary politics! Anyone who has anything to add to (or qualify about) my post, please feel free to do so. I've been making it a point to strike a balance between my research, my involvement in larger movements (like the ones I mentioned above) and in more local struggles, like defending the rights of exploited housekeeping, cleaning, maintenance and cafeteria staff at the school I'm attending as an exchange student this year. If anyone here happens to be in Paris, drop me a line and perhaps we can meet up and organize together!