This is the transcript of a speech i gave at the CPA 10th Congress last week. I had to write it up after the congress as i had only taken notes to talk about then the editor of the Guardian (CPA paper) asked me if i have it writen to oput in the Gaurdian. It will most likely apear in next weeks Guardian.




Hello comrades, I would like to just talk generally about my reason for being in the CPA and about topics that are good for discussion with the youth.

My reason for becoming interested in Marxism is not some great story of struggle. When I was younger, around 14 to 16 years of age I began to develop a cynical view of the US foreign policy and Australian foreign policy. This lead to more cynicism of the systems both societies propose. I began to view what they said as lies. So I thought that if they lie about many things, I wondered how much they lie about Communism. This led me to research such words on the internet, such things as Communism. I also read many encyclopaedia articles.

I then meet the party last year. I meet at a local coffee shop in Newcastle. This was a relaxed environment, we had a good discussion about general society and politics of the time. I kept in contact for the rest of the year and joined in October. There was no pressure or nagging to join, it was good contact that led me to join the party.

I will talk about a very important topic and a topic that is interesting for the youth of Australia. I want to talk about the cultural side of imperialism. I will give some examples to show that Cultural Imperialism is present in our Society.

Capitalism has being reaching a point where it commercialises culture. This is most shown by Hollywood’s hegemony in the movie industry. This promotes a lot of things which are against many cultures of the world. It promotes unrealistic body images. These body images it promotes are impossible to meet and require people to change bodies, even with surgery. The Hollywood movie industry also promotes false ideas about other races and cultures. It relies on stereotypes to attract its audience.

In Australia things are changing because of US cultural imperialism. Something simple I just wish to show. There is an emerging trend in the youth to no longer use the word “thong” but rather “flip flops”. Now this is something small, but it is just an example of the effect of cultural imperialism in relation to language.

I was able to have a discussion with a Aboriginal lecturer at my university, he lecturers in Aboriginal health. The discussion led to me finding out that he is in a Hip Hop group, he teaches Hip Hop skills to Aboriginal youth. We began discussing US influence in Hip Hop. He was worried that many Australian groups are leaning too much to US styles, this includes language and clothing. Now while Hip Hop originated in the US, the main problem is there is a Australian Hip Hop style which grew from the original Hip Hop roots. These Australian groups which are leaning to US influences, are leaning to the styles that are promoted in the pop culture of Hip Hop, which is a misrepresentation of Hip Hop, though it is something easily marketed.

Other communist have mention cultural imperialism. Fidel Castro in his speeches he mentions this, there is a book of speech collections which is available from the party. In one speech he mentions that now in India there is a McDonalds. He goes on to mention how absurd that this is the case. It does not make sense in a country with highly cultured food and variety of food that a McDonalds which has such bland food would even try to invest there.

One Comrade mentioned early about children showing respect to their parents. While I do agree with this it needs to be clearer. You can promote respect through many religious ways, like Christianity or Islam or through other means. What I think is better is that of Che Guevara’s idea on the new man. As he is talking about a culture, and how cultures can change which forms new relationship norms between all people. This is a good essay to promote.

Another Communist who talked about culture is the Italian Communist Antonoi Gramsci. He talked about the cultural hegemony of the bourgeois. I am looking forward to reading more of his works and applying them to today’s world.

The party has a good contribution to culture. The newspaper the Guardian has a dedicated section about TV which is least influence by cultural imperialism. Rob writes about TV shows on SBS and ABC, and other things about culture.

The youth while being indulged heavily in the culture promoted by the imperialist, are the mot noticeable of this. They are most affected of this side of imperialism, it is hard to talk to youth about the monopoly of capitalism leading to imperialism, and it is hard for them to see the economic reason of the war in Iraq. Though ever day they see the cultural side of imperialism.

This is not an attack on American culture, or an attack on multiculturalism. As I have mentioned that the US promotes false ideas of races and other cultures. Also the US is the only country with power to dominate culture world wide. The US rather pimps cheap culture, shown most in MTV, and reality TV like Big Brother which are manifestations of US cultural imperialism.

The youth are at the centre of this as they are the biggest consumer group. The youth however if you talk to them are quick to recognise the contradictions between all world culture and the US cultural imperialism. With education they will be quick too reject the culture that is portrayed to them. Many youth have joined the Evangelical Christian movement called “Hillsong”. This however is a good sign. As it shows the youth are able to reject the imperialist culture and indulge in something else. It is a pity however rather then use a materialist outlook to recognise the relationship culture has with economics, they just protect themselves with religious shielding.

The goal of the CPA to reach out to youth is to promote discussion of culture in the anti imperialist movement. The youth will be most responsive to this and will wish to learn about how Marxism-Leninism can be used to defend against imperialism and used to study the reason for cultural imperialism. This discussion of culture is a good way to bring some youth to the party; this is my tip for you. Thank you comrades for your time.

Note: This is not the exact speech that I did, as I only had written down notes on a single page. So I composed it from those notes and memory. None of the content has changed.