Strategising change, changing strategies by Alberto - Friday, 17 August 2012, 09:18 AM

Photo: via Ebrahim Rahimi Khamnei

What are your views about Luxemburg's famous statement?

Another good quote by Rosa goes as follows:

“We stand today... before the awful proposition: either the triumph of imperialism and the destruction of all culture, and, as in ancient Rome, depopulation, desolation, degeneration, a vast cemetery; or, the victory of socialism.”

These quotes link to so many other people’s stories, who have stood up against the government and the normalized oppressive social climate.

Rosa had a belief in the masses. A poem turned into a song in her memory after her murder by German troops, goes as follows:

Red Rosa now has vanished too.

She told the poor what life is about,

And so the rich have rubbed her out.

May she rest in peace.

Reading about Rosa and Gandhi reminded me of Thomas Sankara, a former president of Burkina Faso, West Africa, from 1983-1987. He gained power through a coup supported by the people. His goal was to eliminate corruption and the dominance of the French colonists. He launched the most ambitious program for social and economic change ever attempted in Africa, and began by changing the country’s name from the French “Upper Volta” to the local dialect “Burkina Faso,” meaning ‘land of honourable men.’

His policies centered around anti-imperialism, nationalizing all land and mineral wealth, and averting the power and influence of the IMF and the World Bank. His domestic policies were focused on preventing famine with agrarian self-sufficiency and land reform, prioritizing education with a nation-wide literacy campaign, and promoting public health by vaccinating 2.5 million children against meningitis, yellow fever and measles.

I connected Thomas to Gandhi with the fact that Thomas lived in an extremely humble abode, a small traditional African house; he only wore clothing made in his country with local materials, and made it a rule for all government officials to do the same; and all government staff were to fly second class, including himself.

He was murdered in a French-backed coup d’état led by his supposed best friend and second-in-command, Blaise Compaoré, who took over the presidency and has ruled over Burkina Faso for 25 years up until today. Compaoré overturned all Sankara’s left-wing policies and efforts by implementing a ‘rectification’ policy. Burkina Faso is among the very poorest countries in Africa- A terrible shame when it had so much potential with Sankara! A week before he was murdered, he declared:

“While revolutionaries as individuals can be murdered, you cannot kill ideas.”

Great stuff! Politics is supposed to work the way that the masses decides which path we take, and right now, the masses seem to demand mass-consumption. It’s hard to imagine a change in people’s attitude towards amount of consumption, but perhaps we could take a Gandhian approach?

“When you're purchasing something, think to yourself, who benefits from me buying this”. If more people realized that we need to buy stuff that benefits those who has less rather than those who already is rich. After all, people in the Global South have much more benefits from us buying the stuff they produce than sending them well meant money. Nonetheless, this idea doesn’t demand people to buy less, just buy right. And if the ‘masses’ demands from those higher up, change in society would surely occur.

Mao also believed that the masses are the pillar of the revolution. Maoism saw agrarian peasantry as the key revolutionary force which can fundamentally transform capitalist society towards socialism. However, there ideology is mainly based on the people’s war; hence power and force are fundamental to achieve the objective. Further, they acknowledged the mobilization of large parts of rural populations ‘to revolt against established institutions by engaging in guerrilla warfare’. Correct me if I am wrong; but I believe that the masses are there to fight with violence.

Becky, taking your own words I would like us to discuss the methods these revolutionary movements have used to stand up ‘against the government and the normalized oppressive social climate’. What first comes into my mind is by force. I can’t stop thinking about the methods used to achieve the revolution, and the way the masses are being driven to achieve certain political goal. In this instance masses are the key to change; however, are the masses being manipulated by their leaders? I think the answer is, yes.

I wonder... how can we stop this (manipulation) from happening?