Message+from+Nyiko+Floyd+Shivambu

Message from Nyiko Floyd Shivambu, 16-Feb-2007 14:46
=(We want nobody who is not frightened)=


 * (In full)**

Perhaps a further clarification of young people's views on war will do justice to what was discussion on Wednesday. I think we all emphasised that war is indeed horrible and at times barbaric. Yet opposition to war should not be on a pacifist form, and should not be de-contextualised. A paragraph from Lenin's //Socialism and War// summarises what the young people were saying in the discussion form:

"We Marxists differ from both the pacifists and the Anarchists in that we deem it necessary historically (from the standpoint of Marx's dialectical materialism) to study each war separately. In history there have been numerous wars which, in spite of all the horrors, atrocities, distress and suffering that inevitably accompany alt wars, were progressive, i.e., benefited the development of mankind by helping to destroy the exceptionally harmful and reactionary institutions (for example, autocracy or serfdom), the most barbarous despotisms in Europe (Turkish and Russian). Therefore, it is necessary to examine the historically specific features of precisely the present war."

Perhaps we should again debate and discuss the whole text as it correctly places most of the issues we raised into context. This includes our emphasis that in a struggle, war could only be a last recourse, particularly when other forms of engagement are undermined, repressed and ineffective.


 * Floyd**