Over the last few years, I have published articles about issues of US Imperialism and the social struggle movement. I came upon Ward Churchill's book "Pacifism and Pathology," as almost last minute. I had never read or taking seriously Ward Churchill's view, though I have affiliated myself as a member of the anarcho-syndicalist movement. But after reading his book, I realized my deep personnel connections with Dr. Churchill's frustrations and agony with the American social struggle movement. For some time, I affiliated myself with a social struggle movement in the University I am attending, and after almost a month I left. My reasons for leaving, where the same reasons Dr. Churchill explained in his book as the growing disorganization of these movements, and also the misunderstanding that state and private tyrannies; which have amassed great ideological confusion towards vast social and economic control, cannot be countered with the basic techniques used by the social struggle movement in the past. Indeed, Dr. Churchill warns the reader that there has been a tremendous misunderstanding with how non-violent resistance was actually used in the past. That it was a actually a mixture of both the practice of violence and non-violence, for which, if the use of non-violence was so much more tantamount, then the rewards of almost a decade and a half of resistance could not have been achieved.
Though I can connect with the social struggle movement on this university campus, it is deeply polarizing. Such polarization; I felt, was the reasons why on a number occasions they were unsuccessful in reaching out to others, and at the same time, form a coherent bases of action and influence on this campus i.e., they're not taking very seriously.
The tactics used by leaders of the social struggle movement in the United States, and even around the world, vary. I agree with Churchill on the realization that non-violent resistance can only work on a marginal basis. Indeed other countries, which implement vast terror and intimidation towards their own population, cannot rely on peaceful means to take down and tear the authoritarian political and economic system, without resorting to actual self-defense through violent means.
As the world witnesses the tearing apart of the Palestinians states, and perhaps even the fall of Palestine itself in the coming months, it is important to realize that the Palestinians; who have long tolerated state and military terror by Israel and the IDF, cannot be heard by the world through the same methodology used by American peace activists. It just does not work, and to do so, would mean the quick destruction of the Palestinian state.
But what I have to say, in a slight disagreement with Dr. Churchill, is that though the methodology of resistance to state and private terror has to change. The US cannot be won by the means of violence. Our cultural and political system is far more advance and ready for change, without the use of arm resistance and violence. Though in the media it may depict the sense of polarization and a deep divide, consensus by national polls indicate quite strikingly that the vast majority of the population is far to the left than the political and intellectual establishment wants to believe.
The means for political and social change in the US--for which, I agree with Churchill, cannot be won by the same tactics that inhibit a pathological tolerance towards the abuses that private and state systems implement on other populations and even their own. Even the possibility that these groups may be motivated for other reasons besides social change; political power, vanguard social party, all these are plausible reasons as to why Americans are stigmatized by the social struggle movement (as is the rise of the Bolshevik Party in the Russian Revolution and the Chinese Communist Party in China).
The goal of the intellectual is the most profound insight that Churchill explains. It has been a realization among many left-wing intellectuals, that the intellectual must be motivated as the tool maker and as the teacher, for which, he could impart the capacity for others to defend themselves and to act accordingly in such self-defense. His leadership is marginal at best, but his capacity to impart to others the lessons of the past and the understanding of the rich knowledge of the praxis of social change; starting with Hegel, then Marx, and many others, can be seen as the best weapon to revitalize the movement in the US. Also to realize the essential need to understand that other nations; other struggling groups, must partake their own way of defending themselves, and thus earn their capacity for a revolutionary change towards freedom and liberty.
Thank you!
