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decolonize-the-left · 4 months

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What is there left to learn?

All you need to know of any good branch of leftism is that self determination and freedom is above everything.

We stand against so much because so much has been created to get in the way of that.

Money often gets in the way by imposing literal pay walls to basic needs so we oppose it. Racism gets in the way when racist gatekeepers prevent POC from receiving equal care, equal service, and equal access to resources so we oppose it. The same goes for all the other -isms and bigotries such as misogyny and homophobia.

Human beings come in all shapes, sizes, colors, sexualities, and genders. We are beautifully diverse this way, it's literally human nature.

And so we must learn to live and accept people different from ourselves.

Nobody has more rights or humanity than anyone else. Nobody has the right to enforce their own determinations and truths on anyone else. There is no singular way of being that is Right or makes you more deserving than the rest, that gives you the right to control others because it's just such a Good way of living. There never will be.

There is no natural way to determine what a good, deserving human looks like. And that's why leftism supports and hears all oppressed people.

Every single excuse and method that attempts to control/feel superior are all social constructs. Ex:

You're rich, fiscally responsible and think you're better than others? Money isn't natural, it's barely even real. It's something that some human made up one day to feel better than the others. It may as well be called pixie dust. And without it you're just like the rest of us.

Being White didn't mean anything before some human decided they could gain self esteem by reducing the perceived worthiness of Black and Brown ppl. Without made-up ideas of race you're just like the rest of us, made of the same hunger and thirst and love as we are.

Cis and Trans or Gay and straight are just different ways for humans to be born and exist. Some people like their bodies, some don't. Some people kiss the same sex, some dont. You aren't superior for being cis or only kissing one sex. You won't get a trophy for denying the kind of human you are or for making others feel bad about the kind of human they are either.

There is no natural test for superiority in humans because human superiority is unnatural. For any of us.

The only measure of being Better than others was how much better you were at being a community member; how much you contributed to the betterment of your peers. You didn't brag about being white, you bragged about how you killed so many deer that your people certainly will Not be starving.

We were born to share this planet and our only ACTUAL job is to take care of each other and the planet in whatever way we can. It's the only thing we've ever owed each other.

Racism, ableism, colonization, capitalism, white supremacy, genocide, Nazis, Zionists, etc.

These are not concepts that deserve to be kept alive. Anything that makes you hate someone else or makes you feel more Worthy than someone else has no place in the future.

I say all this because I feel like I'm beating a dead horse on this blog so often. I really do try to stay educational and focus on solidarity. But there's only so much that words can do without action.

And words without action are as good as dust in the wind.

I love this blog, but I'm long over this. We need to act. There is a genocide happening and I'm starting to believe that everyone who wants to stop it Already knows about it. They do not need awareness. They don't need voices. They need direction. They need community. They need support and bodies to help intimidate police.

They need us.

And instead I blog on Tumblr trying to rally people that hardly reblog a call to action.

This blog is starting to feel like a symptom of the system. A time-consuming distraction for me. And a way for you to placate yourselves while the world gets worse.

Just following leftists doesn't make you a good person. Having the Right opinions doesn't make you a good person. Even believing in equality doesn't make you a good person if you don't do something about it.

I'm tired of begging for people to organize and protest and show up for each other.

I'm convinced that if you ever had the intention of doing so then you already are. And if you're not then that's a choice you've made.

You either support genocide or you fight it, you know?

I don't know what else there is to learn or say. What are you waiting for? An invitation?

Please go fucking organize and join a protest.

In other news....I am getting closer to deleting this blog every day.

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rupsunar · 4 years

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Divided Region United by Caste Oppression

The South Asian region is looked at by the world with three intersecting interests. First, the region’s moderate development in infrastructure and welfarism. Second, the multitudes of diversity the region holds. And thirdly, the geopolitical tensions dominated mostly by India-Pakistan war. The troika of South Asia sits between development-culture-politics. However, other regional differences such as India-Nepal trade strife, India-Sri Lanka regional difficulties, Pakistan-Afghanistan do not account to sustaining disagreements. India, Pakistan and Bangladesh occupy overwhelming importance in the regional politics.

South Asian region is home to one fourth humanity of the world. Aside from human capital, there are flora, fauna and natural gifts that this region has as its treasure carefully handed down from over thousand years. Of the 8 countries that are part of South Asia there at least six known countries who retain experiences of age-old discriminations emanating from their native historical context. One of it is oldest surviving discriminatory tactic is caste. Human Rights Watch has identified caste like “corollaries” across South Asia in India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh.

Caste inspired discrimination is not unique to India, although it offers most fertile space for caste like virus to take birth, thrive and contaminate every person in sight. The history of the region as such has a complex historical political-economy. That is why it is always insightful for one to detangle those past baggages by looking at the political space through the lens of subaltern, the working class, women, and the oppressed.

Each state policy heavily relies on the extraction of labor and abstraction of its value. In a society that hangs on to historical values as sacrosanct, distribution of labor’s value does not feature in its scope. How to credit someone for their labour who are meant to performing the duty as part of ordained duty? Asking for a favor in terms of service from lower considered body is a sin and therefore that body needs to be condemned. Such has been the practice for the most part in the region when it came to invasions and colonization.

Every religions and sects have developed anti-Dalit, casteist tendencies towards the lower considered others even if their scriptures do not have caste-based distinction. Six major religions have assimilated Vedic practices of discriminating people who are lowered as outcaste for their advantage. Although their scriptural doctrine discourages any form of discrimination Jain, Sikh, Muslim, Zoroastrians, and Christians have largely benefitted by assimilating with the caste system.

The hatred and fear of the lower considered caste assigns designated lowest job positions that has no respect and standard wage. The job of cleaning the filth, human waste and animal carcasses are single-handedly done by Dalits in India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Nepal. Due to the draconian rule of Taliban in Afghanistan there are no studies that could explicate the exploitation of caste bodies in the hyper-Islamist violence.

It is because of this the South Asian region is plagued with enumerable hurdles that have limited its overall development. On economic front the GDP per capita approximation is USD $ 7,600 while the US alone has GDP per capita at $60,000. In the global ranking on inequality, poverty and corruption, South Asian region stands as a leader in negative performance indexes.

The primary and secondary educational enrollment is sobering. However, when it comes to the breakup of caste, religion and gender one would see the apparent losses. For India, the Dalit student enrollment slides down from 81% in primary education to less than 11% in graduate education. The pass out rate for Dalit graduates is only 2.24%. In Nepal the primary education enrollment of Dalits and indigenous groups was 34% compared to their population of 57%. While in higher education it was merely 3.8% with a high dropout rate. College level graduation for Dalit in Nepal is depressingly 0.4% Completion of studies is equally low where gender plays an important part of disadvantaging Dalit females further. Along with this the Hill and Terai region's differences recreates more gulf.

Due to border related conflicts, the South Asian region has seen brutal wars since the departure of colonial powers. Luxurious spending on military aggressions makes it difficult to redirect some of those bucks for the social welfare and development of human capital as opposed to exploiting it in senseless battles. War and cross-border conflicts have been cornerstones of some of the hegemonic states in the region. What rationalizes one to impose such draconian policies? I think it is the inherent, imperialistic wishes aided with mistrust of Others.

Buddhist South Asia

There is possibly only one commonality that connects this vast region. It is the rich heritage of indigenously grown Buddhist culture. The Buddhist values have vast expanse over any other colonized religious, spiritual doctrines. And perhaps this is an ideal path to reimagine our current problematics. Buddha’s doctrine not only spread in this region, but it also prospered to give this region an iconic reputation.

In the spread of Buddha’s doctrinaire, through Ashokā one cannot see the colonized brutal invasions unlike other spiritual experiences. And it was Buddha who formally challenged caste on a macro level. It is to his credit that many anti-caste, and acaste initiatives were propagated in an otherwise oppressive Vedic caste society.

Through Buddha we can complicate the history and as well as geography of South Asia. It offers us an opportunity to reclaim a regional past that will usher a sense of belonging through expressions of solidarity and unity. As it stands, South Asia is a deeply divided entity. Apart from government sponsored scholarships and few SAARC-like annual initiatives there are not much people to people interactions. Much of it is mediated with stereotypes of each others propagated by the cultural industry and hostile governments.

Regional blocks like Latin America, Africa, Europe have a sense of belonging to the region. While in the South Asian context, one would not even acknowledge their nationality with the region. A balkanized, sovereign supreme identity of one’s nationalism—of whatever worth is strongly rooted in the individuated South Asian identity. At a recently held 2020 SAARC summit held over video conference, Pakistan's representative, health minister Zafar Mirza lamented, "SAARC region remains the least integrated region in the world". Mirza hoped SAARC can be used for "pooling of resources, expertise, and even financing".

South Asia still remains in a shadow of colonial powers and that is why perhaps the foreign sponsored NGO industry and other capital investment has an unequal balance of power. Development related issues like poverty, atrocity, caste discrimination, religious fundamentalism among others inform the region’s politics. To overcome this dependability and to preserve self as a united, strong block with a vast human reserve and natural abilities the region has every reason to aim for a solid economy rooted on people’s welfare.

This doesn’t happen because caste and its attitudes will continue to control our logics of operation. Caste creates mistrust and lack of faith. Due to this, there is no free sharing of knowledge and mobility of human capital. Caste produced insecure groupings amongst its own citizens in a national framework. Each South Asian country takes itself back every time it employs the creative labor and hardworking individuals to the designated caste jobs. A Brahmin becoming priest, a Baniya holding business and a Dalit or Adivasi doing the inhumane jobs of polluting nature becomes an unnatural organization of productive economy.

This then legitimizes the authority and power brokers to certify their discrimination upon the huge mass of people who could have been trained, equipped and prepared for more innovative tasks. Caste system not only deprives one from exercising their fullest potential, but it creates more barriers for a society to grow as a collective. This then puts the pressure on select few who have taken the responsibility to run the economic affairs. By not including a huge mass of people in formal employment the economic and social elites continue to bear the burden of huge taxes. Caste system disadvantages their own purse, yet the powerholders of caste regime involve in the sadist action of imposing caste punishments upon its own citizens at the cost of their own social, economic worth.

One day this has to end, and it will end. And when the time of reconstructing the society will arise the people who are enjoying their unearned, aristocratic privilege will have to go back and check their vile acts that have imposed such harsher measures on fellow humans. It is upon everyone to eradicate caste; however, the onus is more on the privileged ones as they are most invested in it.

This article is written by Dr. Suraj Yengde, who is an author of bestseller ‘Caste Matters’ and a fellow and postdoc at the Harvard’s Kennedy School.

Naya Patrika Daily published its Nepali translation: https://jhannaya.nayapatrikadaily.com/news-details/911/2020-03-21

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famous-aces · 5 years

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Simone Weil

Who: Simone Adolphine Weil

What: Philosopher, Mystic, and Political Activist

Where: French-Jewish (active largely in France, Spain, and UK)

When: February 3, 1909 - August 24, 1943

(Image Description: a black and white photo of Weil in the 1940s on the street in Marseilles. She is a pale woman with an oval face and big round glasses. Her hair is short and dark and fluffy. She is wearing a beret and a cap. She is in her early thirties but I would have thought she was older. Behind her are buses, sidewalk [with trees] and curb. There are some other people on the street behind her. End ID)

There isn't much about Simone Weil that isn't odd and often contradictory. A pacifist who went to war, a Christian mystic who refused baptism, a writer whose most important works were not published until after her death, a religious humanist, intelligent but perpetually naïve, an ethnically Jewish woman utterly disconnected from her heritage, despite embracing the questioning and intellectualism that characterize much of the Jewish faith.

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy calls her "a philosopher of margins and paradoxes" and André Gide called her “the patron saint of all outsiders.". Today she an important left-leaning philosopher, but her real influence did not come until after her death. But between 1995 and 2012, more than half a century after her death, over 2,500 newly scholarly articles about her were published. She inspired the likes of Albert Camus, Jean-Luc Godard, Pankaj Mishra, Flannery O'Connor, and Pope Paul VI. Camus said she was "the only great spirit of our times." But her legacy is extremely mixed (with good reason) and some claim she was insane or unbalanced. Even people who greatly admired her say she was a bit odd. Susan Sontag calls her "one of the most uncompromising and troubling witnesses to the modern travail of the spirit." Which may be an accurate description. She was strange, often contrary, sadly comedic, and, indeed, sometimes deeply troubling. Which is odd, considering that her heart was almost certainly in the right place; regardless of her naïveté and occasional hypocrisy her goal was truth and justice. And as mixed as her legacy was there is a lot to admire in Weil's steadfastness and dedication to others. Indeed her uniqueness of character almost makes her worthy of study even without her influence.

Weil's heart was in the right place (she had a darker side that I will get to). She was extremely dedicated to the workers, the poor, and the otherwise less fortunate, and was critical of both capitalism and communism. Eventually this dedication extended to God, not necessarily religion, but an Abrahamic God.

She wrote extensively on a number of subjects including labor, management, politics, war, peace, religion and spirituality, among other subjects throughout her life. She was an activist who threw herself into the fray, mind, soul, and body. This last despite being in quite poor physical health for all her life, including suffering from tuberculosis. Her intellectualism and dedication to others began in early childhood. She was always reading and forming opinions. At age five Weil refused to eat sugar to be in solidarity with French soldiers in World War I (then raging). Her activism often got her in trouble at school, something that didn't change when she went from student to teacher. She was always something of an outsider among her peers.

She was extremely political, altruistic, self-sacrificing, and warm hearted throughout her life. As an adult she worked largely as a writer and teacher, inturupted to spend time incognito working in an automobile factory to get first hand experience/accounts of the plight of workers and the psychological damages caused by industrialization. She was involved in the 1933 general strike in France. Ultimately she was booted from several teaching gigs because of her politics, activism, and contributions to leftist journals.

She briefly fought against the Fascists in Spain (1936) but was very clumsy and a poor shot due to her terrible eyesight. No one really knew what to do with her, but she was dedicated. Weil ultimately ended up injuring herself with hot oil and her parents came and took her away.

Around this time she became very interested in Catholicism. She was never baptized, however, because her religious interests were far broader than one faith, extending to numerous religious traditions of the East and West, and she disagreed with some of the more brutal moments in the Bible. She had sort of her own conception of God and faith, she called it fundamentally Christian, but it was really her own philosophy with a grounding in the Abrahamic concept of an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, and above all omnibenevolent God.

It is important to note that despite being ethnically Jewish Weil was in no way religiously Jewish and has been criticized as downright antisemetic. Having barely read anything of hers beyond a little for this project I cannot say without a doubt if she was, but what I have heard described certainly worrisome. This is obviously not exhaustive and she may have said far worse but she was critical of the Torah (without realizing a lot of the things she loved about Christianity actually came from it), critical of the cruelty of the "Old Testament"/Talmudic God (as if Christianity didn't embrace those actions perhaps more than the Jewish faith), claimed that Hitler was no worse than any other colonizer, while comparing Judaism/Jewish people to the Roman Empire/Romans (she hated the Roman Empire). So be aware of that, especially given the era -- both the one Weil was writing in and our own. Her family was secular, she never interacted with Judaism on any real level, so it is possible -- given the political climate at the time and France's history of antisemitism -- Weil was misled, but given the fact that her political views changed throughout her life (starting as a communist and ultimately abandoning it) and the fact that she was so open hearted elsewhere is saddening and negates the ignorance argument. It does seem she failed to understand the weight and reality of what she was saying/critiquing. She was vehemently against racism in other forms, but never seemed to make the connection. According to some sources she was always shocked to be called out on hypocrisy (which she was, more than once). So maybe there is something to be said for her just not getting it. This is not an excuse for hatred, but ignorance might be a huge part of the problem.

After France fell to the Nazis in 1940, Weil and her parents fled and began a life in exile, first in the US, then in England. In England Weil wrote her best known work, L'Enracinement, prélude à une déclaration des devoirs envers l'être humain (The Need for Roots: Prelude Towards a Declaration of Duties Towards Mankind) (written 1943, but it wasn't published until 1949). During this time she worked for the French Resistance, although exactly in what capacity seems to be unknown. But her punishing work against the Nazis and penchant for self-denial ultimately ended up costing her her life at age 34 of either heart failure from malnutrition or tuberculosis.

(Image Description: the cover of one of Weil's many notebooks. On it she has written "3 (1941)" in the top left corner. She has covered the rest of it in writing in a bunch of different languages including Greek and Sanskrit [maybe?]. All of it is written in squares/rectangles with one rectangle in the middle with shapes/writing in it. End ID)

Like The Need for Roots most of her work was printed posthumously. Her ouevre has been translated into other languages, including English, Arabic, and German as she reached international acclaim. During her life only a few of her works were published of the 20-some volumes that survive today. Her most important works include (French / English) L'Iliade ou le poème de la force / The Iliad, or the Poem of Force (1940), La Pesanteur et la grâce / Gravity and Grace (1947), Attente de Dieu / Waiting for God (1950), Lettre à un religieux / Letter to a Priest (1951), Oppression et Liberté / Oppression and Liberty (1955) among others, including a lot of eccentric, esoteric, and diverse notebooks kept throughout her life, like the one above.

Probable Orientation: Aroace

As is probably obvious I do not quite know what to make of Weil, but one thing I can tell you is she was definitely asexual.

Weil's sexlessness (and by extension asexuality) has long been part of the narrative oddness of her life. The fact that she shunned physical and romantic relationships is often thought of as part of the pathetic humor as her personality. Clumsy, naïve, downright weird, sexless has become part of that persona, that cloak of oddity.

People love to claim political reasons for others chastity and Weil is no exception. There has to be some reason beyond natural disinterest. The alternative is too foreign or strange for allos to fathom. All of these suppositions are equally aphobic. The idea that asexuality must be a conscious choice rather than a natural part of a person is extremely damaging as is the idea that not feeling sexual/romantic attraction/desiring sex/romance is unnatural. There have been people who try to explain away Weil's lack of sexual desire as well: some Christian writers say she was devoting herself to God years before she found the church (Weil herself says the idea of pursuing what she calls "purity" struck her at 16, she would not find Catholicism for more than a decade), to certain subgroups of feminists her sexlessness a conscious choice to escape the patriarchy. But really it seems much more to be her sexual orientation than a political statement. Weil was a woman who made a lot of political statements, constantly, but the avoidance of sexual contact seemed natural rather than put on.

For one thing she spurned physical contact, but only that with sexual intent. She didn't spurn friendly contact and she would kiss her friends in a platonic way more common in her era. Weil wasn't prudish nor offended by the idea of sex. When she was asked if she was seeing anyone she laughed, but was unbothered, it was more like she thought the idea of her dating was ridiculous rather than looking down on the idea. She had many friends both male and female.

In her teen years Weil started dressing oddly so that no one would find her physically attractive. She had a reputation from youth as being a weirdo in part due to her asexuality, but an attractive one. Although it seems that people, especially boys, had a mixed response to her attempts to mask her beauty. Some of them said it was a shame, others said she was never attractive in the first place.

Many of her critics in the modern day claim her odd traits and behaviors can be explained away by extreme sexual repression, once again giving into that belief that sex makes us normal and whole.

Also like many aroaces it seems that Weil put her love and attention into someone or something other than a significant other/partner. For many of them it is a specific friend or family member, for others it is a passion or cause. These are the historical figures dubbed to be "married to their work". This includes the likes of Erdős, Rankin, Franklin, Santos-Dumont, Nightingale, Wang, Woodson, and Tesla. This is not to say they were friendless, indeed some of them have extremely close relationships but overall these are people who dedicate themselves utterly and completely to their passion and their work. People with more than drive. People who are happiest not in a romantic/sexual relationship, but when doing what they love. I think Weil is part of that category. Her love was not for one person but for nearly the whole of the world.

(Image Description: a photo of Weil as a young woman/teenager. She is a pretty and pale woman with fluffy dark hair, dark eyes, and full lips. She is not yet wearing her glasses. She is shown from the neck up. End ID)

Quotes:

"The idea of purity, with all that this word can imply for a Christian [so, virginity], took possession of me at the age of sixteen, after a period of several months during which I had been going through the emotional unrest natural in adolescence. This idea came upon me while I was contemplating a mountain landscape and little by little it was imposed upon me in an irresistible manner."

-Simone Weil, letter sent to a priest friend on May 15, 1942. (Years after the fact Weil attributed her lack of interest in sex to an inclination to Christianity, but it sounds as if she herself is trying to explain away her lack of sexual attraction or interest. This is something a lot of baby aspecs still do, try to explain away why they aren't interested in sex or romance. I know I did.)

"The Red Virgin"

-The taunting nickname given to Weil by her classmates due to her chasteness and lack of romantic interest. She was also referred to as "the Martian" for being "inhuman" and was widely mocked for being aspec.

"As for her death, whatever explanation one may give of it will amount in the end to saying that she died of love.”

-Sir Richard Reeds (due to the fact that, despite being chronically ill with a fatal disease she continued to work for the French Resistance while also not eating anything above the French ration to show her solidarity.)

(Image Description: a colorized photo of Weil from 1936 when she was fighting in Spain. She is wearing a dark military uniform with a dark bandana around her neck. Her dark hair is even darker than usual. She has a rifle on her back. There are some men behind her on a fairly quiet street. End ID)

#queer #lgbtq #asexual #ace #history #aromantic #aro #20th century #authors #europe #activists #academics #jewish #France #French #philosophers #Simone Weil #bio

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