The BA Everywhere Campaign announces:
August 9, 2014
Celebrations of the Determination to Break ALL the Chains
July 14, 2014 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
From: BAsics, from the talks and writings of Bob Avakian:
You cannot break all the chains, except one. You cannot say you want to be free of exploitation and oppression, except you want to keep the oppression of women by men. You can’t say you want to liberate humanity yet keep one half of the people enslaved to the other half. The oppression of women is completely bound up with the division of society into masters and slaves, exploiters and exploited, and the ending of all such conditions is impossible without the complete liberation of women. All this is why women have a tremendous role to play not only in making revolution but in making sure there is all-the-way revolution. The fury of women can and must be fully unleashed as a mighty force for proletarian revolution.
BAsics 3:22
If this moves you, if this provokes you to think about why women are under such vicious assault here and around the world and what it will take for half of humanity to be treated as full people; if this causes you to want to know more about why and how women have a decisive role to play in changing all that is oppressive in the world today; if this leads you to consider women’s decisive role in making revolution and then pushing the revolution forward to completely uproot all forms of oppression—for any and all of these reasons, you are invited to a cultural celebration on August 9, 2014, a day inspired by the quote above: “You cannot break all the chains, except one,” from the revolutionary leader Bob Avakian (BA).
The BA Everywhere campaign is calling for Break ALL the Chains celebrations to mark the publication of Break ALL the Chains! Bob Avakian on the Emancipation of Women and the Communist Revolution.1 These afternoon or evening celebrations of artistic performance, testimony, and deep revolutionary substance and feeling will build community through being part of a dinner, or picnic, or BBQ in different cities. The celebrations will raise funds as they mark a midpoint in the summer 2014 BA Everywhere campaign to raise big money to make it possible for people across the country to come to know of BA and the new synthesis of communism that he has brought forward—which is a deeper, more scientific understanding of the methods, the goals, the strategy and plan for making revolution and creating a new society.
Break ALL the Chains celebrations will give expression to the lived experience of the vicious war that is being waged on women here and around the world. These events will sing with poems, songs, and drama of people struggling to end this degradation and oppression... words and art should fill the air with the joy that comes from imagining a radically different world that is possible through revolution. These events will celebrate the fighters in the Abortion Rights Freedom Ride taking place in Texas—who will be on the front line of the struggle for a woman’s basic right to control her own life and reproduction. The experience of being at the August 9 celebrations should not only introduce lots of people to BA, but give them a living sense of the difference it makes when BA and the vision of this radically new society and the strategy for revolution to get there becomes known, when it is “in the house.” How when that happens, sights are raised with people thinking, talking, and relating to each other in a whole other way—inspired and provoked by a growing sense that another world really is possible.
There is a moment now when eyes are opening to the brutal reality of the war on women. There is a profound basis over the next four weeks to go out to all kinds of people with the message of BAsics 3:22, with the new publication of BA’s Break ALL the Chains, and with the BA Everywhere campaign to involve them in the celebrations and the campaign, and then, bring out 100 to 200 people for each of the August 9 celebrations in the big cities.Throughout the country there is great unease about how fundamental women’s rights won in the ’60s and ’70s for birth control and abortion are now being stripped away, with access to abortion being effectively denied to women in most parts of the country, with the potential of it being made illegal outright.2 Many thousands of women—and some men—spoke out on Twitter this spring in a campaign, #YesAllWomen, in an impassioned, visceral response to the brutal mass murders in Isla Vista, California, by a woman-hating (misogynist) young man, in a stunning expression of the deep well of fury that women have to the mountain of daily unending degradation and abuse. 3 Around the world, from India to Brazil to Congo, there is growing outrage and resistance to the abuse, degradation, and exploitation of women.
BAsics 3:22—“You cannot break all the chains, except one...”—opens up a whole other way of looking at the liberation of humanity and the relations between men and women. It is a sharp ideological challenge which will generate the kind of controversy that’s needed if people are to change the world and themselves—on a mass scale. Every line of BAsics 3:224 is worth thinking and talking about.
Just think about what is provoked and what could be opened up by struggle over the second sentence: “You cannot say you want to be free of exploitation and oppression, except you want to keep the oppression of women by men.” When people, especially men, come to understand and act on that, it will be a very big change... it will be a big signal that the movement for revolution is really about a whole other way people could be.
BAsics 3:22 is a concentration of BA’s breakthrough understanding of the role of women’s liberation in making revolution. Gone into in great depth in the new pamphlet, Break ALL the Chains, BA reveals how even in a new revolutionary society there will need to continue to be real struggle to fully liberate women and that this can be a powerful driving force so that revolution continues to go forward and uproot all forms of oppression and exploitation throughout the world. The whole approach of BA to women’s liberation is one very key part of the qualitative advance that is the new synthesis of communism. Many people should find out about this and financially support with generous donations getting BA way out in the world—with the reach and impact to change how people think about what could be possible through revolution to break free of this capitalist system which sets individuals, groups, nations against each other and against the natural environment in its relentless drive to accumulate more and more profit.
Break ALL the Chains celebrations should introduce people to the full scope of the BA Everywhere campaign as well as its different dimensions. Even as the programs and performances will focus on the liberation of women, Bob Avakian, the work he has done, and the BA Everywhere campaign are about breaking ALL the chains.
1. A sampler edition of this work—a 32-page booklet with a four color cover—has just been published, and is being made available free for distribution in prisons, schools and communities of the oppressed courtesy of The Bob Avakian Institute. [back]
2. See “Supreme Court Brings Back the 1950s, Allows Corporations to Deny Birth Control Coverage.” [back]
3. See “Reflections on ‘#YesAllWomen’” and “On the Santa Barbara Mass Killings: How Long Will Women Face Violence, Terror, Rape and Oppression? Until We Make REVOLUTION, NOTHING LESS!” [back]
4. Check the BA Everywhere Materials Page during the week of July 14 for a new version of palm card with BAsics 3:22. [back]
Volunteers Needed... for revcom.us and Revolution
If you like this article, subscribe, donate to and sustain Revolution newspaper.