Charity and Aid Can't Solve Humanity's Problems – We Need Real Revolution and BA Everywhere!
December 10, 2013 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
Letter from a reader,
Recently, a powerful film was screened in one of the wealthiest communities near where I live. The film not only exposed many of the horrific conditions faced by the masses of poor in a particular Third World country, but also revealed how many of the most heralded efforts which claimed to be about alleviating this poverty actually made things worse. The film was followed by a panel discussion with people who have been very outspoken in their insistence that people who are seeking to do good in the world look honestly at what effect their efforts are really having and that people consider the need for new approaches.
Several of us who have been working on the campaign to raise significant funds for the BA Everywhere – Imagine the Difference It Can Make! campaign recognized that this would be a very important place to be. As positive as it is that such a film was made, and as important as it is that an impressive group of concerned people were coming together to examine its implications, without the new understanding that BA (Bob Avakian, the Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA) has brought forward about the need and possibility for a re-envisioned, viable and tremendously desirable and liberating communist revolution, people would be left without a way out of the very horrors they were shining a light on. The truth is that even the best of people's efforts to alleviate these problems short of revolution will end up not only failing to keep pace with the rate at which these horrors are generated by the system of capitalism-imperialism, ultimately this failure will serve to reinforce the notion that the problems are just too intractable to be solved. We felt a real responsibility and saw an opportunity to bring what BA is about into this event, and to seek out people who could be won to sit down and consider making a serious contribution to the BA Everywhere campaign.
Before going, we wrestled with the orientation laid out in the November 27th revcom.us editorial “BA Everywhere—Imagine the Difference it Could Make! Why and how it is key to changing the world—to making revolution.” Through this, we recognized a certain wrong tendency in our work up until then to proceed too much from the “difference it can make in the atmosphere of society” in a way that was rather detached from what BA is actually about, rather than proceeding from the reality that the world is truly a horror for humanity and does not have to be this way and BA and his new synthesis offer the way out and unfolding the difference having BA known throughout society would make on that foundation. As the editorial speaks to, the problem in the world is capitalism-imperialism and the solution is BA's new synthesis of revolution and communism. This has to be fought out among ever-growing sections of people and, in the course of fighting that out and on that foundation, many people need to be won – and can be won – to see the tremendous importance of contributing financially and in other ways to getting BA Everywhere. They don't have to be won over to everything BA has brought forth to contribute significantly, but they have to be wrangling with what BA is actually about and what difference it would make for BA and the substance and method of his work to be very broadly known and debated. Really being steeped in the approach of the editorial overall was the key in enabling us to argue compellingly (with substance, clarity and passion) for BA and for BA Everywhere in the event as a whole and with key individuals afterwards.
As stated above, the film brought alive not only the unbearable poverty in a particular Third World country, it also revealed how many of the “solutions” people have looked to only make things worse. The film didn't root this poverty, or the harm done by the “solutions” attempted, in the nature of the system of capitalism-imperialism. In fact, on its own terms the film would lead people to a very different sense of the source of the problem. But, the reality that was revealed was powerful and undeniable and the whole thing was extremely favorable for us to speak about the real source and the real solution to the horrors being portrayed.
Its worth mentioning that we had to consult each other in the midst of the film precisely over how to understand some of the strengths and weaknesses of the film and how to enter into the dialogue that would follow. As the limitations of the film were becoming more clear, one of us began trying to figure out how to expose why its diagnosis was wrong. Someone else argued, though, that we shouldn't let the film's secondary weaknesses set the terms of our thinking or comments. They argued that the film was mainly revealing something very damning of the system and that we should build on that while overall proceeding from the fact that the world does not have to be this way and because of BA and his new synthesis of communist revolution there is a way out. They weren't arguing that we avoid struggling over wrong ideas, but that we must proceed from the vantage point that we ARE building a movement for revolution and call forth what was positive and struggle over what was negative in relationship to that.
This was important and clarified and simplified our approach. Rather than getting sunk into trying to unravel every point in the film, or in feeling overwhelmed because we were not all experts in the particular focus of the film, all of us felt absolutely qualified and confident to speak to the biggest thing posed by the reality concentrated in the film and the larger reality all of that is part of: the fact that there is an aching need around the globe for the way out that has been forged by BA and that people everywhere need to know about this.
By the time the panel opened up for questions and one of us was called on, several people had made criticisms of capitalism but had explicitly stopped short of calling for an end to capitalism. Our friend began her comments by saying straight up, “Hi, my name is so-in-so, and I AM calling for an end to capitalism!” She indicated that she wanted to ask a question about aid and charity but first wanted to build upon what was revealed in the film and some of the things being discussed. She pointed to capitalism-imperialism as the source of these problems and said that there is no way to solve these problems without real revolution. She argued that the tremendous and unnecessary suffering they had just witnessed underscores why it is so important for everyone in this room to know about Bob Avakian, the revolutionary leader who has developed a new synthesis of revolution and communism and a real way out of all this madness and horror. She said, “Come talk to me when this is over or go to revcom.us to learn more about him and this movement for revolution.” She insisted, “What we just watched is just a microcosm of what is going on in all kinds of other countries all over the world,” and one panelist nodded in recognition of this truth. Our friend circled back and argued that the problem of aid and charity not serving to lift people out of poverty is not due to poor administration, but that it is yet another element of the imperialist domination of oppressed countries. One big role imperialist NGOs and charities play is to stabilize and pacify people who otherwise might rise up in rebellion or even revolution. She asked the panelists what they thought of this.
Several panelists really appreciated the question and one responded that they often feel a tension between wanting to see the “bleeding staunched,” but also knowing that such bare-minimal assistance seems to retard the development of the kind of social eruptions that might lead to more lasting or fundamental change. They made clear they hoped that such social eruptions would be non-violent and they had a different sense of what they wanted a revolution to look like, but they were open-ended and clear that all this is something they are genuinely torn up about.
Several people raised questions about which charities might be reliably trusted and what might bring lasting change. The question of whether capitalism was the problem was hanging in the air along with the idea of BA and real revolution, but people were still mainly trying to approach the problem from the realm of trying to figure out how to make charity and other aid work. Still, the question of the role of capitalism and whether it was part of the real problem kept surfacing. Eventually a woman said, “Look, if you want sustainable solutions you need to create jobs and we may not like the big corporations but you have to look at what works.” She accused people of basically being blinded by their privilege of living in a First World country and said this is why we were all missing how even sweatshop jobs can be a life-saving improvement. She quoted Nicholas Kristof, a prominent op-ed columnist for the New York Times, who has said that, “The only thing worse than working in a sweatshop is not working in a sweatshop.”
This was so outrageous that one of our group blurted out that that whole notion was “obscene.” He raised his hand and was visibly itching to get into the conversation. First, though, the mic was brought to a woman from the country the film had focused on. She spoke movingly and bitterly about how the U.S. had destroyed the subsistence economy of her people through their “aid.” For generations her family had lived off the land, but now she has to send money back so her family doesn't go hungry. All this sharpened up the stakes and deepened people's sense of the problem with Kristof's approach.
Our friend kept his hand vigorously in the air and, because of this and because the question had become more urgent off the last woman's life-story, he was called on. He spoke unsparingly about how it is true that under the system of global imperialism the only choice for billions of women and young girls is to work in a sweatshop or to work in a brothel. But, he insisted, it is obscene to look at that and then conclude that we should therefore uphold sweatshops. “No! The whole point is, this whole system is bankrupt and we need a revolution and a socialist system.” He spoke about how in oppressed countries this is a revolution with two major dimensions: that of driving out imperialism and that of carrying out a social revolution setting up a socialist society and how BA's new synthesis is the framework for all of this in the world today. The choice really must NOT be between sweatshops and brothels, but between all this madness and the world that is possible through real communist revolution.
In the middle of his comments, the woman who likes Kristof started yelling about how she's been to many Third World countries and seen first hand what people need. She was vehement that she was acting out of concern to promote Kristof and sweatshops and was indignant at being challenged. Yet, our friend did not back up – he actually bounced off what she was saying to deepen his indictment of capital-imperialism, and of the U.S. in particular. He laid bare the real nature of the U.S. as an imperialist power. He spoke with great passion and substance, but also in very basic and clear terms.
It was obvious that our two interventions in this discussion were outside the normal decorum of the Q&As that follow there (and most places). While people often differ with each other, they don't usually openly polemicize and they don't do it with the full weight of humanity's future invested in the arguments. Also, they don't typically challenge the panel and the audience with the fact that there is a solution, especially one brought forward by an individual revolutionary communist leader like BA, and that everyone has a responsibility to engage it. It was clear that some people were growing uncomfortable with this.
But we didn't go to the event to appeal to where people were at, we went to tell the truth about the problem and solution confronting humanity and to move people to get further into and to contribute to BA Everywhere. We were not tone-deaf to the particularity of the event and the questions it was posing, but we pulled back the lens on those particularities so that people were able to see things more fully. And, as we did, the truth we brought out connected deeply with people's concerns for humanity and it began to answer the things posed powerfully by the film that no one could deny. Just as it was clear that some in the audience were uncomfortable with the way we had sharpened things up, it was also clear that most people couldn't dismiss what we had said. And more than a few were positively intrigued and even quite attracted. There were several who nodded in agreement as we spoke both times and the challenge we had put before people influenced the terms for the rest of the discussion. More people spoke about the negative role of the U.S. in the country which had been portrayed, someone brought in the history of genocide this country carried out against the Native Americans, and someone who wasn't sure about revolution felt they had to begin their statement by saying, “Now, I am not a fan of capitalism, but...” Folks in the room would point or nod at us when something being said by someone else reinforced the basic arguments we had made.
When the event was over, we divided up our efforts. One person went out broadly to everyone with palm-cards and the special issue of Revolution featuring the interview with Raymond Lotta about the history and future of communism. A couple of us focused on setting up meetings about BA Everywhere with people we had identified as important. As we approached one of the panelists, someone was saying to them how important it is that they have been challenging people to look soberly at the real harm done by many forms of aid. Interestingly, they responded back, “Yes, and now I am being challenged to go even further.” One of the panelists approached the one of us who had argued against Kristof and enthusiastically thanked him for not only taking him on, but refusing to back down when the woman began arguing. One of us also spoke to the person who runs the venue, learning more about the work they do and sharing the film, Stepping Into the Future. Altogether, on the foundation of the editorial mentioned above, we had a real impact on the terms of discussion, we were able to introduce everyone in a beginning way to Bob Avakian, and it was clear that some people in the room were challenged in a positive way about how they are thinking about these questions. We were also able to get a commitment from someone to meet with us to consider contributing significant funds to the BA Everywhere campaign so that this kind of debate and wrangling can be opened up on a much greater scale throughout all of society.
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