fellagha

Europe is a laughing stock

"Syrian and Iraqi" interpretations would really just refer to how the Ba'ath party evolved in these countries, and their praxis. In Syria, it was more a matter of pragmatic state survival vs the more militaristic pan-Arabism as seen in Iraq under Saddam, for example. Pan-Arabism is simply a pillar of the ideology, that "Arabs are one nation", in opposition to colonialism - but of course, in this case, it ignores the class antagonisms between e.g. a sheikh and an Egyptian peasant. Pan-Arabism is not unique to Ba'athism, though, given that ML movements like the Popular Fronts (..for the Liberation of Palestine, Oman, Yemen, etc) existed, which were also pan-Arabist but instead aimed for dictatorships of the proletariat instead of an "Arab" national bourgeoisie, though still rooted in national liberation.

My take is that Ba'athism is to West Asia what the Xinhai revolution was to China, or what Napoleon was to Europe, but from a colonial material base - the end goal still being to cement a national bourgeois capitalist rule in the region, and ensure sovereign development, even if under a bourgeois state. The FLN in Algeria (national liberation front), achieved something similar. Kicked out France and cemented the rule of a national bourgeoisie instead of a would-be comprador bourgeoisie (unlike Morocco and Tunisia, ruled by compradors which function as middle-managers for Western capital), and operated a similar state capitalist-like economy initially with social housing programs and collectivization too.

As for books on Ba'athism, I have personally only read Michal Aflaq's own works a while back. I would start with فِي سَبِيلِ البعث (Fi Sabil alBaʿth) which in short outlines its fundamental principles.

Also, worth pointing out that Nasserism and Ba'athism were seperate schools of thought, both bourgeois nationalist, with Nasserism being far more dominant during its inception in the 50s and early 60s, thanks to the success of the Free Officers in 1952. Nasserism was more about the praxis that unfolded, giving way to theory, compared to Ba'athism, if that makes sense. I'm going to give you lots of first-hand sources here, but check out Nasser's The Philosophy of the Revolution.

Also, Gaddafi is unlike any other pan-Arab figure. Initially a Pan-Arabist inspired by Nasserism, even his own revolutionary movement which ousted Idris in 1969 was named the "Free Officers" in honour of Nasser. Later, he proposed his own theory (Third Universal Theory), which was socialist first and foremost, birthing the Jamahiriya that replaced the Libyan Republic in 1977. It adapted Libyan material conditions and traditions within a socialist framework. The Jamahiriya, an actual socialist state as a result, abolished private property and even the party structure for direct democracy through local people's congresses and committees across the country which would answer to central congresses and committees through delegations.

If you listen to Gadaffi's speeches over time, particularly after the Gulf war, you will notice a pivot away from pan-Arabism towards pan-Africanism due to the prevailing bourgeois nature of pan-Arabism. Libya as a country on the African continent also meant its material interests were tied to pan-African liberation more than a utopian "Arab" nation. This about sums up how disillusioned he had become with pan-Arabism later on, and this a classic pan-African speech of his. Not only that, but he also oversaw the founding of the African Union following the Sirte declaration in 1999, and became its first chairman.

By far most mainstream publications on the Libyan Jamahiriya are all Western propaganda and NATO apologia garbage full of lies meant to smear it and justify its fate as a target of Western imperialism - both from Libyan compradors parrotting Western lies, and of course from Western pundits and academia. The level that the Jamahiriya is propagandized and smeared by the West pretty much matches the DPRK. Some supposedly good books do exist in English (like Lycett A. & Blundy D. "Qaddafi and the Libyan revolution") about the Jamahiriya but I have yet to read them, so I can't form an opinion on them.

If you are interested in understating the context surrounding 2011 and its aftermath, there is a book by Vijay Prashad (a Marxist, same guy who wrote "Darker Nations") called "Arab Spring, Libyan Winter". It's less about the Jamahiriya's model itself and more about NATO's destructive assault on the country, and the counterrevolutionaries in question who aided it.

Besides that, some of the best textual sources for understanding the Jamahiriya's itself that I know of, besides the Green Book (which is a must read if you haven't!) are Gadaffi's own works - yes, it was not just the Green Book that he wrote, but several important publications that go overlooked. I could spend so much time delving into detail about all of these works he wrote, which most people are completely unaware of because they were never translated and are only available in Arabic. He wrote a book on postcolonial mentality (yes, you're right to think about Frantz Fanon because it deals with a similar subject!), on Islam and socialism in combination (offers food for thought on countering "muh atheism" talking points), one based on an interview with medical students in 1973 underlining the necessity of revolution, compilations of speeches, and so many others - definitely read these, most of them are quite short too.

They span multiple decades, from the early post-revolutionary Libyan Republic (1969 - 1977), throughout the Jamahiriya's history up until the 2000s. Furthermore, archives of government websites exist which still contain many intact political documents and decrees in detail.

Also, after these websites shut down following the 2011 counterrevolution, some of them alongside broad information on the Jamahiriya and Gaddafi were preserved by loyalist exiles. Here's a site where you can learn about the Jamahiriya using more official sources, from its achievements, to Gaddafi's life, to ideology. It's very useful.

If you want to reach out to some people to hear first-hand accounts, I recommend this Facebook page, and its accompanying YouTube channel which uploads old archived TV broadcast content and music. And this channel contains many old Jamahiriya broadcasts (and others) that you can listen to.

Hopefully some of this helps to give an overview

Nice to hear your perspective and recent journey! The priority, in the end, is not dwelling on "losing" a "debate" with a smug lib, but learning more and more about why they're wrong, from observing world or domestic societal affairs whose class characteristics can put into perspective moving forward, to simply reading theory.

There mere existence triggers me sometimes and their smugness makes my skin crawl.

Exactly what bourgeois media trains them to. Those acquaintances won't be so smug anymore once their beloved Western "democracy" crumbles further, they'll be faced with a choice. And you could impact that if they're people you know well / are close to - even if it won't magically make all libs becomes leftists, obviously.

That's an interesting approach, efficient way to flip the script and shut down all the propaganda which is exactly meant to DISTRACT from what happens at home.

..and progressive politicians are shot down during takeoff

Indeed, which serves as material proof that achieving socialism within bourgeois electoralism (or "democracy" as it labels itself) is not sustainable because it does not overthrow the ruling class (bourgeoisie) in favor of a new one (proletariat), and instead leverages the tools of the existing ruling class. Makes you think of a certain Allende.. Or those who simply sell out.

Yes we should never stop explaining, but people will only listen if the material conditions provide the incentive.

That's why I said this:

applying theory to give succinct explanations to real-world phenomenons in the neoliberal world anyone would understand

If said material conditions were not present, this would be not only pointless but also nearly impossible. Especially because the contradictions are already sharpening in the West now.

A point I intentionally glossed over because it was largely meant to generalize and apply not only to Westerners, is the labour aristocracy and similar class dynamics. The portion of the working class still far from disillusioned, who have been bought off by working class concesssions from the bourgeoisie derived from imperialist superprofits.

Look at the pension situation in Europe, and France's latest austerity measures, as an example. What happens is that most of them, once this affects them, are captured by reaction instead of revolution, the default under the imperialist capitalist superstructure. This is giving rise to a majority of fascist sympathies once the last liberal has been scratched, which you implied. The tiny organized left in the imperial core, where this happens, is a drop in the ocean as far as "reversing" this entire phenomenon is concerned.

..it is not in my opinion- not a good use of time to debate with reactionaries. Those that can be convinced will sooner be convinced by reality as they have been so far. Those that cannot be convinced will serve to make reality worse (which works in our favor) and ultimately be destroyed as a consequence.

This I won't disagree with, because "debating" with them means to speak on their terms which should be avoided in favour of simply turning the script in your favor if you're forced to be around them in a given situation. Secondly, the good side of this is absolutely that they will accelerate the utter exhaustion of every single attempt at "saving" and "reforming" capitalism until they eventually discover that there's nothing to lose from the current system. Imperialist capitalism has leveraged world wars to "salvage" itself, though, which we shouldn't forget.

He wasn't. He was inspired by Nasser initially, but ultimately developed his own socialist theory in the 70s, called the Third Universal Theory (Green Book), which was the manifesto of the Jamahiriya, and he opposed capitalism. The Jamahiriya, which basically means a "government of the masses" was an actual socialist state which abolished private property, and proposed the end of the rule of one group over another. Gadaffi was originally highly pan-Arabist, but later on he pivoted towards pan-Africanism due to the material reality of pan-Arabism being dominated by a national bourgeois current. This made him an even bigger threat to the West than any pan-Arabist, knowing African resources sustain the West's wealth.

You could call it a form of Arab secular bourgeois nationalism that is also very left-leaning despite really being state capitalist, and as a result not free from capitalism's inherent contradictions. Not nationalism as in chauvinism (which is the case for Western nationalism), but nationalism as in national liberation. It believes in the nationalization of key industries and most of all sovereignty, emerging as an anti-imperialist / anti-colonial ideology in its core. Where it differs from de facto "socialism" is that it usually doesn't advocate for the abolition of private property, hence the "state capitalist" factor. Nationalization of key industries, as mentioned, in a resource rich region, was the reason it was a threat to Western imperialism in the first place and the US had to destroy Ba'athist countries.

It was born due the fact that capitalism in West Asia and North Africa was not an organic development, like in most of the world. It was a colonial imposition as these regions, which had a wide array of different pre-capitalist modes of production, were forced to vanish on a large scale, meaning a significantly smaller national bourgeois class existed that was responsible for leading a sovereign movement.

Nothing universally agreed upon here, idk if there is such a thing, but one I like to use is "Harki", or more correctly "Harka" (حركة) for all pro-Western North Africans and mentally colonized or liberal diaspora types that idolize / suck up to Europe and the West, and often denounce or tokenize their roots for "white" approval. Naturally these are imperialist EU / US bootlickers who blame not imperialism and neocolonialism for the struggles of their homelands, but use an inversely "racist" inferiority complex instead.

This term derives from a fifth column during the Algerian struggle for national liberation against the French colonial forces, the Harka were Algerians that supported and fought on the side of the French colonizers. The FLN kicked them out (and their master, France, of course) and they were exiled to France, giving us insufferable mentally colonized diaspora intelligentsia types who internalize Western racism against their own people, and sure would not mind French recolonization.

Very Algerian-centric but I like to use it for any Western / imperialist bootlickers from my region (North Africa) lol, most often in the diaspora. The term simply means "movement" (in the context of volunteer militias), so it's not derogatory by definition, only in this context.

Ahahah, can't blame you. I guess I would call myself an "atheist", even though I hate the fact that this term has been co-opted by pseudo-intellectual Reddit liberals and nihilistic hyper-individualists and bears a negative connotation for some lol

We're only permitted to critique one bourgeois warmonger at a time? How convenient for the US empire lol. Your "lesser evil" is a mass murderer and imperialist like every other Western leader. This man oversaw the droning of thousands, including countless civilians and children, across multiple sovereign nations, the destruction of Libya and Syria in 2011, plunging the countries into chaos from which they never recovered to this day, the bailing out of the banks that crashed the global economy while leaving the working class to drown in foreclosures and debt, the expansion of the surveillance state that has only grown since then.. and that's only the beginning, really.

Class war isn't a team sport between two reactionary parties, and nor is it "good cop vs bad cop". One manages imperialism and the exploitation of its own working class with a smile and "inclusive" rhetoric, the other doesn't.

Fuck that war criminal, and fuck the ruling class he served that still exists today

Glad it was of some use!

If you don’t mind me asking, where have you seen the growth

I should clarify that it doesn't exist on a massive scale, but it's still noticeable where I live despite lots of people still being bigots and homophobes ofc. Some neighborhoods around here with significant amounts of left-leaning young people here are quite accepting of LGBTQ+ ideas or at least open-minded, and the phenomenon of emerging LGBTQ+ acceptance barely is different from anywhere else in world (exposure to the ideas whether in person or online, gradual rejection of dogmatic thought, etc).

In typical Marxist fashion, we would say it's in the superstructure of class society, i.e. how culture, religion, politics, social relations relate to and are shaped by the "base" (the mode of production, property relations, etc) and vice versa. I believe that one of only reasons that, for instance, Western society is able to sell a facade of progressiveness in regards to LGBTQ+ rights, is because it can be co-opted by capitalists, often monopolizing firms, and gain a new consumer base to expand profits through marketing itself with tokenism of these groups. This means an artificial imposition of these "LGBTQ+ rights" which don't do away with the reason they are marginalized and discriminated against in the first place, as evident by many Westerners still being highly reactionary regarding the cause like anywhere else, only exception kind of being the so-called gen z and millenial generations (the age groups most disillusioned with late stage capitalism and the dogmatic thought that supports it, mind you).

What we need to do away with is the fundamental cause for all forms of bigotry in the first place, which results from private property and class relations to the mode of production - in our period of history, it's capitalism that leverages bigotry to divide the proletariat and prevents them from uniting against the bourgeoisie, the ruling class, by scapegoating eachother. It's a trick, because hatred towards any minority or marginalized group will not pay rent, will not preserve your savings, will not eliminate inflation, will not give you infrastructure, healthcare, education, sovereignty, etc. and will not improve your life in general. Basically, when we change the "base", through a socialist mode of production and eventually communism, we erode the fundamental dynamics of society which pave the way for bigotry and division to begin with. Cuba's recent progressive LGBTQ+ legistlation (family code) is brilliant example of this, gaining support among the majority of Cubans voting in the referendum. To simply claim that "religion inherently causes x", or "culture inherently causes x", and so on, is to use idealist analysis (or lack thereof) as opposed to dialectical and historical materialism.

Also, since we’re talking about interpretation, we have evidence of evolution and the big bang severely contradicting the religious explanation. Do you always take it in the sense of interpretation there?

I can't really say tbh, since I'm not religious myself. I suppose it can vary greatly, and religion isn't necessarily a dogma after all, otherwise we would not have syncretic Islamic sects, or for example Christian denominations which all differ greatly (many of which blend indigenous folk religions together with Abrahamic teachings, Alevism comes to mind). It's so much more than just an answer to the great "why", but an entire set of culture, traditions and moral codes tied to anthropology, but again it all depends on what religion means to an adherent I'd say.

I don't use it myself, but some good extensions I'd recommend for any bourgeois website with trackers, CDN bloat, and fingerprinting elements of all kinds. Besides uBlock Origin which you mentioned, are ones called LocalCDN and ClearURLs. Both are also FLOSS. Similar ones probably exist but these are just the ones I've been using.

LocalCDN substitutes CDN-derived page elements with local elements on your PC by injecting them through emulating a sort of CDN where ever possible, bypassing some remote content. ClearURLs clears tracking garbage through web navigation basically.

~~Also, hopefully you dont use Chrome lol. That pile of spyware imperialist Silicon Valley crap needs to be boycotted, just like Silicon Valley needs to be bombed to pieces~~

Hope it helps!

That's putting a lot of faith in socdems and reformists lol

This is laughable even by the logic of bourgeois economics. The profits enjoyed by said restaurants would just be diverted towards supermarkets selling produce that become ingredients in their lunch - much of which shares the same supply chains said restaurants use. I guess this is a "both sides-ism" but for capitalists themselves lol

I believe it's because there's a fundamental difference between a personal, lived spirituality and a politicized, ideological weaponization of religion (co-optation by ruling classes throughout history) - which itself contradicts the core teachings of Abrahamic religions, such as Islam, which do not teach hatred. The point is not to force a literalist, often revisionist, interpretation of ancient texts onto everyone else, but to find personal meaning and community within a faith tradition while upholding universal human rights.

The goal is to criticize said interpretations, specifically the politicized, fundamentalist interpretations that exist in all faiths which are used to justify bigotry and violence (and the inverse - these being presented by bourgeois media as the "defaults" to justify dehumanization and imperialist wars against adherents). The goal is not to vilify the religion itself or its billions of peaceful adherents who are on their own spiritual journeys. Whether religious or not, bigotry like LGBT-phobia often exists due to lack of experience and engagement with these people (or other marginalized groups) and common internalized taboos that really are not limited to religion. By far most people are able to open their minds once they become acquainted with and actually learn about LGBTQ+ in the first place, and realize that there is no difference in our humanity whatsoever and that we are one - no matter what our genders, sexualities or identities are. I live in a Muslim majority country, and there are LGBTQ+ venues here and an emerging community expressing itself, for example.

And as Marxists, religious or not, we know that the very origin of widespread bigotry of all kinds is not something that is internalized out of the blue or to blindly be "accepted", but something that arose from now ~7000+ years of class society.

Based. Shame that Amerikkkan schools would throw whoever wrote this in a juvenile detention centre.

Nothing of value lost, fuck that illegal puppet state. Can it just collapse already?

fellagha @ fellagha @lemmygrad.ml

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How the tables have turned

What's the deal with Ba'athism?

What's your approach to engaging in a conversation about politics in the company of people who hold reactionary beliefs?

What's your approach to engaging in a conversation about politics in the company of people who hold reactionary beliefs?

What's your approach to engaging in a conversation about politics in the company of people who hold reactionary beliefs?

What's your approach to engaging in a conversation about politics in the company of people who hold reactionary beliefs?

What's the deal with Ba'athism?

What's the deal with Ba'athism?

They'll carry on doing this during and after the ceasefire

The cubans have gusanos, the Chinese have bananas, and the Indians have coconuts. what term does your country have for the imperialist bootlickers?

How does lgbtq+ support as well as other progressive ways of thought co-exist in religious people while their religious text proclaim it as a sin?

The subtle manipulation of language.

The subtle manipulation of language.

The subtle manipulation of language.

How does lgbtq+ support as well as other progressive ways of thought co-exist in religious people while their religious text proclaim it as a sin?

Gonna make an account on Reddit soon. Any good advice or browser extensions I can use?

What stage capitalism is this?

What stage capitalism is this?

How does lgbtq+ support as well as other progressive ways of thought co-exist in religious people while their religious text proclaim it as a sin?

Based Kid

tfw no gubmint backup

Trump says Israel and Hamas have 'both signed off' in first phase of Gaza ceasefire plan