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Islam in India vs. the United $tates:
In discussion of Islam, the Western communist movement hardly plays any significant role anymore, except as a Liberal cover for operations against the oppressed. Even when the oppressed try to break through, they first take up the language of the oppressor.
An example of the power of imperialism is how one debater at a website in RCP=CIA's circles discusses Islam. RCP=CIA has come out with the derisive appelation of "McJihad" to refer to Islamic armed struggle against imperialism as an "opposite pole of the same stupidity" of imperialism. In handling this ridiculous charge, one debater points to "particularities" in the situation in India that caused the Communist Party of India(Maoist) to disagree with Avakian's formulation.
The word "particularities" refers to the specific, local or parochial as opposed to the universal truth. "Particularities" appears over and over again in RCP=CIA circles responding to pressure from the proletariat.
Avakian has trained the petty-bourgeoisie to vacillate itself out of Marxism by using the word "particularity" to get out of any uncomfortable jam where one might have to side with the oppressed against the oppressor. Knowing full well that the liberal Democrats have a general problem with Islam on sexual culture questions, Avakian bows to white nationalist pressure to vacillate.
Trying to oppose Avakian somewhat but only to clear the way for Avakian's line, "Ulises" calls anti-Muslim pogroms in India "particularities" as an excuse why Ganapathy had to disagree with Avakian.(1) Ganapathy had called the Islamic struggle a progressive anti-imperialist force.
In essence, Ulises is issuing an invitation into identity politics, where the white man Avakian or Ely is the "universal" and Ganapathy is the reflection of the "particular." It is for this kind of thing that the post-modernists rightfully have Marxism's lunch, because despite two hyphenations, white "Marxist-Leninist-Maoists" cannot practice Marxism other than seeing the white man as universal.
The truth is that there are relatively few Muslims in the United $tates, and the world's largest concentration of Muslims is within India's borders and on its borders with Pakistan and Bangladesh. Even Indonesia's Muslim population does not compare with the Muslim population in Ganapathy's locality. Hence, it is more true to say that Ganapathy's situation is the universal situation of Islam while that of Avakian is of fringe importance. It would be Avakian and Ely who are the "particular," and only the particularity of liberal Democratic and Fox News pressure on Islam.
When Marxists do not proceed from reality but from bourgeois spontaneity of their favorite strategies and tactics there is no point in distinguishing from post-modernism. With post-modernists off in subjective la-la-land and so-called Marxists in a white version of the same, there really is no point opposing post-modernism. In the choice between post-modernism attacking white males in the West in the name of identity politics and pseudo-Marxism which derives its sense of reality from thinking that the united $tates is the universal condition of Islam, we have to prefer post-modernism as more progressive than pseudo-Marxism.
It is Avakian's circles that do not understand the correct use and thrust of contrasting "universal" and "particular." The way that Avakian's circles use the term "particular" is consistently to break the unity of oppressed and exploited. With reference to 5 or 6 billion "particularities" we return completely to individualism.
An example of such particularity is now with some of the breakaways from the RCP=CIA talking about gay/lesbian oppression as a fourth strand of oppression,(2) not included within the gender struggle. Why this leads to Liberalism is unclear to some RCP=CIA people even after 30 years of following Avakian's every last word.
As even Sartre pointed out, intellectuals chafe under any general line. That is not a reason to throw out a general line that unites the oppressed against the oppressor. When the intellectuals start talking about "particularities" against the correct general line, the reason is that they are bowing to bourgeois spontaneity guised in discussion of "complexity." This is the corrosive effect that bourgeois intellectuals can exert on the struggle and we have to stay on guard, because at this point in history, we have no choice but to have bourgeois intellectuals compose the party as Lenin said. Despite having them, we have to keep an eye on these bourgeois intellectuals to guard against their inherent nitpicking tendencies that have an underlying petty-bourgeois worldview of individuality.
The Amerikan imperialists and their labor aristocracy have injected substantial pollution into the international communist movement. It makes it difficult to communicate among the real communists. When real communists support incorrect general lines it goes without saying that strategic and tactical unity will suffer from suspicions. That is why the vanguard party must make sure to uphold the proletarian line or be suspected of being fake operations like the RCP=CIA.
Although it is true that the communist movement will always have to cleanse itself of RCP=CIA-style influences, a correct organizational line makes the cleansing process more easy. Whether it is the question of busing, gay/lesbians, lynching, Muslims in India, Iran, surplus- value, the arrest of Comrade Gonzalo--the RCP=CIA droids have no judgment. Avakian trained the droids to have no judgment and to use their anchor to attract vacillators. Their access to the international communist movement should be reduced. MIM's call to our international readers is not aimed at Amerikans. MIM is setting about to see who has proletarian scientific judgment ability internationally and who is assisting MIM's enemies. The RCP=CIA droids have plenty of work to do within U.$. borders without fouling up international issues, starting with calculating total surplus-value and where it comes from but also doing anti-war work instead of pro-war work. Alternatively, if the masses exert no pressure on the bourgeois white nationalists then certainly MIM's general line must be incorrect, and like others we should make a bee-line for the Democratic Party or Ron Paul.
Notes:
1. http://mikeely.wordpress.com/2008/01/19/maoists-debate-islamic-fundamentalism/
2. Mike Ely reviews this:
http://mikeely.wordpress.com/letter-7/
A youthful former member of RCP=CIA circles on revleft.com has demanded an explanation
and received none except from MIM on why gay/lesbian orientation is not a fourth strand
of oppression.