"What is now happening to Marx's doctrine has, in the course of history, often happened to the doctrines of other revolutionary thinkers and leaders of oppressed classes struggling for emancipation. During the lifetime of great revolutionaries, the oppressing classes have visited relentless persecution on them and received their teaching with the most savage hostility, the most furious hatred, the most ruthless campaign of lies and slanders. After their death, attempts are made to turn them into harmless icons, canonise (Jim's term below)
them, and surround their _names_ with a certain halo for the "consolation" of the oppressed classes nd with the object of duping them, while at the same tiem emasculating and vulgarising the _real issues_ of their revolutionary theories and blunting their revolutionary edge..."
-Opening lines of _The State and Revolution_
Malcolm X on a U.S. stamp is an example of what Lenin is talking about. Of course, WEB Dubois, Fredrick Douglass and Sojourner Truth are on U.S. stamps too., But by the logic below, all the bourgeoisie have to do is put a revolutionary's picture on a stamp after they are dead, and future generations of revolutionaries would ignore or be suspicious of the examples of their lives. The logic below also capitulates in the struggle to broadcast the truth about revolutionaries in history; and there is that struggle around the story of every revolutionary's life.
I once heard a radio commercial for the Marines which was a vignette of Angela Davis' legend. She's not even dead. Her story is also taught in many schools. Do y'all think she's with us or them ?
That the bourgeoisie have appropriated Malcolm X's icon after his death is not proof that he was not a revolutionary in life.
Lenin , himself, is one that the oppressing classes have trouble turning into a harmless icon even after his death. That's how tough he was.
Charles Brown
>>> "Frances Bolton (PHI)" <fbolton at chuma.cas.usf.edu> 01/05 9:03 AM >>>
On Tue, 5 Jan 1999, Jim heartfield wrote:
>
> And when did Rakesh become "white"? When he refused to pay homage to
> that All-American hero Malcolm X? Face facts, Malcolm X's Autobiography
> is on the school syllabuses now. He is being taught to children black
> and white, by teachers who have assimilated him into the curriculum and
> the canon of American triumph over adversity.
> --
Regarding the all american hero, Malcolm X: Jim, did you know that
Malcolm X postage stamp is soon being issued?
frances