>>> Rakesh Bhandari <bhandari at phoenix.princeton.edu> 11/23/99 05:11PM >>>
Hi Charles,
First you did not respond to my post (mistitled immigration) on MLK's birthday this year. There is an archive. Check it out.
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Charles: Send it along. Are there different issues than what I did respond to ?
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Second, the BRC itself is reponsible for the confusion about whether it was organized on racially exclusive terms. Much later Alkalimat issued a strongly worded statement that it as not; that removed my principal reason for skepticism.
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Charles: The BRC is not organized such that Whites would participate as much a Blacks. Whites attended the Congress, but I don't think Whites can be members.
What you call confusion is only the expression of the contradiction , caused by white racism not BRC faults, that Black people must both work with and ally with whites and yet retain a space to communicate with themselves. Anybody who understands the reality of racism and its impact on Black liberation struggle, is not confused by this.
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Third, I always supported autonomous minority or women's groups but argued that it would be best if they were organized within broader based labor or communist organizations, not as separate congresses.
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Charles: The BRC is organized mainly by Black people who are in integrated political and economic organizations - the C of C, the CP, the League for Rev ( forgot the name) , et al _ Evidently, practice has taught many who have vigorously struggled exactly as you describe for many years that such a formation is necessary, though nobody has quit there integrated org,
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Fourth, I argued that it was not clear to me whether the goal of the BRC was to maintain black enthusiasm for the AFL-CIO and the Democratic Party against the twin dangers of apathy and Farrakhanite reaction or to develop a radical alternative to both institutions. It is still unclear to me.
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Charles: I don't recall discussion of these alternative goals coming up. Check out the agenda and principles. They aren't framed in these terms, but maybe you can make an inference. My sense would be that there is no goal of maintaining black enthusiasm for the AFL or Dem Party, but there is some goal of forming an alternative to apathy and Farakhan.
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Fifth, you equivocate again as to whether blacks constitute a nation or an oppressed group within the US. Under no conditions do I support a right for secession in the Black Belt--to me this position is itself the reductio ad absurdum of racism.
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Charles: Black people are a specially oppressed racial group. There was a time when they had sufficient charateristics for national self-determination. But not after the migration. Separatism is imposed on Black people by White racism. Given that imposition, Black people have affirmatively organize themselves separately for self-protection, support , survival, creativity, living, whatever, collective struggle. A byproduct of this are affirmative creations of human culture of a national like character. What arises is a nationality , a culture. But of course, it is not totally separate from the larger American society.
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Sixth, you continue to sidestep the problem of the miserable record of the Vietnamese Communists in power (have you read Kolko's book?);
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Charles: That is not quite accurate. I don't give much credence to your ALLEGATION that they have a miserable record. What makes you think your claim is much different than the thousands of other claims I have heard that the Viet Namese Communists have a miserable record. The whole goddamn Viet Nam war was prosecuted based on the same claim. So, why the fuck would I think that, oh, the U.S. was actually right about the Viet Namese Communists. So I am not sidestepping it. I am looking at you like "are you for real ?"
I'm sure there are somethings they did wrong, but there is a lot they have done right. The problems that you cite Kolko as alleging are not specifically on nationalism , the subject we are discussing on this thread. I'm not inclined to do a big research project on the Viet Namese revolution since 1975 because you and Kolko claim that they have a miserable record. For every Communist country there have ever been there are bourgeois and reputed Marxists who have claimed the Communists have had a miserable record. But when I do investigate a particular country more closely , such as the SU or Cuba, the anti-communist claims are overstated, though not without some validity. So I am not inclined, right now to do a study of the pro and anti- Viet Namese Communist literature. Do you doubt that there are books and people who contradict you and Kolko ?
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thus you show no interest in a non apologestic history of the Vietnamese CP that will allow us to make sense, instead of be surprised, by this record. Indeed you dismiss those who were imprisoned or harrassed as tiny
sects, 'ultraleftist' being a justification for the oppression of anyone so labeled.
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Charles: I have already heard more anti-Viet Namese CP claims than pro Viet Namese CP claims, because I live in the U.S. What makes you and Kolko different ? In enormous social and political events such as the long term colonialism and war and liberation struggle in Viet Nam, there are almost always contradictory or ironic tragedies of crimes by the side that is in the main a liberating group. But I don't conclude that the entire movement of the Viet Namese revolution and the CP were "miserable" because of those contradictions or "ironies".
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The question for us today is simply what have the peasants and workers who fought for unification gained under the Communist Rule that prevailed after the US was forced to exit. This is a very disturbing question. And I wish you would not sidestep it. We need a critical history of the CP that has imposed all burdens of adjustment on the poor and the working class.
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Charles: No, my main task is not to critique the Viet Namese revoluton, but to criticise in theory and practice, U.S. imperialism , today and yesterday. As an American, it would be insanely arrogant of me to focus on criticizing the Viet Namese revolution. The only thing for me to do in relation to Viet Nam might be to point how much the U.S. genocidal war contributes mightily to whatever problems they have today.
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Seventh, even Kolko expresses disagreement with the NLF's policies before unification, e.g., acceptance of the Geneva Accord, skepticism towards limits on the extent of land reform allowed.
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Charles: Kolko sounds more and more ultraleftist and chavinistly arrogant.
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Eighth, I would have supported the struggle to unify Vietnam, oust the French, stop immediately and unconditionally the horrors of US imperialism.
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Charles: Easier said than done. Especially easier from thousands of miles and decades away.
Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh !!!!!!!!!!!! Long live the glorious Viet Namese People and the Viet Namese Communist Party .
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Ninth, I never defended anything I said as authentically black (nor have I ever defined myself as black). It was you who thought it best to remind people that I am not black, and do not speak for black people. Of course this is the role you have arrogated to yourself.
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Charles: Did I say you weren't Black ? Don't recall that. I think I said if somebody White associated with Black people and came on the way you do aggressively ,criticizing Black only meetings, they would be likely rebuffed.
Seems pretty obvious that no one person, you or I , could speak for Black people, although one might be closer to what most Black people think than the other. Are you arrogating to yourself the role of speaking FOR the Viet Namese people above, or just arguing what you think facts , reason and humanism demand ? Probably more of the latter. That is my attitude toward what I say for Black people.
As to my speaking for Black people, I was more defending the Black Radical Congress as the collective effort of a large number Black activists to improve the lives of especially Black people, but necessarily all people.
All power to all of the People, and Black power to Black people,
CB