Mark,
Who was criticising Frantz Fanon? And what is wrong with saying that an
argument that Doug Henwood, even if you do think he is the most evil force
haunting the world today, happens to be similar to or even the same as
FF's on a particular issue? What is Leninist about that?
Steve
Stephen Philion
Lecturer/PhD Candidate
Department of Sociology
2424 Maile Way
Social Sciences Bldg. # 247
Honolulu, HI 96822
On Mon, 29 Jan 2001, Mark Jones wrote:
> Stephen E Philion wrote:
>
> > Well, if that is Henwood's argument, it's not that far from Frantz Fanon,
> > who argued that advanced capitalist countries frequently set conditions
> > for investment on newly decolonized countries that keep them from being
> > able to experience development *and* if they refused they would be faced
> > with the very real threat of withdrawl altogether of financial assistance
> > (which Fanon also felt they were owed from the advanced cap. world as
> > reparations for years of pilfering of colonial economies...).
>
> Wait a minute, whoa. Fanon gets a lot of (IMHO) entirely undeserved flak because of
> his alleged lack of centre-periphery focus. It would be good to have a seminar about
> Fanon. People talk about him in thought-bites and only half remember what they read
> years ago. Fanon was an entirely consistent fighter against colonialism and is a
> giant of our movement. Doug Henwood is not that. He is a pygmy. The problem with
> Henwood is not that he argues like/unalike Fanon (or anyone else), it's that he
> contradicts himself, does both often at the same time, and is politically
> inconsistent. Empirical accuracy used as a camouflage for wild opportunism is an old
> trick of Anglo-Saxon scholarship and should not mislead us. You cannot debate
> empirical opportunism, because it is a true wilderness of mirrors, a political bog
> and a haven for the worst kinds of self-seeking leftwing careerism. And this is
> something we ought to have settled accounts with by now, and must do if we are to
> develop.
>
> We shall have to take on board all the things which are flowing out of Porto Alegre,
> and find the ways to participate more actvely, and decisively, in the movement it
> embodies/represents: a movement which is characterised by a tacit alliance between
> the compliant petit-bourgeois socialism of acadameics, and the lumpenised
> semi-proletariat of the megacities who are now *also* firmly in the *political*
> sights of the emergent, post-neoliberal Davos Consensus. These things are connected.
> The bitterest and most decisive struggles against petit-bourgeois socialism will be
> necessary and while I agree we should be comradely, we should also be extremely
> serious and decisive in combating petit-bourgeois socialism.
>
> Mark
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Leninist-International mailing list
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
> http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
>
_______________________________________________
Leninist-International mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
