RE: [Marxism] Re: The hijab controversy

["Jose G. Perez" <elgusanorojo@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Richard Fidler writes:
>>At the individual level addressed by José, the debate can't be
resolved. It comes down to a conflict between an ideal "quality
education" - unrealizable in José's situation - and the reality that he
has to send his kids to a religious school (a very special one, as Marv
Gandall notes ) to get a scientific education.

>>Of course, in life, under late capitalism, all socialists are faced
with making individual choices that to some degree conflict with our
political philosophy and beliefs.<<

Perhaps I should've been more explicit. The POINT of my post wasn't
about me, or my kids, Carmen and Lucas. The point is that spouting off
with a lot of rhetoric about being for compulsory "public" education in
Georgia, today, is *reactionary.* My own individual case was meant as an
*illustration.* 

Richard wrote, in the post I was answering, "I think our concern should
be to protect the right of every child to attend secular schools. This
can only be done by making public school attendance compulsory. If the
churches wish to organize classes or schools in evenings or on weekends,
so be it, but any such schools should not be a substitute for public,
secular (non-denominational) education."

No, I disagree. Our concern should NOT be "to protect the right of every
child to attend secular schools." Our concern should be to kick the ass
of the ruling class into the dustbin of history. That CAN'T be done by
focusing on the struggle over ideas. It can ONLY be done through the
class struggle, including --of central importance in the imperialist
epoch-- the national struggles of oppressed peoples as an expression of
the class struggle.

>From this point of view, "making public school attendance compulsory" is
NOT a demand working people in Georgia TODAY can or should support. It
undermines and undercuts the struggles of nationally oppressed peoples,
who want, among other things, control (individually and collectively)
over the education of their children. What Fidler doesn't get is that
when Black or Latino parents move  INDIVIDUALLY to get their children
out of racist public schools, THIS has a social/national aspect to it
that must not be ignored.

To go into the Latino community and tell parents they're a bunch of
jerks for trying to get their kids into parochial schools, which is what
Fidler's demand amounts to, doesn't just overlook that side of it. As a
*practical* matter it is politically suicidal. 

Of course, even in terms of affording children a scientific education,
the demand to outlaw private schools is totally retrograde. In Georgia,
you're much more likely to learn about Darwin and the Big Bang in a
*private* school, and, yes, even in a Papist one. But mostly we need to
understand that we mustn't raise such demands because the "public"
schools we have are used as a WEAPON by the ruling class against the
Latino community in a much more conscious and structured and direct way
than at least some of the private schools.

Fidler considers matters ONLY from the point of view of the ideological
struggle. Even on this level Richard is wrong. The different schools and
the content of the education needs to be considered *concretely*, not in
the abstract. 

But he also puts aide the reality that public schools TODAY are under
the DIRECT control of the SAME imperialist ruling classes that give
gizillions of dollars to various sects to promote their reactionary
nonsense. And not infrequently under tremendous pressure if not direct
control of fundamentalist Christian religious fanatics.

And much more important than "secularism" is the actual class struggle,
which, in the imperialist epoch, finds expression also in the form of
*national* struggles. There is a national struggle underway right now in
Georgia and in the United States, between the capitalists and the Latino
community, and especially the new immigrants. The community is fighting
for its rights and breathing and living space, against the ruling class,
which wants to DENY this, the better to super-exploit labor. One of the
things you find in the community is the belief that in Catholic schools
their kids will be treated more fairly and will be better educated than
in public schools. And that belief flows NOT from the profoundly
religious character of the immigrants who are coming here. In Latin
America, religion, and especially the Papist sect, is largely an
upper-middle-class affair and that isn't who is coming here.

The effect of Fidler's proposal, from the point of view of the
community, is that the  children be turned over to the schools that the
enemies of the community have organized, even in the minority of cases
where parents have succeeded in avoiding those schools, and THIS in the
name of "secularism," which to call things by their right names, when
applied THIS way is just anarchist bourgeois anticlericalism in
socialist drag -- at best.

The class and national struggle of oppressed peoples is MORE IMPORTANT
and takes PRECEDENCE over the merely ideological struggle for
"secularism." Religious nonsense can only be rooted out by destroying
its *material foundation,* capitalist exploitation and oppression. So
even from a narrow monomaniacal obsession with doing away with religion,
IF you approach this struggle in a Marxist, i.e., materialist way,
Fidler's prescription is wrong.

You might say, well, "all other things being equal" Fidler's proposal
applies. But I've yet to come across that happy circumstance -- "all
other things" usually conspire to screw nationally oppressed peoples
because THAT is the *nature* of imperialism. When you're talking about
schooling, you're talking about the transmission of social and cultural
values, traditions, history, etc. "All other things" are NEVER going to
be equal where oppressed peoples within a multinational state or an
imperialist nation are involved, at least not this side of the
centennial celebration of the world socialist revolution.  

This means that, EVEN IF the schools that parents from oppressed
communities wanted to send their kids to taught nothing but obscurantist
nonsense about virgin births and ritual cannibalism, and the white
imperialist state schools nothing but the most unalloyed and advanced
Stephen Jay Gould Darwinist evolution, Marxists should STILL defend the
right of parents from oppressed communities, individually and/or
collectively, to control the education of their own children including
their RIGHT to send them to the "wrong" school. If people from the
Latino community think the "wrong" school is better, I think the Marxist
left as presently constituted would profit more by trying to learn from
the community WHY that is the case, instead of trying to convince people
in the community that we know better than they do. 

The reason working and oppressed people believe in religion isn't that
it is a particularly convincing idea that if you recite hocus pocus over
a jug of wine it becomes in essence 2000-year-old human blood and you
can drink up like Dracula. The reason people believe is that the idea
that there is a supreme, all-powerful, unknowable being that decides our
destinies in a completely random and mysterious way actually corresponds
to their real social experience. That is the way life in society
presents itself to them. Abolish THAT -- society presenting itself as a
hostile, alien, unknowable force that controls their destiny against
their will-- and about 99% of the struggle against religion is over and
done with. Maintain THAT, and no amount of antireligious preaching,
secular schools, scientific education will ever succeed in getting rid
of it. Therefore, the struggle against religion must be SUBORDINATED TO
the actual class struggle, including when expressed in national form.

José


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