Re: Defending Martyrs, Reclaiming Memory & History (was Re: Leonard Peltier + Working within the system)

[Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1@xxxxxxx>]

Carrol says:

> Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>  > It is not the case that the Left prefers an association with violence
> >  to non-violence.  The Left -- or _any other political force_ for that
> >  matter -- makes a cause out of *martyrs* . . .
>
> A tentative suggestion. I've always sort of acted from the slogan,
> We will accept casualties but we will not be martyrs. We would
> rather win Mumia's freedom than celebrate him as a martyr.

Of course, yes, we'd rather free Mumia & Leonard; moreover, we should
_not_ choose martyrdom (_unless_ that is _the only remaining
option_).  In the event of any defeat (and defeats have & will be
more numerous than victories under capitalism), however, we'll have
to _make the best of it_, just as Frederick Douglass & other
abolitionists, black or white, made the best of the martyrdom of John
Brown -- the martyrdom which Brown did _not_ choose.

> This is, I fear, against the grain of the language as used, but I
> thought I would toss it in. I tend to associate "martyr" with
> Christian Martyrs, with many of whom I have little sympathy.
> We want to destroy capitalism and build socialism, not merely
> bear witness to that desire.

I've been thinking, for instance, of Palestinian struggles.  Funerals
among Palestinians (as well as many other peoples) have been
political -- catalyzing popular sentiments, inciting & steeling the
masses for further struggles with stepped-up militancy.

It is not for nothing that Sergei Eisenstein chose to make the
funeral of the slain revolutionary sailor Vakulinchuk's funeral one
of the central building blocks of _Potemkin_.

> But in any case the need to recapture and preserve our history
> is core, as Yoshie says. Solidarity must extend in time as well
> as in space or it loses its grip on us.

*****   We need history, but not the way a spoiled loafer in the
garden of knowledge needs it.

Nietzsche, Of the Use and Abuse of History


Not man or men but the struggling, oppressed class itself is the
depository of historical knowledge.  In Marx it appears as the last
enslaved class, as the avenger that completes the task of liberation
in the name of generations of the downtrodden.  This conviction,
which had a brief resurgence in the Spartacist group, has always been
objectionable to Social Democrats.  Within three decades they managed
virtually to erase the name of Blanqui, though it had been the
rallying sound that had reverberated through the preceding century.
Social Democracy thought fit to assign to the working class the role
of the redeemer of future generations, in this way cutting the sinews
of its greatest strength.  This training made the working class
forget both its hatred and its spirit of sacrifice, for both are
nourished by the image of enslaved ancestors rather than that of
liberated grandchildren.

(Walter Benjamin, "On the Concept of History,"
<http://www.tasc.ac.uk/depart/media/staff/ls/WBenjamin/CONCEPT2.html>)
*****

While Benjamin may have erred a little too disturbingly &
messianically on the side of the past against the future, we should
still remember his remarks upon Social Democracy "cutting the sinews"
of the proletariat's "greatest strength": historical knowledge,
especially in the form of popular memories.

Yoshie