Interest in the socialist tradition has seen a revival.
IN 1949, Albert Einstein wrote a short essay entitled Why Socialism? In it he made a compellingly simple case for why humanity had to build a new social order based on fundamentally different principles than those which prevailed in the capitalist present. Einsteins political views were not necessarily a secret during his lifetime, but in death he has been stripped entirely of his socialist politics.
The great man is, of course, not alone. In this country and all over the world, innumerable individuals who openly espoused rebellion against state and class power, patriarchy and national oppression, have been rechristened as dedicated loyalists after their departure from this world. Some icons have been perversely transformed into corporate brands, Che Guevara most obviously so.
Accordingly, a vast majority of ordinary people are exposed only to caricatures of figures like Einstein and Guevara. Hence their understanding of socialism is at best vague and at worst based entirely on mainstream propaganda.
Over the past few years, interest in the socialist tradition has undergone something of a revival amongst ordinary Europeans. Intellectuals like Slavoj Zizek and Alain Badiou who overtly celebrate the writings of revolutionaries like Lenin and propagate the original Communist Hypothesis have been important figures in this regard. Given what happened in the years following the collapse of actually existing socialism in 1991, the growing influence of a body of socialist thinkers is no small matter.
Having said this, the dominant trend prevails in most countries. Take India. From the late 1970s onwards, communist parties formed many successive governments in West Bengal and Kerala, and leftists were reasonably well-represented in the intellectual mainstream. Over the past decade, Indian socialism has taken a beating, and is now at its lowest ebb in decades.
The socialist project has suffered in no small part due to its own contradictions. At one and the same time viewed as the culmination of the Enlightenment principles and a rejection of capitalism, the socialist ideal has not yet fully freed itself from the cul-de-sac of modernisation.
Yet we cannot ignore just how many resources were dedicated to demonising socialism in the 20th century, and how this legacy continues to inform politics, culture and just about everything else in society.
In Pakistan the combination of the American Empire, Pakistans establishment, and right-wing political forces hounded anyone who harboured even sympathy for leftist ideas. Communists were openly decried as atheists, and therefore enemies of Islam and Pakistan. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was not a communist, and the extent of his commitment to socialism can be debated. Yet he, Pakistans elected prime minister, suffered acute character assassination due to his socialist leanings despite his initiatives to prove he was no less a Muslim than any other Pakistani.
As a teacher in a public university, I am reminded everyday of just how deeply anti-socialist propaganda has seeped into the veins of society. Only ignoramuses would ignore the contributions of Marx and others in that tradition to the corpus of modern social theory, yet even the slightest mention of Marxist writing draws gasps from a scandalised student body, convinced that socialists and communists seek to de-fang Islam and corrupt societys moral fabric.
It is ironic that since it was Islamised in the 1980s the same period in which socialism has been most vilified Pakistani society has become more individualistic and amoral than before, ie the more we wear our Islamic morality on our sleeves, the more we tend towards transactional practices in which theres no pretence of collective betterment.
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Interest in the socialist tradition has seen a revival.