Date: Fri, 28 Mar 1997 07:44:48 -0500 (EST)
From: louisgodena-AT-ids.net (Louis R Godena)
Subject: M-I: Re: Concerning Zeynep and marxism-international


At 01:23 AM 3/28/97 -0500, Hariette Spierings asked:
        
>What is so wrong to have that opinion
>of Zeynept Tufekcioglu's unprincipled behaviour as to label her actions
>counter-revolutionary?

And:

>Is she not spreading the SAME ideology as that of Hillary Clinton, Madeleine
>Albright and the US STATE DEPARTMENT?  What service is this to OUR STRUGGLE?


Adolfo,  surely you recognize the difference between supporting positive
discrimination (eg., affirmative action) as an attempt to redress conditions
caused by past discrimination (a position held by a number of
revolutionaries in my own country,  though one with which I disagree) and
the posturing by the likes of Clinton and Albright as a means of securing
political support for their fascist regime -- the "main enemy",  as you
point out,  of the "world's people"?  

True,  social equality is not reached by means of good intentions,
administrative decisions,  and subjective plans for equalizing personal
requirements and the opportunities offered by everday life,  but through the
development of a socialist economy and culture.   At the same time,
attempts to address the most pressing consequences of the enduring
inequalities of capitalist development can have a progressive character and
in fact be supported by progressives and even revolutionaries.    

By linking Zeynep's position on feminism and affirmative action (positions
she has hardly developed or articulated to any appreciable degree on
marxism-international) with those of imperialism's staunchest
representatives and defenders,  are you not also guilty of adopting a
"fundamentally personal position,  centered on the individual as a person,"
as you accuse me of doing?

There is much wisdom,  as you suggest,  in Mao's words of "hitting the
conscience" of those of whom you suspect political insouciance or error.
But you cannot really compare Zeynep to Maria Elena Moyano,  the police
snitch and organizer of counter-revolutionary death squads -- the "Mother
Courage" of the Peruvian and US media -- nor accurately call her a "liar and
dissembler" whom I defend for "merely" personal reasons.    This type of
abuse is so lacking in even the fundamentals of reason and evidence as to be
"merely" ridiculous,  on a par with the notions of "crypto - Trotsky run"
NGOs and my comrade and friend as an "imperialist agent".                     
        
You then go on to rightly argue:

>The class struggle is not, comrade Godena, an academic salon, nor a boudoir
>in which we all throw pillows at each other and then adjourn to the bar for
>a welcome break and a personal touch.  Criticism of reactionary ideas and
>positions must be trenchant and no personal feeling should come into that...

Yes,  criticism of ideas and positions must be harsh and uncompromising.
Revolution,  said Mao,  "is not a dinner party."   But, one must above all
be accurate in one's findings.    You cannot ascribe to "individuals,
parties or events" qualities "which do not exist in objective reality."
To do so does a disservice to your otherwise admirably constructed arguments
and dead on center analysis for which you are well and justly known.    I
have vouched for Zeynep as a revolutionary and friend to the cause of the
working class.    True,  she does not need my endorsement anymore than you
need my defense.     But,  surely,  you of all people are mindful of the
need to portray accurately and with every sense of truth the events taking
place around us.

Louis Godena   
     



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