Friday, February 19, 2010

The Cult of Marx - What Not To Do

I picked a fight with a room of Marxists the other night.

Well, that goes straight onto my “Not To Do” list in future.

They’d plastered posters of Madiba all over university campuses & I figured, lets do something different, check it out, see what Aussies are saying about SA and Mandela. [Please note, I reckon that 99.9% of Australians would not support them or what ensued from there]

I should have realised this was a bad idea when I walked in and was accosted by some butch chick dressed as Where’s Wally, asking me “Are you a Socialist?” first and for my name only after that.

“Well… uh… I’m…a… me? I don’t know. I’m South African, that’s why I’m here”.

They were having none of that. A whitey South African in their midsts only seemed to swell the developing anger & disgust in the room. 90% of the people in the room may have been white, well off, and twenty. But at that moment, to them, I was obviously not “A Worker” and so was to be reviled.

I meanwhile was gulping back the voice saying, “Get the fkc out of this cultish room and go and join the real workers at that pub you passed on the corner. Singlets, Footie talk and beer are only a few yards back”.

But I am a great defender and supporter of my country & I stayed to listen to the most swayed, biased, unfounded pieces of nonsense.

I watched (and cringed to my core) as the room of people stood up to shout in Aussie white accents “AMANDLA!” with big grins on their faces.

Finally I stood up & had my say,
· That I was under the impression that the way the Nats got into power in the 1940s was through the support of the white working class, actually. W.o.r.k.e.r.s. The type this group howls in support of every two seconds;
· That actually, peaceful resistance was in fact instilled by Ghandi who’d been hanging around our neck of the woods at the time, not through Harlem and African-American groups;
· That I found it extremely disrespectful for this Main Speaker to say that what Mandela had done after getting into power, of granting amnesty & creating the Truth & Reconciliation Commission, was completely wrong & abhorrent. One of the reasons the world is awed by & reveres Mandela is his compassion & ability to forgive;
· That we had apparently stood at the brink of civil war & it was through the granting of amnesty & the drive for reconciliation and peaceful handover that we have stayed as stable as we have;
· That until you have stood on the brink of civil war, you cannot pass judgement on what is done to prevent it [oooo, they really did not like that point, these 1st World Aussie middle class extreme lefties];
· That you cannot discount how powerful the Freedoms of Movement & of Choice are; those Freedoms that immediately came about in 1994. That sure, we are still developing and social and economic problems abound, but those two Freedoms mean WE ARE NOT WORSE OFF THAT BEFORE!! (so please could every second person in the room stop telling me that my country is worse off). We have the tools of equality, of nationwide development, of entrepreneurship, hope and potential for any South African to realise their goals, and that true economic equality is getting there;
· And that I do like or support Zuma, but the majority of the South African working class appears to love him. And they, the “workers”, wanted him in power, they identify with him, and that is why he is in power. [Ok, fine, it is much more complex than that, but its not like these guys are into complexities, and I needed some point to mention the word “Workers” again]
· I mentioned HIV, in terms of how that is a real threat to the working class in South Africa, but that bored them. A disease does not give you a punching bag or enough reason to attack Liberal Western states or organisations.

The whole room was on their feet ready to tear me down with their “points of order” as soon as I sat down. Tjo. If there had been a trapdoor in the floor beneath me, dropping the hell through it might have been a good idea at that point!

Some middle aged woman who earlier had been so sweet next to me, sitting there and chatting absolute nonsense before the talk, stood up and said,

“If this fucking aid worker wants to tell us this… blah blah… crumbs from their table… we [the workers] will not accept… this fucking girl… slag off aid work some more… fuck… revolution… Workers! Fuck. RAH!”

Well! Wow! Feel the love! Let the first rock to the head be thrown by the falsely-accommodating motherly figures!

Then a group wank fest basically ensued.

Calm points started to be spoken which would turn into some screaming tirade in 2 minutes and finally this satisfied round off smirk of “workers” “crumbs from tables” “evil western powers” “poor Palestine” “Evil white owners of SA industry” “we will not accept the words from this [tone turns to dripping disdainful disgust] aid worker” “workers” “Revolution!! Revolution!” “RAH!” “AMANDLA”.

The 30 year old white eloquent Main Speaker, born into a first world privileged country that champions free speech and the adherence of minimum wage, shouted at me that “We will not accept the crumbs from your table!”

“My table???” “You accepting crumbs???” I’m the South African here & you clearly have never known what it is to walk 20 kms to work each day, what the pit of a mine shaft looks like, or what a lowly exploitative wage meant if you tried to wet dream it, sweety. Let alone! What it means to do daily practical work of assisting people get access to education and health care and uphold legal rights… what us “dumb” aid workers do.

I had wanted to stand up again and point out the “irony” of her voice being that of a white well-off middle class person from The Centre telling us that the actions of an African black man [Mandela] from The Periphery were wrong. But I was feeling just slightly out-numbered.

During her closing speech she reached orgasmic heights as she started to speak of how there are STILL secret police going about in South African townships, seeking out and taking out the people who do not want Eskom to be privatised! How?? How do you know that?? How can you justify such an unfounded claim?? Does any South African reader know anything about these secret police? Our police currently do not get paid enough to pull you over for breaking a traffic law… why on earth are they going to waste their time following up on folk who support Eskom??

She continued, in her apparent support of Eskom (I did not even bother to get into arguments about this, it was so pointless), how people across SA still do not have access to electricity! Is this not shocking! Uh………..yes, we call this loadshedding and it is actually BECAUSE OF Eskom!!! Fkc. You people are dumb and uninformed.

There was the twenty year old in a minuscule gold dress sipping on her beer and telling me to buy their magazine [See, sorry, I’ve been a worker in Oz, I don’t have the money to afford your worker’s magazine], tell me about how they will fight anti-feminists, homophobes, racists etc… and me think, “Well, wear that dress amongst some workers in a Jo’burg taxi rank, while you try to gather solidarity, and see what happens!”

But my cherry on top was having a sixty year old woman turn around in her seat and loudly shout at me that
“Ghandi is actually a mass murderer!”

That had me on the floor rolling about with laughter! It had become too much. Next they’d tell me Mother Teresa was a raping elitist and Jesus was a bigoted anti-Semitic.

Sixty year old Marxists, “No! No! Do not laugh at me”
Champs “Sorry, but I have to!”
Sixty year old Marxists, “NO! His peaceful actions led to the murder of thousands of people”.
…but hadn’t your comrades all just shouted at me that they wanted civil war in South Africa? Will you guys get some continuity going here? Don’t you realise what revolution means in reality?? It means the death of bystanders for the championing of one group’s cause.

Then they all had a cigarette and lay back in false satisfaction.

And I was forced to walk across the room through them hoping to not have a knife in me by the time I reached freedom. Not that any of them would ever have the “courage” to put convictions behind their violent words.

Someone beelined through the crowd to me and I just swore. He looked at me and said, “You look like you need a beer? Can I save you from these Marxists?” He then had to pull me through the crowd, appeasing them only by telling them his mother was Russian and his grandmother had been in a Russian gulag.

And so I was rescued and bought a drink by some journalist who is writing a book on SA, sitting in a pub with the normal people, still shell-shocked from the disturbing narrow-minded outdated beliefs of the desperate ideologising that is the Melbourne “Socialist Alternative”.

Maybe this will be the last time I say “well why not check this out, it’s something different!” Ha!

P.S. I have since had it pointed out to me that these people were probably wonderful Marxists because historical research has shown Marx to be deeply unpleasant, vindictive and racist.

10 comments:

Cam said...

This sounds like fun!

*takes popcorn*

*munch munch munch*

:)

MeeA said...

OMG, Champs! That kind of shit would drive me to abject apathy, because there is simply no getting through to such groups with anything vaguely approximating logic or reason...
Rather you than me, chick. Seriously!

Mnr. Doenbaar said...

Rough stuff - I've seen that kind of mass nasty before and it ain't cool - good on you for having your say though, Champs. Fuck em anyway, bunch of commies.

Is it just me, or do you also get the feeling the general intelligence level of humanity is on a chronic downhill slide caused by bad natural selection? The intelligent clearly do not breed anywhere near enough.

The ignorant masses are getting more vocal and active, but they have no idea what they're saying. Sounds like these Marxist buddies of yours are collective victims of the old Dunning-Kruger effect. And more on that here.

Sigh.

Champagne Heathen said...

Cam - :) It should have been filmed! I could've made some decent cash in screening it, considering how the story has since entertained people!

Mama - Exactly! They have pre-conceived answers for anything you put forward & nothing is going to stop them stray from their ideology for even a nano-second - in fear that they might actually be swayed entirely away from it! Right-wing fundamentalists dressed in Leftie clothing!

Mnr Doenbaar - Ha ha ha! Thanks for those links! I really enjoyed them & spent most of Saturday saying to people "Do you know what you know, know what you don't know, don't know what you do know, and don't know what you don't know"...and then get all mixed up & have to start again!

I am just worried now, cause I am very "cocksure"...which makes me start thinking I am dumb. But then! If I start thinking I am dumb, that causes me to doubt my intelligence, which then makes me clever! Yeah!


As for natural selection - but if the theory does exist, then there cannot be "bad" selection, because the "dumb guys" were intelligent enough to get selected...even if it was playing the "poor me, protect me" role!

All in all, as long as you ensure a good level of humility in all you know, you'll always be increasing your knowledge & intelligence. Because you can never know what you do not YET know. But you can be open to soon knowing some of what you do not know! :P

Now for me to teach this once & for all to my cocksure side!

Anonymous said...

Champs, It sounds like you dropped into the middle of a cult meeting that is not very different from goups such as Scientology. Socialist Alternative has become notorious for their cultic behaviour, so no one should be too surprised at your experience. Generally speaking, SA give other Left groups a bad name.

Champagne Heathen said...

Anon - most people I told about this have actually said to me that this group sounds like a fundamentalist right wing group dressed in a lefties clothing!!

Surely you can't be "left" if you refuse pointblank to listen to other's ideas or perspectives?!

This is then the 3rd cult I survived! I'm doing well!

Anonymous said...

This group, Socialist Alternative, were often referred to as SA - but that caused confusion with Socialist Alliance. So they were then known as SAlt by some commentators. However, in light of their behaviour and attitude over the past few years, I suggest that a better acronym for this mob would be SAD - defined as follows:
'S' for Simplistic
'A' for Anachronistic
'D' for Delusion
Indeed, SAD is their name, and SAD is their game.

Champagne Heathen said...

Anon, I reckon I have to agree with you & the acronym on this one!

Anonymous said...

Just had to leave a picket line where I was trying to support the striking workers because of these douches. They manage to turn a community picket into their own little club where they have stalls and try to recruit (unsuccesfully thank god) attack people who don't agree with everything their cult says.

I am really interested to hear someone is writing a book about them. Is it going to come out soon? What is the focus of it? I'm so mad at their behaviour over the last few years I can't wait for it to come out.

Anyway, please don't judge all socialists on their behaviour. Some of us are nice normal people. And nobody hates them more than the rest of us who's name they turn to mud :(

Champagne Heathen said...

Hi Anon,
I have been meaning to write back to you for far too long now. Not that I have anything meaningful or insightful to say, mind you!

Thanks for your comment! And I'll note your point & try to hug the more liberal-minded socialists ;)

And yes, I continue to encounter these guys across Melbourne; pretty much every time I walk up Swanston street, there they are with a new yet warped yet old agenda shoving things in everyone's faces & shouting a lot.

I think the journalist that I mention was writing a book on something else, at least that's what he told me. Hmmm. Does seem more plausible he was there for info on these guys! I have completely forgotten his name by this stage, so we'll both have to watch the book/socialist space! Otherwise... there's a money-making idea right there... Hmmm...