debate with the CWA on TIB/AAC

Goke Akinrinde of the CWA majestically receiving participants

The Campaign for Workers and Youth Alternative (CWA), the Nigerian section of the International Marxist Tendency (IMT) held a symposium with the theme “The 2019 General Elections & the impending Nigerian Revolution” on 8 December 2018. It posted its report of the meeting a few days later.

The  the intention of the symposium, according to its organisers was t"o provoke a debate among the Left on the state and stage of class struggle in Nigeria and the best way to prepare for the impending class war". This is itself a good thing.

The report threw up debate with a handful of comrades involved. I joined the fray at the point where there seemed to be contradictions between the conclusions in the course of discussion at the symposium by some of the leaders of the CWA and others that participated in it.

For example, Akinrogunde Goke Tosin claimed that “whereas the discourse tilted towards an acknowledgement of a layer of awakened Nigerian youths being drawn to the Sowore movement but there was a unanimous opinion that the manifesto/ program being offered by African Action Congress (AAC) is not fundamentally different from what is on offer from the main bourgeois parties - APC and PDP”. And Rasheedat Adeshina also added that: “arguments for supporting the take it back movement uncritically was not popular at the event as many participants do not rightly see the difference between Sowore's Public private partnership program and the policies of privatization and commercialization of the two main bourgeois political parties”.

But, another report shared at about the time by Tony Iyare was titled “radical groups resolve to back Sowore”. And Jaiyeola Kajero buttressed this when he said: “I was physically present at the meeting, though there was no consensus but the weight of the argument tilted towards supporting Sowore’s ACC . We were also encouraged to actively participate in the movement.”

It is noteworthy to point out that, before the symposium itself I had heard of some worrying developments regarding not just what the CWA’s position on the then emergent presidential campaign of Sowore and the Take It Back movement driving it, but more importantly on how this position was reached.

I gathered that the group of a dozen or two persons which has not been able to maintain a website (the last upload on its site seems to have been 5 or even 7 years back!) or a newspaper (it actually comes up once every other year with its paper Workers Alternative) had earlier expressed support for Sowore in its (exceedingly) occassional paper. But, from what the former member of their group said, subequent to this, there was a directive from one Fred Weston (the boss in charge of the African Region at the headquarters of the IMT in London) that this was not a correct line – thus whipping them into line!

Now, I have not been able to ascertain the veracity of this information. I made frantic efforts to get a copy of the Workers Alternative where the support for Sowore was allegedly made when I was in Nigeria for the AAC Campaign earlier in the year, before the general elections. But the contradictory description of what the consensus was at their December symposium was, in my view, a pointer to falsification as a trademark.

Anyway, in jumping into the fray, my sparring partner from the cwa-cwa end became Rasheedat Adeshina. At a point, I was of the view that the debate, at that point in time at least, was spent. And I signed out, just before Christmas.

Subsequent to this, Rasheedat came back to the debating ring, which is not a bad thing in itself – as she had the righ to do so. But her posts were filled with falsification (& half knowledge - which is more often than not a terrible thing). In the first week of the year, I began putting together the draft of a response, which I shared with a few members of the SWL.

But, more serious work called in several directions, and I abandoned that particular thread which had become a sort of dialogue followed by a handful of persons. The CWA/IMT of course also did not stop with its ultra-left campaign of calumny, penned from the London secretariat of IMT and subsequently by its quacking Nigerian section. Not at all surprisingly, this has led the group ever further to a sectarian stance against the #RevolutionNow movement.

We engaged with this trend of an insincere approach of the group in the Socialist Worker in January. Recent events this month validate our argument then that the TIB movement was moving futher leftwards towards revolutionary politics. And, without wasting too much time on the groupuscule which really has next to no influence within the working-class, we will keep unmasking their tradition of falsfication and sectarianism for what it is.

It is in this light, that the debate in December and my January draft in its unfinished form as put together then are now posted herein below as this blog.

                                                            ***************

Baba Aye Rasheedat Adeshina If indeed a symposium of the Left could only reach a “general consensus” that to merely look into the TIB almost a year after it commenced and less than 2months to elections such as those for 2019 then there is a serious poverty of philosophy in the gathering, and that is saying the least. Meanwhile, I don’t understand what argument for supporting TIB (or indeed anything for that matter) uncritically is. Marxism is nothing if not critique. 

Not to be critical even in our organisations is to reduce “theory” to rote learning with quotations from Marx, Lenin, etc replacing actual thinking and concrete analysis of concrete reality. There are consequences for this in praxis. One of such which is quite significant to this discussion is to know the words but lose the spirit of Ted Grant’s advice on the need for revolutionaries to have a sense of proportion.

If the revolutionary Left had just two thousand battle-hardened cadres spread across the country, talking of supporting TIB or not could have had a flavour of being in touch with reality. As mere groupuscules, with many of these being a handful of comrades and friends, such talk is akin to James Brown’s “talking loud and saying nothing” lyrics.

Does my position amount to jumping head on to any bandwagon simply because of our weakness as the left? Of course not! Is the manifesto of AAC revolutionary? Not at all! But, to describe it as simply a PPP program is rather stretching things. Having a dialectical view to guide our praxis requires our putting the whole threads of the fabric in view. What TIB is much more than a limited manifesto. If programmatic clarity is what makes revolution, the Nigerian revolution would have triumphed decades back.

Does going beyond merely looking at TIB like a masquerade equates to dissolving the independence of left groups or providing such distinguished “critical support” which is supposedly worth its “critique” in gold? No, this is where the united front tactic comes in. And that is what the TIB/AAC-AMPA is. One would have though this was simple and straightforward enough.

But, maybe there are extraneous international influences at work here? Does this equally inform why the impression of virtually everyone else who was at the meeting, including Tony Iyare of how it went appears to be somewhat different from how the organisers alone appear to read it? 

It also seems that it is not only on qualitative issues that there is this, as far as I can tell from afar, discrepancy. From what I gathered from comrades that were at the meeting from the beginning to the end, the number of people present all together would be between 30 and 40. Why the inflated figure (i.e. assuming the reports I got are correct – accept my apologies in advance if you could debunk this, as it would be easy to)? Could one assume that this report was largely or at least in part written for the benefit of the International Marxist Tendency (IMT)?

Ordinarily, I would not have chosen to engage like this. But there are two things here. One, I have always had a serious distaste for bureaucratic centralism be it in organisations or with the sheep’s clothing of “internationalism”. Second, we might be on the cusp of history requiring much more than this sclerotic approach to politics. And by politics I mean something to do with a critical mass and not sectarian squabbles within and between groupuscules.

Rasheedat Adeshina Baba Aye we organized a symposium and we took attendance sheet of all the participants. The figure we wrote above reflect this statistics which unfortunately doesn't tally with your own statistics from afar.

Then on the IMT, we are in a period of blackmail and misrepresentation of glaring fact, there may not be any serious educational benefit responding to this.

Now on the real issue, like many "Marxist" we throw around the world dialectics without understanding what it means in practice. Before I proceed, pls let me get this clarifications which I think is critical to this polemics: what specifically do we support in this AAC/TIB movement? And what specifically are we opposed to in this movement? This will help us to guage our attitude and how much sympathy we can give to this movement

Baba Aye Rasheedat Adeshina Thanks for your response. The quantitative issue of how many people turned up or not is politically the least important of the issues at stake and makes sense only as part of the bigger picture. As I said, what I have is at best second hand, albeit from a cross-section of comrades, including at least one who was present throughout the programme.

Now to the issue of clarifications as you put it, the matter is not a simple one of ossified elements of what to support and what not to support. Ad you noted, it is a movement and its character can be understood only in its development. And understanding its internal development requires a grasp of how this is part and parcel of the current international and national situation, influencing it and being influence by it. 

I have argued elsewhere that the TIB movement is in Nigeria what the Sanders moment, Corbynism, Podemos, Syriza etc in other climes have been and/or are; radical-reformist challenges to the status quo, which demonstrate how the working-masse could actually go beyond even the objective ideological and political constrains of these movements.

Rather than some piecemeal listings of two legs (bad) and four legs (good) characterisation of different elements in what the movement is (and by the way it is an ABC of dialectics that the whole is not merely = to the sum of its parts), we are to engage with the movement as a whole, not with extent of sympathy but as a living force contributing to moving its political possibilities forward.

Of course, in concrete terms such shortcomings as proposition of PPPs as an option in the AAC manifesto cannot and must not be supported. But, the issue is that this is being engaged with in a piecemeal still picture-like linear manner, than as part of a mass political being in the making. Manifestos can be amended or even wholly re-written. I know as a matter of fact that the AAC is not averse to engaging with the broader left to enrich its programme. 

The extent to which such engagement would be encouraged is of course influenced by the way and manner such “critical” engagement is done. Sorry they say could be male or female. And as Lenin noted revolutionaries who expect a pure revolution (under the banner of an ideologically pure manifesto, one could add!), where you have such piecemeal arrangement of the revolutionary contents on one side and the reactionary on the other will never see one – and indeed might unwittingly serve to undermine the possibility of what they claim to want. 

This last part is of course where and when such revolutionaries actually constitute a critical mass themselves such that their sectarianism could really be more than just water on the back of a duck either way. What is at stake is much more than however 16 February goes. We should put our strategy before our tactics. 

In summation, at least for now, I will repeat as I earlier said that the question is one of HOW to engage with the movement in an organic manner and not HOW MUCH of sympathy to give the movement. What is necessary is a deft use of the united front tactic. AAC/TIB-AMPA represents this correct line, in practical terms.

Rasheedat Adeshina Baba Aye Comrade, I’m sure you know that as we run away from the danger of sectarianism, there is also at the other extreme the danger of opportunism. Genuine Marxist must always balance between the two extremes. During the past period of lull, Marxists battle against the pressure of sectarianism. The real pressure facing us now as Marxist under this rising tide of struggle is opportunism.

Our relationship to AAC/ TIB movement is a tactical question. The only burden tactical issue places on us is that we have to be concrete of the object we are analyzing without losing sight of what it can become. We will fall into the pit of opportunism if we relate with AAC/TIB movement on the basis of what it can become and gloss over what it is concretely at present. Presently what is AAC/TIB movement? I will advise we concretely study this program (https://aacparty.com). This is a Bourgeois-Liberal programs. Not just PPP, ordinary free and compulsory education is not included in the program. What is AAC/TIB program on Oil and gas which is the backbone of Nigeria economy? Again, what is the class character of AAC/TIB movement? Does this class character have anything to do with the current program of AAC/TIB? As Marxists, should we close our eyes to these important questions under the pretest of glossing over what is it now and focusing more on what it can become. Is AAC/TIB movement currently the same politically and organizationally as labour party under Corbyn in UK or it has potential to be like it. We need to differentiate between this. Im sure you know that AAC/TIB currently is not labour party under Corbyn, does it have a potential to become one? It is just a mere potential which depend on many factors, there is no certainty in this. Like I said above, because this is a tactical question, we relate with the movement as it is, and not with its potential, without closing eyes to the future possibility.

Rasheedat Adeshina AAC/TIB is filling a temporary vacuum left by the trade unions leadership which has abandoned their historical task of building a mass- based political alternative. But important question is; will this state of the working class movement be permanent? Is unfortunate that even many who shamefully called themselves Marxist have completely written off the working class movement, to them, this unfortunate state will be forever. We do not share this pessimistic conclusion.

Another important factor is how AAC/TIB react to the outcome of February general election, if they get demoralize with the outcome of election result, that potential may not be met. The inevitable attack against the working class and youth from any regime that emerges victorious in February election will certainly provoke a movement, how AAC/TIB respond to this is also an important factor in actualizing the potential. If they enter that future movement with this right-wing program, the potential may be hampered and the question of AAC/TIB becoming a PODEMOS and Syriza will just be a mere dream.

Rasheedat Adeshina Comrade, we cannot eat the cake of tomorrow today. What is in this movement that is positive for Marxist? This should also be a product of concrete assessment of what AAC/TIB currently is. There is a layer of youth who are really really angry with the established order, who are desperately looking for an outlet to express this anger, AAC/TIB with Sahara reporter as backbone has found an expression for this frustration. They are obviously not yet fully consciously developed politically. This is very progressive. Among them are revolutionary army of future socialist revolution. For them to be useful for this in future, we owe them some responsibilities. We must be very clear and precise in our criticism of what AAC/TIB program is currently and not what the program can potentially be. This will help raise their level and then eventually begin to be the force that will push AAC/TIB if at all it can be pushed to the left. How do we engage this youth? Should it be within AAC/TIB or without? For Marxist organization to work in any other bigger organisation organizationally not just in its periphery, we look for at least one thing we can start the engagement on. In all honesty, there is actually none in AAC/TIB current program. Even if it is just one free and qualitative education, it can actually be a starting point. It is not an accident that AMPA’s program document carefully avoid the use of the word socialism. We are engaging this movement, we have attended many of its program, we will always be ready to attend many more in the future. But for now we may not be part of it organizationally to work inside it because our criticism of its program will certainly offend the leadership. It is therefore correct for genuine Marxist to look into this movement atleast for now.

Baba Aye Rasheedat Adeshina re-post 1: Thanks for the continued discourse. Unfortunately, I couldn’t reply earlier as I’m under an avalanche of official and unofficial work with looming deadlines from which I just got a breather. Meanwhile, I think this debate is quite important – even for beyond this limited forum ultimately – for several reasons. I am thus constrained to come back to it.

Really, I do think that a deeper reading of my earlier postings should ordinarily have foreclosed some of the questions now re-posed here by you on one hand, whilst on the other hand, there are some elements of your argument that seem like straw men. For the avoidance of doubts though:

1. There is a danger in generalising what “the real pressure” is between sectarianism and opportunism at particular periods to lose sight of the fact which you pointed out that “Marxists must ALWAYS balance” between the two extremes. Now, when a period is just opening, the tendency of falling under the spell of what was the primary danger in what might be a closing Act (and which remains throughout) is very great. The antidote to this is having foresight over astonishment, seeing the nuggets of possibilities in the unfolding moment, in a manner that is firmly rooted in principles but adroitly flexible in terms of tactics;

2. It is obvious that the relationship of any Left group and/or the Left as a whole with AAC/TIB and indeed with electoralist politics in general cannot but be one of a “tactical question”. This is begging the question: WHAT SORT OF TACTIC(S) are we talking about? Looking at things from the point of view of THE LEFT AS A WHOLE, we have addressed this concretely as a united front TACTIC taking shape as the TIB-AMPA coalition;

3. Your characterisation of “the only burden tactical issues” place on Marxists is one I find amusing. There are actually several “burdens” but that is by the way now. More importantly, is that your characterisation of that burden is one that shows a poor grasp of dialectics. I am sorry that this might sound pedantic, really – it is not personal. But the fact of a dialectical approach is not about merely not losing sight of what could become (further described as tomorrow’s cake in your third post, which I will be coming to, as well). Dialectics is about understanding the relations (& which emerge from motion) between the flour, butter, baking soda, eggs etc plus the efforts that TRANSFORMS these and the needed temperature of the oven etc on one hand and that tomorrow’s cake on the other hand;

4. Similar to the lack of a dialectical understanding of the relationship between what is and what could be is the lack of understanding what is as a totality. The manifesto of AAC/TIB and indeed of any political party is very important. But on one hand the movement cannot be fully grasped only as its programme. On the other hand, an ounce of REAL MOVEMENT is worth a ton of the most explicitly correct programmes. This can amount to glossing over the said programme (which would boil down to opportunism) only where the shortcomings of the programme are boldly considered as limitations which should be overcome. The flour in that totality of today’s cake that the movement is, is not the programme, but the people. It is much easier to re-/write a programme than to mobilise tens of thousands of working-class youth;

5. The most laughable part of this whole exercise on your part (especially if the IMT big-brother-thinking-for-its-sections-from-London is indeed any part of the reason why we are having this discussion) is the reference to Corbynism in the UK. The Blairite programme and praxis of new/blue Labour is a hundred times worse than any shortcoming of the AAC/TIB program, but Socialist Appeal had no problem with continued entryism in the Labour party through those dark days…before tomorrow’s (potential) cake (as at then) came with a Corbynist icing!

Baba Aye Rasheedat Adeshina re-post 2: Indeed, the trade union bureaucracy has important roles to play in politically mobilising the working masses in Nigeria. But reality is much more complex than an a priori saddling of the “historical task of building a mass-based political alternative” on it. One of the main reasons why in Nigeria, the unions would ordinarily have a key role to play in building a mass working-class party is precisely the weakness of Left forces to build independent of them.

Does this mean writing of the possibility of a unions-backed workers’ party or even worse (which is not at all the same thing, I must say) writing off the “working class movement”? Definitely not! 

Without the slightest bit of immodesty, I can say as a matter of fact that I have played a central role in the efforts at building such a party over the last 16 years, probably more than anyone else on the Left, and with the advantage of haven been a full-time trade unionist at the same time. And as an organisation, SWL has been and continues to be more immersed in efforts at building such a party.

But, what one sees here now is throwing away today’s akara, instead of taking it back, whilst waiting (and not necessarily baking) tomorrow’s cake in the union-oven. But that well grubbed old mole which history is, burrows in a more complex manner. AAC’s impact on national politics as a whole will likely help to reignite a union-backed labour party as a fighting party – as a concrete example that a mass party of the working masses can indeed be built in a rather non-genteel manner, successfully, at the very least.

And this is where I must point out that you are uncharitable with your supposition of post-February. Whilst it is presented, at the beginning as a mere possibility, your argument continues with a notion of demoralisation after the elections. You don’t seem to get it – the genie has been let out of the bottle. And mind you, I am no fan of Podemos or Syriza. And I am quite optimistic that the radical-reformist project of AAC/TIB will go further left than either of those ongoing efforts. The role of its coalition with AMPA for this to be, could be crucial in this regard.

Baba Aye Rasheedat Adeshina re-post 3: The way our “responsibilities” to this “revolutionary army of a future socialist revolution”, which we want to be “useful for this future” is put, is rather patronising if not downright condescending. One would think we could be humble enough to learn from them and from a relatively successful effort so far at organising them. But as the argument stands in your post, one cannot but think of a single-shirted person living in a hole of a hut writing what s/he considers to be a best seller in the making titled: “how to become stupendously rich”.

The primary thing revolutionary Marxists look out for is not the dots of ‘’I”s or elegance of the crossing of “t”s in a programme. Not because these are unimportant, to go back to the analogy of cakes, the programme is the baking soda. It leavens the dough of struggle, making it not only to rise in a scalar sense, but also to help provide direction – not as a map but as a compass.

The most important element of the cake, I would argue, is however the flour. In this case the mass of working-class people, in the ranks of the political project – this, quite importantly, is what is in this movement “that is positive for Marxists”. And maybe because we have been using generational identity category of youth you might have failed to identify the class background of the mass of youths in the AAC/TIB. 

These are mainly working-class and lower middle-class youths. Most of the children of the bourgeoisie who are not in the youth wings of the APC/PDP are to be found in the likes of the ANRP, ANN, YPP, etc. That is precisely why they are “really, really angry with the established order”.

If the programme and not the mass of working-class people drawn into a political or trade union platform was the primary point of departure for Marxists working in a party (or trade union), Lenin would not have advised on the need to work EVEN IN OUTRIGHTLY REACTIONARY trade unions or advised the British comrades of his time to enter the rather lack lustre Labour party.

Being clear and precise in COMRADELY criticism of the AAC/TIB programme AND TAKING UP THE CHALLENGE OF PUSHING DEMOCRATICALLY WITHIN ITS STRUCTURES FOR AN IMPROVED PERSPECTIVE OF THIS, is a totally different kettle of fish from the politics that reeks from your perspective i.e. one of Ayi Kwei Amah’s chichindodo the bird that feeds best on maggots but can’t stand the sight of shit.

On socialism not being included in in the current AMPA program…? I can’t but laugh in Portuguese! What first came to my mind is that JAF did not inscribe socialism in its programme until about a decade after it was formed. But, was it less revolutionary before then or has it become more revolutionary in deed or expanded its coast as such, since then? This is not a take on JAF, I must say – SWL is also an affiliate of JAF. It is to point out that the question of some untoward design being behind the non-inclusion of socialism in AMPA is laughable. And the JAF example is that which readily comes to mind in the immediate period. 

Bu more importantly, is that this takes us back to the tactical issue of a united front. This could and more often than not does bring together revolutionary and reformist platforms. That is to say that it is not given that all platforms in a united front subscribe to socialism, at least at its initial stage. Where we have a problem is where socialist groups in a united front do not boldly and independently inscribe socialism on their banner. And when such happens we can no longer describe such as a united front. It is a popular front. Of course this is all trite Marxism, and one would have assumed that you are clear about this.

A reason why I am not sure this is clear is precisely that that you give the reason for staying away from the organisation (AMPA? AAC/TIB? This is not clear but is relatively of secondary importance for now) as being because your criticism may offend the leadership. It is also trite Trotskyism that offending the reformist leadership of a united front IF NEED BE is exactly what revolutionary socialist do in winning over the rank and file. But this should be principled and not something you take as what is to be done a priori before entering such a united front and irrespective of how amenable or not the reformist leadership of such coalition is to revolutionary politics.

The foregoing being said
1. Your organisation has a right to its position, just as I have invoked the right to debate it. Practice is the sole criterion of truth. In a matter of mere months, things will be clearer either way and we can compare notes;

2. I have always upheld the position of Gramsci that to speak the truth is itself revolutionary. I have raised my fears on the possible international manipulation that could be behind the position being taken. You have said this is a season of blackmail. Well maybe it is and maybe we will never know the fact of the matter. But two persons do not pa da nu of lies and nothing is hidden for ever;

3. You are one comrade I hold in high regard for quite a few reasons, and I have taken this polemic more like fencing than a fight to draw blood. I have measured my words in this light, believe me – where it might somewhat appear scathing, it was that I could not find what would have amounted to a “langage de rapprochement”’

4. You are welcome to make any further response if you will. But I am done with this particular thread. Of course this debate would most likely continue to and beyond February. But for now, I have to pay attention to other things.
Wishing you a merry Christmas!

Rasheedat Adeshina Baba Aye I agree that this debate is a continuous one and would certainly not end here. But just to make a few remarks, it is clear from your response that our differences lie majorly in the differences in our characterization of TIB/AAC movement. This is very fundamental. Wrong characterization will inevitably lead to wrong tactics. We have seen this in the past. Wrong characterization of the then Oodua People Congress(OPC) movement led many left organizations, including yours, dissolving themselves into the OPC movement. Comrade, don’t get me wrong. Im not saying OPC is the same as TIB/AAC. OPC was and still remain an ethnic chauvinist organization which TIB/AAC is not. That wrong tactics was justified then, by stating that Marxist must always be in any "movement" of the people. We are very proud that our organization was not part of that confusion, because, for us, we do not just jump into any "movement", we are interested in the program as well as contents of that mass movement. The rest is now history.

Rasheedat Adeshina Baba Aye There is this common mis-application of Dialectics to real life situation. We deal many times only to changes and not the entity that change. It is not just the process of change that is of interest to us, we are equally interested in the entity that changes. Hiding under "It is and it is not" does not mean that the entity is not, we should also consider it as "It is". The issue here is to look at AAC/TIB as it is because we are dealing with tactics here. Tactics can change in 24hours because it has to be concrete, change in context always necessitate changes in tactics.

Again, like a few other left organizations, you say you give critical support to TIB/AAC, but I have taken the pain to go through most of your public statement and comment, I have only seen "Support" and no "Critique". Ctitical Support should not just be mouthed, we have to have enough courage to put it down in practice. It is a seemingly conflicting words "Critical Support", but Dialectically we can combine the two words in action. At the end of the day, the combination is reduced to How much support and how much critique? Zero critique means full support, full critique means no support. We critique the program, we are in full support/sympathy with the radical youths who are in this movement. The only way we can help develop their consciousness is to boldly say things as they are without mincing words. These youths consciousness need to be raised, we cannot achieve this without hash critique of Neo-liberal programs of AAC. A program that plans to introduce Toll-Gate is not in tandem with the current level of consciousness of the most advanced layer of the Youths and Workers.

Rasheedat Adeshina Baba Aye Suffice to say, to you comrade, TIB/AAC movement currently is the same as labour party under Cobyn in Uk, therefore we should all enter into it and carry out entryism within it. We do not agree with this. As far as we are concern, TIB/AAC currently is not a labour party and neither is it a worker’s party. TIB/AAC movement can best be likened to the five star movement in Italy. A movement that developed in a similar way and under similar condition with the TIB/AAC movement. There is absolutely nothing in the program of TIB/AAC currently that necessitates using the tactics of entryism. Tactics as we know is based on concrete situation, we relate with this movement as it is currently and not with its potential. Like I said before, we can only look into TIB/AAC movement because we are confident that it is a movement just filling a temporary vacuum.

THE JANUARY DRAFT

One of the two reasons I chose to end further posts on this thread was time. I had to wade through work till Christmas eve and after that spend quality time with my family. The other was because it was obvious there was little new to talk about IF WE WERE STICKING TO THE ISSUES AT THE CORE OF DISCOURSE. But I am constrained to come back to you not just because your “few remarks” were largely concoctions of ill-informed and poorly digested “analysis”, but because the inglorious icing on this mish-mash cake of yours is shameless fabrications: bundles of half-truths and outright lies. 

One of the lessons to be learnt from Trotsky’s struggle against Stalinism is the need to show co-travellers falsifications for what they are, with the clear light of truth and Marxist analysis. It is rather unfortunate that one now has to wield the same cudgels against supposed Trotskyites. I will now take up each of your post as I did earlier.

1.       It is not correct that our main difference lies in characterizing TIB/AAC. Rather it is the reading of the current situation (which should always be our point of departure for political analysis). Grasping the relationship between social structure and agency in the concrete is not to speak abstractly of some “impending revolution” in a mechanical manner. Rather it requires a critical understanding of the different social forces in their development not contemplatively either, but as part of praxis;

2.       I couldn’t but chuckle at your organisation’s pride at not jumping into the confusion of just any mass movement. It’s like a man who is BOTH impotent and sterile beating his chest with pride because, unlike his world-wise philanderer of a neighbour, he is not liable to contract venereal disease. He forgets that whilst in terms of both motion of pleasure (in this sense impacting in a real sense on real movements and not just some political masturbation of empty bombastic talk) and movement of siring (building cadreship) he essentially remains at the same place, marking time. But the philanderer could protect himself against VD, to a great extent.

3.       In this particular case, what is our “condom”, you might ask? Simple: a clear sense of theory as a guide to action which equally replenishes theory, as against the learning by rote of such Chichindodo-Marxists who express pride loudly like empty drums, drawing from this, we have ALWAYS maintained our independence (you obviously lied when you talk of our “dissolving…into the OPC” as I will point out shortly) & upheld honest self-criticism of our work. We do not lose sight of the dangers of work in mass movements (which lurk even in the shadows of those with the purest of programmes). Nor do we fear that mistakes could be made. Those who take pride in never making mistakes are precisely those who are both sterile and impotent politically (i.e. those who do nothing or next to nothing).

4.       This strategic approach has been immensely useful in helping us contribute to a broad array of struggles and development of organisations of the people. Over the last 3 decades we have had the singular distinction on the left of being centrally involved in work within the peasantry, LGBT community, environmental justice, the nationalities movement & of course the studentry. Similarly, we have been everywhere as you put it in the more partisan platforms and coalition bodies of the left. We were the only left organisation that was at founding of both the Democratic Alternative (4/6/94) & NCP (1/10/94). And we were the ONLY far left group on ground on at the Founding of the LP on 28/2/2004. We are one of only about two or so groups today active in both the UAD & JAF (and the ones calling for a merger of both to strengthen the left within the CSOs space).

5.       These have been no mean achievements, and no one with an iota of understanding of the multi-faceted nature of rivers and streams draining into the ocean of revolution is, would scoff at, particularly as we can say boldly that our involvement across these diverse spaces has not been a mere demonstration of “movementism”. They have been consistently rooted in working-class politics and work in the workers’ organisations. A demonstration of this is that SWL has rank & file workers as well as trade union leaders as its members and supporters within the six geo-political zones

6.       I have taken time to put the general strategic framework that guided & guides our tactics regarding work in movements in perspective – that whole is necessary for understanding the OPC part you draw out of your hat like a failed magician’s malnourished rabbit. I am however quite happy you came up with the issue of the Mayist engagement with OPC in particular. This might be one of your points where being ill-informed on your part might have outweighed the lies, since much of that experience has not been in the public domain. It suffices to point out the following for now:

a.       Our work in the nationalities’ movement did not start simply with the OPC. Indeed, in our internal debates, the extent to which the Yoruba could be considered an oppressed nationality was severely questioned. The situation in the Niger delta was different. And there we contributed significantly to the building of the Chikoko Movement at the same period up to the 11/12/98 Kiama Conference where the IYC was formed;

b.       Were errors made with our work in OPC? Definitely, yes – but they are far from the errors you ascribe to us, and qualitatively so. The period of our work in it was 1997-1999. In that period, our cadres in the group advanced class analysis within the group in opposition to the dominant ethnic-chauvinist trend within it. This contributed significantly to the splitting of the OPC in March 1999, and subsequently our comrades split with the Gani Adams faction 8 months later with the formation of the Yoruba Revolutionary Movement (YOREM) on 21/11/99;

c.       It is instructive that YOREM distinguished itself within the milieu of O’odua self-determination groups with two newspapers The Call & Ijangbara which espoused a working-class line to self-determination;

7.       This response has dwelt more on the past than the question of TIB/AAC simply because of your blighted recourse to same, to justify what is left unsaid i.e. without getting you wrong as you said, even though TIB/AAC is not OPC, it is doomed to be merely “another” jumpology for want of a better word. In summing up let me point out that our general strategic approach which I have spelt out is informed by the fact that a revolutionary socialist organisation must strive to be “the tribune of the people, who is able to react to every manifestation of tyranny and oppression, no matter where it appears” (Lenin, WITBD). 

       And in relation to TIB/AAC as with the movements, we stand firmly on the principle that: “We develop new principles for the world out of the world’s own principles. We do not say to the world: Cease your struggles, they are foolish; we will give you the true slogan of struggle. We merely show the world what it is really fighting for, and consciousness is something that it has to acquire, even if it does not want to.” (Marx).

ON YOUR APPLICATION OF “DIALECTICS”

It is rather unfortunate when vacuous thinking is presented as “a” true application of dialectics. But what can one do but shake his head where and when such thinking gets presented as “THE” true application of dialectics, with the loudness that goes only with empty barrels, by a Marxist?

Contrary to your separation of the thing/entity in itself and “the process of change” as you put it, the ABC of dialectics would teach that not only are both inseparable, but that the thing-in-itself, in a manner of speaking can be understood in its totality. Further, be it tactics we are talking of or strategy (which by the way is equally concrete!), this approach is at the heart of revolutionary politics rooted in dialectical tools of analyses.

I do not want to go too much into this aspect of your submission because it has less to do with misrepresentation of my earlier views and more to do with fundamental gaps in your theoretical understanding, but it is important nonetheless because the later (your “understanding”) leads to the later (a misrepresentation) when you talk of “hiding under “it is and it is not’”, leading to your supposed Eureka-like “brilliance” of considering it, as “it is”. This manner of thinking is one that time and again, I have come across in CWA politics with terrible consequences in some instances as was the case in NANS in 1995. But that is story for another day. The question now is what actually is “as ‘it is’”?

I am sure you are familiar with the Indian parable of six blind gentlemen who went to “see” an elephant FOR THE FIRST TIME. Each touched a part of the elephant and concluded he knew what “it is”. They then fought over who was telling the truth. That’s exactly what happens when your “dialectics” fails in grasping the TOTALITY of its subject of analyses. The problem is that you don’t know the driver of the vehicle you are being driven on.

You are in the bus of “analytical Marxists”. But at least they knew what they were doing when in as bombastic a manner as you declared a “common mis-application of dialectics” they described their Marxism as “no bullshit Marxism”. The road of that bus, as we saw with them ends in a terminus far from Marxism.

ON THE SWL POSITION AND “CRITICAL SUPPORT”

I am very happy that you went through the pain of going through most our public statement as you claim, not the least because there was a corpus of what to go through – it is no fault of ours that your understanding of what you read is limited, flowing from how deep your earlier take revealed your thinking is.

It is a verifiable statement of fact that in less than seven years SWL has published close to 30 editions of Socialist Worker after resting the photocopied bi-weekly Socialist Workers Bulletin (also occasionally published since then as well as leaflets) we ran subsequent to our Founding from the merger of January 2011. And we have a regularly updated website which has impressive traffic. Compared to organisations like yours which over the last quarter of a century publishes a paper once every other year and has a website that has been dormant for five years, it is easy to access our views on a myriad of items.

Unfortunately, since you did not substantiate your argument with reference to what you found, one could legitimately dismiss your claim as being as empty as your “perspectives”. We will however take this matter more seriously by pointing out what we said in relation to the subject matter, where and why.