My congrats to the International Socialists for making the front page of the National Post on Saturday. The better part of the centre spread was a picture of a Marx stencil, and the headline Karl's Comrades: Toronto conference seeks new friends for an old cause. The article wasn't bad, for a paper that trumpets the free market every chance it gets. It described Stanley Aronowitz as a "liberal" (he's a socialist) and IS member James Clark as "self-proclaimed" - naturally, since the Marxist Certification Board doesn't hand out licenses like candy anymore. But on the whole, I thought it represented the key struggle of Marxists accurately: how to make Marxism relevant to people who have no clue what it's about.



The Post is still disingenuous. It constantly denounces the Left, then claims Marxism is irrelevant. In other words, it's a situation it's helped to engineer. An eager David Horowitz flunky, it finds Islamic terrorists everywhere; then quotes quisling Tarek Fatah:

For atheists, considered worthy of the death penalty by Islamists, to team up with their ultimate opponents in attacking Canadian civic society, demonstrates the fundamental bankruptcy of these two political ideologies," says Tarek Fatah, a moderate [!]

Even by that twisted logic, Marxists are attaching the same importance to Islam that the National Post does. A more "moderate" point of view might see Islamophobia - which is the basis for defending Muslims - separate from Islam, political Islam or "attacking Canadian civic society" (which has everything to do with Muslims, and nothing to do with racists, apparently.) I agree with Tariq Ali when he says,

For socialists the task is clear: the Muslim communities must be defended against being made scapegoats, against repression, against the very widespread representation that terrorism is proper to Islam. All that must be energetically fought. But at the same time we must not close our eyes to the social conservatism which reigns in these communities, nor hide it. We have to try to win this people to our own ideas.

Openness is our strength

I suspect I interpret that statement differently than the IS would, but fighting racism means putting your words into practice. That means political defence of the oppressed, even if you don't always agree with what they're saying. To be charitable, that's what the Post is getting at when it says,

It might seem that Marxism is now just a push-me-pull-you of politics, but ironically it is like a religion that in an age of relativism has to mean a lot of things to a lot of people in order to survive.

Marxism is a not a religion, though it has more links than is usually assumed. It's a practice that's open to change. It comes from people's lives, not a book - except when those books are about people's lives. But there's a kernel of truth to "it has to mean a lot of things to a lot of people" (I think that'd read better as "Dude, it's so... heavy." I know, philosophy is hard.) As Marx wrote,

a social philosophy that has as its aim the defence of the oppressed cannot be condemned so lightly. One must acquaint himself thoroughly with this trend of thought ere he dares dismiss it.

If you care about "the defence of the oppressed", then their issues are your issues. I don't expect the National Post to acquaint itself thoroughly with Marxism. But if they're afraid others might, then that's a good sign.