By Jaye Gaskia
“There is one army
stronger than all armies in the world; this is an idea whose time has come…..”
Victor Hugo
SETTING
THE STAGE
As you begin to read
this write up and go through it, I will plead from the very beginning for
patience, and tolerance to go through it and digest its contents, as if you
were studying for an examination.
We again begin by
paraphrasing Karl Marx, Frantz Fanon, Leon Trotsky, and Vladmir Lenin! Why is
it necessary to set the context by invoking these historical figures? To
emphasise the nature of the revolutionary, and therefore potentially radically
transformative times that we are living through now; and as well to underscore
the immense life changing potential in our heightened collective action.
First, Marx it was
who observed that ‘Philosophers have always interpreted the world, the point
however is to change it’; and additionally that, ‘Human beings make history,
but not entire according to their will, rather under conditions inherited
through generations’.
Frantz Fanon, a
leader of the Algerian Revolutionary war for independence from France had also gone
on to observe that, ‘Every generation must out of relative obscurity, discover
its mission, fulfill it or betray it’.
Long before Fanon,
Trotsky, co-leader of the Russian revolution of 1917, while describing
revolution and the conditions for it had also said something to this extent;
‘To a slap on the cheek, we each react differently, but to being hit by a
sledge hammer, we all react in the same way’. He went to define revolution as ‘the
rude collective intrusion of the mass of oppressed peoples unto the stage of
history’.
And Lenin, leader of
the Russian revolution, had described the conditions for revolution as thus:
‘the gravity of the situation is such that the ruling classes can no longer
rule in the old way, while the oppressed classes no longer want to be ruled in
the old ways’.
THIS
MOMENT IN HISTORY
We are truly living
through interesting times globally and nationally. As a system into which all
countries are sucked; the fortunes and misfortunes of capitalism, the global
market and free enterprise system affects all. We are in the era of a global
organic that is comprehensive and all embracing crisis of capitalism; one that
has also spawned a global resistance movement to the life threatening impact of
that crisis. This crisis is total, organic, because it is at one and the same
time a combination of five different crisis; a global financial, economic,
political, ecological and food crises rolled into one!
It is a crisis that
has demonstrated the structural failure of capitalism in the most graphic
dimensions. Multi and transnational corporations have failed spectacularly
threatening the world economy; just as national economies have collapsed
further compounding the global economic crisis. What this has engendered is a
situation where global corporations and national economies have gone bankrupt
and gone burst, all needing bailouts from public treasuries, contrary to the
mantra of the cult of free enterprise and the market!
In response to these
comprehensive global crises, ruling classes everywhere have responded by
bailing out the private sector, while shifting the burden to the working and
exploited classes through austerity measures, and drastic cuts in social
spending.
Not surprisingly the
response of the working and toiling peoples across the world to this inhuman
attack on their conditions of living and working has been a groundswell of
global resistance, which has manifested in different ways. Thus it is that we
have had and are still witnessing the intensified wave of general strikes
across Europe, the emergence of the Global Occupy Movement, the resurgence of
the left globally, the return to power of left parties in Latin America, the
January Uprising and all the subsequent movements of resistance since in
Nigeria, etc.
This mutually
antagonistic responses of the main historical actors globally; the ruling and
subordinate classes respectively to the combined crises, is illustrative of
Lenin’s conditions for revolution: ‘The ruling classes not being able to
continue to rule in the old ways, while the exploited classes begin to refuse
to be ruled in the old ways’.
If at the beginning
of the twentieth century Lenin described Imperialism as the highest phase of
capitalism, on the eve of the subsequent two world wars; then at the beginning
of the twenty first century we can describe Globalisation as the highest phase
of Capitalist Imperialism.
COMING
BACK HOME: JANUARY UPRISING AND SINCE
It is important to make
it clear that what I describe as the complex and historic revenue crisis facing
the Nigerian state and the Nigerian ruling class is rooted squarely within this
global crises. Of course in our own case the impact of the global crises is
compounded by the unsustainable public treasury theft rate amounting to about
N2.5tn annually or N220bn monthly in recent years!
It is a combination
of fluctuating international prices for our main commodity, and the intensive
looting of the public treasury that has produced the spectacle of an endemic
systemic revenue crisis for the Nigerian state. And it is the response to this
crisis that is fueling the subsidy removal drive, and which eventually
triggered the January Uprising of 2012.
That Uprising has
become the defining life changing political process for a generation. As a
process, it has and its experience continue to radicalize and politicize a new
generation which is awakening to its historical duty; emerging from relative
obscurity, discovering its historic mission, and increasingly choosing to
fulfill it.
And for the
generation radicalized by a previous period of intensified struggle, the
anti-military campaigns, the January Uprising served to reinforce and
reinvigorate not only their convictions, but also their organisations. In this
context, the historic coalitions; Joint Action Front [JAF] and United Action
For Democracy [UAD] have emerged revived and repositioned.
The experience of the
January Uprising has and continues to create a new wave of activists and active
citizens picking up causes to fight for, at different junctures in our history
since the uprising.
It is important to
see and draw strength from the continuity between the January Uprising and all
the protest, resistance, and governance influencing movements that it has since
spawned. And we can list these; the various Anti-Corruption campaigns that have
emerged; the campaigns and popular struggles to protect the livelihoods of the
poor and defend their homes [the movements in support Okada riders, mini bus operators; the movements to stop
demolition of suburbs where the poor and powerless live]; the waves of workers
strikes in different sectors of the economy; the emergent youth movements in
particular their proactive engagement with the constitution reform, resource
allocation and budget transparency processes; etc.
Each of these waves
of popular struggles and resistance since the January Uprising have their
individual significance not only in galvanizing popular responses to particular
issues, and helping to place popular checks on particular excesses of the
ruling elites; It has also helped in sustaining the momentum initiated by the
January Uprising, while building the self confidence of the subordinate classes
and their movements not only in the desirability of change, but also in the
possibility of change in our time!
Politically, this new
momentum of resistance to injustice and failed governance, this new and rising
level of collective popular confidence, is manifested in the renewed wave of
activities with respect to formation of expressly political and proto party
platforms, on our side, on the side of the subordinate classes. Here we refer to
the number of emergent new party formations.
On their side too, on
the side of the treacherous, treasury looting ruling elites and class, there is
also political commotion, manifested in on the one hand in the intense internal
antagonistic struggles within the parties [PDP, APGA, etc]; as well as in the
self serving power grab drive of some opposition parties towards merger [APC – ACN, CPC, ANPP].
THE
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE #CHILDNOTBRIDE CAMPAIGN
Within this broad
spectrum of revival of active popular struggles, the emergent ChildNotBride
campaign holds a special significance on the road to 2015.
If the January
Uprising unleashed the momentum, pointed the way, and engendered confidence;
the ChildNotBride campaign, has served to confirm that rising confidence, and
presents us with a projection of our capacity to effect change, and ensure a
fundamentally different outcome in 2015 from the past!
These urgent lessons
of this latest campaign needs to be identified immediately, and integrated into
the emergent political processes towards national liberation and social
emancipation of our country and her peoples.
What are the lessons
that must be learnt? First, a new generation radicalized by the January
Uprising has shown that it can recognize and seize historical moments; that it
can organise on its own, autonomously of established movements and
personalities; and that we can overcome a lot of the challenges posed to
popular organising and mobilising by combining effective use of the new social
media, with active real life and on the ground community mobilisation to build
a movement that can go viral with respect to its influence and its potential.
This effective use of
the social media to reach out; to undertake mass enlightenment; to put out and
push a message; to call for action; to ginger popular conscience and
consciousness; to identify volunteers; and to coordinate the actions of these
volunteers in organising and mobilising people in their various localities;
were lessons learnt during the January Uprising, and reinforced in a magnified
way in the ChildNotBride campaign.
What are the
implications of these lessons? The implications seem to be clear; First that we
can organise, and need to organise politically autonomously of the political
platforms and parties of the ruling elites; Second That we can organise and
mobilise independently of ‘Godfathers’ within the treasury looting political
elite; Third that we can build and mobilise a nationwide movement capable of
responding to the issues of our peoples, and capturing popular imagination; and
Fourth, that if we put these lessons to use, we can build a political movement
or party that can represent not only an effective challenge, but also a viable
alternative to the parties of the thieving ruling elites towards 2015 and
beyond.
In Greece we have had
the emergence of the Radical Left party as the largest single party; In Italy
the emergence of the radical Five Star Movement, also as the single largest
party; In France the return of the Socialist Party to power and the increased
electoral share of radical left parties; In Spain, the rise of the Indignato
Movement of Youths and workers; In Latin America, the consolidation of Left
Parties in power [Bolivia, Ecuador, Argentina, Brazil, Nicaragua, Venezuela, etc];
And In the Arab spring, in particular in Egypt, the emergence of the Tamrod
Movement of the youths, and the Revolutionary Left Front – both of which have
effective control of the streets [Tahir Square].
There is no reason
why in the context of Nigeria, against the backdrop of the global revolutionary
situation, and within the context of the momentum generated by the January
Uprising and accentuated by the ChildNotBride campaign, we cannot achieve
similar feats or even go beyond, and transcend the limited, but significant
successes in the examples above.
It is thus in this
light that we need to welcome and actively participate in all the processes
towards the formation of new and fundamentally different parties from among us;
and why we all need to work towards the Convergence of all these proto party
efforts at most by the first quarter of 2014.
Our experience since
the January Uprising through to the ChildNotBride campaign proves that, ‘if we
actively organise to resist injustice, we can win; and when we win, we can
fundamentally transform our conditions of living.
As Murtala Mohammed
said with respect to the liberation of Angola and Nigeria’s support for it;
‘This is the time to reflect, to rethink, and to Act’.
It is therefore up to
us to take our destiny into our own hands and organise to Take Back Nigeria
Now.
Visit:
takebacknigeria.blogspot.com; Follow me on twitter: @jayegaskia &
protesttopower; Engage on: Take Back Nigeria FB page; #DPSR
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