FROM NATIONALISM TO SOCIALISM: I was political from an early age, at the age of 18, I found myself in the Eritrean Liberation Movement. When I was a member of the EPLF for a few years, I have first hand experience of the cult leadership of the movement. The EPLF aimed to be a party of disciplined, full time professional cadres under a strong leader, dedicated and serving the dear leader. The movement was organised on a hierarchical basis with the leader at the top surrounded by small staff, an intermediate level of department heads (appointed and revocable by the top leadership) and the ordinary rank and file members. Given the emphasis on obdience and discipline members understood that they could be sanctioned for not following rules or for in any way breaking the discipline. Members were punished in a variety of ways besides submitting to collective criticism session and writing self-criticism. More practical sanctions, for example, were demotion from particular position or function removal from practice and instructions to leave a workplace or cease contact with a particular person in more serious cases, there were periods of probation, suspension and explusion, and I was expelled for talking to a member who was on probation (she was on observation to be a full member) that was my crime. After my expulsion from the EPLF, I soon became disillusioned with Nationalism. Away from Nationalism, for a little while, I was in a political wilderness, searching for social justice, by asking too many questions with less answers. I changed my outlook gradually and became a left-wing sympathiser, an organisation who believe to change society only by mass movement Direct action even violence. This barricade mentality persisted in my mind until I read a real Socialist literature, it is called the Socialist Standard. After I read the magazine at first, I gave doubts and misgivings surfaced; I discovered serious flaws and errors in the far left direct action movement. I was not happy with the Lenninst organisation, they were reformist defending State Capitalist Russia. They believe in leadership. In the end, I abandoned the left-wing insurrections and joined The Socialist party of Great Britain (SPGB). Website: worldsocialism.org/spgb This political organisation really transformed my whole outlook on history, society and politics. The partys literatures profoundly impressed me in a way no other political literatures and nothing ever before. Thus, acquiring Socialist understanding and analysis of Capitalism and how to get rid of it, I became a Scientific Socialist. I found a political organisations of equals, without a leader and followers, which rejects, Lenninist and Maoist ideolgies. The Socialist Party which Im a member of has a unique Object: The establishment of a System of Society based upon the Common Ownership and Democratic Control of the Means and Instruments for Producing and Distributing Wealth by and in the Interest of the Whole Community.
Posted on: Sun, 07 Sep 2014 13:27:38 +0000
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