Jeremy Lim
To paraphrase a saying by a host of Chapo Trap House: nothing changes but everything gets worse and worse. In this instance, he is referring to the American situation in which the socialist Left is largely defeated — though currently it may be on a possible upswing — and there appears to be no obvious way forward. The same could definitely be said of the Malaysian Left.
Since the decimation of both our labour Left and the communist party in the 1960s, there has been no socialist current with a mass base to emerge. The Socialist Party of Malaysia still attempts to contest the electoral space but has not been successful in capturing the popular imagination for a socialist alternative. The supposed social democratic party, the Democratic Action Party (DAP), holds to none of the principles of its ideological forebearers and governs in a coalition of many political stripes.
Malaysian Left activists have constantly bemoaned the lack of support from the exact people their policies and proposals are meant to help. The hegemony of electoralism as an ultimate end in itself and the endless lure of working through official channels have frustrated any efforts to build popular/people-based institutions. Though the protests for free and fair elections (the Bersih movement) did constitute a popular moment, it did not engage its participants in building a lasting structure, merely mobilized them to vote and ensure the process was uncorrupted. The search for praxis — defined as the practical application of a theory or the bringing together of theory and practice — goes on in Malaysia as it does all over the world.
The unending debate between revolution and reform, between Leninist parties and the variants of social democracy, between abstention from voting and strategic political alliances, has left many socialists disillusioned with the results of nearly all these strategies. What complicates matters further is the adaptability and agility of the capitalist system, aided by bourgeois/elite institutions, in its responses to strategies that have been tried in the past.
Although every country’s circumstances require some specificity to the creation of a Left praxis, some general principles of organising and directing action would necessarily emerge for our present moment. Given the increasingly uniform exploitation of global Capital and the widespread fragmentation of Left forces, the generality of such principles would be likely applicable to most countries. Nonetheless, this series of articles will have a particular focus on Malaysia while drawing on global comparisons.
The main inspiration for thinking about these matters come from works of Professor Leo Panitch, a political economist out of York University in Toronto. In homage to his most recent book ‘Searching for Socialism: The Project of the Labour New Left from Benn to Corbyn’, the coming articles will attempt to discuss his diagnosis of the way forward. Though the book is about the UK Labour Party and the attempts by its left-wing to transform the party, he raises very important questions on Left praxis that will be expanded on. Without giving away too much, he critically interrogates the viability of Leninist parties as well as elite-minded social democratic parties, suggesting that the way forward would be building institutions on the foundational premise that the masses must be taught how to govern and given the opportunity to do so.
Info: The article was originally published here.