[NetBehaviour] Solidarity in an age of repression

[Paul Hertz]

Here is the text of some words I spoke at a community meeting to reflect on
the recent election results in the States, held at the School of the Art
Institute of Chicago. It comes out of an ongoing conversation with my wife,
Paula. There are more topics we have touched upon. Energy and time
permitting, I will write about those, too. Brevity was more in order when I
wrote this.

*Reflections on Solidarity*

Before I moved to Chicago, 33 years ago, I spent 12 years in Spain. Those
were the years of transition from the Fascist dictatorship of Francisco
Franco to democracy, and also the years when I met my future wife, a young
political activist. We reflected on those years in thinking about our
current situation in this country. I want to share a few of our
observations with you.

First of all, an admonishment on the careless use of this term "Fascism."
In this country we fortunately do not know the full weight of its meaning:
the militarism, the repression of all other political options, of unions,
of languages, of the right to attend school, even of the naming of
children. Of course our election was "rigged" as all our elections are, by
the paucity of choices given to us and by the manipulation of
information--but the institutions of democracy are intact and we should all
realize that however flawed, they are worth defending.

This brings me to my second point. The change in Spain came from decades of
forging solidarity among diverse political options, among people who would
be political adversaries within a democracy but were natural allies within
a dictatorship. If you value democracy and you think that it is in danger,
you will need the help not just of people who share your politics, but of
everyone who has a fundamental belief in democracy. Some of those people
voted for Trump. Though Trump himself is most likely a fraud and not a
Fascist, there are those in his camp who will look to consolidate their
power permanently: those are the enemies of democracy.

And this brings me to my last point, the matter of categories. It is easy
to blame Hillary Clinton's loss on misogyny and racism--they were certainly
factors among many others in an overdetermined event. Over many years of
struggle, we have come to understand racism and sexism as something other
than personal flaws, though this is how they are most often treated in our
country. Only recently has an understanding of institutional and implicit
racism and sexism entered into public discourse. I think we all understand
the value of that discourse. It will be buried, as the right wing in this
country would like it to be, if we enter into a period of categorizing
individuals instead of exposing institutions and attitudes. We must not let
that happen, even when there are some individuals emerging who do deserve
the epithets, precisely because they would be happy to make a great noise
about name-calling.

Finally, let me extend this question of categories further. It came as
quite a shock for my wife to realize that in this country she is
"non-white." "Don't tell my father," she said. Blame that on the category
"Hispanic," that conceals all the diversity of people who speak Spanish in
America and generalizes our ignorance of them. The same is true of all the
other categories that have been noised about, "black" and "white" being no
less false than "Hispanic." But I would single out for particular wariness
the category "without a college education," as education is the sector of
the economy we are involved in. What is really meant is "working class,"
but it reads as “uneducated” or "stupid." "Working class" is the buried
category, that cuts across all the others, as Bernie Sanders realized.
"Working class" is the economic truth that overshadows identity politics as
it has so far been practiced. We need to come to grips not with categories,
but with histories. Speaking the truth to power will consist not of
defending categories, but of never ceasing to recover and reinstate
histories. That is one of the tasks of art in a time of repression. Art is
a demand on the future, as Walter Benjamin said—but we can realize the
future simply by learning to listen to those people whose histories we do
not know, whose histories need to be heard if we are to forge an idea of
what is to be citizens in a democratic society.

Protest, yes, but organize. Organize, yes, but listen.


Paul Hertz
Chicago, November 21, 2016

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http://paulhertz.net/
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