by Petros Evdokas
I was very moved to read the holiday wishes
and cards sent to the StopTheWar Coalition by our Palestinian and
Nepalese friends, allies and comrades (copies below).
"Who cares
about religion?" one might say. There's some truth to that objection.
But there is a deeper, more significant truth in embracing the spiritual
and social yearnings of the People. When revolutionaries embrace,
cultivate and defend the best and most beautiful elements of our
Peoples' cultures and yearnings, the People in return find more direct
and clear motives to embrace, cultivate and defend the Revolution
itself.
Freedom fighters who emerge from actual struggle in the
various active fronts of the global Liberation Movement have an
instinctual understanding of this. It's not "just politeness", "policy",
or "diplomacy" as some clever supposedly emancipated secularists might
say to dismiss our comrades' sentiments. There's something essential
about easter references to the Resurrection of the Soul and Revolution.
"But why? What is the meaning of all this?"
Our
comrades from Nepal, Palestine, Kurdistan, Lebanon, have a direct and
inner awareness that the true culture of the people, which includes the
peoples' spiritual life in its pure forms, separate from
the distortions it manifests when it is dominated by the authoritarian
church and other pseudo-religious institutions, is the moral and
cultural foundation of liberation which, married to the realities of a
freed up production, common ownership and people's power applied to
direct democracy can generate a whole new world.
"But isn't it just backwards and reactionary religionism?"
It
is precisely the opposite. The shocking truth of our people's true
culture resides actively within our own words and is wholy embedded
within our hidden semi-subconscious culture. This truth even survives in
the international language, english:
o~ Primarily within the hellenic/greek language, but in almost all languages of the world, the words for Strike
(Στάσις), Revolution (Επανάστασις), and Resurrection (Ανάστασις) are all
slight variations of each other in meaning, in sound and reference.
They are also conjoined at the root in conveying process and condition,
expressing variations of a particular state of being.
This unity
of concepts, spread out through the millennia as our culture helped to
sculpt significant parts of modern civilization still survives in
english: there is a close relation between Insurrection and
Resurrection.
Who wants more? The unity between Communion and Communism?
In the hellenic/greek language:
o~ The word for Communion and Society is the same: Κοινωνία (Koinwnia).
o~ The phrase for a self-governed body of citizens is the same as the word for church: Εκκλησία του Δήμου (Ecclesia).
The
domination of our peoples' lives by Capital and the State is matched
equally by the domination of our culture by the authoritarian Church.
There's no way to strive for, or even to perceive of, a local and global
Liberation without paying attention to the efforts aimed at affirming,
nurturing and freeing up our true culture from the claws of the Church
demons who hold it hostage with superstition, mystification and moral
perversion.
An awareness of
the spiritual, emotional and moral significance of political events is
an essential part of popular Consciousness. Every person with a
Conscience in the western world perceives Palestine as the enduring
Crucifixion. Bleeding, tormented, screaming and dying on the cross
erected by the global Empire, Palestine is perceived by the western
world in precisely those terms; this is the true essence of the peoples' culture expressing itself through its primeval archetypes.
And
totally appropriate. Modern Palestine writhing on the Crucifix is
located exactly where the easter references place it geographically: in
the gateway to the Middle East, in the center of the Holy Lands. No
matter how strongly the western Churches allied to Capital and Empire
try to erase this from awareness, people in the West still connect to
the idea and to the emotions related to Palestine through this
archetype. Easter and Palestine on the Crucifix are an integral part of
the moral~spiritual landscape within the awareness of most people in the
West.
Let's say it again: An
awareness of the spiritual, emotional and moral significance of
political events is an essential part of popular Consciousness.
The
Revolution unfolding recently and securing itself in Nepal is a
Resurrection of the collective Soul. Both society and the person are
becoming reborn through it with the pains, the joys and the awareness of
an old/new Soul becoming re-established within existence, re-anchoring
itself to the here and now.
Rebirth of Consciousness -
Resurrection - is built into the very essence of all cultures in
countries of the East; both the secular and the spiritual elements of
eastern culture are embedded with ideas and concepts entirely filled
with those archetypes. Is there anyone in the eastern countries who does
not perceive social and personal revolution that way?
It's not a
coincidence that in many countries of the East where the language is
related to Sanskrit or Hindi, a political slogan is called a "mantra".
It's
not a coincidence that two of most important and universal principles
of Socialism are embedded within the theology and organization of Islam:
o~
Both Socialism and Islam affirm a social organization and management of
resources aimed at the fulfillment of the needs of the people, stemming
"from each according to one's ability, to each according to one's
need";
o~ Both Socialism and Islam affirm a universal identity articulated by the Islamic concept of Fitrah,
according to which all people without exception are born as embodiments
of The All, Allah, and that each one of us only realizes (becomes aware
and actualizes) Universal Consciousness according to the realities our
collective and personal circumstances as experienced by the influences
and conflict of class, religion, ethnic, cultural, linguistic, gender
and sexual identities.
We say "it's not a coincidence", in order
to underline the fact that there is continuum of ideas, concepts,
emotions and factual realities ranging from objective to the subjective
and the metaphysical, from the global peoples' spiritual cultures to the
political struggles of the revolutionary global liberation process and
all the way to the objective tenets and self-evident truths of
Scientific Socialism.
As we move forward in the 21st century we
recognize more clearly that social institutions that used to be
progressive at one point in history are now reactionary chains holding
us back: we move to seize back social production and resources from the
claws of Capital; we move to seize back social administration, defence
and justice from the claws of the State; and we move to seize back our own spiritual and cultural lives from the claws of the authoritarian Church.
In
Cyprus, torn up and destroyed by the global Imperial State and Capital
with the collusion of the local ruling class, both in the north and the
south the leaders of the progressive political forces and those who
pretend to be leading Patriots, Socialists and Freedom lovers have
entirely betrayed both Socialism and the need to defend, protect and
liberate the Motherland. They have joined themselves with the vultures
of the global Imperial State to directly rule over, manage and oversee
the exploitation of their own people and have joined in with the
suppression of our people's own true native spirituality and culture.
Their treason and byzantine intrigues have brought our indigenous
culture and spirituality to the brink of extinction.
Additionally,
they portray themselves as secularists, supposedly free from "religious
superstition". At the same time they constantly pose in public at every
opportunity with leaders of authoritarian Religion, reinforcing the
most sick and oppressive connections between State, Religion and
Capital. The people are left defenseless and without guidance. How do we
wrestle back from their claws what is ours? Our spiritual and cultural
treasures? Our country's social production and natural resources? Our
communities' administration and the management of our own affairs?
When the leaders abandon the people, how are supposed to act? In what direction?
Meanwhile,
when the leadership is truly immersed in the struggle and embraces the
people's culture and its spiritual traditions, miraculous achievements
become feasible and placed on the table of possibilities:
o~ the
Vietnamese revolutionary forces embraced the religious and traditional
Lunar~Solar New Year in 1968 with passion for freedom and military
organization, initiating the Tet Offensive which led to the spreading of
the revolutionary People's War everywhere in the country, leading the
avalanche that finally defeated the greatest imperial country in the
world's history. The US Empire is still yelping from that injury.
Class
struggle, national liberation, collective and personal spiritual
emancipation go hand in hand. Our comrades from countries where the
struggle is active and where the Liberation Movement has not abandoned
its basic principles, understand this reality intuitively. But in
Cyprus, it seems, another heaven and another hell must pass before we
are able to shake off the numbness induced by shopping and television in
order to remember how and why to live. And die.
Petros Evdokas
http://petros-evdokas.cyprus-org.net/Another-sort-of-Introduction.html
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
From: NEPAL
The Nepalese Equality Partner Association for Liberty, NEPAL wish you all the best on the occasion of Happy Easter!
With warm regards;
Durja Man Tamang
--
Nepalese Equality Partner Association for Liberty
(NEPAL),
Nicosia, Cyprus
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
From: belal.abdelhai@gmail.com
Η ΠΑΛΑΙΣΤΙΝΙΑΚΗ ΠΑΡΟΙΚΙΑ ΣΑΣ ΕΥΧΕΤΑΙ ΚΑΛΟ ΠΑΣΧΑ
The Palestinian Community in Cyprus wish you a Happy Easter
الجالية الفلسطينية في قبرص تتمنى لجميع الاخوة المسيحيين فصح سعيد
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Definition of Fitrah
By Yasien Mohamed
http://www.missionislam.com/knowledge/DefinitionFitrah.htm
~~~ *** ~~~
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