By Jaye Gaskia
The present moment is a very dicey one, characterised by systemic crisis, of such proportions that it seems to have engendered a situation of permanent crises – a crisis of rampant excruciating poverty, a crisis of rampaging endemic insecurity, and a crisis of near catastrophic degradation of human life; all of which pose an existential threat to the working peoples of our part of the world.
For the radical left and socialists, the national question poses some very serious challenges. For inherent in this question are a number of apparently contradictory elements, which can only be effectively navigated through the understanding of, and consequent utilisation of, the dialectical materialist approach.
We are internationalists; hence our frame of reference is the working class, not the nation. Yet we live within a certain country. How should we respond to and intervene in the resolution of the crisis that is engendering the increasingly mutually antagonistic separatist agitations across the country?
There is a crisis that has led to the emergence, evolution, and nurturing of separatism and the separatist narratives and agitations, including their increasing tendency towards mutually exclusive antagonism. This crisis is rooted in class exploitation, repression and oppression, leading to intensification of mass poverty and misery, resulting in endemic insecurity. The pervasive exclusion and marginalisation of significant sections of the populace is leading to some to accept a nationalist or ethnic explanation of the problem, especially in the case where the left is relatively small and not influential.
More than one in two people are out of a job in the general population and nearly two in three young people do not have a job. More than 40% [more than 92 million] of people live in abject poverty. There is an incredulously wide, and widening gap between the rich and the poor. The richest African and black man is a Nigerian. Five of the richest Africans are Nigerians; yet the nation also has the largest number of poor people in the world.
In this context, it becomes difficult for dissent to be permitted, and any opposing narrative becomes a threat, that must be suppressed by the government or by the emerging ethnic nationalities.
To oppose the narrative of separatism is to be a traitor, to be a traitor, is to be an outcast and outlaw. In this atmosphere, fear reigns, dissent is suppressed, opposition is repressed, and those who dare to be different are subjected to the same treatment as the others, the ethnic enemies.
The development and evolution of the ethnic nationalist mobilisation, and of the irridentist and ultra nationalist variant of the nationalism of the ascendant ethnic nationality separatist agitation, is embedded in and aided by the spurious narrative and dangerously fallacious notion of the homogenous community, that is of the ethnic nation, or religious group as an homogenous community.
Within each of these ethnic communities, the rich and the poor are said to be the same and equal. The property owner and the propertyless, are said to be equal. The big business owner and employer of labour, and the workers and labourers who toil for them are said to be the same.
Thus by one wave of the magic wand of a mythical fairy [or Dibia or Babalawo as the case maybe] class differences and the ruthless exploitation of workers and the labourers are banished. Patriarchy and the oppression of women disappears. The ostentatious and illegitimate wealth of the filthy rich, in the midst of the ocean of mass misery and poverty are said not to exist. All these are the figments of the imagination of those who promote ethnic or nationalist approaches!
On the back of these, it is easy to see why ethnic nationalism, riding on the notion of a homogenous community can become quite dangerous and catastrophically devastating. I will only reference Hitler, Nazism, and the theory of the superior Aryan Nation and the Rwandan genocide of 1994.
With the former, not only were Jews and non-Aryans candidates for slaughter, but also imperfect and dissident Aryans were also to be exterminated. In Rwanda, Tutsis were slaughtered in their hundreds of thousands, as well as moderate Hutus who dared to object to violent Hutu Nationalism.
It is for all of these reasons that there is an inherent danger to the current moment in Nigeria. The left, and the working class can no longer afford to be spectators, on the side-lines. We have to actively mobilise the raising umbrage at the violations of the rights of people and the sanctity of human dignity by the state or by the ethnic separatist agitators.
When we fail to vigorously promote our own class narrative, and proactively undertake our own class mobilisations; then we make it more possible for the ethnic narratives to emerge dominant and become even more emboldened to suppress our class mobilisation as subversive to the nationalist cause. In short, we make it possible for us, for the left, to become caught in a debilitating and devastating wedge between the repressive state and its intolerant ethnic nationalist opposition.
This is why it is incumbent on us, on the radical left, to step boldly into the breech, make the class case, intensify our class mobilisation, as well as our ability to organise, strike and act together – our ability to take collectively organised action. This will require the working class, the labouring masses, and their allies to organise and take increasingly collective united class actions.
However, the more left groups come together to take common action around specific issues, the more strident the call for left unity! Surprisingly, even groups who have only recently come together to establish broader coalitions tend to end up continuing to make the call for left unity.
It thus seems that at this very precarious moment in our collective history, the left has become paralysed in this perpetual quest for left unity; one that seems not to have any bearing to any practical activities or actions they are currently taking; and one that is almost becoming the excuse for not doing anything, the refuge for taking limited action. If the broad array of left organisations and political platforms involved in The Peoples Alternative Political Movement [TPAP-M] continue to work together, prioritise building the movement, actively engage in canvassing support and membership for the movement; then we stand the chance through this effort not only to realise Left Unity in practice, but also to stem the tide towards catastrophic ethnic based disintegration of Nigeria, and the consequent decimation of our class. If we do this, we stand the chance of achieving our immediate ultimate objective – the emergence of a mass workers party and the move towards the socialist transformation.
