Marxism 2011 part one

As with most things in life there is the good, the bad and the ugly and so it is true too of the SWP's annual event 'Marxism'.

It's like our Christmas, we see old friends and comrades and chat to one another like we've never been apart, we meet new people, get fresh ideas, laugh, cry and dance ( usually at the end in the after party). This year's Marxism was held for the first time in about twenty or so years in a different venue and due to the disability I have ( I get disorientated in new places quickly and it's bad, worse in my case than for most people I reckon) I was worried. A local friend and comrade offered to help with the practicalities as much as he could, something I was grateful for; and it did work for a time while I was up there, but not all the time.

Another problem I have is that sitting for long periods of time in meetings causes me quite a bit of discomfort, so this year I had that to contend with too.

I did meet up with some old friends and familiar faces and had a couple of great quality conversations, although the chats seemed to come around to the subject of art, but that was great as art is one of my favourite subjects anyway. I had a great convo about mental health with a very nice and understanding young man who was also a fellow sufferer.

The venue was split over two sites, Friends meeting house and a nearby university. I was fine at Friends meeting house as I already new it, but there weren't many people around to talk to in between meetings and there were no debates, or few, but none that I was able to participate in anyway.

The university to me was a nightmare, which I thought it would be, I could not make head nor tail of where I was going, it was all very strange and I felt very lost there, I saw one person I knew; a man from my Welsh days, he was pushing a pram around with his young son in, and was as equally confused as I was as to what was happening and where everything and everybody was.

Eventually I found the canteen and recognised a few faces although no-one looking particularly friendly, again it was boring as there were no interesting debates, plus the food was appalling and expensive, when a canteen hand cleared my table and asked if the food was alright, I left that question unanswered. I heard of one poor comrade who actually got food poisoning, poor thing.

So I thought I would give up trying to fathom the university and waited for my friend to arrive from Kent, but he was severely delayed, so I sat in the rose garden in front of Friends meeting house. There were comrades milling around, some I knew and recognised and some I didn't, but I felt isolated and excluded, probably on account of the relegated membership I endure which means I am not attached to any branch. It felt even more acute as I had been friends with a local Kent comrade for a while up until a few months ago when ... ( well it's a fairly long story that I won't go into), but I saw her on the train going up and she walked past me and then hurried on ahead.

So, do you get the picture? Marxism changed this year. I went up for only two days, the Saturday and Sunday, and only went to one meeting on the Sunday before returning home feeling all sorts of things, but one feeling I had that Sunday night in my flat was that today's SWP sadly felt no longer like a home.

And its something I intend to explore in this blog over the coming weeks.

'cos you gotta have faith

In my view, having faith can make life much easier, we cannot live on bread alone, as human beings, we need spiritual sustenance. Especially considering the madness of the system we are born into. Such gross inequalities, poverty in the midst of colossal wealth, the wasting of lives through unnecessary wars, and of course the terrible, needless and careless slow destruction of the planet due to an insane desire and lust the ruling rich minority class has for fiscal profiteering.

The reality and truth of the situation can appear 'hidden' from us either because it is too much for us to think about and / or we are fed pettiness and pap to anaesthetise us. Examples such as some media like the Sun, the daily Mail, advertising, competition - starts at school, oneupmanship, these sorts of things all help mask the rotten reality of our daily lives and divert our thoughts away from the injustices of it.

There will be times when reality comes to light, all of us will experience these moments but maybe at different times and different places, some people may feel so incensed that they are driven to campaign and fight against the system. A revolutionary party such as the SWP is useful; it will enable those individuals to keep that fight going and will alert and educate people in other cases of injustices, not to mention an overall time tested theory about the most efficient and effective way to make fundamental changes in society, but that might be the subject of a future post.

For now, I want to look at the question of faith; whether it acts as a masking of the real conditions we are in, therefore duping us into accepting an unjust world and keep quiet, or whether faith or religion even can be useful to help set us free.