Dialogue One: 14th of March "Leftist"

(An Encounter with a typical “Lebanese Leftist” who supports 14th of March)

At a certain pub 1

X : So what are your political affiliations?
Me: Does it really count?
X : Yes, everyone is something
Me: So what are you?

(X raises his head up proudly)

X : I am a Leftist
Me: Interesting, what type of a left?
X : Nothing special, just a leftist, what about you?
Me: You wont love mine, I am a revolutionary Marxist, old school
X : (shocked) really?
Me: Hell yeah, the very old school of Marx, Engels, Rosa Luxemburg, Lenin, Trotsky
X : Interesting, I thought you guys are extinguished
Me: Nope! People like you try to sell on the Proletariat using our name
X : You even use the term Proletariat still?
Me: What type of a leftist you are if you are not representing the Proletariat?
X : (Raising his head proudly): I am a Lebanese Leftist
Me : You mean March 14th Left?
X : Yup, the only true form of the left…
Me: Sorry, for me only revolutionary schools of the left are leftists, such as the Communists and the Anarchists,
X : These are outdated, real leftists are those who support March 14th
Me: Sorry, but I consider the greatest bullshit in the world is to say bluntly that a person is leftist out of the blues without any idea to guide it,
X : I am, I am fighting for Lebanese freedom
Me: I thought as “leftists” we opposed any form of Nationalism
X : That is the old school, it is dead…
Me: Well, we will continue our talk later, till then, rethink your ideas about the Left

(Same X at Pub II, while I was sitting and drinking my lovely Vodka on ice)

X : Excuse me, aren’t you the one who I met in Pub 1?
Me: Indeed, still surprised?
X : Well yes, you blew my mind with your words, how can you in the 21st Century call yourself a supporter of the Marx and Lenin?
Me: You may add Leon Trotsky, Rosa Luxemburg, and over 250 other thinkers
X : But that is illogical, how can that be? Communism is dead!!
Me: Is it? It lived shortly in the Paris Commune of 1871, Soviet Petrograd in 1905, and the early years of the Soviet Union
X : But the Soviet Union is dead
Me: But the words of Marx and Lenin are still true. Lenin predicted that the Soviet Union would collapse once the revolutions in Germany and Warsaw failed. Whatever happened afterwards, continued as predicted by Marx, and Engels
X: What do you mean by that? There have no Proletariat Revolution, and the classes still exist!
Me: What do you mean by that? In fact how do you that this is the only thing predicted by Marx or Lenin?
X : (Silently) Because Capitalism won!!
Me: Wasn’t the purpose of the Bolsheviks is to overthrow Capitalism by triggering a domino effect? Or You think they were bunch of Russian Nationalists?
X : I do not really know
Me: Allow me to ask one more question, have you ever read the German Ideology by Marx? Or Das Capital? Sort of we are living in the shadow of their books.
X : No, I haven’t
Me: Then how the heck you are judging me that Marxism failed when you refute to read Marx! By the way, didn’t you know Marxism and Communism cover everything from Historical Materialism, to Dialectical Materialism, to Poetry, to Economics, to History, Sociology, Music, Science of Revolution, Anthropology, and even were the early authors of International Political Economy?!
X : No, I haven’t, I think that the reality is to fight Syria’s claws from taking over Lebanon?
Me : By supporting one reactionary ultra nationalist camp against its similar antithesis?
X : It is not that, but this one is the lesser evil, unlike your awaited revolution!!
Me: Awaited Revolution? That is what Communism is about for you? Personally I support Communism because it is the only salvation for the people, because all other solutions would be hopping from one solution to another…. What is your alternative? Specially you seem you got no clue about economical world relations?
X : (Hesitant) I got no alternative
Me: Ok, you got no alternative, you never read neither Marx nor Lenin, but you attack them anyways, and you got no platform and no nothing. You think there is no class struggle, and it is a nationalist cause, and allow me to add, that you said the other day that the real left is to be 14th of March, which aims to bury Lebanon with the WTO. Tell me something, why the heck you call yourself leftist again?
X : Listen, my friends are waiting for me at the table
Me: Till we talk again
X : Indeed
Me: One last thing, to be secular does not mean you are a left-wing, and there was a comrade back in 1920 who said: “I say I am a socialist because there is no socialism but Communism”
X : (Smiling): Till we talk later
Me: (Raising a toast): Cheers

(X keeps bumping into me from one pub after the other; however, he just says hi and runs away, I doubt that he decided to read Marx in any case, we got a long road to go for emancipating the working class)

No War but Class War

PS: Coming Soon, a discussion with a member of the Lebanese Communist Party