Marxism and Saxophone
By Aaron Jamal
You could be excused for not keeping up with the latest wave of infighting on the left in the U.S. While sharp questions abound around political strategy, deep organizing, and long term vision when it comes to defeating the New Confederacy and winning a permanent ceasefire, there are other, less relevant & tacky questions that seem to re-emerge from time to time. One of those has to do with the forceful argument that Marxism is actually Eurocentric.
As revolutionaries in the core of capitalist imperialism, we of course take this charge with great seriousness. Our organization believes that white supremacist oppression dictates the lives and communities of our people, and that revolutionary socialist organization is needed to defeat it. It would therefore be a fatal mistake to be Marxists if Marxism were Eurocentric.
It is precisely because we are Marxists that we must actively investigate claims like these and bring back new insights from them. Let's look at history: eurocentrism was a phrase coined by Egyptian French Marxist Samir Amin, who used the term to describe the dominant, narrow & incorrect view of world history - one that says humanity and its social development tracked clearly from Greek & Roman Classics to Christian feudal life to western capitalism. As Marxists, we know this is not the case. The great revolutionary upheavals in Saint Domingue, the Taipings, African decolonization, the revolutions under the leadership of the communists in China, Vietnam and Cuba, and the progressive advances in the Arab and Latin American worlds bare this out. Surely the the thinker who first developed the concept of Eurocentrism being a lifelong Marxist himself would put this question to bed?
But not everyone is a student of history; some of us simply want to enjoy the tunes and tones of life. So, here's a hot take:
The idea that Marxism is Eurocentric is as absurd as the idea that the saxophone is Eurocentric. Marx made a decisive contribution to the freedom of peoples, and Lenin, Mao, Nkrumah, Ho Chi Minh, and many others took his observations and conclusions to new heights, which served in whole or in part to liberate the majority of humanity from the shackles of colonialism and the horrors of a potential global fascism. We know the sax was created by a Belgian inventor. But no one can seriously say that invalidates what John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins and Charlie Parker were able to do with the instrument.
By Aaron Jamal