This is my translation of a poem by my homeboy Makhdoom Mohiuddin. I did this last week, and the translation is still a work in progress — so if you know Urdu and English, and have suggestions, please hit me up in the comments (same goes for transliteration).

The poem itself was collected in his 1944 anthology, Surkh Sawera, or Red Dawn.

muhabbat ki chhaoN
makhdoom mohiuddin

raat aur din yooNhi aate jaate rahe
husn aur ishq takmeel paate rahe

Shade of Love
Makhdoom Mohiuddin

When I slept in the shade of love
Even thorns seemed to be flowers then

That was a matter of the beginning of passion!
That was a night of love, full of stars

My heart’s strings were struck by the pick
Fires rose up, a kind of intoxication cast over

The one endowed with beauty was endowed abundantly
The one I looked at endlessly was revelation

Once my whole heart was washed over with lightning
Lightning was dissolved in my every vein

My heart’s amusement became the reason for my heart’s pain
My heart’s amusement became the story of my tears

My life began to change in a moment
My life began to be cast in the mould of sorrow

The day of love declined, the evening began
My heart began to throb, my eyes began to cry

Night and day came and went like this
Finding beauty and love finished

Revelation. I’ve translated toor as revelation. toor literally means hill or mountain, but refers to Mount Sinai and to the revelation received by Moses there. On Mount Sinai:

This is a random story. I really like books. You know Walter Benjamin, in one of his essays he writes on unpacking his library. The essay is about not his book collection as such, but about the very process and meaning behind collecting books, and he goes on and on about it. At first, I reacted to it as bourgeois sentimentality, and, soon enough, I realized I was emulating it. Okay, we can all have our vices. The problem is that almost always, whenever I walk into a used bookstore, I can’t walk out without having purchased something; and if it is older, the better. Now this isn’t anything as fancy as what Benjamin’s going after (or, more aptly, anything like what Benjamin’s going after) but I can give you a bit of an idea of what my kind of sentimentality involves.

Over the winter, I was writing a paper on states — that is, the state, what it is, why it is, etc. (and, of course, from a Marxist perspective). I figure the paper would’ve been a really good and sound basis for further studies in political science but that the paper was actually a paper about writing a paper about the state — a “bibliographic essay.” One of the books that was very important in writing this paper was The State and Political Theory, by Martin Carnoy. It was published in 1984 and synthesized many of the Marxist debates on the state up until then (and, in fact, since then the debate has perhaps not gone very far, in many ways). I had to sign it out from one of the college libraries at the University of Toronto because, I think, the Robarts copy is missing (or stolen, it’s worth stealing).

In Markham not too far from where I live, there is a used bookstore. The problem with this one, unlike BMV or any of the other used bookstores downtown, is that stock turnover is really low, and new (old) things take a long time to arrive and be put on display. And, since I spend so many Fridays there, this is one of those rare used bookstores from which I can often walk out without having purchased anything.

But, one Friday, I stumbled upon Carnoy’s book in fine paperback. With the exception of a little bit of hard-to-notice highlighting in the front, the book was spotless. Now, what’s interesting is that what seems to be the original receipt was still in the book. It is a receipt for two texts, actually — one cost $5.95, the other $13.30. I can’t imagine this book costing $5.95, even back in the 1980s (although, the used price was $6.00), so probably it was purchased for $13.30. If, indeed, it is in fact the original receipt. But I’d like to think that it is because the date on the top says “02-12-85”. This, of course, can mean one of two things: February 12, 1985, or December 2, 1985.

For no reason other than sheer sentimentality, which is where we began, I’d like to think it’s the latter — because that’s my birthday.

bol, ke lab aazad haiN tere
bol, zabaaN ab tak teri hai
tera sutwaaN jism hai tera
bol ke jaaN ab tak teri hai
dekh ke aahangar ki dukaaN meiN
tund haiN sholay, surKh hai aahan
khulnay lagay qufloN ke dahaane
phela har ek zanjeer ka daaman
bol, yeh thoRa waqt buhut hai
jism-o zabaaN ki maut se pehle
bol ke such zinda hai ab tak
bol, jo kuch kehna hai keh le!

V.G. Kiernan’s poetic translation:
Speak, for your two lips are free;
Speak, your tongue is still your own;
This straight body still is yours’
Speak, your life is still your own.

See how in the blacksmith’s forge
Flames leap high and steel glows red,
Padlocks open wide their jaws,
Every chain’s embrace outspread!

Time enough is this brief hour
Until body and tongue lie dead;
Speak, for truth is living yet–
Speak whatever must be said.

V.G. Kiernan’s literal translation:
Speak, for your lips are free;
Speak, your tongue is still yours,
Your upright body is yours’
Speak, your life is still yours.
See how in the blacksmith’s shop
The flames are hot, the iron is red,
Mouths of locks have begun to open,
Each chain’s skirt has spread wide.
Speak, this little time is plenty
Before the death of body and tongue;
Speak, for truth is still alive–
Speak, say whatever is to be said.

Faiz Ahmed Faiz

I’ve read and heard this one a few times, and even in Faiz’s own voice (frankly, he isn’t no Habib Jalib as far as this is concerned). But it wasn’t until today that I heard Tina Sani’s rendition and it really hit me, pretty deep. (Of course, Z sent me this file a long time ago and in my usual indolence I didn’t listen to it until now. My bad.)

Sani’s version on YouTube:

Skirt, or daaman, doesn’t have the gendered implication it would in English. The word, depending on the context, has one too many meanings. Another way to translate the line is to imply that the chains are actually begging. But Kiernan was down with Faiz and the latter looked over the translation. Note, also, the poetic translation, “Every chain’s embrace outspread!”

I abandoned social democracy a few years ago, but I often find myself wishing that social democrats could at least be proper social democrats. That means focusing more or less on issues that affect the working class, pushing for anti-neoliberal policies (rather than embracing them), fighting racism and the criminalization of the poor, and so on. It might also involve some kind of capacity for enlightened foreign policy engagement (insofar as that goes, for any Western capitalist state — although the examples of Scandinavian social democracies are not particularly heinous). So here I’m going to try and sort out some of my thought on the NDP and its particular (and peculiar) brand of social democracy, and see what folks have to say. I’ll start with the most recent incident, concerning the Ontario NDP.

On Israeli apartheid and the ONDP

When some of us call for an academic boycott of Israeli institutions we are accused of being violators of the sacred principle of academic freedom. Yet, when the legislature of Ontario passes a motion condemning the use of the term apartheid when referring to Israel — and clearly, this is an attack on Israeli Apartheid Week that occurs on campuses around the world — there is little discussion on it. The motivation of the motion itself is remarkable in attempting to circumvent debate, if only by suggesting that debate does not lend itself to debate, and therefore is not conducive to the debate that one should be having about what the correct thing to debate is, and we should not have certain debates lest we debate the improper debates and lose sight of the debate.

University presidents have already smugly released their statements about the necessity of tolerating controversial discussions in advance of IAW, and so on, and so will in all likelihood not respond directly to this absurd motion — unlike when they responded directly to the question of academic boycott of Israeli institutions. Will university presidents in Ontario respond by issuing strong statements that they are not lackeys and stooges of Ontario governments and will not stand for the censoring of Israeli Apartheid Week?

It’s not like one would expect better, but the NDP is another story.

News reports suggested that the motion was endorsed by all parties — i.e., unanimously. Featured quite prominently was NDP MPP Cheri Di Novo. Only 30 members (out of a 107-member legislature) were present and voting, but due to Di Novo’s comments, the ONDP is stuck with this vile attempt at circumventing debate.

But wait, all is well. Don’t lose your faith in the ONDP. For Andrea Horwath, the leader of the ONDP, has released an open letter in which she notes quite forcefully that “[s]ingling out activists or shutting down debate, on this or any other matter, is not constructive and is entirely unhelpful.”

I would provide a source, except that I cannot find a direct source. It’s not on the ONDP web site. It’s not on Andrea Horwath’s web site. As of this writing, it’s nowhere on the Internet except buried somewhere on Rabble and a couple of blogs.

I don’t think this is enough. It’s one thing to have a prominent MPP spout some inane invective in legislature, that gets recorded in Hansard, that gets reported in the media, and it’s quite another to release a letter to activists or to those who e-mail Horwath saying “naw we didn’t mean it.” There appears to me to be something quite opportunistic about it — being everything to everyone. Who, except those who trawl this one left-wing web site and are on some listservs (note, I didn’t get the e-mail from any of the listservs I am on) would even know that the ONDP is against this idiotic motion?

It has real repercussions for activists at Ontario universities.

What’s more, it appears that the federal parliament is getting ready to entertain a similar motion. It’s unlikely that the federal NDP will let a similar debacle unfold, but there are plenty of other debacles it’s fine with — more on which, perhaps, later.

I wanted to put up a quick note to bring together something that I have been noticing for a while on subways, bus shelters, and most recently on the television.

First, if you needed any more reasons to buy the HTC phone, here’s a solid one: you are now a revolutionary. An HTC phone revolutionary. Join the revolution.

Second, if you needed any more reasons to listen to hit music radio, here’s a solid one: there is a movement. The Virgin radio movement. Join the movement.

Third, if you needed any more reasons to get the flu shot, here’s three solid ones: resist missing midterms and finals, resist missing res parties, and resist missing hanging out with friends. Resist the flu. Join the resistance.

It’s that easy.

In 1989, with the decline and imminent collapse of state socialism in the Soviet Union and China, as well as the turning of so many states that had once been authoritarian and/or had intervened actively in the economy to a model of liberal democracy and free markets, the American intellectual and State Department employee Francis Fukuyama declared “the end of history.” By this, he meant that there were no more grand ideas on the reorganization of society—liberal democracy and free markets had come to be the ideal to which all states aspired. As the Soviet Union’s state socialism disintegrated by late 1991, it seemed that Fukuyama’s prediction had come true. There was, it seemed, no alternative to this form of globalization.

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A couple years back, I attended an event launching a two-disc DVD about the life and work of Ernest Mandel, a Marxist activist and theoretician. One of the scenes from a film features Mandel in a debate, saying with force and clarity:

According to the statistics of UNICEF, every year 16 million children die from hunger or curable diseases in the third world. This means that every four years there is an equal number of deaths of children as all the deaths of World War II, Auschwitz, Hiroshima and the Bengal famine combined. Every four years a world war against children. There you have the world reality of imperialism and capitalism in a nutshell.

The figure is now, according to UNICEF, about 9.2 million children who every year die “largely preventable deaths.” But that’s only children under the age of five. It’s difficult to find statistics that deal with everyone above the age of five. Every seven years a world war against children.

yeh qatl qatl kisi ek aadmi ka nahiN
yeh qatl haq ka musaawaat ka sharaafat ka
yeh qatl ilm ka hikmat ka aadmiyat ka
yeh qatl hilm-o murawwat ka Khaaksaari ka
yeh qatl zulm raseedoN ki gham gusaari ka
yeh qatl ek ka do ka nahiN, hazaar ka hai
Khuda ka qatl hai qudrat ke shaahkaar ka qatl
yeh shaam shaam-e GhareebaaN hai subh subh-e hunayn
yeh qatl qatl-e maseeha yeh qatl qatl-e husayn

This murder is not the murder of any one person
This is the murder of truth, of equality, of decency
This is the murder of knowledge, of wisdom, of humanity
This is the murder of tolerance and kindness, of humility
This is the murder of sympathy with the most oppressed
This is the murder of not one or two, but that of a thousand
This is the murder of God, the murder of the masterpiece of providence
This evening is the evening of desolation, this morning the morning of Hunayn
This murder is the murder of Christ, this murder is the murder of Husayn

Makhdoom Mohiuddin

(My translation)

Update: This poem was translated into Persian by Eskandar. Makhdoom wrote this poem upon the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr (in 1968). It is the first of three parts, but I’ll leave the other two for later.

Shaam-e-Ghareeban is literally, “evening of the poor,” but I learned from Eskandar’s translation that this refers to the commemoration of the martyrdom of Husayn (see below) on the 10th of Muharram (Ashura), and so, following Eskandar, “evening of desolation” it is.

Husayn ibn Ali was the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad and the son of Ali ibn Abi Talib, Muhammad’s cousin. He was killed (martyred) by Yazid’s forces — many considered Yazid to be a usurper of the caliphate — at the Battle of Karbala.

I think, after over a year, and having read widely (to say the least) on Mozambique, I think I’ve arrived at a point where I can write a paper that answers the question that was posed by Saul — though perhaps not according to his framework:

Assess the nature of the chief liberation movement (Frelimo) in [Mozambique], trace that movement’s development in the post-colonial period (including an assessment of any meaningful opposition it has faced), and assess the prospects that that movement has offered and now offers for realizing the meaningful development of the people for whom it professes to speak.

I want to address the question of the relationship between the economic and the political in Mozambique, in the terms of bourgeois scholarship. A good way to get into this is Peter Lewis’s article on the paradox of “growth without prosperity” in Africa. Lewis takes, as his starting point, the notions that a) economic liberalization (market economy) and political liberalization (liberal democracy) share an “elective affinity” because they both rely on openness, transparency, and such, b) that economic liberalization should lead to economic growth, c) that political liberalization should lead to redistributive measures. The paradox is that, despite economic and political liberalization, sub-Saharan Africa as a whole might have seen economic growth (in Mozambique, one of the highest sustained rates of GDP growth in all of sub-Saharan Africa), but human development indicators has not matched up (in fact, is awful) and inequality is high as poverty persists massively.

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As early as 1961, Fanon critiqued in general the movements and leaders of newly independent African states, whose main concern seemed to have been staying in power and aggrandizing themselves or the elites (the underdeveloped “bourgeoisie of civil servants”) on whose support they relied. Fanon also critiqued the concept of négritude as espoused by Senghor — in particular the idea of returning to a pristine past. “We should not … be content to delve into the people’s past to find concrete examples to counter colonialism’s endeavours to distort and depreciate.” Similarly, Nkrumah repudiated the term “African socialism” in 1966, noting that

the realities of the diverse and irreconcilable social, political, and economic policies being pursued by African states today have made the term ‘African socialism’ meaningless and irrelevant. It appears to be much more closely associated with anthropology than with political economy.

Like Fanon, Nkrumah rejected the call for a return to a pristine pre-colonial Africa, noting that no such pristine, classless or non-hierarchical Africa ever existed in the first place. Fanon and Nkrumah were both asserting that there was nothing unique about Africa that immunized its societies from class conflict. Reaching a proper, socialist Pan-African culture was a matter of political practice, not retreat into an imagined culture. Fanon notes that

The problem is knowing what role [African politicians] have in store for their people, the type of social relations they will establish and their idea of the future of humanity. That is what matters. All else is hot air and mystification.

Nkrumah called for a turn toward socialism focusing on the particular conditions facing particular countries, recognizing that “there is only one nature, subject in all its manifestations to natural laws and that human society is, in this sense, part of nature and subject to its own laws of development” — scientific socialism. Fanon called for the creation of a new national culture based on a collective consciousness reached through the mobilization of the masses (particularly the lumpenproletariat and the peasantry), led by a revolutionary party, to stamp out the “useless and harmful bourgeoisie” — class struggle. In other words: revolutionary theory and practice.

Sources

Fanon, Frantz. The Wretched of the Earth. Translated by Richard Philcox. New York: Grove Press, 2004.

Nkrumah, Kwame. “African Socialism Revisited.” In The Africa Reader: Independent Africa, edited by Wilfred G. Cartey and Martin Kilson, 200-208. New York: Random House, 1970.