Eric Tang is to be commended and thanked for his historic sketch of the “movement,” as well as for engaging in a long-needed critical examination of the role of NGOs. I am sure Eric would be the first to agree that his reflections were not meant to be exhaustive. And so I would like to take the opportunity, as an activist for half a century, to list — for that is all that can practically be done here -a number of additional considerations which merit discussion.
That the Left is fractured, or fragmented, cannot be disputed. Yes, COINTELPRO did play a role, but we need to explore what it was about the nature of our movement that enabled COINTELPRO to be so effective in disabling our organizations.
It is true that the 501(c)(3)s have contributed to the fragmentation. Funders have almost universally insisted on the NGO’s having a single-issue focus. That is why I have for a long time characterized large sectors of the movement as “boutique activists.” Thus, it has been the funders who have called the tune and controlled the movement, an unpleasant truth which both funders and recipients will be quick to deny.
The recent questioning of the NGO paradigm is indeed welcome and long overdue. But permit me a bit of cynicism in pointing out that such questioning comes at a time of rapidly shrinking financial support from both governmental and private sources. Indeed, there has been, as Eric has stated, a “dreadful competition among organizations for little [and shrinking] pots of money.”
Eric correctly points out that “open dialogue on the complex challenges…has often taken a back seat to the immediate need of getting, important work done.” This has been true not only regarding the role of NGOs but a host of strategic and tactical questions facing the Movement, reflecting the dominance of pragmatism, a belief that examining principles, looking at history, developing a theoretical framework, is a distraction, that all that is required is to simply put one foot in front of the other and one will eventually reach the promised land undefined, of course. In this connection, one often hears about the “paralysis of analysis.” But if we lock arms and march off in all directions all we will show for it are a bunch of broken arms.
The non-profit organizational model is accused of encouraging competition and individualism. No doubt. But I would suggest that the individualism in the movement, its ego-driven character, is related to something more fundamental, and that is its middle-class character. There needs to be an analysis of middle-class psychology in all its ramifications, flowing from the realities of its social position. It was a fundamental thesis of the “New Left” that not workers but students would be decisive in the movement, would constitute the vanguard (and in some portions of the Black freedom movement, the “lumpen-proletariat” as well.)
In his historic sketch, Eric Tang begins with the New Left — unfortunate because it echoes one of the major weaknesses of :`the New Left to cut itself off from the country’s and the world’s progressive traditions. The admonition then was “Don’t trust anyone over 30” — but also don’t study the history and teachings of those engaged in the struggles of previous generations.
The New Left rejected the notion of continuity and exhibited an arrogance in their belief that the activists of the 1960s and 1970s were unique in their commitment to real social changed, unique
in their rejection of the dominant social values. This is not to denigrate the spirit and accomplishments of that generation. But the greatest tribute one can pay to that generation is to take them seriously, and to take them or anyone else seriously means to subject what they did to searching analysis and critique.
The “Party builders” represented a reaction to a number of real weaknesses of the New Left. Mention is made of the Black Panther Party and the fact that the Panthers spawned similar groups among other national groups. This recognition needs to be expanded to acknowledge that the Black liberation movement as a whole was the catalyst for the liberation and rights movements that encompassed the anti-war, women’s liberation, gay and Lesbian, disabled, elderly, and the poor generally.
There must also be a searching examination not only of the middle class character of most of the components of the Movement (or Movements) but also of its Eurocentric character with all the deficiencies stemming from the fact that–European-American progressives have not completely rid themselves of racist or racially blind understandings of the dynamics of our white supremacist society. This is the most damaging aspect of the movement, recognition of which is slowest in coming, when it is addressed at all.
The middle class mentality expresses itself in the conception of activists being primarily “advocates” who speak for the victims of injustice, rather than helping those victims speak for themselves, deciding their own priorities, program and organizational methods. What is needed is not compassion but solidarity.
The Party builders ultimately failed because while making a more serious effort to assimilate revolutionary theory, they failed to really digest such theory, even sometimes falling into a caricature of the models they admired. Once again, however, their courage and seriousness were admirable and they have earned the right to an honorable place in the history of struggle.
In discarding the Party-building model, other activists, however, rejected not only what was ill-advised, but also what was positive and worthy of emulation. Thus, the middle class activists not only recoiled from the –militaristic discipline of the Party-builders but from the notion of discipline itself, turned away from the vital struggle for state power, instead organizing around discrete issues and failing to appreciate the issues’ interconnections, rejecting the need for a theory to guide social practice, and settling for fighting for what they perceived as immediately possible. The practical activists decided they could not change the world but they could do “their little bit.”
Within each organization, the small circle of 10-20 activists became the norm, and the movement became flooded with thousands of “executive directors” who effectively controlled their groups, despite previous protestations against the centralism of Party formations.
Reference is made to the Great Society anti-poverty programs, but it is important to subject that era to critical scrutiny. For it is my thesis that the Black liberation movement was smashed not alone because of Government repression assassinations, mass incarceration, intimidation, disruption and provocation but also through cooptation of militant cadres who were assimilated as “poverty pimps” as well as absorbed in the civil service and Establishment party apparatus, the negative effects of which are still being felt in all movements for social change, because of, the centrality of the Black freedom movement.
Recoiling from the poor practice of revolutionary parties and collectives, the emergence of the non-profit, Suzanne Pharr is quoted as saying, “provided the opportunity to do smart work, practical work, in a way that allowed you to survive.”
But we need to supplement this explanation. Many were looking for ways not to have to enter the commercial world, not to have to work for businesses or large corporations. The choice of not-for-profit work in many cases led to a similar careerism which was rationalized by the notion that one was doing “good work” rather than the meaningless or even socially harmful work in the private sector, or because of resistance to becoming a cog in the wheel of increasingly reactionary political administrations. As one became accountable to the funding streams, one became less accountable to one’s movement colleagues and still less to those whom one was presumably serving, the masses who were thought of as “constituencies” or “clients.” Rarely was this a conscious process, and the harsh term “sellout” describes not an act or process of conscious betrayal but an objective description in which the left hand of the elite was effectively pulling the strings of a large segment of an ever more dependent Movement.
Finally, it is clear that there is no homogeneous entity known as “the Movement.” There are various wings, among which some unity is desirable and necessary. But there is also need to establish clear demarcations and to separate the wheat from the chaff. In very broad and of course oversimplified outline there is the wing mentioned by Eric Tang consisting of those who are permanently attached to Democratic Party politics, who fight even more fiercely than the conservative elements within the Democratic Party to prevent the establishment of an independent political vehicle that truly represents the interests of the working people and oppressed communities. These elements, conjoined to the hip of the Democratic Party, are made up of both liberals and self-proclaimed but opportunist radicals.
Then there are the liberals and reformers, overwhelmingly European-American and middle class, whose agenda generally reflects the comfortable circumstances of their own existence, people who respond dramatically to the war on Iraq but with much less urgency to the war at home, people for whom the struggle against racism is not central but one of a shopping list of worthy causes. Social ills constitute for them a number of discrete issues which can be dealt with quite independently and without challenging the fundamental social structure.
Finally, there are a relatively small group of radicals who seek fundamental social change and who understand that any meaningful activity must have as its focus the struggle for power, and that actions must be judged by whether or not those actions move forward the struggle for power, understand that it is necessary to identify those social forces with the greatest objective need to achieve fundamental change, and to do the patient, persistent organizing and educational work among those forces, not for them but with them. These social forces constitute the bottom half of the working people, the poor, the victims of racism, and above all, the African-American masses who historically have been since the beginning of this country’s history at the center of political development, have galvanized social reform movements as no other group, and will play a leadership role in the struggle against the gathering menace of Fascism, as well as in the ultimate achievement of a society organized according to truly humane principles.
