As some of you in the West might know; the newspapers are filled to the brim with the “newly” released stories from Xinjiang. Well, I had an old friend reach out to me and tell me that they are against everything I stand for (supporting China) and that they wish that if/when I go to China I’ll be oppressed like the Uyghurs. Before I had a chance to reply I had already been blocked. So I thought to go and check others and whether others had blocked me as well. I now have at least 2 people who deleted me because of anti-China propaganda. And while some of you might say; don’t cry over spilt milk … I do feel like more of a pariah with every day I stay in the West and openly support China.
These issues started during COVID. The sheer sinophobia I had to deal with on a daily basis during that time was absolutely sickening, but I mostly just grinned and bare it. Most of my time these last few years (while I wait for borders to reopen) is volunteering my time at a care centre for elderly people. Seeing as most of them have onset dementia I don’t really get into arguments with them on China issues, as it’s a fool’s effort, but the anti-Chinese diatribes in the news have already caused the residents to not want me to come during the first waves of COVID and to not want me to cook Chinese food for them. These people read newspapers religiously and with these latest lies placating multiple pages I got told both today and yesterday that I don’t have to care for these specific residents anymore. I’m lucky in that this job isn’t a real job in that I don’t need it to stay afloat financially, but I still feel really conflicted. I should probably continue volunteering and just help other elders in this complex or other complexes, but I have decided that I won’t. Back during COVID, I was able to understand it somewhat that their xenophobia came from the fear of me transmitting COVID to them (because I interact with Chinese people and in their eyes would be more likely to be a carrier). Only this Monday I was literally showing and telling one of these residents, who used to be a farmer, about Chinese seawater rice and talking to them about the olden times and seeing their eyes light up to only be told today that they don’t want me to come anymore because I support that very same China. I should feel very bad about leaving the remaining residents I helped, but I’m planning on quitting in a week or 2/3 and from then on I won’t put another iota of my time and effort into improving Western society unless it also directly helps the people in the global South.
I’m just so tired.
EDIT: This is something I posted to get some catharsis, as I don’t really have anywhere else to post this without sounding unhinged. Feel free to downvote it.
Yeah. Today I have decided to no longer care about how these things affect my personal relationships with people. Rather if I’m going to spend any of my time debunking or fighting against these hateful machinations I will do so in a way that reaches more people. And I feel like the people in the West are set in their ways. First, the people in the global South need to reach a comparable standard of living before the masses here can ever have a political awakening. Seeing as even my local communist party doesn’t support China, or at least the recruiters I have talked to don’t, why even try to become involved with them if they treat any non-Western socialist movement with dismissal?
That’s what sucks about joining western social organizations, they sometimes don’t support AES. I’m lucky I joined a marxist party that actually supports China and goes against the Uyghur genocide narrative (and they get blasted for it constantly).
But the thing is, as long as these people don’t actively fight against China, they might still be worth a shot. If they really are a communist party with communist vision, good things can be achieved either way. And you might be able to change the POV from the people there. Or if there is another organization that does support China, you might consider joining them (or create one yourself but that’s a lot harder).
I know it sounds counterproductive but you can’t always have it be perfect 100%. It’s important to still organize when possible. If there’s a thousand people with the same opinions as you not joining because of this stance, you guys might never find eachother.
I made the mistake of saying that I got interested in socialism due to China and that I’m in support of SWCC. I thought they didn’t have anything against China, only to find out that they (I’m in the Netherlands) copy-pasted most of the talking from the Communist Party of Belgium to show a semblance of activity. They didn’t hold those views, or at least the recruiter I talked to didn’t. And seeing as the other two people in that organization are still ghosting me after 2+ weeks I’m not holding out hope.
I wish there was a communist party that is transnational. As I don’t plan on staying in this country.
I’m from the Netherlands as well and I live in Belgium now (where I joined the party). Which party did you wanted to join? I think BIJ1 is the most leftist party in The Netherlands but I don’t know what they think of China. SP and PVDA have regressed to social democracy unfortunately. Maybe check if you can join ROOD jongeren?
I’m not familiar with an international party or even a Benelux one sadly.
Apart from Rood none of those parties is actually Communist though. I reached out again to the NCPN, but if I don’t get a reply by next week I’m just going to let it slide. What I don’t get: seeing as getting a communist party off the ground in the West that can actually get a controlling amount of seats in any chamber of government is futile until we have a multipolar world where the global south isn’t merely used as a commercial spot to scam money from the lower classes: why aren’t more of the directions of these parties directed abroad? Like the CPC was literally helped set up by Henk Sneevliet, a Dutch guy.
I don’t have a concrete answer for that I think. I think it’s being a socialist party for your own people first and then focussing on other countries. It’s sometimes hard to do both, especially when most marxist parties in the west don’t have a majority in their governments or simply lack the resources for it. That being said, there are ways to help people in the global south. Supporting activists through Patreon for example or looking for organizations that do groundwork in developing nations. China is helping countries with their Belt and Road initiative.
Also, like you said yourself, there are not that many real, big communist parties in the west. A lot of leftist parties are socdem at best and they don’t really have the intention to help the global south.
It’s a shame really, but now that you mentioned it I will try to see if things can be done within my party regarding this.
(Before COVID) if you put in the effort you could literally send a few dozen party members to study in China on the cost of the government without too much hassle (as long as they were below the age of 25). China has a quota for students of Western countries that never gets fulfilled. They literally set aside money that has to be spent on e.g. students from France, but if they only have 10 students from France while they budgeted for 100; guess what happens(ed). Those 10 French students get an inflated scholarship, and literally, get several times the scholarship someone from let’s say Madagascar gets.
Want to become a climate activist lawyer? China has an English language degree for that. Want to become a doctor? China has a degree for that. And afterwards, you can speak Chinese and you have the contacts (if you didn’t waste your time in university) that you could leverage to get business loans to set up companies abroad. Whether it be in the West or the global south.
Want to know what it takes to organize a political party? The Chinese don’t care; they’ll let you sit in on meetings and will spend their evenings looking up documents to give you a proper foundation. It was already a meme that the Chinese embassy/consulate would send a copy of the Governance of China to anyone who asked, but that’s the thing: that’s just the tip.
The CPC is there to help. But outreach has to come from outside. The CPC won’t try to meddle in your affairs as that’d go against your right to self-determination. I’ve met people from Tanzania, Indonesia, Pakistan, Madagascar, Russia, and more who have taken them up on the offer. What’s up with these moribund communist chapters in the West that feel like they’ve already won in the war of ideas and are merely dealt a bad hand? Last I checked none of these groups has set up a socialist publishing house, heck a book print on demand machine is $20k new. Did they and I read the same Marx and Lenin? Last I checked being able to print your own propaganda was pretty fucking important. /rant
Huh that’s really cool actually. I’ll definitely look into this and see what’s possible. My party actually publishes (or helps publish, don’t know the specific details really) books on socialist topics, I went to a presentation this week even.
But I agree. A lot of western communist groups lack action. I think some genuinly don’t know how to start and some just like the aestethic of being a communist I guess.
Thanks for this information though, I had no idea all this could be done. That’s definitely a thing I’m going to bring forward.
Edit: also, do let me know if you find your way into a party or something. Maybe we can start some sort of co-operation between countries.
I’m probably going to spend my time improving my Chinese and recording some stuff for SWCC to put on YouTube for people to listen to. I’m very out of my depth when it comes to socialist parties in the West. Whenever I hear about them it seems I first have to read a crash course on the many schisms and the antagonist attitudes that specific communist party has against other parties.
I have trouble wrapping my head around all this infighting. The CPC, again, for example, is able to work together with even the most polar opposite ideology and stay amicable and be able to work towards a common purpose with that other party even if that other party has a well-documented history of white terror. Why aren’t communist parties able to collaborate when 95%+ of their points align?
TBH, I wish I knew some communist developers. It shouldn’t be difficult to create a social action platform that allows for resources to accumulate transnationally. Being able to create a (vague) heat map of communist parties and their member spread would allow social movements to get kickstarted. A communist could be living across the street and I’d never know it. But if you allowed people to register themselves on a website with a non-specific location and then gave them the ability to fill-in the distance they’d be willing to travel to take part in a rally, or whatever, you’d make it much easier to organize across party lines and even tap from the community. I’m not suggesting Communist Tinder, but knowing that there are people within your vicinity that you could ally with or being made familiar with different movements/projects would be helpful, even if merely education.
I’d advise you to be careful, I have my suspicions about the NCPN, they give off a hint of controlled opposition, all the visuals but no radical substance.
Controlled opposition… Is getting involved in non-classist identity politics a common red flag?
That’s more complicated, supporting intersectional liberation is no doubt an important part of any socialist movement. But if there is an overemphasis on bringing about attention to identity politics over class based conflict and inequality then that could be a problem.
I guess the best way to tell is how they propose this liberation is supposed to come about. If its the same pointless rhetoric you see from liberals such as pushing meaningless diversity quotas or supporting charities and whatnot, then they’re approaching it wrong.
The Netherlands has the NCPN and its youth wing, but there is very little reading material on their stances apart from a measly selection of articles on their websites. And its not very encouraging either, they condemn the SMO in Russia and have a lot of annoying “Both sides bad” rhetoric. Although they are self proclaimed MLs . Then again this is all I know from just reading about them online and occasionally coming across their posters in the streets.
I had never heard from them really so I had a look. You’re not kidding lol. They have all these reasons why Russia did what it did and then go: but Russia also bad. No offense to them but they seem a bit ‘all talk no action’ if I glance through their website.
A lot of Dutch people are genuinely under the impression that Groenlinks is the farthest left party in the country. That’s how little recognition real leftist movements get around here. They think a lukewarm milktoast green party is somehow the leftist core of their political spectrum.
Groenlinks became an elitist party for progressive upper- and middleclass people. If that’s your voter base you tend to lose the ‘links’ in the name a bit I think.
Oh, you mean how they often vote in favour of hawkish motions? Or that it’s often hit-or-miss when it comes to motions on climate and poverty alleviation? Sure, BIJ1 has a better track record, but I’m willing to bet that … checking now … when it comes to China ‘they’ don’t perform better than any other party.