Kind of funny that there are those in West that still cling onto the notion that Chinese production is inferior while over here people say if you want shit done you call China lol
Nationalisation might be one of their few good proposed policies along with land reform.
And that’s all that is needed. A complete reformation of the relations of production will have a profound effect in elevating the productive forces.
Your critique on the manifesto seems lazy because most bourgeois democracies and their parties over-inflate and exaggerate in their manifestoes. Doesn’t say much about their class character.
Many things can happen when a large mass movement built on consensus is in charge.
I am not saying the EFF is one either, but the critique you bring forward doesn’t showcase your points well.
Bringing back military conscription? For what?
It is answered in the quote you mentioned.
offering life skills and discipline.
Teaching the masses life skills is GOOD.
Military conscription (which in the cited quote doesn’t necessarily imply “conscription”) is not only about invading other countries or protecting sovereignty. That’s colonizer talk.
The army can help with a lot of people’s projects, mobilizing resources for the betterment of the country. Furthermore, most places that have conscription also have options to participate in other governmental bodies, like firefighting. It is not strictly just into the army.
Furthermore, all AES countries have mandatory military conscription.
The countries that do not have military conscription are often those tainted with liberal individualism, prioritising the rights of the “individual” rather than the service to the community especially wrt to Global South countries.
many of which have very little to do with Marxism.
May I get specific examples of which policies “are not relevant” to Marxism? And I want something that is unequivocally and undeniably for the empowerment of the comprador classes and Capital.
the material harm NGOs cause to people are two-fold.
On a societal level, they aim to circumvent and build alternative structures to the current government and thus without the “democratic accountability” that these governments have to face (even if they are bourgeois dictatorships, they still have to manage the contradictions within society to remain in power). This can be seen in many colour revolutions that have occurred the past 50 years.
They also introduce and import foreign concepts, what I call “academic lib phraseology”, without the democratic consultation and “diffusion” to the masses. The masses here aren’t dumb when they realise that these NGO liberals speak the same as any other NGO liberal in other countries or those in the West. This is not a coincidence.
On a local level, despite their claim to the contrary, they actually maintain and sustain the oppression of LGBT people. Since they do not address the material basis of the oppression and are funded by foreign elements, their only justification and purpose for existing IS the existence of the oppression of LGBT people in the targeted Global South country.
Why would an LGBT rights NGO founder want to achieve LGBT liberation? The founder would lose their only source of income and their entire career!
This is similar to when the labour aristocrats in a trade union stops representing the interests of the rank-and-file.
This also means that the NGOs feature the worst of the liberal activists, who are often groomed by the West in the first place through their scholarship programmes. They are filled with opportunists and careerists, because to them, civil society is their way of climbing the corporate ladder and for their “professional development”.
The colour for Malaysia is outdated. North Korea-Malaysia diplomatic relations were cordial in the past but worsened in 2017 after the assassination of Kim Jong-nam in 2017 in KLIA. Relationships soured further in 2021 after Malaysia expedited a North Korean businessman to the US in contradiction to north Korean wishes.
It is important to note however the Malaysian establishment is in favour of positive diplomatic relations with North Korea. Friendly relations is especially advocated by Mahathir, a member of the traditional Malay-Muslim ascendant national bourgeoisie that governed as PM from 1981-2003 and 2018-2020. He did leave remarks that he wanted to improve relations with North Korea when he was in power. However after the Sheraton move, and subsequently 2 governent reshuffles and the 2022 election, diplomatic relations with North Korea is stuck in limbo without any sign of change in the short term.
In terms of national ideology and foreign policy, North Korea and Malaysia have more in common than differences. To speak of it in a Malaysian perspective, Malaysia was one of the first member of ASEAN to normalize relations with communist countries. Despite being a middle-power state, it has more than 111 diplomatic missions in 85 countries, with a passport holding visa-free travel through 168 territories.
Although the current circumstances is unfortunate, I don't doubt that eventually Malaysia-North Korea relations will warm up again - especially with the decline of US-led Western hegemony.
Personally, this whole situation is a bit saddening as I did plan to visit North Korea one day - and tour guide prices weren't too pricey (when they were running).
If everything goes well the next few weeks, I’ll have a lot of free time the next few months for some effortposts on SEA history and politics.
One I especially wanted to do for a while was comparing South Africa vs Malaysia, specifically comparing the racialised class structure of their economies.
This is because in my preliminary research I found out that the the South African BEE (Black Economic Empowerment) programme (for all it’s faults) were inspired by Malaysia’s NEP (New Economic Policy) that aimed to redistribute wealth among the racialised classes in Malaysia. I wanted to explore more on that and also assess the failures of the aforementioned policies in actually transforming the racialised economic base of both countries (and improve my understanding of their histories as well).
Stay tuned for that.
If anyone has any material relating at all to this, by all means share it with me.
Yeah it's really weird. The British were inventors of a vicious form of financial capital that is holding the whole world hostage. A cultural tradition of short-term predatory lending and "indirect rule" that controls colonized populations through false rulers.
And we focus on... a local town somewhere just acknowledging their history and holding a community event that has been done for the last 700years.
The Anglo-Saxon world, with all due respect to the British people, has a very good idea of how to hammer in liberal ideology into the heads of the people. They are exceedingly good at it.
The ASEAN parties thanked China for supporting ASEAN centrality and community building. They appreciated China for taking the lead in expressing willingness to sign the Protocol to the Treaty on the Southeast Asia Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone.
In addition, they looked forward to seeing the ASEAN-China comprehensive strategic partnership advance to a new level and make new achievements.
The meeting adopted a joint statement on the 20th anniversary of China's accession to the TAC and a guideline document for expediting the conclusion of the Code of Conduct in the South China Sea.
I wonder if any North Atlantic commentators even knows anything about ASEAN centrality, ZOPFAN, or tanah air diplomacy that guides Nusantara sea policies.
Kind of funny that there are those in West that still cling onto the notion that Chinese production is inferior while over here people say if you want shit done you call China lol