The beginning of the century saw most communists recovering from the humiliating defeat of their dogma. They're mostly still bruised and full of self-commiseration but are now able to hold their heads up in public. The faux pas of the present US government after Sep11 had something to do with these awakenings of the communists from an exhausted, guilt-ridden and accommodating slumber. My uncle is one of these indefatigable communists who insist communism was not defeated by the insight of capitalism but rather by ignorance, ignorance driven by greed.

I grew up in a South African Black township in the 'seventies and 'eighties. For us communism was not an adventure but a way of life. We were raised on its ethos in much the same way some children would be raised on religious belief. When I was growing up, my uncle was a father figure for me. Even today he remains convinced of communist dogma. He still believes Marxist materialism to be the only educated outlook towards life. For him [these beliefs] came as a reaction to the humiliations of apartheid. The Marxist doctrine gave [him and those like him a] means to express their grievances while offering a better sense of dignity than what they saw as the exaggerated religious sense of their parents, 'the opium of the people,' according to the Marxist parlance ...

© 2004, GENERATOR 21.

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