Haunani-Kay Trask : THEORY QUESTION 1 : What are the contributions of theory and formal education to the ongoing struggle for social and political change?

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Transcript

Theory is only as good as the praxis.(1) And that's after years of reading people and seeing how, say, Gramsci(2) or Lenin,(3) is then transmuted into some passive thing in the classroom, because the people who are teaching it are sort of… intellectual hangers-on or something.

I don't know what they're teaching... For example, if you look at postmodernism(4) - which I think is the scourge of the university - and you look at what they're doing with Marxism(5) and how they change it into this unimaginable, unintelligible thing, then you know that the university can only be a training ground and can never be the actual focus and locus of struggle. It's a training ground, and that's all it can be.

If you really want to do struggle, you have to get out there and struggle. And that's where you will learn the kinds of things that Gramsci learned about - he has this wonderful section, I don't know if you're familiar with him - about the earthworks and the lines of defense... Where did that image come from? It didn't come from sitting in a classroom! You can't read and study Gramsci and then understand struggle. You have to struggle to understand struggle.

And then people like Lenin and Gramsci and Hồ Chí Minh(6) and Mao(7) and Marcos(8) are the people who take the theory and change it to explain the current situation they're in. So if you look at my era in school, it was Mao. That was the great peasant revolutionary struggle of the century - or so we thought. And if you look at how Marx - who had talked about the urban proletariat - becomes through Hồ Chí Minh and Mao a rural peasant revolution, you can see how praxis informs theory. They are not in Bremen or Frankfurt or Paris. No, they're in the Yangtze River Valley. They're in North Vietnam. Well, you don't defeat the United States of America by sitting there reading about the Paris Commune!(9) It doesn't work. It doesn't work. You can read about the Paris Commune so you know about something that happened then and failed. But you cannot apply the lesson - whatever that may be, in your own mind - from the Paris Commune to peasant revolution.

And in that respect, Marxism is probably the most advanced theory, precisely because it continuously focuses on praxis, always praxis. And once you understand your historical moment, then praxis begins. You cannot have praxis and then have a historical moment. No, no, first you have your historical place. You do your analysis and you go out there and you struggle. And through the struggle you will come to understand your historical moment.

It took me at least 20 years to understand what the dialectic of history was. Because when you're sitting there in Madison, Wisconsin,(10) it's 40 below outside and you're 22 years old, you have no idea what the dialectic of history is. You have no idea! You just have a theoretical sense of it.

But then you come home from school and you work with your people and create a sovereignty movement. And then you see the dialectical theory of history. You see what class is. You see what ascendancy is. You understand what collaboration is. You learn the difference between being in the university and being outside of it, between being a rural people.... You understand the enormity of your obligation, how to take what you learn and give it to other people through the praxis of education. And then how to take them outside to see the people so they're never alienated from their own people. It's very difficult.

Notes

(1) Praxis: The ongoing and circular process of moving between a deep theoretical understanding of any given social reality, and the direct action taken to transform it. In regards to the process of learning and struggle, critical educator Paolo Freire states:

It is only when the oppressed find the oppressor out and become involved in the organized struggle for their liberation that they begin to believe in themselves. This discovery cannot be purely intellectual but must also involve action; nor can it be limited to mere activism, but must include serious reflection: only then will it be a praxis. (Paolo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Continuum, 1996 edition. page 47.)

(2) Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937): Italian revolutionary, Marxist theorist, and general secretary of the Communist Party in Italy (from 1924 until 1928, the date of his arrest and life-imprisonment). While in prison Gramsci wrote extensively on history, education, philosophy, politics, the state and civil society, Marxism, and Americanism. These writings have been published as Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci. Gramsci’s original contributions include the concept of “organic intellectuals” and their role in revolutionizing society, and the concept of hegemony, both political and cultural, as reflected in cultural and political domination.

(3) Vladimir Ilich Lenin (1870-1924): Founder of the Bolsheviks, leader of the Russian Revolution (1917), and first head of the Soviet Union (1917-1924). Two of his most important works are What Is To Be Done? (1902) and State and Revolution (1918).

(4) Postmodernism: Although referring at once to a wide range of cultural practices ("art") and "new" arrangements in social and economic phenomena, it is especially in the area of Postmodern theory that meditations on the relationships between political and social process have moved away from analyses of economic forces and class conflict, towards highly elaborated discourses of "identity politics." Critics charge that Postmodern conceptions of fluidity, relativism, and the "diffuse" nature of power can often frustrate politically useful analyses of ideology and structure - making it difficult for oppressed classes of people to act upon the conditions of their lived realities.

(5) Marxism: A vast theory (and critique) of Western history and capitalist modes of productions. Founded by Karl Marx (1818-1883) and Friedrich Engels (1820-1895), Marxism has been elaborated upon by subsequent generations of Marxist theorists (Plakhanov, Lenin, Trotsky, Luckacs, Gramsci, Benjamin, Lefebvre, Sartre, Althusser, etc.), and remains a fundamental tool of analysis and the ideological justification for anti-imperialist, revolutionary movements through the Third and Fourth Worlds.

(6) Hồ Chí Minh (1890-1969): Vietnamese revolutionary, nationalist, and first president of North Vietnam (1954-1969). His army defeated France in the French Indochina War (1946-1954), and later the United States and the U.S.-backed government in South Vietnam during the Vietnam War (1954-1975).

(7) Mao Zedong (1893-1976): Also Mao Tse-tung. Chinese theorist, revolutionary, and founder of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1949, serving as the country’s first head of state (1949-1959). He was also instrumental in leading the Long March (1934-1935), the Great Leap Forward (1958-1960), the founding of communes, and the Cultural Revolution (1966-1969).

(8) Subcomandante Marcos (b. 1957): Spokesperson of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN), an indigenous uprising formed in response to over 500 years of colonization and genocide of the Mayan Indians in the Chiapas region in Southeastern Mexico. The Zapatista declaration of independence was delivered on January 1, 1994 - the same day NAFTA (North American Free-Trade Agreement) went into effect.

(9) Paris Commune (1871): The “workers’ government” elected by the citizens of Paris during the period of civil war in France from March to May 1871, comprised mostly of workers and soldiers, including members of the First International. The commune opposed the reigning French government (the National Assembly comprised of members of the monarchy as well as the French bourgeoisie). The commune was crushed after fierce armed resistance during which as many as 30,000 Communards and workers were massacred or executed, nearly 40,000 imprisoned, and 7,000 forcibly deported.

(10) Madison, Wisconsin: Dr. Trask earned her BA, MA, and PhD degrees at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where the winters are famously cold.

Excerpt from Racism Against Native Hawaiians at the University of Hawaiʻi: A Personal and Political View.

As I look back on my long struggle, some basic truths emerge. The most important truth, I think, is that institutional racism and sexism cannot be fought alone... it is a truism that the more besieged the activist, the greater the need for support...

A coalition of supporters must be formed for daily strategizing and as a core to organize a larger community group. For faculty who have attentive publics, like feminists, environmentalists, and African-American, Asian, Chicano, and Native activists, this organizing effort will prove crucial when negotiations finally occur. And the group will remind both victim and institution that the politics of the issue encompasses more than just the person involved.

In terms of strategy, the struggle must not bog down on individual players... the tendency to see events as individual acts must be countered by a smart political sense that tells us as people of color when institutional racism is operating. Political analysis must always be primary when formulating strategy.

Tactically, public exposure is the best weapon in fighting an institution whose actions depend upon secrecy.

(Haunani-Kay Trask, From a Native Daughter: Colonialism and Sovereignty in Hawaiʻi, revised edition. Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 1999. pages 165-166.)