Confront the Anti-Abortion, Woman-Hating Fascists and Reach Out Everywhere to Get Others to Do the Same!
Strategic Thoughts on Building the Movement for an Actual Revolution That Breaks ALL the Chains
January 6, 2015 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
In just over two weeks, hundreds of thousands will march in Christian fascist woman-hating processions on both coasts in opposition to a woman’s right to abortion and even birth control. These people will mobilize to make even further vicious gains in forcing women back into open subordination to men and into the position where women have no access to abortion or even birth control. They are fighting for a situation where women have no choice but to bear children against their will, or to risk their lives or go to prison for attempting to self-abort.
It is long past time that people stand up powerfully right in the face of these fascists, and bring forward and challenge many more people to join them in doing this. The whole program of hoping these woman-haters will go away on their own, of not sharply calling them out and confronting them, has been proven bankrupt. There must be a powerful pole erected that attracts those who sense this and that sharply challenges those who have not yet come to grips with this. When these fascists march, they must be opposed through powerful protest that breaks through and gets heard across the country and STOPS these fascists from carrying out their hate-fests unchallenged.
Make no mistake: forcing women to have children against their will is a form of enslavement. And all this is an integral part of a much larger and even more all-encompassing war against women that includes the epidemic of rape, the pervasive culture of vicious and cruel pornography, the hatred and shame that is fostered among women for their own bodies and sexuality, the trafficking and pimping out of women and girls, the vicious exploitation of women in the most low-paid and desperate sectors of the global economy, and more.
This must not be tolerated. Women are not bitches, hos, punching bags, breeders or sex objects. Women are full human beings! Fighting this assault on women is an urgent and great need.
It is very good that Stop Patriarchy has called for people to resist, confront, and counter-protest these fascist marches. The demand for “Abortion On Demand and Without Apology!,” their call to “STOP the War on Women,” and their spirit of defiantly confronting head-on the woman-haters need to be spread and built for boldly throughout society. Everyone who is outraged by this whole program of woman-hating and forced motherhood, and everyone who can be won to be outraged by this, must be part of making these protests as powerful as possible. These counter-protests are a key juncture right now in building up the all-around fight for the complete liberation of women. (See box with protest info.)
And while many can and must be won to take part in this from a very broad range of perspectives, for our part, the movement for revolution must take this up as a key part of preparing the ground, preparing the people, and preparing the vanguard—getting ready for the time when millions can be led to go for revolution, all-out, with a real chance to win.
This is true for two fundamental and interrelated reasons:
First, if we are not fighting—and leading huge sections of society, including those who catch the hardest hell every day under this system to fight—for the complete liberation of women as a key part of this preparation, we will not be making the kind of revolution that can lead to lasting emancipation for anyone. Everyone must understand: it is not possible to achieve lasting liberation for anyone while keeping one half of humanity (women) enslaved to the other half (men).
Second, there is a deep well of outrage against the oppression of women that must be tapped into and called forth as a major propeller of the revolution we need. The potential for this was palpable in the thunderous and deeply felt response to Bob Avakian at Riverside Church when he called on people to imagine a world where women could hold their heads high and walk down the street without ever fearing to look any man in the eye, or ever again be brutalized, degraded, or demeaned. Unleashing this fury is a strategic task right now as we fight to get in position to make a revolution, and it remains strategic even after the seizure of power, as the struggle must be carried forward under socialism to uproot every vestige of oppression, not just in one country but all over the world.
Both of these dimensions are spoken to powerfully in the following quote from Bob Avakian:
You cannot break all the chains, except one. You cannot say you want to be free of exploitation and oppression, except you want to keep the oppression of women by men. You can’t say you want to liberate humanity yet keep one half of the people enslaved to the other half. The oppression of women is completely bound up with the division of society into masters and slaves, exploiters and exploited, and the ending of all such conditions is impossible without the complete liberation of women. All this is why women have a tremendous role to play not only in making revolution but in making sure there is all-the-way revolution. The fury of women can and must be fully unleashed as a mighty force for proletarian revolution. (BAsics 3:22)
With all this in mind, a few thoughts on key sectors of society and how revolutionaries should be mobilizing for these protests.
Take this to those this system has cast off. Revolutionaries should take this out boldly to those who catch the hardest hell every day under this system. Every time revolutionaries have done this in the past we have found tremendous support—as well as a lot of confusion that needs to be struggled through. Huge numbers of Black and Latino women have been harassed and shamed for seeking out abortions. Many have had their lives destroyed by being burdened by children they were not ready for or did not want. All this is a great weight that must be broken and we must work to find the ways for their outrage against this to be felt in these protests and going forward. Men, too, must be struggled with to take up this fight now as an integral part of winning any kind of real liberation. Banners that get signed supporting abortion rights and opposing slavery in every form, video statements from these masses, as well as contingents of people wearing the REVOLUTION—NOTHING LESS! shirts at the actual protests are a few concrete ideas of how this section of people can be mobilized to be part of going right up in the face of these woman-haters when all eyes will be on them.
Download Tweetable jpg.
Take this to the students. A real fight must be mounted to bring forward a new generation that is willing to FIGHT for the emancipation of women and that understands that this emancipation MUST be fought for and will never come through voting, “incremental progress,” “individual empowerment,” or any such stuff. Revolution Clubs and others should go out very aggressively to high school and college students, getting out fliers, doing dramatic street theater, speaking in classrooms, involving those they meet on the spot, and in many other creative ways winning growing numbers of students to take part in—and to mobilize others into—these protests. The spirit of students stepping out against police murder, against rape and sexual assault, against anti-LGBT bigotry and other new stirrings should be united with and fanned further. Sticker days—where hundreds of students are mobilized to wear Abortion On Demand and Without Apology stickers on the same day—should be organized that get people talking, break the isolation, and set new terms around abortion rights as well as around the full liberation of women. Powerful contingents of students should be mobilized to join in confronting the Christian fascists in the streets and this should mark a real leap in the strategic fight for this new generation.
Download Tweetable jpg.
Take this to everyone who has been in the streets and the millions more like them. Think of the tens of thousands who have stepped so boldly and so beautifully into the streets against police murder and the whole slow genocide of Black and brown people at the hands of the state. They have broken out of the stifling and deadly routine in their behavior and in their thinking they are open to many new things that previously they hadn’t even considered. This is the time to go very boldly to all of them—and the millions more like them—who can be won to see that we must oppose slavery in every form. Where the question of women’s liberation—and of these January protests in particular—has been taken out among these folks, there has been a broad and enthusiastic reception. The challenge must go out even further to the artists, young professionals, poets, ’60s people, and the rest to bring that same spirit of defiance and determination into the fight against every form of oppression, including right now against the enslavement of forced motherhood.
Get into and get out broadly the compendium Break ALL the Chains! Bob Avakian on the Emancipation of Women and the Communist Revolution. As we do all of this, all of us—especially the Revolution Clubs, but not only them—should be getting deeply into and getting out broadly both the above quote from Bob Avakian (“You can’t break all the chains but one...”) and the entire compendium on women’s liberation that features that quote. In this compendium, Bob Avakian brings together a tremendous visceral hatred for the oppression of women as well as profound theoretical breakthroughs as to the roots and the abolition of this oppression that is essential to achieving human emancipation. He critically examines the best of the previous communist understanding of this question and synthesizes this together with what can and must be learned from other forces who have fought for women’s liberation and sets forth an even more radical framework for both renewed struggle on this front and further theoretical work that is needed. He breaks things down in a very basic way that everyone can understand and puts a deep challenge that everyone who wants liberation must take up. Getting into all this ourselves, and popularizing this very broadly among others, is a key part of bringing alive the revolution and the revolutionary leadership necessary to raise people’s sights and prepare for an actual revolution.
Unite all who can be united to confront the woman-haters. As we do all of this, let’s fight for and unite with others who step forward—or who can be won to step forward—from different perspectives to join with and take up this fight for the liberation of women and for these counter-protests in particular. They should be encouraged and welcomed to put forward and mobilize others to stand up from their own viewpoints even as we put forward ours and even as we together engage in principled struggle over the source of the problem and its ultimate solution.
Build organization. A key aim in all of this should be building the organization needed to actually STOP all this oppression and degradation once and for all.
Stop Patriarchy action at Union Square subway station, New York City, January 11, 2014. Photo: @StopPatriarchy.
Stop Patriarchy must be systematically built as a real site where people who want to see this degradation and oppression STOP come together to work and fight to make that happen. This movement has to grow and become magnetic, a place for everyone, young and old but especially young in spirit, who can’t stand the relations and morality of this society and really burn to be part of bringing in something different.
And the Revolution Clubs must also grow through all this. Even as these clubs continue to s pread the work of BA and his recent dialogue with Cornel West in particular, and even as they are taking on the powers around police murder and other outrages, they should not only be building for these January protests, but strongly representing at them as the Revolution Clubs. They should be calling on and challenging others to be part of getting ready for an actual revolution, putting forward the need for others to get with the Club right on the spot and get serious about actually bringing about a revolution aimed at breaking EVERY chain on humanity.
* * * * *
There is not a lot of time between now and these fascist anti-abortion marches, but these are not normal times. Millions have begun to question things they used to just accept. A defiant spirit of resistance has sprung forward and needs to be built upon and spread. Thousands have tuned in and been exposed to the most radical and liberating vision of real revolution and total emancipation in Bob Avakian’s presentation and dialogue with Cornel West just a few weeks ago at Riverside Church. And millions upon millions are being confronted every single day by the outrageous effects of the unrelenting war against women. Let us seize the hour and go out very boldly to build for these protests in a way that prepares the ground, prepares the people, and prepares the vanguard and other forms of revolutionary organization for the revolution humanity so urgently needs.
Abortion On Demand and Without Apology!
STOP the War On Women!
Break the Chains! Unleash the Fury of Women as a Mighty Force for Revolution!
OPPOSE SLAVERY IN EVERY FORM!
Volunteers Needed... for revcom.us and Revolution
If you like this article, subscribe, donate to and sustain Revolution newspaper.