PARTISAN!

Mila Volkova critiques the orientation of the yearly Rising Tide ‘Protestival” as it stands. She claims that while the festival is an expression of intense and justified emotions, it simply acts as a yearly “cleansing ritual”, and that it needs an explicitly revolutionary socialist political orientation if it is to achieve change.

There is revolutionary potential in every atmosphere of love and joy, but it is not subversive in and of itself. This is the lesson to be drawn from Rising Tide’s ‘protestival’.

From the 21st – 24th of November, Newcastle harbour shook with joyful marches, environmentalist music, and the laughter of children. Rising Tide planned the action, an environmentalist group that has been around for more than twenty years. Our goal was to block the Newcastle Coal Port, which is responsible for 1% of all global emissions. For a handful of hours, activists aboard kayaks and ships delayed travel through the port.

It was difficult not to come away from the protestival without feeling cynical. There were such enormous expressions of joy. Yet so little was achieved. It seems unlikely that very much will be achieved in Rising Tide, while it remains limited to protest politics. Criticisms of capitalism were common, but were followed by calls to action to get in a kayak, or vote Greens, or to keep holding rallies. We have been doing this for so long, when will it work?

Many environmentalists, especially those who are older, appreciate the party atmosphere. They are probably tired of the sober and, eventually, ineffectual civil rights and anti-war movements. War continues. The gap has not closed. We chant, “never again!” as more women and Queers are murdered.

The protestival offered many a chance to express their frustrations. To keep the fire alive in their hearts and find common community with others who feel their pain. A chance to laugh, cry, and rage. Many expressed how Rising Tide demonstrated that they, “will not be silenced!”

But who is listening?

What is the role of these emotions, when there is no revolutionary struggle? It seems more like a catholic confession, where the sinner breaks the church’s doctrine yet reimposes it by guiltily admitting it to a priest.

Rising Tide is a yearly purification of ourselves. We party, we protest, we pray for absolution in the form of legal reform, and we go home feeling better about ourselves, without making a difference.

Nonetheless, for all of the rationalism of Marxism, it would be a mistake to de-emphasise the role that love, rage, melancholy, and yearning all play in the building of revolutions. Love is an expanding of horizons. In every act of love, there is an opportunity to understand the struggles of another. To link their struggle to your’s.

Through loving those close to us, we have an opportunity to love all humanity. This is the qualitative change in mindset required for revolutionary thinking, to realise the commonality of all the exploited, and the universality of their struggle for freedom. It means to define oneself in one’s own terms. To organise and take power for ourselves. To make our vision of the world true, rather than beg for inclusion into theirs.

Revolutions are built on people tired of losing those they love to war, starvation, violence, destruction, prejudice, loneliness. They are built on those who demand an end to the killing. Those who imagine a brighter future.

The protestival was a collective of people sharing a common grief. In this way, it has revolutionary potential. Communists should continue to agitate for revolutionary consciousness in Rising Tide for this reason. There was a larger Communist presence at Rising Tide this year and this is promising. But few at the protestival really imagine a revolution, or social transformation. Regardless of what they say, they demand modest reforms.

These demands are truly demands in the sense they are asking something of someone else. People do not imagine themselves as taking power for themselves, and of imposing their vision for a better world. It’s as if everyone is waiting for something to happen or for the capitalist state to finally start listening.

Palestine rallies have begun to serve this purpose too. The rhetoric has changed from lively demands for an end to complicity, to solemn recognition of complicity. Feeling powerless, we satisfy ourselves that at least we stood vigil and didn’t turn away from the suffering, unlike the others. Pride parades adopt this tone too. We remember the fallen, and we wait for someone else to save us.

These are symptoms of our powerlessness.

But powerlessness is an illusion and a self-fulfilling prophecy. We make this world. Constantly, every day, we make the choice to let it continue or not. Just as easily, we can decide to unmake it. Grief for those we have lost, and love for those we wish not to, can be the driving force of genuine transformation.

Rather than shying away from the antics of the protestival, Communists should embrace them. This is not to say that we should shy away from criticism. On the contrary, we should point out to Rising Tide goers that only revolution can offer them what they seek. We should welcome the partying and go even further!

We must argue that limiting ourselves to therapy, confession, protest, and partying would dishonour our grief and love. Absent of the struggle, these things trap us in the very system that denigrates us. We are in an abusive relationship.

We must make the argument that the only true resolution to grief is revolution. And that the only true realisation of love is communism.