Friday, April 24, 2015

Editorial, Ascent of a New Left!?, in LAW ANIMATED WORLD, 15 February 2015, Vol. 11, Part 1, No. 3 issue

ASCENT OF A NEW LEFT!?


Our good friend Tarek Fatah has equated the resounding victory of the Aam Admi Party under Arvind Kejriwal in Delhi together with earlier convincing win by Alexis Tsipiras of a radical left coalition Syrzia, Greece, and of the still earlier rise of a new left party Podemos under Pablo Iglesias TurriĆ³n as the rise of a New Left on the horizon of world politics offering fresh breezes of hope and relief to the downtrodden or deprived people and an alternative to the current exploitative, degrading capitalist order. May be it is too hopeful a characterization and analysis, but certainly these are welcome winds in the present situations of acute misery, corruption, plunder of resources and demeaning of people’s lives by the pro-capitalist establishment forces the world over. This editor heartily acclaims the victory of the Aam Admi Party and its energetic and intelligent leader Arvind Kejriwal, though it would be too hasty to describe him, an avowed theist with the vagaries of a vote-catching populist, as a new left personality. Certainly, there are several pro-people measures he and his party proposed in their manifesto and we wish all success to them against all odds in working in a limited jurisdiction. However, this editor records his disappointment regarding their somewhat opportunistic adjustments if not alliances with communal and conservative forces, especially of the so-called minorities, and refusal/hesitation to openly and firmly condemn the Charlie Hebdo massacres in France that have galvanized secular and leftist forces all over the world in a new manner. Be that as it may, we wish AK would certainly take some pro-people measures to fulfill their very basic needs and rights before embarking on any grandiose schemes and without being embroiled in rote things like the Lokpal Bill once again. The young and active European leaders – Pablo Iglesias of Podemos, Spain and Alexis Tsipiras of Greece, unlike AK, are avowed atheists and professed communists/socialists who would like to restructure their countries in a new humane democratic socialist pattern without in anyway unduly bound by the trammels of any traditional state socialist policies and perspectives that spelt the doom of Soviet type socialism the world over. We sincerely wish them also all success.  §§§

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