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KARACHI: We must keep the process of scholarly thinking going in order to understand the oppressive capitalist system, because systems come and go but scholarship moves on.
This was said by renowned historian Dr Mubarak Ali while formally opening a conference organised by the Tareekh Foundation Trust at the Jinnah Medical and Dental College to mark philosopher, economist and political theorist Karl Marx’s 200th birth anniversary.
Shedding light on the genesis of the moot, Dr Ali said in 1999 he and his friends came out with a quarterly journal Tareekh. It had all kinds of essays and articles related to the subject of history. Then they thought about organising a history conference, so in 2001 a conference was held in Lahore. Subsequently, the conferences that were organised focused on topics such as the history of Punjab, the history of Sikhs, the history of Sindh, colonialism, nationalism, law, and history and women. Last year, to mark the 100 years of the Russian revolution a moot was held at the Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Institute of Science and Technology in Karachi.
Dr Ali said his colleagues in the Sindh capital now had the responsibility to keep things going. He wished that more young people join the movement and new researches on Marxism should come to the fore because scholarship was not a static thing, it moved on.
‘Marxism continues to be relevant’
A video message of Indian scholar Prof Prabhat Patnaik followed. The professor said there’s a misconception that the world communist movement was a shadow of its former self and Marxism was passé because capitalism had now established itself in a manner that wasn’t imaginable half a century ago. It led many people to ask the question, what’s the role of Marxism in today’s world? The professor answered that as long as capitalism remained in this world, Marxism was going to continue to be relevant and the most pertinent philosophical outlook on the subject. Marxism talked about capitalism in an exploitative society, and exploitation as a specific historic phenomenon.
Prof Patnaik added Marxism had a very important dimension which wasn’t often discussed. That dimension saw capitalism as a spontaneous system in the sense that it’s driven by its own imminent tendencies –– it’s a system of universal alienation.
The first of the two formal sessions of the conference, chaired by Dr Ali, then began. Dr Jaffer Ahmed read out a paper on how Marx looked at literature. He said the philosopher had a distinct place in history when it came to ideas and thoughts. He’s special in two ways. One, his ideas contained a revolutionary element; two, his thoughts did not just have an academic value but also practical worth. He was the torchbearer of a social revolution.
Dr Ahmed said Marx touched on all those subjects that the discipline of philosophy discussed. Marx expressed his views about zamaan aur makaan, about man’s role in society, about materialism, about man’s inner being etc. This was the reason that he attached great importance to art and literature. He tried to find the connection between praxis and ideology. His letters and notes would be replete with literary reference and he would often pepper his speeches with proverbs and idioms.
Dr Riaz Shaikh gave a presentation on the critical theory of state in Marxian and neo-Marxian concepts. In that context he pointed out there were five approaches to them: Instrumentalist, Structuralist, Derivational, System Analystic and Organisational Realist.
Ayub Malik’s paper was on the various strands of criticism on Marxism. He argued that the basic idea of Marxism was to bring about social change. Marx was not against anything which was in favour of humanity or human values.
Aslam Khwaja talked about the impact of Karl Marx on Sindh’s politics and intellect.
Sartaj Khan spoke on Marx’s influence on the working class movement.
Sara Ibrahim’s paper was on Marx’s understanding of ecological issues.
Dr Tauseef Ahmed Khan hosted the session.
Published in Dawn, October 29th , 2018
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