Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Orwell's "Catalonia" Revisited (V)

Anthony Daniels:

We learn, for example, that “the working class believed in a revolution that had begun” and “if I [Orwell] had to use my rifle at all … I would use it on the side of the working class and not against them,” as if the working class were simply and indubitably a solid bloc of like-minded people and its interests self-evident. And Orwell says this despite the fact that he took part in the violence in Barcelona between three political groups, all of which claimed equally to represent (in the sole legitimate representative sense of the word) the working class, and all of which did, in fact, have working-class members.

Mais uma passagem do Orwell original:

All I could gather was that the Civil Guards had attacked the Telephone Exchange and seized various strategic spots that commanded other buildings belonging to the workers. There was a general impression that the Civil Guards were 'after' the C.N.T. and the working class generally. It was noticeable that, at this stage, no one seemed to put the blame on the Government. The poorer classes in Barcelona looked upon the Civil Guards as something rather resembling the Black and Tans, and it seemed to be taken for granted that they had started this attack on their own initiative. Once I heard how things stood I felt easier in my mind. The issue was clear enough. On one side the C.N.T., on the other side the police. I have no particular love for the idealized 'worker' as he appears in the bourgeois Communist's mind, but when I see an actual flesh-and-blood worker in conflict with his natural enemy, the policeman, I do not have to ask myself which side I am on.

Como Orwell escreve, num conflito em que de um lado está a principal central sindical e do outro a policia, não é preciso pensar muito para concluir de que lado está a "classe trabalhadora".

Quanto a ele, por vezes, falar da classe trabalhadora como se fosse um corpo único é o que nós fazemos em quase todas as situações - quanto vezes não dizemos "as pessoas da cidade Y estão muito descontentes com isto ou aquilo", mesmo quando haverá algumas que não estão descontentes? Em qualquer raciocínio, acabamos sempre por fazer generalizações. Assim falar em "classe trabalhadora" não significa que todos os membros da classe trabalhadora tenham interesses idênticos - apenas que a generalidade dos membros dessa classe têm interesses semelhantes.

“There is already the beginning of a dangerous split in the world working-class movement,” a statement that takes it for granted that the workers of the world are, and ought to be, unifiable within a single organization.

Não, da mesma maneira que, quando alguêm fala na Cristandade não está a implicar que todos os cristãos do mundo são e devem ser unificáveis numa única organização (e falar das divisões da Cristandade - que, mutatis mutandis, seria o equivalente à conversa de Orwell - ainda menos implica tal coisa)

No comments: