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We Sing the Revolution Electric: A Manifesto
By Amin Sharif
A new day has arrived in the world. It is a day that has
pushed through the haze of industrial pollution--economic, cultural,
social, and political. This day has wiped away the industrial smoke of
an older time, an older age. Its sun rises in an electric blue sky of
day and sets in an electric blue sky of night. It is pure.
Self-generating. Powerful. All-pervasive.
It is a day that will make the dreams of the founders of
this country come true. And the dreams of the founders of other
countries manifest. The words of Jefferson will become electrified. As
well as those of Marx and Mao. For, at the high noon of this day, all will
become equal before the PC, before the modem, before the mouse. But like
all revolutions and conspiracies, this electric insurgency will have to
take fledgling steps. It will have to have time for the masses to
acquire and distribute the tools of revolution. Hardware. Software.
Wiring. Satellites. E-books. Pagers. Cell phones. All things electric
are the harbingers of this change.
The industrial revolutionary forces of by-gone days
stand baffled by the new electronic revolutionary forces. To them, this
revolution appears to have the quality of anarchy and the stench of
disorder. This is not how we did it in the past, the old revolutionaries
of every strife rail. We were centralized. We were focused. We put power
in the hands of all the people. That all of this is, for the most part, a
bald face lie seems to be beyond their comprehension. The power was
never in the hands of all the people. It was always in the hands of the
few whether under the flag of capitalism or socialism, or any other
"ism" that prevailed in the time of the hammer, the sickle, the
mass production line.
The revolution electric will raise no single banner. It
will seek no single party to bring it about. On the contrary, it will
raise a thousand banners and be led by a million parties. Sometimes these
electric parties will be collectives of people who will launch
self-sufficient Web sites. African-Americans, Latino, and women groups
of every possible racial and ethnic background will be ready partners in
the electric revolution. At other times, the voice of the electric
revolution will be singular and alone. This is the true democratic
potential of the electric revolution. It will at evening let every
voice be heard. And unlike the old revolutionary anthems sung by
millions of the working and colonized classes, the electric revolution
will have a million anthems sung by a million different voices. Ours
will be a different way of being in the world!
The electric revolution, like all other revolutions,
will be based on a new consciousness that will suit its needs. The first
revolution was based on the most ancient kind of consciousness--that of
sun and earth. Its state was communal. Its purpose was to organize
humanity's survival in the face of awe-inspiring natural forces.
Communal existence was best served when humanity lived in harmony with
the natural resources that surrounded it.
The next revolution was agricultural. It was organized
on a land-based consciousness. Small scale property ownership arose. And
it gave birth to the feudal state of royal classes. When this revolution
passed away the Industrial Age was born. Capitalist and socialist
consciousness came out of a two-fold experience of wage labor and plant
ownership. Nation states vying for resources created empires. And,
empires, in turn, exploited racism, created colonialism. When empires
crumbled, spheres of influence took their place. The Cold War delivered
the Atomic Age by cesarean birth. The Age of Anti-Colonialism emerged.
And the Post-Industrial Age began its infancy.
But what is next, if not the revolution electric and
electronic consciousness?
Try and deny it. And it will be like trying to deny the
dawn of tomorrow. Look around and see, it is already here. It is held in
the hands of your children--electric games and personal computers are
the entry sites into the revolution electric. It harvests their minds
and hearts for the threshing floor of a different kind of cultural,
political, social, economic, and even religious existence. It is ever
tying them to a new, emerging, vital electronic consciousness.
And this is why the old progressive forces fear it. They
cannot understand that the revolution electric is neither capitalist
nor socialist, neither black nor white. It is both. And it is more. It
will not be aborted by the hands of the old anti-progressive forces
either. By the time they recognize what the revolution electric is
about, it will be too late. The new electric Magna Carta, Communist
Manifesto, and democratic constitution will already be written. By the
time they stop to hear what we have to say, we will have already sung
the revolution electric for a thousand days! * * * *
*
update 27 June 2008 |
