This piece was reprinted by OpEdNews with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.
I hear this again and again, whenever I speak in the West:
"What kind of Communism is that, in China? In all big cities, they have Prada and Gucci in every major department store."
Western leftists are obsessed with this topic. They do not even realize how ridiculous, how racist their arguments actually are!
China, with some 6,000 years long history, 1.3 billion inhabitants and the second largest economy in the world, has almost eradicated extreme poverty in the cities, and in the countryside. For the first time in modern history, people are moving from the urban centers to the villages. The great Ecological Civilization effort is demonstrating to the world how to save the environment, and the planet. The country is firmly back with its brilliant model of "Communism with the Chinese characteristics". Its foreign policy is more and more internationalist.
But the more progressive, independent-minded and kind to its people China becomes, the more it is attacked and antagonized by the West. The more is its Communist model scrutinized, under the microscope.
By the Right, by the racists and imperialists naturally, but by the Left?
The problem is that the Western Left subscribes to exceptionalism almost as much as the Right.
It demands purity, great sacrifice and austerity from countries like China and Russia.
As I have already described in many of my essays and books, including Revolutionary Optimism, Western Nihilism, there is hardly anything pure left in London or Paris. Hardly anyone is ready to commit to anything ideological, especially to the revolutionary struggle. Sacrifice or austerity is totally foreign to Europeans or North Americans, no matter on what side of the political spectrum they stand.
But the Chinese and Russians are expected to behave like saints.
Actually, the entire planet is supposed to stop consuming, driving expensive cars, wearing designer shoes and bags, and if possible, to stop traveling.
All these privileges are reserved for Westerners, and for the elites in 'client' states.
It is never pronounced like this, in one breath. But that is what the Western left-wing intellectuals with their, outdated and rejected by the entire world 'anarcho-syndicalist logic', really want to push down the throats of all non-Western people.
And I say: such twisted logic is insulting, even disgusting.
For centuries, the West has been robbing, and looting everything, in all corners of the world.
Designer boots is what the British and French 'gentlemen' were kicking 'un-people' with, in their crotches and their buttocks. Designer clothes were worn by the first and second generations of those refined European ladies in North America, while the native population was being exterminated, and slaves were laboring and getting raped on the plantations.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
2
