According to Guy Debord, organiser of the Situationist International (SI) anti-capitalist movement, “in a world which really is topsy-turvy, the true is a moment of the false”. What appears as true is false; what is false is true. We, students, see this everywhere, including in our universities and student unions.
By Lean Tolentino Wednesday 5 July 2023 Lean Tolentino is a member of the editorial committee and an eco-socialist. The views expressed herein are only …
Theory. The word conjures up, in the space of left-wing discourse, the image of an isolated bunch of intellectuals discussing arcane and abstract concepts. The term is used and abused to mean anything from the dogmatic principles of political pamphlets to tomes of economic and philosophical writing inaccessible to any but the most erudite among us. It is not unreasonable to ask any student of left-wing theory “but what use is it for us in the real world!?”.
The lockdown and pandemic marked a turndown for the working class. After years of stagnation following the water charges, which was briefly interrupted by a militant student movement, the left suddenly found it’s meagre gains completely halted. The far right seemed ascendant – isolation, failures by anti-racist groups and mass proliferation of disinformation on social media resulted in large scale protests by disenfranchised communities against the government’s covid policies. For a short period after the lockdown, the far right seemed to have retreated, but with economic downturn, endless government corruption and mass migration following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the far right made an explosive reveal at Sandwith Street.
