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KEYNOTE ADDRESS TO THE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
ON EDUCATION, IMPERIALISM AND RESISTANCE
By Prof. Jose Maria Sison
Chairperson, International League of Peoples' Struggle
Shih Hsin University
Taipei, Taiwan
10 August 2009
From the International Coordinating Committee and entirety of the International
League of Peoples' Struggle (ILPS), I convey warmest greetings of solidarity to
all the educators and social activists now gathered. I express high appreciation
to the ILPS Working Group on Teachers, Researchers and Other Educational
Personnel for organizing this international conference on education, imperialism
and resistance and to the International Center for Taiwan Social Studies for
hosting it.
Thank you for affording me the honor and privilege of delivering this keynote
address. The theme of your conference is urgent and of great importance to
the educators, the youth and the people of the world. We need to underscore
the decisive importance of education in the service of the people, to criticize and
condemn the depredations of imperialism and all reaction and present the
anti-imperialist and progressive perspectives of struggle for a new and better
world. I keep in mind that the participants of this conference come from
advanced industrial economies as well as from underdeveloped ones.
I. The Decisive Importance of Education
The availability of formal education at the basic and higher levels to comparatively
larger numbers of people differentiates the modern world of the bourgeoisie and
working class from the ancient world of the slave masters and feudal lords. The
wider extent of education is made possible by the larger amount of surplus product
created by the modern forces of production and is required by the greater need
for mass literacy, professional and technical skills to maintain as well as to advance
the level of material and cultural development.
Every exploitative ruling class in modern society, be it the monopoly bourgeoisie
in imperialist countries or the bourgeoisie in combination with the landlord class
in the underdeveloped countries, always puts its class imprint on the character
and content of education and lays stress on the preservation of the ruling
system and continuing exploitation of the working people. In opposition, the
revolutionary forces of the people lay stress on the transformative character and
content of education for the purpose of national and social liberation, all-round
development and the attainment of socialism.
In large historical terms, capitalism has outlived its progressive character in opposition
to feudalism in the industrial capitalist countries. It has reached the stage of
monopoly capitalism or modern imperialism since the beginning of the 20th century.
It has been responsible for ever worsening levels of economic and financial crisis,
state repression, fascism, colonial and neocolonial domination, inter-imperialist
global wars, wars of aggres-sion against independent countries, damage to the
environment and the use of the most backward forms of reaction, including
racial, religious and gender biases.
Critique of Imperialism
You are absolutely correct in declaring that imperialism is at the root of the
suffering and misery of billions of people throughout the world. Indeed, imperialist
banks and corporations reap superprofits from the exploitation of the working
people in both imperialist and underdeveloped countries and do so far more in
the latter countries. The gap between rich and poor countries is ever widening.
Widespread poverty and unemployment are deliberately maintained in order to
keep ever available a large pool of cheap labor for super-exploitation. Concomitantly,
environmental destruction proceeds unabated for the same purpose of extracting
superprofits.
In recent decades, it has seemed as if capitalism and imperialism were perpetual
and as if the cause of national liberation, people's democracy and socialism were
hopeless in the face of the betrayal of socialism by the revisionists, the full-scale
restoration of capitalism in revisionist-ruled countries and the imposition of "neoliberal
globalization" on the world by the imperialist powers and their local puppets. With
Russia having shifted from social-imperialism to rejoin the ranks of the traditional
imperialist powers and with China aiming and trying hard to be a major imperialist
power, the contradictions within the world capitalist system have intensified,
such as those between the imperialist powers and the people of the world,
among the imperialist powers themselves and between the bourgeoisie and
the working class in the imperialist countries.
The slogan of "free market" or "neoliberal globalization" stands for the systematic
attack by the monopoly bourgeoisie on the working class and the rest of the
people. It blames supposed wage inflation and social spending by government
for the stagflation that surfaced in the imperialist countries in the 1970s and
manifested the crisis of overproduction and the financial crisis in the imperialist
economy. Since then, the imperialist countries headed by the US have gone
on a rampage of pressing down the real wage level, cutting back on social spending
for education, health and other social services and curtailing the rights and
hard-earned social benefits of the working people.
The imperialist powers have pushed the underdeveloped countries to denationalize
their economies, liberalise investments and trade in favor of the foreign monopolies,
privatize state assets and social services and deregulate all previous restrictions on
foreign monopoly capital and on the exploitation of the working people, women,
children, migrants and the environment. The essence of the policy of "neoliberal
globalization" is gobble-ization of the world by the monopoly banks and corporations.
It unleashes the insatiable greed of the monopoly bourgeoisie.
I. Such monstrous policy has degraded and devastated education. Government
spending for public education has been reduced. Teachers, researchers, and other
education personnel suffer the consequences of stagnant and decreasing real salaries
as these do not keep up with the rising costs of living. Large numbers of education
personnel are laid off as governments close down schools and universities. As the
academic and non-academic employees and the student masses become restive,
they are subjected to repression by state authorities.
II.
The imperialist powers keep on tightening their grip on education on a global scale.
They use the WTO General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) to treat
education as a commodity for profit-making in the so-called free market and to
push the privatization of public schools at all levels. The purpose, content and
conduct of teaching and research are made to serve the interests of the imperialist
powers and local reactionaries. These factors of mis-education design and produce
the curricula, study materials, education and research programs and institutional
structures. They use the combination of schools, mass media and other means
of information and education as tools of imperialist domination in the cultural field
as well as in the socio-economic and political fields.
The adoption of higher technology in combination with the pushing down of the
incomes of the working people in order to maximize corporate profits have
engendered a series of worsening crises of overproduction under the policy of
"neoliberal globalization". Every rise of production has been accompanied by
the reduction of wage incomes and the shrinkage of the market. The attempt
of monopoly capitalism to override the crisis of overproduction and the tendency
of the profit rate to fall through massive doses of debt financing, the creation of
financial bubbles and the financialization of the economy have served to aggravate
the crisis.
We are now faced with the worst financial and economic crisis of the world capitalist
system since the Great Depression. If we look at the drastic fall of economic
growth, unemployment and trade on the global scale since the second half of
2007, we can say that the current crisis follows a trajectory which is already
worse than the Great Depression. But the officials and propagandists of the
US obfuscate the severity of the crisis by calling it euphemistically as the Great
Recession and merely focusing on some temporary effects of the huge bank
bailouts in the US.
The downward trend of the US economy continues. It is most evident in the
rise of unemployment and the concomitant decline in consumption. The Obama
regime continues the neoliberal bias of the Bush regime for bailing out the banks
and feeding the greed of the finance oligarchy. The funds that are supposed
to stimulate the economy are channelled to certain monopoly corporations that
use them to make profits rather than to expand production, create jobs and
revive consumer demand. The US will continue to generate crisis in the world
capitalist system, worsen the conditions of the working people and even the
middle social strata, cause political turmoil within the ruling systems and incite
the people to wage all forms of resistance.
The worsening crisis of the world capitalist system leads to the escalation of
state terrorism and wars of aggression. The imperialist powers continue to
band together to shift the burden of the crisis to the working people and the
underdeveloped countries. But the broad masses of the people are bound to
fight back for national and social liberation. The imperialist powers become ever
more driven by greed as the financial and economic crisis constrains their
profit-making. Their struggle for a redivision of the world is bound to intensify
as they scramble for the sources of cheap labor and raw materials, markets,
fields of investment and spheres of influence. The worsening crisis, the rise
of fascism and the imperialist propensity for war are driving the workers and
the rest of the people to fight back and move for a radical change of social
system in various countries.
Struggle for a New and Better World
To be able to fight for a new and better world, the people need to be aroused,
organized and mobilized by the revolutionary party and progressive alliances in
every country. In this regard, the revolutionary party analyses the global and
domestic situation and sets forth the general program of action and the strategy
and tactics. The people must be aroused through information and education work.
They must be organized on the basis of class or sectoral affinity as well as on the
basis of major social issues. They must be mobilized through mass campaigns and
through sectoral and multisectoral alliances.
The teachers and researchers play a crucial role in the struggle of the people for
a new and better world. They must develop and utilize knowledge and research
against the imperialist domination of these and for the liberation of the people
from national and class oppression, for the realization of democracy, for all-rounded
development in the service of the people, for world peace and the protection of
the environment. They must promote and realize a new type of education and
culture that is anti-imperialist, scientific and pro-people.
It is of urgent necessity that the teachers and researchers put forward a critique
of imperialist ideology. Such a critique is an important instrument for defining the
targets and tasks in the struggle for a radical transformation of society. We must
be able to confront
imperialist globalization and its terrorist complement of state repression and wars
of aggression. In this regard, we must be able to build ever stronger the solidarity
of the people of the world and advance their struggle to defend their rights and
welfare, including the people's right to education, and advance in stages the
struggle for a new and better world of greater freedom, justice, development
and peace.
I am pleased to know that participants in this conference are urged to contribute
to the critique of any aspect of imperialism and education and are encouraged to
make interdisciplinary approaches to such concerns as access to education, the
so-called neoliberal reforms in the education sector, the right to education and
livelihood, the political economy of education, the politics and theories of
knowledge, production and research, the impact of privatization and liberalization
on educators and students and adverse effects of neoliberal reforms in education
on societies.
The organizers of this conference guide well all the participants by setting forth
certain tracks of discussion and calling for papers under each track. I look forward
to the publication of the papers on education and imperialism, dealing with
historical perspectives, the relation of imperialist globalization to the basic and
higher levels of education and the relation of debt and so-called aid to education;
to the papers on education and markets, dealing with the relations of education
with industry and imperialist globalization, free trade agreements and transnational
education; and to the papers on education, oppression and resistance, dealing
with the relations of education to social movements, the cause of national liberation,
the issues of race, ethnicity and gender and the rights and welfare of educators and
related personnel.
The direction, scope and content of your conference are comprehensive and take
up the most important issues and concerns. I wish you the utmost success. I am
confident that your conference will be very successful not only in interpreting the
world but also in proposing how to change it. Thank you.###
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