In this episode of Voices from the Frontlines, Eric Mann reads from his unpublished article:

The Ghosts, Dreams, Bones, and Lives of the Oppressed Peoples must shape the Nightmares and Hopes of The Revolutionaries in the oppressor nations

This article is the author’s introduction of Road for Revolutionaries: the 16 Qualities of the Transformative Organizer, the German translation of Playbook for Progressives: 16 Qualities of the Successful Organizer, by Eric Mann.

In this episode, Eric urges for more internationalism, as both perception and praxis, as he grapples with Europe’s, specifically Germany’s, history of fascism, imperialism, colonialism, and racism, and the undeniable parallel within the United States.

“If we’re trying to understand why 74 million people voted for Donald Trump … the roots between the Germans and the United States whites, the so called founding fathers, where they both had a theory of being a master race. As did the Spanish, as did the Portuguese. The role of Christianity, the role of whiteness, the role of perceiving the world as populated by people that were simply pre-German or pre-Portuguese, you know they were just there until the chosen people of their God will annihilate them.”

Eric situates the contemporary revolution of anti-Fascists and anti-Imperialists within the history of European colonialism, and presents internationalism as a necessary factor for true liberation. We must acknowledge and understand the atrocities committed under the rule of imperialism, the highest form of capitalism, both globally and locally.

“We have the rise of fascism in Germany. We have the rise of fascism in every European country, and God knows we’ve had this close to a fascist seizure of power in the United States. But please don’t read me stories about genocide, I want to have a more pleasant day.”

Eric Mann provides archival and anecdotal evidence, and lays down the framework to enhance one’s capabilities to be a truly transformative organizer.

“It’s the moral responsibility of Germans, and people all over the world to make sure that the German genocide in Africa is not lost in the so-called exalted silence of eternity, and to ensure the ghosts, dreams, bones and lives of the oppressed people must shape the nightmares and hopes of revolutionaries in the oppressor nations.”

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Originally aired 1/26/21.

Reading list:
– Playbook for Progressives: 16 Qualities of the Successful Organizer, by Eric Mann
– Ruth First and Joe Slovo in the War Against Apartheid, by Alan Wieder
– A Socialist Defector: From Harvard to Karl-Marx-Allee, by Victor Grossman
– The Kaiser’s Holocaust: Germany’s Forgotten Genocide, by Casper W. Erichsen and David Olusoga