This is based on a talk originally given at the SCUM
Conference in Perth, Australia on 24 September 2011.
I come to the writing of manifestoes with the interests of a
poet and political activist. Political activism is obvious. But poetry? An
effective manifesto is one in which the language works, the political position
is clear – but above all – it has rhythm and metre. A manifesto is a bit like a
poem or a song.
Let’s look at Marx and Engels. The first line of the
prologue:
A spectre is
haunting Europe–
the spectre
of Communism (Marx and Engels 1848/1967: 78).
Or the first line a Chapter 1:
The history
of all hitherto existing society
is the
history of class struggles (Marx and Engels 1848/1967: 79).
The most
disappointing aspect of the Communist
Manifesto is the last lines:
WORKING MEN OF ALL COUNTRIES,
UNITE.
(Marx and Engels 1848/1967: 79; capitals in original)
But even
with this disappointing ending, you can still see the poetry in it.
And then
consider Valerie Solanas (1967):
Life in this
society being at best, an utter bore
and no
aspect of society being at all relevant to women,
there
remains to civic minded, responsible, thrill seeking females
only to overthrow
the government, eliminate the money system,
institute
complete automation and destroy the male sex.
You can feel the rhythm in the words when you read it this
way. In the world of poetry it comes pretty close to being a verse in iambic
pentameter. It’s not perfect but if you emphasise roughly every second syllable
and read it out loud, you’ll hear it.
Redstockings Manifesto (1969) has a similar feel, but I will
write this out as prose.
II Women are an oppressed class. Our oppression is total,
affecting every facet of our lives. We are exploited as sex objects, breeders,
domestic servants, and cheap labour. We are considered inferior beings whose
only purpose is to enhance men’s lives. Our humanity is denied. Our prescribed
behaviour is enforced by the threat of physical violence.
Because we have lived so intimately with our oppressors, in
isolation from each other, we have been kept from seeing our personal suffering
as a political condition. This creates the illusion that a woman’s relationship
with her man is a matter of interplay between two unique personalities, and can
be worked out individually. In reality, every such relationship is a class
relationship, and the conflicts between individual men and women are political
conflicts that can be solved collectively (in Tanner 1970: 109; also in Morgan 1970:
533; Crow 2000: 223).
WITCH – Women’s International Terrorist Conspiracy from
Hell, took seriously the idea that poetry and manifestoes are intimately
connected. They used the following form for a leaflet handed out on November
22, 1969.
Pass the Word, Sister
Erika
Huggins.
Frances
Carter.
Rose Smith.
Loretta
Luckes.
Margaret
Hudgins.
Maud
Frances.
6 sisters in
prison.
3 sisters
pregnant.
2 sisters
almost in labor.
All have
been falsely accused
of
conspiracy and murder.
None have
been tried
or found
guilty.
All 6 are
black.
All 6 are
Panthers.
All 6 are
sisters. (in Tanner 1970: 121-2).
The poem
continues for two pages and ends with:
WITCH calls
down destruction
On Babylon
Oppressors:
The curse of
women is on you.
DEATH TO MALE CHAUVINISM
(in Tanner 1970: 123; also in Morgan 1970: 551).
In Sisterhood is Powerful (Morgan 1970) the
acronym, WITCH is spelt out with this poem as: Women Inspired to Commit
History. Other poems include WITCH: Women Interested in Toppling Consumption
Holidays and WITCH: Women’s Independent Taxpayers, Consumers and Homemakers
(pp. 550-1).
The
anthology, Radical Feminism: A
Documentary Reader also has some fantastic manifestoes.
The
Woman-Identified Woman by Radicalesbians (1970) has a great opening line:
What is a
lesbian? A lesbian is the rage of all women condensed to the point of explosion
(in Crow 2000: 233).
The Fourth
World Manifesto by Barbara Burris in agreement with Kathy Barry, Terry Moore,
Joann DeLor, Joann Parent, and Cate Stadelman (1973) puts paid (as do many others)
to the notion that radical feminists ignored the issues of race and class. It
makes a nod to Marx and Engels in one of its sub-headings “A spectre is
Haunting the Left – the Specter of Feminism”. This manifesto comes directly
from the activism of women in the left against the war in Vietnam and Indochina
and the authors state: But the Women’s Liberation Movement started out from the
Civil Rights Movement, Student Movement, and Anti-War Movement” just as in the
21st century there are direct links between the Women’s Movement,
the Movement for Land Rights and Indigenous Rights, the Ecology Movement, the
Anti-War Movement and the Anti-Globalisation Movement (this list is not
exhaustive).
An issue
raised by the Fourth World Manifesto is one that has been pushed aside in
recent times. You can see it in the Occupy Movement where feminists have felt
the need to go in and create Occupy Patriarchy sites. Here is what they say:
A FEMALE
CULTURE EXISTS. IT IS A CULTURE THAT IS SUBORDINATED AND UNDER MALE CULTURE’S
COLONIAL, IMPERIALIST RULE ALL OVER THE WORLD. UNDERNEATH THE SURFACE OF EVERY
NATIONAL, ETHNIC, OR RACIAL CULTURE IS THE SPLIT BETWEEN THE TWO PRIMARY
CULTURES OF THE WORLD–THE FEMALE CULTURE AND THE MALE CULTURE (in Crow 2000:
252; capitals in the original).
We have lost
this perspective in the push to be all-inclusive which results in nothing to
say because the atmosphere is, if you can’t agree then remain silent. Sadly it
is radical feminists who are pushed mostly into silence, while the men retain
their speech!
Valerie
Solanas noticed this. She wrote: No genuine social revolution can be
accomplished by the male, as the male on top wants the status quo, and all the
male on the bottom wants is the male on top.
The radical
feminist manifestoes also have an economic analysis and critiques of
colonisation and various kinds of subordination.
Valerie
Solanas has an interesting take on subversion: SCUM will become members of the
unwork force, the fuck-up force; they will get jobs of various kinds and unwork.
For example, SCUM salesgirls will not charge for merchandise; SCUM telephone
operators will not charge for calls; SCUM office and factory workers, in
addition to fucking up their work, will secretly destroy equipment; SCUM will
unwork at a job until fired, then get a new job to unwork at (Solanas 1967:
42).
I can’t
agree with everything in the SCUM Manifesto – I don’t share her view that
automation is liberating, nor is violence a useful strategy. Nevertheless, it
is an inspiring work. She says what many have thought but been too scared to
say. I have been inspired by her strength of language, her clarity of thinking,
her raw anger at injustice.
I have
written several manifestoes. Here are the first three paragraphs of Wild
Politics: A Manifesto (1993).
The
New Economic World Order is the last of a line of coercive methods of control.
Industrialisation has been a process of ever-increasing interference in the
lives of people - from structured and alienated work for wages to
medicalisation of women's bodies and souls, now extended to interference with
life processes.
Patriarchal
capitalism seeks to control the wild elements that have resisted control. We
need to develop a wild politics to resist control of these wild elements
including: wild seeds, wild land, wild farming, wild peoples, wild women, wild
reproduction, wild sexuality and wild markets.
Wild types is a term used in genetics that identifies unregulated
genetic structures. Wild types occur in all living organisms and are not the
result of human interference through breeding or hybridisation. Wild types are
the source of genetic diversity and critical to the continuing biological
diversity of the planet.
I have
explored writing short manifestoes that touch on other issues.
Rock manifesto
All that is solid is solid. We should know. We rocks. We
have seen it all. From the first hurtlings through space to this relatively
settled time when all that’s happening is just a bit of heat.
We are the ground on which you stand. Your artworks were
pecked and painted into our flesh well before anything else. We are a peaceful
lot, but sometimes we have been dragged into the fray and hurled against the
enemy.
We are quiet. Come sit with us on a sunny day and feel the
warmth we give off. We like to spread out on the ground, sunbake. But you’ll
also find us there on days of icy wind with small plants sheltering in our soft
parts, trees taking root and reaching for the sun. And when the rivers break
their banks you can watch as some of us jump from bank to bank.
In the old days, people had more quiet time, more time to
listen. It was then we shared our secrets. If you look, you might find them.
Make a journey to rocky places, you’ll find that we guard all the sacred sites
whether it’s Kata Tjuta or Jerusalem, New Grange or Angkor Wat. Put your hand
on our surface, smell the scent we leave. Curl into our embrace. We don’t mind.
We like to hold you, shelter you, even feed you.
Come dance the slow time jig. (2011)
And I have written poems that are really manifestoes, such
as my recent poem, slut, but but.
I’m
a slut
but
but
but
I’m not I’m not
I’m
a slot
I’m
a slut
but
but
what
what could it mean
am I
a slut?
but
but
he
said you’re a slut
he
said look at your butt
you’re
a slut
I
said
but
but
she
said she’s a slut
no
buts about it
just
a slut
all
smut
they
all said she’s a slut
no
doubt about it
but
but I said
I
said but
I’m
no slut
I’m
no slit for your bit
I’m
not here for you
so
fuck off and stop doin me in
he
said but but
no
slut here
no
fear
he
said but but
she
said but but
they
said but but
I’m
not the butt of your names
your
words are not my words
no
fuckin way
so
shut up
I’m
no slut
I’m
no slut walker
I’m
a walker but bein a walker
don’t
make me no slut
so
butt out
get
outta my mind
I’ll
think what I want
I’ll
do what I want
I’ll
walk at 3 am if I want
I’ll
wear big boots and kick butt
I’ll
cut my hair short
I’ll
leave it long
but
I won’t do pussy on the street
because
I’m not here for you
you
pussy stalker
cos
I’m no slut
you
say but but
you
look like a slut
you
must be a slut
if
you’re out a 3 am
if
you don’t look girlie
you
must be a fuckin feminist
they’re
all sluts
that’s
what they are
and
I say
you
got it boy
you
got it girl
I’m
a feminist
now
fuck off
I’m
no slut
d’you
hear
try
again
I’m
no slut
they all said but but (2011)
I find the manifestoes of the late 1960s and early 1970s
wonderfully direct and clear in their political message. I am inspired by them
and their authors; I love the way that poetry and politics mixes and creates
another form: the manifesto.
Sources
Karl Marx and
Friedrich Engels. The Communist Manifesto
with an Introduction by AJP Taylor. Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 1967.
Valerie Solanas. SCUM Manifesto. Olympia Press, New York.
1967.
Leslie B. Tanner
(ed). Voices from Women’s Liberation.
Signet, New York. 1970.
Robin Morgan (ed). Sisterhood is Powerful. Vintage, New
York. 1970.
Barbara A. Crow
(ed). Radical Feminism. New York
University Press, New York. 2000.
Websites as
indicated.
Susan Hawthorne
is a publisher, a poet and a political activist. Her other blogs are at http://susanscowblog.blogspot.com and
http://susanslambdawolfblog.blogspot.com.au/
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