I note that I have been ever-so-gently upbraided for my lamentations over the apparent pacification (and pansy-fication) of marxist rebels; more particularly the FARC of Colombia who appear to have retired after a long career spent decapitating villagers and moved to the negotiation table
Surely, this is a step in the right direction, no? Surely, pursuing peace is better than pursuing a savage war? I regret to say that my answer is no. As for it being the ‘right move’, well, I’m sure that the FARC consider it to be the ‘right move’ as the negotiating table will assuredly take them far further then their AK-47s ever did; from fetid jungle encampment to lording it up in the halls of Colombian power within 10 years at most, I’d say
The FARC have learned these lessons well from their European and American comrades who made this transition 30 years ago and just look how far it’s taken them.
They handed in their guns, bombs and incendiaries and equipped themselves with altogether more stealthy (and infinitely more lethal) weapons of inclusivity, diversity and sustainability. So ended the the dream of revolution and began the grim determination of the long march. The fiery radicals of yesteryear became the outreach workers, counsellors, legal-aid lawyers, community activists, environmental campaigners, journalists, professors, social workers, teachers and union delegates. Carlos the Jackal became Charles the Educator and he lives next door to us now. He wears a well-tailored suit, expensive shoes, drives a car, sends his kids to private schools and writes a column in the Guardian
Thus many of us, nay, most of us were fooled into believing that the marxist rebs had finally grown up and ditched their war with civilisation. Tosh and horsefeathers, I say. We were merely blinded by the brief incandescent light of Thatcher; deafened by the noise of tumbling bricks in Berlin. The Third Way was not so much a coming-to-terms with reality but, rather, a tactical realisation that reality had to be upended by other means. The programme remains on course; it is merely the method that has changed
And, in a sense, they were right. Now it is they who rub shoulders with those in power while we squat in our cyber-camps, seething and scheming. Hell, in many cases they are the ones in power. What an extraordinarily successful application of the black art of cognitive jiu-jitsu that left the rest of us lying spread-eagled on the mat, bruised, dazed and wondering how that happened. Well, now we know how that happened; the marxist radicals chose peace instead of fighting
So I say, let us return to the bad old days when the interminably neurotic children of the bourgeoisie were yomping around the countryside blowing up electricity pylons. It made it so much easier to put their lifeless bodies on display to a grateful public without so much as a hint of equivocation. They were them, we were us and the only decision anybody ever had to make was to pick a side. We knew exactly upon whom we had to set the dogs and, more importantly, why
The triumph of civilisation has always lain the in the vigourous trumping of stupidty by reason and it is only the purblind obsession with ‘peace at any price’ that has caused us to forget this biblical simplicity. ‘Stop making wars’ they implored. What they meant was ‘Stop making wars we can never win’
Come back, Che Guevarra. Lead your comrades out into the jungle again. You can have back your sweaty T-shirts, your ghastly berets and your molotov cocktails. We’ll have back our moral certainty, rule of law and our armed citizens. You can be free again to shout Long Live the Revolution and we can shout Let’s Roll
