Confronting Injustice by Umair Muhammad

Author:Umair Muhammad
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, ebook
ISBN: 978-1-60846-571-2
Publisher: Haymarket Books
Published: 2016-11-18T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 4

The Way Forward

Let us finally imagine, for a change, an association of free men, working with the means of production held in common.

—Karl Marx1

In the Persian epic poem Shahnameh (The Book of Kings), the demon Ahriman conjures up a snake from each of King Zahhak’s shoulders.2 Zahhak and his retainers try various means to destroy the snakes, but fail each time. As soon as one of the snakes is detached from the king’s body another grows in its place. Ahriman eventually convinces Zahhak that the best way to deal with the snakes protruding from his shoulders is not to try to destroy them but to nurture them by feeding each a human brain every single day. Thus begins, according to the epic, one of the most terrifying periods in human history. Going on to rule over the land for centuries, Zahhak ceaselessly sacrifices his subjects to keep the snakes healthy, becoming all the time more tyrannical: “And despair filled all hearts, for it was as though mankind must perish to still the appetite of those snakes sprung from Evil.”3

Sensing the building discontent of his subjects, one day Zahhak gathers the leading persons of his kingdom and demands that they sign a document declaring him a just and noble ruler. All those present obsequiously go along with the farce except for Kaveh, an old blacksmith. Kaveh raises his voice during the gathering and condemns Zahhak for murdering sixteen of his seventeen sons to feed his serpents. He also reveals that his last remaining son is a prisoner of the king and is waiting to be put to death. Fearing the upset of his plans, Zahhak decides to feign benevolence by relating kind words to Kaveh and releasing his son from prison. Kaveh, however, refuses to concede that the king’s gesture of charity is sufficient atonement for his crimes. When asked again by Zahhak to sign the testimony he responds by saying: “Not so, thou wicked and ignoble man … I will not lend my hand unto this lie.”4 He then tears up the document, boldly walks out of the assembly and sets about rallying an army to help bring Zahhak’s rule to an end and appoint the hero Fereydun as king.

It seems today that humankind must perish to satiate the appetite of capital. All the while, most intellectuals and activists insist that they are believers in the capitalist system—though they may be interested in changing things for the better, they steadfastly commit to seeking only those solutions that fit within the bounds of the existing arrangement.

This is no way to create the change we need. If we are serious about making things better we must adopt Kaveh’s disposition and reject the false charities and insufficient improvements allowed by the reigning system. But what system is to succeed capitalism—who, or what, will be our Fereydun? And how do we hope to achieve our objective? This chapter is devoted to discussing the kind of new social arrangement that needs to be built and the means that appear necessary for building it.

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