HAPPY 70th BIRTHDAY: FRANZ J. T. LEE
October 29, 2008
¡Feliz Cumpleaños No. 70, Franz J. T. Lee!
Below: (Video):
AUTOBIOGRAIA DEL DR. FRANZ J. T. LEE
ENGLISH -- WITH SPANISH SUB-TITLES
El Dr. Franz J. T. Lee cuenta su interesante vida y vasta experiencia política como luchador contra el Apartheid en Sudáfrica y sus contribuciones teorico-práxicas a la revolución bolivariana en Venezuela.GOOGLE Video: pinche abajo -- click below:
(English & Spanish: http://video.google.es/videoplay?docid=-2177398083997521077
A Brief Autobiography:
GALACTIC SPARKS, FLASHES AND EMANCIPATORY STARDUST
By Franz J. T. Lee
Per aspera ad astra!
Part I: Juvenile IncipienceI Juvenile Incipience
Part II: The Age of Reason: Love At Every Sight!
Part III: Scientific Earthquakes and Philosophic Tornados
A MEMORY, A REFLECTION, ANANTICIPATION
Raindrops keep falling .....1941.
A dawn. What a morn! Something is born. Mankind is mourning. Europe is moaning, groaning. An inner, innermost, profound memory. My first, conscious reflections. It's raining, a soothing, smoothening,natural music comes from somewhere, from everywhere, from above, from the zinc roof.
Raindrops clash and crashagainst the window pane. I enjoy how they tremble, how they shiver, how they quiver. Some creep down in long, irregular lines. Some hide behind each other. Others roll, storm ahead.
I'm fascinated; I am pondering, wondering, learning. In each one of them, mirrored, I see zillions of flashes, beautiful images of a fantastic world. I see many wonderful worlds, new awakening worlds, sparkling, silvery ones: some obscure ones at rest, some bright ones in motion.
Some I cannot fathom, others Icannot even describe. Raindrops, raindrops, everywhere.
Faraway, on the mountain slope, I see a majestic rainbow. I dream about my pot of golden gifts, but my pot has a shadow, a strange reflection, a multi-coloured lid. Does everything in the world have a shadow? Do shadows separate us? Are there worlds without shadows?
Towards the other side, there, huge mountains of shadows, of dark clouds approach. Look, look.
Each and every one has a silvery lining. What's behind them? Behind all this? The Sun? But, then .... "Fransie, get away from the window,you'll catch a cold."
Back to reality, to the world of do's and don'ts; back to what to do and what not to do.
That is a baby's question, the nuisance that frustrates naissance, the nightmare of a new-born. Yet, never mind, I will never ever forget my galaxies of magic worlds; I will always long to hear my enchanting music, to see my sparkling raindrops, to sense my dark, silvery clouds, to feel my gigantic rainbow again ... to touch my cool glass pane.
Perhaps, one day, very, very soon, they will return to me again, to all of us -who knows, probably in the morn's morn.
THE AFRICAN BIRD OF YOUTH
Very often retrospective inspection performs marvels; very tenderly it rubs refreshening tiger balsam on to the strained heart muscles. Soothlich, as Spenser would say, the innocent bird of youth au jour le jour daydreams about white inaccessible Himalayan peaks.
Alas! As time passes by-and-by, the fiery Owl of Minerva is forced to inure herself to more gray earthly climates, carefully to soar over authoritarian bypasses and patriarchal bygones. But, the eveready slogan of progress inspires, its clamor aspires: per aspera ad astra! The ideological seeds are strewn to the four winds, even the wind itself is already sown. What will be reaped?
Father God & Godfather
For the time being, the earthly and heavenly harvest is determined by God, by Father, by Father God, by the Godfather, by the Padrino, by Our Father. Childlike incipience believes, just believes in about everything which anybody or anything great spits around as common sense, or vomits out as the "gospel truth". Everywhere, at school, before breakfast, before passing away to Alice in Wonderland, the password is Jesus, Christ, Jesus Christ. The same is valid for swearing, cursing and cursoring. Youth, still filled with Promethean élan, which still wants to thieve the Fire of the Gods, impetuously storms headlong into Christianity, is more Roman than the Roman Catholics, more Catholic than the Catholic Vaticans.
The Dark Ages : Total Eclipse of the Forties & Fifties!
Yeah! Read the Catechism, the Holy Bible; study the Saints, the Holy Scriptures! The proof lies in the eating of the religious pudding, drinking the holy blood of Jesus, in the eating of his sacred flesh, of his divine body. Only then, the Child of Jesus can pray : Hic Rhodus, hic salta, here is the spade, call it a spade, here is wine, call it wine. Surely, as time flows on, Phoenix realizes the veritas in vino.
But also this cup shall bypass innocent Youth, also this Socratic hemlock will vanish into smoggy polluted air. Also, the Great Father, who makes History, eventually appears before the rational Court of Final Judgment. The Judge pronounces his verdict as Reason-In-Itself, as Rational Intellect, as Intellectual Reason.
Adolescent Whirlwind
After the "sigh of the oppressed creature", after the "heart of a heartless world", logically, follows the demolition of a world which needs illusions to survive, which progressively produces genuflecting Zombies, guided by Crosses and Swastikas, which fabricates global giga-profits from the "sweat of the brow".
The Calm Before The Storm
Certainly, who sows the wind, will reap the storm, but the pathfinder of every heavy storm is a cool refreshening breeze. Leon Trotsky, the author of Permanent Revolution, of World Revolution, shortly before his assassination in Coyoacan, wrote: "Life is beautiful, enjoy it to the fullest !"
The "Stations of the Celestial Breeze"!
Farm Labor, Karoo Desert, Skyline of Cape Town, Table Mountain, Robben Island, Sharpeville Massacre, Love At First Sight, Correspondence Studies, Factory Work, Slums, Christopher Caudwell, Studies in a Dying Culture, Plechanov, The Role of the Individual in Society, Marx & Engels, Communist Manifesto, Che Guevara, Guerrilla Warfare, Mao-Tse-Tung, Guerrilla Warfare, Yu Chi Chan Club, National Liberation Front of South Africa, Repression, Suppression, Oppression, Apartheid, Scholarship, Exile.
Spitting into the Neckar : The Roaring Sixties!
Many dream about becoming Cowboy film stars, then Governors, and then Presidents of the United States of America; other Presidents want to convert themselves into a "Berliner", much later, in the very same great tradition, another one wants to wage a "Desert Storm", wants to feel "chevere" in Caracas, and wants to win the "Nobel Peace Prize" as international womanizer.
Many dream about seeing Paris, and then to die peacefully, others long to lose their hearts on the Neckar, in Heidelberg, others wish to stand on the Neckar Bridge in Tübingen, and to spit into the flowing water below, and then, at last, to live turbulently ever thereafter! Now, in the Glorious Sixties is the time when Great Men, Great Revolutionaries, make Revolution, make History. Spartacus, Lenin, Trotsky, Jose Martí, Lumumba, Ho-Chi-Minh, Fidel Castro, Ernest Mandel, ...
The masses must be mobilized, conscientized, organized : Anti-Apartheid, Anti-Imperialism, Anti-Authoritarianism, Long Live Anti-eism! Writing revolutionary articles, holding mammoth lectures across Europe and North America, Addressing the United Nations, collecting funds for the South African Revolution.
Maelstrom of Maturity
Socialist student leader Mussolini becomes the fascist "Il Duce"; Cuba cannot remain a Robinson Crusoe Island, Che is fed-up with Kabila in the Congo, the peasants of Bolivia are not so revolutionary after all, the Soviet Union and the GDR are not so socialist after all, the ANC of South Africa are not so anti-capitalist as they claim to be, the Black Panther movement is not so ferocious as it seems; the Red Army Faction in Germany does not seem to accomplish the Armed Struggle in Europe; Black September does not change the obscurity of the Arabian Future in the Middle East.
What went wrong? Are Great Men not making History anymore? What is wrong with the great people, with the great races, with the masses? Is it a matter of being wrong or right at all?
The Age of Enlightenment: The Soaring Seventies !
Politics accomplished; University Studies absolved; Love at Second Sight; Dr. phil., lecturer at the Fachhochschule Darmstadt, publishing "Südafrika vor der Revolution ?", "Technische Intelligenz und Klassenkampf" in S. Fischer-Verlag. A Friend for life. What Now ? Quo Vadis ? One Step Forward, Two Steps Backward?
George Orwell calls. "The Future lies in the Proles !" (Winston). Big Brother warns: "You are the last human being. Your kind is extinct!" The Holy Bible chants: "Who has ears to hear, let him hear!" Phoenix, however, is as blind as a bat; he claims that bats need neither eyes to see nor ears to hear!
Frantz Fanon, the Wretched of the Earth, invite to learn the next lesson of life. Régis Debray ushers in the "Revolution in the Revolution". What he meant by this, will only become clear when he is "bourgeoisified" later in the French Government. The same applies for Daniel Cohn-Bendit, the ardent student leader who stormed Paris in the sixties, and who later democratically co-operated, together with The Greens, in the Frankfurt City local government.
Experience has its Price, its Prize!
Paradise Lost, Paradise Found. Love at Third Sight ! Blue Bird, "Three Times A Lady!" Co-operative Socialism, Guyana, Burnham. A Friend in Need, in Deed, indeed. Tropical Heat, Racial Dust, Assassinations, Strikes, again Repression, Oppression, Suppression, .... Depression ! A Daughter Found! A Daughter For Life! Like Mother, like Daughter! Neither Great Races nor Small Races make Revolution, make History, emancipate themselves! Why? What did Plechanov say about the Role of the Individual in Society? No Answer ! Nigeria, Racial Discrimination, "You are too White to be a Black!", University of Port Harcourt, Professor of Political Science...
The Age of Intellect : The Sobering Eighties!
Say it in Spanish! In Castellano! When in Mérida, try to do it as the Meridians do it! But, not all roads lead to the Meridian capital, to the Andean consciousness. Junior, A Son, like Father, like Son, like Mother! Again : Anti-Apartheid, Long live Bolivar! Long Live Che! Long Live Mandela! However, this Ole!, this Viva!, this Patria o Muerte!, have other roots, other connotations. Inter alia, they are deeply rooted in Roman Catholicism a la latinoamericana.
All over the medieval superstructure of the Madre Patria Espana still is taking its toll, still is infecting every walk of life, still lures to the bull-ring, still allures to the Vatican. Nobody can escape this fatal mental plague, least of all the "camaradas" or the "revolucionarios" ; the virus of the "theology of religion" invades all pores of "progressive" forces.
Marx and Che and the Pope meet each other here in Latin America; they give each other a warm comradely embrace, and all of them, in complete gentleman agreement and fraternal co-operation, eagerly participate in the world crusade of converting and conscientizing the poor, the masses, the workers, the proletariat, all human beings. Also, like Jesus Christ, like Che, like Marx and Engels, the mature Phoenix sets about to accomplish his historic task of mobilization, of conscientization. E contrario, when the revolutionary students and exploited masses were finished with him, he nearly gained a soul, and was heading straight for heavenly bliss. Finally, his very "comrades", many were already beyond any salvation, saved him and brought him to reason, to Reason.
II THE AGE OF REASON : LOVE AT EVERY SIGHT!
Sapientia and The Nineties
To become wise is to get cool, is to slowdown, to be cautious, very precise, more lovely, most lovingly, extremely dangerous. Why are some people clever, cui bono? Why are others so wise , que sais-je?
To be clever and to radiate wisdom are two different qualities, not necessarily two sides of the same relation, of the same thing. Vanity, irrationality and eloquence have nothing to do with Wisdom; confidence, especially in oneself, brilliance, genius, originality, totality and militancy more readily nurture sapientia. Certainly, the nitwit or blockhead, the Dummkopf or Dumpfkopf, is counterpoised to both the dexterous fox and the learned owl, but its real opposite is the payaso, the clown or tom fool. Concerning the latter, as the result of ideological info-war, the whole globe is already invaded by millions of these preposterous extraterrestrial creatures.
The tomfool gaffs like a threshing machine, spitting out ideological straw and strewing social smog in all directions; the clown is more excited, is restless and blind; his artistic delicacy is the tragicomical idee fixe, the eternal absolute truths.
The Owl of Minerva is mysterious, invisible ; in all obscure and vague matters she is in her element ; she is quiet, preponderant, mature, imperturbable, caring and careful, solid and stolid. Christ is dear to her, Marx is dear to her, but the flowing Truth is dearer still : in the Aristotelian tradition she hoots : amicus Plato, amicus Socrates, sed magis amica veritas !
The Bitter Lesson
Awe stricken all of us wander on this thorny road, along these dangerous rocky cliffs; some of us get our horns entangled in the arid social shrubs, and we reach the point of no return, of never ever being able to liberate ourselves; others with supernatural endurance outlive the devastating tsunamis, hurricanes and typhoons of our times; those that fall by the wayside
either liquidate themselves or they genuflect, make the sign of the cross, pray; and then leave the rest of the matter to the divine che sará, sará ; others are dragged along by the jolly carnival of politics and exotic sexism, by the currents of virtual reality and the circus of global progress and pleasure ; although completely encircled by hungry wolves and bloodthirsty werewolves, very few people succeed to build their humble shacks on firm earthly soil; only an infinitesimal minority of us can still find a little while to reflect, to think and to reason about, for and by themselves, to become wise.
The Bitter Lesson : Not the Information Highway, Only simple Acting and Thinking, About Yourself, By Yourself and For Yourself, Here and Now, pave the narrow serpentine track towards Wisdom, towards Emancipation.
What did the formal logical "Nineties" reveal?
Generally, a Man is decorated with a Prize, with a Nobel Prize, with a Distinguished Service Cross, with an Honorary Doctorate, because either he is a "hero", or in his field of work, he has done something par excellence , or he has "discovered" something brand new, for the technological progress and social welfare of Mankind. Thanks to these Great Men we enjoy myriad of luxuries of life, health and sanity! Also may they be eternally blessed for their good work and invaluable contributions to continental discoveries, military conquests, global
evangelization, statesmanship, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, the Holocaust and Chernobyl !
I Want News!
What did a life, a death, a life a n d death of some six "decades", on some three continents "discover" ? What is new, what is up ? Any News ?
Surely, it did not perform miracles, it did not produce world wonders, nothing to be proud of, nothing worth any price, any prize. It did not climb Mount Everest, it did not jump around on the Moon, it did not even jump over the Moon. It did not write, compile or compose the Encyclopedia Britannica. It is not a walking "Brockhaus" or "Big Larousse". It did not fight in Vietnam or Iraq, however, it surely did experience many "Desert Storms".
Au contraire, it is a miracle that as a Relation, as a Bezug, it survived at all, and did not land on Robben Island or was thrown down a barranco. It is a great wonder that it still has brains to think and a spinal column to go in upward gait, it is simply wonderful to be able to act and to think independently.
This is surely priceless, one of the few things which money could not buy, cannot buy. In splendid flummox nights it does surmount its own Mesa in the Loma de Los Indios. This perilous adventure does not enter the Book of Guinness but rather appears on a revolutionary Home page.
Where have all the Flowers Gone?
In a world of massive ecocide, where the deforested Andes look like a huge Mars crater, where the evergreen Pedregosa of Mérida is progressively being converted into a stony, lifeless, tree-less cement desert, where, as a consequence, the steaming heat melts the zinc and asbestos roofs, where the tiles become white hot, and where, through the open windows, the wind howls like a starving wolf, where, on earth, will somebody sincerely be congratulated because in a desert region he has planted more than a hundred trees within two years? And, in a world, where water supply is a luxury, where potable water is a very rare gift of the water lords, who will notice the lovely and loving care devoted to these natural beings so that they may survive, may grow, may flourish? Who cares about Nature? Who has nightmares about global ecocide? Who feels hurt when he chops off the head of a chicken or reduces an age old tree to lumber?
Except, Woody Allen, who has noticed that this whole globe is simply a huge "Four Seasons" Restaurant?
In a world, where Money makes the Earth go round, where can one buy the time and the leisure to achieve the nearly impossible ? As stated before, this natural social relation cannot be found on the labor market ; it has no exchange value, no price, no prize! The above is ever new, is sempiternal news...
III Scientific Earthquakes and Philosophic Tornados
The Nineties : Earthquakes and Tornados
It is a time to rejoice :
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,
it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness,
it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity,
it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness,
it was the spring of hope,
it was the winter of despair,
we had everything before us, we had nothing before us,
we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way. ...."
(Charles Dickens)
Towards Bolivarian Revolution, towards Socialism?
A NEW SCIENCE, A NEW PHILOSOPHY, A NEW SOCIALISM
A NEW CENTURY, A NEW MILLENNIUM.
Jutta, Franz, Juttafranz, Franzjutta. Love at all sights!
POLITICAL TYPHOONS: From an attempted coup to the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela, to Permanent World Revolution, to Human Emancipation. ¡Uh, Ah, Chávez, no se va!
University and public charlas, lectures, discussions.
San Onofre, Paradise in the Desert.
Books, booklets, videos, charlas.
Left hand Jutta -- right hand Nery.
Práxis, Theory, Emancipation.
Yahoo Groups, MSN Groups, Trinicenter, Vive, La Hojilla, Despertar, Pico Bolivar, ULA-TV, Franzjutta Com, Franzlee Org, Franzlee Org.Ve, Franz-Lee Org, ... Clarion Calls anywhere , Toque de Diana everywhere!
La Lutta Continua!
Hasta la Victoria Siempre! Núcleos de Desarrollo Endógeno, Circúlo Bolivariano "El Momoy". Chiguará!
Award of the Don Tulio Febres Cordero Prize: Book of the Year 2008.
Franz J. T. Lee -- 70 Years in the Emancipatory Struggle, in the indispensable, untiring epicenter of an indefatigable life struggle.
Franz & Jutta towards the Rubicon.
Mérida, Venezuela
29th October 2008
http://www.franzlee.org.ve/pandemonium01340.html
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