Whither goest thou Lanka?

To wither and wane

Nov 13, 2024

Sri Lanka votes to elect its lawmakers on the 14^th of November 2024, shortly after electing a Marxist President who appointed a social anthropologist Prime Minister who has been unspoken in her endorsement of gender ideology, LGBTQ+ privilege[1], representation quotas and a secular state. Secular means without religion.

Their party the NPP is an alliance consisting of the JVP[2], Sri Lanka Communist Party, Social Justice groups, Trade Unions, United Left Power, Progressive Women’s Collective among others - and their manifesto promises abortion rights, and “comprehensive sexual and reproductive health education and services tailored to all age groups”.

Sri Lanka boasts a heritage of self-serving and corrupt administrators, and a lack of honest and competent alternatives. However, from a mere 3 seats in the previous parliament, the NPP appear poised to gain immense power.

As a Marxist majority in parliament may swing the compass in a direction unanticipated - and even sever from its anchor this thrashed and rickety ship already shaking and trembling, it is timely to take a brief glimpse into the mind and soul of Karl Marx.

On the Family:

Karl Marx, in the Communist Manifesto of 1848, called for the abolition of the family - realising that the way to completely change society was to destroy the most important civil society institution, the family.^[3]

Marxists believe that the monogamous nuclear family emerged from, benefits from and is a tool of capitalism, and that its main function is to maintain capitalism and reinforce social inequalities.
According to Engels, the nuclear family promotes inheritance - of private property, and consequently intergenerational inequality.[4]

On Religion:

In his 1844 essay A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, Marx stated that ‘religion is the opium of the masses’:

Opium dulls the pain of exploitation. Religion gives a distorted world view and can offer no solutions to earthly misery but can offer the promise of an afterlife - Just as Opium can create hallucinations and distort the taker’s perspectives.[5]

Religion then is a useful human invention for social control, but invalid and unfounded.

On Hope

Humanity’s hope is found in revolution. The current economic system is inherently unstable and must collapse as workers awaken to their exploited status, band together, and overthrow their oppressors by whatever means necessary. A communist new world order will result, where institutions of family, church, and state will be no more.[6]

Marx’s Poetry

“Thus Heaven I’ve forfeited, I know it full well.
My soul, once true to God, Is chosen for Hell.”
—The Pale Maiden, 1837

“Look now, my blood-dark sword shall stab
Unerringly within thy soul…
The hellish vapours rise and fill the brain,
Till I go mad and my heart is utterly changed.
See the sword—the Prince of Darkness sold it to me.
For he beats the time and gives the signs.
Ever more boldly I play the dance of death.”
—The Player, 1841

Marx’s favourite quote in all of literature comes from the mouth of Mephistopheles, a demon from German folklore, who in Goethe’s tragedy Faust declares, “Everything that exists deserves to perish.”[7]

From the NPP manifesto:

So “regressive cultural beliefs” that hold that humanity is composed of males and females, and laws that protect marriage and the natural family and the institutions that teach this, are colonial and thereby outdated. Make no mistake, the opressed workers of the age of the industrial revolution are the “victims” and “marginalised” of this queer age - and the revolution is the overturn of virtue and truth.

Read: https://culturavitae.substack.com/p/substantive-equality-for-gender-minorities

[1]