A Brief Colonial History Of Ceylon(SriLanka)
Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
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Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
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Thiranjala Weerasinghe sj.- One Island Two Nations
?????????????????????????????????????????????????Saturday, May 6, 2017
Marx at 199
( May 5, 2017, London, Sri Lanka Guardian) Marx
was born on May 5, 1818, in the city of Trier on the Moselle, close to
what was then the French frontier, born to a lawyer. He could have
become a lawyer or a university professor, but he became active as a
writer, championing the cause of the agricultural workers and small
farmers in the Rhineland in their fight against the land-owners. He died
an exile in London (on March 14th, 1883,) after he had been forced to
flee from Cologne, Paris, and Brussels to escape the persecution of the
ruling powers of the day. Karl Marx has been variously described as an
economist, philosopher, historian, sociologist and revolutionary.
Unlike many other thinkers, Marx’s core fundamental theories remain
valid. The endless stream of books to prove that Marx was wrong is a
sign of respect to Marx in showing how his writings still demonstrate
insight and continue to inspire. They have all claimed to prove Marxian
theories incorrect and outdated, but events have been against them.
Marx’s labour theory of value and his materialist conception of history
have been vindicated again and again. Marx bore witness to the old
saying that the pen is mightier than the sword. He offered the working
class the knowledge to establish a class-free society. The world
socialist movement is indebted to Marx for two important discoveries—the
materialist conception of history, and the source of surplus value.
Because of this, his name will be remembered long after his revilers
have perished. They have all claimed to prove Marxian theories incorrect
and outdated, but events have been against them. Marx’s labour theory
of value and his materialist conception of history have been vindicated
again and again.
Marx continues to remain relevant after 199 years because his ideas
appear in every form of struggle against exploitation, oppression, and
injustice by the ruling classes in every part of the world. Yet, when
praising Marx, we should not overlook the fact that he built upon the
work of his predecessors. Marx had already obtained a storehouse of
information from English economists, Utopian Socialists and German
philosophers.
Marx held that, on every count, political action was the “first duty” of
the working class. Marx thought that the working class should use the
state to abolish capitalism, but this was to be a temporary affair
leading fairly rapidly to the dismantling of the state and the
establishment of a state-free socialist society. Marx adhered to the
principle that “the emancipation of the working class must be the work
of the working class itself”. So do we (it is incorporated into our
Declaration of Principles.) Marx’s studies led to the conclusion that
capitalism had brought into being a class that would be able to free
itself from exploitation without having to rely on leaders to do it for
them. “We cannot therefore co-operate”, said Marx, in a criticism of
Leninism before its time “with people who openly state that the workers
are too uneducated to emancipate themselves and must first be freed from
above”
Karl Marx died and is sent to Hell.
Three days later, the Devil, desperate, telephones Saint Peter, begging for an exchange.
“This one here has already unionised all the demons, nobody is working. I can’t carry on like this!”
So they made the exchange and two days afterwards, the Devil telephones again to see how things were going.
“So then? How is God getting on with that Marx ?”
“God ??” answered Saint Peter. “He doesn’t exist!”
So they made the exchange and two days afterwards, the Devil telephones again to see how things were going.
“So then? How is God getting on with that Marx ?”
“God ??” answered Saint Peter. “He doesn’t exist!”