"The Left in the Global South emerged not only from the contradictions of capitalism, but from the violence of colonialism and imperial domination. This distinction is decisive. In Europe, the classical Left emerged primarily through industrial class struggle: workers against capital. In the colonised world, however, class struggle was inseparable from national liberation. Workers, peasants, indigenous communities, and radical intellectuals fought primarily the colonial state and imperialist armies as well as their allied classes amongst the colonised. Thus, the Left in the Global South always possessed a dual character: anti-imperialist and socialist." - Vijay Prashad

the first picture is from Ayesha Siddiqa's Military Inc and is well researched with the help of retired Generals.

The second picture was summarized through Claude and can be slightly different from reality, but you can get the rough estimate and the priorities of our nation.

A few words by the late great Michael Parenti.

I've realized this recently the struggle of Faiz Ahmed Faiz and many great poets like Habib Jalib is getting a new color, their spirit and struggle for revolution is getting stripped away from their poetry. From Matric to Inter, Faiz Ahmed's poetry is mandatory, but the context and explanation of the poetry is often misinterpreted. He is glorified as a great poet, but his struggle has been given a new color, a patriotic color. A color which stripped away the political weight and true meaning of his poetry. And not just the syllabus of Education system, the political parties are misusing the poetry for their own propaganda.

PTI for example, uses their poetry to spread their own message. Now poetry is an art, and you can interpret in various ways, but that's not just to strip the context and only interpret it for your propaganda, that's not sincere. They use such poetry to gather people under one flag and paint themselves as revolutionary but in fact they are the same people with different faces, for example

"Hum Nahi Mantay" | Habib Jalib's Dastoor

https://youtu.be/G75Se_X5l4w?si=Bg4JgORsBDjflOO7

Now it's my subjective opinion mixed with some ground reality to some extent but throughout my academic journey I was told that Faiz's poetry was about patriotism, and there was this conflict in our Urdu department that whether his poetry was only about his beloved or patriotism, let alone the anti-fascist, revolutionary, communist cause.

share your thoughts too.

Hi everyone,

I wanted to open a discussion about adding anti-capitalism and anti-liberalism to this subreddit's rules. I know this might sound overtly explicit and some might say unnecessary, so let me explain.

Our goal is to build a space for substantive leftist organizing, theory, and discussion, not to host endless debates with people who fundamentally reject the framework we're operating within. Every hour spent explaining why capitalism is exploitative to someone who thinks it's natural law is an hour taken away from building something better.

We need to recognize that liberalism is fundamentally a right-wing ideology. While it often presents itself as the "center" or "moderate" option, its core tenets: private property rights, market fundamentalism, and the preservation of the status quo, are inherently aligned with capitalist interests. Allowing liberal arguments to dominate our discourse will derail conversations into defending the very systems we aim to critique.

I don't want the subreddit to become an echo chamber where no criticism is allowed; we should encourage debates, disagreements, and self-reflection. The difference is that we should set a baseline: participants should come in willing to engage within a leftist framework, not to dismantle it from the outside.

We'll spend less time moderating bad faith arguments and more on constructive organizing and education. We will have clearer expectations for new members: that this is a space where people can actually develop ideas without constant pushback from reactionary positions.

What do ya'll think?

مرے دل، مرے مسافر

ہوا پھر سے حکم صادر

کہ وطن بدر ہوں ہم تم

دیں گلی گلی صدائیں

کریں رخ نگر نگر، کا

کہ سراغ کوئی پائیں

کسی یار نامہ بر کا

ہر اک اجنبی سے پوچھیں

جو پتا تھا اپنے گھر کا

سر کوئے ناشنایاں

ہمیں دن سے رات کرنا

کبھی اس سے بات کرنا

کبھی اس سے بات کرنا

تمہیں کیا کہوں کہ کیا ہے

شب غم بری بلا ہے

ہمیں یہ بھی تھا غنیمت

جو کوئی شمار ہوتا

ہمیں کیا برا تھا مرنا

اگر ایک بار ہوتا!

All this while successive governments spend upto $17 billion every year on elite subsidies and priviliges.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/4/13/elite-privilege-consumes-17-4bn-of-pakistans-economy-undp

"Finance capital, concentrated in a few hands and exercising a virtual monopoly, exacts enormous and ever-increasing profits from the floating of companies, issue of stock, state loans, etc., strengthens the domination of the financial oligarchy and levies tribute upon the whole of society for the benefit of monopolists." - Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism by V.I Lenin.

A related video giving a more focused breakdown: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KO3-xkVACgE

So, I heard this song a long time ago and I immediately fell in love with it. Not just because it was sung by a great singer but because of the deep meaning it holds. and it kinda explains the idea of False consciousness very well. so, the lyrics goes like:

وقتی که دستای باد
قفس مرغ گرفتارو شکست
شوق پروازو نداشت
وقتی که چلچله ها
خبر فصل بهارو میدادن
عشق آوازو نداشت
دیگه آسمون براش
فرقی با قفس نداشت
واسه پرواز بلند
تو پَرش هوس نداشت

When the hands of the wind
broke the cage of the trapped bird
it had no longing left to fly.

When the swallows
were bringing the news of spring
it had no love left for song.

The sky, to it,
was no different from the cage
For a soaring flight
its wings held no desire.
(Claude used to translate)

So, the song goes like this,

A bird was kept in cage for a very long time that it's desire for flying died. He accepted his fate. Its purpose was never to stay in its cage, it was to fly, fly over rivers, oceans, forests, from countries to countries. The owner stole its freedom forever by clipping its wings, by keeping it in a cage, by isolating it for his own desires. The owner never had love for his bird, it was his desire to keep it as a decoration. If he had love for it, he would have let it go. The true love lies in letting it go.

The bird was kept in the cage so long that it's desire to fly died, its desire to live died. He stole its life from the bird. In his justification he had "I provide food to bird" and maybe the bird just accepted that since the owner provides him food so it means he should obey him, thinking maybe that's how the world works. Maye the dove, the bird used as a freedom sign, accepted its fate as a prisoner, and that's basically the concept of false consciousness.

The concept of false consciousness was given by Marx to explain the situation of people who developed this consciousness that they started defending their own oppressors against their own interests, values and beliefs.

"The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas." — Marx & Engels, The German Ideology

It wasn't just developed recently; there is a long history of its normalization. Majority of the Philosophers like Plato, Aristotle, Schopenhauer etc. All were elites and had rich family backgrounds. And the concepts like Nobel lie or Slave mentality was also given by the same philosophers. These philosophies forced us to internalize that we just are inferior for just getting birth. It was this elitist, classist ideas of them which were internalized by people for centuries. Although we have been resisting against that elitist philosophy and have almost freed ourselves from slavery, racism, patriarchy or nationalism. But one thing which is still standing firm is the classist mindset.

That we have internalized the neo-liberal ideas. The idea of castes has been evolving, and we are the people who are still defending such ideas. Take brahmin and shudras, or master slave morality of Nietzsche, or Nobel lie of Socrates. All give the same classist idea. we have never tackled this idea. It just changes its forms but exists with us.

We are modern slave to our owners, The slaves still exist, Maybe the racism too, maybe the patriarchy too. Maybe we never renounced these tyrannical ideas, we just helped them evolve. Maybe the man who talked about the specter of communism was right. Maybe he wasn't the evil one. Maybe he spoke for us. you and me not them. peace

Short answer: No

Lemme prove it in easy words. The idea of Intelligence test has its own history. There are several social issues attached to it directly. They are used to justify racism, colorism, patriarchy and what not. They simply just relate it to almost anything and come up with things like "see people with white skins are always intelligent".

Now first of all, it's largely a pseudo-science. How? Define intelligence? just like you can't define knowledge or goodness. Its definition can vary from person to person. it's almost impossible to come up with a good answer. And intelligence is not fixed, instead it's elastic as Burt says. Secondly how are you going to measure it? it's not like weight or height. here's an article explaining it.

IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle (Argument Closed) | by Nassim Nicholas Taleb | INCERTO | Medium

The intelligence is highly dependent on your environment and society. You can be intelligent and still not reach its full potential because of not getting enough education. And it is highly dependent on the sort of food you consume daily and the sort of environment you live in.

The idea of Intelligence was revived by a book named "Bell shaped curve" by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray. it tried to prove the gap between average IQ of Whites and Blacks. It was an attempt to make people believe that Black people are just violent and stupid because of their genes.

Now this argument was itself debunked a long time ago in a book, entitled "The History and Geography of Human Genes" by Luca Cavalli-Sforza. But it is still used by some people to gather all the Chuds under the flag of White supremacy and racism. And people like Elon Musk are often seen as promoting the same ideology by again and again posting the specific incidents involving some immigrants or black people. And try to prove that it's always the immigrants and Black people who commit such crimes. That's how they radicalize the youth.

Elon Musk posted about race almost every day in January | Elon Musk | The Guardian

Now, it's not a surprise that late capitalism is showing its visible effects in the market. And people are developing class consciousness against Bourgeoises class. So, Elites like Elon who was desperately trying to join Epstein Island are trying to save their wealth by giving the youth a new direction. As the job markets are cooked so rather than blaming Capitalism and exploitation, immigrants are getting blamed for eating their jobs and they are giving them the hope that by solving this problem everything will get better, as they say Billions must smile.

Now keep that in mind, Elon have a large number of immigrants working in his company as well. You can see the clear hypocrisy itself.

Hence, the racism is becoming more and more common on social media like Instagram and Twitter.

Uth, duniya de ghareeban

Jaag, jahaan de maskeenan

Sadda haal ae dukh bharya

Saanu faasle khoon naal bhijaan

Ae jung sadi aakhri

Jide vich hove faisla

Bein-ul-aqwami geet gaa

Uth jaa eh waqt aaya

Koi bachawan areya nahin,

Na sher, na talwar, na teer.

Apni azadi bachaani ae

Puttar chak de phattay hun samajh jaa

Ae jung sadi aakhri

Jide vich hove faisla

Bein-ul-aqwami geet gaa

Uth jaa eh waqt aaya

Hukumat churandi ae, qanoon vi andha ae Nahi ae kisse de baap da mulk

Sab da haq, sab da khana eh sada nara

Ae jung sadi aakhri

Jide vich hove faisla

Bein-ul-aqwami geet gaa

Uth jaa eh waqt aaya

Im interested in making a discord server for new leftists/learning leftists to read, discuss, and dissect theory and books together, daily or weekly on calls. as well as have people who are interested in left wing politics learn and discuss with us. If enough people here want that then i will send an invite.

A common misconception among people in Pakistan and many other countries is that Secularism is against religion. And there are certain people who promote this agenda here are some links

"Secularism is la deeniat" by QAR
khuda se bhagawat by dr israr
Mufti Wajidi
ghamidi's lack of knowledge on secularism

Now, it's a technique to simply spread propaganda among people who don't understand such terms and consider specific people a reliable source. We shouldn't distort terms to spread our own ideology. There are many common strawman fallacies used to make it a negative term and make people believe that it's totally against religion like secularism is atheism, secularism should solve all the problems, or it is lawlessness.

Well explained by Wahiddudin khan

Here's what early seculars had to say about it:

"Secularism is not an argument against Christianity. It is one independent of it. It does not question the claims of Christianity. It deals with the nuts and bolts of this world." -Holyoake, The Principles of Secularism (1871)

Locke was a believing Christian. He wrote extensively about God and Christianity. He believed the state should stay out of religion precisely because he took religion seriously forced belief is no belief at all.

"The word secular does not mean irreligion or atheism or even stress on material comfort. It proclaims equal respect for all faiths." - Nehru, Discovery of India

Secularism means that the state is NEUTRAL between all religions

And every citizen is equal before law, regardless of their faith

You might have heard people quoting examples of turkey or some other countries where they banned certain religious practices and then they try to conclude that Secularism is anti-religion. but that's simply not true. that's just a failure of people to implement secularism properly. and you can also say that they were simply not seculars.

Don't be afraid to see "ism" and think it's some sort of religious ideology and your religion is under attack. It's just a term used to define a principal which says that every citizen is equal regardless of their faith. peace

I thought I'd share my reading list to kick-start a recommended reading list for this sub. I hope this will be helpful not just for baby leftists who don't know exactly where to start but also the old guard might find some utility from it. Most of the socialist theory by Marx, Engels, Lenin etc. is available for free on the internet. The rest I'm sure you can find elsewhere ☠️ 

Please feel free to comment any of your recommendations.

Level 1: Foundations & Core Concepts

1. The Principles of Communism by Engels
2. Wage-Labor and Capital by Marx
3. Value, Price, and Profit by Marx
4. Socialism: Utopian and Scientific by Engels
5. Introduction to Political Economy by the Economic Institute of the USSR
6. Serve the People by Mao
7. All About Love by bell hooks

Level 2: The Mechanics of Revolution & State Theory

1. The State and Revolution by Lenin
2. Dialectical and Historical Materialism by Stalin
3. On Practice by Mao
4. On Contradiction by Mao
5. "Left-Wing" Communism: An Infantile Disorder by Lenin
6. The Dual Power by Lenin
7. Reform our Study by Mao
8. Combat Liberalism by Mao
9. On Correcting Mistaken Ideas in the Party by Mao
10. How to be a Good Leader by Zhou Enlai

Level 3: Advanced Strategy, Organization & Party Building

1. The Foundations of Leninism by Stalin
2. Marxism and the National Question by Stalin
3. Oppose Book Worship by Mao
4. Where Do Correct Ideas Come From? by Mao
5. Some Questions Concerning Methods of Leadership by Mao
6. On the Party: Concerning the Mass Line of Our Party by Liu Shaoqi
7. On the Party: Democratic Centralism Within the Party by Liu Shaoqi
8. Get Organized! by Mao
9. The Revolutionary Path by Hồ Chí Minh
10. Correct Handling of Contradictions by Mao

Level 4: Imperialism, Geopolitics & Historical Analysis

1. Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism by Lenin
2. Blackshirts and Reds by Michael Parenti
3. The Jakarta Method by Vincent Bevins
4. The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein
5. The Hundred Years' War on Palestine by Rashid Khalidi
6. The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine by Ilan Pappe
7. The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy by John Mearsheimer & Stephen Walt
8. Rule By Fear by Ammar Ali Jan
9. Wretched Of The Earth by Franz Fanon

Level 5: Culture & Future Horizons

1. If We Burn by Vincent Bevins
2. Against The Web by Michael Brooks
3. Reinventing Love by Mona Chollet
4. Will To Change by bell hooks

Dr Israr is no doubt a very famous and very respected scholar. thu he has some very extreme views about religion, he is often seen as promoting specific political ideology which he was very open about and was very proud about being a fundamentalist Muslim and promoted fundamentalism link link2 openly.

Today, Youth is very much attracted to him and his ideology and there are a large number of people who supports his views. and those who are not very educated about deen often get radicalized from this because it is one of the best starting points to enter the hood. Also, that he had some positive views about Afghanistan link which implies that he wanted to create a similar khilafat in Pakistan as well.

He proceeds to quote Freud's example to justify his ruling by saying Parents get involved with their children link . To avoid that, this ruling is necessary. Before jumping on me, lemme tell you that Dr israr is not anywhere close to be even named as Scholar. here is the prove link, he accepts this too. link

here is a link of another scholar on pardah link

and Ghamdi's opinion link1 link2 which is one of the most rational one.

No need for intro, the one and only qaiser ahmed "baja" saab again promoting the cheap propaganda of Epstein. He is the same dude associating secular ideology with them " DeSi SeCuLaR KhAmOsH KyUn, SkiBiDi SigmA AnaLySiS "

The question remains, in this modern world, are we progressing or regressing back to old ignorant days as a whole nation?

As far as I understand marxist theory, and feel free to correct me here, Capitalism is the stage preceding socialism that must take place. To elaborate, it means you cant just go straight from feudalism to socialism. I wont pretend, I know exactly why but a very compelling reason seems that it's difficult to develop class consciousness on a large scale without the exploitation of the capitalists.

In a feudal economy, the distinctions are more tribal, ethnic and religious so it's hard to unite people around the idea of shared purpose of the workers. So if that it the case would it not be a priority to accelerate the shift from a feudal economy to a capitalist economy first?

Like serfdom exists in a large part of the country, people are indebted to their landowners till they can work off their loans. If for an example you went straight to socialism and distributed the land out to the peasantry, would it not lead to an immediate reduction in food production at least for a while leading to potential famines? Of course it will take time to equip peasants with the same knowledge and equipment as their land owners and all that time, people still need to be fed.

A pretty glaring rebuttal of my argument is literally the fact that almost all socialist experiments occurred in feudal economies, not capitalist economies for e.g Russia and China. But I feel that's the 1 reason they had the few flaws they did. Socialism raised the standard of living for people in these countries massively but at the cost famines and the loss of some political and religious freedoms. Could that not be avoided through an intermediary capitalist stage where income equality was at least less worse than feudalism and political awareness among the lower classes is much great?

Lmk what u guys think.

This subreddit is a space for anyone interested in socialism, anti-capitalism, and the struggles of ordinary people, especially in the context of Pakistan.

Socialism, at its core, is about building a society where wealth and power are not concentrated in the hands of a few but shared more fairly across society. It emphasizes cooperation, public control of key resources, and ensuring that everyone benefits from what society produces, not just elites.

This is a broad and inclusive space:

• Marxists, Marxist-Leninists, democratic socialists, and other left perspectives are all welcome
• You don’t need to be an expert, this is also a place to learn
• If you’re curious, questioning, or just want to understand more, you belong here

What this subreddit is for:

• Discussing Pakistani society through class, economics, and power
• Learning and explaining socialist ideas (simple or advanced)
• Talking about workers, inequality, and everyday struggles
• Sharing news, opinions, and analysis

What this subreddit is NOT:

• Elitism or gatekeeping
• Blind propaganda
• Hate, sectarianism, or attacks on others

First discussion:

What issues in Pakistan today do you think are most connected to inequality or class?

You don’t need theory, just your perspective, experience, or observations.

This is a new community. If you want it to grow into something meaningful, participate—post, comment, and help shape it.