The War of Position

Of the many topics Grace Lee Boggs covers in her essay “Nothing Is More Important Than Thinking Dialectically”, I find her thoughts on the different types of revolutions to be most intriguing.  She argues that lasting change in power structure can only be achieved by a horizontal transference of power—namely community-based revolution whose aim isn’t to seize state power, but rather to allow ordinary people to directly control their community.  This makes me wonder: can such transfers of power actually happen?  At first glance, the answer seems to be a resounding “no”.  None of the governments of the world—at least those that I am aware of—are truly participatory democracies instead of representative ones.  But a closer look at many social movements shows that, at least on a smaller scale, the move towards a horizontal power transfer can be achieved.  Take the Asian American liberation movement of the 1960s.  In his essay, “The State of Asian America”, Glenn Omatsu, a professor of Asian American Studies at Cal State Northridge, notes that the Asian American movement gained its power by being involved in all aspects of the Asian American community.  While reading Omatsu’s essay, I couldn’t help but to think that the Asian American movement got the beginnings of a horizontal power transfer correct, from the grassroots organizing and coalition building to recognizing the connection between local issues and global problems.  But if the movement was so successful, why is it that I hadn’t really heard of the movement before?  After all, if a movement really was able to take over power, the history of the struggle would probably be promoted more than if it hadn’t.  After re-reading Lee-Boggs’ essay, however, I realized that my definition of power is exactly that of the mainstream: state power, which ultimately means no real change can be made.  Perhaps I’m ignoring the details.  Perhaps I’m fixated too much on the current system of power, and am waiting for someone to take over and create real change.  What I’m probably ignoring is the change within local communities, the change that matters the most in the war of position.  Maybe it needs just one more generation for us to win.

-Melody Yee