Rambling on Saint Martin

A Mammoth “Mammouth?”*

(The Chronicle, December 14, 1989)

For Pastor John (Johnny) Gibbons

Marxism, Leninism and communism are moribund. Some even claim they are dead. “Dead as nail heads,” they say. I think not. I say the nails still need to be struck hard, to be driven flush. Marxist-Leninist communism was a “big-grass-piece-fire.” Now, all that is left of it are a few “live spots” here and there, amid scorched fields and smouldering ashes.

Fidel Castro, Manuel Ortega, and a few other super egotists continue their trek towards that phase of the revolution, the phase that never arrives, the phase they know will never come. These men have the power, they have the ability to influence their people, but rather than concede that they erred, they persist in their egotistical lunacy, never mind the misery, destruction and death they cause.

Such men are not demented, they are not misguided; they are evil men, evil to the very core of their being. But as sure as the sun must sink into the sea over Anguilla late this afternoon, these egomaniacs, these tyrants and their henchmen will soon go under. Yes! Everything is for a time. All men must pass on, even Fidel.
Looking back at the phenomenon, at this three-headed beast called Marxist-Leninist communism, one wonders how such simplistic, such primitive interpretations of human nature, of matter, and of western history, could have inflamed the minds of so many, infecting entire generations to such a degree.
I like to think of Marxist-Leninist communism as a huge, dull, square building constructed by a few master egotists; all males and western educated persons convinced beyond the shadow of a doubt that they had the only key to the only door that led to the only room that contained the only blueprint which mapped out the only possible explanation of human nature, of the history of the West, and their interconnections; their dialectics.
Thank heaven, the people of this Island were never attracted to the beast, to the Manichean monster called communism. We were, and we remain inoculated against any such animal. We could sense, we could feel the blasphemous arrogant pride of its doctrine that equates the teachings of Christ and other great religious leaders with opium, opium that stupefies and kills. A doctrine that lumps those who worship with decadent opium-eaters stood no chance, stands no chance, with us.
The Swiss-born French writer, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, believed that inequality began when the first man fenced in some land then declared: “This is my property. This belongs to me.” Rousseau was a genius, but even a genius can err from time to time. The American poet Robert Frost saw things somewhat differently. He recognized the important role that walls and fences play as stabilizers, as agents of order, in all societies. He argued that “good walls make good neighbors.” The theoreticians of communism are much closer to Rousseau.
Yes! Communism is dying, the beast is almost dead, but what is the next “ism” on the horizon? What is the next phenomenon that will take the place of international communism, infect future generations and spread disorder, destruction and death? Will it be, might it be, international capitalism?

The international communists, the super socialists, saw the world as one huge community of classless worker-consumers. The economists and marketing strategists, who are the theoreticians of the international capitalists, reason and act not much differently from the communists. They pretend that borders, nationalities and differences do not exist. The world, for them, is one huge supermarket, a mammoth “mammouth” where fortunes are made and passports are irrelevant.
The international capitalists are forging ahead, never mind the traditions, the mother tongues, the religions. Never mind those who, like René Girard, keep reminding us that differences are essential, that order, as we know it today, is a function of the interplay, of the dialectics of differences, and that disorder sets in with the confusion brought about by the perception of a loss of differences.
*Mammouth: (French for “mammoth”) was the name of a recently established supermarket on the French side of the Island.