First Publication: www.haber10.com, 2010
Marx’s famous 11th thesis says this: “Philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point, however, is to change it.” (Theses on Feuerbach)
Karl Marx, who established the transformative-revolutionary theory of praxis, that is, practice, is hardly listened to anymore. Yet Marx, at least in terms of his method (dialectical thinking) and his aim (a classless, exploitation-free, just and equal world), has not only failed to be surpassed but can hardly even be said to have been properly understood.
The ferocious assault of the capitalist world and the tragic collapse of real socialist system experiments have, for the time being, caused Marx to be forgotten. But neither the praxis method he employed nor that noble aim will be forgotten as long as the world exists.
Marx’s 11th thesis was correct, but incomplete. Above all, it argued that the effort to understand the world, life, and humanity on its own was neither very meaningful nor even possible. It was not possible because an attempt at understanding independent of social orders, historical laws, and class contradictions could not be coherent or realistic. It was not meaningful because no philosophy that does not rest on a concrete analysis of the concrete situation can build a more livable world for humanity.
Marx was, in fact, attacking the dominant institutional philosophies of his time. These were, which following the Judeo-Christian or Greek philosophical tradition, an abstract idealist philosophies detached from life, in these idealistic philosophies each sentence devoted to self-justification, and they were nothing more than an intellectual self-gratification effort by a group of intellectuals. Yet science and technology were making new discoveries every day, the world was changing rapidly, nothing remained the same, and most importantly, humanity was facing new problems and contradictions. Marx, paradoxically, sanctified the transformative practice of the bourgeoisie, which set out to change the world with the industrial revolution, but sought to make this change possible for the proletariat as well.
Marx’s revolutionary philosophy was incomplete because it understood change itself as a compulsory process subject to laws independent of human beings. In this context, by seeing the transformative power of the bourgeoisie as inevitable, he interpreted it as if assigning it a progressive mission of history. For this reason, he viewed British colonialism in India positively, since it forcibly dissolved a “decrepit and frozen” society and opened it to history. Thus, it was not the act of changing the world itself that mattered, but its cause.
Why do we want to change the world?
We began with Marx, because today those who tell us that “grand narratives are over,” those who present liberalism as inevitable, necessary, and the most realistic path, and those who see every call for salvation as a romantic nostalgia left over from the 19th century are all, in one way or another, speaking from within the debates opened by Marx. The fact that many neo-cons have former leftist identities; that almost all liberal theorists owe their entire intellectual journeys to being engaged, in one way or another, as supporters or opponents of leftist thought; and that capitalist economists themselves struggle with Marx’s difficult questions while trying to lay down a magical, numerical, statistical perception of economics that would make Marx forgotten… In all of this, Marx’s ghost is still clearly reflected.
There has probably never been an age in history in which efforts to change the world have been so belittled while the world itself has been changed so radically. Yes, capitalism is changing the world rapidly in line with its own purposes, down to the smallest detail. But it does so by annihilating every demand and call for change outside itself… All deep and frontal objections to the lived world, all class theses, all political-economic analyses are ignored. The only thing brought to the fore is the attempt to read the world through the spectacles of merchants and usurers. National income, gross national product, market, bank, stock exchange, credit, interest, foreign exchange, prices, profit, price hikes, growth, accumulation, enterprise, success, earnings, project… They force us to think and speak in terms of absurd concepts of a completely false system that we can never have, that will never bring about positive change in the lives of the majority of people, and that will only allow the most ambitious and immoral among us to rise to the power. While they tell us to speak in these terms, they profit, accumulate, and with insatiable greed strip us of everything, leaving us defenseless, voiceless, and faithless. Probably ninety percent of billions of people are being conditioned to live as slaves to this immoral species, but without calling it slavery. All of us, every day, while producing and consuming, while watching and participating, serve the world of others. We live like a footnote to a life that does not belong to us, yet we suffer as if it were our own lives. This was precisely the kind of world Marx described as alienation, commodity fetishism, a conspiracy of silence, a world of those who have nothing to lose but their chains.
What will we do now? Marx no longer attracts people. Because of his non-religious language, he is not at all appealing to societies that still have a religion. Yet there is a world that troubles us, that we object to, that we must change. We need a theory of salvation, a liberating idea. First and foremost, we need a faith.
What is life, what is the world, what is the human being, who are we, why do we exist, what is goodness, what is evil, what is God, what is Satan, what is power, money, property, interest, war, peace, love, affection, family and society? We will ask these questions again, questions that are no longer asked, questions that everyone pretends to have an answer to, but which are essentially forgotten due to the complacency of having memorized and internalized capitalism’s answers to such an extent.
Then we will acquire a method of thinking. A method that enable us to comprehend the relationship between nature, human beings, and society as a whole; that enables us to analyze relations between phenomena; that can unravel and give voice to the links between company-states growing a thousandfold over the last fifty years without losing a single child during civil wars that have killed tens of thousands of our young people, and the individual tragedies we experience when we cannot pay our installments. A method with which we can analyze the relationship between former leftists, Islamists, and nationalists turning into willing servants of capitalism, and the state’s sensitive institutions becoming tools that carry out hostility toward the people in a more organized manner. A revolutionary thought that will enable us to comprehend the laws of matter, history, class, power, and war; consciousness, perception, thang, object, category, contradiction, conflict, and syntheses; the connections between the past, present, and future; the unity of space-time and daily life; of the cosmic universe and cosmic labor; of the outer horizons with the inner self…
And finally, we need a path of action, effort, and struggle that will tear down the curtains of this fake world, end this theater, and enable us to build our own free world. An individual and collective struggle for liberation that will shatter the demonic mechanism by which even living without doing anything serves the purposes of others, and that will assign everyone, a meaningful role and mission, small or large, according to their capacity.
We know that most people, like in the frog story, have come to prefer being slowly boiled to death over living for a cause. People once fought for a humane life with transformative ideas. But this was belittled as if it were a way of thinking that glorified death, and for years we were propagandized with the slogan ‘no idea is worth dying for.’ And they had already made us all consent to dying slowly, or with bombs as in Palestine and Iraq, for the world’s oppressors. With a method they call manufacturing consent, accompanied by the media, with clichés endlessly repeated in schools, markets, and streets, they have rendered us all incapable of reasoning. Working more, earning more, living well, owning many things, sexual relations out of wedlock, dressing very well, going on vacation, having aimless fun, consuming what is forbidden, drinking alcohol… Everything that humanity’s ancient culture called becoming animal-like, they polished and painted and made us adopt them as a contemporary lifestyle, as modernity, by provoking our desire to feel superior and elite.
Now there is no one left who heeds that Adamic voice, that saying, ‘The life you live is not yours; this world has become a fake theater; you are not playing your own game.’ We have returned to primitive ages; this time the sorcerers deceive us by lighting neon fires, murmuring meaningless prayers made up of numbers and fetishized concepts, wearing flashy garments. We sigh while looking at them, imitate them, and do everything they say. Grown men and women appear before us every day and talk as if what they are talking about were living beings, saying, ‘The markets reacted this way today, the dollar fell like that, interest rates rose like this’ and no one stands up to say that this is modern animism; that attributing meaning to objects and concepts, detaching them from human beings and fetishizing objects themselves, is a new way of dwarfing humanity; that everything those economists, journalists, and so-called intellectuals do and say, sitting with legs crossed and adjusting their neck-scarves, is the resurrected form of the savage human species that lived in caves thousands of years ago-before God breathed His spirit. If you like, you can imagine one of them speaking, mute your TV, and think of those creatures as primitive humans. You’ll immediately notice their ferocious claws, teeth, growls, and drool. We are certain of this; we humans are not of the same kind as them. If we are human, they are not. If they are human, then we are another species. We call this species, which views nature, life, and people as materials to be exploited from childhood, knows no form of relationship other than establishing hegemony, makes people work and war for it, and spends its entire life accumulating more, beşer/humanoid. To be human means to separate from this species, to cleanse oneself of its attributes, and to be able to look at oneself, at God, and at nature with Adam’s eyes.
Adam’s eyes… Adam is the most honored of creation; the most responsible and the most advanced of created beings. With God breathing His spirit into him, the eye of reason was opened; separating himself from beşer (humanoid), he began to see and name everything differently. The human is one who knows himself, knows his Lord, seeks to comprehend nature, perceives life and death as stages of eternal life after death, reasons, feels with the heart, and does not forget that he is of the same essence and spirit as the entire universe, all living beings, and his human brothers. He is one who strives to surpass the beşer (humanoid) state and make himself truly human. The beşer state (humanoid state) is savage, primitive, unreasoning, living by instincts, viewing everything as something to possess or destroy, seeing nature, other living beings, and humans as enemies, and striving to seize or, if unable, to annihilate everything related the human. Religions have called this species the progeny of Iblis, the allies of Satan. In the Holy Qur’an’s creation narrative, Iblis, jealous of the human, asks God for a respite so he can lead Adam and his followers astray and prove their inferiority. God expels Iblis. And sends him to the world along with Adam. The lineage (şecere) of Iblis deceives the lineage of Adam, engaging in sexual intercourse with them, and thus the hybrid species of Iblis and human, whom we call beşer (humanoid), is formed on Earth. The lineage of Iblis, or the Devils/Satans, begin their struggle against Adam by finding relatives and allies among the humans. To diminish, degrade, and strip humans of their superiority, it afflicts them with evil. It attempts a thousand and one ways to make them refrain from using their reason, and encourage them to shed blood, violate the boundaries that make them human namely, the taboos surrounding sexuality, nourishment, and social conduct (prohibitions against eating carrion, drinking blood, eating pork’s meat, drinking alcohol, gambling, and adultery) and to intoxicate them with the lust of domination, ambition, and carnality. Those who follow him are those whose beşer (humanoid) side, susceptible to his traps, is still strong. Those who do not conform to this, that is, those who preserve the essence of Adam, sometimes live in this world as if they are in a prison, but they at the same time pass the test, becoming truly human-becoming the übermensch/Adam-and thus earning eternal life through their own efforts and willpower. These are the ones who attain salvation.
Liberation theology must, first and foremost, draw its strength from this ontological foundation. The main reason why ideologies like Marxism, which start solely from results, that is, from economic and political antecedents, are eventually used as material for new types of enslavement and oppression is that they do not rest on this theological faith. Where there is no God in an idea, there is no human either. Yet it cannot be said that ideas which include God will always include the human. For Satan sometimes deceives people through God as well. He leads them astray by distorting what they believe. Indeed, history is also full of crimes committed in the name of God by religiosity and by the religious. For this reason, at the core of the matter there must be an authentic understanding of God and of the human.
That the human is made the most honored of creation (ashraf al-makhluqat) is not a given, but an essential purpose. That is, the human is obliged to prove his honor and fulfill his responsibility through struggle against Satan and his allies in the world. The mere appearance of a two-legged antropomorph is not sufficient to be the most honored of creation. Life is precisely the arena of this effort of proof. The conflict between good and evil is the dialectic of this proving effort. A person becomes truly human by choosing the side of good, purifying themselves from evil, and fighting against it-that is, by driving their own demons out of their own paradise. Or, by being contaminated by evil, he returns to the beşer state (humanoid state)-to that first sin in which he followed Satan and became akin to him. Returning to the beşer state means being domineering, ambitious, excessive, unbalanced, exploitative, accumulative, corrupt, money-obsessed, murderous, adulterous, immoral.
Human physiology (morph) is one, but ontologically everyone is a hybrid being carrying both Adamic and Satanic genetics. Being beşer (humanoid) expresses this hybrid condition. This socio-genetic structure can be transformed by human will and choices, or it can be preserved as it is. Those who worship the materials, who worship worldly things, who follow their instincts are those who choose their beşer (humanoid) side. For this reason, the ancient language of humanity persistently says; ‘It is not matter who you are, first be a human’ ‘do not follow Satan,’ ‘beşer (humanoid) errs,’ ‘fear God, be ashamed of people.’ Shame, modesty, decency, reserve, covering oneself… These are feelings that Adam grasped the moment he opened his eyes to the world with the awareness of being Adam. Beşer (humanoid) does not know these feelings. Nor does he understand those who know them. Exhibitionism is the character of beşer (humanoid); modesty is the character of Adam. Beşer exposes even his evils, while Adam is ashamed of following Satan, repents, and with a sense of sin feels shame before his own Adamic essence and before his Lord. The human is a creature capable of shame.
Liberation is the effort to be freed from the beşer state (humanoid state) and from Satan’s domination. Wherever and however it appears, any system, idea, ideology, or order that diminishes, humiliates, enslaves the human being, and makes him a captive of his ambitions and instincts belongs to Satan and to beşer (humanoid). This is the fundamental criterion. In this sense, whether something is presented in the name of reason, God, money, or human rights and democracy, we will look not at its name, claims, or noise, but at its content; does it show the path of becoming Adam, does it try to restore human dignity, does it ultimately establish the consciousness of God and Adam? Or does it propose a new order of enslavement by constructing fake worlds derived from the exploitation of beşer (humanoid) needs, from the contradictions of psychological neuroses, and from the temptations of everyday life? By measuring it against this criterion, we can determine whether we will attain liberation or not.
Humanity today is not even in search of liberation. Because it has tasted the tragedy of Cold War ideologies such as socialism, nationalism, and Islamism, has seen their outcomes, and has almost said, ‘I’ll pass.’ On the other hand, it is both disturbed by global capitalism and, for the time being, bewildered by tasting the new products and images it spreads. Sooner or later, it will say ‘I’ll pass’ to this as well. Because capitalism is a refined system of enslavement that inflicts deeper wounds than the others.
An ideology of justice and freedom that will place the consciousness of God and Adam before humanity, and protect it from every form of enslavement, does not yet exist. Of course, movements, ideas, and debates that carry this search continue in some part of the world. Yet they have not yet gained a universal language or the substance of a grand narrative. Wars of religion, class, nation, and sect are false, oppressive, and satanic. Because within every religion, ethnicity, class, and group there is both Adam and Iblis. Because all the identities, words, positions, and statuses produced by this world and imposed on every newborn human being are false; they are demonic masks that cover, suppress, and cause the Adamic essence to be forgotten. Only if those at the top and those at the bottom, the whitest and the blackest, the most religious and the most irreligious, separate and purify themselves solely at the level and degree of the Adamic essence can a genuine dialectical rupture occur. There are many languages, many peoples, many societies, but there are only two fundamental kinds, races, peoples, lineages: the lineage of Adam and the lineage of Iblis. There are many religions, beliefs, sects, dispositions, ideologies. But in reality there are only two Religions: the religion of Adam–Noah–Abraham (pbut), and the religions, beliefs, gods, and sects fabricated by Iblis… Countless humans are born and die, women and men, children and adults, young and old… But only those who are Adam truly exist; the rest is the human garbage dumps. Race-nation and religion-sect, even gender and age, are false, masks, worthless.
Our hope is that humanity’s ancient struggle may once again open a universal channel of struggle on this ontological foundation. To show people that another world is possible-within the context of a different and more fundamental purpose. History is not, as they tell us, a heap of ruins consisting solely of evils, where religions, races, and states endlessly fight under the provocation of Iblis and Satan. On the contrary, there have been thousands of beautiful examples and hundreds of just orders in which millions of people were able to become truly human. Ultimately this is a war, and there are periods of defeat from time to time. We are living through one of these times today, and we must begin by stripping away the false masks of capitalism, the diabolical order of this age. The perception of religion that is tried to be made an auxiliary of capitalism, and the style of religiosity that merchant-preachers have turned into a means of taking a share from the system, is also a theological battlefield parallel to the struggle against capitalism. We must be ready for a relentless war on two fronts against the Satans who deceive people both with the idol of a better life and with God.
God is not one who enslaves Adam, but our Absolute Sovereign (Necessary Being) and All-Merciful Lord who calls us to be freed from every form of servitude. Everything came from Him and will return to Him. We humans came with the Adamic–human essence, and we will return to Him with that essence, by keeping our word. This is the summary of all our efforts for change and of our cause. Let us not forget that all ideologies that don’t aim to achieve being Adam, that is, do not to ensure human dignity and perfection at the political, social, and economic levels, beyond their historical, social, ideological, ethnic, religious, and sectarian identities, and in the sense of cultivating these identities, are false, counterfeit, and exploitative. Now is the time for a universal organization, where those pure, unsullied consciences, no longer deceived by ornate words, flashy sentences, a paradise-on-earth atmosphere, the dominance of lust, the deification of money, every form of hypocrisy in sacred garb, tribalism learned from Iblis, animistic primitivism worshiping fabricated words, and selfish, opportunistic devilries, cast off all ideological, religious, and ethnic masks and come together.
No affiliation fabricated and worshipped by humans concerns us; no allegiance, no race or ethnicity, religion, sect, ideology, material or spiritual sacred, no state, society, geography, city, mountain, tree, or sea has any value for us. Nothing has any worth if we do not exist. Nothing that God does not value is important to us. We have no cause other than upholding goodness and justice, and standing everywhere and at all times whoever the oppressor may be, we are against the oppressor and on the side of the oppressed. We, who uphold the cause of being and remaining Adam, seek to change the world not to found a state, nor to destroy one, nor for the supremacy of any class, ethnicity, or religion, but solely to uphold goodness and justice, to dismantle, erode, and disrupt the sovereignty of Iblis everywhere, to declare our allegiance in the ancient war, to resurrect the essence of Adam in every moment and within every individual, and thus, ultimately, to be able to truly Exist. State, religion, ideology, culture, money, power, all these are merely tools and weapons for this cause. They have no other importance. Those who ascribe any other meaning or importance to them are of the lineage of Iblis.
We never loved this world, the lifestyles shaped by Iblis and his offspring, the masks to which they assigned meaning and value, and every commodity, phenomenon, and tool they divided into borders and transformed into property. Our Adamic ancestors before us did not love it either. Nor will our children love it.
We will always love the warmth of bread created by the rain that each angel sends down one by one; the friendly conversations enriched by tea and cigarettes; grandmother’s tales that summarize the story of the children of Adam; clean garments even if old; a mother’s lap scented with roses; a father’s calloused hands; the old woman’s faith in which even hardship is welcomed with reproachful prayers as a blessing; poems written into the beloved’s tresses; folk songs that had sung to infatuation; bullets fired at tyrants; and the genuine world in the pupils of children’s eyes.
Either we will make this world unbearable for Iblis and his lineage, or we will build another world for ourselves everywhere and under all conditions.
One way or another, we will always try to change the world. We will turn this world of Iblis and his servants into hell. If we cannot exist, they will not be able to exist either. We will never abandon this cause.
* To comprehend what the concept of Iblis (Satan) truly is, please see:
https://kritikbakis.com/en/sun-cult-fire-light-gold-brightness-divine-light-nur/
Source: Davası Olmayan Adam Değildir, Ahmet Özcan, Yarın Yay., 2016
