The Enemy Within

national | anti-capitalism | opinion/analysis Tuesday June 17, 2008 16:02 by S - Mac

Radical Movements have been destroyed over and over again by their own membership. What are the traits and what can we do about it?

Poison Tongue Destroys the Movement

Bricriu Mac Carbad, of the ‘poisoned tongue’, a story from the Ulster Cycle in which the warriors of Ulster are invited to a party at the new grandiose house of Bricriu. Bricriu has a character trait which means that he just can’t help himself from poisoning peoples minds against one another. He revels in conflict, he sows doubts and paranoia in peoples heads and is happiest to see people tear each other apart.

He passes snide, low comments about someone, sowing the seed in a persons head, it seeps into the unconscious, people subconsciously judge people on the comments of the poisoned tongue. The endless stream of negative comments about people, unfounded, not proved, yet because they are said, drip, drip, drip, dirt sticks. People are poisoned against one another. Rows break out between people who should be friends, comrades. Suspicions about people are there but only because one individual has placed them there. Like a worm the words of the poison tongue seep into the brain. Clear thinking is difficult. Personal judgment is obscured.

This is a story that can be told in every movement that has tried and failed to change the world through revolutionary action. The poisoned tongue creates division, they destroy, they cause paranoia and feuds. Yet they turn up again and again. Movements don’t appear able to challenge them. They gather a clique around them. Sowing the seeds – sowing the seeds of mistrust and confusion. There words are the words of the ardent supporter, the more radical than thou member, but the endless stream of snide comments, criticisms have one end point – damage to morale, damage to the aims and objectives of the movement.

Listen the next time you hear a ‘comrade’ bad mouth people, how many times have they done it? How many people have they done it about? Why are they doing it? Are there mechanisms available to challenge this behavior? Are you unable to openly challenge this behavior for fear that you will be a target?

The biggest threat to a successful movement is its membership – the biggest threat to radical change are poison tongued ‘radicals’!

Movements must deal with them or continue to replicate the failures of the past