By Harun Al-Rashid (Pseudonym)
Throughout my involvement with Leftists, I have either seen others wondering about it or I myself have wondered, “What does it mean to be a leftist- more specifically, at Wooster?” This mainly comes to mind when discussing the club’s mission, save our asses (read: meet requirements) from Student Engagement, or to recruit people and keep LoW alive. Many people involved in this discussion may refuse to look at it as an existential question (because who likes doing philosophy), but I think the underlying factor is that crippling existential crisis, “How do I myself be a Leftist? I recognize there is something majorly wrong with this capitalistic society I live in, and how can I understand/change things as a CoW student?
I am hoping these underlying questions formed LoW. To my anecdotal knowledge, its “predecessor” (WooScram? Unsure of spelling) is the “radical socialist group who threatened Sarah Bolton” that is the talk of Wootown (the college). Then, we formed. Attempting to avoid the scandalous scars of our horrid past, we became a group welcoming all kinds of leftist thoughts and people, integrating both “bookish stuff” (theory) and “protest stuff” (praxis).
Unfortunately, we never tried to answer the existential crisis this whole time. As a non-American, this is what saddens/frustrates me –that my North American peers are troubled by this crisis, but the very capitalism they hate has grasped them to the point of no escape, hindering their ability to challenge it. As a result, we, and our actions, keep falling apart; we have too many disagreements between our own people. Truly, it is all surface-level leftism.
If you have read this far and are questioning my credibility in writing this article, I joined LoW in fall 2020, and served as president from Aug-Sept 2022. I ran for presidency as no one else was in Spring 2022, in fear that we would get discontinued (lose our charter). I got increasingly closer with the people; part of my anecdotal knowledge comes from them, and part from the Inter-Club Kettletea Yearners (ICKY). I experienced the surface-levelness firsthand, and unfortunately, was victimized by it as well. I resigned.
Currently, I am not an active member of the club. Avoiding the existential crisis not only harms my North American peers, but also ends up harming (much more intensely) their non-North American peer. That is a discussion for another article.
I still see glimpses of hope in this void. One of them being the chief editor of this newsletter and current co-president of LoW, who is very graciously letting me shit on the club. I met them through LoW, and this comrade has been with me through my joys and woes. Other glimpses of hope are several faculty and staff at this college, and another being some fellow Woo-townees. These folks (I wish I could name them all) have taught me what leftism is- the true, genuine feelings of love for people, hoping for the greatest prosperity and flourishing for everyone, and true, genuine feelings of anguish & fury for anything that stops this love. These fellow comrades genuinely love and care about their community, are genuinely hurt and angered by their fellow comrades’ struggles and will do anything to help. It is ironic that I experienced true leftism mostly outside of this club. It shows our failure to love and hope, our failure to break the individualist bubble and feel overwhelming waves of sorrow when our fellow comrades are tortured, or assaulted, or shot.
I hope for a day when my peers get to experience this, very soon.