It took me a long time to feel comfortable writing about Marxism the way I wanted to and the way I felt made sense. Long years of learning the ins & outs of what ‘Marxism’ is, the supposed inflexibility of theories & ideas + being told that concepts have precise definitions.

I came to Marxism and anti-capitalism through a radical tradition embedded within the Global South, one that had already thought carefully about Marx’s Eurocentrism & also one that had repeatedly seen theory and revolutionary practice as one and the same.

This is just one tradition (Marxist work in West Asia & North Africa) - there are many more, incl the Black Radical Tradition, dependency theory, and more. What I love about them is that what matters is what speaks to experience, not the words on a page written a long time ago.

I found Gramsci invigorating to think with, but was always worried I wasn’t ‘getting it’ or misinterpreting him or not using concepts properly. (The stories I could tell about Marxist Bros™ delineating what counts as Theory and what Proper Marxism is are endless.)

What matters is always the context we speak about and from, the experiences of people, and the hopes of a more just world. Thinking and talking about this is always theory, and has always been theory.

Thinking and writing is more fun and more meaningful when you’re not deep into debates that suck the soul out of living realities :) Yay to letting go!