Radicals come in all shapes, ages, and varieties. And they all–1,200 of them or so–seemed to be at the first-ever Midwest Radical Scholars and Activists Conference, held in late October at Loyola. There were Maoists and Trotskyists and social democrats and anarchists. There were members of the Communist Party and the Revolutionary Communist Party, Democratic Socialists and International Socialists, representatives of the Progressive Student Alliance and the Progressive Student Network, of the Left Green Network and the Youth Greens, editors of the Socialist Review and In These Times, of the New Patriot and Libido. Partisans of the rebels in El Salvador, Peru, and the Philippines, of the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, and of the government in Albania. And feminists of all varieties.
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It was a feast, a potluck, a smorgasbord, a leftist potpourri: 122 panels and four plenary sessions in one weekend. The problem was which to attend. Would it be “The Future (?) of Human Rights in George Bush’s ‘New World Order’” or “Chaos Theory: a slide presentation and discussion”? “Men and Co-parenting” or “Is Environmentalism Progressive? Could It Be?” And those were only a few in the first time slot. Later there were panels on eco-feminism and lesbian ethics, anarchism and the psychodynamics of domination, the future of the left and the future of work, the radical press and radical therapy–as well as discussions of conditions in Romania, the Soviet Union, Mozambique, the Philippines, Nicaragua, and the Caribbean, and on the American college campus (among other places).
“I really think what they presented is the concept of state capitalism. It’s capitalism with public ownership,” said one respondent, who concluded, “One thing that was missing from all of their discussions was the question of revolution.”
Women were greatly underrepresented at this gathering. Almost 75 percent of the panelists were male, and the scheduled speakers at three of the plenaries were all male. (The fourth, on “Why the Left Needs Feminism,” had all women speakers.) Participants pointed out these sorts of imbalances on many occasions, usually without rancor.
