http://transformingpower.ca/en/blog/remembering-our-history
Yesterday I did something I rarely do. I participated in an academic seminar. It was to mark the 40th anniversity of The Waffle , a radical youth movement inside the NDP. Hardly anyone under 50 knows what The Waffle was, unless you have ever tried to organize an opposition in the NDP where it remains a scarry ghost. But it was a significant and almost unique formation of the 1960's in Canada. Apparently scholarship on the 1960's is the hottest thing in academe these days. Who knew?
The Waffle was a youthful radical left nationalist and socialist formation within the New Democratic Party. Formed in the heady days of 1969 the Waffle Manifesto was incredibly radical when read with today's eyes. 'Our aim as democratic socialists is to build an independent socialist Canada. Our aim as supporters of the New Democratic Party is to make it a truly socialist party.''
Sigh...I wonder when the last time anyone in or around the NDP used the word socialist. It is of course a document of its time referring to "men" as a word covering everyone, ignoring Indigneous people all together in its formulation of the founding two nations and without a mention of equality for women or women's liberation as we called it in those days.
What was extraordinary about the Waffle was its economic nationalism. Even as a young woman who was attracted to the Waffle because of its strong female leadership, I never agreed with the idea that the main problem was that Canada was economically subordinate to the United States. In those days the Waffle argued that Canada was basically a branch plant of the US and would only be able to be independent though a democratic socialist society.
I never really understood Canada as a subordinate power. A lesser power, yes but not really under the thumb of the US. I understood cultural nationalism that sought to promote and protect Canadian culture so that we were not totally overwhelmed by US culture but economic nationalism never made sense to me. In studying to counter their arguments at the time, I learned about Marxism, which made alot more sense and argued that nationalism in an advanced capitalist country was reactionary while it could be progressive in a developing country.
Yet the Waffle's nationalism was progressive in many ways. Yesterday I finally understood the economic nationalism listening to both proponents and scholars. I won't go into detail here because a podcast of the event will soon be available. I still don't agree with it but at least I understand it and no doubt the left nationalism of the Waffle and others helped the Canadian Left and social movements to respond quickly to free trade when it first reared its ugly head in the Free Trade Agreement with the US.
On the surface, this discussion seems a bit archaic and not of much interest to young people now who are more likely to see Canada as a colonial power itself and an equal partner in global corporate governance. With some of the most important social movements taking on the abuses of Canadian mining companies and the exploitation of Canadian banks, it is hard to imagine anyone accepting the nationalist arguments of the Waffle however rooted in a radical analysis.
Yet the Waffle was an important factor in the development of these very social movements. It was women in the Waffle who fought for the NPD to accept women's liberation and women in leadership. They uniquely worked both inside and outside the party creating a model of work that they also brought into the trade union movement. The Waffle women played a critical role in the shaping of the Canadian women's movement. As a result Canada's women's movement included working class women and has among the most feminist unions and social democratic parties in the world.
As a young woman I was attracted to the powerful women in the Waffle like Jackie Larkin and Varda Burstyn both of whom remained active on the Left and the women's movement. Waffle leaders like economist Mel Watkins and political scientist James Laxer continue to be relevant critics of the NDP
In my view when the NDP expelled the Waffle, they cut out their heart by expelling the youth. It is true that the Waffle was sectarian towards the NDP, as was the culture of the time and that the remnants of Cold War ideology made a rational response to this highly active opposition difficult but still it is hard to look back on energy and creativity of the Waffle and not conclude that the NDP slit its own throat when they threw them out.
What was interesting about the roundtable was the richness of discussion about the Waffle in the context of the times in which it lived and the decline of that discussion as soon as we started talking about the future of the Left and everyone retreated to their usual nostrums.
I am sorry more people didn't attend the event and I hoping they will listen to at least some of the podcast. If we don't pay attention to our own history, no one else likely will.
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