Grand Project

Frederick Engels’ Friends Study, Art and Research Centre

Projects’ Concept Paper

Introduction:

We must seek the tasks dictated by the epoch, i.e. the solution of the problems facing humankind in our time.

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Studies, discussions, thinking, analysis, research and art and cultural development are not the jobs of idle people but of the most active individuals endowed with reasonable and discerning minds that feel concerned with the current state of humanity and are conscious.

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The Condition of South Asia in Particular, and the Capitalist or Pre-Capitalist Countries in General

With smoke and dust filling the air continuously, carbon-oxides, choloroflorocarbons, arsenic and other substances increasing, and the proportion of oxygen decreasing in the air;

With water contaminated by various industrial, non-industrial and public wastes; fresh and wholesome water becoming more and more rare; more than half the world’s people and other species facing hardships in meeting their requirements of water;

With environment degrading, pressure on natural resources becoming excessively ruthless, natural environmental defence (ozone layer, etc.) depleting, jungles and ecological system heading towards an unprecedented catastrophe, plastics and other substances contaminating the soil, drains, brooks, streams, canals, rivers and oceans;

With agriculture and farmers marching towards bankruptcy and ruin; farmers committing suicide in millions because they can’t scratch out a living from their agricultural activities; food items turning unwholesome; arable land—brought into the current fruitful shape through thousands of years’ hard work of many generations of humanity—being buried arrogantly under concrete;

With industries in anarchy, workers mechanized, ill paid and sent to desperation; managers dehumanized; war-industry thriving and in tough competition to create market for their “commodities”, and extract as much profit as they can;

With unemployment, poverty and frustration intensifying among very large sections of people, inter-people trust vanishing, peacelessness and insecurity within every locality, region, country or entire world becoming dreadfully gigantic and vicious;

With very few honorable people left in the anti-socialism, anti-general-human-welfare world, and they too under the threat of being murdered by this or that force or gang;

With friendship, love, character, mutual good will, humanistic social values… heading towards total doom; and every human being leaping towards becoming forlorn or asocial;

With uncountable people, big or small, ready to betray the security and future of their respective societies and countries, and sell people, resources, land and everything for petty, flimsy or fake personal benefits, and with uncountable people ready to betray one another in any group they belong to;

With a few people’s lives being confined outrageously in unimaginable luxurious;

With innumerable poor people being transported to wretched “ghettoes”, outside which the respective inhabitants no more feel secure;

With human beings being rendered into the mere commodities’ buyers and sellers, sexual animals, vulgar or rough entertainment consumers, objects of manipulation, subjects for stupefaction…

And with capitalist film industries in union with the lords of the underworld, and film-industry and moviemakers now submerged in the rubble of the despicable sort of “time-wastage, trash or buffoonery which they call entertainment”, foul, base, rude and outrageous humour, frustration, suicides, pornography, etc.;

And with all branches of Art having plunged into in the most disgraceful period of their respective histories, i.e. the current period of Art of Nonsense (accomplished singers singing nonsense; high class musicians giving music to nonsense; actors acting nonsense; storywriters writing nonsense; composers composing nonsense; poets poeticizing nonsense; painters painting nonsense…; a phenomenon for which the only appropriate term can be The Art of Nonsense)…..

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Who are these hills, mountains, fields, industries, buildings, roads, railways, airplanes….meant for? Who are all these achievements in various branches of natural and social sciences that hundreds of generations of people have paid heavily for—sometimes even by their own lives, and often by backbreaking toil—meant for? Who are these explorations, discoveries, inventions, technologies, arts, crafts, literature, etc., meant for?…. Who is the immense wealth accumulated hitherto by humanity through thousands of years of strenuous work, pains, etc., meant for?

Are they meant for the feudal or capitalist lords of the present, who would murder one another in hundreds of ways if they themselves could escape with such murders?

Or are they meant for the imbeciles or scoundrels that the world is overfilled with?

Or is their purpose to reduce people to mere animals that have been hunting one another in uncountable ways through thousands of years and that shall do so on a cataclysmic scale in future?…

Or are they for the general welfare, development, peace, wholesome work and leisure of the humanity in general, and for which the best, the greatest and the bravest human beings have worked tirelessly through millennia many so far?

For example, what is the worth of Lao Tzu or Confucius or Aristotle or Shakespeare or Rousseau or any other great philosopher or writer or scientist or their lives’ pains and efforts, if none has the ability to understand or feel or have time to study the types of societies they lived in, their writings, their struggles or how their adherents brought stagnation to the society and how life surpassed their ideas? What is the worth of Gallio’s or Newton’s or Darwin’s life or contribution to humanity, if nobody can appreciate that with any sincerity—because honesty itself has been brutally murdered?

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Behold the system of education! We have already seen horrible indicators in this field. Students gunning down their own classmates and teachers; classes so unruly that it is no more possible, in many cases, to teach; teachers demoralized and abhorred in many places because they don’t earn enough and they feel far too lower in the level of social esteem or evaluation that their former classmates in administration or ruffian-cum-violent underworld or uncivilized business enjoy due to their economic and social positions….

The once upon a time noble profession is no more noble in the private education mafia of the world. With all the progress and achievements in science, technology, inventions, learning, exploration, discovery, art, literature… half of world’s people are still uneducated and about 80% of the rest poorly educated and victims of the fleece the sheep culture of capitalism.

In 2015, 61 million Primary School Aged children were out of School. About 9% people in the world are still illiterate, more than two thousand three hundred years after the scholars and philosophers like Pythagoras, Lao Tzu, Buddha, Confucius, Plato, Aristotle…. More than P% children do not complete their primary education. Less than Q% make it to the secondary level. And far too less do their post-graduation and doctorate.

Have a look at the “Health” Sector Mafia. The gallery of heroes in the medical profession of the past that worked strenuously for finding cure to many illnesses and diseases to treat people, and many of who laid their lives in the pursuit, are all disgraced by medical mafia companies that rob the people in the name of health, that extract as much profit from the patients as they can; and that provide their services only to those people that are economically rich enough to afford payment for their services, while more than half of the population remain vulnerable to various complications and death from even petty ailments. Besides this, there are human organs’ traffickers, soothsayers and mountebanks too in this gigantic occupation of cheating and frauds.     

Even the governments and insurance companies of the capitalists are making their heyday in the name of health insurance, cheating and frauds.

Capitalists’ governments all over the world are continuously reducing the budgets for public education, public health, and other social needs. 

Take housing of populations into consideration. More than half of the world’s people are either houseless or abiding in hovels or cramp rooms or dilapidated settlements—where even a small earthquake can bury them alive under the rubble; and where mental peace, mental development and concentration in studies or work can but be a rarity rather than the general occurring.

Watch the capitalist media for a while. It has thrown off even the fig-leaves it used to wear to hide its depravity in the past, it is openly perverted now; and it has come out naked and shamelessly to stupefy, irrationalize and provoke the public to fight one against the other for nothing, and lay their lives for nonsense. For example, during June and July of 2017, in Doklam issue, the Indian media stood all in unison creating hate against the Chinese people, provoking Indians to go for a horrible war against the China, and lay their lives in the process. Indian media has since long been craving for a gruesome war with Pakistan. And the lice in their heads now have been prompting them to fight a war with both Pakistan and China simultaneously, after they receive sophisticated Rafale fighter aircrafts from France.

Examine the sector of employment. Less than half of the people of working age are actually employed. Most of the women are housewives or dependents. Of the employed people, very few are in creative or productive employment. Many are engaged in needless jobs, trifles or negative or destructive occupations. Alienation is at its apex. And unemployment is going to increase dramatically in near future according to the capitalist analysts themselves, as the automation and robotics make work easier and efficient, thereby INSTEAD OF bringing comfort to the masses, ENVISAGES increase in their unemployment, misery, frustration and desperation. 

Check the condition of the old people, who can work no more. Does it behove the world to call itself civilized when its generation that contributed in bringing affluence to it, that brought up the current citizens of the world… is suffering extreme hardships in housing, food, medical care, psychological needs, physical comfort, etc.?

Contemplate about children and women. No child, no girl, no woman is any more safe from sexual predators, traffickers, organ-robbers and murderers. None has any sound feeling of security.

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Another recession, which is bound to be much more horrible than all the previous recessions combined together—unless there is yet another innovation of some very necessary object or tool of extensive or mass utility, flying cars, for example—is looming large over the world. 

Overall, we are in the most fatal mess in the world history, in which we are at the verge of facing extinction due to various causes or due to the world war or total environmental collapse or some social catastrophe or something else, the prospects of which are increasing day by day.

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The capitalist world has disgraced all common-sense, social intelligence, social welfare, social or individual security, achievements of cultures, integrity, moral courage, honourable human values of general welfare…

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Uttering the foulest lies with ease is the common phenomenon of the capitalist system..

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The capitalist intellectuals, scholars, professors and experts have disgraced themselves completely. They are in total chaos. Because they are no free thinkers or good-cause-advocates or broadminded or scholars of the objective reality, but helpless and pathetic slaves of the capitalist system over which they have no control and under which they are as vulnerable to the buffets of life or circumstances as any other person, and they are as downfallen as any wretches.

Innumerable excellent artists—poets, writers, actors, directors, painters, sculptors, architects, etc.—are virtually starving for want of something better to do.

The Objective:      

To comprehend what is going on, to understand the causes thereof, to spread consciousness among masses, and thereby try to overcome, intellectually, organizationally and politically, the current mess, socio-cultural and political impasse, and the prospect of doom, it is of paramount importance to bring people to the studies, discussions, understanding, research and artistic creations of the only viable social science produced so far by humankind for the welfare of the human species, namely the science of Marxism. To do this, we have decided to set up Frederick Engels’ Friends Study, Art and Research Centres in various countries in South Asia and other countries, beginning with the first Frederick Engels’ Friends Study, Art and Research Centre in Kathmandu[1], Nepal.

Depending upon the success of the Centre in Nepal, the second, third, fourth and subsequent Centres can be set-up in the Indian part of Kashmir; Swat valley, Pakistan; Nanital, India; other suitable places of India; Chittagong Bangladesh; any suitable place in Afghanistan; Isfahan, Iran and so forth.

[1]              [Kathmandu is chosen because it will minimize the costs for the participants. International and national participants will be received at the airport or bus station itself; and, after the completion of the program, they will be seen off at the airport or bus station itself. They won’t have to stay overnight in any hotel or incur extra costs for further journey to some other place. Kathmandu is well connected by transport with most of the places of Nepal.]

The Main Activities

• Conducting EVERY MONTH one-month study and discussion classes for 100 international and 100 Nepalese (i.e. 200) students of Marxism, summing up to 2000 to 2400 students’ one-month course every year; and 10000 to 12000 students’ course in five years.

• Arranging also the two month, three month… one year, two year… five years studies in Marxism, History and Literature.

• Preparing the curriculum for the courses under 1 and 2 above.

• Preparing, educating, training and equipping the Comrade Instructors and Moderators for the same.

• Translating the works of great Marxist and Humanist writers into different languages of South Asia and publishing and propagating them through a suitable agency.

• Recognizing the excellent progressive works of authors in the world and South Asia, and honouring them with literary awards. Setting up teams for the evaluation of progressive works in the main or critical South Asian languages.

• Setting up an audio-video recording studio in the establishment.

• Setting up an IT Branch as per the requirements of the establishment, and seeking active support from some software development institution.

• Setting up and producing movies in the proletarian perspective based on great literary works of the past and present in the world to loosen the barbaric grip of monasteries’ and other religious institutions’ over various societies; e.g. the works of Kahlil Gibran, the most efficacious weapon to defeat religious fundamentalism, fanaticism, irrationality, pettiness and barbarism; (Kahlil Gibran’s works are written from the perspective of Dialectical Idealism, but they are dialectical all the same, and eye-opening for the masses. They can be efficacious in reaching out to the hundreds of millions of people in the world, particularly in Tibet, Xinjiang, Kashmir, Ladakh, Bhutan, and much of Pakistan, India, etc.).

• Opening a New (10+2) School to the Establishment Location and providing Free Education up to 10+2 Level (with an Additional Foreign Language) to the children of the Area where the Establishment is located.

• Setting up the material and managerial requirements for cultural exchange between the students of various levels of various countries.

• Setting up the material and managerial requirements of sports competitions on various levels between sports personnel of various countries.

• To meet the expenditures for the above programs in future, identify some items like dry fruits, motor vehicles (from bicycles and motorbikes to electric cars or motor vehicles), trekking and mountaineering equipment and other durable things and become their importers, distributors and sellers).

• Additionally, operate non-religious tours and trekking to various natural, historical or important places in Nepal, Kashmir, India and Pakistan to supplement the income for meeting the expenditures of various programs.

• Enter into an agreement with some Appropriate Agency for marketing and collecting revenue from our movies and other artistic or literary or intellectual creations.

• Set up the Holiday Home for researchers, teachers, lecturers, professors and academicians of various colleges and universities (prospective ideal place for studying, writing, thinking, composing thesis, writing a book or simply holidaying). Besides supplementing the economic income, it will also provide get-together and human and scholarly ties between various people in the fields of education.

Expected accomplishments:

1. Strengthening of 10000 to 12000 objectively and dialectically discerning, well-informed, conscious, committed, organized, and disciplined Marxists in every five years; 2000 to 2400 every year. They can be expected to become socio-political leaders at various levels.

2. Strengthening of experts in various fields of Marxism. They can be expected to become analysts in various branches of social sciences and artistic fields.

3. Organizing progressive and humanist (i.e. anti-religious institutions, anti-exploitation) writers, intellectuals and artists in various regions.

4. Promoting progressive and humanist (i.e. anti-religious institutions, anti-exploitation, communist) literary works and artistic creations in various languages.

5. Disseminating objective and realistic knowledge and consciousness among the public.

Indicators of achievement:

1. The response this concept paper receives from the concerned parties, agencies, groups and individuals that will be invited to sponsor/ contribute/help and/or participate for setting-up the infrastructure and facility, and for managing and operating the same.

2. The numbers of comrades that enrol for the courses run by the establishment, attend them, and complete them satisfactorily. The overall impression about the programs and time spent therein, and the understanding, strength, integrity, morale and commitment of each comrade after he/she completes the study and discussion.

3. The number of comrades that continue taking interest in and remain connected with the establishment after they complete their courses, and that willingly contribute in the operation of the institution and setting up of the new branches in South Asia and other places.

4. The ability to unite the progressive writers, set up the evaluation committees for the literary works/translations in the languages covered, and the standard, clarity and comprehensibility of the awarded literary works.

5. The movies and other artistic creations brought into existence and the extent of their success with the marketing agency and distributors, and the general response of the masses to them.

6. The translations performed and the extent of their success in the audience.

7. The extent to which the knowledge is spread among the general public that humanity has accumulated tremendous treasures of economic, scientific, technological and spiritual wealth, and consequently, the poverty, wretchedness, frustrations, malnourishment, mental and other diseases, ignorance, illiteracy, houselessness, lack of facilities and services, wars, world-war, etc., prevail merely due to the imbecility and extreme myopia of the capitalists.

8. The extent to which the understanding spreads in the public that there is too much work to do, and unemployment, environmental mess, ecological chaos, growth of religious fundamentalism, terrorism, etc., are all artificially prolonged and sustained and benefitted from by the system of capitalism that has been idiotically and perversely surviving far beyond its natural lifespan.

9. The extent to which the masses comprehend that useless employment, negative employment, pernicious employment and destructive employment are all a grave loss to the world humanity—and employment of all working-age people in productive, creative, scientific, environmental, educational, training…, useful jobs can make a heaven of the earth within ten years, and solve all pathetic, heartrending, gruesome economic and other poverty-based and personal-ownership-of-the-means of production-based problems of humanity. 

10. The extent to which the information is disseminated that poverty, ignorance, etc., are the main causes of population explosion and many other social, cultural, political and criminal problems in the world.

The Cost

Depending upon the circumstances, we plan to run all the courses free of charges for all the participants. The participants can, however, make voluntary contributions for the programs they participate in or for any other programs. That is, the courses, food, shelter, general medical facility, transport during the course, organized one-day outings on weekends during the courses, etc., will be free for all the participants. They will only have to spend their travel-costs from their homes to Kathmandu and back from Kathmandu to their respective native places. The economic contributions made will be confidential at the time of making them—to shield the non-contributors from embarrassment due to the capitalist culture’s notions; and will be acknowledged publicly later on unless any contributor does not wish his/her contribution to be known publicly.    

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Every work is very difficult in the beginning.

The infrastructure, land, personal rooms (with attached baths) for the participants, discussion rooms, dining halls, auditoriums, administrative blocks, etc., will cost a lot of initial expenditure.

For the 100 international participants, we shall have a separate facility. Everything will be separate for them: the food and rooms, the study and discussion rooms, the Comrade Instructors and Moderators, etc. The medium of studies, discussions or conversation for them shall be English to begin with.

For South Asian participants, the medium of studies, discussion or conversation shall be Urdu, Hindi or Kashmiri if such need arises.

The medium of studies, discussion or conversation can later on be extended to other languages too when we have sufficient human resources to conduct such courses in.

For the 100 Nepali participants, everything will be similar to what the international participants will have. However, the courses and discussions will be conducted in Nepali, and the food too will be Nepali.    

The Draft Design

Estimated Cost for the Establishment, Operations, Activities and Functions:

The total cost of this Program for World Peace, Social Security for all, Cultural Advancement, Political Development, March for the General Human Welfare, Education, Cultural Exchanges, Sports Contests and Research will be less than half the price of a Rafale Fighter Jet (Indian Ruling Class has purchased 36 of them for widespread devastation).

Capitalists spend hundreds of billions of dollars for building monasteries, temples, mosques, churches, etc., and for organizing and training religious fundamentalists, fanatics, terrorists, anti-sciences bigots, ignorance-lovers, etc.; we shall provide consciousness to the masses and we shall equip Marxist intellectuals with efficacious knowledge and knowhow about building mass organizations, so that, when the Global Socio-Political Season changes, they can lead their respective countries’ masses to avert wars or to take charge after the limited wars devastate their respective countries.

Following is the Estimated Cost     

Land:

50000 Square meters or slightly more = NRs 350 to 550 Crore (if it is within 15 kilometres’ distance from the Airport; lesser if it is within 25 Kilometres’ distance)

Building Blocks A, B, C and D:

NRs 350 to 550 Crore

Operational and Administrative Cost for five years:

NRs 100 Crore

Moviemaking and Movie/Documentary-dubbing Cost for five years:

NRs 350

Miscellaneous Expenditures:

NRs 50 Crore

Total Estimated Cost:

NRs 1200 to 1600 Crore

12000 to 16000 million Nepali Rupees (90 to 120 million Euros)

The Estimated Cost includes:

1. Comrade Instructors and Moderators’ training for international and Nepali participants;

2. Cost of establishing Literary Boards for the Selected South Asian Languages

3. Cost of translations, movie-script-writers

4. Cost of evaluation of Literary Works/Translations

5. Cost of awards, travel cost, boarding of the Honored Authors/Translators/Movie-Script Writers, etc.

6. Cost of required vehicles

If you would like to contribute, donate, finance or lend anything for this project, send an email to eygif@eygif.org

If you would like to participate in the study course at any time in your life or you are an expert on any branch of Marxism (dialectical materialism, historical materialism, literature, philosophy, politics, scientific achievements of humankind, literature, poetry, art…) email us at zjed@eygif.org

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The Curriculum

Daily Schedule

Farewell Program for the Previous Month’s Participants and Welcome Program for the New Participants (joint)!

With Comradely Shakehands and Revolutionary Greetings!

If you would like to contribute, donate, finance or lend anything for this project, send an email to eygif@eygif.org

If you would like to participate in the study course at any time in your life or you are an expert on any branch of Marxism (dialectical materialism, historical materialism, literature, philosophy, politics, scientific achievements of humankind, literature, poetry, art…) email us at zjed@eygif.org