SocialistStories حكايات اشتراكية

This is my favorite play of Dario Fo's (that I have read anyway). As with all of Fo's plays it is very comical, yet the theme of the play is only reinforced by this not cheapened. Since Fo's is a socialist most of his plays have elements of socialist ideology in them, but Can't Pay, Won't Pay, in my opinion carries a much more explicitly socialist message than most of Fo's plays.

In this play Fo uses as his topic a certain specific type of "strike" which I have rarely seen anything written about, but which I think is a very powerfull and radical concept. This type of "strike" could be referred to as a "price strike" and I think this concept is very relevant to Egypt, I mean all you have to do is ask someone if they like Mubarak and most often the first reason (among many of course) they will give for hating him is high prices. In a "price strike" customers, driven to extremes by the high price of basic foods, either pay what price they think is fair or else don't pay at all. I think that this is bound to happen in the beginning of, or as a precursor to, any revolution (real revolution, not a washington-engineered "color" revolution) nowadays. Also, this type of strike obviously demonstrates a very high level of class conciousness on the part of the strikers, and I think that this type of strike is every bit as justified as a labor strike, and even that it is much more radical and revolutionary an act. Here is an excerpt from the play:

"Some workers from the factory opposite told us not to worry about the police. 'It's your right to pay your own price. It's like a strike.' They said. 'In fact, it's better than a strike. Instead of the workers losing out, this time the bosses lose out.'

Another very relevant socialist topic is brought up in the play, and that is the question of self managed factories, and more generally throughout the play, the reactionary nature of many labor unions, which regularly sell out the workers. Here is a particularly interesting quote from the main character Antonia, and I personally think this is one of the most moving passages of the play (and don't worry it is not really related to the plot, so it won't spoil anything):

"Most people are decent underneath. Not everybody of course. But people like us. Working people having a job making ends meet. People like that are on our side, as long as you show them you won't let the bosses kick you in the teeth, that you're prepared to fight for your rights, and don't wait for St Peter to leave his pearly gates and come down and do it all for you. I remember when I worked at the biscuit factory. What a bloody job. But it was a living. Then suddenly the owners decided to 'rationalise' the place, as they call it, because profits were down. In fact, they were only kicking us out because they were planning to close it completely. So we occupied the place. Three hundred of us. Then we started to run the place, we formed a co-operative. Especially the union leaders, 'It's a losing battle, brothers,' they told us. But do you know what? All of us put every penny we could spare into the factory. Some people put their savings in and one bloke even sold his flat. All of us pawned silver and stuff that we never saw again. Sheets and blankets even. That's how we got our first bag of flour. We went round the shops ourselves with the biscuits and sold them at the factory gates. Plenty of people bought biscuits they didn't need, just to help us out. And to show solidarity. Then when things got bad for us, thousands of workers collected money for us. I'll never forget when they brought the money in. We were all kneading the dough as usual and they put the money on the table. All wrapped up in a big dishcloth – a great big pile, and all the women started to cry like rain into the dough. Nobody moved and nobody spoke. We just went on mixing tears and dough for biscuits...[after a while] the CP moved in, didn't it? 'You can't last out,' they said. So they persuaded us to negotiate with the management. That was the end of it. Two months later the factory closed down. Another 300 jobs up the spout."

The play also shows how circumstances push even the most hesitant workers to become radical and revolutionary. I think this play is very important, and I guarantee you that if it was taught in schools and specifically portrayed as a SOCIALIST play, the ranks of revolutionary socialists would swell substantially year after year. This is a problem we should always be aware of and try to fight, i.e. the association of communism and somewhat less often socialism with the propaganda definitions of these by capitalist governments. Many people are really radical socialists and even marxists, although they would criticize socialism and communism because they are unaware of the true meanings of these ideologies. In fact just the other day I was talking to a friend at the university, and we were arguing about communism, because I had told her a long time ago that I was a communist. Now she is a very intelligent, independent minded girl, and when we were arguing (if that's the word for it) I basically criticized some aspect of capitalism and in arguing back she would elaborate the marxist concept which applies to this situation! It was a really absurd arguement, here is someone who has never read any books or works of socialist theory, and who's conception of what communism and socialism are is based heavily on capitalist propaganda, and yet she is very intelligent, critical, and obviously cares about inequality and for the lower classes, and thus she not only can argue very well in marxist terms, but she also believes strongly in many important marxist ideas. What's my point in all of this? My point is that we need to spread works like this, and point out to people in general when a piece of literature is obviously expressing socialist ideas, and in general try to educate others on what socialism really is, because there are many people who are natural socialists, let may never realize it due to the propaganda spread against socialism, communism, marxism, etc...

Anyway please enjoy this play ya comrades:

Liberation:

Can't Pay, Won't Pay - Dario Fo.pdf