Relevance of Marxist Poetry of Faiz Ahmed Faiz in the Age of Neo-liberalism

Abstract

Neo-liberalism is a modern politico-economic theory
which foregrounds trade liberalisation, removal of all barriers to
commerce and the privatisation of all available resources and services
as the sole parameters of economy which ensure economic growth,
prosperity and distributional justice. In the international sphere, neoliberalism advocates unhindered flow of goods, social services and
capital across national boundaries. It calls for the end of dialectical
reasoning in this unipolar world of capitalistic triumphalism. The critics
of neo-liberalism claim that due to its drive for dismantling of economic
regulation, neo-liberalism is posing a global threat to the rights of the
workers and the sovereignty of the less developed states to own their
national resources. Written in bi-polar world, the poetry of Faiz which is
modelled upon Marxist ideological and critical consciousness advocates
elimination of political, economic and social oppression across the
globe. A critique of capitalism, it lends intellectual authority to the forces
of resistance against bourgeois hegemony. Present study investigates the
relevance of the poetry of Faiz in the age of neo-liberalism (corporate
imperialism) which calls for the elimination of trade unions and welfare
states that have offered some protection to the working class from the
unbridled effects of corporate profiteering