Hello, chapos.
I'm posting from Dubai, and I hate everything this country stands for. I was born and raised here to immigrant Indian parents, and my dad owns a business, with a small number of migrant labourers under him. He pays them "more than what they'd get somewhere else" and that basically amounts to "send some money back home and live on the cheapest most affordable food" wages.
My mother is a manager at a company, and I recently saw her reprimanding a group of workers who came to raise a silent protest about their wages being halved. I stood there silently and cringed helplessly.
In this hypercapitalist cyberpunk (it is indeed low life, high technology sans the lawlessness) dystopian hellworld, racism, sexism, homophobia and classism is a way of life; and if it isn't overt, it is most definitely covert. I have been suffering from depression, suicidal ideation and mood disorders for the better part of a decade now.
After getting exposed to Marxist theories, the idea that I have been brought up on the fruit of surplus value stolen from labour weighs down on my mind. I also consider myself an ecosocialist, and that in itself is enough for me to hate the hellhole that I stay in. On the few occasions where I have tried to talk about my leftist ideals to either friends or family, I have been mocked, belittled and disregarded as a crazy fucking loser (been NEETing for 3 years now, I haven't been able to find a job with my college degree, and my mental illness makes it hard for me to persist/commit to anything) who is simply bitter and lazy, and is anyways just living off his parents, and is not to be taken seriously. Or they accept that I'm probably right, right before they sarcastically wish me good luck with a revolution.
I'm sick of living like this. I don't fit in anywhere, and when I do, I feel like I'm faking it. And oh yeah, to top it all off, I'm a closeted queer and an ex-Muslim atheist. I feel like I have very little to look forward in life. Doom-scrolling through r/collapse, seeing how the world is being overtaken by neoliberalism, the hate for minorities back in India led by the current fascist government, climate change denial ensuring a shittier quality of life down the decades in the region I live right now, lack of real social connections with irl folks...
I have been seriously considering suicide for the last week, and it feels like more than ideation. I think I've reached that stage of being at peace with suicide, and I think this post is some half assed attempt to reach out for help. I weirdly relate to a lot of the things you dudes say, so I thought I'd post here.
You're loved and wanted here comrade. Always remember the struggle is global, and we won't rest until everyone is liberated.
Engles was the Son of a Factory Owner, Marx was an intellectual who married a Countess, Kropotkin was a literal Prince. Trotsky was a wealthy Kulak, Lenin came from serfs that had clawed their way into University and wealth. Stalin was the son of a shoemaker.
None of these are workers, though the last is the lowest rank of the Petit Bourgeois.
So as a class traitor you're in pretty illustrious company.
Dubai sucks, it's the kind of hyper-Capitalist hellhole you only see in the imperial core in places like San Francisco and the London City District. You're in the position of a western communist organiser in 1830, and that's not a pretty place. But look what they accomplished.
There are comrades and orgs in Dubai, I can't help you get in contact with them for obvious reasons, unfortunately, but they exist from personal experience. Maybe if you look hard enough you'll find them. There are also charitable organisations in the region, you'll often find secular-minded left wingers doing things there.
You also seem to have close contact with workplaces, if the workers have issues, help them out in small ways. Even if you can only give them moral support out of earshot of your parents, that's an enormous moral boost for a country that doesn't allow unions.
You might also consider writing. An effort post here about the situation in the UAE from a local Marxist perspective is sorely needed, and I'm sure any number of comrades here would forward such an essay to local left wing publications. At the very least I would love to read it.
Thank you, comrade. Yes I'm aware of how Marx and Engels were the good kind of class traitors, and the parallel you drew between my kind and the organisers in 1830 is chilling.
I have sat and discussed about communism with one of the workers in my dad's company, and there was a point where there was a mutual recognition about where our political tendencies fell. It didn't go any further than that, because it was somewhat awkward when I had to ground the conversation and essentially conclude by saying "yeah I've read about marxist theory, it's pretty interesting for a bookworm like me haha".
Thank you for taking the time to write out such a detailed comment, I learned some new things from it, comrade. o7