From: "Harald Beyer-Arnesen" <haraldba-AT-online.no>
Subject: AUT: Re: Reply to Harald, 7th Iteration
Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2001 09:25:20 +0200


Chris, I appreaciate you critique against my comments around
the question of Iraq etc. I still believe you are far off on this though,
and I do still sincerly believe, right or wrong, that your stand on
this at least in part comes from a lack of knowledge. I also know
perfectly well that that is not a satisfactory answer. I will be glad
to return to the question latter, but right now I do not have the time.
I do not have the time because a proper answer would have to
be very, very long, covering a century of concrete history, not at
least Iraq's strong link to German nationalism through the military
academies in Instanbul and Germany. Almost the entire first
generation of Iraq's military political elite had this backgound.
And in the 1930ies and onward the educational system of Iraq
consciously copied that of the Nazis, with its own Hitlerjugend
and all. A look on the writings of Sami Shawkat is instructive in
this context . But I will get back to this latter when I have the time.
(Something that reminds me of that I have to find some old files
on this written in Norwegian and post them to a Swedish
subsriber to this list.)

An unsurpassed book on the first two-thirds of twentieth century
Iraq is Hanna Batatu's more than 1200 pages long "The Old
Social Classes and The Revolutionary Movements of Iraq: A
study of Iraq's Old Landed and Cormmericial Classes and of
its Communists, Ba'thists, and Free Officers." For the German
connection Reeva S. Simon's "Iraq Between the Two World Wars: The
creation of a Nationalist Ideology"  is of extreme good value. 
Then there is of course the obligatory "Republic of Fear" by
Samir a-Khalil (or Kanan Makiya which is his real name) but
also Amatzia Baram's "Culture, History & Ideology in the Formation
of Ba'thist Iraq, 1968-89". "Arab Nationalism: An anthology"
edited by Sylvia G. Haim is also very useful background reading.
 
Btw, about the middle class student thing, I never gone to any
university, nor have I finished high school. I just have a curious
mind. I read this books the frist time while working fulltime on
the assembly line. There I also had discussions about Islam
with fellow-workers with muslim backgrounds (both believers
and non-believers). Unsurprisingly to me I got the most support
from some fellow workers grown up within muslim families.
Similarily unsurprsing the Norwegians with racist attitudes
never dared openely critisize Islam when muslims (or those
they thought were so due their background) were present.
You cannot combat racist attitudes through silence and non-
dialogue. 


On Islam etc. I think you partially have misunderstood my
position, though this very likely be the fault of mine. First I
am not to found of the "worse than" approach to this. The
essence of my critique is that you cannot simply situate the
power of the capitalist world disorder in Washington D.C.
or "the West", or even institutions as the WTO, IMF etc.  If
it was so, capitalism would have been relative easy to over-
come. This disorder does not have just one centre but many.
Afganistan has constituted one of those during the last
decades. In many parts of the world Islamism, as Arab
nationlism before it, has in many respects been more crucial
for to upholding of the global capitalist disorder than the
Pentagon. In other words from a social revolutionary point
of view populist reaction often poses a greater threat than
governmental ones.

I do not buy your argument that even if President Bush
had critisized Islam, which has _not_,  we should not do so.
If I do not remember wrong there has been some US
presidents that have critisized Stalin as well, even Hitler. How
to present such a critique in public as opposed to on a
discussion list like this, is another question. Nor do I buy
your argument that this question should be left entirely to
people with particular backgrounds. We are all part of
the same bloody civilisation.
        I am in no way suggesting that we make the question
of Islam in to THE central issue here and now. We do not
disagree on that our main focus at the moment should be to
do our utmost to stop the bombs falling over Afghanistan,
and even more crucial though linked to the former, to assure
that hundred thousands or more do not die due to lack of
food, shelter, water and medicine. But we should neither
overlook how this have been made possible at least in part
due to the force of Islamism. This is precisely what the
Islamist have wanted.
        What we see unfolding is in large part a direct result
of overlooking the "lesser enemy," of only counting those
who die of  US bombs and bullets as worthy dead. Thus
back in 1971 the Pakistani Army's war on Hindus of genocidal
proportions in East Pakistan (now Bangldesh) together with
the mass-slaughtering of Bengali muslims, never became a
major issue on the left, nor did  the latter slaugtering in the
long war between Iran and Iraq do so. It is not only that human
misery is as real when not directly "made in the USA," but
that this madness is for the reproduction of the
capitalist world order.

You write "Also, I think that Good Soldier Svjek's stuff on
the new secularism are very important and poses a real
problem for your argument about the reactionary nature
of Islam."

No, it does not. Nor is there anything particular new in this.
Contrary to the general belief, Iran has always been one
of the places within the "islamic world" where secular
forces have been strongest, at least in the urban areas.
In addition to this, the years of "Khomeinism" has been
the most practical critique of Islam there could be, thus
people from Iran very often are directly hostile to Islam.
There is another aspect to this. Racist and condescending
attitudes towards Arabs are quite common in Iran, and
there also always have existed an alternative "national"
religion there, thus you can often hear Islam denounced
as Arab imperialism. I have heard similar sentiments among
the Berbers of North Africa, this is also part of the story behind
the strong opposition against Islamism in Kabyle.
        There exist strong secularising forces within "Islamic
countries": This is not strange as the people who live
there are part of the same world as the rest of us. Islamism
is to a great degree a direct reaction to this. There is civil
war going on, at times extremely bloody at other times of
a more silent and less violent kind. The moment this reaches
the point where religion is made into personal matter alone
(however un-Islamic this may be. Believers have never been
too afraid of contradictions) then I will also view this very
differently.
        I might also pose it differerently: The moment it
becomes unproblematic to publish Karl Marx "German
Ideology" in "Islamic countries," Plato's Rebublic and
Dante uncensored, and so on, then much of the problem
will be gone. 

As for the "The Revolutionary Afghani Women's Association,
RAWA,"  those I have talken to, in exile, have been much
closer to my point of view than you seem to be. It is however
very difficult for them to say this publicly, which is in fact part
of my  main point here. The point is not to make every muslim
renounce their religious beliefs, but that they can do so without
fear. Neither does RAWA advocate for a social revolution,
which is no reason for us not doing so, even if private
property is protected by the Prophet.

You talk about "the brutal enforcement of Sharia". This brings
us to the core. The vast majority of muslims do not want
Sharia laws, still they have a very hard time arguing that these
very laws are not central to Islam. I am all for those muslims
(many of who are in fact agnostics or atheists)  who try to
"prove" otherwise, and likewise "prove" that Muhammad
was an advocate of gender equality, even if this is in fact
wrong. But revisionist interpretations of the Bible
was carried out on the background of and reinforced by a
critique of Christianity and religion as such. There is no
reason belive that the same would not apply to Islam, in
particular since Islam lacks a New Testament, and existed
from its beginning and almost 13 centuries as a statist, or
rather emperical religion. The questioning of the Sharia is
(with a few exceptions within Sufism) a modern
phenomenom.

Harald


    .


 




Everything I say below hinges on a few things.  First and foremost, I
base it on a rejection of Negri's notion of Empire, the idea of a kind
of ultra-imperialism in which we have one basically unified global
ruling class.  International mediating bodies do not a unified ruling
class make.  But I am going to address that more later in a piece I am
writing in response to commie00.  But neither do I agree with Lenin's
analyis of imperialism.  I find the Aufheben critique very persuasive.
At best, I am feeling ambiguous about these matters.  Frankly, council
communism never developed a real alternative to Lenin and Luxemburg,
both of which are radically flawed.  Marxist-Humanism basically
accepts Lenin's analysis, but adds the concept of the epoch of state
capitalism, which is also radically flawed.  Socialisme ou Barbarie
has its failings.  Frankly, I am not sure how autonomia addresses
this.  The work I have seen outside of Negri does not address this
really and seems little concerned with the relation of the major
capitalist states to the rest of the world.  The idea of global
capital vs. global labor is attractive, but often misses that that
relation is mediated, most specifically by the fragmentation of the
capital- labor relation into 'the economic' and 'the political', and
the fragmentation of 'the political' into nation states.  So how do we
understand and grapple with this movement?  Especially in the current
period where radical changes have taken place.  I don't have a
satisfactory answer, Harald.  All I know is that I am not at all
satisfied with Leninism, Luxemburgism, or Empire.  With that in
mind...

I have thought more about your posts and frankly I still do not see
how your position is defensible.  A few things become apparent in your
discussion:

You echo many of the arguments and ideas of the mainstream media and
politicians about the Islamic Fundamentalist Devil.  The following
statement by George Bush is germain:  [In his September 20 address to
the US Congress, President Bush called the enemies of America "enemies
of freedom". "Americans are asking, 'Why do they hate us?' " he said.
"They hate our freedoms - our freedom of religion, our freedom of
speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each
other."]  This is not unlike your statements about Islam.  You
conclude that Islam and Islamic Fundamentalism are indeed more
reactionary than US capital because you can list atrocities.  That may
be a good measure of the bankruptcy of an ideology or a political
tendency, but since Islamic Fundamentalism is a specific by-product of
capital's reorganization on a world scale since 1973, we are not
talking about whose ideology is worse or whether one is worse on this
or that specific (even when it is the brutal enforcement of Sharia.)
Rather, the US is clearly the hegemonic power in defense of capital,
and as such, is the most reactionary power on the planet because it is
the bulwark of capital.  Even though US domestic practices are not
nearly as reactionary in most respects (I might take exception on
issues such as the treatment of Native Americans, police brutality
against African Americans which has turned into a 2000 person killing
spree in the last ten years, etc.), the US has carried out murder and
mayhem on a scale that Islamic Fundamentalism can only dream of.  Now,
if you reject the idea of a hegemonic power and the relevance of
asymmetrical power relations between countries, then my point will
seem irrelevant and incorrect.  But we can come back to that.

The 'No War but the Class War' slogan falls apart at exactly this
moment because it has no means to locate relative power in the world
and treats all relations as equals, as if capital did not express
itself as asymmetrical relations of power.  To ignore asymmetrical
relations of power is to ignore all of the complexities of race,
gender, sexuality, etc. and the way they get played out.  Instead, we
have the generic call which is no other than "Black and white, unite
and fight".  This is the kind of call made by such wonderful groups as
Labour Militant in relation to Northern Ireland, which called for
unified workers' militias in 1968, even as Protestant workers were
killing Catholic workers.  Or like the US Socialist Workers' Party in
1959 in North Carolina trying to tell Black workers there, fighting
the Klan in gun battles, that they should unite with white workers.
This kind of approach is both bad politics and bad Marxism, since it
effectively ignores the political realities (in this case, that the
mass of Muslims are held hostage by both the US and Islamic
Fundamentalism and the existing regimes) and Marx's discussion of
class as the product of alienated social relations, not vice versa.
IMO, the 'No War but..." slogan is simply the other side of the coin
from Trotskyism in its vacuity, much as council communism never had an
alternative to Lenin and Luxemburg's notions of imperialism.

As such, the primary call for revolutionaries not directly confronting
Islamic Fundamentalism is for the defeat of the United States and its
coalition, for revoulutionary defeatism.  I say this because it
clearly demarcates us against any kind of national chauvinism, from
support of the US as if (and I feel this is implicit in the comments
that there are forces more reactionary than the US) US imperialism
could improve the situation in Afghanistan (a situation they are
partially responsible for creating).  To start from a "plague on both
houses", 3rd camp position effectively equates these as equally
reactionary, and yet, if we think about this on an international
scale, from a global perspective, does Islamic Fundamentalism actually
pose a threat to US hegemony (or to Empire if one is so predisposed)?
Clearly not.  No matter the desire, Islamic Fundamentalism is not a
threat to the current status quo.  This is about jockeying for
position, about being left out of the mix, about the composition of
exploitation in the Middle East.  In that framework, Fundamentalism is
incomparably weaker.  That means, IMO, that the main threat in Central
Asia AT THIS MOMENT is the US and NOT the Taliban or Islamic
Fundamentalism, not because it's all the US's fault, but because the
US ultimately has to reinforce the very reactionary regimes and
politics it finds itself in temporary military conflict with.

This does not imply political support of Fundamentalism, but a
willingness to grapple with the reality of asymmetrical power
relations.  I do not oppose the demonstrations against US bombing, for
example, happening in many countries, even where they are lead by
politically suspect forces.  But I think we would have to fight for
the idea that Islamic Fundamentalism cannot meet the population's
demands, that it in fact colludes with the US in attacking the
population, in restraining popular resistance to capital's
representatives locally and globally.  The fact is that revolutionary
ideas have found no way to gain a foothold in the last 20 odd years,
in part due to Islamicism, in part to the changing composition of
labor in the region, but also in part to the role played by the US and
its regional lackeys.  Frankly, the destruction of Israel and its
replacement by a secular Palestine (hell, even a non-secular
Palestine) would fundamentally undermine one ideological, military and
political prop of the rotten regimes in Central Asia, alongside the
Islamic Fundamentalists.  Removing US military bases from the region
would undermine another prop.  In fact, in those countries, the call
would still be for the defeat of one's own ruling class or wannabe
ruling class (in this case, both the Fundamentalists and the
government), as well as the US.  This is justifiable, however, on the
grounds that they cannot defeat the US, cannot oppose foreign military
aggression, and cannot resolve or begin to resolve the genuine
problems.  Islam has nothing to do with it at that level because we
will not convince the majority of Muslims to stop being Muslims
(keeping in mind the complicated relations between nation, religion,
race and ethnicity in the so-called "Muslim World" that make such a
phrase or idea problematical at best.)

Also, in relation to domestic racism here in the US, do you suppose
that telling people that Islam and Islamic Fundamentalism will put you
on the side of the victims of racist attacks?  Or does it not simply
play right into the racist onslaught against Mulsims and those
mistaken as Muslim?  And how would you work with the Muslim community
here to organize defense andsupport with those attitudes?  It may be
ok for those people who are secularist Muslims in Norway or the US,
but there is a broader community that needs any and all support they
can get.  Equating Islam and Islamic Fundamentalism will isolate us
from that community and encourage racist ideas.  On the explicit
level, I would support the News and Letters statement in so far as it
makes this explicit, even if it undermines that stance in other ways
(in a certain sense, the statement is trapped between Harald and I,
moving from one to the other in a contradictory dance.)

Why do I insist on this differentiation?  Well, first of all, I do not
live in any of these countries.  Since I take the idea of working
class autonomy seriously and I am not a vanguardist, I don't see where
I would get off pretending I am not living in the center of global
capitalist reaction.  If I take the idea of self-determination
seriously, then I am not going to engage in the imperial arrogance of
claiming that I know what is best.  Certainly, I can claim to know
abstractly, through reading and discussions, but I have no presence,
represent nothing practically, in any of those places.  Concretely,
the best thing I can do for the working class of those regions is to
work for the complete and total withdrawal of the United States, to
support whatever revolutionary working class tendencies exist, and to
support the opposition to the bombing.  But if we do not start from
solidarity with the objects of US military aggression, we do not have
firm internationalist ground under our feet.

At the same time, I think we have to make a clear argument that
Islamic Fundamentalism is reactionary, anti-working class, maybe even
fascist without making the mistake of turning towards anti-fascism,
which would posit US 'democracy' as less reactionary than 'fascist'
Islamic Fundamentalism, which I think Harald does.  I am also in
agreement with the critique that posing class struggle and revolution
as war puts our struggle on the same terms as capital's war.  I am not
for that at all and I think our slogans should not pit reality as two
armed camps facing each other.  If nothing else, we are too implicated
in the creation of capital by our daily practices to pose capital as a
pure 'Other', a 'Them' we can point to as evil.  Our struggle is to
destroy power, to eliminate domination, and in effect, to destroy
ourselves as working class.

While you say that Islam may be doctrinally no worse, you insist that
Islam is fundamentally more reactionary in the here and now.  Given
that the vast majority of Muslims do NOT agree with either the
Fundamentalists or the reactionary Islamic regimes, I think this is
false.  In fact, simply from a strategic point of view, your idea that
we decry all Islam as reactionary will alienate most Muslims from us
when for our purposes the central issue is not their religious
beliefs, but their actions.  This does not eliminate the need for
critiques of Islam, any more than critiques of any other religion.  It
DEFINITELY does not eliminate the need for critiques of Islamic
Fundamentalism, but necessitates it be critiqued as a political
phenomena.

To lump Islam and Islamic Fundamentalism together cedes all ground to
the Fundamentalist claims that their Islam is the one, true Islam.  In
effect, you agree with the Fundamentalists, but only in relation to
Islam, of course, not Judaism, Christianity or Hinduism (based on an
extremely crude and reductive logic for why there can be no Hindu
Fundamtnalism, even though it very much exists).  I certainly do agree
that Islamic Fundamentalism supports incredible barbarsim against
women, for example.  But the same things are happening in India under
Hindu Fundamentalism.  This is not simply an Islamic question, but a
question of a new class composition.  In not extending the logic you
correctly apply to the other religions, you provide political cover
for the anti-Islamic religio-racism of the times and validate the
Islamic Fundamentalist position.

Also, I think that Good Soldier Svjek's stuff on the new secularism
are very important and poses a real problem for your argument about
the reactionary nature of Islam.  This is very interesting and I
wonder to what extent it reflects other places in the North Africa and
Central Asia?  Of course, the ISIS group are the ones who put it out
as well as the article you sent me...

Let me give an example that addresses two issues: The Revolutionary
Afghani Women's Association.  RAWA is not anti-Islam, in fact could
not be.  Most of their members consider themselves Mulsims.  And yet
they are utterly hostile to both the Taliban and US bombing.  Do you
supose that your anti-Islamic stance would align you with RAWA or cut
you off?  RAWA and the women they appeal to would not be likely to
hear you out if you cannot make a differentiation they clearly do
between Islam and Fundamentalism.  Second, this would also alienate
you from a women's organization that is struggling against sexism in
Afghanistan, and which has reached out to women all over the world.

As for Turkey's secularism, indeed, it is only partial, but the
clearly Christian appeals in the US right now underline the limits of
secularism here, even though the two are different in detail and
scope.

On a different note.  I am tired of the suggestions that because
someone disagrees with someone else, they must therefore be ignorant
or uneducated.  Fabian, commie00 and Harald have all used this line of
argument with me as of late.  What those assertions genuinely betray
is an attitude that says, "If you don't agree with me, you must be
less well-versed and not know the facts."  This annoying tendency is
definitely the domain of intellectuals and represents a wonderfully
middle class, technocratic-specialist frame of mind.  It is one of the
'occupational hazards' of revolutionary intellectuals.  So I would
like to take this opportunity to ask my comrades (whose ideas and
intelligence I am fond of) on this list to stop using this elitist and
rather arrogant argument unless you are ready to display in factual
detail that I or anyone else is factually wrong.  Just because I
disagree means I don't understand.  In fact, comrades, I understand
quite well.  I may be wrong, but that has to be proved both in theory
and practice, not by asserting my lack of technical-specialist
knowledge in 'knowledge professional' fashion, i.e. assertions that
either I have not read something, "obviously do not know the history",
etc.  Otherwise, there is little difference here from the practice of
the wannabe vanguards who provide people with a world-view utterly
alien to them which they are 'specialists' (professional
revolutionaries) in, disseminating their pre-fabricated political
knowledge to the lowly masses.  This may work well with university
students who too often eagerly and uncritically accept the
master-journeyman relationship, as they prepare to be little masters
some day, but it has no place in the working class movement.  (As per
usual, I will continue to argue that the SI was correct on this in
their piece on the poverty of student life.)

As a result, I wanted to call into question Harald's comment that Iraq
was most like Nazi Germany of any post-WWII country.  Exactly because
this comment plays into the media hysteria about Hussein as Hitler, I
am very hostile to these comments.  And in calling it into question, I
was hoping that Harald would pick it up in a meaningful way: what
features of Iraq are similar to Germany in the 1920s (major capitalist
power?  highly developed capitalist industry?  major military power on
the world scale?)?  What aspects of the Ba'athists in Iraq (which were
different indeed from the Ba'ath in Syria, Egypt and the Ba'athist
influenced Islamicists in Iran) reflect the Nazis?  Do we see a
comparable mass movement which engages a large portion of the
population in smashing the working class and working class
organizations?  I objected because I did not feel that Harald did
anything but echo the kind of problematic statements he is echoing
now, not because I think that the Ba'athists, for example, are like
the Khmer Rouge as a movement.  I rather preferred to challenge the
notion that the Ba'athists were uniquely reactionary, which I hope
Harald understands is a running theme in his dicourse on the Middle
East.  But since I did not make that critique explicit, my response
was too ambiguous to be helpful in continuing our dialogue, so I am
not faulting Harald's response alone.  But to claim that I do not know
much about Iraq, the Ba'athists, Iran, etc. simply because I find the
differences minimal from a certain vantage point, well, see the above
comments.

Yours obstinately
Chris





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