Date: 5 Oct 2001 09:28:32 +0200
From: "Tahir Wood" <twood-AT-uwc.ac.za>
Subject: AUT: Re: Re: IMHO, You Both Are Wrong (Chris & N&L)




>>> cwright-AT-21stcentury.net 10/05/01 05:53AM >>>
 Hatred of the
US is quite explicable and has got to be understood.  If one refuses to
attempt to explain this, then one refuses analysis of what happened.
Fundamentalism is explicable and in fact is directly related to processes
like globalization and the recomposition of global labor and the existing
political situation in the Middle East.  These are NOT mysteries.

Tahir: No, but I think there is something here that no-one is willing to talk about anymore on any of the lists that I belong to. There is suddenly such an unwillingness to be at all critical of religion as it pertains to the middle east or even of OBL or the Taliban. Are we so affected by recent events that we have lost perspective to the same extent as the national chauvinists and imperialists? I am quite prepared to state that I think the Taliban is the most reactionary regime in the world; it is partly a creature of US imperialism itself and partly an obscurantist patriarchal barbarity which has committed huge crimes against the people of Afghanistan. Secondly, fundamentalism is only partly a reaction to imperialist globalisation; to say it is just this is to make no distinction betwen it and the various other social movements, such as the Seattle-Genoa phenomena or what you will. Please, let's not all become soft in the head over this matter. I find it quite amazing that people who just a few months ago were quite prepared to denounce Milosovec (or even Fidel Castro) are now portraying a cuddly Taliban just to show how anti-imperialist or anti-Zionist they are. 

I would like to take up the question of anti-Arab and anti-Muslim racism
however at some point.  

Tahir: I hope you do Chris, because I need to know what "anti-Muslim racism" can even mean. If it is simple a kind of ethnocentric chauvinism than I am with you, but if it means that anyone who is critical of Islam or Islamic fundamentalism is an imperialist or something then I will become very afraid indeed of what is happening here. Islamic fundamentalism is real and it is no less hostile to the cause of communism than the American ruling class. But there is one difference, we can all criticise democracy as much as we like, and I do, but western-style democracies is the only place where communists can exchange ideas and propogate them with any semblance of security at all. The Taliban hand out the death sentence to someone who even propogates another religion, never mind communism. Islamist regimes will always do this. I cannot respect a left that is afraid to call things by their true names, out of short term political expediency. As for the threat of global terrorism, it is real, and it kills workers, not some abstraction called 'imperialism'. So there I've said it.

Too often, Left events are not fun even
when they are supposed to be.  I don't really like to hang out with most
Leftists I know.  

Tahir: I don't hang out with any because most of them are prudes. You can't have fun with people who are prudes. I prefer to hang out with whores, jazz musicians and my neighbour who knows the star signs of her cats.





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