From: "Good Soldier Svejk" <goodsoldiersvejk-AT-hotmail.com>
Subject: AUT: Attitudes to Islam
Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2001 13:36:06 +0100


For your consideration, three items on critical/popular attitudes to Islam,
that I found during the course of a row with a secularist. This is more or
less the extent of my knowledge, so will refrain from drawing any
conclusions.
I've heard that during the Iranian Revolution, the workers of Abadan were
the most advanced in their opposition to Islam / fundamentalism; any leads
would be gratefully received.

John

(1) From Bayat, "Workers and Revolution in Iran", Zed 1987, pp.48-9:

"By being religious we mean having a belief in a meta-physical force which
is assumed to determine the relations between men on the earth. Given this
conception, we would not regard Teheran industrial workers as religious per
se; rather, we would suggest that for them religion is a cultural form whose
content changes with historical situations. This should not be taken to
imply that they are aetheist or faithless, but their religion is determined
by the relations between men, not the other way around. The reaction of the
workers in the Azmayesh factory to Khomeini's famous statement that 'we have
not made revolution for cheap melons, we have made it for Islam' was

"They say we have not made revolution for economic betterment! What have we
made it for, then? They say, for Islam! What does Islam mean then? We made
it for the betterment of the conditions of our lives."

In an historical situation when a secular modern political language has not
yet become popular, the language, the terms and the symbols of the
predominantly popular culture, religion, have become political. Political
behaviour is clothed in religious language and slogans and even in sermons.
Religion (as popular culture) is no longer simply an instrument of class
domination, but rather a subject of class struggle.

<snip comparison with Methodism, Jacobinism & liberation theology>

The Teheran Workers have not yet developed a labour religion or a coherent
radical religion. At the same time, they lack secular traditions to express
their immediate aspirations (mass trade unions, workers' parties or
socio-cultural associations). As a consequence, the working class has tended
to change the content of established religion, and has had to borrow certain
elements of the dominant cultural forms which do not historically belong to
it.

This dialectic of change by means of 'traditions' is quite similar to the
one by which E.P. Thompson described plebeian culture of 18th Century
England: "The plebeian culture is rebellious, but rebellious in defence of
culture."

This incapacity of the workers to develop their *own* cultural expression
points to their weakness. It is here - in this limbo of being religious and
not being religious, in the struggle against dominating religion by
religious language - that obscurities, ambiguities, mistakes and deceits can
easily take root."

(2), From Abdullah, "New Secularism in the Arab World":
http://www.isisforum.com/skeptics/secularism.htm

"No opinion polls concerning religious beliefs are usually allowed in Arab
countries, to judge the real spread of secular ideas. An exception is "The
survey of living conditions of the Palestinian society under Israeli
occupation in Gaza, West Bank and Arab Jerusalem," which challenges some
widely held notions about religious attitudes. It shows that the percentage
of 'secular' men is 20%, going up to an unexpected 30% among women, and that
it is on average higher than the percentage of Islamic 'activists' on the
other end of the spectrum even in the Gaza refugee camps. Secular is defined
in the study as someone who's life is not dictated by religion. The larger
middle ground is being held by simply 'observant' moslems. Partial surveys
by some university students elsewhere seem to confirm this distribution of
the degree of belief."

(3) The following report is the only one I've found that mentions religious
targets in the Sabzevar riots in early September:
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2001/sep2001/iran-s01.shtml

"In another sign of political and social tension in Iran, a major riot
erupted in the northeastern part of the country on Thursday. Crowds went on
the rampage in Sabzevar, in Khorasan province, blocking roads, setting tires
on fire and attacking public buildings, including the governor's office, a
religious site and the site of Friday prayers. The protests followed the
Iranian government's announcement a few days earlier that Khorasan was to be
split up into three provinces and that the city of Mashhad and the towns of
Birjand and Bojnurd would become provincial capitals. Residents of Sabzevar
want the province divided in four so their town will also serve as a
capital, in the hope that this status might attract funds and government
projects to the poverty-stricken area that borders Afghanistan."



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