Re: Islamic Militancy: It is their problem

In a message dated 10/30/01 6:02:20 PM Pacific Standard Time, KSamman@aol.com 
writes:

<< Yes, we need to consider the way "local dynamics" become relevant, 
especially the way they are appropriated historically.  But what part of 
history are you talking about?  I don't think Sherman means that what 
happened in seventh century Arabia is by definition the "local dynamics" of 
Sept. 11th 2001?  No, I think that what he means is that when a Palestinian's 
home is being destroyed by Israeli US made helicopters and four of his 
children are walking around with no limbs, the fact that he carries a green 
flag with citations of the Quran is related to local dynamics of that 
struggle for existence.  I'm not being sarcastic.  I know Steve's politics, 
and he is exceptionally pro-Palestinian.  But he, like the rest of us, need 
to be careful to use historical arguments in context of history.  Hussain's 
remarks (first posting) that 
 Sherman is calling useful was conflating religious revival movements of 
centuries past to claim that Islam has always had a militant streak.  Thus, 
history has been told.  No, that is not history I am afraid, but a Bernard 
Lewis like argument: "Islam has always been militant, and the west has 
nothing to do with the chaos of the region".  Hence, just like slavery, the 
Bill Gates of the world has once again washed their hands clean.  But unlike 
Slavery, many of us miss the ideological ramifications of our claims. >>


Let me answer by way of analogy.  If we were discussing the Shining Path, I 
don't think it would do too much good to simply declare that Marxism is a 
nicey-nice intellectual tradition, interesting commentary on modernity and 
globalization, read Marshall Berman, Herbert Marcuse and Michael Hardt, and 
we just can't fathom why anyone who calls themselves Marxist would murder 
left wing organizers and have summary executions of adulterers.  No, Marxism 
is (in the dominant version) a political philosophy that encourages its 
adherents to see the world in terms of class warfare, and for the most part, 
the 'marxist' perspective in this century emphasizes the utility of armed 
struggle as opposed to 'reformist' advocacy of electoral tactics.  Certainly 
Sendero was not timelessly repeating Leninist tactics.  Many (probably most) 
Leninist types hated them.  They weren't even (as they seemed to believe) 
just reusing Maoist strategy.  They twisted it through their own worldview,  
but they were clearly using some aspects of the Marxist and Maoist 
traditions.  I don't say that as a Marxist, but I also don't say that as 
someone who hates Marxism.  I think it has plenty to offer, and is for the 
most part highly misrepresented in mainstream accounts.  But I don't think 
one excises out the parts one doesn't like, or arbitrarily declares that they 
have nothing to do with anything.  

Just knowing that conditions really sucked in the Peruvian highlands or the 
slums of Lima isn't enough to explain how they were thinking, nor is knowing 
something about Marxism.  One has to look at the relationship between this 
intellectual tradition and this particular situation.  This analogy isn't 
perfect.  The Shining Path went out and 'converted' followers to Marxism--to 
a certain extent, in the local situation, they could claim that Marxism was 
whatever they said it was.  Bin Laden and the Taliban appeal to a 
pre-existing Islamic community--what they say Islam is is thus more 
constrained by already existing beliefs.

However disagreeable one may find it, the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden claim 
to be acting in the name of Islam, and their claim has relevance.  Were they 
claiming to be Marxists, there probably would not have been demonstrations 
from France to Nigeria to Indonesia in the last few weeks opposing the US 
war.  Or those demonstrations would have involved hundreds, rather than tens 
or hundreds of thousands.

What happened one thousand years ago has everything to do with what is 
happening today.  In the modern world, people are supposed to focus their 
energies on their own nation states, or on the global betterment of humanity 
through science.  They aren't supposed to experience solidarity with a 
billion person community spread across numerous states.  Muslims are in 
France because of a colonial history that goes back only a couple of 
centuries--but they are in many places because of expansions that pre-date 
the modern world system.  Incidentally, the solidarity of the Muslim 
community globally taxes any economic determinist explanation of the 
contemporary world, since it overlaps a number of economic/political regions. 
 We shall see which of these solidarities proves stronger in the next hundred 
years, but at this point it seems like an open question.  I don't know nearly 
enough about the history of Islamic intellectual traditions to determine 
which are relevant to understanding Bin Ladenism.  But I see no reason to 
rule them out beforehand.


If a guy is commerating his children's victimization or protesting the 
Israelis through using the Quran, it means that he has found something of 
relevance in intellectual/religious tradition(s) that stretches back over a 
thousand years.  I have no reason to believe he is reinventing it wholecloth 
just because he is living in the modern world system.  I don't know what 
elements of that tradition he is selecting for his own purposes without 
talking to him.  But I do not apriori believe that the Israeli situation is 
more important than the Islamic tradition he is invoking.  The latter is not 
'really' about the former. I don't think there is some sort of 'real' Islam 
that he is either practicing or betraying.  Islam is what Muslims in the 
present make of it.

It seems that in trying to avoid the arguments of Orientalists, you are 
trying to avoid giving Islam any substance in this moment.   It seems a 
particularly strange argument in light of your own work, which helps 
elucidate some of the very long term continuities of the history in question. 
Instead of being defensive, why not develop historical explanations that 
allow for the plurality of Islams, but do not reduce it to an epiphenomenon 
of 'real' contemporary conditions. 

Steven Sherman