Re: Islamic Militancy: It is their problem

Continuing the debate:

Steve writes:<<Marxism is a political philosophy that encourages its adherents 
to see the world in terms of class warfare>>This is a good anology to the issue 
at hand.  If I understand you correctly (and by extension) we could phrase 
Islamic militancy as follows: "Islam, as practiced by Bin Laden and the 
Taliban, is a political philosophy that encourages its adherents to see the 
world in terms of religious (civilizational) warfare."  Good, but let me ask 
you the following: Does a Chiapas (sp?) peasant decide to join the Zapitasta 
resistance due to the fact that he read Karl Marx's "Communist Manifesto"?  
Maybe some have read it, but I would think that most joined the class struggle 
because they knew quite well that they were getting screwed by the system.  The 
political philosophy of Marxism may have moved some of the organizers, but the 
events that led to widespread resistance were due to earthly issues like the 
right to live in dignity.  Hence, with Manifesto or not, class struggle is the 
product of being faced with issues of land, work, a family wage, respect, human 
rights, democracy, . . .  Reading Marx may make you sharper (depending which 
interpretation of Marx) politically, but the "culture or religion" of Marxism 
doesn't move whole populations to take up arms.  I think you would agree as 
evident in your later statement "one has to look at the relationship between 
this intellectual tradition and this particular situation." Now we are getting 
somewhere, and here we have agreement.  Islam, as is Marxism, is situated in a 
context, and the Shining Path and the Bin Laden's and the Taliban's of the 
world know this as well.  What moves "muslims" or the peasants of Chiapas is 
not texts, nor simply an abstract cultural or religious identity,   Clearly, 
movements are not caused by traditions of bad behavior or backward, medieval 
beliefs.  In both cases, people decide to resist because of issues of Justice, 
not abstract mentalities like some floating concept of "Jihad".  The fact that 
the Karl Marx placed class struggle as a ce
ntral category for movements to organize around does not determine the "agency" 
taking by exploited groups in 
Mexico.  By extension, the fact that the Quran may include excerpts (as does 
almost all scriptures) to take up arms when the faith is confronted by a 
serious threat from another group does not determine the agency to join an 
Islamic wave of anti-American movements.  So why Islam as the unifying theme of 
resistance?  Obviously, there is something to Islam that needs to be explained. 
 I can't speak for the entire Islamic world, but I don't want to use this as a 
cop out to the question.  Clearly, the reason Islam is evoked by Bin Laden and 
the Taliban, and not Marxism, is due to the fact that people can identify with 
the former as their own while the latter is seen as just another western 
import.  But many political organizer before the Iranian revolution would have 
used European political philosophies, inncluding Marxism and nationalism.  
Indeed, many before 1979 would use a secularized form of religious symbolism 
(Islamic Modernism).  These older Bin Ladens, however, viewed the world in two 
spheres.  "Our private sphere (traditions, spirituality, women, food, family, 
sex...) belongs to the self" and "our public sphere (work, government, science, 
men) belong to the universal themes of the enlightenment.  There was a few 
variations to this, where Turkey, Israel and Greece, in order to eject 
themselves out of the orient and inject themselves into the occident, sometimes 
lumped some of the private spheres into the public sphere (sex, food, toiletry, 
women, hygiene, and tradition).  What is changing today is the fact that the 
new Bin Laden's of the world have tied both of these categories together.  No 
distinction is needed, Islam is a total unity of life, so to say.  The 
Huntington's of the world see this as a varification of their "clash of 
civilization" thesis.  I disagree.  It is, I believe, related to the changes 
taking place globally.  The institutions that made it possible for the two 
spheres approach under the post-1945 system are coming unravelled, weakening 
the modernist hold on power and strengthening the 
power of those who advocate for forging the two spheres.  Hence, it is not 
Islam that is "causing" this, nor the fact that such a civilization is  
completely at odds with "western concepts of individualism, liberalism, 
constitutionalism, human rights, equality, liber

ty, the rule of law, democracy, free markets, the separation of church and 
state" (Huntington).  Instead, maybe the fact that the US and Israel, being on 
the defensive in this new world order, posing as leaders of the "modernist" 
world in an ocean of barbarism, has repulsed the barbarian to such a point that 
the poser is viewed for what he really  is: a farce.  Modernism does not look 
all that attractive from the other end of the gun.  Unfortunately, these same 
muslims will probably find out in a few decades that slaying Isaac is indeed 
tantamount for killing Ishmael, and a new, more universal strategy, will need 
to be considered.  Hopefully that realization will come sooner than later.  
Hopefully also the Zionists will soon figure this out and stop doing the dirty 
work of the US and join the barbarian world.  Maybe then we will develop a 
modernism that is sustainable in the Middle East.

Khaldoun