Re: ANYT THOUGHTS ON AMERICAN PBS SERIES (fwd)

>[elson] Islamic fundamentalists are all capitalists?  Oh please!

you are idealizing islamic fundementalism here. if you look at their
programs and rhetorics closely, you will see that they are not
anti-capitalist. in fact, they legitimize it by openly saying
that "we are gonna create our own capitalism" (whetever that term means,
of course)

>While I would agree that there are plenty of fundamentalist
>leaders who are capitalists and who are using the movement
>towards their own ends (which is true of just about every
>movement -- indeed, we should note the populist-fundamentalist
>anti SOCIALIST struggle in Algeria stems from the great gap in
>wealth among the rich and poor despite the so-called socialist
>policies of that government), it is flatly inaccurate to suggest
>that, for instance, the Iranian Revolution, including the role of
>the fundamentalist participants, was not largely an anti-US
>imperialism struggle, or that Bin Ladin's attacks on the US are
>not largely anti-US imperialism in nature.

i was not arguing that it was not anti-us. i was rather saying that it was
not anti-capitalist as such in the way that you want them to be.
 
>I certainly agree with the description below of the well know
>basic facts about the situation in Turkey.  But since when was
>Turkey a hot-bed of fundamentalist anti US-imperialism by
>comparison to Iran, Lebanon, Egypt, etc.? 

first, there are differences between egypt and iran. egypt is a
seeminlgy secular country whereas Iran is not. both gave anti-imperialist
struggles but both ended in different regimes and capitalist
transformations. to ignore the differences between the two
is to ignore the ideological differences between two revolutions. soviet
coommunism was always a threath and a night-mare to mollas. in addition, 
iran always aimed to transport its regime to elsewhere in the middle east,
like egypt and turkey.

there are are many middle eastern marxists who argue that, for instance,
the political regime in Egypt, despite being led by progressive and
populist petty-bourgosie officers, was never anti-capitalist, neither in
theory nor in practice. in fact it is another version of capitalism. if
you closely read the statements of leaders (which i did), you will see
that they respect private property and they do not want to be "too
radical" like the soviet union, because, they say, they do not want to
attract the opposition of islamic fundementalists. for this reason, they
did not even abolish sheriah courts, and appointed an _imam_ (state
appointed priest)  to regulate religious affairs. and if you also look at
the family laws and other similar personal arrengements, you will see that
poligamy was abolished in Egypt in 1974, 30 years after the revolution,
and it is still not really abolished yet(depends on the approval of the
wife). still, islam is the religion of the state, despite being covered
in a secular manner. the bottom line is that none of these regimes ended
in anti-capitalism and substantive equality like the one  that existed in
soviet union and in other socialist countries alike.

plus, there is a strong islamic movement in Turkey, especially after
1980s', that was motivated and tolerated by the neo-conservative liberals
who came to power after the military coup. the last time i saw those
students in my university, they were burning american flags and attacking
jewish students in a highly racist manner. and the police just watched
them withouy doing anything. what an anti-us police? my socialist friends
too burnt american flags but their purpose was anti-capitalism and
anti-imperialism not islamic capitalism like those jerks, but they were
beaten by the police. some of them were hang in 1970s' bacause they
protested american navy settled in the country. those fundementalists are
always tolerated within the system because they defend a moral
order, which always appeals to the population, and they have strong
connections with _some_ parties and sections of government. they are not
punished bacause of their actions, but socialists are punished, and are
subject to all kinds of human right violations.


>about the poverty (elson) or merits (Hutchinson) of comparing US
>and anti-US imperialist aspects of Islamic fundamentalisms as
>equally irrational, as done in the PBS video.

true. i am not talking about PBS video. i did not even watch it. but it is
true that americans always create a _monster_ out of such movements,
assuming that they are the most democratic nation in the world,
and labeling others as non-democratic, strategically concealing the
responsibility and brutality of their actions. in fact, their prisons are
suffering from human rights violations and sexism according to amnesty
international's reports. i have criticized this american centric world
view previously in my posts. said's book orientalism suggests important
insights about this, despite its  post-modern reduction of the problem to
language and discourse. i rather argued that the islamic movement can not
be simply seen as a cultural affirmation or a political anamoly as such,
but must be viewed as a systemic outcome of neo-imperialism and its
"otherizing discourse", which is a  highly modern and a recent phenomenon.
we need to critically reconstruct it within the context of widening gap
between the core and the periphery, changing positions of elites in the
periphery, and the new "legitimation crisis" of national systems of
accumulation. 


Mine Aysen Doyran
phd candidate
dept of pol scie
SUNY/Albany
Graduate School-Nelson A. Rockefeller College
Albany/NY