AgainstAgainst WarWar andand issue 2 TerrorismTerrorism • Enduring war and popular mobilisation • Aftermath for • Empire in Central Asia • Civil Liberties and Civil Rights in the USA • Israel / Palestine is a war zone • The modern schizophrenia of Islamic integralism •Why the Reversion to Islamic Archaism?

Anarchist writings on the war from struggle.ws Introduction Aftermath for Afghanistan This booklet is a follow on from Against Since the 1970’s Afghanistan has been shredded by bloody conflict between War and Terrorism Issue 1 which was rival gangs of rulers and the regional and global imperialisms which subsi- published as a PDF booklet in October dise them. The infrastructure of the society ruined, lives and bodies maimed, 2001. In this second issue (March 2002) millions forced over the border into miserable refugee camps and hundreds we go into greater depth over a range of of thousands of people cut down by hunger or high explosive. issues. We consider a better understand- The most surprising thing about the fall of help ease tensions between it’s government ing of these issues to be essential in build- the was the extent to which many and that of the U.S., but given that his in- ing a global anarchist movement. people found it surprising. There was a close tended destination is Afghanistan perhaps link between Taliban military successes and the world could do without his help. If you haven’t already done so it would the considerable support they received from While the Hazari militias of the Hizb-i probably be a good idea to read issue one the ruling elite of Pakistan. Starved of that, Wahdat have had a long relationship with as it provides a lot of the background to even without American bombing they would , this must be somewhat strained at the the articles contained in this issue. Many have crumbled albeit somewhat later. of the articles here assume this level of moment as allegations are surfacing that background knowledge on areas such as As it was no tin pot rag bag force could with- Khan is supply Iranian arms to General Islam, anarchism and anti-imperialism stand the mailed fist of a superpower. Dostum, their rival for control of Mazar-e- There’s nothing novel about that either, the Sharif. which Issue 1 provided. machine guns and artillery of the late 19th. Recently allegations have surfaced that centaury empires rarely met defeat from the Khan’s forces have been the victims of As with the previous issue these articles spears of the natives and this is just the American cruise missile strikes and a lot of represent the views of the individual au- modern day equivalent. (1) thors alone who are currently living in the American military effort in the country Europe, the USA and the ‘Middle East’. One eyewitness relates “Vast craters dotted at the moment would seem to have more of their defensive lines, while the village of a purpose if it’s intent was reminding the Below are the articles to be found in Issue Karabah which housed their headquarters various other factions what happens to peo- ple who displease the global cop. Further- 1 which can be read or downloaded from looked like it had been blow-torched from more there have been low level guerrilla http://struggle.ws/issues/war/pamOCT01.html above. Mud buildings are flattened and trees reduced to eerie twisted stumps, the result attacks on American and British forces. Who of repeated B-52 strikes on one day, when I is responsible for them? (this included at- The tragedy of Afghanistan saw bombers come in every five minutes to tacks in – not a Taliban stronghold). Introduction to the recent history of Af- blast the same area with their sticks of Whatever the case is there is certainly the ghanistan and social conditions there. bombs.” (2) Capitalist Terror and Madness potential for further conflict, not just be- Terror has a long history in the service of Imperialist Rivalry cause of imperialist rivalries but because: counter-revolution, and always works to- Over the years the Afghan wars have been “these sold-out warlords will have no scru- wards undermining the very foundations fuelled by the USSR on the one hand and ples in once again putting themselves up for sale at a cheap price to old and new proxy- of a new, free, postcapitalist, society. the U.S.A. on the other and then with Iran, seeking powers, and consequently will once “Why do they hate us”? India and Russia backing up the while Pakistan did the same for again invite the interference of their foreign A New York anarchist looks at the mo- the Taliban. The conflicting interests of ri- masters if their sordid parochial and per- tives for the S11 attacks as they related val imperialisms are still at play in Afghani- sonal ambitions and interests are funda- to US foreign policy. stan. mentally compromised” (3) History of anarchist anti- imperialism With marines on the ground and B52’s in Under the Northern Alliance The anarchist movement has a long tra- the sky the American influence is apparent At the moment ‘Northern Alliance’ rule is dition of fighting imperialism. This and in a development without precedent the taking a form along similar lines to the situ- ation between ‘92 and ‘96 – prior to the reaches back into the 1860s, and contin- U.S. now has bases in what was formerly Taliban, when the country was last in the ues to the present day. territory of the ‘Soviet’ Union, to the north of Afghanistan. hands of the factions which now make up Diversity in Islam for Absolute the Alliance. A pattern of endemic banditry, Beginners The new Afghan government consists of two persecutions, and barons shaping up for turf Roughly 1 in 5 of the world’s population halves, one the Northern Alliance, and the wars. A change from one despotism to a is muslim. Yet what most westerners other the Rome group, which is to say for- hundred despotisms. But thus far with from christian backgrounds know about merly exiled monarchist figures close to nothing like the extent of the bloody car- Islam can be written on the back of a Zahir Shah, the deposed King. The monar- nage inflicted in the four years of in fight- small postage stamp chist faction is dependant on U.S. support, ing before the rise of the monolithic and Commissars of the Free Press as unlike any of the splinters forming the uncompromising Taliban forced the rival Why don’t we have a media which at- Northern Alliance, it doesn’t have an Army mini kingdoms to unite. tempts to be unbiased and objective? and didn’t play any real role in the over- throw of the Taliban. The King, despite, or In other words with out the Taliban to unite Building an antiwar movement perhaps because, he hasn’t been involved them and the war to occupy them they seem The key ingredients of success in build- in the country for thirty years, is a genu- to be returning to their old ways. They are ing a successful anti-war movement are inely popular figure. particularly singling out as victims, confidence in ordinary people’s potential, Pashtuns, the ethnic group from which the solidarity with each other and a long- Of late the U.S. military have been openly Taliban come. term view supporting various sides in warlord dis- The anarchist putes. Herat in the east is the fiefdom of Barely one month after the establishment of the power sharing executive in an article alternative Ismael Khan, a Mujaheddin warlord de- headed “We felt safer under the Taliban” the A successful anarchist posed by the Taliban and recently rein- stalled with a considerable Iranian subsidy. Hindustan Times read “Murders, robberies revolution would result in Gulbuddin Hikmetyar another Mujaheddin and hijackings in the capital, factional society being organised by warlord, who has been promising jihad on clashes in the north and south of the coun- the free association and the infidels since the September is being try, instability in Kandahar and banditry federation of workers. kept on a leash in Iran itself. He has re- on roads linking main centres are beginning cently offered to leave Iran if that would to erode the optimism that greeted the inau- guration of the interim administration on Rabbani, Sayyaf, Masoud, Khalili, ‘wrong place at the wrong time’ in revenge December 22.” (5) Hekmatyar and their like are brothers in for their rulers slaughtering other people arms. They are all of the same hue, because: in the ‘wrong place at the wrong time’ or it Something of an arms race is under way All of them have a Klashnikov in one hand is not. with rival forces drawing new recruits from and the Quran in the other to kill, intimi- desperate refugees. The principal infight- Rather than being a ‘failed state’ the situa- date, detain and mutilate our people arbi- ing has been around Mazar-e-Sharif. A three tion in Afghanistan is the product of two trarily.” (6) way struggle with General Dostum, a decades of successful competition between former military commander of the pre-’92 The Victims states, a competition which continues in “Soviet” backed regime in one corner, the As no one is counting on the ground, even if the region today. Rather than being a solu- Hizb-i Wahdat militia, formerly close to Iran such a thing were possible, estimates of ci- tion to any of these problems the Imperial- in another and then supporters of the vilian deaths vary widely. One Washington ist intervention is part of the problem. former President Rabbani, all jostling for Post article, arguing that ‘it was worth it’ For space reasons this article had to be heavily control. claimed that the figure could be in the 8,000 edited, the full version of the article is on the web at to 12,000 range. This figure does not include Refugee camps have been divided up along http://struggle.ws/freeeaarth.html deaths caused by a disruption of food aid ethnic lines, with persecutions and expul- supplies. This was after some research done Footnotes sions of whoever is the minority. Similar on the matter, by American academic Pro- (1) Of course the prospects of a guerrilla force, with outside sup- squabbles over the division of the victor’s fessor Marc W. Herold, established the es- port, would be differ- spoils have taken place in other cities. So ent entirely. But this timate of 3,767 for the first two months of much has changed that merchants are even was not the case in the bombing.(7) As he points out this rep- talking of a dramatic increase in the sale of this conflict and thus resents in proportion to population the any analogies with burkas, the total veiling enforced not just equivalent of 38,000 deaths in the United say, Afghanistan in the by the Taliban’s Saudi Arabian funded reli- States. Since then the bombing has contin- 1980’s would not be gious police but also by the dead weight of applicable. ued, despite the ousting from power of the tradition. (2) The Spectator 17 Novem- Taliban. ber 2001. From out side of the good versus evil view (3) Revolutionary Association The killings on S11 are held up as justifica- presented by the propaganda of the war of Afghan Women website http:/ tion of the bombing of Afghanistan, a logic /rawa.fancymarketing.net/dec10- party this is not surprising. Although they we can only agree with if we conclude the 01e.htm presented the downfall of the Taliban as a lives of Americans are of greater value than (5) Hindustan liberation, in reality the splinter groups Times, January the lives of Afghans, or perhaps a two or making up the Northern Alliance were al- 25, 2002 three to one ratio of value. You cannot ar- (6) http://www.rawa.org/ ways much the same as the Taliban. gue that one is right and the other is wrong, diffrence.htm It must be remembered that the “warriors either it is wrong to slaughter people in the (7)http://www.cursor.org/sto- ries/civilian_deaths.htm of God” began their rebellion in the 1970’s, before the arrival of any Red Army tanks, over various un-Islamic activities such as women being without veil in public and edu- cation for girls. In 1990 representatives of Empire in Central all the main Mujaheddin factions (united!) th issued a fatwa banning women and girls In the early 1990’s the last 19 Century European empire from an education, similar fatwas were is- crumbled. The longest lasting, although ironically originally sued enforcing the hijab or banning women one of the weakest. Just as other powers moved into the from working by different elements of the vacuum left by the relative weakening of the old West Eu- Asia movement then characterised as ‘freedom ropean ones, so too today this is happening with the de- fighters’ by the governments of the West. cline of the Russian Empire. The weakening of Russian power in what the exploitation of these resources is the Even the Taliban’s aversion to Buddha stat- was it’s southern colonial empire is open- struggle over which route to take to the sea ues was no innovation – such artefacts had ing up the way for other imperialisms. Cen- and the global market. There are a number previously been blown up by Mujaheddin. tral Asia and the Caucasus, or the Caspian of options, each with their own advocates They had fought bloody feuds for control of Region as it is also known, is a largely for- and each reflecting rival agendas. the heroin trade during the anti-Russian gotten corner of the world, but with all the The Northern Route (via Russia): The war, and when they finally overthrew the ingredients of a new Middle East, it may Northern route would consist of an upgrad- ‘communists’ they carved a bloody path of not be for much longer. Imperialist compe- ing of the existing Kazak and Russian pipe- mass murder, rape and looting, turning the tition in the region is centred around the line systems, plus a new one linking Baku entire country into a shooting gallery. De- exploitation of it’s considerable resources of in Azerbaijan with the Russian port of stroying the secular urban society brick by oil and gas, principally centred on the dif- Novorossisk on the Black Sea. Obviously brick. ferent costs and benefits accruing to differ- this is the option favoured by the Russian ent factions of the ruling class from various Such is the heritage of most of the compo- rulers, as it maintains their dominance of pipeline projects. nents of the Northern Alliance, the rest were Central Asia and provides a source of rev- the foot soldiers of the Kremlin backed pup- Firstly I’m going to look at those, before enue to them. pet regime. A regime whose practises in- turning to look at the interests and goals of cluded burning alive entire villages. The three different players in the carve up of The Southern Route (via Iran): From a Taliban did not land from outer space, but Central Asia: Iran, the United States and purely practical point of view this is the were sculpted from a stone which was one Russia (others include Turkey, the E.U. and most sensible option, with the shortest dis- part age old authoritarian religious tradi- China but restrictions of time and space tance as it is able to plug into the Iranian tion and one part the arming of Islamist work against a full exploration). pipeline system and it provides access to the radicals with millions of dollars worth of growing South Asian market. Opposed by Pipelines weaponry by the U.S., Pakistan, etc., with the United States, both because of that The principal energy resources in the Cas- the intent that they take over the country. state’s hostility to Iran and because it pian Region are to be found in Azerbaijan, doesn’t represent a diversification of energy In short neither Islam nor Uncle Sam can Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. All three sources - which is a U.S. goal we will be re- wash their hands of the Taliban. states are essentially landlocked, the Cas- turning to. Nonetheless this is the only one pian sea being an inland sea with no con- As the Revolutionary Association of Afghan of the new routes which is actually up and nection to the oceans. As a result, a major Women put it: “In our opinion, the Taliban running. aspect of the international competition over and other jehadi fundamentalist cliques of The Eastern Route (via China): The ing a pipeline co-operation deal between the trade with Iran and indeed use the oppor- longest and most expensive route but fa- Pakistani military dictatorship and the new tunity offered by the Iranian route to ex- voured by the Chinese government, and Afghan government: “Pakistani President, port Central Asian energy resources to being developed by them, it also allows them Gen Pervez Musharraf, and the Afghan in- South Asia. Furthermore it is in the inter- to exploit the resources in their western terim leader, Mr , agreed yes- ests of the governments of the Central Asian provinces. terday that their two countries should de- republics to do so. The Iranian option sim- velop “mutual brotherly relations” and co- ply makes the best economic sense, all the The Western Route (via Turkey): This operate “in all spheres of activity” - includ- more so because it already exists. Unless is favoured by Turkey, the United States ing a proposed gas pipeline from Central an alternative is developed, market forces and Israel. There are three options here; Asia to Pakistan via Afghanistan.” (2) will compel companies to develop the re- firstly a pipeline to the port of Suspa in sources of Central Asia via Iran. Thus it is God told me to do it - The Iranian Georgia and then through the Bosporus imperative for the U.S. Government to fa- Challenge straits to Europe. The Turkish claim is that cilitate an alternative pipeline to the Indian “Iran’s interests are briefly to getting the the straits will not be able to handle the and Pakistani markets. Caspian and Central Asian oil to the Gulf increased amount of shipping and propose and establish close political and economic Fortunately for them they have just radi- instead a pipeline from Azerbaijan to ties with the region. First, Iran has a des- cally altered the political landscape of Af- Ceyhan on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast. perate need for foreign exchange and would ghanistan. For the civil war in Afghanistan The high costs of this proposal have pro- benefit from oil and gas transit fees. was a major barrier to constructing the only moted an alternative American plan to by- possible pipeline which could deliver pass the Bosporus straits with a pipeline Second, with oil and gas transit, Iran would straight to the South Asian market while going through Bulgaria and Greece. be in a better position to develop trade with avoiding Iran. the region. Central Asia could eventually The South Eastern Route (via Afghani- become an important market for Iranian However as we have seen, the potential for stan): This is the reason why in years past manufactured goods. In turn the combina- proxy war very much remains in Afghani- Taliban hierarchs popped up in Texas and tion of oil and gas transit and trade could stan, as does the potential for limited in- other unlikely places. It has been argued establish Iran as regional power in Central surgency by Taliban remnants. The poten- that this proposal was a reason behind both Asia. tial for the former is underscored by the Osama Bin Laden’s war on the U.S. and the opportunity presented to the rulers of Iran Third, with oil transiting from Central Asia U.S. action in Afghanistan. With the fall of by the oil and gas of the Caspian region. to Iranian Gulf ports, Iran would strengthen the Taliban this route has again entered the Not to mention the threat presented to them its position in the Gulf, essentially in rela- running. Note that it avoids Iran while de- by what would amount to, if reported Ameri- tion to Saudi-Arabia, potentially also in re- livering to the South Asian market, which can plans for Iraq go ahead and are suc- lation to Iraq. Emerging as a Central Asian is much more promising than the European cessful, an American encirclement, with a power would also reinforce Iran’s position one. client regime to the east in Afghanistan and in relation to the Gulf neighbours.” (3) to the west in Iraq. Readers, not even with long memories, will American opposition to the Iranian route notice the amount of armed conflicts which So we have seen Iran exploiting the power is based on a number of factors. Principally have been found along these routes in re- vacuum in post-Taliban Afghanistan and and most importantly; the Iranian revolu- cent years. Russia, China and Turkey have possible American missile strikes on Iran’s tion of 1979 was a challenge and remains been engaged in suppressing revolt along Afghan proxies. Expect in the very least to such from the point of view that it is the so- their favoured routes, as well as of course hear much more ranting like “The Axis of called ‘Threat of a Good Example’. What this the American intervention in Afghanistan, Evil” and “The Great Satan”. and the Afghan civil war prior to that. means is essentially it is an ever present reminder that it is possible to break out of The Democracy of the Oil Barons – The Afghan Pipeline neo-colonial domination, or at least try to, the American Expansion. The Californian based UNOCAL energy such states must be isolated, obstructed, “when the Afghan conflict is over we will not corporation began it’s efforts to establish and attacked whenever possible. (4) pipelines transporting oil and gas through leave Central Asia. We have long term plans Afghanistan in October 1995, the original This is in the long term collective interests and interests in this region.” (5) idea was that of it’s Argentinean competi- of the American ruling class for the simple - U.S. Assistant Secretary of State, Eliza- tor Bridas. Lack of financing, the decline in reason that if it tolerated Iran, given the beth Jones. popular alienation from the ruling authori- world oil prices in 1998, the continuing civil The central objectives of American Imperi- ties in the Middle East, and given the re- strife in Afghanistan and the early phase alism in this region include: gion’s long history of nationalist and quasi- of the U.S.-Bin Laden conflict, all these (1)Containment of Iran. nationalist revolt, it would only be an en- came together and blocked the Afghan pipe- (2)Detaching Central Asia and the Cauca- couragement for others to follow the Iranian line project. However, the victory of Ameri- sus from Russian domination. example. Such a course would, in the long can arms has changed the situation. (3)Opening up the area as a major supplier run, be possibly fatal for the profits of the of oil and gas, - in order to diversify global U.S. based business magazine Forbes re- American banks and arms companies who energy production and thereby reduce the ports that with “the collapse of the Taliban, do so much business with the Arab elite. power of oil states. oil executives are suddenly talking again Nationalist regimes would be more con- (4)To realise the commercial opportunities about building it.” cerned with developing a native industrial offered to American corporations. base. “It is absolutely essential that the U.S. make The document “U.S. Military Engagement the pipeline the centerpiece of rebuilding Also, in the particular case of the Middle with Transcaucasia and Central Asia” out- Afghanistan,’ says S. Rob Sobhani, a pro- East, loss of American influence would also lines these goals and was published by the fessor of foreign relations at Georgetown mean a loss of some American influence over Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army University and the head of Caspian Energy Japan and Europe (the places which actu- War College. Some extracts from it serve to Consulting.” ally are dependant on Middle Eastern oil - illustrate the U.S. interests and activities unlike the U.S.). Thus in the last twenty “The State Department thinks it’s a great in the area: odd years Iran has been both directly at- idea, too. Routing the gas through Iran tacked by the United States and as well as would be avoided, and Central Asian repub- “The 1998 National Security Strategy states by Iraq with U.S. support. lics wouldn’t have to ship through Russian why this region is important to the United States. It has estimated reserves of 160 bil- pipelines” (1) The problem is that it is in the short term, lion barrels of oil, comparably large natu- individual interests of U.S. companies (not Furthermore on the 9th of February the ral gas reserves, and will play an increas- to mention French ones, Japanese etc..) to Irish Times carried an agency story outlin- ingly important role in satisfying the world’s future energy demands.” This does not necessarily mean a uni- independence on the part of local elites. lateral commitment, but more likely a There is insufficient capital in Russia for “U.S. officials publicly maintain that this multilateral one, e.g., under the U.N.’s investments in and loans to the new States region’s energy sources could be a back up auspices but actually under U.S. lead- on a level with that of outside interests. to the unstable Persian Gulf and allow us ership. Without such a permanent pres- Thus there are now American, Chinese, and our allies to reduce our dependence on ence, and it is highly unlikely that the Turkish, South Korean, European, Iranian its energy supplies. In pursuit of this goal United States can afford or will choose interests in the region. The arrival of mul- we have worked to establish governments to make such a presence felt, other than tinational corporations is actually to the with open markets, i.e., openness to U.S. through economic investment, Russia Russian benefit as these provide the invest- firms (and not only those associated with will be able to exclude all other rivals ments necessary to develop the exploitation energy) and democracy. and regain hegemony over the area.” (7) of resources, which can then provide rev- We have also moved to check any possibility enues to the Russian “elite” due to their Well that was published in June 2000, a of their one-sided military dependence upon control of the export routes. Plus that con- year and a half later and the United States Russia. The determination to prevent either trol can be used as leverage for Russian does have military bases in Central Asia, Moscow or Tehran from dominating the companies to muscle their way into the en- and has just moved into Georgia in the Cau- area, either in energy, or through penetra- ergy consortiums developing the region. casus - also on a potential pipeline route tion and control of their defence structures (The Western, via Turkey one). September Since the U.S. turned against the Taliban goes back at least to 1994.” 11th has spectacularly increased the po- there has been a community of interest be- A few pages later and the rhetoric of pro- tency of the American military by effectively tween the two powers in regard to the de- moting democracy is admitted to be rheto- defusing the American public’s long stand- struction of the Taliban. The Russian ric: “In practise, energy and security have ing opposition to foreign military adven- esablishment has long feared the dominated the agenda as the means to tures. ‘Talibanisation’ of Central Asia as it’s bor- achieve this broader Westernisation to the der with Kazakhstan is porous, there are Yes the last two decades has seen lots of point that evidently little pressure is being considerable ethnic Russian populations in those, but always in forms calculated to directed towards democratisation of local these states, as well as Muslim minorities minimise a public opinion backlash at home. governments.” in Russia itself. Some examples, covert action (Nicaragua), In fact foreign imperialism, be it Russian military support to proxies (El Salvador, Nevertheless Putin’s U.S. friendly policy is or American, is marching hand in hand with Columbia), overwhelming force in ideal ter- not without it’s detractors in Moscow. On local despotism, as is always the case. The ritory (Iraq), air war (Serbia) or simply ac- February 21st a group of former military document then turns to the military aspects tions against opponents without the slight- chieftains, including a former defence min- of these policies: “the oil producing states est chance of putting up effective resistance ister, launched a literary attack on the Rus- are now members of the PfP [Partnership (Granada). We should not doubt that Ameri- sian president, claiming that: “With your for “Peace” - N.A.T.O. front organisation – can militarism has moved up a gear or two. blessing, the United States has received FE], and Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and military bases in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, A House Divided Georgia overtly seek NATO’s direct partici- Kyrgyz Stan, and, maybe, Kazakhstan. These areas were incorporated into the pation in the area, the U.S. or Western con- Russian Empire in the 19th Century, with “In the long run, these bases are for dealing test with Russia and Iran has assumed a the intent of protecting trade routes and a strike against Russia, not Bin Laden .. .We more openly military aspect.” using them as a bargaining chip with the would not be surprised if tomorrow they call “This stimulates an equal and opposing re- British Empire. Under both Tsarism and you the best American, European or NATO action. Armenian officials proclaim the vi- Bolshevism a classically colonial pattern of official.” (11) tal importance of joint exercises with Rus- development was put into place. While Since the break up of the “Soviet” Union sia to defend Armenia’s security and talk of Azerbaijan was an oil producer (9) the Cen- there have been a number of Russian mili- an ‘axis’ with Russia and Iran. Conse- tral Asian republics were generally under tary interventions in the region. The Rus- quently and due to the spiralling strategic a mono-culture/cash crop system of cotton sian army has popped up in Georgia and stakes in the Transcaspian, NATO’s collec- production, and in both cases had unequal Armenia and still has a presence in tive engagement, as well as the specifically trade relations with the metropolis. The Tajikistan, but have been removed from U.S. engagement, with the region is likely exception is the northern part of Turkmenistan and Kyrgyz Stan. Further- to grow.” Kazakhstan, adjoining Russia, which was more in the early 1990’s Russia backed Ar- industrialised, with a workforce largely of menia in it’s dispute with Turkish backed “In September 1995, U.S. experts on Cen- Slavic origins. tral Asia met at NATO headquarters and cited the extensive U.S. interests in Caspian This colonial dependence persisted follow- energy deposits as a reason why Washing- ing the break up of the “Soviet” Union, while ton might have to extend its Persian Gulf Kazakhstan’s trade with Russia accounts security guarantees to this region. (6) for 42.5% of the G.D.P. of that country – trade with Kazakhstan is a mere 1.7% of U.S. involvement has only taken off since that of Russia. Kazakhstan is actually de- then. While U.S. officials intone visions of a pendant on Russia for it’s energy supplies, win-win situation for everyone, where eve- as all the infrastructure was developed in ryone has shared interests in developing the “Soviet” period running north-south, these energy markets, they have really aimed rather than west-east from Kazakhstan’s oil to deny and break Russia’s monopoly over fields to it’s urban centres. (10) the energy producing states.” The fact that exports must go through Rus- “Russia could sabotage many if not all sia provides a further stranglehold. As with of the forthcoming energy projects by economy so with security and a number of relatively simple and tested means and these states - Armenia and Tajikistan in there is not much we could do absent a particular, have been forced to lean on Rus- strong and lasting regional commit- sia for military support, for the lack of an ment. Therefore, for a win-win situa- alternative power. tion to come about, some external fac- tor must be permanently engaged and However Kremlin influence is not what it willing to commit even military forces, once was, due to the Russian economic situ- if need be, to ensure stability and peace. ation, and because of, the, generally speak- ing, post-independence eagerness for real Azerbaijan. Not to forget the long running gion. It seems to them that Russia can pro- competition between hierarchies intrinsic conflict in Chechnya (it self on the Russian tect its vital interests in Central Asia in part- to the world capitalist system. favoured pipeline route from Azerbaijan). nership with Iran and China against West- (1)http://www.forbes.com/global/2002/0204/020.html ern machinations and designs.” (13) The American military presence is some- (2) ‘Irish Times’ 09/02/02 (3) ‘Oil in the Caspian Region and Central Asia - the Political Risk thing of a new development. The interests Conclusion of the Great Game Continued’ By Øystein Noreng http:// of the Russian ‘elite’ in the area are in main- Just as within Afghanistan rival warlords www.caucasus.dk/publication8.htm taining it’s influence over economic devel- compete for control over road tolls, smug- (4) This phraseThreat of a Good Example was coined in the 80s to opment, so it can have it’s cut. Along with gling, and heroin production, so to on a describe the Sandinista Government in Nicaragua. I do not use it this, in the future Russian energy needs are world level is the same process at work, on as a gesture of “anti-imperialist” support to the murderous (and Imperialist) regime in Iran, but rather in recognition that it’s existence likely to expand and so the Caspian region, a larger scale. State power is the repre- as a state born from the downfall of a American backed government as it stands now, could provide a cheap sentative of economic power, and rival is an example to people who would like to do the same to other source. states carve up resources and markets in American clients in the region and expel Western influence perpetual competition, in doing so repre- altogether. I think this is the case irrespective of sectarian disputes They have formed a body for maintaining senting the long term collective interests of within Islam and that it shapes the American Imperialist attitude to co-operative relations with China, which Iran. their national ruling class (rather than like the U.S. is a new player in the region, (5) Quoted in The Guardian 12/02/02 short term interests of individual corpora- (6) “Persian Gulf security guarantees” would presumably, given the called the Shanghai Co-Operation Council tions). situation in the Persian Gulf, involve a great deal of American military and have forged a relationship with Iran, intervention and a permanent military presence plus an attempt to particularly in regard to disputes over ter- While the buying of influence and individu- exclude/contain all other powers. ritorial rights in the Caspian sea, the Ar- als moving from political office to the cor- (7)’U.S. Military Engagement with Transcaucasia and Central Asia’ menian-Azerbaijan conflict, and in support- porate boardroom (and back again) may http://carlisle-www.army.mil/usassi/ssipubs/pubs2000/milengag/milengag.htm (8)Azerbaijan’s oil fields were the ultimate goal of ‘Operation Blau’ ing the Northern Alliance against the show us aspects of this process at work it is the 1942 German offensive on the Eastern Front (i.e. the offensive Taliban. This has lead “Some observers to not it’s source. Rather the source is the di- which was met by the Russian counter-attack and encirclement of warn” of a “growing similarity of interests vision of society into classes, with a ruling the Sixth Army at Stalingrad). among Russia, Iran and China in counter- class based on control over production. The (9) Abridged History of Central Asia by William M. Brinton ing the West and attempting to increase their state is the mechanism by which the ruling http://www.asian-history.com/the_frame.html (10) Quoted in ‘The Guardian’ 22/02/02 own influence”.(12) class advances it’s interests both at home (11) ‘CRS Issue Brief for Congress: Central Asia’s New States and and overseas. At home against it’s subjects, Implications for U.S. Interests’ http://cnie.org/NLE/CRSreports/in- Those are the words of a briefing paper pro- overseas against rival rulers. ternational/inter-26.cfm duced by American civil servants for Con- (12) ‘Russian Policy Towards Central Asia, part 2’ gressmen. However the Russian establish- It has been amply shown how imperialist http://www.idsa-india.org/an-feb9-9.html ment is divided. According to New Delhi competition fuelled the Northern Alliance- (13) See the report ‘Afghanistan The Crisis based research group the Institute for De- Taliban war, and this is true of the earlier of Impunity’ for the Northern Alliance-Taliban war - http://www.hrw.org/ reports/2001/afghan2/ or ‘Silent Soldier: The Man behind the Afghan fence Study and Analysis: “It is believed that Afghan conflicts also (14). The Afghanistan Jehad’ for the Pakistani involvement in the ‘Soviet’-Islamist conflict a difference of opinion exists in present day situation then is not one of a “failed state” of the 1980’s - http://www.afghanbooks.com/silentsoldier/english/02.htm Russia regarding its future course in re- but one of successful states (Russia, Iran, sponse to the US geo-political challenge. The Pakistan, the United States) and rather Terry Clancy lives in Ireland and writes for the Free Earth “imperialists” and the “traditionalists” being an aberration is the by-product of the website (http://www.struggle.ws/freeearth.html). He is a would like Russia to dig in its heels in de- member of the Anarchist Federation (http://www.afed.org.uk) fence of its historical positions in the region. The “pragmatists” or the “realists”, who in- clude Russia’s major oil and gas companies, Civil Liberties and Civil Rights in would like to adjust to the changing geo- political realities in return for a share in the region’s lucrative oil and gas deals. It ap- Time of War in the United States pears that the country’s policy-making es- It was going to be different this time, they said. Unlike other U.S. wars, tablishment, in the pursuit of perceived na- tional interests, is constantly synthesising there would not be any mass denials of free speech nor would any national the differing views among the Russian po- minorities be singled out for discrimination. (I am using civil liberties to litical class and strategic community. mean free speech and association and civil rights to mean the rights of na- tional or ethnic populations.) The errors of other wars would not be re- Despite its current weakness, Russia still peated. And it is in times of war and trouble that society most needs open has the requisite force projection capability discussion and democratic decision-making. But the bourgeois politicians in the region. Moreover, the proposed pipe- did not keep these libertarian promises. They never have. line by-passing Russia is likely to pass through conflict-ridden areas in the former In World War I, it was made illegal to dis- were shipped to Russia. The Italian im- Soviet republics where Russia has estab- courage young men from joining the mili- migrant anarchists, Sacco and Vanzetti, lished itself in the role of a peace-keeper. tary, and this was interpreted as any pub- were judicially murdered in this period lic opposition to the war. About 2000 peo- In the Second World War, the most fa- There are also reports that Russia has of late ple were prosecuted The Socialist Party mous violation of civil rights was the stepped up support to the Kurdistan Work- leader, Eugene V. Debs, was arrested and ers’ Party (PKK) which is behind the rounding up of 120,000 Japanese-Ameri- jailed for ten years for giving a speech. Kurdish insurgency in eastern Turkey from cans and incarcerating them in camps for During the war there was a hysterical where the proposed Baku-Ceyhan pipeline four years. Two thirds of them were U.S. attitude toward all things German (sau- would pass. Russian geo-politicians feels citizens. This was in response to popular erkraut was renamed Liberty Cabbage). that as a consequence of its victory in the hysteria and done with the support of German immigrants were attacked and Cold War, the USA has driven to the mini- California Attorney General Earl Warren, prosecuted. So were radicals, especially mum Russian influence in the Baltic and later the famous liberal Supreme Court the IWW. After the war, there was a wave Black Seas. judge. A generation later, the U.S. gov- of repression, including the (Attorney ernment officially apologized. It is also It has forced Russia out of the zone of the General) Palmer Red Raids. 3,000 sup- warm seas—the Indian Ocean—with the coming out now that there was a certain posedly subversive immigrants were loss of Central Asia and Transcaucasus. amount of government persecution of rounded up, suspected of being anarchists Making use of the CARs’[Central Asian Re- U.S. German immigrants. Of course, the or communists. 300 of them were de- publics] desire to assert their independence racial segregation and oppression of Af- ported, including the anarchists Emma from Moscow, it is seeking to irrevocably rican Americans, in the military and in Goldman and Alexander Berkman, who change the geo-political equations in the re- industry, cannot be regarded as new, war time, acts since they were the continua- from sectors of society. The New Left was this. The president announced that Islam tion of practices from before the war driven by the issues of Black freedom and was a religion of peace and met with opposition to the war in Vietnam. The Muslim imans and Sikh leaders. Memo- There was little violation of civil liber- government did not cease to try to sup- rial gatherings made a point of having ties during this war, mainly due to sup- press dissent. Fighting against the Black imans and Sikh leaders. Anti-Arab and port of the war by almost all the Left (al- liberation movement, along with the lo- anti-Muslim lynchings were declared vio- though 6,000 conscientious objectors cal racist resistance were also techniques lations of U.S. “brotherhood from sea to were sent to prison). As the government of Cold War Communist-baiting and FBI shining sea,” as the song puts it. After began getting ready for the war, it passed spying, infiltration, and intimidation. all, the U.S. rulers had declared that the Smith Act, which forbade anyone what the terrorists hated was ‘our’ de- from “advocating the overthrow of the gov- J. Edgar Hoover bugged Martin Luther mocracy and freedom. More importantly, ernment by force or violence”. On the eve King,Jr., with the permission of the racist behavior made it difficult for the of the war, this was used to jail the lead- Kennedys, and sent King anonymous U.S. imperialist government to build an ership of the U.S. Trotskyists. Perhaps notes encouraging him to commit suicide. international coalition with Arab and the worse form of oppression during the King was assassinated, as was Malcolm Muslim governments against Afghani- war was not directly by the government X. Different wings of the Black Power stan. Much to the disgust of the Israeli but by the capitalists and their bureau- movement were infiltrated and encour- regime, it was denied increased aid cratic agents in the unions, namely the aged to engage in armed conflicts. The against the Palestinians ( for the mo- No Strike pledge. No matter how bad Black Panther Party was destroyed in a ment). The U.S. state declared that the things became on the shop floor or in hail of police bullets. The antiwar move- war was not against Islam but against terms of income - and no matter how ment was also investigated and threat- terrorism. much business profited from the war- the ened by all sorts of government repres- workers were not allowed to strike about sion. Individuals were spied on and But in fact the state committed itself to a it. Local strikes were fought against , not wiretapped. Organizations were infil- policy of profiling and discriminating only by the companies, but also by the trated. Dirty tricks were used to get peo- against Muslims and Arabs - from above. unions and (especially) by Communist ple to suspect each other. Over a thousand Middle Eastern men Party members, who put victory for the were rounded up and imprisoned, some This pattern of repression reached its Soviet Union above all else. held for weeks without contact with their manic height under President Richard families or lawyers - on the excuse, if one World War II was followed by the long Nixon. Not only did he spy on Black peo- was given, of investigations into their Cold War, which included two significant ple or the Left (which the system expects) visas. (This even included a small number Hot Wars, the Korean War and the Viet- but he had the nerve to use dirty tricks of Jewish college students from Israel!) namese War, as well as numerous smaller on the establishment. He had his “en- Five thousand Middle Eastern men were military events, such as the overthrow of emies list” of prominent people whom he “encouraged” to meet with the FBI for the Arbenz government in Guatemala, used the tax department to investigate, interviews. Not one of these people inves- the Cuban invasion, the Dominican in- and he sent spies into the Democratic tigated was found to be connected with vasion, the Berlin blockade, the Quemoy Part y headquarters. These were meth- terrorism, although a number were and Matsu incident, the Cuban missile ods which were only supposed to be used charged with overstaying their visas! crisis, the contra war in Nicaragua, and against the Left and were therefore seen so on. as shocking and unforgivable. Nixon was Attacks on civil liberties were quick to forced to resign in disgrace. follow. A law was soon passed, with the In the fifties the nation was gripped in initials USA PATRIOT Act. It gave fed- an an anti-Communist frenzy. Tenth rate But this time it was supposed to be dif- eral and other police things they had been politicians got their moment in the sun ferent. This ‘War Against Terrorism’ wanting for years: more money for new by howling about the enemy within, es- would not be marred by attacks on civil technology, the right to get warrants but pecially Joseph McCarthy as well as the liberties, although security not tell the suspects that the warrants congressmen on the House Un-American would be a natural concern. Es- existed, to sneak into a place and gather Activities Commitee, and a lot of local lit- pecially there would be no attack information without telling the subjects tle McCarthies and little HUACs. Com- on any nationalities. After all, it about it, to investigate student records munist Party members, ex-members, and was only recently that “racial or credit records without warrants, to people who never had had anything to profiling” of Blacks or Hispanics hold non-citizens for up to six months, do with the Communist Party, lost their by police was declared politically regardless of immigration judge orders. jobs, were fired from government employ- unacceptable. Contrary to previous law, the FBI and ment, were driven from universities, from Immediately after September 11, CIA may share information. The military the entertainment industry, and from all there was a nationalist frenzy may be used to enforce order inside the sorts of less glamorous occupations. The from below against Arabs and US. The definition of terrorism has been Taft-Hartley Act denied recognition to Muslims. People were very expanded to include any organization unions unless their leaders took oaths frightened by this major attack that they were neither Communists nor on U.S. soil and wanted to lash Communist sympathizers; this way the out at someone. In Detroit, unions were purged of Communist Party young white men gathered every members. The leaders of the CP were evening in front of a mosque, jailed (under the same Smith Act which waving the U.S. flag, and chant- they had applauded when earlier used ing “USA, USA!” Nationally against the Trotskyists). The Left in gen- there were attacks on Arab eral, which had been dominated by the Americans, Muslims, and even Communists in the thirties, was now vir- Sikhs (whose men wear turbans tually driven underground. but are nether Arabs nor Mus- In the sixties (which really goes from the lims). Several murders were re- late fifties to the early seventies), the ported. Pilots and passengers on balance of forces changed. A new Left (or airplanes refused to fly with New Left) appeared, less willing to be Arab-looking passengers. The terrorized, with more popular support establishment clamped down on labeled terrorist by the administration. was a great deal of turmoil caused by be depended on to maintain its promise working class struggles. The capitalist of democratic liberties and rights, in war These egregious violations of liberty were ruling class dealt with this by finally or- or in peace. It never has and it never will. then expanded by administrative fiat, ganizing mass fascist movements, over- Only revolutionary anarchists are con- without consultation with congress. The throwing the bourgeois democratic states, sistent, thorough-going, defenders of police were allowed to overhear lawyer- establishing dictatorships, and smashing popular liberties. Anarchists defend them client conversations in prisons for non- the workers’ unions and parties. When and work to expand them, to push them citizens. Military tribunals were given the Left was thoroughly smashed and to the limit, until they break the bounds the right to try non-citizens, on US soil order restored, capitalist political democ- of authoritarian society, the state, and the or overseas, without lawyers, without racy was restored. The exact same pat- capitalist economy. The anarchist goal is even the standards of military justice, tern appeared in Chile in the seventies. full freedom, popular participation, and and able to put subjects to death. After directly democratic control-from-below of the sixties, the Justice Department had Of course, in a war there are bound to be all society insti- stated rules that the FBI was not allowed certain limitations. No one expects a com- tutions. to investigate political or religious organi- munity at war to allow the enemy to set zations just because of political dissent; up recruiting stations. But limitations on Wayne Price, who lives these rules have now been cancelled. The civil liberties have always gone way be- in New York City, is a captured al-Qaeda prisoners were de- yond this. And there has never been rea- supporter of the clared beyond the protections of the Ge- son for gross violations of the rights of Northeastern neva Conventions. New controls were put whole groups. Real democracy and free- Federation of Anarcho- on scientific research. Most of this is sup- dom are not things to be granted only Communists and ported by most U.S. people, out of nation- when times are tranquil. It is especially participates in the alist feeling or out of a natural hope that in times of trouble and war that people collective which puts out the government can keep them from be- need to be able to speak their minds, The Utopian, A Journal ing blown up or poisoned. But there is an freely associate, and democratically work of Anarchism and increasing number of people calling for out solutions for social problems. Libertarian Socialism the protection of historical freedoms. The capitalist class and its state cannot (www.utopianmag.com). These liberties have been called “bour- geois democratic” by the Marxists. The original meaning of this term is that Enduring war and popular mobilisation these are the rights promised by the capi- talist class in its great democratic revo- Many activists seem to think nationalism always defeats movements lutions: the English Revolution (of from below. At the first waving of the flag, apparently, the left scut- Cromwell and the Levelers), the U.S. tles for cover; as soon as bombs fell in Afghanistan, the movement Revolution of 1776, the French Revolu- against capitalist globalisation was hopeless. tion, and the South American Revolutions Historically, though, the reality is different. sistance movements around the world, pro- (of Boliver and many others). The pro- Most of the revolutionary waves of the 20th duced draft-dodging and ‘fragging’ in the US gram of bourgeois democracy states that century have been associated with major Army and an international network of “all men [sic] are created equal,” calling wars: the period 1916 - 1923 which saw movements. for “liberty, fraternity, equality.” It implies revolutions in Russia and Ireland, as well What are the implications of this analysis that all people are politically equal and as failed attempts in Italy, Hungary, Ger- for the peace movement and the ‘movement many and elsewhere; the European Resist- are able to buy and sell equally (with no of movements’ against global capitalism? ance movements of the mid-1940s which distinction but the quantity of money Firstly, we should hold our nerve. ‘Endur- defeated fascism in Yugoslavia and had to they have). This was a deal made by the ing war’ has not sent us home - it produced be put down by Allied troops in Greece; and rising bourgeois class: let us rule eco- an anti-war movement which has been the movements of 1968, fuelled by opposi- nomically and we will give the people faster to develop and more international tion to imperial war in Vietnam. these democratic rights. (Later Marxists than any peace movement since the 1980s. used the concept of bourgeois democratic Patriotism is certainly ‘the last refuge of the Governments want us to believe that we can rights as an excuse for rejecting democ- scoundrel’. It is not surprising that the Bush do nothing; we shouldn’t agree. racy.) administration should have clutched at the Secondly, we should organise seriously. We events of September 11th: in the face of re- are promised a series of wars, to carry on But the bourgeoisie never carried out its cession, a growing anti-capitalist alliance past this generation, against one enemy promises, or did so only under never end- at home and the legacy of the Florida count, after another, mobilising the American ing pressure from below. The English and dead Afghanis mean strong poll ratings. An- population (though it isn’t clear what this French Revolutions ended in the dicta- archists will not be surprised that the ‘mid- will mean). In this situation, popular resist- torships of Cromwell and Napoleon. The dle-of-the-road left’ has rolled over and lined ance will grow over time, and we should U.S. Revolution was made by Southern up behind the flag in the name of the na- think in terms of fostering this process. slave-owners in coalition with Northern tion. merchants and was meant to expand the We need to keep on the streets and keep up But long wars are dangerous for states. The land taken from the Native Americans. criticism of the war, but without burning problem with mobilising people - interrupt- out. This war gives us a chance to build good Nobody considered women as citizens, ing their everyday routines and giving them links internationally, across ethnic barriers, until generations had passed and women a part to play on a world stage - is that they and with other movements (anti-racist, soli- engaged in mass struggle. soon start to set their own goals. The First darity, human rights). Above all, we need World War was brought to an end in a Eu- Overall, greater democratic rights were sustainable campaigning geared to helping ropean wave of mutinies and desertions only won by popular struggle. But when- ordinary people to start taking action - and which led to revolution in Russia and Ger- ever the popular struggles became too to encourage them to go further! many and the end of four empires. The Re- threatening, and the capitalists felt they sistance movements supported by the Al- Laurence Cox (Dublin) has been involved in social could not afford to expand freedom, then lies had a distressing tendency to set their movements for nearly 20 years, including opposing the capitalist canceled the democratic own agendas, to which European welfare the Falklands War, the nuclear arms race and the rights, if they could get away with it. For states are an indirect response. The long second Gulf War. He's an academic specialist in example, in Europe in the thirties, there war in Vietnam (1945 - 1975) inspired re- social movements research, currently studying working-class community politics in Ireland. Israel / Palestine is not a nice place to live in - it is a war zone

Israel / Palestine is not a nice place to live ment was intended to make the Palestin- in - it is a war zone. It developed gradually ian state a neo- colony of the Israeli capi- as a Zionist project supported by the West- talists - both a source of low wages workers ern empires for more than 120 years. It be- and a captive market. It was supposed to longs to the family of settler colonialist enable the settlers to continue with their projects which tried to build new European- projects in parts of the occupied territories. like nations in colonies. In the case of Is- However, in the Oslo agreement Israel Israeli Palestinians. rael this involved the immigration of Jews promised more than they intended to fulfill, from all over the world, mainly from the less Against the back ground of the general re- and immediately they started to apply eco- developed countries, and the expulsion of cession in the capitalist world system, and nomic pressure and the suppression of free- the indigenous Palestinians. the local aggravation, the increased use of dom of movement, in order to prepare to terror and guerilla tactics by the Palestin- In spite of the efforts of the Zionist estab- obtain additional concessions from the Pal- ian resistance has made the life of many lishment with imperialist support there are estinians in any final settlement. unberable. The fact that in spite of the still more Palestinians in the region after The refusal of the Israelis to fulfill the harsh Israeli retaliations the uprising con- all these years than the 5 million Jews. Due agreement according to timetable and the tinues, makes people start to doubt the gov- to the agreements at the end of 1948 war exposure of Israel’s conditions on the final ernment in all spheres. Israel could not get rid of all the Palestin- settlement of conflict removed the ians living in the territories occupied in that The pluralistic nature of the Jewish citizens possabilty of the Palestinian elite surviv- war and it had even less success in the ter- of Israel can be seen in the following exam- ing such an agreement so the second ritories occupied in the 1967 war. About one ple: The collapse of the Oslo agreement due Intifada started in October 2000. All million Palestinians live as second class to the failed Israeli efforts to blackmail the through the last 16 months, Israel has in- Israeli citizens. Another one and a half mil- Palestinian leadership into further conces- creased the pressure on the Palestinians of lion live in the tiny Gaza strip occupied in sions they could not impose on their peo- the occupied territories, and on their elite. 1967; About two million more live on the ple, resulted in the second Intifada. This However, it seems that the Israeli elite have West side of the Jordan, also occupied in uprising of the Palestinians added to the started to realize that they cannot force the 1967; More than two millions are on the world economic crisis and influenced Palestinians to accept the settlement as East side of the Jordan (in the kingdom of Israelies in very serious ways. On top of this they planed due to military and political Jordan); and more than half a million live you can add the failure of Sharon to force circumstances, and that the long term pres- in the refugees camps of Lebanon and Syria. the Palestinians into submission, even us- ervation of the status quo is also out of the ing the harshist measures possible, which Till this day the majority of Israeli’s remain question due to two main processes only resulted in an increased level of ter- Zionists and dream of the big Israel. Some The ability of the present Israeli elite to rorist acts and guerilla struggle. When it of them dream of the biblical borders includ- continue the pressure is hampered the most was made clear he intended to continue the ing the East side of the Jordan and Golan by growing internal pressures. These have ugly efforts to force the Palestinians to sub- hights... The majority of them dream ‘only’ resulted recently in a sharp increase in op- mission, but with out probable success and of the territory west of the Jordan... of position to the war. resulting in harsh retaliations from the course without the Palestinians. Before the Palestinians, the fermenting discontent peace agreement with Egypt most of them The first factor is the split within the elite started to soar. added the Sinai pennisula to their Zionist between the older Zionist establishment and dream. Reluctantly however, the majority the emerging capitalist section who suffer The latest expression of this discontent is may agree with a ‘painful compromise’ in- from the decline of the economy due to the the petition of reservist commanders of elite cluding equality for the Palestinian citizens war. The tourism industry has collapsed. units. They declared that they will refuse of Israel, but it does not yet include the re- The markets for local products are con- to serve in the occupied regions of the 1967 turn to the 1967 borders, and the taking of stricted both within Israel, in the occupied war. This petition during the last first weeks responsibility for the creation of the refu- territories and in the markets of the of February rose from 50 to 250 signatories. gee problem (mainly in the 1948 war) . Nor neighboring Arab countries; ‘The peace bo- It is explained by them declaring that the does it include agreement that the Pales- nus’ for the Israeli capitalists is in the proc- continuation of the occupation is a war tinian state be entirely sovereign and inde- ess of slowly vanishing. The commercial con- crime they refuse to participate in. pendent of any Israeli authority. tacts of exporters suffer because buyers do The terrorist acts of Israel in January 2002 not dare to come to the region. The increased The Oslo agreement was an effort of the are on the background of relatively lower suppression of the Palestinians has de- intensity of Palestinian activity. During the Israeli Zionist establishment to bribe the creased their availability as cheap workers. national leadership of the Palestinian refu- time they occurred the media was full of gees who were exiled from the occupied ter- The second more threatening factor is the predictions of provocation from Sharon ritories. One aim, the secondary one was growing dissatisfaction of the working class. based on his behavior in the previous obvious - so they would stop the armed The unemployment rate among the Jews, months. The attacks were supposed to pre- struggle against Israel. The second one, the and even more so among Israeli Palestin- vent peace talks with the Palestinians, and essential one was the expectation that in ians, has risen over the last few years due they succeeded... As a result people who only return for giving them the right to return to neoliberalization and globalization (low- suspected it and people who knew but and a kind of autonomous rule for them and ering tarifs, “export of work intensive in- needed a clear proof started the beginning the elite of the Palestinians in the occupied dustry”, up to 10% of working people for- of revolt. It was expressed clearly in the region they were supposed to extinguish the mally employed as menpower companies, ) more pro capitalist media, which reported flames of uprising within the parts of Pal- accompanied by huge number of “guest more, and more on Israeli war crimes. It estine occupied in 1967. workers” (brought to appease the Israeli was highlighted when in the main respected capitalists). The contribution of the upris- capitalist daily and weekend supplements The background of increased resistance by ing of the Palestinians to the economic hard- there appeared calls for resisting service the Palestinians and the global increase in ship is clear for all to see - including the involving war crimes. fundamentalist Islam has also made the drastic climb of unemployment - over 10% imperialist powers uneasy. The Oslo agree- This call to resist military service was not among the Jews and nearing 20% among the first. Nor was it the first to appear as an ad in the respected dailys but it was bureaucracy and the capitalist interests lo- ploit the Palestinians and the workers of unique in two ways: First, it was signed by cal and abroad cooperating with it. neighboring countries , the interests of the combat commander reservists who are the European countries in decreasing the appeal The other factor is the increased militancy backbone of Israeli power. The second, one of fundamentalist Islam trends; and the de- of the Israel working people and their wish third of the costly ad was paid by the most crease of the willingness of Israeli workers for a comfortable life at the level of the Eu- prominent heart surgeon in Israel. In addi- to be used as canon fodder point to a new ropean working class. The more the number tion, public polls revealed 15% to 32% pub- optimism It seems that like in other coun- of second and third generation decendants lic support for the commanders who pub- tries the most despised settler colonialist of the original immigrants rise the less and lished the original petition. (The difference system will be replaced by a still despised, less the working people are motivated by in support is due to the measure and kind but less so, modern capitalist system. nationalist false consciousness/ideology and of support described in the polling question.) the more possible seems a compromise with One can see the growing awareness in Is- In the first two Saturdays of February we the Palestinians, Especially as the Israeli raeli society that the Israeli Palestinians even had big demonstrations of a few thou- working class are now suffering the conse- cannot be kept much longer as second class sand participants supporting the quences of neo-liberalism which has re- citizens and that the efforts to subdue the petitionaries and calling for an immediate sulted in high unemployment, less secure Palestinians into submission to a Bantustan end to the occupation. employment, and a halt to the previous con- solution under Israeli rule have no chance tinuous increases in living standards. to succeed. And most of all we can see the However, the interests of the Israeli capi- growing awareness that the continuation of talists, and the Israeli workers to put an The third is the actual absorption of a sig- the conflict is costing too high a price. end to the continued conflict (because of its nificant part of the Palestinian refugees into cost) are not big enough to over come the the capitalist system and the promises of It might be that the latest Israeli attacks interests of those who refuse any compro- further absorption if the conflict will be re- are the last throw of the dice both initiat- mise with the Palestinians, and those who solved. Both for the uprooted peasants and ing a harsh Palestinian response and gamble that the increased pressure will the working people who are no longer forced mounting Israeli internal opposition. If the yield a better settlement. People continue to be in idle in refugee camps, and the Pal- Israeli side will consent to let the Palestin- to ask when and what will be the end of the estinian capitalist class. Now, they may ian capitalists manage their own independ- conflict between the Zionist settler have the option of exchanging their nation- ent state in the 1967 borders with minimal colonialist project in the region, and the lo- alist Dreams for the option of living in a adjustments the Palestinian elite may be cal Arab people - mainly the Palestinians. relatively modern capitalist state. able to solve the refugee problem with the economic support of the rich countries. The old secular nationalist Palestinian so- The decrease in power of these interested in lution offered, was that only one secular the continuation of the conflict; the increase Ilan Shalif is an Israeli anarchist who has been active for state with equal rights for all citizens and of the capitalist interests who want to ex- many years in "persistent and principled opposition to with the right of return to all refugees of Zionism". 1948 and 1967 wars of Zionist occupation Declaration - May 2001 (unofficial text of small libertarian communist group in Israel) will resolve the conflict. The occupation continues, the occupation will continue, is there any solution? [excerpts] The old Israeli libertarian communists The truth is now there for all to see: there is Bantustan, but also a social and political tick- (Jews and Palestinians) solution (since no peace agreement between Zionist Israel and ing time bomb and for sure it would be not 1962) was that only social revolution in the the Palestinian Arab people, and there will any kind of solution. whole ‘Middle East’ region which will re- never be. Zionist Israel is a state which ad- This is the reason we do not find any value spect the self determination of the working heres to discrimination between its Jewish in searching for or offering any solution for people of Jewish origin, can recruit them to citizens (and actually all the Jews of the the present or the near future. However, there the side of revolution, put an end to the Zi- world), and the rest of its citizens. is a strong reason to put forward principled onist settler expansionism, and resolve the Zionist Israel is a state that stubbornly demands worth fighting/struggling for: conflict between the Jewish citizens of Is- refuses to mend, even in minor steps, wrong 1) Immediate and unconditional withdrawal doings it inflicted on the Palestinians. It not of the Israeli army from ALL the territories rael and the Palestinians. only refuses to dismantle the settlers’ colonies occupied in 1967 war. But the developments of the last years of and to allow the return of any number of the 2) Recognition of the right of the Palestinian struggle point towards the possibility for a refugees, it even refuses for more than 40 years people for self-determination. capitalist peace . This was both enabled by to let the evacuees of the villages Iris and 3) Cancellation of all the discriminatory rules change in the power balance of the region Burma return from neighboring places despite that Israel has and replace them with fully of the last 10 years or so, - the collapse of the Supreme Court verdict. equal rights for all those who live in Israel . Every agreement achieved in the short run 4) Recognition of the right of the Palestin- the USSR and the absorption of the region between Israel and the Palestinians will ex- ians (“refugees”) to return to their homeland. into global capitalism. (More so for Israeli press the present power balance between an All the solutions offered by the Israeli and capitalism, but also that of the emerging occupying force and the occupied, between the Palestinian “left” based on equality are impos- capitalism of Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and oppressor and the oppressed between the sible to achieve in the near future (if at all): even Syria.) The capitalist peace is condi- strong and the weak between the masters and “two states for two nations”, “state of all its tioned on the completion of that shift of the the enslaved. In other words, every agreement citizens”, “bi-national state”, “secular and power in the region to the modern capital- that will be achieved in the near future will democratic state”.... Are they worthy to fight ist elites in both the Israel and its be based on the trampling of the Palestinians for in the long run? neighboors. as a people and as individuals. All these “solutions” take for granted the hi- The solutions suggested for the present are erarchical structure of the state and not con- One dominant factor is the increase of the based on “compromise” between two sides that testing the capitalist system. Within the capi- relative power of the classic capitalist class are not equal. The formula for a “Palestinian talist system these reformists solutions are im- of Israel – who in all the years proffeted by state besides the Israeli state” is in the present possible to achieve and are not even worth exploiting the labour of the Palestinians. All conditions a big fraud. Even if Israel will agree dreaming of. through the years (since the beginning of in the near future to the establishment of such Only a social revolution of all the region (as the Zionist project) the Palestinian work- a state ruled by the PLO, it will necessarily be part of change in the social order of all the ers could be hired for about 1/2 to 1/3 of the like a Bantustan in the time of Apartheid in world) which will abolish the capitalist exploi- wages of organized Jewish workers. All South Africa: A state divided into at least two tation and the hierarchical structure of the these years the capitalist class preferred to parts, with no real army, with only partial con- states and other oppressing and discriminat- exploit them rather then expelling them as trol of its borders, ground and water; A state ing mechanisms - will put end to the conflict the zealous Zionists wanted. The privati- inflicted with high unemployment, flooded by ignited in the region by the super power states zation of the previously held industry and hundreds of thousands of returning refugees, and the Zionist project they nourished. services according to the neo-liberal receipe while a very high percent of its population will Such a solution is both worth fighting for and contributed immensely to the diminishing be dependant on the Israeli economy. dreaming of. A “state” like this will not only be a power of the old elite, the settler colonialist 2002 Preface to ‘Why the Reversion to Islamic Archaism?’ fixed in advance, but when the Muslims are again powerful, war must be declared and waged.” This is nothing but orthodox Islam. The modern schizophrenia To understand the ideology of Islam it is crititical to understand that the prophet- merchant Muhammad was beyond any- of Islamic integralism thing else the founding father of worldly empires. “The true prophet, therefore, is not merely an inspired man who has * * * the unusual powers of of performing miracles. He is primarily a statesman and a legislator.” “Why the reversion to Islamic archaism?” Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406), “the Machiavelli of Islam” was first published two decades ago as part of two issues of Khamsin: Journal of Revo- “Experience has shown, however, that powerful, countervailing cul- lutionary Socialists of the Middle East ad- tural forces operate: the audio-visual media emit hedonistic mes- dressing “Politics of Religion of the Middle sages which undermine the notion “Islam is the solution.” East”. Lafif Lakhdar had in Lebanon pre- The consumer culture’s attraction, the lure of “Made in USA” viously published political critiques of reli- sneakers and movies, bewitches many amongst the shabab gion, and co-written twenty-four theses on (youth) upon whom the elderly leaders had pinned their Black September (the crushing of the Pal- hopes. More dismaying yet, are the local knockoffs, such as estinian resistance movement in Jordan by the North African hybrid of Arabic and rock music, dubbed the armed forces of the King in 1970) with Rai. Increasingly, Islamist voices can be heard asking, “Per- Mustpha Khayati, the Tunisian author of haps all we can wage is a rearguard battle. Isn’t it likely situationist texts such as the Class strug- that our present achievements are doomed to death by attri- gles in Algeria, as well as the pamphlet On tion?” the Poverty of Student of Life, which gained Emmanuel Sivanin in “Why radical muslims aren’t fame during May 68 in France. taking over governments” Published in 1981, Lakhdar’s essay is obvi- About the life in Islamic cities between the bands, and went to cinemas,” (Philip S. ously not up to date, which does not mean 11th and 15th century, we find the follow- Khoury: Syria and the French Mandate: The it has become less relevant, and not only in ing passage in Albert Houranis A History Politics of Arab Nationalism 1920-1945, I.B. the ‘Islamic World,’ which was never quite of the Arab Peoples: “Those who were openly Tauris, London 1987). a world apart. Also for many living where active were women of poor families. To the Another, if smaller, historical leap. In 1967, capitalist social relations first developed in extent to which a family was wealthy, pow- in Ba’thist Syria, there appeared an article full scale, the question of why the reversion erful and respected, it would seclude its in the Jais al Shab (the People’s Army) en- to Islamic archaism has become much closer women, in a special part of the home, the titled “The means of Creating the New Arab on the background of different but intercon- harim, and beneath the veil when they ven- Man” containing the passage: “God, reli- nected phenomena. Call it ‘globalisation,’ tured from the house into the streets of pub- gion, feudalism, capitalism and colonialism, immigration or September 11; ‘neo-liberal- lic places. An Egyptian jurist of the Maliki and all the values that prevailed under the ism,’ war, poverty, stupefication or aliena- school, Ibn al-Hajj (b. 1336), said that old society are no more than mummies in tion; racism, ‘codes of honour,’ women should not go out to buy things in the museum of history, and absolute belief secularisation, commercialisation and wom- the market, because they might be led into in man’s ability should be treated as the only en’s emancipation. For sure an old world is improper acts if they sat with shopkeepers: new value.” Demonstrations followed and breaking down and a new one has little idea ‘some of the pious elders (may God be pleased were brutally crushed, but the author of the were it’s going, or has not yet been born. with them) have said that a woman should offending article was sentenced to life im- leave her house on three occasions only: Lafif Lakdar ends his story within the first prisonment as well, and in the next three when she is conducted to the house of her period of Khomenism in Iran, which con- years the government built more mosques bridegroom, on the deaths of her parents, nects us in time to the beginning of the last than had been done in the last thirty. 6 years and when she goes to her own grave” Afghan wars, as well as the Iran-Iraq war latter, the code word used in the October of 1980-88. A war between the most con- Not everybody was as ‘pious’. Hence, Philip 1973 war against the Zionist state of Israel temptible product of the preceding nation- K Hitti could write about an earlier period, was “Badr,” a direct reference to the battle alism of the Arab Renaissance party and a in his History of the Arab’s: “Alcoholic drinks that had established the supremacy of the reborn religious nationalism (where in the were often indulged in both in company and prophet Muhammad over the unbelievers. words of Lakhdar, Islam could “congratu- in private. ... prohibition, one of the distinc- Assad also referred to the war as a jihad late itself on having caught up, five centu- tive features of Islam religion, did no more against “the enemies of Islam” and the Syr- ries too late, with the Europe of the Inquisi- prohibit than did the eighteenth century ian forces as the “soldiers of Allah”. And in tion”) – both mystifying more or less the amendment to the constitution of the United 1975, Sylvia G. Haim could write in the pref- same, glorious pasts. What can you expect States: Even caliphs, vizirs, princes and ace to a new edition of her Arab National- from ‘liberation movements’ that cannot judges paid no heed to religious injunction.” ism: An Anthology: “Public prayer has be- help but constantly refer with wounded Today, many a pilgrim on his return from come part of the appeal of today’s socialist pride to imperial pasts? Empires have never Mecca, and after having engaged is such leaders in Libya, in Egypt, and in Syria.... had much to do with freedom from oppres- heavy spiritual work as throwning stones Islam it is claimed is the font of all praise- on a sculpture symbolising Satan in the worthy theories.” town of Mina, pays Dubai a visit to satisfy Want to reprint these articles? In a collection of essays by Mu’ammar al- worldly desires for whisky, and other more Qadhafi and his nearest comrades-in-power modern symbols of the rule of you know We strongly encourage anarchist and liber- from 1973, Ibrahim al-Bishari writes: “The whom. But then, was not the messenger of tarian socialist publications to re-print these idea of jihad has a material and moral Allah also a merchant and the founder of a character; this is jihad by means of the word. articles in full or in part. Please include the trading empire? Jihad with the Sword, for the sake of God, author’s details and the web address http:// But .... “For example, in May 1942, shayks using every method, must govern our rela- struggle.ws/stopthewar.html. The text of the from [Jam’iyyat] al-Gharra’ and [Jam’iyyat] tions with the outside world in order to al-Hidaya [al-Islamiyya] led large protests spread our message. Islam lays it down that articles is on that web page demonstrations in Damascus denouncing war is to cease by means of armistice If translating an article please email a copy the women who exposed their faces in pub- (hudna), or mutual promises (muwa’ada), lic, promenaded on the arms of their hus- and it is to cease only for a limited period to [email protected] sion and exploitation. Too much history is With its emphasis on root-learning and in- economical forces, are needed. Cultural ones the tragedy of the day. It contains no past doctrination from early age, the importance not excluded. This would also reveal the nor future that anyone would want to live, of “schooling” for building a global Islamist forces struggling against a return to old and except maybe great men of power. Pax- infrastructure cannot be underestimated. It new life-denying ideologies, whether of the Americana and pax-Islamica never differed is amazing that in the beginning of a new ‘East’ or ‘West’. The question of the emanci- much. It is the old history of exploitation, millennium, two-thirds of all Saudi PhDs pation of women remains central, and is oppression and slavery. are in ‘Islamic Studies.’ So what shall these also what is gonna makes this edifice crum- students to do when they finish, to say noth- ble in its foundation. There is a certain truth The particular class composition of much ing of their poorer brethren elsewhere? Also in the words of the Moroccan Fatima of the historical core areas of Islamic domi- more traditional campuses has for long been Mernissi: “The Muslim system is not so nance, partially as a product of indigenous a prioritised battle-ground for Islamists. “A much opposed to women as to the hetero- history, partially of colonialism and the study of 1,384 Syrian fundamentalist im- sexual unit. What is feared is the growth of impact of global capitalism, has tended to prisoned between 1976 and 1981,” writes the involvement between a man and a make the position of the social strata tradi- Dilip Hiro, “showed 27.7 per cent to be col- woman into an all-encompassing love, sat- tionally most inclined to fascistoid ideolo- lege or university students and 13.3 per cent isfying the sexual, emotional and intellec- gies strong, and the working class weak. professionals, the corresponding figures for tual needs of both partners. Such an involve- The attraction to figures as Musa Nili and the Egyptian being 40 per cent and 6 per ment constitutes a direct threat to the man’s Hayder (the Brave), better known as Mus- cent.” (Islamic Fundamentalism, Paladin allegiance to Allah, which should be the solini and Hitler, was not only due to the Grafton Books, 1988.) Many become state unconditional investment of all man’s ener- establishment of a settler colonialist state bureaucrats, teachers – and unemployed. gies, thought and feelings in his God.” Or called Israel. To this, the line of home-gown Hamas, a Palestinian offspring of the Mus- should we say to very worldly rulers. This butcher-saviours have been too long, and lim Brotherhood, for long was a non-com- hardly captures everything there is to say the continued influence of honour and bative faction within the Palestine resist- about that topic. But it expresses something shame and ‘manly values,’ and the celebra- ance movement, and used the time to con- about that males are also oppressed by this tion of submission, too strong. But there is quer much of the means of education. Or to ideology, and why secularising forces will nothing pre-determined about this. It is a refer to Bassam Tibi: “In line with the his- succeed, maybe in a strange alliance with product of oppression both by the word and torical described legacy, the Islamist of our more spiritual, heterodox and pagan under- by the sword. And, it must be added, we are time put the goal of taking over the institu- currents within Islamic cultural traditions, most of the time talking about a minority, as well as for sure, purely metaphorical, if a powerful and vocal one, dominating a opportunistic and privatised interpretations ‘silent majority’ living their lives as best of the “words of Allah,” as has become a as they can. Islam foremost enslaves Mus- norm within most of what remains of what lims. And it is precisely the authoritarian, was once Christianity. It took hundreds of semi-secular regimes that has made the years to significantly weaken this once so continuation of this state of affairs possi- strong and oppressive force. The last thing ble. needed is a replacement. The failure of pan-Arab nationalism to de- An interesting phenomenon was captured liver what it promised, which was not by Jeremy Seabrook in an article in The much to wish for in the first place, whether Guardian (December 20, 2001) with the tell- as Nasserism of Ba’thism, is an important ing title: “The making of a fanatic: Young element in Lakdar historical exposure. men with broken dreams of a business ca- Surprising to many is no doubt Lakhdar’s reer are turning to fundamentalism”. He description of how Saudi Arabia with its writes: petro-dollars was once seen by many as yet another saviour challenging ‘the West’ “You see them everywhere on the streets of – if hardly capitalism. This was also the Dhaka, Jakarta, Karachi, the boys with time that the sponsoring by Saudi Arabia tions of education at the top of their agenda. their qualifications: a Master’s in person- and United Arab Emirates of madrasas, In Algeria, for instance, the educational nel, a diploma in management, a degree in mosques, and other religious institutions politics of ‘Arabisation’ preceded the rise of marketing. You meet them on the battered around the world, really took off – to coun- political Islam. In similar vein, the Turkish buses, in the dusty parks, in the flyblown ter the growing influence of Iranian fundamentalists pursue the politics of cul- eating-houses, clutching copies of their Khomeinism. We see the beginning of what tural Islamisation as their priority.” Audio- “biodata” in plastic folders. They are on their might be called a true globalisation of Is- tapes, and to a lesser degree, video-tapes way from house to house, giving tuition to lamic integralism, where also parts of the have also for long been a popular way of the children of the middle class. These are world that earlier had been little exposed spreading the message, “from the the representatives of the pinched under-em- to this kind of fanatic breed of dogmatism, Kalashnikov to the tape-recorder,” as the ployment of a generation raised on the prom- though nominally Muslim, were drawn into saying goes. ise that if only they study business, they will the circle. It should be remembered that this be sure of a managerial job, big money, a As always the position of women became also meant a confrontation with the tradi- security greater even than that guaranteed the main battleground between strong tionally strong pagan influences in popular by government service. secularising forces – a critical aspect that Islam, in particular in the countryside. The must not be overlooked – and the refuge of Business culture has seized the imagination state ideology of pure, dogmatic Islam of the outmost reaction. “By accepting to live in of the young all over the world. It has Sharia, of worldly Sunni jurisprudence, bondage to this Divine Law, man learns to brought new hope to a generation whose takes center place. Islam is in a paradoxi- be free,” in the words of a former Minister educational aspirations have been trans- cal way the most secular religion there is of Law and Religious Affairs in Pakistan, formed by its revelations of wealth-creation. (sharing many common traits in particular A.K. Brohi, which reminds one of something They carry textbooks, published in the US, with Judaism and the Bible of the Old tes- a certain Trotsky once said about slavery pages of which they learn by rote. Many are tament in this respect), and its more popu- and ‘socialism’ not being necessarily op- from poor families, from small towns and lar and elitist spiritual elements are pre- posed, as well as the Leviathan of the Eng- distant villages, who have sold precious land cisely those the Islamic integralist want to lish 17th century philosopher, Thomas or gone into bottomless debt for the sake of cleanse it off, so that nothing is left but Law. Hobbes. a better life for their children. For them, to That this, in this day and age, cannot even study in the capital enhances prestige - dis- create Order but only bloody chaos, in minds To dwell deeper into this material, concrete tance from the homeplace, it seems, adds as well as in daily reality, is yet another studies of the societies and histories Islamic value, no matter how academically thin the paradox. integralism operate within and global socio- object of study, no matter how shaky the in- stitution.” Islamic faith, fear death no less, and wants right in stating: “Contrary to what Islamic no less to live than the rest of us. There- propaganda claims, and many western left- Unlike what is the case of fairy tails, this fore, Islamic integralism will fade away and ists believe, today’s Iran does not represent new chimera seldom has a happy ending. give room for those who seek life and a world the reinvigoration of Islam but its swan- But that the people referred to were caught no longer dominated by exploitative and song, except that it lacks any beauty.” What in the Islamist net first after having seeked oppressive social forces. The future lies remains to be answered is how long this a future within the latest craze of hyper- closer to the music of Rai and the rebellious death-dance will take, how much pain it will modern corruption, tells us much about the youth of Kabyle, than it does to the caves of give birth to, and how much, and for how future of Islamic integralism. It has noth- Afghanistan. long, it can hold back the emergence of con- ing to offer other than what is contained in ditions needed for a libertarian class strug- the last phrase of the watchword of the Islamic integralists are fighting a war they gle to gain strength. The question of why it Muslim Brethren, namely “Death for the cannot win in the long run. The last des- emerged in the first place, it would take Glory of Allah is our greatest ambition”. And perate battles before being overtaken by the volumes to adequately answer. unlike what a western media, deceived by realities, for better and worse, of the mod- Islamic propaganda and its own ern world. Overtaken by emancipatory Written by Harald Beyer-Arnesen, born and living in stupefication wants us to believe, human forces on one side and commodification on Oslo, Norway. Anarco-syndicalist and anarchist beings of flesh and blood grown up with an the other. Lafif Lakhdar was essentially communist. Why the Reversion to Islamic Archaism? In order to gain a critical understanding of the persistence of Islamic archaism and all its paraphernalia, one must approach it through the logic Lafif Lakhdar (1981) of its own history, as well as that of the Arabo-Muslim bourgeoisie of the 19th and 20th centuries, which is radically different from the process of empire; a staunch pro-Ottoman, he at times European history and from the residual folkloric Christianity of the present- advocated the Arabisation of the empire, day West. which would mean that the Turks, the dominant element in the empire, would be Islamic integralism – not a the domination of the Ottoman rulers and in an inferior position; a militant opponent Reformation from the religious domination of the of socialism, as a theory imported from Let me explain: some orientalists, such as ecumenical patriarchate who still hankered Europe, he at times predicted the universal the American Richard Michel, see in the after the idea of a grand new empire with victory of socialism; an ideologist of Islamic activist Islamic movements a potential for Greece at its centre. Blinded by their pro- fundamentalism, he at times (probably reforming Islam. In other words, a way of Ottoman prejudices, the believers in pan- under the influence of Free-Masonry, of rationalising it, thus bringing it closer to Islamism did not realise that times had which he was a member) advocated the western liberalism. Such writers have changed and that the era of modern nation- merging of the three monotheistic religions clearly succumbed to the comic temptation states had succeeded that of the empires of in a new synthesis which would be superior of analogy and to the lazy facility of former times. True to itself, pan-Islamism to each of them. This idea was openly repetition. For, if one sets up a parallel was keenly opposed to the secular and heretical. His disciple ‘Abduh, after having between the contemporary Islamic liberal anti-Ottoman tendency of the Arab taken part in the ‘Urabi uprising (1881 - an Brotherhoods and the European Christians - Shibli Shumayyil, the anti-British and anti-authoritarian revolt, Reformation, one is just making a mockery Darwinist, was one of their leading violently condemned by the sultan) later of concrete history. spokesmen – during the last quarter of the recanted. 19th century. This latter tendency Seen historically, the Reformation is an considered the only answer to European This confusion and incoherence of pan- integral part of the making of the modern penetration and Ottoman despotism to be Islamism are closely linked to the decline world, of the birth of nations and their the complete adoption of the European of the Arab-Muslim world since the second languages from the ruins of the Holy Roman model of civilisation as well as the half of the thirteenth century, and to its Empire and its celestial counterpart - the separation of the Arab provinces from the having been conquered, for the first time in Church. This process led, through a long empire and hence the formation of a modern its history, by bourgeois Europe. route of development, to the explosion of the nation. third estate - a fact of decisive importance, In the last analysis the followers of pan- without parallel in the modern history of Pan-Islamism countered these liberal Islamism reflected the feelings of the big Islam - an explosion which brought forth demands with its famous old rubbish about pro-Ottoman land-owners. These the French Revolution and hence modern the need for a just despot modelled on the landowners owed their position to the first nations and classes. second caliph, ‘Umar, who would impose on attempt at privatisation of the crown his subjects a bovine discipline for fifteen domanial estates, which was carried out in The Islamic movements are located in a years before guiding them step by step to the semi-modern, semi-oriental state of completely different historical context. To the age of reason. To the idea of the Muhammad ‘Ali. They were aware of the conflate this context with that of the formation of a secular Arab nation threat which European influence presented Reformation is to misunderstand the origins comprising Muslims, Christians and Jews, to their interests. Besides, British and development of the current movement pan-Islamism replied with the Muslim domination was to encourage, at their of Islamic integralism, as well as its nation in the Koranic meaning of the term expense, the growth of a new rural class historical antecedent - the pan-Islamic - that is a community of believers. They even based on small and medium land-owners. movement of the 19th century. thought that they could stop the Arabo- It is this very class which constituted the Pan-Islamism took form under the political Muslim provinces of the empire from core of the modern Arab bourgeoisie. breaking away by unifying Sunni Islam direction of the Ottoman sultan himself and The pan-Islamism of the 19th century, through the merging of its four rites. the ideological direction of al-Afghani and known as al-Nahda (Awakening), is in no ‘Abduh. Its aim was to defend the caliphate This response to the challenge of European way comparable to the Reformation and still (the empire) which was slowly but surely modernism was not only anachronistic - it less to the Renaissance, which was a return breaking up as a result of the combined was also uncertain. The leading spokesman to the pre-Christian values of pagan Graeco- thrusts of European economic and of pan-Islamism, al-Afghani, vacillated from Roman civilisation. Even the Counter- ideological penetration, and of the one position to another. This high priest of Reformation was a progressive movement nationalist demands of the Balkan peoples, pan-Islamism sometimes opted for pan- in comparison with contemporary Muslim especially the Serbs and the Bulgars who Arabism which implied the break up of the integralism. The latter began in 1928, that were struggling for emancipation both from is after the first world war, which marks collective memory of the umma, the Koranic It is not normal that there be in the Arab the beginning of the decline of the capitalist nation, undifferentiated and cemented by homeland an Arab who is not a Muslim. The mode of production, whose crisis since then divine law. As the bourgeois patrie has not Christian Arab has no right to belong to the has been permanent. Henceforth all been created, the wars that the Arabo- Arab nation, whose religion is not his own.” variants of the bourgeoisie are regressive. Muslim bourgeoisie has been fighting from (Footnote 3) Just as the fully fledged subject Besides, one cannot, without making a fool one decade to the next are not patriotic wars in Medieval Europe was a Christian the of oneself, identify the path of the history but jihads. true “citizen” in the Arab world is a Muslim. of the Arabo-Islamic world with that of For lack of a bourgeois revolution, the Arab Qadafi says out loud what his Arabo- modern Europe. The dynamics are quite state, although bourgeois in its social and Muslim colleagues whisper to each other. different. anti-proletarian role, has not been able to King Faisal told Sadat when the latter had An impassioned criticism of the religious attain its true development into a self- come to tell him of his decision (along with illusion; successive revolutions - sufficient modern state which does not need Syria) to open hostilities against Israel in commercial, cultural, scientific, philosophic, to lean on the crutches of Islam. Its 1973: “It would be catastrophic to declare bourgeois, industrial - and finally the denominational character, since Islam is war together with a Syria governed by the creation of the nation-state; this sums up proclaimed the state religion, prevents it to Ba’thists and the ‘Alawis [a sect of Shi’i the essence of Europe’s history since the date from creating a true national cohesion. Islam]. To ally with Ba’thists is to risk Renaissance. This could only be carried out in a non- disaster. But with ‘Alawis especially, it denominational state which would result would be tantamount to courting a double The Copernican earthquake, the heresies, from a fusion and recasting of all the disaster.” (Footnote 4) This morbid the Enlightenment, 1792, 1848, 1871, 1917 present components of its national confessionalism is explained by the were so many mortal blows to religion and bourgeoisie. Since they have not succeeded conditions which gave rise to the Arabo- to mystical obscurantism. Priests had in this respect, each Arab state is a mosaic Muslim bourgeoisie and by its vital need to already become a species doomed to of particularisms of all sorts whose creeds, resort to Islam for its survival. This extinction and Christianity is a shadow of ethnic loyalties, dialects and mental bourgeoisie emerged not in a revolution but its former self thanks to the anti-Christian outlooks are different and contradictory. as the result of a lame compromise with its currents which the French Revolution Syria, Iraq and Lebanon are dramatic colonialist opposite number; for it was born brought forth. From the fury of the direct examples of this. This explains why at times from agriculture and not from industry. democracy of the Revolution, year 11 to of crisis regional, tribal, ethnic or Finally it is a late arrival on the scene, a Freud, who demonstrated that the confessional bonds often blunt the edge of class whose birth, after the first world war, mechanisms and pulsations of the social interests and the horizontal division coincided with the beginning of the decline unconscious owe nothing to a Great of Arabo-Islamic society, which is of the bourgeoisie on a world level. In order Supervisor, religious indifference bordering unconsciously experienced as a to remain in command when faced with the on atheism became internalised in the juxtaposition of clannish partisanships challenge of the ‘people’, it could only rely collective unconscious of the greatest (asabiyat) rather than as a society of open (apart from the armed forces) on Allah and number. Whereas in the Islamic world the class struggle. Islam as the principal mystification of the mosque still wishes to dominate everything, toiling masses, since it had not succeeded, in the West television every evening plays The fact that there is still no secular due to its immense economic backwardness, admirably the roles of the Father, the Son dimension within the Arab state means that in setting up the modern mystifications and the Holy Spirit and thus turns church, the Christians and the Jews, not to mention inherent in political and trade union family, and soon school, into as many the free thinkers, are still subject in effect pluralism. Its incapacity to create a anachronisms. (Footnote 1) to a status of dhimmi (tributary) as they prosperous economy capable of satisfying were fourteen centuries ago. God having been put to death by the the quantitative demands of the proletariat bourgeois revolution, and the church having The secularisation of the Arabo-Muslim left only Islam as an ideological weapon for become marginalised, the nation-state state, so bitterly opposed both by the pan- paralyzing the social dynamics, blocking the appears upon the altar at which all citizens, Islamism of the 19th century and by intellect of the masses, maintaining the sub- irrespective of racial and religious origin, present-day Islamic integralism, was never animal status of women and mystifying the take communion. insisted on by any party or AraboMuslim class struggle. The struggle between the thinker. True, al-Kawakibi recommended oppressors and the oppressed degenerated Within this profoundly profane Europe the the union of Christian and Muslim Arabs – - often through the efforts of the political nation-state imposed itself through the dual but within the framework of the sacrosanct and religious establishments - into a sterile process of assimilation of the bourgeoisies Islamic caliphate whose caliph must be a confrontation between Muslims and non- and of ethnic or religious minority groups, Qurayshi (Arab from Muhammad’s tribe). Muslims, Sunnis and Shi’is. In short, Islam, and the marginalisation of national and Similarly, the Arab uprising of 1916-1919, as its etymological meaning indicates, was religious particularisms. It was that which was supported by Great Britain, only able to force its subjects into submission. outcome of the bourgeois revolution which attacked the Ottoman order to appeal to “all cut the umbilical cord linking the modern Being decadent from birth, the Arab true Muslims to overthrow the atheist bourgeoisie to its medieval ancestors. bourgeoisie was incapable of creating either government which had dethroned the sultan its own market or its own national unity. and confiscated his property”. (Footnote 2) Bourgeoisie without bourgeois Hence its allegiance to the imperialisms of Even the Egyptian National Party which revolution today and to the Ottoman empire of former considered itself to be Jacobin was fiercely In the Arabo-Muslim world this process has times. ‘Urabi, in the midst of the war anti-secular. They attacked Qasim Amin for not taken place and the nation-state did not against the British expeditionary force, having recommended a measure of see the light of dawn. The modern Arab refused to publish and to refute his emancipation for Muslim women within the state - an abortion of the project for a state excommunication as an ‘asiy (rebel) by the confines of a slightly re-interpreted Islam. which Napoleon attempted to implement in Ottoman sultan - this excommunication was Their leader Mustafa Kamit jumped for joy Egypt, which was taken over by obtained moreover thanks to the promises when a law court annulled the marriage of Muhammad ‘Ali and which still survives and threats of the British. When the a Muslim lady with a Copt journalist. Worse today with a modernistic facade and Khedive and the British spread it about in still, the party’s paper, al-Mu’ayyed made a caliphate foundations - has not succeeded the Egyptian army the latter became concerted attack on the Copts for not having in rising to the rank of the nation-state. It demoralised. The soldiers of the first converted to Islam. has remained a confessional state, subject national Egyptian uprising no longer to the following cycle: composition, The present leaders of the Arab bourgeoisie wished to die as rebels rather than as decomposition, recomposition. it has in the are in this respect faithful to their martyrs bearing the blessing of a Turkish main remained inveterately despotic and predecessors. Qadafi has recently stated sultan. More than forty years later, Sa’d denominational. Religion, in this case that “Arab nationalism is part of Islam ... Zaghlul - the father of secular Egyptian Islam, plays the role of a catalyst for the nationalism refused to support the abolition Islam. Taha Husain was condemned even landed bourgeoisie, which in many cases of the Ottoman empire by the Turks by the most enlightened leaders of the Arab included or had close ties with the clergy. themselves, “because,” he said, “the bourgeoisie. He and his fellow-thinkers The Arab state, even under the modernists, multitude is very sensitive to this subject”. were more representative of their Parisian remained true to form, hypocritical and Muhammad Farid, leader of the Egyptian teachers than of their own feeble-minded bigoted; the speeches of people such as National Party, went even further when he bourgeoisie which did not put up with the Bourguiba or Nasser were constantly wrote that “The Muslims of Egypt owe it to slightest criticism. interspersed with as many quotations from themselves to link themselves forever to The intelligentsia of the period between the the Koran as they were with statistics. Turkey, which is the capital of the Islamic two world wars was in advance of the Nevertheless the reform projects were ill- caliphate, without the slightest bourgeoisie, but behind the times - and suited to a profoundly traditionalist Islam. consideration for their history in Egypt or failed in its absurd attempt to reconcile The 1962 Charter in Egypt prattled about elsewhere.” We find in the words of an fundamentalist authenticity with comercial scientific socialism, as did the Charters of Egyptian Jacobin the fundamental thesis modernism, the specificity of traditionalism Algeria and Syria in 1964. In Tunisia a code of the pan-Islamism of Afghani: “The with the uniformisation which the world of personal law was introduced in 1957 nationality of Muslims is only their market imposed. In short, they wanted to which was ultra-modern and quite unique religion”. identify with the bourgeoisie, and to be in the Muslim world. It forbade polygamy, From failed pan-Islamism to themselves at one and the same time. which is permitted in the Koran. Divorce, ineffectual modernism Drawing their own conclusion from their reduced to a business transaction, was Although the ideological demarcations failure almost all the modernist made symmetric, whereas Islam - the between the discourse and the confessional intellectuals recanted before the end of the summit of male chauvinism - makes it the practices of the Arab-Muslim bourgeoisie on 1940s and tuned into the religious stupidity sole privilege of the husband. To get an idea the one hand and pan-Islamic of the bourgeoisie, which had in the main of the Muslim clergy’s hostility to measures fundamentalism on the other are tangled, remained prisoner of the bric-á-brac of of this type, recall that immediately upon a new fact did emerge - the defeat of pan- ‘Abduh’s pan-Islamism, but within the achieving power, the Khomeinist Islamism. In 1919, Islam appears to be the confines of an Islam which had definitively government repealed the restrictions that loser. The ‘Home of Islam’, apart from North broken up. the previous regime had imposed upon a Yemen, Afghanistan and what was to husband’s unilateral right to divorce his In the meantime in Egypt - epicentre of the become Saudi Arabia, was totally under wife. Arabo-Muslim world, and the model for its European domination. The recipe of the evolution - the liberal bourgeoisie under the The ultimate in the relinquishing of Islamic pan-Islamists - an Islam reunified and leadership of the Wafd, a bi-denominational dogmas was Bourguiba’s abolition of the fast purified by a return to the sources and thus and therefore implicitly secular party, also during the month of Ramadan in 1958 in able to defy the European challenge - turned failed in its task of modernising the an attempt to deal with the drastic fall in out to be ineffectual. Its original economy. The other bourgeoisies came to the production caused by the fast. contradiction, between the need to accede same impasse. When the failure of the to power and therefore to modernism, and As a result of the economic and legislative liberal faction of the bourgeoisie was the tendency to regress to a primitive Islam measures taken by the modernist complete, the statist faction took over: 1952 full of taboos, incompatible with the bourgeoisie where in power, society began in Egypt, 1954 in Syria, 1958 in Iraq and demands of power and modernity, became to break up and the family to fall apart. The finally the civilian Neo-Destour in Tunisia, flagrant. This contradiction in fact rapid rise to riches of the new bourgeoisie, 1956. expresses the historical impossibility of the legendary for its corruption, favoured the realisation of this double aim. In the epoch Once in power, the modernist, authoritarian emergence - in societies in which family or of permanent crisis, it was impossible for faction of the Arab bourgeoisie, with its community solidarity was still a matter of the Islamic bourgeoisie to catch up with belief in a planned economy, appeared to the honour - of an utilitarian outlook bent on advanced capitalism; and at a time when old fashioned faction of the Muslim money and success. In short, the old form the world market was being unified under bourgeoisie as ‘communist’ in Egypt, Syria of society was eroded and the traditional the dictatorship of mass consumption, it and Algeria and as ‘westernised’ in Tunisia. economy was destroyed without anything was impracticable to return to a pure and All the more so as the pro-Soviet tendencies new taking their place. The failure of the undiluted, austere and inward-looking of the former and the pro-western modernisation of the economy was Islam. tendencies of the latter were obvious. In the ubiquitous. To this economic failure, the Middle East the pan-Arab message checked modernising bourgeoisie added in 1967 the The abolition of the Islamic caliphate by the influence of pan-Islamism. Some military defeat by Israel. The occupation of Ataturk in 1924 and the separation of the agrarian reforms, while not greatly the whole of Jerusalem, the second most Arab provinces from Turkey meant that improving the situation of the fallahin, sacred place of Islam, afforded the bitterly, pan-Islamism, whose centre was the encroached upon the interest of the old persecuted Muslim Brotherhoods another Ottoman empire, became meaningless. By setting up, thirty-three years after Jules Ferry, republican schools which were compulsory and non-denominational and opting for the European model of life, Information on the war Ataturk rehabilitated the tendency of Shibli Shumayyil, the rival of pan-Islamism. http://www.indymedia.org Moreover, this was to be the tendency of the new westernised Arab-Muslim Indymedia is a network of independent web sites on which anyone intelligentsia which began to emerge may add articles, photos or even audio and video for others to access. between the two world wars. Traditionalist http://www.ainfos.ca Islamic discourse was no longer a central theme. Their leading spokesman, Taha An anarchist newservice that carries some anarchist anti-war news. Husain, even went as far as to mock the http://struggle.ws/stopthewar.html rhetoric of the Koran which was unanimously considered as the one and only A site maintained by the editor of this publication with dozens of divine miracle to authenticate the message links to background information on the war and anarchist analysis. of Muhammad. He crossed swords with the traditionalists whose writings were nothing more than nauseating lamentations about For news by email send an email to the Judaeo-Christian “plot” to undermine [email protected] unhoped for argument to set the middle brought by three distinguished Companions means of defending oneself. Even the few classes, the social mainstay of those in of Muhammad: Ubayy, Ibn Mas’ud and ‘Ali appearances of democracy left by the power, not only against Israel and the USSR who was to become the fourth caliph. European colonisers such as the liberty of but also against the Arab governments Similarly they are not aware that their the press, the party system, the right to whose “lack of faith brought about the whole Koran was inspired not only by Allah but strike - are abolished in the name of catastophe”. (Footnote 5) also by Satan: the “satanic verses”, which sacrosanct economic development. While for some time permitted the people to retaining a veneer of westernisation, the Internal causes of Islamic worship the idols of the Meccans in order dirigiste Arab state has retrieved its integralism to win them over. memory of the caliphate. The old liberal bourgeoisie of land-owners and compradors, seriously weakened and The Arab intellectuals of today shun any In the Maghreb, the masses, given their discredited by its own failure, could no criticism of Islam, of the most abominable desire for a Messiah and the demagogy of longer claim to be able to replace the more of its dogmas, and even the translation or the nationalist elites, imagined that modern statist bourgeoisie. Only the publication of books clarifying the genesis independence would be a home-coming, a religious faction, who moreover had the of Islam such as Maxime Rodinson’s return to their traditional culture and to advantage of never having directly Mohammed. The main explanation for this their community solidarity where “all exercised power, could do that. All the more is the fact that the Arab intelligentsia as a Muslims are brothers”. The nationalist so as they were alone in having dared to whole has made a compact with the left and elites, once in power, did not of course keep face those in authority even when the latter right factions of the bourgeoisie - factions their promises. For them independence seemed to be at the height of their glory. which differ from each other as much as meant their own independence from the The anguish evoked by the defeat, the Tweedledum from Tweedledee. masses. Worse still, the post-colonial state permanent crisis of the regimes, which the behaved towards the latter with the same In the Arab world, those who think for consequences of the war only deepened, and cruelty as the colonial state. themselves and are capable of elaborating finally the black sun of melancholy which a criticism of all the sacred or profane In this claustrophobic and decadent Arab hardly ever sets in this region, favoured mystifications come up against the political society which had no perspective, the most birds who only fly in the twilight moments and religious censorship of the present Arab ridiculous mysticisms could develop. The of history - the religious pulpiteers. At the state - a censorship which is infinitely worse context, it is true, was ideal. A profound and times when the air is filled with doubts and than that of the caliphate state. The fact is generalised falsification of both social and questions, they come forward to offer the that the best Arab poets and thinkers of the inter-personal relations, the fatalism of afflicted masses their demagogic recipe - a early centuries of Islam would not be able Islam which, once internalized, prevents a return to Islamic archaism. to exist in the present day Arab world – person from being himself or herself, from The fact that the Islamic integralists are people like Abu Nuwas, who loved wine and thinking and acting as oneself from seeking the only mass opposition party in the Arab goodlooking boys; al-Ma’arri, who was the truth of one’s own destiny in oneself and world is due not only to the successive radically anti-religious; or even al-Jahiz not in Allah. failures of both the liberal and statist with his free libertine style, who was The occupation by Israel of the Arab factions of the bourgeoisie. There are other nevertheless considered as one of the territories provided the integralists with an reasons, both internal and external, which leading thinkers of the mu’tazilite school. unhoped-for pretext: it could be interpreted interact with each other. These deserve a As proof, consider the tentacles of a as a “just punishment from Allah on all closer look. censorship which has not even spared the those who had abandoned his religion”. Christianity was first modernised to adapt translations of the works of antiquity and The intergralist Muslim sects, haloed with it to the new Europe. Since the Renaissance of modern times. In Ovid’s Metamorphoses their martyrs from 1954 to 1966, especially it has been exposed to implacable criticism the chaos of the beginnings of the world has in Egypt, swarmed clandestinely. Worse from Copernicus to Freud, not to mention been transformed into a certain order of still, they became credible. All the more so heresies and revolutions. For lack of a Allah. Plato’s Republic and Symposium and since they were favoured by the fact that powerful industrial Arab-Muslim the Greek tragedies and comedies are the unspeakable authoritarianism of those bourgeoisie with its own intelligentsia, radically purged of any references to in power left practically no means of contemporary Islam has remained homosexuality or remarks which outrage expression or autonomous organisation. sheltered from any sort of subversive conventional morality. In the Divine Only the mosques where protected from criticism. However, as much, if not more Comedy, Muhammad is no longer to be censorship. They became places where the than other religions it is sensitive to any found in the eight circle of the Inferno. In masses whose ranks were broken by type of criticism be it social or scientific. For 1954, ‘Abd al-Rahman Badwi collected and despotism revieved a poltical-religious the Koran has its own bit to add to the translated the articles of the Arab indoctrination. biblical absurdities of Genesis. The earth freethinkers of the Middle Ages, entitling is flat; the sun “goes down in a boiling spring the collection Atheism and Islam. The book Then came the October war with its parade near to a people”; the stars “of the was rapidly withdrawn from circulation, of intense Islamic propaganda, and the oil neighbouring sky” are destined to be and nothing more was heard about it. In boom which enabled Libya and especially “thrown at demons”; “seven heavens and as Syria, since 1971, censorship has been Saudi Arabia to distribute their petrodollars many earths” were created by Allah. The preventing the publication of the to the integralist groups everywhere in Universe, it is true, is infinitely huge and translation of Marx’s German Ideology. My order to undermine left-wing extremists, or poor Allah might well be unable to make own writings, published in Lebanon before pro-Soviet groups as in Syria. Even at the head or tail of it. But when it comes to man the 1973 war, are forbidden everywhere time when the modernist statist bourgeois - a minute being - there is less excuse. From else. They sometimes manage to get faction was still credible, Saudi Arabia was among a myriad of examples: sperm, if we through the cordon sanitaire which extends used as the prototype by repressed or are to believe a verse in the Koran, is not from the Gulf to the Atlantic, thanks to the persecuted Islamic archaism; and its secreted by the testicles but comes from practice of smuggling, not always for purely emergence following the October war on the somewhere “between the loins and the ribs”. commercial aims. ruins of Nasser’s Egypt as the leader of the Woe betide the Creator who does not even Arab world gave the Brotherhoods of Sunni This stupid and totalitarian censorship is know the anatomy of his own creatures. Islam not only more subsidies, but the part of an unspeakable generalised model of an Islam true to itself. The Even well-informed Muslims do not yet dictatorship. The Arab bourgeoisie’s only propaganda pounded out by western media know that Allah, who swore in the Koran means of mitigating the under-development - depicting Saudi Arabia as the new giant “to always keep his word”, did not keep his in the techniques for lying in the mass with the power of life and death over promise to keep the Koran intact. ‘Uthman, media - its television is still not credible - western civilisation - stimulated, in old and the third caliph, when collating the Koran, are strong-arm methods from which the young alike, the nostalgic old desire for the put on one side the three other versions whole of society suffers. There is no legal return of Islam to its former strength. External causes in Muslim countries and in opposing their remodelling of its map. These are the internal causes which favour Soviet rival. Moreover, the latter used to try The balance of power in this area between a massive return to Islam. There are also to exploit Nasser’s pan-Arabism against the the Ottomans, British and Russians, which external causes: the decline of the West, and West. was upset by the consequences of the first its attempt to take advantage of the Islamic M. Copland, the former chief of the CIA in world war, was restored by a new balance movements. the Middle East, revealed in his book The between British and French. These two The decline of the West has become obvious. Game of Nations that as from the 1950s the divided between them the spoils of the Its dying throes shake the economic, ethical CIA began to encourage the Muslim defeated Ottoman Empire. In their turn, the and aesthetic order; its traditional Brotherhood to counteract the communist consequences of the second world war ideologies ‘socialist’ as well as liberal - are influence in Egypt. This trend has become meant the wane of British and French dead. In short, it no longer presents even more pronounced since then. imperialism and the rise of American and for itself a feasible project for civilisation. Russian imperialism. In 1920 there was the We hear the same tune from Giscard The Arab-Muslim intelligentsia, which had Treaty of Sévres and in 1945 there was d’Estaing, who confided to members of his formerly earned its daily bread by Yalta. But after the departure of the British cabinet before taking the plane for the Gulf circulating the latest cultural fashions of and the French and their replacement by in March 1980: “To combat Communism we this same western civilisation, is now the Americans and the Russians there was have to oppose it with another ideology. In thrown back on its own resources and no proper agreement to ratify the new de the West, we have nothing. This is why we outdated values. As though by some magic facto balance of power. The Arab-Muslim must support Islam.” (Footnote 6) power, it has now begun to rediscover the world has remained a shady area open to Brzezinski, the chief adviser to the White long-forgotten virtues of the celebrated all rivalries. The intensification of the world House, discovers in religious wars still other Return to the Source advocated by the pan- crisis now demands a new imperialist virtues: “The religious troubles in the Middle Islamism of a bygone age. Thus Zaki Najib distribution of the energy market (the East could arouse a common desire to find Mahmud, grown grey in the service of USSR needs 18 per cent of the Middle East a definitive settlement between the Arabs American positivism, realises at the end of oil), access to raw materials and spheres of and Israel.” [Footnote 7] It is therefore clear his life that he had “considerably under- influence. In short, a new Yalta, or world that the coming to power of Khomeinism in estimated” al-turath, the Arab-Islamic settlement, is required for oil, since the Iran has in no way altered the West’s heritage, which - if we are to believe him - alternative is open bargaining or open determination to manipulate militant is capable after all of rejuvenating good old confrontation. Islam. Future Islamic governments would Arab society! Others in turn have suddenly be, especially at the outset, difficult clients, All the states, apart from Israel, and discovered, more than two generations after but clients all the same. perhaps Egypt, will probably have to change the Dadaists, the bankruptcy of 18th their frontiers, their populations, their century rationalism which had promised to Restructuring the Arab world name and, naturally, their patrons. usher in the reign of reason in everyday life The West’s need to ally with Islam is - a belated discovery of a bankruptcy which considerably more compelling than the The map which will emerge from this new was already clearly visible in the debris of brevity of the declarations would lead us to Yalta will probably be an outcome of the the First World Butchery. Yet others have believe. As in Latin America, the American break-up of the present states into discovered that the alcoholism, drug bourgeoisie attempts to democratise as far denominational mini-states, which may addiction and youth vandalism rampant in as possible outdated dictatorships of the then be regrouped into federations or the West are all due to the decline of Iranian type within its sphere of influence confederations. The keystone of this religious feelings, and they would like to in the Islamic world. In fact, the attempt to politically re-structure the Arab- protect their own society from these evils. traditionalist caste-like dictatorships, the Muslim area will be the rise of the new In short, the fact that the Arab-Muslim clannish patriarchal type of governments - middle classes. Local technocracies have intelligentsia as a whole, which only as in Saudi Arabia, the Emirates in the Gulf, considerably developed due to the export of yesterday was looking to the West, is now or elsewhere - which forbid any change in oil and to the spread of education. Their withdrawing into itself is grist to the mill power, are incompatible with two major ambition is to participate in public affairs, of Islamic integralism. requirements: that of the new international hitherto monopolised by the tribal-dynastic division of labour and that of the castes. This participation, which implies a The monotheistic religions arose from the remodelling of the map of the Arab-Muslim degree of modernisation of the states in ashes of ancient civilisations. The present world. question, is (if we are to believe the return to religious archaism (which, in specialists of the multinationals and their varying degrees, is taking place all over the The restructuring of the saturated world computers) going to prevent both world) is nourished by the putrescence of market, demanded by the new autonomous popular movements and ‘our’ civilisation, which constantly reminds reorganisation of the international division possible pro-Soviet coups d’état, even in man of death and makes the apocalypse a of labour undertaken by the multinationals, Saudi Arabia. But how can this be achieved? daily occurrence. Within one generation it requires in turn a restructuring of the In Brzezinski’s own words, by the has led to two world carnages which political powers in the regions concerned, manipulation of the “existing forces” with resulted in twenty and fifty million deaths so that they can play their role there. The the aim of changing the out-dated and several hundred million wounded and leading technology on which the socioeconomic status quo, before Moscow permanently shocked. There is now talk of development of the highly profitable does so to its advantage. a third world war. Two great powers, the economic sectors of the future depend, such USA and the USSR, have at their disposal as computers or micro-electronics, will be Henceforth, it would be preferable not to sufficient nuclear arms to destroy our planet the monopoly of the West with the USA in risk military coups d’état except in cases of five times over. In the industrialised the lead; the outdated or polluting societies people are dying of obesity. In the industries (steel, naval construction), third world, fifty million human beings - of specialisation in certain types of whom fifteen million are children - die from agriculture and some sub-contracted malnutrition every year. That is as many industries, will be the lot of the third world. people die of malnutrition every year, as The possessors of the manna, in the form died in the second world war. of petrodollars, will have to play the role of international bankers financing the The West does not only encourage the projects evolved by western experts for the return to Islamic archaism by its own ‘development’ of certain underdeveloped decline, but even more by its intrigues. Both countries. The implementation of this new Europeans and Americans have long been international division of labour is forced to seek the help of Islam in the dependent in the Arab-Muslim world on the suppression of embryonic social struggles extreme emergency. True, armies have for The Muslim Brotherhood again with the same Sa’dists who, it is true, decades been the agents of change which The double failure of the first rising of the allowed them to set up a paramilitary the West has manipulated as it desired; but modern Egyptian bourgeoisie in 1919 which Organisation, al-Jawwala, with 20,000 the situation has now changed. Thirty years achieved neither independence nor a members. Later they allied with the ago, given the widespread weakness of all constitutional government; Ataturk’s National Committee of Students and the social classes, they were the only abolition of the Islamic caliphate in 1923; Workers, spear-headed by the communists. organised force capable of disciplining the the rise of fascism in Italy which impressed Not long after, they opposed the Committee toiling masses which were too turbulent at the majority of the average traditionalist by supporting the government of the famous the time. Then they failed in their task of Muslim intelligentsia; the rise of stalinism Isma’il Sidqi, leader of the Sa’dists. But just modernising the economy. Worse still: a in the USSR which attracted the attention before the elections, the latter broke his series of coups d’état - beginning with Egypt, of the left-wing Christian intellectuals, who alliance with the Brotherhood, which by then in Syria, Algeria, Libya and finally were also fascinated by the impotent cult that time numbered half a million members Ethiopia - had started off in Washington and of power; finally the grimness of the inter- and sympathisers. In December 1948, ended up in Moscow. war period dominated by the general feeling suspecting that the Brotherhood wished to of defeat of western civilisation with its take power, al-Naqrashi, the head of the When the tactic of the coup d’état had been basis in the cult of science and of reason - government, outlawed the movement. Their exhausted, the West thought it had found a all these created an environment which response was immediate. Al-Naqrashi was replacement in the religious movements. favoured the irruption of the irrational into assassinated by a medical student, a These movements were the mouthpiece of contemporary history. member of the movement. For a whole year, the urban and rural middle classes, and of the authorities manoeuvred Hasan al- the mystified sub-proletariat which In this setting, the Fraternity of Muslim Banna’, the Supreme Guide of the Brethren, crowded into the poverty belts surrounding Brethren was founded in Egypt in 1928, from one compromise to another, until he the prodigal capitals. It is possible that the only a few months before the emergence of disowned his own followers by publicly idea was not to give over all the power to the crisis of 1929 which was to lead to the declaring that “they are not brethren and the clergy but preferably to manipulate the second world war. Their organisational even less Muslims”. He was finally killed in religious and secular opposition as a whole model was based both on esoteric Muslim 1949. His successor, the magistrate Hasan to clear they way for the technocrats. Once sects of the Middle Ages and on modern al-Hudaibi, allied the Brotherhood once the battle was won, the clergy would return fascism. Article 2 of their statutes states again with the palace, and was even to their flocks and would busy themselves that members must undertake “to submit solemnly received by King Faruq, who with the management of their estates. to iron discipline and to carry out the orders stated in his presence and with his (However, the example of Iran is not too of their superiors”. Their charismatic agreement: “Since the British will soon leave encouraging ...) In short, the idea was to “Supreme Guide” is, like a caliph, beyond Egypt, our only enemy now is communism”. replace the anachronisms by modernist, all questioning. As from their founding, the But when Faruq was ousted by Nasser in liberal formations with a religious outlook Brethren chose to collaborate with the 1952, the Brethren supported the latter or backing. Modernist means: capable of regime in power. Thus they immediately with the same fervour. However, the setting up an economy enmeshed, by the came to terms with the “iron hand” honeymoon did not last long. When Nasser very constraints of the laws of the market, government of Muhammad Mahmud, then decided to limit landed property holdings with that of the West. It also implies the with that of the dictator Isma’il Sidqi and to 200 acres, the Brethren suggested the ability to maintain an army efficiently even with the Suez Canal Company; the figure of 500 and demanded at the same equipped and trained, but closely linked to latter contributed £500 to their funds, in time that the new government undertake the western system of defense. There is also order to encourage them to dampen the to re-Islamise society and the state. In 1954 the need to look after the interests of the ardour of the youth of the secular Wafd they attempted to assassinate the Ra’is. multinationals whose guardians they are to party, which at that time had broken with Their Brotherhood was disbanded. In 1959, be. Liberal means: capable of exploiting to the British. (The Brethren were the only it was clandestinely re-formed, and once the utmost parliamentary mystification and Egyptian group to have a newspaper.) again decapitated in 1965. Sadat, himself political and trade-unionist pluralism in In fact, their nostalgic appeals for the a former member of the Brotherhood, order to enlarge and consolidate the social restoration of the Golden Age of Islam, the allowed them to reappear in 1972 and to basis of the regime. Religious outlook or crossed swords and the Koran which served publish a journal, al-Da’wa (the Sermon). backing means: the re-forging of the good them as emblems, symbolising to perfection Similarly, the Muslim International old alliance between the sword and the the morbid ideal of the practice of death, founded by al-Banna’ in the 1930s was Koran in order to check any rebirth of attracted to their cause a whole part of the reconstituted in Cairo. Through it, Egypt, radical social movements, and if possible to frustrated petty bourgeois youth, who were amongst others, gave aid to the armed destabilise the Muslim republics in the horribly repressed, a prey to all sorts of fears vanguard, the Mujahidin, who are at USSR. Translated into Koranic terms, this and hostile to any pleausureable activity. present fighting the Syrian regime. is what Carter wanted to see implemented In short, the palace and the British used in this area — “friendly governments, In the writings of the Brethren, any social the Brethren as an anaesthetic. Islamic and liberal, who respect human programme is conspicuous by its absence. rights”. During the second world war, despite their Al-Banna’ justified his refusal to outline a sympathy for the Axis, the Brethren programme by his desire to “avoid the Given the explosive contradictions at work, supported the Allies, apparently for tactical possibility of a great schism between the the economic situation approaching reasons. In effect, they were able to use the various Muslim rites and confessions”. bankruptcy almost everywhere, there is mosques for their propaganda and to When one fine day the leaders of the nothing to ensure that the will of the Master establish themselves especially in the paramilitary Organisation of the of the White House be done. Neither the schools and in the countryside. Brotherhood informed him that they were crowned monarchy nor the jackbooted in a position to take power, he challenged republic was able to extricate this part of As a result of their truly Machiavellian them to submit to him within a week an the world from its chronic, general crisis. tactics, the Organisation of the Brethren Islamic radio programme for the first week Will the turbanned republic be able to do became, in less than thirteen years, the of the coup d’état - a task which they were so? most formidable mass party. In 1941, the incapable of fulfilling. Brethren allied with the Sa’dists, the party Nothing is less likely. The Islamic in power, which was close to the palace. As After the death of the leader, it fell to movements, given their composite social soon as the latter was ousted from the Muhammad al-Ghazaii, an ideologist of the nature and especially their lack of an even harem, they had not the slightest hesitation Brotherhood, to risk undertaking the remotely credible programme, are not in joining forces with its rival and successor, project. In his book Islam and the Economic capable of coming to power, or of staying the Wafd. When the Wafd was in turn Orders he devotes a whole chapter to the there for any length of time. eliminated from office, they allied once “intermediate economic order” of Islam. After dimissing “that Jew, Marx” with a few council of believers. Al-Afghani even speaks The Shi’ites do not demand a return to the words, he reveals to us the secret of the of a return to the era of the libertine caliph, times of the four caliphs. Abu Bakr, ‘Umar Islamic economic order, “alone capable of Harun al-Rashid, when Islam more than in and ‘Uthman are described as “usurpers”. saving humanity”. What is it? “It is the any other period - played the role of a mere Indeed, ‘Ali was reluctant to swear economic order”, he writes, “which was state ideology. It is therefore a question of allegiance to them, and disapproved of their implemented in Fascist Italy, in Nazi a return to the imperial power of Islam but rule. And if ‘Uthman beat him in the bid for Germany, and which is still in force in not to the Islam which respects its dogmas. power, it was effectively because he refused Britain, thanks to state control of the big to follow the example of Abu Bakr and It will be obvious that the Koran, the firms and to the state holding over 50 per ‘Umar. The insurgents who assassinated transhistorical constitution of the Islamic cent of the shares in these firms”. (Footnote ‘Uthman were moreover in league with him. Umma, has never been entirely respected, 8) Clearly, “the Islamic economy” is simply even by the four caliphs. Muhammad never Iran state control and militarisation of the hesitated for a moment to cut out verses A return to ‘Ali’s caliphate - from first to economy, as practised since the first world which the evolution of his sermons, or the last a period of open civil war - would mean war. Rather more subtly, Sayyid Qutb, demands of his alliances had rendered a return to one of the most troubled times another of the Brotherhood’s thinkers, does anachronistic. Thus the well-known Meccan of the whole history of Islam. In this respect, not have faith in any programme. In 1964, verse in favour of the mustad’afin (the Iran has succeeded. one year before his execution by Nasser, he downtrodden) was replaced by another published his swan-song whose title sounds Some Islamic ideologists consider that in favouring those with property: “We have, as a call for the re-Islamisation by the sword Khomeini’s Iran, Islam has gone beyond the said Allah, favoured some and not others of an apostate society: The Jahiliya of the confines of Wahhabi reformism, with its as far as riches are concerned”. Muhammad 20th Century (Jahiliyat al-qarn al-’ishrin). pan-Islamism and its creed of the Jihad, and however had a water-tight alibi - did he not The Jahiliya, the period of pre-Islamic has entered upon its ultimate evolution: the claim to be in touch with Allah himself, paganism, is usually depicted as revolutionary stage. Intellectually whose acts are unscrutable? “inadmissible permissive”, full of joie de incapable of understanding their own vivre and with no ethic other than love, wine The period of the four caliphs was in no way period, they do not realise that and hunting. And Qutb says: “Give us power the ‘Golden Age’ which contemporary legend Khomeinism, in a period when the and you sall see; we shall obliterate all trace depicts. There were cruel struggles for revolution can only be social, contains of this paganism”. power. Of the four “rightly guided” caliphs, absolutely no project which is in any way only Abu Bakr died a natural death - and progressive. In other countries, other Islamic his caliphate was exceptionally short. The organisations proved equally incapable of On the contrary, in Iran Islam can elaborating a programme for their Islamic congratulate itself on having caught up, five state. In 1972, when the government of centuries too late, with the Europe of the the United Arab Emirates invited Inquisition. Recently, Bani Sadr, the Head Hasan al-Turabi, the Supreme of State, wondered in his Inqilab Islami: “Is Guide of the Brethren in the Sudan, it true that an Inquisition-like to write an Islamic Constitution, his tribunal has been set up in the reply was at first negative - “This university?”. But the Holy is a difficult task”, he said. But they Inquisition was set up throughout would not take no for an answer, the country at the outset under the and with the help of petrodollars he crosier of that blood-thirsty managed to do it. This was the psychopath, Ayatollah Khalkhali. constitution which allowed Shaikh Zaid Ibn Sultan to be the absolute This inquisition is not the work of boss of Abu Dhabi. the Islamic Republican Party alone, but of all those in power. Even the Syrian Muslim Brethren They are incapable of dealing with have not been able to overthrow a the crisis, and can only resort to hard-pressed minority regime with appeals for austerity and the which they had been openly at war, practice of violent repression. The despite massive aid from Jordan, Saudi Iranian working class lost more Arabia and elsewhere - mainly because than 70,000 members in the they are incapable of producing a struggle to get rid of the Shah. programme likely to attract the other Their only reward is a medieval forces hostile to the regime. religious dictatorship plus the horrors of inflation (70 per cent), of In my opinion, this is an open admission of three others were assassinated: ‘Umar by a unemployment (4 million unemployed), and the historic impossibility of the Persian slave; ‘Uthman at the hands of one the humiliation of public whipping for the implementation for any length of time of an of Abu Bakr’s own sons, ‘Abd al-Rahman; simple act of drinking beer, or because a Islamic society in a world which commodity and ‘Ali by Muslims just as pious as himself. woman bathed on a beach reserved for men. production and its consequences have Less than 37 years after the founding by The two million drug addicts, mainly unified and predisposed to an alternative Muhammad of the first Arab-Muslim state located in South Tehran, were given six order, where the return to religion has no at Medina, the Community of Believers, months to kick the habit - otherwise they place. whom he had always instructed to remain will be executed. Return to what? united in the faith and in the law, in one This cult of death may well fascinate a large Given their inability to address the monolithic block, split into two groups, number of middle class youths, who are the downtrodden masses with a programme which were mortal enemies. victims of emotional blocks, and are that makes any sense, the integralists - Since the caliphate of Mu’awiya, the fifth frightened of freedom and libertarian ways. consummate demagogues that they are - caliph, and the consolidation of the It is however no solution in face of the real have opted for the facile slogan of return to conquering Arabo-Muslims as a ruling class, problems which shake the very foundations primitive Islam, the Islam of the four al- the Koran has been continually trampled of Iranian society. Rashidun, the “rightly guided” early underfoot by the caliphs of Islam, who only caliphs, who supposedly differed from all used it as a sort of philosophy of history, a A person such as Khomeini, who suffers their successors in their strict respect for state ideology, to justify the redistribution from historical sclerosis, and who in his the Koran and their adherence to the of power and of goods. book Islamic Government deals with such procedure of consulting the communal serious problems as the buggery of a poor donkey by a poor Muslim, and who is incapable of creating an Iranian bourgeoisie, can only return to the American This pamphlet is available as a PDF file fold or fall under Soviet influence. “We are less independent today”, admits Bani Sadr, “than we were under ths Shah. Our budget at http://struggle.ws/stopthewar.html for depends on the credit of foreign banks. Our dependence on arms and foreign military experts is quite simply tragic.” (Footnote 9) you to download, print out and distribute Has Bani Sadr, the spiritual son of the Imam, finally grasped that in a world unified by the violence of the laws of the You will also find a range of other PDF anti-war files of posters and market Iran cannot be independent, leaflets there as well as dozens of useful on-line articles on the war, whether the Imam, present or absent, likes it or not? Has he understood that the Koran Islam, US foreign policy, the media etc cannot be applied in one area of capital importance: the banking system? Before the Shah left, this Islamic economist calmly For news updates and promised those who wanted to listen that discussion of the anti-war he would abolish the banking system, “as it is incompatible with the prohibition of usury movement send an email to in the Koran”. Has he now realised that this [email protected] abolition requires the fulfilment of nineteen conditions which would take nineteen years? Obviously, the logic of capital is society of exploitation, of radical alienation, realise what it aims for they will resist stronger than all the prohibitions of all the of emotional plague, of loneliness, of violently and oppose you tenaciously”. He religions. insecurity, of degeneration, of generalised added – “You will first have to confront the passivity, of representations which ignorance of ordinary people concerning the The middle classes, who at first idolised represent nothing but themselves, of waste truth of Islam.” (Footnote 10) In fact, for the Khomeini in the belief that they had found and malnutrition, of fear and war. If religion people Islam is more of a refuge than a set in him the universal miracle cure, now turn is the sigh of the oppressed creature, it will of deadly dogmas - take for example the away from him to await the coup d’état. The cease to exist when that creature is no public transgression this year of the fast of sub-proletariat, who served him as cannon longer oppressed but has become the creator Ramadan in countries such as Egypt and fodder, now suffer more than ever with the of his own daily history. repression of Khalkhali. The proletariat are Iran where Islamic discourse dominates. engaged in a permanent struggle in their Text history The return to Islamic archaism is part of work-places to counter the intervention of This article was first published in “Khamsin: Journal of the process of totalitarian uniformisation the Islamic committees, and only stop Revolutionary Socialist of the Middle East.” (1981). The of all the aspects of cultural consumption. specific strikes to return to their permanent English version of Khamsin was published and Outside the confines of the dominant model go-slow. distributed by Itacha Press and and latter by Zed Press. - that of Islam for the Muslim and of Contrary to what Islamic propaganda Christianity for the Christian, that of References claims, and many western leftists believe, Judaism for the Jew and that of the media 1 See my pamphlet The position on religion (Arabic) Dar today’s Iran does not represent the for all - thinking is forbidden. There is no al-Tali’a, Beirut, 1972. reinvigoration of Islam but its swan-song, room left for free and critical reflection. The 2 The circular of Husain lbn ‘Ali, leader of the revolt, in M. except that it lacks any beauty. arbitrary in Khomeini’s Iran encroaches Atias, The great pan-Arab revolution (Arabic), Damascus, even on the freedom of choice in clothing 1978. The fallacy of a new Islam, which many for women and in choice of food for all. 3 Inteview in the Lebanese daily al-Safir, 10 August 1980. people have fallen for, is now beginning to 4 Recounted by Sadat, see al-Ahram, 4 September 1980. be dispelled. The awakening of the ‘ordinary Under the rule of a mercantile civilisation, 5 This is the ending of what seems to be the first tract of people’ could be fatal for it. In fact, the which impoverishes more each day and is the Muslim Brethren in Egypt, July 1967. ‘ordinary people’, although contaminated by in its own way bigoted, any creation 6 “The President in the land of 1001 wells” in Le Canard the plague of Koranic fatalism, are becomes necessarily heretical. When Enchainé, 8 March 1980. everywhere dissatisfied by this over- Khomeinist moralism becomes the norm, 7 Declaration reproduced in the Tunisian daily al-Sabah, 6 abstract Allah - too distant and too any reflection or ‘abnormal’ act can only be February 1980. 8 Isiam and the economic orders (Arabic), Dar al-Kitab, impenetrable to play a role in their daily punished. Beirut, pp 62-3. life. This is why the ordinary Muslim, both Apart from its exemplary punishments, 9 The Beirut daily al-Anwar, 24 September 1980. in Africa And in Asia, is so fond of totemic Islamic archaism has nothing new to offer. 10 Sayings of the martyr and pagan cults under the facade of Islam. It appears to me to be part of the process of Hasan al-Banna, pamphlet He reveres fetishes, amulets, marabouts the break-up of the state in a world which published by ‘Ibad al and tombs which help him to deal with the is becoming ungovernable. If the Islamic Rahman (the Lebanese suffering of everyday life, to cure ills and to movements were to take power following Brethren), Beirut, 1960. foretell the future. This humble Muslim, the failure and the expected fall of once the first surprise and the enthusiasm Khomeinism, they could only profoundly is over, appears as unwilling and even destabilise the Islamic world which is resistant to a literal application of Koranic already smitten with crisis, terrorism and barbarity which condemns him to open or masked civil war. It is however asceticism, castration, flagellation and obvious that Islamic archaism cannot come stoning. In a moment of frankness, Hasan to power, or remain in power in an al-Banna’ admitted in 1947 to the members acceptable manner. Its force is already spent of his Brotherhood that the first obstacle before it begins. Locally distributed by: they would meet on the path to the re- Islamisation of secular Muslim society, in “After the death of God”, says Nietzsche, “the his opinion, would be the hostility of the most difficult thing to overcome is his people. “I must tell you”, he said, “that your shadow”. His sinister shadow is this stupid preaching is still a closed book to the and stupefying society, which produces and majority. The day when they discover it and reproduces religion and spectacle; this