Delusion of (Non)Violence & Difference Between Progressive
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Library.Anarhija.Net On the Delusion of (non)violence & Difference between Progressive-Liberalism & Radicalism: Between Trump, BLM, DAPL-INM, & Tahrir Mohamed Jean Veneuse Mohamed Jean Veneuse On the Delusion of (non)violence & Difference between Progressive-Liberalism & Radicalism: Between Trump, BLM, DAPL-INM, & Tahrir 2017 http://mohamedjeanveneuse.blogspot.ca/2017/02/ on-delusion-of-nonviolence-difference.html lib.anarhija.net 2017 Contents Introduction:There are only middles, no beginnings and ends, when the end is the beginning is the end again . 3 Middle: From franchise-colonial Egypt to settler-colonial Turtle Island: Ideologies and Political Purity are an illusion: ......................... 8 Infinite possibilities, but One Truth: Resisting is like Breathing ................... 8 Conclusion: The End is the Beginning is the End is theBe- ginning Again: ..................... 84 2 and referenced recently amongst a critical reading list created by a Introduction:There are only middles, no group of Black, Brown, Indigenous, Muslim, and Jewish people who are writers, organizers, teachers, anti-fascists, anti-capitalists, and beginnings and ends, when the end is the radicals who have actually responded to Kamala Visweswaran’s call beginning is the end again for so-called ‘social movement theorists, organizers, participants, to do ‘their homework’ and hence have studied, experimented, and Imminent scholars[i] and political philosophers, as Jean Bau- pursued methods for revolutionary social change before Trump drillard[ii] warned decades ago of our ‘desensitization’, ‘moral rel- came to power. ativism’ and so-called ‘apolitical nihilism’ in a ‘post-alternative- fact’[iii] world, where images become nothing but simulacric copies of copies, along the way towards our ‘civilizational collapse’. When our species has accumulated modern mechanized tools of mass- annihilation, in the name of protection and security, capable of cre- ating Hiroshimas and Nagasakis in a moment’s notice, let alone our sado-masochistic ability to document endless, numbing, archives of (in)escapable atrocities of vitriolic and normalized violence(s) in the hierarchized and selective (de)humanization of lives and in the name of schizophrenic causes. One would’ve thought that we would rush, be moved, collectively as a species, reaching for what’s left of our abandoned humanity, to save it. But no, that’s notthe vision that was received in our derelict reneging of our commit- ments to this earth’s soil and our responsibilities to nonhuman life upon which our existence relies. One would’ve imagined that we would respond differently to the prospect of imminent doom, in fearing our demise. Instead, we gobbled up fear like an ‘insatiable chocolate éclair, repackaging it all this time, relishing it as addic- tive video games, as TV shows, books and movies, while the entire world wholeheartedly embraced the apocalypse, sprinting towards it with gleeful abandon, as this planet crumbled all around us. We simultaneously struggle with epidemics of obesity and starvation’, with millions of people going to bed with empty stomachs, as the rest of us know that our bodies are full of toxic agro-chemicals. ‘But- terflies are disappearing, our glaciers are melting, algae is blooming, coal mine Canaries are dropping dead, sea lions and creatures are washing up on shores, and yet we won’t take a hint’, as if techno- 178 3 scientific civilizational progress will ameliorate and save us, asop- having explicitly addressed, exuded specific variant conceptualiza- posed to us listening to the amphibian Armageddon emitting last tions and commentary on, to the extent of having abrogated it. croaks of our imminent extinction and doom (Kotler, 2015; Esteva, Notable grammarian and Muslim scholar of the eleventh century, 2014). And ‘despite that with every moment, there is the possibil- Al-Raghib al-Asfahani, in his text al-Mufradat fi Gharib al-Qur’an ity of a better future, we won’t believe in it, because we won’tdo (2010) interpreted jihad to be of three types: a) Struggling against what is necessary to recreate’ a new reality, so we dwell on this an apparent or visible enemy; b) Struggling against the Devil; and oh so terrible future as we resign ourselves to it and do so for one c) Struggling against the ego, or self, otherwise referred to as the reason: ‘That the future doesn’t ask anything of us today’ (Kotler ‘greater Jihad’, or jihad al-nafs, with all three imbued when God 2015; Esteva, 2014). Yes, ‘we see the iceberg and were warned of the in the Qur’an says: “and struggle (w’jahidu) in Allah’s cause as ye titanic, but all hands aboard we steered for it anyway, full steam ought strive” (Chapter 22: Chapter of ‘The Pilgrimage’: Verse 78). ahead’ (Kotler, 2015; Esteva, 2014). Why? Because we want to sink An alternative reading of jihad, through seventh century jurist, and and that was never God’s fault in any way but rather ours… infamous ‘scholar of the heart’ and tazkiyah, or ‘purification of the This piece fundamentally argues that ‘Ideologies’ and ‘pure pol- soul’, Ibn al-Qayyim Al-Jawziya, in his text Al-Fawa’id (or ‘Points itics’ relating to romanticized notions of ‘community’, ‘self’, ‘re- of Benefit’), identifies ‘the believer to be in a perpetual state ofJihad sistance’ and so-called ‘revolutions’, do not exist. That all there is until he and/or she meets with the Creator, Allah. To Al-Jawziya Ji- are consistent ethical-political principles and practices binding us had is of four stages: a) Firstly, to strive against one’s ego “in learn- in relation to each other as a species and non-human life. Indeed, ing guidance and the religion of truth, without which there will be that identity politics, albeit useful, are limited, given the destructive no success”; b) Secondly, striving against Satan “to act upon what Eurocentric legacy of reform-based progressive-liberalism that in- has been learnt, since knowledge without action will not benefit, vented them and therefore the need for distinguishing between the rather it will cause harm”; c) Thirdly, striving to encourage and former and radicalism from a social movement, anti-racist feminist, invite others, particularly nonbelievers “towards it [i.e. Islam and and decolonial perspective. Given, that without the development faith in general] and to teach those who do not know, otherwise of a coherent narrative and analyses between social movements as one maybe considered as amongst those who hide what Allah has Black Lives Matter (BLM), those ‘indigenous’ as the Dakota Access revealed of guidance and clear explanation”; and d) Fourthly and fi- Pipeline (DAPL) and Idle No More (INM), and lessons to be gained nally, striving to be patient and persevering against hypocrites and from the mass mobilizations of Tahrir, situated within an overar- those who knowingly “oppose this da’wah (call) to Allah and those ching trope of a ‘War on Terror’, there is no liberation to speak of, who seek to cause harm – patiently bearing all these hardships for despite that all these “fires are connected” (Alfred, 2005; 2014). Mo- the sake of Allah” (2004: 9-11). bilizing ‘black’, ‘brown’, ‘red’ folks and allies, across and beyond [cx] It resembles a clinic that I, an Oedipal subject, attend to be- these white racial/ethnic constructed and identitarian-influenced come relatively de-Oedipalized. The clinic is a “parody of the very ‘spectrums’ and ‘creeds’ is defeatist, without the situating of our self-defeating symptoms,” capitalist and micro and macro authori- entwined and fraught histories of struggles, responsibilities, ‘soli- tarian practices and racial/ethnic, histories that led me, an Oedipal- darities’, and accountabilities to each other. Mass mobilizations do ized subject, to construct anarca-Islam in order to become relatively not constitute a ‘movement’, as Tahrir and an Orientalized ‘Arab de-Oedipalized (Al-Kassim, 2007: 115). ‘Anarca-Islam’, was chosen 4 177 Christ. Nevertheless, it came to be with the declaration of the Cru- Spring/Islamist Winter’ have proven, in the absence of recognizing sades, or the ‘taking of the cross’ by Pope Urban’s crusaders in the too, what revolutionaries as Frantz Fanon and Malcolm X realized, 11th century that ‘just war’ became ‘holy war’ (Armstrong, 2001; that there are: Black, Brown, and Red skinned peoples with ‘White 2002). Indeed, that the sustained force to violently impel became Masks’, and hence the difference between the ‘house’ and ‘field’ Ne- cause for the gradual transition from a utopian and idealized non- gro, and the indignant desire of ‘people of color’ to assimilate into a violent Christian position to ‘Holy War’ and ‘Just War’. As Tamim ‘White multicultural sphere’ as opposed to our collective construc- Al-Barghouti, confirmingly writes: “The concept of jihad has greatly tion of a ‘pluriverse’ world, premised upon ‘acceptance’ as opposed transformed. Before the Crusades, jihad had two essential mean- to, at best, our mere ‘tolerance’. That is, a ‘pluriverse’ world that ings. The first indicated the inner conflict between good andevil is no longer premised upon ‘Cultures of Whiteness’, in principles, within the human soul a good believer had to fight a jihad against values, and identity politics, in the sterilization of our spiritualties his own desires; this was called al-jihad al-akbar (the greater jihad). and traditions, never mind the reinforcement of hetero-patriarchal, The second notion referred to the expansionary wars fought bythe enclosed, and xenophobic understandings of ‘nation’ in our yearn- early Umayyad Empire against the non-Muslim nations in Persia, ing, as a species, for communitarian tribal belongings. Despite that Turkistan and North Africa. However, after Jerusalem’s fall, jihad we have internalized Machiavellian and Manichean, divide and con- became the medieval Islamic equivalent of the modern concept of quer, misconceptions and prejudices, amongst ourselves, and upon national liberation. It became a war of self-defense against foreign which injustice, tyranny, oppression, and ‘White Orders’ thrive.