Islam and the Antiwar Movement (part I of III)

Recently, President Bush has taken to calling various movements in the Middle Eastern world (or more correctly, South-West Asia), “Islamo-Fascist” or “Islamo-Fascism.”

From the man who brought you the “Crusade”, the “Axis of Evil” and “Love Practicing OBGYN’s”, this clumsiness is not surprising. Unfortunately, this terminology and even worse, the framework of ideas it represents is becoming very popular among not just the right, but circles in the American Left as well.

The following series of posts is compiled and adapted from a series of exchanges I had with a fellow activist on the topic of Islamo-Fascism and how the Antiwar Movement should respond and organize. I have broken the dialogue into 3 parts for easier reading and to better organize the topics covered.

** Note: I use the term “Middle East” while being aware that such a term is quite Euro-Centric, but it is so common in the vernacular of the American Left, that I will use it for the sake of clarity.


Islamo-Fascism, Terrorism and the White Man’s Burden

The Rhetoric:

I think the term Islamo-Fascism is a red herring. It is meant more to connect Bush’s “War on Terror” to WWII than to describe the politics of Islamic Fundamentalism. For instance, would you call the right wing in this country Christian-Fascist? Christian-Fascists existed during WWII, like General Franco and the reactionary army.

I've heard plenty of sermons by Protestants calling for the Middle East to be turned into a giant crater (the kill em all mentality), but fascism it is not. Real fascism has nothing to do with "poor, ignorant masses" but a genuine economic crisis in which portions of the capitalist class look to the military to "save" society from genuine popular revolution.

The Islamo-Fascist line is about dehumanizing Arabs and Muslims plain and simple. It paints the Arab and Muslim people as "ignorant", unsophisticated, and easily duped into following fanatics. The masses of Arab people are not "poor and ignorant" they are generally more well educated than most Americans actually, that is before we bombed their universities, hospitals, and destroyed their "way of life."

Its not a compassionate worrying about the political ideologies of people in the middle east that drives the "Islamo-Fascist" rhetoric. (the usual solution proposed to deal with it is some form of military conquest).

The Iranian Revolution: A Case Study

To illustrate my point, lets look at the biggest example of Political Islam coming to power, the Iranian revolution. Since the US lead coup to topple democratically elected Mohammed Mossadegh (because he nationalized the oil fields), the Shah (from the Pahlavi dynasty) was re-installed. He presided over 30 years of sheer terror with his infamous SAVAK police force massacring thousands.

In 1978, the contradictions between the oil wealth of the elites and the poverty of the masses, especially the working poor in the oil industry exploded. Mass poetry readings in the streets and mass strikes forced the Shah to flee, the US giving him sanctuary.

For a period of 8 months the future of the revolution was debated and was in flux. You had on one had the "Shoras" which were democratic councils of oil, textile, and heavy industry workers and on the other the "komitehs" which were poor people's councils, at first just community-service bodies but increasingly religious in tone.

There was no decisive leadership on either side due to both the influence of Stanlinst politics AND political inexperience from the brutality of the Shah. Khomeni returned to the country with an anti-imperialist message, which gave him passive support, but he then took advantage of the weaknesses of the secular left and destroyed them. Raiding the "Shoras" jailing activists and leading bands of poor youth from the countryside to break up socialist and leftist meetings.

Thus the fate of the Iranian revolution was not sealed from the beginning due to the "Arab Mind" or some inherent feature of Arab society, but a real political battle like every other major revolution in which one side prevailed over the other because of a combination of leadership, economic conditions, and politics.

It also must be said that in the ensuing years, Iranian society has hardly marched in lock step with the Mullah's and the Iranian government. Popular protest has broken out on many occasions, especially among Iranian youth. However, the regime is propped up by the constant threat of US Imperialism and it can play itself as a lesser-evil and a champion of the oppressed. Such factors are the real issue in Iranian society, not fundamentalism and certainly not fascism.

The reality of "Islamo-Fascism"

So what does the term “Islamo-Fascism” as Bush uses it claim to describe?

Lets take the most obvious among them, Al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda is widely thought to have played a role in the bombing of the USS Cole in the Persian Gulf, the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and most notably, the 9/11 attacks.

Did the 9/11 hijackers bomb Yankee stadium, an apartment complex, or some other target with a high civilian presence? Did they bomb supposed symbols of freedom like the Statue of Liberty, the Lincoln Memorial, or the Acropolis in Greece? No, they bombed the two symbols of American imperialism, the Pentagon and the World Trade Center. (I know there are differences of opinion on 9/11, but please lets hold off on that debate for the time being).

The point of Al-Qaeda’s attacks were stated very clearly:

1. Humiliate the greatest super-power in the world in order to show the US was not all-powerful to the Arab Masses.
2. To use a dramatic event to spark a Middle East wide uprising against the US.

Both goals were partly accomplished, if not for the help of US foreign policy fanning those flames. But it is undeniable that such attacks were NOT fueled by irrational jealousy of our supposed freedoms (they can’t wait to get their own Patriot Act and Guantanamo Bay), or an act of conquest. Just the opposite, they were fueled by the acts of conquest by US and western Imperialism which have had its talons on Middle Eastern soil since the fall of the Ottoman Empire.

The difference between terrorism and resistance

Certainly Osama Bin-Laden and the hijackers justified killing civilians inside those buildings by seeing them as accomplices to US imperialism, which is a rationalization we should reject out of hand as well. But it’s not only this rationalization that is wrong with a theory of social change like Terrorism.

What is also wrong is that it takes the initiative out of the hands of the masses and puts its in the hands of a select few. I contend, the only way we will have a democratic society is to have a democratic movement, that involves people fighting for their own future, not a tiny minority (no matter how “enlightened”) acting in the interest of this or that group.

Terrorism, also assumes the only reason people don't fight back is lack of outrage. I counter pose that what is missing is organization to channel this anger into a particular direction. What is missing is a level of coordination and democratic debate about what kind of movement we want and where we want to go.

Hurricane Katrina is a great example. Plenty of outrage, plenty of anger, but virtually nothing was done to help them. Volunteers in the thousands poured and still pour into New Orleans, but without a sustained, National movement to fight for justice, it is just small band-aids. This is certainly not to diminish the amazing efforts of those volunteers, grass-roots groups in New Orleans and the fights of residents to get their homes back. (Why this movement hasn’t developed will be the topic of a future blog post.)

This Middle East is no different. There is no lack of outrage at the US and the Middle East. In fact, the problem is that there is so much outrage, but each and every organized attempt to resist has met the full force of Western power, if sometimes via Israeli firepower.

Arab Nationalism was fought tooth and nail for just this reason and in the wake of its failure to provide a viable alternative to Western Imperialism; Islamic Fundamentalism has taken its place.

But make no mistake, the resistance of Arab and Muslim people’s is by no means a cohesive political ideology, nor is it uniformly reactionary. It certainly isn’t a fascist movement.

It has its left wing and its right wing, and that battle of ideas is taking place in the Middle East as we speak. The American Left just doesn’t know about it and is far from understanding its place within that debate as well. I argue, engaging the movements of Arabs and Muslims fighting in the Middle East is crucial for the success of movements here in the US.

More on this in Part II...