Posted on 11/20/2001 4:48:00 PM PST by Hopalong
Marxism Makes Way for Islam
CAIRO, Egypt (AP) -- On the bookcase of Adel Hussein sits an odd collection for one of Egypt's leading Islamic thinkers.
Titles like ``Socialist Integration,'' ``On Communism'' and ``Planning in the U.S.S.R.'' speak more of class struggle than the hand of God. The authors themselves -- G. Sorokin, for instance -- suggest Politburo politics rather than a source for religious ideas.
Hussein is no closet communist, however. Like a surprising number of others across the Arab and Muslim world, he is a one-time Marxist and nonbeliever who has turned to Islam, part of a new intellectual generation reshaping the religion.
``I benefited from Marx in both theory and practice,'' Hussein said in an interview at his Cairo apartment, which is remarkable for its lack of Koranic inscriptions so popular with other activist Muslims. ``But now, Islam is my starting point and my framework.''
Unlike their predecessors, who spent years immersed in the intricacies of Islamic law, these thinkers are often more adept at post-modernism than the sayings of the prophet Mohammed. They speak English and French, are versed in the literature and history of the West, and follow the latest trends in Western thought.
In a jarring twist, they are the same thinkers who a generation ago drew the ire of religious Muslims because their Marxist disavowal of God was seen as the biggest threat to Islam.
Today, they are often the public face of Islam -- writing in leading Arabic newspapers, speaking at conferences and on television talk shows, enjoying the support of many younger, more political Muslims interested in their attempts to rethink Islam's relationship to democracy, minorities and the West.
They bring an overtly activist stance to Islam unlike traditional scholars who tend to be more concerned with questions of religious law, for example, or what is permissible under Islam.
``They discuss contemporary issues -- what capitalism does, what consumerism does, what modern society does to women,'' said Binnaz Toprak, a professor at Bosporus University in Istanbul, Turkey. ``They're not constantly referring back to Islamic history and the Koran.''
These thinkers say their change merely reflects reality.
Hussein, for instance, says his goals have not changed. He still believes in social justice and Third World development. But he now sees Islam, through its ability to persuade and to mobilize, as the best tool.
Like some traditional Islamic scholars, running through their thoughts is an anti-Western current. They respect what the West has created, but they resent its dominance over the economy, culture and politics.
Abdel-Wahab Elmessiri, a former leftist with a doctorate in poetry from Rutgers University in New Jersey, considers everything from pornography to pollution as Western ills for which Islam must find a solution.
Mohammed Amara, who writes in the prestigious London-based newspaper Al-Hayat, sees Islam's historical tolerance of minorities as an alternative to what he considers the West's racism and nationalism.
``You will see that Islam is the one framework that is open to all of us,'' Amara said.
Ali Bulac, a former Turkish leftist now prominent among Islamic thinkers with a following at universities, takes a similar tack. He uses the prophet Mohammed's ties with Jews as the basis for conceiving a Muslim community in which religious and ethnic groups have autonomy.
Sudan's Hassan Turabi, who has tried to fashion an Islamic state in his country, recalls that in the early 1960s, all his schoolmates were Marxists. Now, he says, they speak the language of Islam.
In Egypt, the phenomenon is, perhaps, even more widespread.
Hussein, for years one of Egypt's most respected leftist economists, now leads the Islamic Labor Party, which publishes The People, Egypt's best-known Islamic newspaper.
He and his former Marxist colleagues speak of Islam as the only ideology still viable for disenchanted Muslims.
Pan-Arab nationalism, they say, was single-handedly discredited by the Six-Day War of 1967, in which Israel devastated the armies of Egypt, Jordan and Sye ideologies were like lightning. They enthralled the people,'' said Amara, sitting in a cramped apartment with books stacked to the ceiling. ``But until you tried them, you couldn't know that they wouldn't achieve your goals.''
Many of these intellectuals willingly acknowledge their past beliefs. All born as Muslims, they speak of their return to the faith -- both religiously and politically -- as a conversion.
Elmessiri recalls the astonishment of his colleagues when he turned to Islam.
``If anyone would have told me that I would be a Muslim thinker, I would have laughed,'' he said. ``And when I converted, some of my friends fainted. They couldn't believe it.''
The turn to Islam has angered other intellectuals, particularly leftists, who call the change of heart opportunism or worse.
In this month's issue of the journal Literature and Criticism, a reviewer criticized Amara, saying that ``he was neither an asset to the Marxists nor is he to the fundamentalists.''
© Copyright 1997 The Associated Press
Best regards. S&W R.I.P.
Whatever pays the bills.
Here and there super175 and I have discussed how eerily Maoist the tactics and program of OBL, Inc. seem stripped of the religious veneer.
Best regards. S&W R.I.P.
Poets are known to be particularly well equipped in dealing with pollution --- an issue on cross-roads of technology, economics, law, and politics.
He should go back to sipping latte at Starbucks, and we should not spend a minute of listening to his "learned" opininon.
More Asian Muslims put religion ahead of state
By Marwaan Macan-Markar
BANGKOK - For now, predominantly Muslim Asian countries such as Bangladesh, Indonesia and Malaysia can pass as largely secular in their outlook, given what they uphold as a state.
In Bangladesh, for instance, it is Bengali nationalism that is the cornerstone of the country's polity and not the religious persuasion of the country's mainly Sunni Muslims, who make up more than 85 percent of the population, or more than 100 million people. Thus, Sheikh Hasina, the country's former prime minister, can confidently say that "Bangladesh belongs to Bengalis of all religions".
But for how long? Or will these countries be forced to change their political stripes to largely Islamic ones, where the faith of the majority determines the country's identity as strongly as it does in two other Asian Muslim countries, Iran and Pakistan? These questions have acquired significance in light of recent emerging trends across the political landscape in Bangladesh, Indonesia and Malaysia, where the notion of an Islamic identity for these countries has been a key factor in the discussions, debates and public protests there.
The US-led military campaign in Afghanistan has also fueled this political ferment, which continues despite recent events in the war against terrorism, including the retreat of the Taliban from key cities last week and the control by the opposition Northern Alliance of most of the country.
In the past few months, thousands of Muslims from Indonesia, Bangladesh and elsewhere used the occasion to protest and, in turn, to use the moment to drum up support for their view on religion and the state. For them, loyalty to Islam has mattered more than allegiance to the state as it is constituted at present.
"I think every human being has primordial ties to an entity higher than such concepts as a state," Thai member of parliament Surin Pitsuwan, a former foreign minister, said in a recent interview. "These ties remain dormant until a stimulus brings them out. The governments cannot ignore these voices," added Surin, a member of the minority Muslim community in mainly Buddhist Thailand. "The legitimacy of this secular idea of the nation-state is being tested. They are questioning it."
Chaiwat Satha-Anand considers this tendency a reflection of the current political climate. "After the end of the Cold War, politics has become dominated by questions of identity," says Chaiwat, director of the Peace Information Center at Bangkok's Thammasat University. "It is a case of who you are, having much to do with the notion of the self." Arising from that, adds Chaiwat, who is also Muslim, is the idea of membership in a community. "What is happening is not happening in a vacuum. Some Muslims in Indonesia are questioning the way the country has constituted itself and what it means to them as its members.
"I have sensed this Muslim presence whenever you have an Islamic resurgence," affirms Chaiwat. "It is trying to push you into a situation where you have to reaffirm your identity as a Muslim."
The street demonstrations by Muslim groups against the US air strikes in Afghanistan in the past few months also revealed how strident this resurgence had become. There were more and more of them as the attacks went on and protesters pursued more strident measures - such as threats to attack US citizens in hotels in Jakarta - than those aired against the Gulf War a decade ago.
"Osama bin Laden made it easier for them," says Chaiwat, referring to the Saudi Arabian dissident named by the United States as the prime suspect behind the acts of terror in New York and Washington on September 11, which killed more than 4,000 people. "His role in Afghanistan is perceived as politics in the name of religion. And the force attacking him has been painted as an outsider."
Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri has displayed the extent to which governments are responding to the strident Islamic voices at home. Having initially lined up as an enthusiastic supporter of the US-led military campaign, Megawati changed her stance after US bombs rained on Afghanistan, calling for a pause during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which began over the weekend.
On the other hand, against such a backdrop, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has been embroiled in a national debate about the nature of the Malaysian state, on whether it is an Islamic state or not. Mahathir, say Malaysia watchers, triggered this question of the country's identity to undermine the political agenda of the opposition Parti Islam SeMalaysia or PAS, which has a conservative Islamic agenda and now controls two states.
Indonesia is the largest Muslim country in the world, with 170.3 million Muslims among its population. Malaysia has 10.8 million Muslims out of a population of 22 million people, most of them ethnic Malays.
An Asian Islamic scholar, speaking on condition of anonymity, says the rage and fury generated by a section of Asian Muslims could "manifest into something dangerous".
"They are taking a cue from Muslims in the Middle East, where Islam has been used for political reasons," she says. "That has not been the case among Southeast Asian Muslims until now."
What troubles her is the "exclusive vision" displayed by those spearheading political Islam in the region, which could go against the grain of the multireligious and multicultural face of countries such as Indonesia and Malaysia. "Their idea of an Islamic state can create the kind of extremism we have seen."
Current events in Bangladesh, in fact, illustrate such extremism. The country's minority Hindu population has been targeted by Muslim fundamentalist groups such as the Jamait-e-Islami for supporting Hasina's Awami League, which was defeated in the October parliamentary elections.
It is a disturbing trend, says Abdur Razzaq, a former Bangladeshi minister. "They want to undo the values of the Bangladesh liberation war of 1971. They want to create a homogeneous Muslim nation by driving out the Hindus," he was quoted as saying this month.
(Inter Press Service)
Best regards. S&W R.I.P.
Best regards. S&W R.I.P.
So. "Islam," we are told, means "surrender." What, pray tell, does seeing Islam as a tool have to do with surrender? It appears that he wants God to surrender to him, to his desires.
You know, I'm tempted to dismiss this fellow with the observation that "any stick is good enough to beat a dog", and leave it at that. But I can't suppress a sympathetic vibration to his disgust with his experience of Western junk culture. It's easy to say that that too is only another stick; that he's at liberty to embrace the West's best and not just its worst. But when Western culture itself falters for lack of confidence, where is it to find ambassadors to other cultures? Marxism has failed him, and consumerism repels him. It should come as no surprise that many such who live by their wits are flirting with Islam not for reasons of faith, but merely faute de mieux. The man's world has been turned upside down, and if the West has failed to offer him a fulfilling and persuasive alternative, we should not be surprised to see him adopt one for himself.
Perhaps Islamic fundamentalism is evidence not so much of the recrudescence of which Belloc warned, as it is a definitive proof of the bankruptcy and exhaustion of Western secularism.
I wonder when the next extremist group with violent Maoist tendencies is going to pop up? Open revolutionaries they will be...
$20 on Saudi Arabia...
Private property, free enterprise, and personal liberty—not exactly always and ever "junk" as a saeculum.
Now 'bout being sympathetic to dat "Liberation theology" or whatever it's called....
Throw out the teevy, and stop doting on Disney World—don't every "culture" have junk—from Gramsci himself to Pope-Soap-On-A-Rope?
Best regards. Hop.
Iran and Cuba bolster ties, strengthen anti-US solidarity Agence France Presse
TEHRAN, May 10
A three-day landmark visit to Iran by Cuba's revolutionary leader Fidel Castro ended Thursday with both sides determined to bolster ties in the face of US-imposed unilateral embargoes.
The 74-year-old Cuban president, making his first-ever trip to the Islamic republic, was received with the greatest of honours by top Iranian officials for high-level talks aimed at strengthening bilateral cooperation. Just hours after the red-carpet welcoming ceremony in the former imperial Saad-Abad palace in northern Tehran, Castro said he felt "at home,"" in Tehran "among the revolutionary people of Iran."
Before leaving the Iranian capital Thursday, Castro and his Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Khatami, affirmed during a press conference that the trip had been "very constructive."
In a final statement, both nations "vowed to continue with their efforts for the establishment of a fair economic regime in which third-world countries are permitted to take steps towards attaining affluence and social and economic development."
"Iran and Cuba consider the imposing of economic pressures as well as sanctions against independent countries to be against human rights, and (we) condemn measures by certain nations which aim at imposing their power on other countries."
'Course even the old Soviet Kulchur-vultures tried hard to paint pretty pictures for their serfs. Warn't so much they had no Raphaels, as the fact that the "Kulchur" they defined as worth "preserving" was as dead as Lenin's mummy.
Chicoms are in somewhat of the same fix.
Best regards. S&W R.I.P.
During Castro's meeting with Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Wednesday, Khamenei proposed an "Irano-Cuban cooperation" against the United States.Referring to "US hegemony," Khamenei said Tehran considers the "American regime as an arrogant power, seeking a unipolar world, to which we seriously object.
"The United States is weak and extremely vulnerable today," Khamenei stressed, adding that "US grandeur can be broken, and if this takes place, it will be a service rendered to mankind and even the American people.
"Our resistance against US hegemony is based on our Islamic beliefs, since in Islam, resistance against injustice is considered a value."
Castro for his part said Havana is not "afraid of America, and the Cuban nation, 40 years after its revolution, is now stronger then ever.
"Iran and Cuba, in cooperation with each other, can bring America to its knees. The US regime is very weak, and we are witnessing this weakness from close up," Castro affirmed.
During his trip, the Cuban leader also held meetings with Iran's Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi, parliament speaker Mehdi Karubi, as well as former president Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani.
He also received an honourary doctorate from a Tehran university for his "contributions to justice, humanist ideals and the fight against discrimination."
Castro told journalists before leaving Tehran that he was "totally reassured about Iran. There is great hope for the future of relations between Cuba and Iran. I am leaving with many unforgettable memories."
Iran and Cuba, both under a unilateral embargo by Washington, have had close relations since the 1980s, notably in the medical and farming sectors. But the two nations, which have been branded terrorist states by Washington, have weak trade links running under 20 million dollars a year.
The Cuban president headed for Malaysia, and is due to visit Qatar on his return journey to Havana.
Best regards. S&W R.I.P.
Private property and personal liberty are important, not because they're the end of authentic culture, but because they're a means to it.
Ain't thrown out your own teevy yet, eh, pardner?
Yep, that would cause a lot of anxiety about what other folks may or may not be falling for.
Best regards. S&W R.I.P.
Leave-no-trace travel in the backcountry and elsewhere is frequently a relative business. Even when you tread softly and undertake only necessary journeys, sometimes the best you can manage is to step in somebody else's footprints, and re-use old fire rings.
Short of becoming a mendicant hermit, a complete opt-out from the economy isn't feasible, but I don't think the junk culture's getting rich off me.
Anyway, the question remains: how do we expect to earn the world's admiration if we ourselves can no longer agree upon and articulate any set of politico-philosophical values beyond People magazine? Nations with recent memories of colonialism, still retaining more-or-less intact indigenous cultures, cannot be blamed for resisting the American reinvention of culture if it strikes them as nothing more than a marketing channel.
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