As
we approach the first anniversary of the publication
by the Danish daily newspaper Jyllands-Poste
of a number of cartoons, which in the view of
most Muslims insulted their religious beliefs,
it is worth considering how the US Neo-Conservatives
doctrine 'a clash of civilizations' as put into
practice by the administration of GW Bush as the
'war on terror' has impacted upon sections of
the Western world's intelligentsia.
Former
authoritarian Marxist Leninists like Christopher
Hitchens, plus those who congregate around
the Harry's
Place web site and a majority within the Euston
Manifesto group have flipped completely over
from being bitter opponents of United States foreign
policy and its political establishment to having
become cheerleaders for the most right wing US
administration within living memory, in the process
placing their not inconsiderable talents as scribes
at the service of GW Bush's military adventures
in Iraq, which have been proved to be incompetent
beyond belief and catastrophic for the people
of that sorry land.
Although,
it should not be overlooked, [those adventures
have been] extremely profitable for those who
sit at the top of the Multi National Corporations
within the US military industrial complex, who
have been given a blank check by the Bush administration
to supply everything the US forces of occupation
in Iraq need from sophisticated weaponry and ordinance
to toilet paper.
If it were only the likes of Hitchens who have
deserted progressive opinion for our enemies camp
it would not be that much of a loss. The aforementioned
have always had one eye on the clapometer of bourgeois
public opinion and the other on the amount the
cash cow of capitalism pays out to them. For all
their past Marxist clap-trap and talk of loyalty
to the masses, these people have always viewed
society as a top down process to be governed in
an authoritarian manner by people of their own
class. Few of them had any real human contact
beyond their middle class circles, whether that
was in the media or universities. Indeed I would
go further and say in my experience few of these
individuals even like working class people, seeing
us as a homogeneous mass to be moulded and used
by intellectual such as themselves. They certainly
had little respect for working class people, or
they would never have spent half their lives believing
western workers were going to over throw bourgeois
democracy for a Leninist State.
However,
the Neo-Conservative nonsense about a 'clash of
civilization', coupled with the war mongering
propaganda of big Capital and its political gofers
in the White House, seems to have infected not
only ex-Leninists like those intellectuals I mention
above. It has also had an impact upon progressive
people who have always stood four square with
the wretched of the earth. Some of whom were amongst
the first, mistakenly in my opinion, to support
the editorial decision by the cultural editor
of Jyllands-Poste, Flemming Rose, to publish
the wretched cartoons in the first place back
in September of last year. Sadly, in the main
they do not seem to have learnt any thing positive
from their decision. In many cases the opposite
seems to be true and this group appears to be
sinking ever more into the mire set for them by
the US Neo-Conservatives and their European acolytes.
In some cases to such an extent that the language
they use and attitudes they take to the Islamic
world differs very little from the Neo-cons and
their political front men such as Bush and Blair.
Flemming
Rose, who claims to have based his decision to
publish the cartoons on what he saw as the undemocratic
nature of Islam and its denial of women's rights,
has moved to a right-wing anti-immigration position
as far as Muslims are concerned. He wrote in a
recent New York Times article
that any newcomers to Denmark/the EU who have
different 'value systems', cowardly code on his
part as he clearly is singling out Muslims, should
only be allowed citizenship if they adhere to
their host countries established 'Christian' values.
Of course he does not come out and use the word
Christian, but that is clearly what he means.
He
then goes on to inform his readers that he
has received many emails in support of publishing
the cartoons, amongst them one from a serving
GI in Iraq who told him he was posting the email
whilst watching a game of football and drinking
beer. The effect a beer drinking, M-16 assault
rifle toting, GI may have on the average Iraqi
and the anger he would instill simply does not
seem to have crossed Rose's mind, so deep in the
Neo-Conservative mire has he sunk.
Roy Johnston is another liberal minded writer
and columnist who whilst not having sunk to such
depths seems to be on the cusp. On reading a
recent article of his in The Blanket,
I had to pause and reread the final paragraph
to confirm that I had understood what Mr Johnston
was actually inferring. It is worth quoting as
it epitomizes just how misinformed and reactionary
liberal minded people can be when attempting to
come to terms with the West's relationship with
the billions of people throughout the world who
believe in the Islamic religion. Roy wrote,
"We
need somehow to interact with scholarly writers
from the Islamic culture who are in a position
to state the current problems within Islam,
and who have a critical attitude to the simplisic
'clash of civilisations' view of history, which
GW Bush is obviously trying to promote, in the
interests of his military-industrial complex."
Like
Flemming Rose in Denmark, who is basically saying
that if Muslims refuse to adopt 'our ways' they
are not welcome within Denmark and the EU and
should be refused citizenship and sent back from
whence they came (the poem 'Then they Came
for Me' made famous by Pastor Martin Niemoller
springs to mind here), Roy Johnston appears to
be saying unless Islamic scholars and writers
can state the current problems within Islam, they
are not worth talking to. OK, perhaps I am being
a little harsh here, as Roy Johnston clearly welcomes
dialogue and maybe I have misunderstood his meaning.
But put the shoe on a Muslim's foot and I am certain
that is how it will read. Would any one of us
agree to interact with someone from a different
culture or religion if it is demanded of us that
we first shit on our own doorstep?
Take
Roy's proposition a step farther and one cannot
but see it as a very negative and arrogant approach;
there is not a lack of Muslims throughout the
world who believe their religion has shortcomings,
far from it. They cross the political spectrum
from terrorists like Bin Laden, who wishes to
see the return of the caliphate with himself at
its head, to democratic Islamic parties like Adalet
ve Kalkinma Partisi [Justice and Development Party]
in Turkey whose leader, Recep Tayyip Erdogan,
is currently Prime Minister and is regarded by
most Turks, including many who oppose him politically,
as the most able PM and more importantly the most
honest since 1945. Thus, far from Muslims being
unwilling to discuss with westerners their place
in the world, they are only too willing given
the opportunity to debate their society, religion
and their hopes for the future with Westerners.
However, give or take the odd shyster, flim-flam
man and the academic who fancies an overseas holiday,
no one is gong to enter into a dialogue under
the conditions Roy suggests. In any case, surely
it is more important if the West is to better
understand those who practice the Islamic religion
to talk to people who believe Islam is an inherent
part of their lives and who may disagree with
our way of life whether in its entirety or in
parts.
Instead
of aping and repeating the nonsensical Neo-Conservative
claims that political Islam is a modern day version
of European Fascism, it might help if we thought
a little more deeply about exactly what fascism
is and who historically has always benefited from
this perverse political phenomena. Whereas in
the first half of the 20th century Fascism played
the role of European Capital's shock troops against
democratic accountability and progressive change,
with unbelievably tragic consequences for humanity
throughout the world, today it is the Neo-Conservatives
in the United States who have been delegated to
play this role, providing the intellectual and
moral justification for what amounts to nothing
more than the exporting in a Fascistic manner
the economic and political strategy which was
practiced by the US Industrial and Financial robber
barons of the late 19th and early 20th century
within the USA.
This
being so and taking into account the strategic
and economic importance of the Middle-East to
the United States, it is perfectly logical for
the Neo-Cons and those they serve to view political
Islam as being their main opponents in the region.
This has nothing to do with it posing any serious
military threat to the United States. For if it
did past history has taught us that the USA would
have no hesitation about using a nuclear weapon
to bring any such belligerent nation and its people
to heel. The Neo-Conservatives' hostility is almost
entirely due to political Islam's opposition to
usury in economic matters and in most cases its
honesty and common decency.
Thus
Capital understands only too well it is bound
at some time to come into conflict with it. Whereas
in the past, Capital has been able to get around
the problem of Islam within the Middle East by
bribing and maintaining in power leading families
such as the Abu Saud's, the Hashamites and various
other greedy satraps within the region, the outcome
of events in Iran post the 1979 revolution has
made a section of the US establishment conclude
that political Islam, to date is unwilling to
sacrifice their core Islamic beliefs in return
for Capital's largess. This mattered little whilst
the US controlled or financed via its largess
the power structures and oppressive state apparatus
within countries like Iran, Saudi Arabia and Iraq,
but due to their own greed and miscalculations
they are today only fully in control in Saudi
Arabia and the Gulf States. Even there the US
sponsored satraps' hold is becoming increasingly
tenuous as the Arab street is gradually being
transformed by political Islam from a disjointed
self pitying howling mob, into an organized, disciplined
and confident society. Witness what happened within
the areas of Lebanon in which the supporters of
Hezbullah lived during the recent Israeli incursions
and air attacks if you doubt this.
Now
G.W. Bush and his greedy Multi National benefactors
cannot come out openly and proclaim 'we are out
to steal the oil of the Arabic and Islamic peoples
and dominate their economies by bankrolling useless
and greedy satraps such as the Abu Saud's' etc.
As the aforementioned would in all probability
find the Arab street at their throats and the
US electorate may well have certain questions
to put to the gentlemen of Capital. Nor can they
go before the people of the USA and and say outright
that they intend by force of arms to repeat in
the Middle East what their forbears did in the
American West when Capital stole the land and
its minerals from the Native Americans with bayonet
in hand. So instead I repeat the Neo-Conservatives
have become the shock troops of Capital, to give
its evil ways moral and political justification.
This being so, it is hardly surprising that these
days black frequently becomes white and good men
and women so easily become the willing tools of
another people's oppressors.
For
an internationalist socialist, whether they be
of the Irish Republican, Libertarian/Anarchist,
Social Democratic or Communist variety, the main
enemy must always be at home, for to move beyond
this basic tenant is to court disaster and move
out of the trench that is occupied by the wretched
of the earth and into that of their oppressors.
