Halliday on the left & Islamists
[From the SA Debate list. Fred Halliday can be pretty noxious, but =
there’s some useful history here. There’s a response to Halliday at =
liberalismhalliday4165.jsp>, and Halliday’s response to the = response is at liberalriposte4242.jsp>.] Begin forwarded message: From: “Hein Marais” hein@marais.as
Date: April 11, 2007 5:14:15 AM EDT
To: “‘debate: SA discussion list ‘” debate@lists.kabissa.org
Subject: RE: [DEBATE] : (Fwd) Islam + the left =3D ?
Reply-To: “debate: SA discussion list ” debate@lists.kabissa.org
List-Archive: http://lists.kabissa.org/mailman/private/debate Along similar lines, Fred Halliday wrote this piece last year (posted = on the Opendemocracy.net site). Also a bit of a stretch but it = rewards the read. Go here http://www.opendemocracy.net/globalization/ = liberalriposte4242.jsp to see the riposte from Slisle and Kaye, and = Halliday’s final rejoinder. Halliday published a shorter version = Dissent earlier this year. Make of that what you wish. The Left and the Jihad
Fred Halliday
8 - 9 - 2006 The left was once the principal enemy of radical Islamism. So how did = old enemies become new friends? Fred Halliday reports. The approaching fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the United = States highlights an issue much in evidence in the world today, but = one that receives too little historically-informed and critical = analysis: the relationship between militant Islamic groups and the left. It is evident that the attacks, and others before and since on US and = allied forces around the world, have won the Islamist groups = responsible considerable sympathy far beyond the Muslim world, = including among those vehemently opposed from a variety of = ideological perspectives to the principal manifestations of its = power. It is striking, however, that - beyond such often visceral = reactions =96 there are signs of a far more developed and politically = articulated accommodation in many parts of the world between Islamism = as a political force and many groups of the left. The latter show every indication of appearing to see some combination = of al-Qaida, the Muslim Brotherhood, Hizbollah, Hamas, and (not = least) Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as exemplifying a new = form of international anti-imperialism that matches =96 even completes = =96 their own historic project. This putative combined movement may be = in the eyes of such leftist groups and intellectual trends hampered = by “false consciousness”, but this does not compromise the impulse to = “objectively” support or at least indulge them. The trend is unmistakable. Thus the Venezuelan leader Hugo Ch=E1vez = flies to Tehran to embrace the Iranian president. London’s mayor Ken = Livingstone, and the vocal Respect party member of the British = parliament George Galloway, welcome the visit to the city of the = Egyptian cleric (and Muslim Brotherhood figurehead) Yusuf al- = Qaradawi. Many in the sectarian leftist factions (and beyond) who = marched against the impending Iraq war showed no qualms about their = alignment with radical Muslim organisations, one that has since = spiralled from a tactical cooperation to something far more = elaborated. It is fascinating to see in the publications of leftist = groups and commentators, for example, how history is being rewritten = and the language of political argument adjusted to (as it were) = accommodate this new accommodation. The most recent manifestation of this trend arrived during the = Lebanon war of July-August 2006. The Basque country militant I = witnessed who waved a yellow Hizbollah flag at the head of a protest = march is only the tip of a much broader phenomenon. The London = demonstrators against the war saw the flourishing of many banners = announcing “we are all Hizbollah now”, and the coverage of the = movement in the leftwing press was notable for its uncritical tone. All of this is =96 at least to those with historical awareness, = sceptical political intelligence, or merely a long memory - = disturbing. This is because its effect is to reinforce one of the = most pernicious and inaccurate of all political claims, and one made = not by the left but by the imperialist right. It is also one that = underlies the US-declared “war on terror” and the policies that have = resulted from 9/11: namely, that Islamism is a movement aimed against = “the west”. This claim is a classic example of how a half-truth can be more = dangerous than an outright lie. For while it is true that Islamism in = its diverse political and violent guises is indeed opposed to the US, = to remain there omits a deeper, crucial point: that, long before the = Muslim Brotherhood, the jihadis and other Islamic militants were = attacking “imperialism”, they were attacking and killing the left - = and acting across Asia and Africa as the accomplices of the west. A tortured history The modern relationship of the left to militant Islamism dates to the = immediate aftermath of the Bolshevik revolution. At that time, the = Soviet leadership was promoting an “anti-imperialist” movement in = Asia against the British, French and Dutch colonial empires, and did = indeed see militant Muslims as at least tactical allies. For example, = at the second congress of the Comintern in 1920, the Soviets showed = great interest towards the Islamist group led by Tan Malaka in = Indonesia; following the meeting, many delegates decamped to the = Azeri capital of Baku for a “Congress of the Peoples of the East”. = This event, held in an ornate opera house, became famous for its = fiery appeals to the oppressed masses of Asia and included calls by = Bolshevik leaders, many of them either Armenian or Jewish, for a = jihad against the British. A silent-film clip recently discovered by the Iranian historian = Touraj Atabaki shows the speakers excitedly appealing to the audience = who then proceed to leap up and fire their guns into the air, forcing = the speakers on the platform to run for cover. One of those who = attended the Baku conference was the American writer John Reed, = author of the classic account of the Bolshevik revolution Ten Days = That Shook the World. (On his return journey from Azerbaijan he was = to die after catching typhoid from a melon he bought on the way.) For decades afterwards, the Soviet position on Islam was that it was, = if not inherently progressive, then at least capable of socialist = interpretation. On visits in the 1980s to the then two communist = Muslim states - the now equally-forgotten “Democratic Republic of = Afghanistan” and the “People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen” - I was = able to study the way in which secondary school textbooks, taught by = lay teachers not clerics, treated Islam as a form of early socialism. A verse in the Qur’an stating that “water, grass and fire are common = among the people” was interpreted as an early, nomadic, form of = collective means of production; while Muslim concepts of = ijma’ (consensus), zakat (charitable donation), and ‘adala (justice) = were interpreted in line with the dictates of the “non-capitalist” = road. Jihad was obviously a form of anti-imperialist struggle. A = similar alignment of Islamic tradition and modern state socialism = operated in the six Muslim republics of the Soviet Union. Such forms of affinity were in the latter part of the 20th century = succeeded by a far clearer alignment of Islamist groups: against = communism, socialism, liberalism and all that they stood for, not = least with regard to the rights of women. In essence, Islamism - the = organised political trend, owing its modern origin to the founding of = the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in 1928, that seeks to solve modern = political problems by reference to Muslim texts - saw socialism in = all its forms as another head of the western secular hydra; it had to = be fought all the more bitterly because it had such a following in = the Arab world, in Iran and in other Muslim countries. In a similar way to other opponents of the left (notably the European = fascist movements), Islamists learned and borrowed much from their = secular rivals: styles of anti-imperialist rhetoric, systems of = social reform, the organisation of the centralised party (a striking = example of which is Hizbollah in Lebanon, a Shi’a copy in = nationalist, organisational and military form of the Vietnamese = Communist Party). This process has continued in the modern critique = of globalisation and “cultural imperialism”. The ferocious denunciations of “liberalism” by Ayatollah Khomeini and = his followers are a straight crib from the Stalinist handbook. Osama = bin Laden’s messages, albeit clad in Qur’anic and Arabic poetic garb, = contain a straightforward, contemporary, radical political messages: = our lands are occupied by imperialism, our rulers betray our = interests, the west is robbing our resources, we are the victim of = double standards. The hostility of Islamism to leftwing movements, and the use of = Islamists in the cold war to fight communism and the left, deserve = careful study. A precedent was the Spanish civil war, when Francisco = Franco recruited tens of thousands of Moroccan mercenaries to fight = the Spanish republic, on the grounds that Catholicism and Islam had a = shared enemy in communism. After 1945, this tendency became more = widespread. In Egypt, up to the revolution of 1952, the communist and = Islamist movements were in often violent conflict. In the 1960s, = Saudi Arabia’s desire to oppose Nasser’s Egypt and Soviet influence = in the middle east led it to promote the World Islamic League as an = anti-socialist alliance, funded by Riyadh and backed by Washington. = King Feisal of Saudi Arabia was often quoted as seeing communism as = part of a global Jewish conspiracy and calling on his followers to = oppose it. In Morocco, the leader of the socialist party, Oman bin = Jalloun, was assassinated in 1975 by an Islamist militant. A canvas of conflict There are further striking cases of this backing of Islamism against = the left: Turkey, Israel/Palestine, Egypt, and Algeria among them. In Turkey in the 1970s, an unstable government beset by challenges = from armed leftwing groups encouraged both the forces of the = nationalist right (the “Grey Wolves”) and Islamists, and indulged the = assassination of leftwing intellectuals. In Palestine, the Israeli = authorities, concerned to counter the influence of al-Fatah in the = West Bank in the late 1970s, granted permission for educational, = charitable and other organisations (linked in large part to the = Muslim Brotherhood) in ways that helped nurtured the emergence of = Hamas in 1987; Israeli thus did not create Hamas, but it did = facilitate its early growth. In Algeria too, factions within the = ruling national-liberation movement (FLN) were in league with the = underground Islamist group, the National Salvation Front; its French = initials, FIS, gave rise to the observation that the FIS are le fils = (”the son”) of the FLN. In Egypt, from the death of Nasser in 1970 onwards, the regimes of = Anwar Sadat and Hosni Mubarak actively encouraged the Islamisation of = society, in part against armed Islamist groups, but also to counter = the influence of the socialist left. This was a project in which many = formerly secular Egyptian intellectuals colluded, in an often = theatrical embrace of Islam, tradition and cultural nationalism. The trend culminated in the 1990s with a campaign to silence left and = independent liberal voices: the writer Farag Fouda, who had called = for the modernisation of Islam, was assassinated in 1992; Naguib = Mahfouz, the Nobel prize-winning author, was stabbed and nearly = killed in 1994 (allegedly for his open and flexible attitude to = religion in his Cairo novels); the writer and philosopher Nasser Abu = Zeid, who had dared to apply to the Qur’an and other classical = Islamic texts the techniques of historical and literary criticism = practised elsewhere in the world, was sent death-threats before being = driven into exile in 1995. There were even worse confrontations between Islamism and those of a = socialist and secular liberal persuasion. The National Islamic Front = in Sudan, a conspiratorial group that explicitly modelled itself on = Leninist forms of organisation, took power in 1989 and proceeded to = arrest, torture and kill members of the communist party, all this at = a time when playing host to Osama bin Laden in Khartoum. In Yemen, after the partial unification of the military north and = socialist south in May 1990, the regime allowed assassins of the = Islamist movement to kill dozens of socialist party members and army = officers. This process precipitated the civil war of 1994, in which = armed Islamist factions linked by ideology and political ties to bin = Laden (most prominently the Abyan army) fought side-by-side with the = regular army of the north to crush the socialist south. This was an = echo of the war in Dhofar province in the neighbouring Arabian state = of Oman during 1970s, when anti-communist government published = propaganda by the British-officered intelligence corps denouncing the = leftwing rebels for allowing men to have only one wife, and promised = them four if they came over to the government side. The politics of blood The historical cycle of enmity reached an even greater pitch in two = other countries where the anti-communist and rightwing orientation of = the Islamists became clear. The first, little noticed in the context = of Islamism, was the crushing of the left in Indonesia in 1965. There = the independent and “anti-imperialist” regime of President Sukarno = was supported by the communist party (PKI), the largest in non- = communist Asia. After a conflict within the military itself, a rightwing coup backed = by the United States seized power and proceeded to crush the left. In = rural Java especially, the new power was enthusiastically supported = by Islamists, led by the Nahdat ul-Islam grouping. A convergence = between the anti-communism of the military and the Islamists was one = of the factors in the rampant orgy of killing which took the lives of = up to a million people. The impact of this event was enormous, both = for Indonesia itself and the balance of forces in southeast Asia at a = time when the struggle in Vietnam was about to escalate. The second country, Afghanistan, also had an outcome of great = significance for the cold war as a whole. During the Soviet = occupation of the 1980s, the most fanatical Islamist groups - funded = by the CIA, Pakistan and the Saudis to overthrow the communist = government in Kabul - were killing women teachers, bombing schools = and forcing women back into the home in the areas they controlled. Such enemies led the first leader of communist Afghanistan, Nur = Mohammad Taraki, to refer to the opposition as ikhwan i shayatin = (”the satanic brotherhood”, a play on “Muslim Brotherhood”). Bin = Laden himself, in both his 1980s and post-1996 periods in = Afghanistan, played a particularly active role not just in fighting = Afghan communists, but also in killing Shi’a, who were, in the = sectarian worldview of Saudi fundamentalism, seen as akin to = communists. The consequences of this policy for the Arab and Muslim = worlds, and for the world as a whole, were evident from the early = 1990s onwards. It took the events of the clear morning of 11 = September 2001 for them to penetrate into the global consciousness. = The true and the false This melancholy history must be supplemented by attention to what is = actually happening in countries, or parts of countries, where = Islamists are influential and gaining ground. The reactionary (the = word is used advisedly) nature of much of their programme on women, = free speech, the rights of gays and other minorities is evident. There is also a mindset of anti-Jewish prejudice that is riven with = racism and religious obscurantism. Only a few in the west noted what = many in the Islamic world will have at once understood, that one of = the most destructive missiles fired by Hizbollah into Israel bore the = name “Khaibar” - not a benign reference to the pass between = Afghanistan and Pakistan, but the name of a victorious battle fought = against the Jews by the Prophet Mohammad in the 7th century. Here it = is worth recalling the saying of the German socialist leader Bebel, = that anti-semitism is “the socialism of fools”. How many on the left = are tolerant if not actively complicit in this foolery today is a = painful question to ask. The habit of categorising radical Islamist groups and their ideology = as “fascist” is unnecessary as well as careless, since the many = differences with that European model make the comparison redundant. = It does not need slogans to understand that the Islamist programme, = ideology and record are diametrically opposed to the left =96 that is, = the left that has existed on the principles founded on and descended = from classical socialism, the Enlightenment, the values of the = revolutions of 1798 and 1848, and generations of experience. The = modern embodiments of this left have no need of the “false = consciousness” that drives so many so-called leftists into the arms = of jihadis. Fred Halliday is professor of international relations at the LSE, and = visiting professor at the Barcelona Institute of International = Studies (IBEI). His books include Islam and the Myth of Confrontation = (IB Tauris, 2003) and 100 Myths About the Middle East (Saqi, 2005).