In light of the many atrocities committed in the name of Allah this article from the archives of Discussion Bulletin by Karl Carlile of the Communist Global Group may be of use in explaining it a little bit of the cause.
Islamists, have benefited for years from American largesse
via Pakistan and Saudi Arabia when they fought against the USSR in
Afghanistan. Moreover, the alliance between the USA and political Islam is a
very old story whose origins go back to agreements reached between
ultra-reactionary and racist wahhabite monarchy from Saudia Arabia and American
oil companies. This alliance, very useful in the fight against pro-Russian Arab
regimes and for keeping a vigilant watch over the area's oil fields, has never
been recinded. For years, western leaders have found nothing to say against the
Sheiks of the Saudi Arabia and their oppressive regime was never denounced. The
American state cannot then plead not guilty. The
world's foremost military and economic power, has played the part of sheriff only for its
own interests and without paying any attention to the needs of local
populations, who have paid for many decades the price of a regional order which
has to guarantee capital accumulation forever on a world scale.
This situation contributed to the radicalization of certain
parts of the Middle East mid Central Asian populations and took the form of a
dissent more and more borrowing its weapons from Islamic ideology. The story is
that this utterly backwards ideology - expression of the failure of the ruling
classes of these areas to create the economic and social conditions for modem
capitalism - far from supplying a well-fitted frame to the justified revolt of
the oppressed people, traps them in an outdated fight, whose true goal is to
subordinate the more mid more oppressed "faithful" to the whole of
the "Muslim" ruling classes. What is there in common between the
young unemployed in Gaza or Algiers and the billionaires from the Gulf or
ruling classes from the area's states, except religious belonging? Obviously
nothing. Islam is used here only to create a fake community between
"Muslim" oppressors and oppressed which the area's proletariat never
cease to pay for. Political Islamism, as a substitute for the class struggle,
has also been chosen by minority fractions of inimigrant youth in Europe
(France and Belgium particulary). Here, resentment has been fed by mass
unemployment and racism and has been made use of by some religious groups. The
real revolt has then been trapped in the reactionary ghetto of Islam, of the
oumma (Faithfull community), which has contributed, along with the surrounding
racism, to isolate these rebellious people from working class people of
European extraction. In the end this plays the game of all those, from
governments to bosses, who have an interest in dividing exploited people.
Many Muslims have been declaring that all Muslims must obey
the declaration of a holy. This view that emanates from many Muslims flies in
the face of the facts. Muslims have over the years violently attacked each
other.
In any anti-war
movement we cannot take either the side.
Muslim
fundamentalism, and Islam in general, is a sectarian religious ideology and
even political philosophy and practice. It essentially promotes the class
interests of imperialism. Muslim and Christian fundamentalism are particularly
sectarian. Muslim fundamentalism has been effectively promoting polarization
between Eastern and Western workers at a time when the globalisation of the
working class into a unified political reality is an urgent necessity. While
attacking racism it sustains racism a multiplicity of ways because it is
inherently racist.
Muslim
fundamentalism is contradictory. While actively sustained by imperialism it at
the same time attacks imperialism its very source of nourishment. In many ways
Muslim fundamentalism is similar to Stalinism. Stalinism is a counter
revolutionary force that prevents the existence of communism. Consequently it
serves imperialism's interests. Yet to maintain its unique role as a counter
revolutionary form it has acted, at the same time, in a way that obstructs
imperialism. This generates conflict between the two forces. The Cold War was
just such a conflict.
Muslim fundamentalism
is a religious and political ideology and practice that is petty bourgeois. It
serves the class interests of small capital. It is this that makes it
reactionary. However the very fact that it serves the interests of small
capital in the context of increasing capitalist globalisation is what lends it
its acutely anachronistic image in the eyes of the Western working class. However
it is its specific class character that gives it its appeal to the masses that
exist outside of western capitalist society. Its representation of the
interests of small capital means that it expresses a hostility to big capital.
And what bigger capital than US imperialist capital -- the Great Satan. It is
this hostility by small capital against big capital that gives its
anti-imperialist appearance. It is this anti-imperialist appearance that lends
its anti-oppressive appearance. Consequently the Muslim masses identify with
it.
Despite its anti-imperialist appearance it ultimately serves imperialism
class interests --essentially it cannot exist independently of global
capitalism. Muslim fundamentalism is a politics of the image. This is why it
presents itself as pageantry -- religious rhetoric, images, long beards etc.
This form of politics assumes a religious form because it is a politics of
appearance.And what more suitable a form for such a contradictory politics than
its disguising itself in religious -- the class image system.
Islamic fundamentalism's reactionary character does not
necessarily mean that it is a force with a programme that makes no sense. It
may be that Islamic fundamentalism as much as imperialism sees the strategic
and economic global importance of Central Asia and the Middle East. This may be
partly why these two regions are central to its actions. As with imperialism it
too is seeking to maximise its influence and even control of these regions.
Control of these regions will place Islamic fundamentalism in a vastly greater
strategic position in its struggle with imperialism. Its commercial power will
correspondingly increase because of its being the source of rich oil reserves.
Its colonisation of these strategic regions means that it is well positioned to
further deepen and broaden its ideological and geopolitical influence.
To artificially
collapse Islamic fundamentalism into a naive extremist medieval politics that
can never really get anywhere is a little naive. Islamic fundamentalism may be
perceived by the Western masses as extremist and even insane. To limit
perception to the level of appearances is to miss the real point. It is to ignore the fact that Islamic
fundamentalism is anti-imperialist. It is anti-imperialist in the sense that it
struggles to establish an economic and political space in which Islamic
indigenous capital can develop --a pan Islamic state from the Caucasus to
Arabia. Because of the strength of contemporary imperialism it is no longer
possible to achieve an independent capitalist class within national boundaries
Islamic fundamentalism struggle to promote a capitalist class that exists
independently of imperialism from a regional platform as opposed to the context
of the nation state. Islamic fundamentalism is not anti-capitalist. But it is
anti-imperialist. It represents the class interests of non-imperialist
capitalism. Islamic capitalism exists in an atrophied form. Being capital it
strives to enlarge itself and break free from the stranglehold of imperialist
capital. Given that US imperialism is the leading imperialist power it
concentrates it fire on it. Its strategy is designed to split the other
imperialist powers from US imperialims as a means of weakening imperialism and
thereby defeating it. The Islamic bourgeoisie struggles to emancipate itself
from imperialism by setting up the regional political conditions that
facilitates its efforts to establish its independence. Because imperialism is
so globally powerful and Islamic capitalism so relatively powerless it must
resort to the most radical means to establish conditions that facilitate its
independent economic development vis a vis imperialist capitalism. Because of
the relative strength of the Islamic working class it is forced to cloak its
bourgeois aims in the form of religion. This is the basis for the emergence of
Islamic fundamentalism as a prominent force in Asia.
Because of
the strength of imperialism and the weakness of Islamic capitalism it is
prepared to engage in extreme actions such as suicide bombings of one sort or
another. Because of the potential
strength of the Asian working class and the relative weakness of the Islamic
bourgeoisie it cannot seriously mobilise the working class without the danger
of its own property interests being challenged. Consequently it is prepared to
engage in extreme terror to promote its class interests while the working class
is reduced to the role of passive audience that watches the stage show
unfolding. Islamic capitalism ideologically assumes the form of Islamic
fundamentalism. Islamic capitalism constitutes a brand of Islam so restrictive
as to ensure that the threat from imperialist capital and the organised working
class is ideologically precluded while its very fundamentalist nature is so
strong as to ensure that the cohesive unity of its supporters is maintained in
the face of overwhelming odds. It is also a religious ideology that transcends,
by its nature, the bounds of the colonialist artificially imposed nation states
to proclaim a pan-Islamic state. Islamic
fundamentalism's anti-imperialism is not congenitally anti-imperialist. Only
the working class can display an authentic anti-imperialism. Consequently
Islamic fundamentalism while ostensibly anti-imperialist is ultimately
pro-imperialist. This is its problem -- its contradiction.
