Islamism and the Left

[bgwah]

They are right-wing extremists and the left's tendency to ignore it because of some misguided sense of tolerance is frustrating. We only just recently defeated Christian conservatism in most of the developed world, and now you're risking having to start the whole process over again? Don't act so surprised when not everyone is willing to "tolerate" a belief system that wants them persecuted or dead because you want your friends to think you're most tolerant progressive in the history of forever.

I am glad I live in the United States.

[traininthedistance]

I don't really have anything to add to this discussion except to marvel that it's by and large shockingly reasonable.  Well, I will say two things:

http://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/islamism-and-the-left

The linked back-and-forth is also worth reading here.  Walzer's reply-to-the-reply is one of the most fantastic academic-esque smackdowns I've ever encountered; it was quite literally a joy to read and I don't say that lightly.

the focus needs to remain razor-sharp: everything as critique of political economy.  politics is the battlefield where we fight to determine the distribution and deployment of resources.

I take it, then, that the Left as it were ought to shut up about drug laws and broken windows and the culture of law enforcement, then?  All those things are just a divisive distraction from "political economy", amirite?

I've actually enjoyed quite a few of your posts lately, but this is a transparently weak and unconvincing dodge.

[DemPGH]

The left could do a much better job criticizing Islam on humanitarian, authoritarian, and secular (a hallmark of the left going back a long time) grounds. The left is hesitant to do that because of the cultural aspect and the idea that "it's not our religion." These are different issues, I think.

As to Israel, I've become more sympathetic to Israel over time, and am now, which has nothing to do with religion.

They are right-wing extremists and the left's tendency to ignore it because of some misguided sense of tolerance is frustrating.

Concur.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

The rise of Islamism is a direct result of the material conditions formed by early 20th-century European imperialism and later by the failure of Arab nationalism, and in Europe from the social marginalization of Muslims (usually young, male, and unemployed). Any discussion of Islamism must center around its roots.

Also, that a modern progressive could sympathize with the racist, warmongering, settler-colonial state of Israel is laughable.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Snowstalker is right. There is nothing inherently crazy or violent about Islam (well, apart from the craziness inherent to all religions, but whatevs). The current jihadi craze is a reactionary backlash fuelled by the percieved failures of the current Arabian states whether they are Arab nationalist strongmen or Western-backed "neoliberals". It's similar to when the West had a craze of anarchists turn of the last century : bored, easily led and underutilised young men are a recipe for disaster, because they tend to release their hysteria whatever way possible.

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

The interesting thing about Israel is that it's both a colonial and a postcolonial state. Understanding it as just one or the other is facile--understanding it as solely colonial functions as an erasure of the Jewish diaspora's history as, well, a diaspora (the archetype of 'diaspora', no less!), and understanding it solely as postcolonial functions as an erasure of the current power differential between it/its allies and its neighbors/its enemies. (Understanding it as just one or the other is also, of course, boring.)

[© tweed]

the focus needs to remain razor-sharp: everything as critique of political economy.  politics is the battlefield where we fight to determine the distribution and deployment of resources.

I take it, then, that the Left as it were ought to shut up about drug laws and broken windows and the culture of law enforcement, then?   All those things are just a divisive distraction from "political economy", amirite?

no, drug laws are an integral part of 'political economy'.  are you familiar with Michelle Alexander's work, "The New Jim Crow"?

[bedstuy]

Snowstalker is right. There is nothing inherently crazy or violent about Islam (well, apart from the craziness inherent to all religions, but whatevs).

That's having things both ways though.  Why is the question what is the inherent or theoretical nature of a religion?  Shouldn't the question be, what is the ideology of Islam as it is practiced and preached in 2015?  If you take a broad enough view, you strip an ideology to its bare roots and you ask what are the inherent qualities of that, it's easy enough to just throw up your hands and says it's all the same.  Ultimately, the monotheistic religions of the middle east are similar.  Judaism, Christianity and Islam can easily be categorized as sects of one religion.  But, that basic religious ideology, one god, various prophets from the middle east, has resulted in very different practical results in its incarnations. 

The current jihadi craze is a reactionary backlash fuelled by the percieved failures of the current Arabian states whether they are Arab nationalist strongmen or Western-backed "neoliberals". It's similar to when the West had a craze of anarchists turn of the last century : bored, easily led and underutilised young men are a recipe for disaster, because they tend to release their hysteria whatever way possible.

I think you're also off the mark here.  It's all too common to turn everything into a reaction to economic circumstances or the action of the strongest, richest people.  I don't think that gives enough credit to ideas or bottom up social movements.  Islam or fundamentalism isn't the inevitable response to corruption or unemployment. 

I think ideas actually matter.  I think we should pay people the respect of taking their ideas seriously.  Don't get me wrong, the economic and social factors matter as explanations too.  But, this endless loop where only white men from the West ever had agency, I find that pretty silly and overly deterministic.  Ideas, by themselves, actually determine a lot of our destiny as individuals and nations.  So, I just have to reject that sort of pat reduction of Islamism to a reaction, as if its dry mouth or hives.  Rather, I think to understand an ideology you look at the ideas and the context together, from the top down and the bottom up and maybe sideways too.

[Boris]

the focus needs to remain razor-sharp: everything as critique of political economy.  politics is the battlefield where we fight to determine the distribution and deployment of resources.

I take it, then, that the Left as it were ought to shut up about drug laws and broken windows and the culture of law enforcement, then?   All those things are just a divisive distraction from "political economy", amirite?

no, drug laws are an integral part of 'political economy'.  are you familiar with Michelle Alexander's work, "The New Jim Crow"?

dumb question, but assuming you're not breaking two laws at once, how do you exactly get caught with drugs?

[traininthedistance]

the focus needs to remain razor-sharp: everything as critique of political economy.  politics is the battlefield where we fight to determine the distribution and deployment of resources.

I take it, then, that the Left as it were ought to shut up about drug laws and broken windows and the culture of law enforcement, then?   All those things are just a divisive distraction from "political economy", amirite?

no, drug laws are an integral part of 'political economy'.  are you familiar with Michelle Alexander's work, "The New Jim Crow"?

Haven't read it, but am aware of it and its basic argument.  It's an argument I basically agree with, but to say that this one thing is an integral part of "political economy" while other issues can't be similarly connected seems mighty selective to me.  Obviously, I would also fundamentally disagree with the notion in the first place that "how to split the pie" is the only question worth focusing on, but that's a matter for another thread.

dumb question, but assuming you're not breaking two laws at once, how do you exactly get caught with drugs?

Why, stop and frisk of course.

[© tweed]

the focus needs to remain razor-sharp: everything as critique of political economy.  politics is the battlefield where we fight to determine the distribution and deployment of resources.

I take it, then, that the Left as it were ought to shut up about drug laws and broken windows and the culture of law enforcement, then?   All those things are just a divisive distraction from "political economy", amirite?

no, drug laws are an integral part of 'political economy'.  are you familiar with Michelle Alexander's work, "The New Jim Crow"?

dumb question, but assuming you're not breaking two laws at once, how do you exactly get caught with drugs?

if you read the book, she devotes a whole chapter to aggressive police search techniques and how the SCOTUS has green-lighted a whittling down of search and seizure protections.  half the time the cop doesn't even have to perjure himself for the evidence to stand up

[Storebought]

I am not a Leftist, but my own opinion comes closest to this:

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with the addition that in no sense whatsoever can these few people be mistaken for fundamentalists, appeasers, and terrorist sympathizers.

[Indy Texas]

The favoured targets of the Pakistani Taliban in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are socialists.

e.g. noted Islamic Marxist feminist Malala Yousafzai.

It's worth remembering that during the Cold War, Islamism was seen by the West as the lesser of two evils compared to Marxism, which was the more pressing threat at the time in places like Afghanistan.

[HAnnA MArin County]

I think most on the left (in the United States and Western world, at least) always defend Islam because it is a minority religion here, and so they probably feel as though Islam (and other minority religions, for that matter) are under constant attack and oppressed by the Christian majority. I think (at least here in the U.S.) they see these religious right-wing evangelical "Christian" Republicans justifying their bigotry under the guise of The Bible/"my religious freedom," and they probably feel that Muslims, along with other minority religions and other minorities (racial/ethnic minorities, women, gays, etc.) are targets of their bigotry. They probably feel the need to always defend Islam when ultraconservative states in the Bible Belt like Oklahoma pass laws and statutes condemning Sharia Law and when crazy "Christian" leaders are organizing mass burnings of The Quran. They probably also sympathize with Muslims who were (and still are) threatened and ostracized and smeared and stereotyped as terrorists and Jihadists following September 11. To them, Muslims are always the victims and never can be the perpetrators of injustice, intolerance, bigotry, hate, etc.

I think what they're missing, though, is that Islam is also just as oppressive elsewhere in the world as Christianity is here. I think what gives these leftists a bad name is how they always seek to defend Islam even when it is criticized for the same humanitarian/civil rights oppressions against minorities in the Eastern world and barbaric acts such as when Muslim women are having acid thrown in their face and are stoned to death for being promiscuous, having affairs, etc., and where homosexuality is a crime and gays are hanged and put to death. Until the left can equally condemn Islam as they do Christianity for the same crimes against humanity, the more they're going to look like hypocrites and not be taken seriously when they criticize Christians for their bigotry.