First, sorry for the personal attacks. We all know you try so very hard to avoid them yourself.
Chip B:
>I find it sad for the left that Herman has >to become an apologist for
>ethnic fascists in order to criticize US >imperialism. How about NO to both
>imperialism and fascism...is that too >much to ask?
I'm assuming when you say ethnic fascists you are talking about Serbs (who speak a language that is mutually intelligible with that spoken in Croatia and Bosnia Herzegovina). And you want to use the term 'clerical fascists' for the Taliban.
Are the Taliban tribal or non-tribal Islamic fundamentalists? For them to succeed transnationally--or even just to take control of one country-- one might suppose they would have to be non-tribal.
However, were they in reality non-tribal? Pashtun tribalism using religious revivalist fundamentalism does not seem like a successful formula for transnational aspirations.
It 's interesting that one way to explain the Taliban's uncompromising imposition of Shariah law was that it legitimated their rule as non-tribal--and consider there was very little else for them to appeal to but God.
It's also been pointed out on the list that most of those associated with the Taliban or Al-qaeda lack status in Islam (though it must also be remembered that there are various centers of Islam but no hierarchy comparable to the Catholic Church). Neither Mullah Omar or OBL are clerics.
When the Taliban swept into power in 1994-1996 they then tried to extend their rule over all of Afghanistan. It seems their 'tribal' image (based on actual facts true of the Taliban perhaps?) kept them from gaining support.
They found stiff resistance from many in the country because they were viewed as just another tribal faction or gangster-criminals, the sort responsible for the civil wars and mayhem of the 90s (and is that what they were actually?).
The Taliban were not completely unified among themselves since they divided along the sort of lines that always divide religions and have always divided Islam in Afghanistan: between moderates and fundamentalists. This is a divide, however, that predates the Taliban.
The revivalist, fundamentalist parts that came to dominate the Taliban around the Mullah Omar and the Kandahar Taliban were different from the Islamists who had wished to rule Afghanistan as a modern Islamic state.
The revivalist, fundamentalist Taliban were Deobandi types, whose roots go back to Indo-Pakistan Islam (India and then post-partition Pakistan have always been a traditional place for Afghans to go for education).
Moreover, the Taliban's actions (such as customs regarding shrines and relics)showed that they were quite characteristically and pragmatically Afghan (Hanafi, NOT Wahabi) in their approach to fundamentalist Sunni Islam (that is, they introduced little that was new but emphasized the fundamentalist aspects that were already there).
They would not typically describe themselves as Wahhabi, though they might say they respected it as a true form of Islam. Most Afghanis reject Wahhabi Islam and the Taliban knew this.
Chip B. again:
>Ultra-Wahhabism and Salafism are not >just generic forms of
>Islamic belief or even typical of all Islamic >fundamentalism--they are
rooted in an >expansionist notion of millenarian >transformation that
demands they >overthrow the unpure governments in >historic Muslim regions.
This is their >ideology/theology. The idea of clerical >fasicsm is not just
some fantasy spread >by non-leftists dupes of US imperialism. >This is whatI
thought was implied in the >Herman letter, with its dismissive tone.
Who has usurped whom? Who has infiltrated whom? Who has manipulated whom? Who has projected power and expanded into whose country?
Take away Wahabi Saudi Arabia and most importantly Deobandi Pakistan, and the Kandahar Taliban could never have come to power. Take away Iran, Russia and now the US, and the Northern Alliance would be the defeated group of groups they are.
It's hard to say the Taliban were ever an expansionary force in their short history, regardless of who flew the planes into the buildings.
In expressed belief, the Taliban reject hierarchy, which doesn't seem to fit with my preconceptions of fascist rule.
The Deobandi conversion of Pakistan (such as in Kashmir, but even in Pakistan proper) never required the Taliban in Afghanistan. It seems to have been government policy, with or without democracy there.
Deobandi Islam, which has its roots in 19th century India, pervades Pakistan, including those in the government and military.
And to focus, I repeat Chip again:
> The idea of clerical fasicsm is not just >some fantasy spread by
non-leftists >dupes of US imperialism. This is whatI >thought was implied in
the Herman >letter, with its dismissive tone.
Indian scholars have used it a lot for a long time to describe those who would wreck India's democracy in the name of religion.
However, in the case of the Taliban, there was no democracy to wreck. What you --Chip and also Max S-- need to explain is (among other things) is why it results in transnational clerical fascism in Afghanistan but not in the actual sources, Saudi Arabia and most importantly Pakistan.
And Chip again:
>See my discussion of clerical fascism at:
>http://www.publiceye.org/frontpage/911/clerical-911.htm
I visited the page and it lacks solid scholarship about Islam in Afghanistan (e.g. Hanafi Sunni Islam), the factions that gave rise to the Taliban, or any discussion at all for that matter, on the Taliban's militant, anti-colonial roots in Deobandi Islam. Herman's stuff is much more solid, both in a scholarly sense and in a real-world sense.
Charles Jannuzi www.unfunnydonrickles.org