But it's quite a stretch to depict the cash-deprived predatory tribes living within the externally imposed political borders of Afghanistan as a capitalist society. Sure, no society can totally isolate itself but the Afghans have been giving it a pretty good try. Furthermore, even in states which are more obviously integrated into global capitalism, a non-industrial (eg rentier) economy can allow anachronistic ideologies to prevail virtually undisturbed. Members of the Saud clan and many of their subjects, most of whom don't have to do any real work and whose only far-removed contact with global capitalism is receiving their paychecks, can cling to an ideology which has remained unchanged since the 17th century. Similarly, subsistence farmers and landless peasants in Eastern Anatolia stilll live in a world where the Prophet's grandson Ali has just been martyred at Karbala.
This sort of anachronism has nothing to do with the anachronisms produced and reproduced by fascist ideologues to thicken the irrational mixture of disconnected fascist ideas. Fascist ideology is a modern product of capitalism, however much it may contain references to the (mostly mythical) past. Islamist ideology, especially among Sunnites, is intimately linked to scripture and cannot be arbitrarily mixed with non-scriptural ideologies such as racism or darwinism.
Hakki
|| -----Original Message-----
|| From: Grant Lee
|| Hakki:
||
|| "Calling medieval zealots in a precapitalist society fascist is
|| not terribly
|| smart..." Huh? I was actually pointing out the _differences_ between
|| Islamists and fascists. But since you mention it, I suggest
|| it's a debatable
|| proposition that _any_ current states are still "precapitalist". And
|| fascists are anachronistic; they often do appeal to nostalgia
|| for a mythical
|| medieval and precapitalist past.
||
||