Postmodern Jihad

Chuck Grimes cgrimes at rawbw.com
Sat Nov 17 09:19:32 PST 2001


``It is was only a matter of time; Marxism, Foucault, Heidegger, and Bin Laden together.'' Jacob Segal

[ref. `Postmodern Jihad, What Osama bin Laden learned from the Left,' Newell, WR, Prof pol sci/phil, Carleton Univ, Ottawa.]

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And yet, despite some sleight of hand in misconstruing some of the literary references, I don't find the essay particularly wrong headed. The only trouble with it is the failure to mention the other side: the dominance of the current US political spectrum by a reactionary, racist, neoliberal, Christian fundamentalist rightwing---the twisted spawn of related events in the US [related relative to Paris '68].

The way the intentional misconstruction works is to blame bin Laden on various Left writers, intellectuals, and political events, when in fact these should lead to the Right. The proper affinities in the predominately righwing reactions to modern mass industrial society are found in the returns to religious fundamentalisms: Jewish, Islamic, and Christian---as these have played out in the US, Israel, and the Arab world.

So the esssay manages to deflict attention on the US rightwing. It also probably serves some Canadian agenda against Quebec in its slurs on the French.

Chuck Grimes



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