The Clash of Fundamentalisms

[joanna bujes]

At 01:20 PM 04/29/2002 -0400, you wrote:
>Ali complains in A letter to a Young Muslim, ``...We are
>suffocating. Why can't we breathe? Everything seems static. Our
>economy, our politics, our intellectuals and, most of all our
>religion. The West does nothing. Our governments are dead. Our
>politicians are corrupt, Our people are ignored. Is it surprising that
>some are responsive to the Islamists? Who else offers anything these
>days?...'' (306p)

And yet why the asymmetry? If the capitalist present is empty for all but 
the elite, why a swing to the right, rather than the left?

Partly, because stepping to the left is stepping into a "void" -- that 
space from which people could work together to build their lives. Key 
concepts here being work and consciousness. This is the greatest drawback 
to radical politics, that it requires that we all face the fact that we're 
making it up as we go along and that we have the courage to do that.

The advantage of the right/fundamentalisms, is that it promises to restore 
the bond of human social and kinship relations, which capitalism has 
broken, with the glue of religion. Unfortunately, that glue is dissolved by 
(capitalist) economic relations--but if you don't look too deeply, you 
don't see that. Fundamentalism also relieves people of the burden of 
freedom (a great burden for many) and it is also, compared to any leftward 
trends, very well subsidized both economically and politically.

Compared to the heartless void of capitalist culture, Islam burn bright; 
but it is at best a fairy tale and at worst just another shackle.

Joanna