Chip and Chuck object to the comparison that Phil Cunliffe made between New Social Movements and Islamism, in my mail of Sunday.
``...It is fair to argue that some aspects of Militant Islamic fundamentalism can be analyzed using NSM theory, but the rest of the attempted analogy is very weak, and ties back into the implicit red-baiting...'' Chip Berlet
"It is not only, not fair and weak, it is wildly irrational reactionary propaganda to argue that militant Islamic fundamentalism shares anything, especially its internal motivations and organization with so-called new social movements like environmentalism and feminism. What are you two thinking?" Chuck Grimes
But I think Phil had it right.
Of course it is not 'red-baiting' to make the point that New Social Movements increased their influence as mass political movements were de-mobilised - something they share with Islamic fundamentalism.
It is not 'red-baiting' for the obvious reason that 'red-baiting' is for the most part what the NSMs did, not what they were the victims of. The 'reds', Marx and others were all excoriated for their 'privileging' [sic] of the working class over petit bourgeois political mobilisations.
I think Phil's comparison is especially good on the well-springs of motivation of both Islamists and NSMs, both of whom are defined by their anti-popular standpoint. It seemed to me a well-made point that the law of conscience prevails for those movements that arise out of the defeat of popular national and social movements.
Interestingly, Chuck goes on to denounce Islamists as part and parcel of a presumed 'fundamentalist' Western theology of Judaism and Christianity. But that is just an aspect of his own anti-Islamic prejudice, and a misreading of the motivations of the Western establishment, which is generally sceptical and pragmatic in its religious beliefs. Bear in mind that Bush and Blair went to war to get the Afghan women out of their Burkas not into them.
Chuck's own prejudices about 'fundamentalism' come between him and an understanding of the facts. Chuck obviously hasn't been in a church lately - if he had he would see that environmentalism and feminism is readily appropriated by Christian believers.
Chuck sees rather more Marxist influence in the British left than I do. For the most part the NSMs grew as organised labour declined. And they resented organised labour as long as it was a force, but patronised it once it was spent. As to this: "the new social movements while re-evaluating and reconstructing both socialist and marxist ideas and histories have tried to re-inject themselves into US organized labor" all I can say is that organised labour has my sympathy. -- James Heartfield The 'Death of the Subject' Explained is available at GBP11.00, plus GBP1.00 p&p from Publications, audacity.org, 8 College Close, Hackney, London, E9 6ER. Make cheques payable to 'Audacity Ltd'