[lbo-talk] Jihad vs. the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Re Iraq war....

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

>On Mon, 7 Apr 2003, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
>>  Leftists in most (all?) countries have lost an ability to do what the
>>  Abraham Lincoln Brigade and the like did.  No wonder a number of Arab
>>  youths have turned to militant Islamism.
>
>What would a modern-day Abraham Lincoln Brigade have done in Iraq? 
>What could one do *anywhere* in the world, in our era?
>
>Brian

I'm not talking about Iraq in particular, of whose social geography 
we know next to nothing, except that nothing remotely resembling a 
popular left-wing insurgency has existed since probably 1963 and 
certainly 1979.  We know little about the Ba'ath Party, Iraqi Kurdish 
parties (KDP, PUK), and Shiite political tendencies.  Most ordinary 
Americans have probably heard of only two Iraqi individuals: Saddam 
Hussein and "Chemical Ali" (Ali Hassan al-Majid).  We are hardly 
better informed than apolitical Americans, it seems.  A popular 
left-wing insurgency might possibly come into existence in the 
future, though, if oppositions to the current colonial war (and the 
colonial occupation to come) grow and merge and grow further.

Unlike liberals and rightists, leftists can't manufacture "freedom 
fighters" in foreign countries.

ISM, the Iraq Peace Team, human shields, etc. may be non-violent 
(broadly) left-wing (mostly pacifist) alternatives to jihad, but I 
don't think they will capture the imagination of Arab youths in a way 
that jihad has.

-- 
Yoshie

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