On Sun, 3 Dec 2006 09:18:04 -0500 "Yoshie Furuhashi"
<critical.montages at gmail.com> writes:
> On 12/3/06, Marvin Gandall <marvgandall at videotron.ca> wrote:
> > Yoshie wrote:
> >
> > > Here's my proposal: (1) develop a good historical materialist
> > > understanding of the religious in all their varieties; (2)
> create a
> > > new secular -- but not secularist -- world view for ourselves
> (we
> > > currently have none that all or most of us share even inside the
> > > Marxist tradition); and (3) NOT to equate Marxism or socialism
> or
> > > leftism with secularism and make adherence to secularism a
> condition
> > > for being part of the Left, narrowly or broadly defined.
> > >
> > > Looking at the European political trend (e.g., banning hijab,
> the Far
> > > Right gaining ground in large part due to Islamophobia and
> > > anti-immigrant sentiments, opposition to Turkey joining the
> European
> > > Union in part based on fear of Muslims, and so on); the American
> > > political trend (e.g., little opposition to violations of civil
> rights
> > > and liberties of Muslims, despite a high level of opposition to
> the
> > > Iraq War); the intellectual trend (e.g., silly but popular books
> like
> > > Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion, Daniel C. Dennett's Breaking
> the
> > > Spell, Sam Harris' The End of Faith, Oriana Fallaci's The Rage
> and the
> > > Pride, etc.;
I would be cautious about lumping all those books together. Fallaci's book was a rather crude polemic against Muslims. Harris' book is a mixed bag. On the one hand, he makes a rather eloquent case for reason as opposed to faith, in terms rather remniscient of Bertrand Russell. Unfortunately, this is combined with the defense of some highly questionable theses, including most notably his contention that religious moderates are as nearly dangerous as religious fundamentalists. He also defends the moral acceptability of torture, à la Alan Dershowitz. While he clearly despises all three of the Abrahamic faiths, he reserves special animosity towards Islam. And he also signs on to Bush's "war on terrorism." I don't see any of that stuff in Dennett's writings. And Dawkins clearly holds all major religious faiths equally in contempt. It should also be noted that Dawkins has been a fierce opponent of the Iraq war.
> > > the concept of Islamofascism gaining currency); the
> > > current focus of US imperialism on West Asia, I think that it's
> more
> > > than ever important not to make it appear that being on the left
> and
> > > being a religious believer are mutually exclusive. Instead, we
> should
> > > think about how religious faith can, has, and still does
> motivate many
> > > from diverse religious traditions to make great contributions to
> > > struggles against exploitation and oppressions.
> > ====================================
> > Well, you've reassured me at least that you don't want to pack us
> all off to
> > church this morning, and that your more modest objective is to
> show "how
> > religious faith can, has, and still does motivate many from
> diverse
> > religious traditions to make great contributions to struggles
> against
> > exploitation and oppressions".
>
> The problem is that many of us, irreligious leftists, in America do
> not have any particular place to go and work with our fellow
> believers
> every Friday, Saturday, or Sunday, unlike religious leftists. The
> lack of standing secular left institutions keeps secular leftists an
> insignificant minority, for people who become politicized have
> nowhere
> to go in many places, and it makes religious institutions the only
> ones to which people can turn. The vaccum becomes especially a
> problem in a time like this.
>
> > Despite your many suggestions, I'm not convinced the left has
> generally
> > thought or made it appear otherwise. Any historical left-wing
> intolerance
> > towards religion has been aimed, not at the mass of believers, but
> at
> > instances where reactionary clerics have often had the blood of
> massacred
> > dissenters and innocents on their hands.
>
> Indiscriminate anti-clericalism made political sense when the
> Catholic
> Church, a centralized institution, also had vast land holdings and
> its
> clerics were a class unto itself, but it doesn't make sense in
> Islam,
> Protestantism, and other decentralized religions, and probably even
> the Catholic Church today, where some clerics are on the Left, some
> are on the Right, and there is a vast middle inbetween.
I would agree with most of that. Marx, himself, was critical of what he referred to as 'bourgeois anti-clericalism,' which he felt could divert the attention of workers into attacking the churches when the real enemy was capital. Marx's characterization of religion as an opiate has been widely misunderstood. He saw religious faith as a kind of anodyne for helping people to cope with a dehumanizing world. He condemned efforts in the First International that would make a profession of atheism a requirement for membership in workers organizations. Even Lenin's anti-clericalism was intended to be specific to Russian conditions, where the Orthodox Church was the state church and a major landowner and was not supposed to be a general Marxist principle.
> In
> Protestant
> denominations like Congregationalism and Presbyterianism, pastors
> are
> more employees of their congregations than national churches, for
> each
> congregation chooses its own. If possible, we want to draw a
> political line so that we can put ourselves on the side of a
> majority.
> General anti-clericalism won't do in the USA. Nor will it in West
> Asia.
>
> > I don't think your views about religious belief represent a
> departure from
> > Marxism. That seems a side issue.
>
> Has it been an issue? No one said anything like that here or on
> PEN-l, to my knowledge, in this and related threads. Not that I
> would
> care if anyone did. Since when has Marxism become like the Catholic
> Church? :->
>
> > Your critics are reacting to something
> > more specific: what they regard as a romanticizing of political
> Islam and a
> > corresponding softness towards crimes committed by the Islamic
> clergy
> > against the Iranian left. It may be another case where differences
> get
> > magnified and the debate becomes artificially polarized on both
> sides, but,
> > given the gravity of the issue, maybe not.
I think that Marvin pinpoints what all the fuss has been about. One can recognize that political Islam has both progressive and reactionary tendencies. One can also recognize that the Islamist regime in Iran currently plays an important anti-imperialist role. And one can even recognize that the domestic policies of that same regime include both some very progressive aspects as well as some highly reactionary ones. But given all that, there is no need for us to try to whitewash that regime's more unsavory aspects.
>
> The record of the Iranian Revolution on political executions,
> imprisonment, and so on should be evaluated by the same standard we
> employ in evaluating other revolutions, bourgeois nationalist,
> populist, or socialist.
> --
> Yoshie
> <http://montages.blogspot.com/>
> <http://mrzine.org>
> <http://monthlyreview.org/>
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