[lbo-talk] "Clash of Civilizations"

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

On 11/20/06, Dennis Claxton <ddclaxton at earthlink.net> wrote:
> >In the age of Islamism, I predict that there will be a wider and
> >wider gulf between those who
> >live in the OECD nations and those who live in the Middle East.
> >--
> >Yoshie
>
> Yikes. Is this "Clash of Civilizations" through the looking glass?

There has always existed a sizable gap between what leftists in the
West wanted states and movements in the rest of the world (both the
Second and Third Worlds) to be and what they really were.  The gap was
mostly manageable, however, for most states and movements in the rest
of the world in the 20th century were more or less secular, more or
less socialist.  Liberation theology was a bit of challenge to
leftists in the West, but most of them overcame their prejudice
through working with religious leftists, Catholic and Protestant, for
liberation theology of Latin America was rooted in the religion --
Christianity -- with which they were familiar.

Today, wherever leftists in the West look at in the Middle East, there
is no viable political force they can support, for viable political
forces are either Islamists or (still arguably) secular dictators (who
are gradually accommodating Islamist ideas while still repressing
Islamists and any other dissidents who exist).  Nada.  This situation
may be called a kind of "clash of civilizations."  So, one might say
that Samuel P. Huntington's thesis proved to be a performative speech:
the Western power elite have given the thesis a force of reality.

There are secular cosmopolitans in the Middle East, to be sure, but
they are few, and many of them tend to be neoliberals due to their
class backgrounds or "line themselves up fairly squarely behind the
imperial project," as Tariq Ali put it:

<blockquote>MJ: You've called for an Islamic Reformation. Where do you
see the best prospects for such a movement?

TA: I used to hope—and I've still not given up on it—that a big reform
movement could arise in Iran, which in some ways is one of the most
cultured Islamic countries, with a very long pre-Islamic tradition as
well which hasn't been completely wiped out. But when the United
States and Israel behave in the way they do, then that sets it back.
So I'm quite despondent on that particular front at the moment. That's
one problem.

The second problem is that in many parts of the Islamic world, secular
forces, where they exist, tend now to be so unsure of themselves, so
lacking in self-confidence, that in many cases—not in all—they line
themselves up fairly squarely behind the imperial project and that
then creates a big vacuum in which the Islamists become the dominant
power because they are the only ones then who are seen as resisting.
And that I think has been a very, very dangerous development in the
Islamic world. And when I go often I meet very, very good
people—intellectuals, writers—just sitting completely despondent,
trapped between the American hammer and the Islamist anvil, not
knowing which way to turn.  (Paige Austin, "Tariq Ali: Toward A New
Radical Politics," 9 August 2006,
<http://www.motherjones.com/interview/2006/08/tariq_ali.html>)</blockquote>

I've been saying that what leftists in the West should do is find
relatively modern Islamists and secular dictators and back them
against truly dangerous Islamists and imperialists, but, as you can
see, I have yet to go very far in selling this heretical notion.  :->
-- 
Yoshie
<http://montages.blogspot.com/>
<http://mrzine.org>
<http://monthlyreview.org/>