> On Nov 27, 2006, at 4:50 AM, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
>> Doug makes it sound like no one in Iraq has a political program, but
>> that is not the case. Sadr does. The Mahdi Army is said to model
>> itself on Hizballah, combining mass actions, social services, and
>> armed resistance. That is the correct strategy, straight out of the
>> Marxist manual for national liberation. In the Middle East, it's
>> populist Islamists like Sadr and Nasrallah who are better
>> Marxist-Leninists than self-identified secular ones. -- Yoshie
>
> I see relief work, and armed defense of fellow Shiites, but a political
> program? We could have had a pretty good idea what the Bolsheviks would
> do when they took state power - they wrote about it extensively. What
> would Sadr do? Kill and/or expel Sunnis? We don't know; maybe power would
> moderate him. In the US, the Christian right run social services, but
> they come with religious strings attached and could be viewed as a means
> of building loyalty. Is that their political program?
==========================
The issue is not whether they have a political program. They do. It is that
of the Islamic Republic of Iran. It depends how you feel about that program.
The program is contradictory, like all populist programs tend to be - aimed
at reducing class inequality but accompanied by a lot of reactionary beliefs
derived from rural culture. However, populists also have to adapt to the
urban classes and culture when in power. Most differences with Yoshie turn
on what elements of this worldview are emphasized.