> On 11/27/06, Marvin Gandall <marvgandall at videotron.ca> asked:
>
>> In any case, you don't think the Sadrists - any more than the followers
>> of
>> Khomeini and Nasrallah - are just a bunch of crazy nihilists with no idea
>> what they would do with power, do you? And if you don't think that, then
>> where do you think they would look for inspiration and guidance?
>
> Well, obviously they look to the Koran. And just as obviously they are
> trying to pave the way for the Second Coming of Isa (Jesus) and the
> Mahdi who will redeem Islam and the world at the End Of Days.
>
> So no, they're not nihilists, but their idea of an "end state" is not
> exactly Marxist, is it.
=============================
No, it isn't. But they've stepped into the vaccum once filled by Marxists
among the poor and the powerless, and around the same issues of national
self-determination and social justice. Insofar as they've done so, I support
their efforts against the elites, domestic and foreign, who are trying to
suppress these popular causes. This doesn't mean, by extension, that I
support the theology or other reactionary characteristics of these movements
and their related attacks on liberals and leftists whose more progressive
social and political values coincide with my own.
The point is that political Islam - at least in the Shia community - is a contradictory movement which reminds some people of fascism and others of social democracy, as we can see every day on this list. I believe it's important that we see it as contradictory rather than one or the other and that we support it where we think it is acting in the interests of progress and oppose it where we think it is not.