On 11/29/06, Jerry Monaco <monacojerry at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Boddi
>
> I suddenly realized that you were probably trying to communicate with me
> about my rather limited defense of Yoshie. Perhaps because you were
> disappointed in what I wrote.
>
> Let me state right off that she does not need my defense one bit.
>
> But... as I have written to her, my appreciation of her is based on her
> provocation of thought. She has made me think about certain aspects of past
> and present movements in ways that I have come to question my domestic
> political orientations. She has brought me to investigate other aspects of
> the world political situation that I might have missed. I am not here to
> support theocratic politics. Yoshie has _not_ led me to change my mind on
> the character of what I take to be an oppressive, religiously justified.
> politics, but she has led me to reevaluate some of my accepted thoughts of
> my own politics.
Sure, fair enough. I've been reading Yoshie for years and years so maybe I'm less patient, but I'm for anybody who makes one think.
So here is a list of what Yoshie has led me to reevaluate:
>
> 1) The character of previous resistance movements and national liberation
> movements: Are Hamas and Hezbollah really different from the FLN in Algeria
> circa 1956? Are they really less "supportable" than the various murderous
> Stalinist groups that fought in resistance against fascism, or the various
> national liberation groups who fought against colonilism? Sure I really
> "want" a secular, socialist, internationalist, all-inclusive and "skeptical"
> political organization based on the working classes. But where is there a
> possibility for such organizations?
Well, I think that it's a question of deciding what these groups are really up to. I don't really think that Hezbollah is a movement of national liberation. I think they are hoping to establish a separate "vertical" social structure with Shiite clerics at the top. I think they are more splitters than uniters. Iran, remember, is extremely unusual as really the only country that is almost all Shiite.
2) One reason (among many) there is no possibility for such organizations
> is U.S. and Israeli policy in the Middle East, and the general failure of
> secular nationalism. Now if I oppose U.S. and Israeli policy in the
> Middle East, this will probably mean given current conditions that groups
> such as Hamas and Hezbollah will come to power. The vulgar Marxists used to
> say that this mean that "objectively" I am supporting Hezbollah and Hamas.
> So be it. It is not my job to choose.
Okay, but I don't think that all Western intervention is automatically evil and all "indigenous" groups are automatically unopposable. Every culture has to work with every other culture to promote what's good and repress the weird parts. Certainly the world tries to do that with the US. They buy our pop culture and protest our foreign policy.
3) Because it is "our" (the U.S. empire) policies and "our" failures (the
> "international" secular left in general) that has created the possibility
> for the success of political Islam, I conclude that the only way to combat
> it is to stop my country from creating these conditions in the first place.
> Unfortunately the only people doing this on the ground are people I dislike
> and people Yoshie supports. That is the reality of things.
Actually, I think it's the success of US Imperial policies that are inappropriate and badly thought out. I'm attaching an essay by Niall Fergusson which reminds us that we could (and should) be solving these problems economically, not militarily. No lesser capitalist than Meyer Lansky is quoted as saying "a problem that can be solved with money is not a problem". Fergusson points out that we could decomission every Kalashnikov in Iraq for less than we spend on food for our troops.
4) In a "resolutionary" way I want to make a clear moral distinction between
> slaughter and resistance; terrorism and legitimate violence against
> combatants. This I do not only for my own satisfaction but to set up "hope"
> for different possibilities in the future. I don't think that Yoshie for
> one will concede that such plainly moral standards can be upheld at a
> distance.
Sure, but I think that when you couple the stated intent of the groups and the violence they themselves claim responsibility for you have a military objective. The military objective of Hezbollah and the Mahdi Army is very similar to the military objective of the Taliban. I think Shiite Sharia states are just a bit more...state-like than Sunni Sharia states.
> 5) Yoshie brings out in her own way some of the contradictions inherent in
> groups such as Hamas & Hezbollah and some aspects of politics in Iran and if
> she limited herself to these descriptions I think I could defend her more
> whole heartedly.
>
> 6) There is simply no way that we can create movements to our satisfaction
> in other nations without first creating movements to our satisfaction at
> home.
>
> My defense of Yoshie is that in thinking about what she has written these
> points have clarified for me or rather my previous thoughts have been
> appropriately muddied.
>
> Jerry Monaco
Well I appreciate your writing me and your typical thoughtfulness.
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