><blockquote>I do not feel comfortable speaking of Islamic government
>as an "idea" or even as an "ideal." Rather, it impressed me as a form
>of "political will."
And here's where Foucault precisely adopts the liberalism that he was at one point such a great critic of. Taking the forms of domination and subjection inherent to "Islamic government" as givens, even as inevitables, he then proceeds to speculate on how individuals may exert their will, in some sort of perverse Neitzscheanism. Except that where Neitzsche imagined a "doing without a doer," Foucault and liberalism have a very specific doer in mind, one with a specific gender and racial identity.
>
>The will for an "Islamic government," in my view, is a contradiction,
>just as the (now largely withered) will for a "Marxist" government is
>a contradiction. Both can be productive contradictions, however, for
>liberty is a product of conflict between leaders and masses,
So liberty is only possible where there is a state. And liberty itself has no positive content, is only a product of contradiction and opposition. I find that pretty grim.