<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML><HEAD> <META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> <META content="MSHTML 6.00.2900.2995" name=GENERATOR> <STYLE></STYLE> </HEAD> <BODY bgColor=#ffffff> <DIV>Everyone's picking on Yoshie, so I hope she'll forgive me if I too take issue with some points. Yoshie wrote: "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..." And "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." I appreciate that this is how things appear on the surface, but I am not so sure that is how they really are. It seems to me that the apparent strength of Islamism is a bit of an illusion. This is the ideology that has rushed to fill the vacuum left by the disintegration of secular nationalism. But it has not penetrated deeply into the masses* . The strategic direction of Al Qaida - towards terror, and for direct engagement with the US - was a reaction to the failure of Islamists to secure a mass base in Algeria in the nineties. I think all the indications are that far from being wildly different in outlook, people in the Middle East are pretty similar in their aspirations to people in Western Europe and the US - at least as far as they aspire to self-betterment, the consumer life-style, even a more liberal culture (that is definitely one area where the Iranian government is at odds with the aspirations of its citizens). Where they differ from Western governments is that they disapprove of Western policy in the Middle East. On that score, may it be said, Middle Eastern and North African muslims have a lot in common with Europeans, and, judging by the recent US election, Americans too. All across the West, we can see the dislocation between governments and citizenry, and the strength of anti-political feeling. Often that makes protest movements seem a lot more powerful than they really are. The anti-capitalist protestors were rocking European capitals in the years 1998-2001 - but today the movement is nowhere to be seen. Then the anti-war protestors were mobilising millions, but again, today they are demobilised. These movements looked more dramatic than they really were because officialdom was itself so weak. My view is that it is the same with the Islamists. In comparison to the decrepit remnants of Arab nationalism in power, they look dynamic, even though they don't have a lot behind them. There is grudging respect for Al Qaida because they took big risks and dared a lot. But there is less identification. The fact that the Coalition of the (Un)Willing is disintegrating before our eyes again gives a boost to the Islamists, giving them authority that in fact they have not earned. (The conflict with the Russians in Afghanistan was a similar experience - Russian power was massively overstated, the 'Afghan Arabs' put some elan into the fight, but won disproportionate authority by taking advantage of the inner moral collapse of the Soviet army). And though Hezbollah in Lebanon is exceptional amongst Islamists for building a strong social base, it has all the same scored a remarkable victory because the Israelis themselves were demoralised (indeed they already emboldened Hezbollah in 1998 by abandoning  southern Lebanon). Islamism is a paper tiger. It only looks strong because the alternatives, Arab nationalism and Western imperialism are so weak. * I am thinking maybe of the apocryphal CPGB circular that demanded the lower organs of the party must penetrate the backward parts of hte proletariat, cf. Claud Cockburn). </DIV></BODY></HTML>