I've raised many questions and offered some suggestions. Here's another one. Let's say a Muslim man or woman happens to find this mailing list by chance while Googling the Net in search of information so he or she can better understand US economy. This hypothetical Muslim individual would have much to learn from you. He or she may even have much in common with you, already critical of the American power elite's handling of US economy, US foreign policy, and so forth, though not in possession of analytical tools and empirical data that you have. Would your suggesting that religion is essentially nothing but an organized superstition help him or her learn from you, or would it create an unnecessary cultural barrier?
That's a hypothetical Muslim. Here's what a real-world one has to say about the same remark by Tariq Ali on which I commented here and on my blog:
It is interesting to note that for Tariq Ali the task is
not about self-determination, but rather, ultimately
about "winning people to our own ideas" i.e. as I
see it, playing the hearts and minds game - and
not accepting a Muslim communitys' right to define
our own traditions, goals, and modes of resistance. <http://ihsan-net.blogspot.com/2007/09/liberal-leftist-islamophobia-watch.html>
That is why I raised a question in a previous posting, in response to Tayssir John Gabbour's quotation of Michael Albert's criticism of classical Marxism: (at <http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20070827/016499.html>)
In part in criticism of the Respect coalition of the UK,
Tariq Ali, who is a sophisticated Marxist, says in an
interview: "For socialists the task is clear: the Muslim
communities must be defended against being made
scapegoats, against repression, against the very
widespread representation that terrorism is proper to
Islam. All that must be energetically fought. But at the
same time we must not close our eyes to the social
conservatism which reigns in these communities, nor
hide it. We have to try to win this people to our own
ideas" ("The Anti-Imperialist Left Confronted with
Islam," IV Online 376, March 2006,
<http://www.internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article1012=>).
That is all well and good, but what if people are not
interested in being won over to "our own ideas," at least
not wholesale, as most working people, not just Muslims,
appear not to be? Then what?
I offered my own answer, or rather some beginnings in an attempt to answer this question, here and on my blog:
Like Shi'ism, Marxism, too, is "a religion of protest.
It can only speak truth to power and destabilize it.
It can never be 'in power.' As soon as it is 'in power'
it contradicts itself" (Dabashi, p. 91). The career of
Marxism as the official philosophy of socialist states
has been, if anything, sadder than that of Shi'ism
as the official philosophy of a theocratic state.
Communism, when it becomes the opium for the
people administered by a state, tends to narcotize
and depoliticize them more than any religion can.
But that is not the destiny of Marxism either. It has
returned to its original vocation in Latin America and
Nepal. Can it in the Middle East?
Benjamin lived in an age when theology was
"wizened" and "[had] to keep out of sight." He thought
that historical materialism, if it enlisted the service of
theology, could easily be a match for any force. Today,
it is historical materialism that is "wizened" and "has to
keep out of sight," but its service will be indispensable
to any theology of discontent. <http://montages.blogspot.com/2006/08/marxism-and-shiism-as-theology-of.html>
The fourth thing that leftists need to begin to think
about is what kind of historical materialism may be
useful to Muslims as well as others who _will never
become historical materialists themselves_ but _may
still find historical materialism useful_ as an intellectual
tool in a certain context, such as in an attempt to
understand the empire's political economy, but not
as the only intellectual tool in all or even most contexts. <http://montages.blogspot.com/2007/08/can-leftists-come-to-terms-with-islamic.html>
You see, I'm proposing a different approach than winning people over to "our own ideas" wholesale, in other words, a different approach than seeking converts.
> On your "blog" you write:
>
> <http://montages.blogspot.com/2007/09/what-do-liberals-want.html>
> > What do liberals want, regarding the empire and its enemy number
> > one? It looks like the demand is now not so much "oppose the US
> > government and the Iranian regime" as support the rich men of both
> > countries who are advertised as "moderates" by the corporate media,
> > for example, rooting for men like Bloomberg1 and Rafsanjani2.
> >
> > While that's a slight improvement over favoring the US government
> > over the Iranian government under the guise of opposing both, it
> > also puts liberal advocacy for human rights in question. After all,
> > Rafsanjani, who has been at the center of power in Iran from the
> > very beginning of the Islamic Republic, is responsible for the
> > deaths of thousands of opposition activists and intellectuals for
> > which the current President of Iran isn't. As for the human rights
> > record of the ruling class of the empire, the people of Iran can
> > only look at the countries to their east and west and see what it is.
> >
> > 1 Exhibit A
> >
> > The editor of Left Business Observer (who endorsed John F. Kerry in
> > 2004) says this about Bloomberg:
> >
> > I don't think Bloomberg makes much difference for how the NYPD
> > operates. Instructions for the RNC 2004 almost certainly came down
> > from the White House, and I doubt things would have gone much
> > differently under Mark Green. . . . But things like 311 make
> > routine daily life easier. And you can be sure that FEMA would have
> > responded well to Katrina had Bloomberg been president. The
> > passport office wouldn't be backed up for three months like it is
> > now. The capitalist imperialist system would still go on, for sure,
> > but for your average Joe or Jo, things would run more smoothly.
> > (Doug Henwood, "Rudy's Braintrust," LBO-Talk, 14 September 2007)
>
> What is the point of posting something like this? My guess is that
> it's to prove yourself more radical, more steely, and more authentic
> than me, the liberal. Because otherwise it's not much of a political
> contribution.
Liberalism is the hegemonic ideology of global capitalism, and we are all, Muslims or Leninists or whatever our professed belief, are deeply affected by it. The way I look at it, most leftists have come to unconsciously adopt liberalism one way or another without having examined it. Unconscious adoption is more of a problem than conscious adoption like Andie's. The thing to do is to examine liberalism closely and then think carefully about what we want to do with it. -- Yoshie