New categories for modern conflicts: Radical-Islam versus imperialism

by Kumar David

Radical-Islam and its cousin Islamic Fundamentalism are the only forces that have the gall, the determination, the ideology and the ability to stand and fight American economic, political and military hegemony on a world scale at this time.

Therefore, it is necessary to understand the differing international implications of the diverse strands of political Islam, the religion of over a billion people and the fastest growing faith today. The Huntington thesis of a 'Clash of Civilisations' can be discarded with contempt in constructing an understanding based on economic and social realities.

From Fundamentalist to Radical Islam

This article does not concern itself with the doctrinal character of these different strands; the focus is on international conflicts. Nevertheless some delineation of terminological distinctions is necessary. Radical-Islam is an engagement in radical politics - the intifada in Palestine is the classic example since doctrinal considerations are irrelevant or lie very much in the background. It is a national liberation movement and Islam is simply a group identifier not a deep and driving belief system. Other examples of militant populism include Hamas, the alliance known as the Union of Islamic Courts which has taken control of Mogadishu in Somalia and the mass Shia and Sunni movements in Iraq (everybody in Iraq is anti-American, the modern internecine conflict is embedded in state power not doctrine).

Islamic Fundamentalism on the other hand has a doctrinal core that seeks a return to the true sources of Islam and a theocratic state based on Sharia (Islamic law) encompassing the public and personal domains - there are several such schools and interpretations. An example is the wahabi, founded by an eponymous 18th Century cleric in Saudi Arabia, where it is now the state religion. Al-Qaeda is fundamentalist in the sense defined here, but in reality the struggle to end US political domination and economic exploitation of Middle Eastern resources far outweighs doctrinal concerns.

Hence the boundary between radical and fundamentalist currents often blurs and Islamic political movements bend in one direction or the other with the passage of time. It is important to keep the distinction in mind for just this reason Radicalism and fundamentalism also overlap greater-Islam by which I mean the broad compendium of religious beliefs, cultural ethos and political organisations that bind an Islamic population together on a national and international scale. In recent years, as the Middle Eastern conundrum became more inflamed and globalisation exacerbated domestic hardships, the overlap of both currents with mass organisations magnified. The huge Muslim organisations in Indonesia, for example, have swung from near-fascist anti-communism and anti-Chinese racism in the mid-1960s, to mass populism today. The Islamic Revolution in Iran was never fundamentalist in the Taleban sense and its dynamic evolution is noteworthy. The revolution survived efforts by the US to overthrow it by isolation and by instigating the Iraq-Iran war. More recently, faced with the threat that the American invasion of Iraq poses to Iranian sovereignty it has taken a radical turn epitomised by Ahmadinejad's firm position on the nuclear issue; the land of the Islamic Revolution has become politically radicalised.

The Somali case is very interesting. An alliance of eleven Courts has brought stability ("you can now walk on the streets at night") and the leaders have said "we are not interested in governmental portfolios; we want an opportunity for the people to exercise their determination (sic)". The Courts are indeed judicial institutions formed in the 1990s to combat crime and restore stability after the country collapsed into anarchy in 1991. The clerics leading two Courts are quite radical (Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys who heads the new 88-member legislature is one of them), some Courts have dispensed severe Islamic justice, but the best way to characterise the Union is as populist and enjoying widespread support.

Why Islam?

Why at this particular point in time has history chosen Islam to be its vehicle of struggle? After all Islam has long been the religion that promised justice and equity to the hungry, the poor and the oppressed - vide our subcontinent - so why now? The answer is a dialectical conjuncture of several factors; globalisation and poverty, Middle Eastern oil and America's Israel, and the outreach of a unifying ideology, part liberating, part profoundly reactionary.

Advancing globalisation, while benefiting some, grinds others into the dust, furthermore, traditional social norms are breaking down. In Islamic cultures established codes pervade both public and private spheres and are more rigid than in other societies. Rapture of these inflexibilities and decay of traditional values provokes rebellion against modernisation. The spread of wealth, which may have ameliorated conflict, is stymied by the inequity inherent in globalisation's neo-liberal economic portfolio. Families become angry and societies dismayed by perceptions of rapacious plunder and hedonistic morality.

This powder keg may still have been contained but for oil, America's special relationship with Israel, and the way in which the Middle Eastern map was redrawn by the great powers some 50 years ago. Some demon arranged the world in such a way that oil and the creation of the state of Israel happened all in one place. The continuing misery of the Palestinians after expulsion from their land and the knowledge that quisling regimes facilitate the robbery of oil are festering sores in the psyche of Islamic politics.

Islam is the most social and community based of all the great religions; the community-oriented traditions of sharing, support and responsibility contained in the Islamic code and originating in the needs of the early societies make it more than a religion. It grows into a social formation and takes political life; it resists penetration by capitalism with its alternative design for society.

Fundamentalist ideology poses an obstacle not only to modern capitalist social forms and political democracy in its limited bourgeois sense, but also, because of its philosophical obscurantism, to the liberation of women and the fuller freedoms and free associations that the technical and material advancement of the last three centuries have made possible. Both the Enlightenment project and the achievements of Newtonian mechanics constitute the divide between fundamentalism and modernism. The radical Islamist revolt is at one and the same time the revolt of the oppressed and the refuge of obscurantism, it is "the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions".

Engaging with Radical-Islam

If Radical-Islam represents, in however distorted a form, the resistance of oppressed classes and nations, then it is incumbent that we come to terms with it, but without approving the atavism of religious fundamentalism that it carries to a degree in its baggage.

The traditional criticism of religion was that it was a soporific to lull subaltern classes into acceptance of oppressive conditions. Criticism held that the rejection of "the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. . . to pluck the imaginary flowers on the chain not in order that man shall continue to bear that chain without fantasy or consolation, but so that he shall throw off the chain and pluck the living flower."

However, the one thing that cannot be said of today's radical and policticalised religious movements is that they are tranquillizer - if anything entirely the reverse. But then there arises the question of terrorism and to quote Sir Gulam Noon, Britain's multi-millionaire businessman: "As a Muslim, I feel strongly about terrorism. This is not done by Muslims. It is done by terrorists and terrorists have no religion. The trouble is Islam has been hijacked by Mullahs or Imams. Most of them are very good but some of them are crack pots."

Sir Gulam has hit it the nail on the head. The radical political forces that are driving populist insurrections and threatening privilege, wealth and power, in the final analysis, "have no religion" as the honourable knight informs us. They are a response to hopeless and dehumanising conditions of daily life.

Hence it is necessary to engage with Radical Islam, not withstanding outbursts of terrorism and its illusory ideology, since when it leads mass movements it is an authentic representative of the poor and the under privileged. However, the engagement must be principled and critical, for barbarism is always an option, since imperialism and fundamentalism are also involved.