Class Consciousness among Jews Christians and Muslims.

[tradeunionsupporter]

I would like to support Socialism/Communism/Marxism but I don't understand how Socialism would take power in places like the MiddleEast and North Africa with their large Muslim Populations maybe Im wrong because Socialism did take power in the Russia and Eastern Europe with their large Christian Populations and many Jews did support Socialism I myself am not a Jew Christian or a Muslim but I would like to win the Working Class among them and raise their Class Consciousness many people who have a Religion believe that Socialism would hurt and harm them for having a Religion my question would be would Socialism allow Jews or Christians or Muslims Freedom of Religion ?

[Chris]

There is really no problem in convincing religious people of socialism and even communism. All you need to do is:
1) Not say that religion is an evil menace, and you need to abandon it to be a True Socialist.
2) Not say that if you are religious, you are a traitor to your class.
3) Not treat religious comrades as somehow "inferior" or not "pure socialists".

Really, just forget entirely about non-organised religion. It can't really hurt anyone. Organised religion and the priesthood (or similar) is opposed to progressive ideas and working class liberation, but religion and religious in general aren't.

[skep]

A society in which some people consider themselves "chosen" or "saved" is incompatible with classless ideology. A belief in divine or cosmic justice as dictated by monotheism leads one to be less inclined to pursue justice in this life. Neither of these religious presuppositions require an organized body either, so I reject the assertion that personal, non-organized spirituality is compatible with communism - it isn't. As long as "Joe" thinks he will be better off than "Kareem" in the next life because each believe in different sky wizards, true egalitarianism and communism will never be realized.

I support freedom of religion and cede that we'd probably be better off with a religious socialist society than what we have now. However, I don't believe this society will reach its potential unless our collective intellect is firmly founded in logic, reason, and materialism.

[agnixie]

I'd say for jews that there is or was at least some pretty strong class consciousness (also awesome protest songs and literature if you know some yiddish >.> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Jewish_Labour_Bund_in_Lithuania,_Poland_an d_Russia). Of course, not all Bundists were religious (most probably weren't, but judaism is a bit unlike the religions that are based on it). There's also the people's mujahideen who are islamic socialists and liberation theology for christianity.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

According to Tariq Ali, for a time during the 1950s about one fifth of the population of Iraq belonged to the Communist Party although I'm not sure how deep the affiliation went, it might have had more of a vehicle for oppressed Shi'a. Socialist ideas have been and are very popular in the Middle East in very religious Muslim societies.