strange, strange politics

[ed miliband]

recently i've noticed an increase in people - university students, usually involved in palestine / 'arab spring' solidarity politics - holding a number of weird positions:

- essentially liberal democratic, but anti-secularist; belief that secularism is a 'western' concept, and claiming there are secular elements in arab uprisings is cultural imperialism;
- strong support for western intervention in syria on behalf of the rebels;
- but anti-american, america = capitalism = bad;
- strong support for morsi and erdogan against protests;
- more-or-less liberal on social issues, identify as 'socialist'.

some of these people are muslim, some are in the process of converting to islam, others have no religion at all. i've known these people, or at least of them, through friends, since starting university, but i was really taken aback recently by their support of erdogan ("the poor are with him, an elite is against democracy!") and their wishes for intervention in syria. having a look at some of their profiles on twitter, these positions aren't those of a few isolated weirdos, in fact they seem to have some sort of popularity.

how would you describe this crap?

[ed miliband]

actually, i suppose they aren't that strange, there's some sort of consistency (aside from being 'socialist'), i'm just taken aback by the amount of people who hold this sort of worldview inc. people who were apparently sound only a few months ago.

[khad]

They're liberal Salafists. They're essentially what enabled the Brotherhood and their ilk to fly under the radar as microcredit charities and human rights activists for decades. But you should get good at spotting them, because damned is the leftist who is ever duped by those fools.

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2012/Aug-08/183883-turkish-lawyer-linked-to-al-qaeda-killed-in-syria.ashx


Turkish lawyer linked to Al-Qaeda killed in Syria
August 08, 2012 05:23 PM
Agence France Presse
A+ A-

ISTANBUL: A Turkish lawyer who defended suspected Al-Qaeda militants has been killed in fighting in the Syrian city of Aleppo, Turkey's Anatolia news agency said Wednesday.

Osman Karahan, who represented several suspects accused of carrying out four truck bomb blasts in Istanbul in November 2003, was buried Tuesday after being killed in the heavy combat gripping the key northern city, his brother Ekrem Karahan told Anatolia.

"Osman's friends said, 'He will be buried here because he's a martyr,'" Ekrem Karahan said.

The Istanbul attacks, which targeted two synagogues, the British consulate and the local headquarters of HSBC bank, killed 63 people and wounded hundreds.

In 2007 seven men were sentenced to life for the blasts.

Karahan himself was charged with funding members of Al-Qaeda, but a Turkish court cleared him in 2006.

[ed miliband]

isn't 'liberal salafist' a contradiction in terms? how does that work in practice?

[Flying Purple People Eater]

Liberal salafist as in they're hipsters who take postmodernism to it's rightwing extreme and claim that shit like islamism and the discrimination that comes along with it as an immovable 'aspect of the culture' which can't be questioned out of fear of eurocentrism or something, rather than recognise that it is a reactionary, anti-leftist and fundamentalist political tract. That, or they're just morons without the stuffing and saw how wonderful the freedom fighters were in toppling the dictator of Egypt - what they forget to mention is that the new party in power now has a religious excuse to hack living wages to shreds.

As someone who grew up around people who had many friends and family members slaughtered by the groups these liberals support, I can safely tell you that only the most pristine and uncritical form of idiot ends up defending such anti-leftist groups.

Like many in the SWP, for instance.

[Devrim]

isn't 'liberal salafist' a contradiction in terms? how does that work in practice?

I think that the term 'salafist' is banded about a lot today without any attention to what it actually means. Erdoğan and the AKP in Turkey are obviously not a 'salafist' organisation and although some would suggest that the Muslim Brothers are, I think that most people wouldn't characterise them as such.

Devrim

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

This alliance between Islamists and liberals (including radical liberals that consider themselves leftists) is nothing new - Foucault poured praise on the Iranian mullahs, and Rawls discovered Islamist regimes as "decent hierarchical societies" somewhere in the late eighties. Certain revisionist socialist groups embraced Islamism as part of their general trend to latch onto any sort of supposedly popular movement.

[Sasha]

I think that the term 'salafist' is banded about a lot today without any attention to what it actually means. Erdoğan and the AKP in Turkey are obviously not a 'salafist' organisation and although some would suggest that the Muslim Brothers are, I think that most people wouldn't characterise them as such.

Devrim


yeah, both AKP and MB are way more conservative free-market capitalist than islamists, speaking to their supporters i'm always way more reminded off European christian-democrats (admittedly more those of the 1950's than the current ones) than of the Taliban.
Salafist youth here in my neighborhood despise them anyway.

[ed miliband]

indeed, the funny thing is these very same people will pour scorn on "neoliberalism" in britain / europe (it's never capitalism unless america is concerned), whilst supporting parties implementing the same / similar policies in the middle east.

[Devrim]

yeah, both AKP and MB are way more conservative free-market capitalist than islamists, speaking to their supporters i'm always way more reminded off European christian-democrats (admittedly more those of the 1950's than the current ones) than of the Taliban.

I have always thought of the AKP as a Muslim Democratic Party in the mold of the Ferman CDU. They do sometimes do somethings to appeal to the conservative base, but the conservative economic model is central and I think it is fair to say they are more interested in profit than in the Prophet.

Devrim

[Devrim]

indeed, the funny thing is these very same people will pour scorn on "neoliberalism" in britain / europe (it's never capitalism unless america is concerned), whilst supporting parties implementing the same / similar policies in the middle east.

It does sound a bit weird. Where is it coming from politically? Does it have its roots in the SWP, whose current has supported both the MB in Egypt and the AKP in Turkey?

Devrim

[ed miliband]

It does sound a bit weird. Where is it coming from politically? Does it have its roots in the SWP, whose current has supported both the MB in Egypt and the AKP in Turkey?

Devrim

one guy i know was involved in the swp, but now he's a "left nasserist"

otherwise, within the terrible realm of student politics, after the 'arab spring' various solidarity groups/societies were formed. at least in my university they seemed to made up solely of members of the islamic society, the palestine solidarity group, and the swp. similarly, the swp would campaign for members of the islamic society in student elections and so on. needless to say, there's no mention of class or capitalism or anything here, and the politics of the (now ex-) swp students leaves a lot to be desired -- they recently wrote a zine which featured an article analysing financial crisis and austerity measures as arising from a 'lack of kindenss', ffs. so that's the intellectual environment this shit is emerging from.

[Devrim]

It is quite telling of the attractiveness and effectivness of the SWP nowadays that they go into these sort of fronts to pick up members, and they end up making a gift of their own members to Islamicists.

Devrim

[hatzel]

hipsters who take postmodernism to it's rightwing extreme and claim that shit like islamism and the discrimination that comes along with it as an immovable 'aspect of the culture'

But but but surely if they were truly pomo (briefly pretending that means anything) they wouldn't go near such cultural essentialism with a bargepole, no? It could perhaps be called characteristic of postmodernity, yes, but I feel there's a distinction to be made somewhere...

I think that actually reveals what we're dealing with here, though. If you happen to suck at reading Leninite anti-imp stuff, Fanonite nat-lib stuff and Saïdite post-colonial stuff, but still try to apply all that to the world around you, I suppose it's altogether possible that you might end up with a political approach not unlike that described in the OP, that is to say the manichaen 'clash of civilisations'-type ideology popular mainly with silly racist folk and their dim-witted pseudo-opponents on the left who actually accept literally everything right-wing clowns say except for which 'team' you're supposed to cheer for heh. It's not uncommon to see people who have assembled a mishmash of ideas from a wide variety of sources (with a healthy dash of re-/misinterpretation of the details, naturally) and tried to push them all together into some kind of amorphous blob of an ideology. The results are rarely pretty.

There are actually some interesting critical analyses of the secularisation thesis and the theoretical underpinnings of secularism being bandied about, though none of these should then lead one towards anti-secularism (which, coincidentally, remains entirely within the conceptual domain of secularism, so does nothing to escape the ''western' concept[s]' it is built upon, and as such a critique of secularism is necessarily - and explicitly, in the eyes of the theorists themselves - a simultaneous critique of anti-secularism), the intention being to allow new and better understandings of (non-)secularity. There are those who tie this critique in with post-colonial theory (sometimes with overly broad sweeps, admittedly), but championing Islamists fighting against increasing secularity as somehow defending their society from the encroachment of European ideology - in addition to being the kind of silly culturalism that the left seemed to fall in love with when all that anti-imp/nat-lib/USSR solidarity stuff became a bit of a running joke - a) totally disregards everything that has been said about hybridity, relying as it does on a 'purity of culture' with has nothing to do with the real world or the intentions of post-colonial theory; b) ignores the fact that Islamism is entirely reliant on the state form built by the kinds of European dudes who like prancing around here and there building state forms (without mentioning various other elements which have fallen straight out of the western socio-political playbook), and as such is at least as much a capitulation to European ideology as it is a rejection thereof, even if it has the veneer of non-European authenticity; and c) rejects or obscures currents of secularity within Islamic history, even if the ideology of secularism as we understand it is certainly a modern western creation, being intimately tied to liberalism.

As such, even if we were to adopt such a culturalistic worldview whereby the central struggle becomes that against western ideology and socio-political forms - which, whilst deeply problematic, has a certain potential, insofar as this often aims towards a critique of Eurocentrism and bourgeois liberal ideology, ie the very issues that we may ourselves seek to criticise, explaining the possibility of a 'slide' between the two approaches, for better or worse, - it's obviously an overly simplistic approach to the issue to hold up Islamists as the embodiment of that opposition.

It's a bit like when people read Bhabha and then start singing the praises of multiculturalism even though his whole shtick is to criticise the logic of multiculturalism, you know...

(I think I can leave it to somebody else to figure out the exact form of quite exclusively anti-Americanist anti-capitalism in this context - particularly if it's coupled with pro-interventionism, - though I feel it may be at least partially explained by an understanding of the economy undermined by its being seen through a culturalistic prism, though of course there is always the possibility that it's the same shallow - and very often false - understanding of economic processes commonplace in society at large)

[Rafiq]

recently i've noticed an increase in people - university students, usually involved in palestine / 'arab spring' solidarity politics - holding a number of weird positions:

- essentially liberal democratic, but anti-secularist; belief that secularism is a 'western' concept, and claiming there are secular elements in arab uprisings is cultural imperialism;
- strong support for western intervention in syria on behalf of the rebels;
- but anti-american, america = capitalism = bad;
- strong support for morsi and erdogan against protests;
- more-or-less liberal on social issues, identify as 'socialist'.

some of these people are muslim, some are in the process of converting to islam, others have no religion at all. i've known these people, or at least of them, through friends, since starting university, but i was really taken aback recently by their support of erdogan ("the poor are with him, an elite is against democracy!") and their wishes for intervention in syria. having a look at some of their profiles on twitter, these positions aren't those of a few isolated weirdos, in fact they seem to have some sort of popularity.

how would you describe this crap?

I know EXACTLY what you're talking about. They're reactionaries under the veil of western liberalism. They have no practical means of espousing their Islamist dribble here outside of using liberal language.

[Rafiq]

Notice how these fuckbags talk of how capitalism is failing because of bad morals as well.

[Teacher]

Who knows what to make of the kids nowadays? In the time I was in college we were always having to compete with dumpster diving weirdos. Nowadays it seems that they aren't even anarchists... they think supporting a Tobin Tax makes them radical.

[L1NKS]

how would you describe this crap?
Sounds a lot like German Green Party members.

http://www.revleft.com/vb/<a href=http://www.pic-upload.de/view-19973591/fischer.jpg.html target=_blank>[IMG]http://www10.pic-upload.de/thumb/07.07.13/e7d2bizkd4.jpg
http://www10.pic-upload.de/07.07.13/e7d2bizkd4.jpg

[RadioRaheem84]

Who knows what to make of the kids nowadays? In the time I was in college we were always having to compete with dumpster diving weirdos. Nowadays it seems that they aren't even anarchists... they think supporting a Tobin Tax makes them radical.

Agreed. I remember hanging out with my true blue hipster girlfriend in Austin, dumpster diving, going to anarchist collectives and living that post-grunge life listening to Pixies, Glassjaw and Jets to Brazil. Not only were we protesting the Iraq War, voting Green and listening to Chomsky but it seemed like shit was real progressive. LOL.

Now it's Ron Paul this or Obama that. It's all about being a yipster (yuppie/hipster hybrid) or a "Cool Nerd", these guys love the "scene" and being chic but would never live in a pre-gentrified area. You're pretentious if you don't like mainstream geek movies, or are too into politics. The only political kids are policy wonk wannabes that think they can save the world one bullshit social entrepreneurial NGO after another.

That's how I see it in the States. I have no idea about the kids Ed Miliband is talking about. :confused:

[Flying Purple People Eater]

That's how I see it in the States. I have no idea about the kids Ed Miliband is talking about. :confused:

They're sections of the pomo and champagne left. The whole 'eastern religions' nihilism deal, but simultaneously burning any pretense of leftist politics by constructing demagoguery around anything they perceive as 'not western'. When criticised, the idiots jump to the liberal lifeline of blanket politics. A usual argument goes something like this:

1. GASP! You're against the Muslim Brotherhood? So you're an anti-islamist!?

2. B-but THE UK INDEPENDENCE PARTY and BNP ARE ANTI-ISLAMIST!

3. And by their 'anti-islamism' they really mean anyone from the middle-east and central Asia!

4. Therefore you're a racist goon and a western bonehead! LA ILAHAH ILALLAH WE LOVE YOU MORSI GOD BLESS INSHA'ALLAH. CHEMTRAILS!

Or it goes something like this:

1. Oh look at you, you little privileged leftist.

2. All leftists are fools. People have different customs and different cultures.

3. So if someone is ostracized or discriminated against in 'another culture', then you have no right to judge.

4. Ah, you naive idiot leftist. You are against the Arabic culture if you are against Saudi tradition. You know who else claimed to be against the gender-role setting and oppression of women under Islamist rule?

5. That's right - THE USA WAS, with it's propaganda for the Iraq war. Thus, you are a racist white-supremacist supporter of the US who wants America to invade the non-western nations. And you support imperialism.

There you go, folks. The filthy brains of liberal islamists. These are not, by the way, made up perversions. They are shortenings of real arguments I've had with shitbags like this at work and in academia.

It's probably not the case in America but these arseholes are everywhere where I live. They perceive cultures in the universal nationalist view of 'one mind, one body, one soul' type grouping politics, and defend these perversions over anything they perceive as a 'western influence'.

Sort of like the bigots in Africa who claim that anti-homophobia is a Western and non-African concept when many African tribes were historically recorded to have had no major problems with same-sex relationships before the advent of christianity upon the banner of colonial warships.

[d3crypt]

Sort of like the bigots in Africa who claim that anti-homophobia is a Western and non-African concept when many African tribes were historically recorded to have had no major problems with same-sex relationships before the advent of christianity upon the banner of colonial warships.
AKA Robert Mugabe