Boko Haram conquers towns for the Caliphate

[khad]

http://news.yahoo.com/boko-haram-leader-proclaims-islamic-caliphate-nigeria-town-133230029.html


Kano (Nigeria) (AFP) - Boko Haram's leader said he has created an Islamic caliphate in a northeast Nigeria town seized by the insurgents earlier this month, in a video obtained by AFP on Sunday.

"Thanks be to Allah who gave victory to our brethren in (the town of) Gwoza and made it part of the Islamic caliphate," Abubakar Shekau said in the 52-minute video.

He declared that Gwoza, in Borno state, now has "nothing to do with Nigeria".

"By the grace of Allah we will not leave the town. We have come to stay," said Shekau, who has been designated a global terrorist by the United States and sanctioned by the UN Security Council.
The leader of Boko Haram pledged allegiance to al-Baghdadi last month:
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2014/07/boko-haram-leader-pledges-allegiance-to-isis-caliph-abu-baghdadi-video/

[Hrafn]

Lovely. The Islamic State is now transcontinental.

[Sasha]

Hey, at least they are internationalists, no islamism in one country like the al-Qaeda camp levelled at them on the jihadi versions of Revleft in their equivalents of the Trotsky Stalin debates

[Tim Cornelis]

Is there anyone who foresees this 'caliphate' to be a durable experiment?

[Slavic]

Hey, at least they are internationalists, no islamism in one country like the al-Qaeda camp levelled at them on the jihadi versions of Revleft in their equivalents of the Trotsky Stalin debates

lolz

Actually I don't think I can recall any Islamist organizations that were not "internationalist" in the sense that we are talking about. The idea of the Ummah has always been pivotal in these organizations.

[Sasha]

Nah, maybe they will carve out a FARC style area somewhere in the mountains sustained by smuggle for a few years but even if Iraq would disintegrate the Sunni area wouldn't be administered by ISIS but just another bourgeois state run by former baathists and Sunni-Iraqi nationalists.
Any IS state will be crushed between the west and Iran.

[Sasha]

lolz

Actually I don't think I can recall any Islamist organizations that were not "internationalist" in the sense that we are talking about. The idea of the Ummah has always been pivotal in these organizations.

Actually those supportive of the al-Qaeda official line where and are critising the declaration of the kaliphate as premature and damaging to their plan to come to a sustainable Sunni Islamist state by the overthrow of the house of Saud and so the liberation of Mecca.

[Slavic]

Actually those supportive of the al-Qaeda official line where and are critising the declaration of the kaliphate as premature and damaging to their plan to come to a sustainable Sunni Islamist state by the overthrow of the house of Saud and so the liberation of Mecca.


Mmm lovely, bickering over action with the same goal in mind.

[Rafiq]

Hey, at least they are internationalists, no islamism in one country like the al-Qaeda camp levelled at them on the jihadi versions of Revleft in their equivalents of the Trotsky Stalin debates

They aren't. While Islamism (like Fascism before it) is a grotesque parody of failed Communist movements before them, Islamism is fervently nationalist. Because Islamists see all Muslims as having a shared culture, because as a pre-requisite Islamists are supposed to learn Arabic and claim to have a shared custom, history and so on - they are nationalists. The difference is that they are challenging today's conceptions of existing nations.

Conversely the Communists were truly universal. Wherever resided the heart of a living worker, resided the spirit of Communism.

Infidels are not simply "non-believers" or people who disagree with the Muslim faith. They are those who are outside of the Muslim community, or their 'umma'. They are foreigners and outsiders. Muslims are closer to Jews in that their is a deeply cultural dimension to their religion: A person can be an atheist, and still be a part of the "muslim community" so long as they go through the motions of a Muslim, much like how many non religious Jews refrain from eating pork, and so on.

[Rafiq]

Is there anyone who foresees this 'caliphate' to be a durable experiment?

I do not think IS will last very long. That being said, it is a victory for them either way. Yes I do think Islamism is compatible with the will of capital, which is why it is so dangerous. Islam is a worthless, stupid religion (like any other) without its political implications. Islamism is a bastard spawn of capitalism's degeneracy.

But this raises another immensly important topic:

We as Communists wake up and go to sleep every day thinking, whether we wish to acknowledge it or not, that we will end this triumphant. That it is historically necessitated, somehow, that we cannot go back. Lenin was right and we are wrong. History constantly goes through zig-zags: We could be entering another dark age by which the achievements of the modern period are a golden flash in human history. All the technological, intellectual and cultural achievements can be wiped away in the blink of an eye. Like the sacking of Rome we are infinitely more vulnerable: Capitalism will lead us marching to the path of barbarism and savagery.

It isn't looking very likely that we will come out of this triumphant. Vested in Communism is not simply the end of class society or a better world, all of civilization is at stake. All that is worth preserving from Liberalism and the modern age is at stake.

[Slavic]

But this raises another immensly important topic:

We as Communists wake up and go to sleep every day thinking, whether we wish to acknowledge it or not, that we will end this triumphant. That it is historically necessitated, somehow, that we cannot go back. Lenin was right and we are wrong. History constantly goes through zig-zags: We could be entering another dark age by which the achievements of the modern period are a golden flash in human history. All the technological, intellectual and cultural achievements can be wiped away in the blink of an eye. Like the sacking of Rome we are infinitely more vulnerable: Capitalism will lead us marching to the path of barbarism and savagery.

I've always had issues with this understanding of history that is revolves around cycles of progress and decline. Those who talk about this always reference the Roman Empire as some sort of water mark of cultural and technological progression for its epoch. This view is very Euro-centric and tends to completely ignore the progressions of various cultures and states outside of European hegemony.

History doesn't zig-zag, or progress through cycles. The present is the summation of all past events and is constantly changing. Since it is the build up of its past, the present can't be anything else but itself and thus it can not "repeat" or "cycle" into a previous incarnation. Unless you are outlining very strict parameters from which to gauge events, it is essenciatly impossible to state that the present is like any point in the past.

[Rafiq]

Since it is the build up of its past, the present can't be anything else but itself and thus it can not "repeat" or "cycle" into a previous incarnation. Unless you are outlining very strict parameters from which to gauge events, it is essenciatly impossible to state that the present is like any point in the past.

It cannot "repeat" a previous incarnation (such as feudalism) but a dark age is a very real possibility. The whole of capitalist production will mutate into hell on Earth, or collapse. History does zig-zag, if anything is mindlessly "eurocrentric" it is the belief that history is linear. Yes the achievements of modernity can be completely destroyed and thrown into the dustbin of history. This is very real.