In her essay, Deepa Kumar tries to present a Marxist analysis of the
emergence and rise of political Islam in the contemporary world. She begins
with a brief history of the political Islam in 20th century and then
tries to explore the origin and class basis of political Islam. In brief, she
describes political Islam as a product of the subsequent interacting factors:
1. Imperialist powers that have ventured to use Islamic
movement as a tool against left and nationalism
2. Saudi Arabia, as well as other Persian Gulf sheikhdoms,
that acts as the main patron of political Islam
3. Middle bourgeoisie and petty-bourgeoisie of the
Middle-eastern countries that adopt Islam as an ideology in competition with
Arab nationalism and socialism
4. A section of intelligentsia in the Middle East that has
been disillusioned by nationalism and communism
5. Marginalized poor and declassed sections of the
population concentrated in slums and poverty-stricken districts of metropolises
as a product of neoliberal policies of Middle Eastern governments
Kumar uses the term political Islam, neither presenting a clear definition
nor clarifying how a wide range of tendencies can be designated by this term,
and for this reason she piles up different political, geopolitical and social
components as constituents of political Islam. In fact, the so-called political
Islam has never been a uniform movement, and its different trends have been
differentiated in terms of perspective, policy and organization, that can be
attributed to the social bases of each trend. However, it can be admitted that
all sections of this political Islam share a common feature; all of them favours
a combination of politics, or state power, with Islam, as a doctrine expressed
in religious texts and traditions.
Arguing against scholars such as Bernard Lewis who believes Islam has not
experienced secularization as Christianity in the West, Kumar frequently emphasizes
the “de facto separation between religion and politics” from the early years of
the Islamic rule in 7th century. Apart from some historical errors
in her treatise
she takes the division of labour between the political apparatus and clergy
(ulema) establishment as de facto separation between religion and politics in
the Muslim world. In other words, Kumar compares the division of labour between
Muslim theologians and jurists, on the one hand, and the political and
bureaucratic apparatus, on the other hand, to tremendous church-state split in
the West that resulted from victorious bourgeois-democratic revolutions in 18th
and 19th centuries, with their pinnacle the French Great Revolution.
Equating the division of responsibilities between the two section of caliphate
in 8th century with the process of separation between religion and
state in the West is a false comparison and as baseless as equating
revolutionary expansion of capitalism in the West with the mostly
imperialist-directed capitalist development in the underdeveloped world,
including the Middle East. The importance of the revolutionary expulsion of
religion from the sphere of state is not limited to removing the church of its
pivotal position in power but depriving the religious establishment of having
the authority to set criteria for individuals’ engagement in state. Marx, in On
the Jewish Question, clearly illustrates consequences of the political
bourgeois revolution in the West:
“The
political revolution which overthrew this sovereign power and raised state
affairs to become affairs of the people, which constituted the political state
as a matter of general concern, that is, as a real state,
necessarily smashed all estates, corporations, guilds, and privileges, since
they were all manifestations of the separation of the people from the
community. The political revolution thereby abolished the political
character of civil society. It broke up civil society into its simple
component parts; on the one hand, the individuals; on the other hand,
the material and spiritual elements constituting the content of
the life and social position of these individuals. It set free the political
spirit, which had been, as it were, split up, partitioned, and dispersed in the
various blind alleys of feudal society.”
Of course, this process has not been uniform and steady in the West and
there have been contradictory trends in different countries which reveal
relative independence of religion and its organization from the development of
production relations and its phases. For instance, North American colonies,
despite recognizing a radical separation of church and state in their laws, remained
a deeply religious society. On the other hand, the French Revolution put this
separation in action in the most violent mode but traces of religious influence
persisted in laws. In case of Germany, owing to retarded progress of productive
forces, the relation of church to state remained unsolved until the middle of
19th century. However, the common feature of all these cases is
splitting the private sphere and public life and stripping church of its
authority to exert influence on promulgating law, judicial institutes,
education and government although a perfect secularization has not yet been
accomplished, since this remains to be a task of a triumphant socialist
revolution.
Why have Muslim countries
not experienced a crucial secularization process like western countries? To
answer this question, the roots of underdevelopment and the historical weakness
of bourgeoisie in these countries should be explored. The main section of
national bourgeoisie in these countries extracts its profit from commerce and
has not historically been in serious conflict with feudalism. The domination of
western imperialist powers in late 19th and early 20th
centuries aggravated industrialization process in the Middle East and this
caused national bourgeoisie to remain in close political and ideological ties
with feudalism. Since mid-20th century this was imperialism that
took the lead of transformation of Middle Eastern countries to capitalist mode
of production. The comprador bourgeoisie that still served as the main
collaborator of imperialism either avoided clashes with religious institutes,
as was the case in Iran and Egypt, or was principally combined with religious
and tribal norms, as was in Persian Gulf sheikhdoms.
While Kumar
simplifies the matter by arguing “traditions
of secularism and the separation of religion and politics have long been a part
of the political culture of the ‘Muslim world’ ” in Iran, a country that experiences a theocratic rule
for more than three decades, there is a debate among so-called religious
intellectuals and scholars that whether secularization is feasible in Iran and
if the answer is yes how it proceeds. Taqi Rahmani, a theorist of the “reform
movement”, observes “when the book [the Quran] contains about 1,000 verses
about jihad and about 400 verses on revolt how can we talk about faith as a
personal affair?” and adds “today all communists and non-communists have come
to the conclusion that without a deep reformation in the religion no crucial
change will occur in the society”.
Islam, contrary
to Christianity and East Asian religions, begins with a struggle for seizing
power and has an intrinsic tendency to divide people to believers and
non-believers. It describes the mission of Muslims not only to enjoining good
and prohibiting vice but to act as a state and enforce God’s creeds. This is
clearly different from the expansion of Christianity that appears as a
spiritual movement and afterwards is adopted by Roman emperors as the official
religion.
This
ideological basis provides the soil in which the seeds of political Islam grow.
This ideological basis reproduces itself in patriarchy and religious-inspired
racism and sexism that constitute the core of the political Islam movement.
Interestingly, the political Islam’s opposition to the West usually stems from
the critique of women’s status in the West, and it is not surprising to see
political Islam opposing modern family and marriage laws and besides attempting
to retain the religious laws in these areas have been the shared platform of
Islamic groups in different countries. Granting women the right to vote, which
was a part of the so-called White Revolution of Shah in Iran, was a matter that
enraged Ayatollah Khomeini and led him to a confrontation with the government
in 1963.
Left and
Political Islam
By using the
term “political Islam” Kumar tries to find common features of this movement,
and since she claims her treatise to be a
Marxist analysis goes into the class basis of political Islam but because she
inevitably refers to the contribution of various factors and different social
classes, ranged from poor declassed strata to big bourgeoisie and even
landlords in collaboration with West-backed monarchies, she fails to present a
coherent and consistent picture, and the more important, fails to answer
clearly to the question about the correct position of the Left on this
phenomenon. Of course, despite this failure, Kumar must be given credit for not
oversimplifying the question by attributing the rise of political Islam just to
the conspiracy of imperialists in their attempt to conquer the Middle East.
Addressing
what is to be done with the political Islam Kumar does not provide us with a
general formula and prefers to answer case by case. By which scale can Left
measure up its aloofness or nearness to the political Islam? Kumar posits when political
Islam acts as a real liberation movement it deserves support. But this is not a
practical scale we need, because another question immediately springs up; what
is a real liberation movement? Therefore, she resorts to the same old
criterion; Left must determine its position on the political Islam based on the
political Islam position on imperialism or pro-western states, not its aloofness
or nearness to a socialist and democratic program. Instead of taking a clear factual stand, Kumar changes a revolutionary
policy into a wait-and-see policy. Marxists must have a definite strategy based
on a class analysis and long-term anticipation of events not to wriggle
like a snake between two mutually exclusive points of view and try to “agree”
with both, in Lenin’s words.
Chris Harman and the story of Iranian Left
In the
Prophet and the Proletariat, Chris Harman focuses on the nature and base of
Islamic movements. Since his work is sometime used as a reference by some Left
writers and because he allocates some sections to Iran thus we will try to deliberate
on his opinion with respect to the Iranian case. Far from being a comprehensive
analysis of the Iranian revolution and its aftermath, Harman’s work entails
various self-contradictions stemming from the complicatedness of the matter and
Harman’s attempt to stick to his truism.
Concerning the
roots of the Islamic movement, Harman believes Islam represents interests, or
better said illusions, of several classes and strata ranged from landowners and
big bourgeoisie to petty bourgeoisie and lumpen proletariat.
Regarding the Iranian case, he does
not specify which class(es) Khomeini represented but
he points to bazaaris a couple of times as Khomeini’s class base. This is a
vague term because in Iran “bazaar” consists of various strata, including the poor
and rich petty bourgeoisie and middle bourgeoisie engaged in commerce and
distribution sector. Therefore, it is not clear, in Harman’s analysis, which layer of
bourgeoisie Khomeini represents. Anyway,
we assume he means petty bourgeoisie because considering Khomeini as the class representative
of bourgeoisie removes the underlying bricks of the structure upon which he is
going to build his work.
Harman criticizes the Iranian Left for
their failure to figure out the nature of the Iranian Islamic regime that led
to fatal blows the Left. He claims the savage repression in Iran is not unique
and the historical defeat of the Left in 1980s was not inevitable.
Interestingly, Harman wrote this treatise in 1994, when gangs of the Islamic
regime have collected fabulous fortunes and have divided industries, banks, big
trades, foreign commerce etc. like their family inheritance among themselves,
and heads of the regime are honored to be listed among the richest men in the
world by Forbes (and still continue their anti-imperialist rhetoric and
conflicts with the US imperialism and US-backed regimes in the region) and Harman
still designates the regime as a petty bourgeois state!
According to Harman the Left should
have understood that the “petty bourgeois” regime has both good and evil
aspects and despite the fact that it began:
“to mobilize behind them sections of the lumpen
proletariat into gangs, the Hezbollah, which would attack the left, enforce
Islamic “morality” (for instance, against women who refused to wear the veil)
and join the army in putting down the separatist revolts. There were instances
of brutal repression (the execution of about a hundred people for “sexual
crimes”, homosexuality and adultery, the killing of some left wing activists,
the shooting down of protesters belonging to the national minorities), as in
any attempt to restore bourgeois “normality””
the
Left should not have denied its support to the regime’s anti-imperialist
policies. As we will see the same policy has been followed by the Tudeh Party
and Majority wing of the Iranian People’s Fadai Guerrilla Organization (IPFGO),
the largest Left organization in 1979-1981 until its major split. Of course, a
little different terminology was used by Tudeh Party and Majority section’s but
the core of their policy and the practical result was the same. These two
argued in favour of adopting a policy of “alliance and criticism” towards the
so-called petty bourgeois regime based on which the regime’s anti-imperialist
policies should be backed and its attempts for compromise with imperialism or
anti-democratic measures should be criticized. Tudeh Party which posed as the Big Brother,claiming
an experience of a half century, even called for a united popular front under
the leadership of Khomeini. Let us look at an analysis by IPFGO just after
capturing the US embassy in Tehran. It refuted policies of Tudeh Party and those
of the far-left.
“Tudeh Party whitewashes all reactionary policies
of this group [pro-Khomeini camp] and tries to introduce them as revolutionary
democrats. Tudeh Party sees in policies of fanatics pure progressiveness hence
it accepts submission to them and throws itself in the reaction’s??? lap. By
distorting the real nature of fanatics, Tudeh Party is basically lying and
deceives the people and conceal the real nature of fanatics and invite the
people to follow them indisputably… they still don’t perceive that communists
‘always distinguish workers and always explain the temporary and conditional
nature of their alliance (Lenin)”
And
about the far-left:
“This tendency views the clergy as separated from
classes and argues because the seizure of the US embassy and such actions have
nothing to do with the objective expanding class struggle we should move
towards based on definite historical interests of the working class and avoid
involving in such movements. This tendency in the Left is for a “boycott”…”
Of
course, by quoting these passages of the long years ago, we don’t intend to
defend the policy of IPFGO or any other Left organization in Iran because the
defeat of various strategies of the Iranian Left is the judgment of history.
However, we want to show how this policy – similar to that advised by Harman –
had to be broken between two opposing camps – regime and the revolution – as
the gap was widening in the every step and as the class struggle in Iran
approached its fateful point: the destiny mostly determined by the regime’s
unprecedented repression, contrary to Harman’s conclusion.
A
few weeks later, IPFGO, being at the crossroads, had to shift its policy
towards more overt support for the regime’s anti-imperialism:
“In fact, Ayatollah Khomeini still takes the helm of the
struggle against US imperialism. The government, despite its inadequacy in organizing a principled struggle
against imperialism , in controlling prices and unemployment , in settling many
other problems, and due to its fear from revolutionary forces, has pursued a violent anti-democratic policy that has led to
fratricidal wars in Kurdistan and Gonbad and dividing working people, as we
have frequently stated is not a government dependent on imperialists.”
Of
course, even Tuden Party did not speak of dissolving itself into a pro-Khomeini
front, and thought it cleverly continues organizing masses around the party by
postponing a conflict with the regime. But this alliance-criticism policy
crushed in less than one year. Why? Because the Islamic regime, after
demolishing the revolutionary Left and Mujahedin in a bloodbath, turned to
Tudeh Party and Majority section of IPGFO while these two sincerely and proudly
had agreed to work within strict bounds of the regime. Though they served the
regime generously they had a destiny not much better than the revolutionary Left
and Mojhaedin. The regime showed, unlike nationalist and Baathist regime in
some periods, could not tolerate even reformists and compromising forces, let
alone the Left which willed to organize the working class around a
revolutionary program! And for this reason, the Iranian Left suffered a fatal
blow that had not received under the brutal regime of Shah. Just look at a few
figures. After the US-Britain-backed coup in 1953 about 50 cadres of Tudeh Pary
were executed and about 200 were put in jail, and 1981 under the Islamic regime
100-200 were put in front of firing squads on a daily basis, and in 1988 in the
greatest political purge in Iran the majority of political prisoners (a death
toll of 3,000 to 30,000 has been reported). Clearly, a concrete and correct
policy cannot be constituted based on comparing the size of repression by
regimes but a close look at the depth and extent of repression refutes
fantasies similar to those of Harman. How can you speak of an alliance and
criticism policy when does a brutal barbaric regime never cease prosecution and
destruction of the opposition, including the Left, even for a day?
What
Harman refers to the fault of the Iranian Left results from the failure to
grasp objective conditions and the life-and-death game that the Left had to
play. In case of Iran, the Left had to respond to the regime’s call “with us or
against us”, and at the end of the story, the regime eradicated not only the Left
militants but also centrists and reformists that were not willing to come to a
final encounter with the regime or did not want such a confrontation at all.
Based
on what was explained above not a single Iranian Left party could pursue the
line that Harman recommends. Harman may not use the terms such as “progressive”
or “revolutionary” to describe the regime but he advocates this policy that the
regime of Iran and the like should be supported in their struggle against
imperialism and the left should not think of the revolution subversion of these
regimes. He also supports having the dual treatment of the regime: supporting
its foreign policy and criticizing its domestic policy! As if there is a
Chinese wall between foreign and domestic policy. Of course, this will lead to
pseudo-Marxist geopolitical approaches that replace class struggle and
revolution with geopolitical competitions, as some theories such the Three
Worlds Theory did.
No
Fascism Even a Little!
Harman
writes:
“The left has made two mistakes in relation to the
Islamists in the past. The first has been to write them off as fascists, with
whom we have nothing in common.”
It
is well known that fascism has had different forms depending on national
conditions. Even classical versions of fascism in Italy and Germany had
similarities and dissimilarities in terms of the base and development. But
concerning the political Islam we can at least say it has many features in
common with European versions: being rightist (anti-leftism, anti-communism,
anti-anarchism…), hierarchical with charismatic leaders, anti-equality,
ultra-religious, anti-modernist and warmonger.
We
can at least say that Islamists have the potential to organize systematic
repression of society with fascist methods. Of course, in case of Islamist
movement, apparently huge financial capital, as a necessary prerequisite for
the emergence of fascism, does not exist, but there are two elements that
provides dynamism of current political Islam: historical domination of
religious ideology, as well as a broad network of religious establishments,
preachers and educators, and huge financial resources provided by the Saudi regime
and the Iranian regime after 1979 revolution.
And
what then?
The
purpose of a Marxist analysis of social and political forces is to determine a
practical approach to it as Marxists indented to change the world not just to
interpret it. After deliberating on various cases, Harman comes to this
conclusion that the Islamists movements are neither enemies nor allies of the
working class, but his explanation reveals they may be either enemies or
allies. It is widely accepted that the behavior of petty bourgeoisie is to
large extent determined by the balance of power between bourgeoisie and the
working class. When the working class has the upper hand and socialist movement
wins victories petty bourgeoisie is polarized and its lower strata are
radicalized to the point that makes them even takes a left-wing
appearance and adopt pseudo-socialist slogans but Islamic movements in the
period of their new rise has shown fierce hostility towards the Left. Islamic
movements in the Middle East have never agreed to accept the Left as their
allies, even in the thick of their quarrel with the West and even when the Left
decided to make concessions by ignoring certain principles of its program on
defending equal rights for women, ethnic and sexual minorities, and calling for
the oppressive role of religious establishments. At least, the Iranian case
supports this conclusion.
Flaw
in Methodology
Where
is this fault stemming from?
A
dialectical approach requires reciprocal interaction of theory and practice.
Ignoring facts lead to dogmatism and, on the other hand, neglecting theory
gives rise to opportunism. Life sometimes brings to the fore new phenomena which
can neither be overlooked – simply by calling them the old familiar phenomena
in new forms – nor be designated as contradictory and strange to previous
trends. For instance, the emergence of imperialism and the rise of fascism each
required a new analysis based on the Marxist methodology. Even Marx’s analysis
of Bonapartism may seem a peculiar disintegration from his class base analysis.
Harman’s
analysis is founded on following simple thesis: the world is divided between
two camps: imperialists and working people, and that any strife against the
former means the enhancement of the latter. This proposition ignores the
appearance of various forms of reactionary movements in 20th century
that, due to the self-characteristic situation of different countries, have
emerged as the result of fragmentation of the capitalist system in the
underdeveloped countries and the recombination of the fragments in the mold of
counter-revolutionary and backward trends. About hundred years ago, a long time
before the rise of political Islam in the Middle East, North Africa, and South
East Asia to some degree, in this respect Lenin pointed out:
“… second, the need for a struggle against the
clergy and other influential reactionary and medieval elements in backward
countries;
third,
the need to combat Pan-Islamism and similar trends, which strive to combine the
liberation movement against European and American imperialism with an attempt
to strengthen the positions of the khans, landowners, mullahs, etc.
”
Therefore,
the working class, instead of staring at the Ping-Pong of political Islam and
Western imperialism must rise its own banner and present a revolutionary
alternative based on a progressive socialist and democratic program, and
instead of sticking to the clumsy standard of measuring up the distance between
this or that political force and imperialists set itself and its program as a
standard.
Pure Materialism
considers man as an “object of senses”, and therefore explains consciousness
just as a physiological effect of stimuli on man’s nervous system. This
materialism fails to explain abstract and universal concepts. 
