Challenge # 71  January - February 2002

ODA Position Paper

Ideologies on Trial, 1990-2001

 

Two chapters from the position paper of the Fifth Annual Convention of the Organization for Democratic Action (ODA), held in Nazareth on December 7-8, 2001. These chapters, here combined as one, take up the historic conflict between the national and the religious currents within Arab political thinking. They deal with the rise and fall of "militant Islam", pointing out its former dependence on American and reactionary support. The chapters also call on leftist currents in the West to develop a solution to global unemployment, poverty and hunger. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, it is clear that such a movement cannot arise from within the Third World alone.

 

THE GULF WAR of 1991 was a struggle between American imperialism and the remnant of the Arab national movement. The recent war in Afghanistan, by contrast, was a collision between the American regime of globalization and Islamic fundamentalism, led by Osama Bin Laden.
In modern history, the national and the religious currents have competed for influence among the Arab masses. The former was the more progressive of the two, as in Egypt under Gamal Abed al-Nasser, and later in Iraq and Syria. These three states depended on support from the Soviet Union and belonged to the bloc of non-aligned nations. They attempted to unite the Arabs against Israel and American imperialism. The defeat of Iraq a decade ago betokened the national movement's decline.

On the other side flowed the current of Islamic reaction, led by Saudi Arabia. It received the support of the United States in order to conduct a kind of "holy war" against communism and the Soviet influence. The clash of currents sometimes came to the surface, as in 1982 when Hafez al-Assad massacred the rebellious Muslim Brotherhood in the Syrian city of Hama, leaving between 10,000 and 25,000 dead. Another example was the American-backed campaign against the Soviets in Afghanistan.

The competition between the two currents had fateful results. The Mujahidin victory in Afghanistan, which heralded the larger Soviet collapse, showed the disarray of the national current. Saudi Arabia, the financial and ideological motor behind that victory, also played a major role in the war against Saddam Hussein. Saddam had earlier emerged undefeated (with Saudi support) from a long struggle with Iran, and he had begun to develop pan-Arab ambitions. Iraq was then a major economic power in the Arab world. Its defeat by America put an end to the dream of creating a Common Arab Market, which would exploit the natural resources of the Arab states for their own sake first – not America's.

Another result of American-Saudi supremacy was the Madrid-Oslo initiative. The Palestinian surrender at Oslo was the final nail in the coffin of the national movement. Into the resultant vacuum poured the Islamic current.

Whereas the national current limits the concept of the nation (uma) to Arabs only, its Islamic counterpart interprets the uma in religious terms to include all Muslims, among whom Arabs are a minority.

From its inception, the fundamentalist Islamic current showed hostility to every program of social liberation and progress. It could collaborate with the capitalist West in order to impose Islamic law (Shari'a), but any cooperation with the communist bloc was taboo.

There is irony here. The capitalist West is known for liberal thinking and pluralism. Yet its defeat of communism paved the way for the Islamic current. Why?

The liberal-pluralistic West is a society based on a strong economy and a stable middle class. It does not mix well with conditions in the Third World, where economies are in shambles and the social structure is tribal or dictatorial. For this reason the imperialists have avoided investing resources in these states, preferring to exploit them as sources of raw materials.

As a result, in Arab countries, the defeat of communism left a conceptual vacuum which the Islamic current promptly filled. For fundamentalist Islam does mix well with a backward social and economic situation.

The progress of Islam, then, as a political and ideational current, has been tightly bound up with American imperialism. An outstanding example is Saudi Arabia, which during the nineties became the dominant power in the Middle East, supplanting Egypt and Syria.
 

The Unresolved Contradiction of Militant Islam

In order to achieve governmental power, as did the military caste in Pakistan or the Taliban in Afghanistan, Islam has needed American backing. On the other hand, in order to win the support of the masses, who see American power as the source of their poverty, political Islam must ride the wave of popular rage against the US. The revulsion for the Jordanian or Saudi monarchs is no whit less than that for America and Israel. Islamic militancy thus finds itself caught in a contradiction: in order to rule, it has to draw its support from the masses, but it also needs money, which it gets from funds in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, all supported by the US.

To take the Saudi case: the Islamic movement is the mediating factor between the royal family and the masses. The mosques, the religious institutions and the charities function as a kind of "civil society". They mitigate the friction created by class differences. There is a tacit understanding that the Islamic movements will refrain from attacking the regime. In return they get freedom of action.
The importance of such a curious "civil society" is clear in countries that lack political parties or the apparatus of democracy. By means of the Islamic movements, the ruling families have purchased the silence of the masses.

Such cooperation has reached its peak in Pakistan. The military regime stifles open, liberal political action, while the Islamic parties rise in importance. The army rules through the mosques and religious schools (madrasas).
 

Honeymoon's End

To comprehend the attacks of September 11, we should bear in mind the contradiction mentioned above: militant Islam draws its support from the masses who hate the US, but it depends on money from states supported by the US.

The attacks occurred when militant Islam could no longer bear the strain of this contradiction. The "glorious triumph over the Red Satan," as the Mujahidin called their victory in Afghanistan more than a decade ago, had done nothing to alleviate mass misery. Since the Soviet Union had dissolved, the only power left to blame was America. The Islamic militants felt forced to choose between two alternatives: either continue their dependence on Washington at the cost of losing their popular base, or go with the feelings of the masses and aim their weapons at America.

Under the leadership of Bin Laden, the militants misread the map. Their earlier jihad against the Soviet Union had fit the program of international capitalism, and as a result, they had received support. When they turned against the US, however, no one was there to back them. Misled by mystical leanings, they painted themselves into a corner, while over against them stood American power, based on the latest technology.

Although it thrives on poverty, the new jihad does not trouble itself about wresting wealth from the hands of the few and distributing it equally among all. Its concern is rather to destroy everything that symbolizes the heretical West: science and social progress, technology and political reform. Islamic militancy lacks the will to change the world, and herein lies its weakness. Our present life is for it a small affair; it looks to the next for solutions: pie in the sky. Such an attitude suits a society that has lost all faith in itself. Despair is its only fuel.

But this fuel burns for nothing. After "using" America to defeat the Soviet Union, Islamic militancy was forced to subject its mystical view to the test of experience. This test turned out to be the lethal attack on the World Trade Center. The extremists risked all and lost. The loss took the form of the debacle in Afghanistan, the only country where they had taken power. Their rapid defeat has shown militant Islam for the bubble that it is. But this is a dangerous bubble, not only for the West, but also for the hungry of the Third World.

It is an error to support an alliance with America in order to defeat political Islam. Such a victory won't stop terrorism, the weapon of the destitute. Nor will it resolve the social crisis under which humanity suffers. Militant Islam is not the main enemy; it is an anachronistic phenomenon, puffed up by capitalism itself in the eighties, to undermine the achievements of the working class.

The Islamic current has failed to define the true enemy of the oppressed. This failure is one reason why, within the Palestinian arena, it has not offered a practical alternative that meets the needs of the Palestinian people in its twofold struggle: against Israeli Occupation on the one hand, and, on the other, against Yasser Arafat's pact with America.
 

Change must come from within the industrial nations

The conflict that has broken out between capitalism and its erstwhile Islamic ally evinces a deeper crisis. This is connected to the tremendous differences in living standards created by globalization.
Humanity urgently needs a new pattern of social organization, based neither on the quest for profits nor on otherworldly mysticism. The collapse of the Soviet Union, which served both as a balancing factor and as a prop for the Third World nations, has posed a question: Where now is the center from which political and social change can come? Marx and Lenin both understood that revolution can only endure, in the face of capitalist opposition, if it takes place in several industrial countries at once. When revolution broke out in Russia, the weakest among the industrialized countries of Europe, the results were mixed. On the one hand, this revolution did show humanity the positive potential inherent in a socialist society. At last there was food, clothing, shelter, education and culture for all. On the other hand, because of the Soviet Union's isolation, its trade relations were solely with the undeveloped countries: it had to invest vast resources in defending itself from the capitalist West, which never ceased to wage war against it. Although we may regard the outcome of the struggle between the two systems (in the 1980's) as a temporary one, we must draw lessons from the failure of this first attempt at socialism: The key to solving the ills of capitalism is not to be found in the caves of Afghanistan or the refugee camps of the West Bank or the rainforests of Brazil, but rather in the big industrial cities, where capital resides. Here the regime has its centers of power, its media facilities, its armed force. An enlightened alternative can first develop only in the industrial centers, from which it can spread to the periphery.

This process has already begun: it raised its head in Seattle in the fall of 1999, two years after the stock markets plummeted in East Asia and two years before the attacks of September 11. The anti-globalization movement grew in the heart of America because people had come to understand the source of the problem. It exposed injustice in the distribution of resources, as well as the damage inflicted by the wealthy on the interests of workers throughout the world. The movement has put the capitalists on the defensive.

The clashes in Seattle are part of a revolt against American rule that is taking place elsewhere too. This revolt includes Iraq's refusal to submit to Washington's dictates, the Palestinian Intifada against the Oslo Accords, mass movements against capitalist regimes in South Korea and Indonesia, and strikes in Latin America. The cumulative effect is to shake American hegemony. There arises a new political consciousness: that the peoples of the Third World can make common cause with social forces in the First, such as labor unions, leftist political parties, and student groups.

Osama Bin Laden and his supporters are extremists. But in pushing the interests of multinationals, the White House is no less extreme. The events of September 11 have opened a new epoch in the thinking of workers and students who live in industrial countries, including many who were once indifferent to catastrophes occurring beyond their national borders.

Yet the events of September 11 had an additional effect. They awoke the new Bush government from its international indifference. Bin Laden transformed America from oppressor to victim. Washington became the headquarters for the battle of "good against evil". The attack on Afghanistan, and more broadly on terrorism, provides America with a pretext for imposing anew its global hegemony, which had lately been suffering setbacks.

We must not belittle the power of the capitalist regime. It hasn't yet played all its cards. We must not delude ourselves that we're just a short step from achieving the change we desire. Nor can we ignore the disgraceful manner in which the Western working class, through its leaders, sold out to the capitalists. While nurturing an illusion that the crisis "can't happen here," this working class has thrown years of revolutionary history to oblivion.

The working class will likely keep supporting its governments, as long as the latter continue to supply security and a reasonable standard of living. Since the second World War, the workers in the West have adopted the living standard and ideology of the middle class. This fact constitutes a major impediment that can't be ignored. It will only be overcome when and if the situation changes drastically, that is, when the economic crisis degenerates into a social and political crisis as well.
These difficulties need not deter revolutionaries. We need to help the workers in the developed nations, as well as the intelligentsia, to become aware of the enormous material and cultural potential they have at their disposal. This potential can be the basis for building an alternative, based on a just distribution of wealth. A developed, industrial society has possibilities of communication and organization for which there is no equivalent elsewhere. Even if significant conflicts break out in the Third World, its peoples will not have the power to determine, on their own, the global balance of forces. They are exhausted from decades of carrying the brunt of the struggle.

The end of a social order arrives when it has concluded its historical function. The establishment of the new, revolutionary society is closely bound up with the collapse of the present capitalist one. It does not follow, of course, that the working class in industrial lands will manage to facilitate this collapse and build an egalitarian system. Yet the attempt must be made. The alternative is an upheaval whose violence no one wants to contemplate.

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