Islamophobia, the left and the
Arab Spring
Written for the Irish Anti-War Movement Newsletter
One of the
strengths of the Irish Anti-War Movement (and, it should be said, of the Stop
the War Coalition in Britain) is the clear stand it has taken against
Islamophobia, as both a condition and a consequence of its alliance with anti-
war elements in the muslim community.in mobilising against the Iraq War and the
‘War on Terror’.
This is
important because Islamophobia has become the main, or one of the main, forms
of racism (along with Anti-Gipsy racism in Eastern Europe) in contemporary Europe.
Historically
racism has passed through several phases each building on but also modifying
the previous phase: 1) anti-black racism that arose out of and justified the
slave trade in the 16th, 17th and 18th
centuries; 2) the racism of imperialism (including anti- Irish racism, at its
height in the late 19th and early 20th century; 3) anti –
immigrant racism, especially in the second half of the 20th century.
The first emphasised the sub-human and savage nature of black people so as to
exclude them from the ‘rights of man’ being fought for by the European
bourgeoisie at this time. The second shifted the emphasis to “childlike” and
“immature” character of non- European
peoples to justify their being taken
under the wing of their colonial masters. The third focussed less on biological
inferiority and more on cultural difference, making the economically required
presence of immigrants in Europe into a “problem”.
Numerous historic struggles, ranging
from the slave revolts, the American civil war , the great Asian And African
anti-colonial struggles, the civil rights and black power movement in the
sixties, the anti-apartheid struggle and many others, combined with the
horrific counter example of the Holocaust, to undermine and delegitimize these
forms of racism. Islamophobia was developed to fill this gap and meet the needs
of imperialism, especially US imperialism after the collapse of
“communism”. Some analyses of Islamophobia see it as a rising, as an
accompaniment to the “war on terror” but, while that undoubtedly intensified
it, its origin came earlier, particularly in response to the Iranian revolution
of 1979, and indeed prepared the ground for the “war on terror”.
An obvious objection to this line of
argument is that hostilities between “the West” and Islam, date back at to the
crusades and that Islamophobia is not about race but religion.
In fact it’s a standard ideological
device to present current conflicts as “age-old” if not eternal. In the event
of a serious dispute between Britain and France David Cameron and the
Murdoch press would doubtless invoke the spirit of Henry V at Agincourt and probably Nelson and Wellington as well. This would not change the
fact that the real nature of the dispute would be clash of current national,
i.e. ruling class, interests over EU policy or such like. The nature of history
is such that historical precedents are available for virtually any contemporary
conflict (with America, the War of Independence; with Norway the Vikings; with China, the Mongol Hordes or the opium
wars, and so on). As for Islamophobia being about religion the ideological
character of racism is determined not by its target but by its social and
political function – the Irish are not a “race” but a nation, Jews are neither
a race nor a nation, nor for that matter are “blacks” or “negroes”. Indeed
races in general do not exist other than as historical constructs. A “they” to
whom all sorts of characteristics can be easily attributed – religious
fanaticism, backwardness towards women, homophobia and above all a propensity
to terrorism.
In relation to the last matter, it
is worth noting that since the emergence of the concept of “terrorism” in the
19th century, anti-state terrorism has been practised by, amongst
many others, Russian Narodniks, French anarchists, the American Weathermen,
the Basque ETA, the Italian Red Brigades, the
German Baader-Meinhof group, the British Angry Brigade, the South African ANC,
Israeli Zionists and, of course, the Irish Republican Army. In every case the
cause was political, not religious.
In view of all this it was to be
hoped that what became known as the Arab Spring – the series of revolutions and
revolts that began with the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions in early 2011
would work to undermine Islamophobia by changing the frame of reference within
which Arab and Muslim people were perceived. And to a considerable extent this
has indeed proved to be the case; witness the way in which Tahrir Square became an international symbol of
revolt from Barcelona and Madrid to Wisconsin and Wall Street. However it is also
clear that as well as being shaken by the Arab Spring, Islamophobia has also
proved strong enough not only to survive it but also significantly to shape its
perception and reception.
Even during the 18 days of mass
struggle that brought down Mubarak it was quite common to hear in the media,
and indeed on the left, that “nothing much would come of it” with the subtext
“because these people are all Arabs and Muslims”, and/or that it was all
destined to end in Islamic fundamentalism, with the subtext that maybe it was
better to stick with a “secular” dictator, a sentiment which gained ground when
the “secular” dictator in question (Gaddaffi, Assad) could lay claim to some minimal
ant-imperialist credentials.
There is indeed strong historical
support for the view that revolutions are likely to fail – the 1848 revolutions
failed, the Paris Commune failed, the Russian Revolution ended in Stalinism,
the Italian revolution of the “two red years” ended with Mussolini, the German
revolution of 1919 -1923 ultimately ushered in Hitler, Spain 1936 was crushed
by Franco, May 68 ended in the victory of de Gaulle, Chile 1970-1973 in
Pinochets coup, the Portugese revolution of 1974-75 produced no more than
run-of-the-mill bourgeois democracy, and so on and so on.
But what the very length of this
list shows is that winning a revolution – actually overthrowing capitalism – is
a very difficult business indeed and the fact that the road to revolutionary
victory in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Libya, Yemen, Syria etc. has proved a very
rocky one is by no means primarily attributable to these being Muslim
countries.
Yet my experience has been that,
often, in debating the prospects of the Egyptian revolution, people have said
“remember what happened in Iran”. Why Iran? Why not Germany in 1923 (there are actually some
close parallels), or May 68 or Portugal 74. The answer, of course, is that Iran is another very high-profile Muslim
country. In reality the parallels between Egypt and Iran are not that close:
president Mursi is very different from Ayatollah Khomeini, Egypt’s Muslim
brotherhood is very different from Khomeini’s movement, Egypt is an Arabic
country, Iran is not; Egypt is mainly Sunni, Iran mainly Shia; the working
class is stronger in Egypt etc.
Does one ever hear people on the
left saying “I don’t think much will come of this Venezuelan revolution – they
are all Catholic, and remember how the Irish revolution ended up with De
Valera? “ or “What a scandal - socialists vote for pope-loving Chavez!”
[See
‘Chavez welcomes Pope to Cuba’ http://www.ntn24.com/news/news/chavez-welcomes-pope-benedict-11977.]
And of course I am not saying that Chavez is ‘the same’ as the Muslim
Brotherhood, merely that religion is made much more of an issue, when the
religion concerned is Islam.
My main
point is simply this: that in virtually every mass revolutionary struggle in history
the majority of the people involved, especially at the start of the process,
were religious in some way or other. Moreover this likely to be the case in the
future everywhere except in the most secularised western European countries;
revolutions have to be made with and by people as they are, not as we would
like them to be. The idea of a ‘stages theory’ in which first everyone becomes
a secular atheist and then they make the revolution is a nonsense; revolutions
and history do not work like that. And the only reason for understanding this
in relation to countries where most people are Christian eg Brazil or the UK
(or Russia in 1917) and not countries where most people are Muslim is the idea
that Islam is this peculiarly backward, reactionary, terrorist or fascist
inclined religion ie Islamophobia.
John
Molyneux
Spot on. Simply spot on!
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