The idea that the Palestinian people have only been able to persist because of their religion is ridiculous to me. They are resisting because colonialism, apartheid and genocide are very bad things to which nobody would want to be subjected, not because of Islam. If Palestinians were atheists, is he suggesting that they wouldn’t have the strength or the will to resist? Would their lack of a belief in the supernatural turn them into doormats for Isn’treal?
I like Hakim’s content, but his position on religion is quite frustrating. He is a Muslim first and a Marxist second. Also, Joram van Klaveren is still a right-winger.
When i first saw this i instinctively sided Roderic Day (refer to hexbear struggle session), but increasingly I’ve come to the conclusion that Hakim is not in fact proselytizing, he is simply answering the questions of people who came to their Muslim comrade with questions about Islam.
Whenever I talk about Islam to Marxists or Marxism to Muslims, I get the exact same reaction from both sides, instantly shutting down the other by calling them “Idealist” or “Kaffir” and not take any time to understand each other, like at most they’ll read the Quran or they’ll read the communist manifesto, not take time to understand it and call it a day, which I understand because not everyone has the time to read a book so long and repetitive let alone understand every bit of it, that’s the point of having a conversation and asking questions, but you can’t write off everything in you way and label it as “big bad” for having a word that you don’t like, that’s just ignorance.
You are definitely correct that there is not much communication going on, let alone productive. But another reason for that this is an awkward and difficult conversation to be had as Marxism and Islam are ideologically contradictory is a very strong, formal sense. Obviously this is most immediately an abstract, theoretical point, though that is not irrelevant, as moving through differences and formal contradictions towards consistency is necessary for moving towards truth, and truth is not irrelevant to politics, especially Marxist politics. There is also the issue of the political history of Islam, which is not very progressive and has become less so in the modern era imo. The contradiction between them is also not only something perceived by Marxists, but is very much clear to Muslims as well. An issue that Marxist militants ALWAYS have in my experience in situations like this is that if you are talking politics, or trying to agitate or organize, and you are doing so with religious individuals, especially if they are radicalizing and becoming interested in Marxism, is the contradiction they clearly perceive between their religious convictions and their developing Marxist/Communist political beliefs. At a point if you are in a party you do have to have the conversation with potential militants or members that Marxism is not compatible with the liberal position on religion of pretending like it is politically irrelevant, simply to appeal to the insecurity or narcissism of particular individuals who want to have their cake and eat it too. It is completely incompatible with the Leninist conception of the party.
It shouldn’t be surprising that Marxists are not, in general, going to be attracted to a religion which not only explicitly states that they deserve to be and will be burned and unimaginably tortured in hell for eternity, whose metaphysics is clearly incompatible, but more importantly from it’s inception to the current day has proscribed very different political structures and relations than Marxism (again, not a surprise, given that it emerged in Arabia in the 7th century CE, and that it’s founder was not only a political and religious leader but a warlord who seems to have committed war crimes and whose values were profoundly different to those of modern socialism).
It’s not a coincidence that the modern radical and dynamic expressions of political energy in the Islamic world of the modern era have been Islamist, and that Islamists immediately crush any progressive forces when they come confidently into power. Every place they have come to power they have enacted absolutely depraved social policies. The success of Islamism in the modern era is not only an expression of the religiosity of these societies and the effects of Imperialism and Colonialism, but also an expression of the failures of progressive forces, i.e. communists and socialists in these societies.
Honestly a consequence of this is that individuals then often end up taking pretty simplistic or nationalist positions in relation to certain political struggles, because there is also a reticence among many people of the left to recognize the self-evidently reactionary aspects of certain movements which stem directly from their religious, theocratic ideologies, as well as broader material conditions, due to the risk that that will be perceived as an attack of the downtrodden. It’s a bizarrely moralistic, un-Marxist, and frankly moronic position to take, because more fundamentally its a question of being realistic about the political possibilities available to movements which are not driven ideologically by socialist or communist ideology, which I think worsens alot of the analysis you see on these problems.
It shouldn’t be surprising that Marxists are not… modern socialism).
This right here is exactly what I’m talking about, If I went out to a Muslims right now and asked them about Marxism they’d talk about China torturing the Uyghurs or that Stalin killed one gazzilion people, you have not read about Islam and you’re perceiving it from whatever source you got it from, that’s why you said Muhammed was a warlord who committed warcrimes [search the Islamic laws of war] instead of commenting on something that can actually be criticized.
(It’s not a coincidence that… socialists in these societies.)
This is why it is important to understand Islam, there’s 1.6 billion Muslims, you can not fight against all of them and you can not magically convince all of them to pick a political side that was heavily red scared to them and that contradicts them, in fact they will declare Jihad on you and I think for being so ignorant you’d deserve it at that point.
(Honestly a consequence … you see on these problems.)
Once again what I said, I did not suggest that Hamas should rule the universe or that the next Caliphate be built in China, you just read Islam and thought of idk a communist caliphate or islamic socialism or some bullshit, you’ve proved yourself to be speaking out of Islamophobic propaganda just like Muslims speak out of red scare propaganda, I am telling you need to actually read and understand something to do an analysis on it, and this is also what Hakim was calling for in the first place.
[Long post ahead]
Frankly, I was a bit confused at first at the responses to Hakim’s supposed misdeed. I saw practically nothing wrong with his post.
This is speaking as someone who considers themself “ex-muslim” and rarely practices any of the daily rituals of being muslim.
I have read through both the Hexbear thread and this one here on Lemmygrad. Firstly, I would like to say I agree with Aru’s comment on the other parallel thread running right now.
I’d like to address some of the contentions people have about the post. Hakim starts his post with this statement:
How do the Palestinian people persist? As muslims…
Not because they ARE muslims, as in, Islam was the only way in which they were able to carry out anti-colonial struggle, but rather they carry out the anti-colonial struggle through BEING muslim. Islam in this context is a material force, precisely because it is imbedded in the people - the colonized and the working classes, in their decision-making and power. It becomes entrenched in the material base.
It is in the masjid where muslims congregate and form communal bonds. It is in the masjid where people recieve their political and cultural education. It is the masjid that organizes the local community. It is in the masjid grounds in which people partake in the political economy.
To say that if Palestine was fully christian or any other “religion”, they would still reject colonization, misses the point. It doesn’t matter about some hypotheticals that you concoct in your head. That’s as useful as saying that if China was 100% Christian they would still be communist - what is the point in engaging in idealist hypotheticals? To simply compare it to Christianity, is idealism. Because you are not comparing the reality in which these cultural traditions, epistemologies, and beliefs operate. You are comparing one idea to another, utterly deaf to the material context behind it. The material reality of the ummah, the material reality of Palestine, means that Islam is the force in which anti-imperialist and anti-colonialism is carried out.
So yes, perhaps for many muslims, the Quran, the life of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) becomes the starting point of their political conciousness, and to somehow call it immature, backward, or a type of “false consciousness”, is to fall into the orientalist idealist tropes of the days of direct colonization.
Throughout the entire Islamic world we have seen numerous secular and communist organizations that directly collaborated with the colonizer, that never gained support from the muslim masses and that also had to face a visceral reactionary force funded by the West. To say that secular movements only failed in the Islamic world because they were being pitted against reactionary Western-funded movements ignores the fact that if these secular movements truly had the mandate of the people - truly did listen to the working masses, they would have succeeded in maintaining power in the first place.
To act like this analysis is somehow “idealism”, when it is actually idealism to ignore history and material conditions in favour of a dogmatic secular understanding of class warfare.
Why is it when state secularism and athiesm is mentioned, we only mention those in AES, like the conditions of the ummah is somehow exactly one-on-one the same as that of China or the USSR? Why doesn’t anyone ever mention about the beacon of liberal modernity and secularism - France - in which if you ask anyone in the ummah what they think about it, they would vehemently reject associating with that Islamophobic “secular” state. Why is it immediately assumed that when someones says they want an Islamic country, it is immediately assumed they want a monoreligious populace with forced conversions on heretics and heathens? Why is it assumed when we say something is Islamic, it means that it cannot involve people of other faiths (or lack thereof)?
In my eyes, the answer is simple. It is because the Western left still carries the mental burden of colonization, of cultural genocide, and they project it onto the global south - onto the ummah.
Are we suppose to ignore the Islamic influence of for example Southeast Asian foreign policy, Arab nationalism, or North African decolonization? How about the Islamic Axis of Resistance pushing back against the Zionist Entity and other US imperial projects in West Asia? Islamic socialism and Islam has been, and continues to be, materially closer to anti-imperialism, anti-colonialism and communism than Western Marxism could ever even dream about (that is - if they even recognize imperialism). Islam is the form that the anti-imperialist essence of the ummah takes.
Is it the “muh slems” that are idealistic, or is it the Western’s left misunderstanding of the “unity of opposites”? If you can only percieve reality in absolutes, in black-and-white, then “religion” is always “immaterial”; that means you will be unable to identify your friends from your enemies and it also means you will never understand Islam and the ummah.
Thank you
The first time I read this comment, I started to write a reply but then realized that I’m not totally sure what you mean in some places, and I figured it would be better to ask than just assume.
Islam in this context is a material force, precisely because it is imbedded in the people - the colonized and the working classes, in their decision-making and power. It becomes entrenched in the material base.
What do you have in mind with the notion of ‘entrenchment’ here?
It is in the masjid where muslims congregate and form communal bonds. It is in the masjid where people recieve their political and cultural education.
How does this distinguish the masjid from superstructural institutions generally, like schools or mass media?
It is in the masjid grounds in which people partake in the political economy.
What does this mean? That the masjid is an employer? That it’s a marketplace? Or just that it carries out the functions of the state in Islamic societies?
Why is it when state secularism and athiesm is mentioned, we only mention those in AES, like the conditions of the ummah is somehow exactly one-on-one the same as that of China or the USSR?
To be clear here, ‘the’ ummah extends to everywhere Islam is believed or practiced? Or does it mean instead something more like ‘Muslim countries’?
Islam is the form that the anti-imperialist essence of the ummah takes.
To make sure I understand what you mean here, Is this a fair (equivalent) restatement or does it miss some things?
in the ummah, anti-imperialism takes the form of Islam
Yeh their post is so confused and unclear its difficult to even beging to parse and deconstruct it.
I don’t agree with what Hakim said but it’s not like he’s the grand Oracle of communist theory. He’s a young guy who grew up in a war torn country in which more than a million of his fellow countrypeople have been massacred by the west. A country that is geographically much closer to an ongoing genocide than the western country I am in right now.
Of course religion isn’t the main thing driving the Palestinians forward right now. But it probably plays an important role in a Muslim Majority country.
What bugs me, though, is that many western communist nearly start foaming at the mouth the moment religion gets brought up, especially in combination with communism. Meanwhile we have actual religious majority countries being AES or resisting imperialism and it feels highly chauvinistic to discredit their struggle purely because they are religious. Once the first perfect atheist western revolution without violence and possible reactionary takes happens, we’ll see. But my money is that our own revolutions, of they ever happen, will be far from ‘perfect’ as well.
What bugs me, though, is that many western communist nearly start foaming at the mouth the moment religion gets brought up
Yes, that’s the core of the issue. Comrades, you can think whatever you want on this subject but in practice we need to be as understanding as possible because a lot of people who most want to see imperialism burn are muslim. This alliance is necessary and we won’t win anything by trying to impose atheism. Materialism is a tool, it doesn’t have to be a core belief that defines your whole being.
Saying ‘people can think whatever they want on this subject’ is dodging the real substantive issue though, namely the question of how much religious ideology limits the progressive potential of any political struggle, and frankly history is as unambiguous about this question, as a general rule, as it could be about any other. We know that the religious ideology is a serious impediment to communist politics. The counterexamples normally presented are very weak, such as Liberation Theology, as none of these have had the explanatory power or political or organizational success of Marxist movements proper. Imo his has to do with the fact that how ideology functions, and what it justifies, and how it shapes how you think, reason, and justify certain positions, policies and practices, is simply not equivalent between Marxism, which is the Proletarian and therefore political stage of scientific enlightenment and of scientific revolution, and Islam, which is a fairly reactionary (at this stage in history) religious ideology which emerged in a very different context which shaped how its political dimensions could develop.
Materialism is certainly not just a tool. Even as a tool, it’s successful use is intimately linked to truth. If it is, then I’d have to suppose that every ideology is just a tool which is obviously an absurdly reductionistic instrumentalist view. It is a system of concepts, ideas, beliefs, propositions, theories and methods used to describe, understand, explain, predict and control the properties and events of the natural and social world. Marxism, as the Proletarian stage of Science, applied to society, is intellectually and therefore practically revolutionary precisely because it gives a form of understanding which was not previously available to human societies about themselves, and finally allows us to truly move towards social freedom, namely where societies, as socialist and eventually communist, are no longer condemned to society seeming like some impersonal force before which we’re passive, weak and helpless, but is something of which we are not only a part but also something which we can collectively, consciously, control and shape. That is precisely the reason why socialism is more advanced as a form of society than capitalism, other things being equal.
Materialism’s most basic theoretical foundation is that there is independently existing, objective reality, which conforms most fundamentally in its properties to what we understand as or call the ‘physical’, and out of which emerges a type of entity capable of subjective, conscious thought, which is in turn not only ontologically dependent on the matter (or whatever you what to call it, as the conception of the physical in modern science goes far beyond the pretty crude idea of matter of intellectually bankrupt 19th century of modern ‘vulgar materialism’). I’m not sure how much time you’ve actually spent with seriously militant Marxists if you think that Materialism is not a key part of their beliefs and identity. Dialectical and historical materialism are then further theoretical developments of this idea. Materialism is ancient, whereas the latter are modern developments that were not possible before modern science and the industrial revolution. If you wanted to reduce Historical Materialism to tool, then I guess the best candidate for its purpose would be ‘ruthless critique of all that exists’.
We can say we need to be understanding as much as we like, and it’s not false, but it remains a limited, abstract point if it doesn’t then ask the question of what our understanding of religion as Marxists implies about the political status and potential of religion. This doesn’t imply you are wrong when you say that there have to be political alliances with religious non-Marxists, but it does imply that as Marxists we never let out of sight the knowledge that those movements are held back in their possible development by those religious dimensions, though of course the latter are also partially but still significantly expressions of how the material conditions and historical context have seriously undermined the potential for socialist politics. Religious movements can serve historically progressive purposes, but they are fundamentally limited, and there is immense danger of hyper-reactionary theocratic backlash which is as effective at crushing communist movements as fascists are (not a coincidence, given there are A LOT of similarities between Islamism and Fascism).
Im not sure what you mean by ‘impose atheism’. We are not in a position to materially impose atheism on anyone. Whether that should be done once we have a state is another question (edit: to clarify, we shouldn’t, though politics must be resolutely secular), and people on here seem to often approve of it in the case of, say, China or the USSR, but immediately get sheepish when its discussed in relation to Islam, whereas it seems to me like the recent political history of Islam should make us less so. If you mean ‘imposing’ in the sense of stating clearly that those are our views, when then you are basically saying that Marxists have to sacrifice a view that is pretty key to our conception of the world and make a concession to false (if you think anyone flew on a winged horse one night to see God then you believe an absurdity) and often reactionary views in order to not alienate certain potential allies. Which is a very problematic position to hold in all honesty and i’m not sure how anyone who is actually a Marxist can think that.
there are A LOT of similarities between Islamism and Fascism
what definition of “Islamism” are you using to justify this comparison?
I’m guessing they’re the type to put Al Qeada, ISIS, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the same category despite openly disagreeing with each other and being on different sides geopolitically.
Nice wall of text you got there, islamaphobe.
this was already posted before but i don’t think you can discount the role religion plays in giving people a source of hope and strength where there otherwise isn’t any. Maybe you could do the same thing another way, but I’m at a loss as to how. We all know that religion plays a large part in the lives of a large portion of the world population.
It’s obviously not the a ONLY reason they fight back but it doesn’t hurt the cause at all imo.
Through a collection of a peoples wills and faith in their country, people, and survival? Literally what the Soviet Union did during WW2? Very few Soviets thought that God would save them. They knew that their own collective strength would save them.
This belief gave them hope.
But isn’t religion a source of false consolation? The real consolation would of course be the improvement of material conditions.
It certainly helps people cope with day to day life under capitalism, but eventually it needs to go.
I think in cases where religious institutions are actively organizing and encouraging people to engage in struggle, political or armed, to change their circumstances, it doesn’t make much sense to call it false consolation.
Even when religions assert a kind of cosmic justice outside the scope of individual earthly lives, it’s not always true that religion serves mainly to console, even in matters of personal psychology and belief. Christianity certainly falls into that pattern, but John Brown was not as consoled by the prospect that justice would be achieved in the afterlife as he was convicted by his religious morality that the earthly evil he saw in slavery had to be combatted by all means available, immediately.
I do think that desperate situations drive people to religious belief as a way of upholding the just world hypothesis in the face of powerful cognitive dissonance. But that’s just one factor among many in promoting religious belief, and as a general tendency, it doesn’t necessarily address what religion inspires or motivates people to do in particular circumstances.
Isn’t hakim’s argument that religion helps people keep fighting for better material conditions because they can bare the struggle better?
That is still poor analysis. People can have religion, but to chalk up a people’s survival to it is absurd and horrifically bad material analysis.
It’s better analysis than dogmatically repeating “isn’t religion opium of the people? It dumbs them down, makes them complacent,” even when that’s clearly not what’s happening in this situation.
A few comments from the original Hexbear thread come to mind
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“guy named Hakim from Iraq is Muslim, white people are shocked and appalled”
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In speaking about religion in HAMAS and other resistance groups. “I for one am shocked that members of the Islamic Resistance Movement find value in an Islamic text.”
Like seriously? We have people in this thread bringing into question The Deprogram crew for… having a member be religious? Also because they interviewed people that aren’t explicitly MLs? These guys that have done more to bring communist theory to more people than this entire instance. Lol stop acting like fucking ultras or whatever. I mean really? You all need to get a grip. Furthermore, expecting them to BE infallible while also complaining they act like the ARE infallible and the attacking them for that too? Please. Coming off like a bunch of wreckers. These guys have never claimed or acted like they are the gods of communism. They get on, discuss what they know, and give their opinions. Those opinions can be not always on point,and not always what you want to hear. It’s your own deal if you expect them to be perfect then get pissed when they aren’t.
A man can be both religious and a communist. He can also have a disagreeable point while having good intentions. And most importantly he can have flaws and still be an extremely important and beneficial person to the cause. The man is religious. He shares this religion with most of the people currently undergoing a fucking genocide. He probably feels more empathy towards them then most westerners do to their fucking next door neighbors. My heart burns for the Palestinians, I can only imagine how he must be feeling. Man probably understands the Palestinian culture and religions better than any of you. But please, tell me how you all, as non Muslims, probably white ass westerners, know so much better. I for one, am a white as westerner. Yet I am capable of at least understanding where he is coming from, even maybe disagreeing with him, without also attacking him as rabidly, and disgustingly, as some of you all have.
Honestly, after reading some of the gross over reactions and ridiculous attacks from this thread, I am legitimately ashamed of some of you. Like legitimately. Ashamed. Downvote me and attack me for saying so if it makes you feel better. That’s fine. After some of the absurdity I have seen here I’ll be happy to add some blocks to my list.
Also religious belief can 100% motivate socialist beliefs. Take as two examples John Brown and Tony Benn
Existing forms of community, such as religious groups, also lend themselves well to socialism. Religious dogma is idealistic, but it feels reductive to ignore the motivation of belonging to and supporting a community when analyzing whether Marxism and religious beliefs are compatible.
There’s evidence to support their compatibility as well as the damage religious groups can have on socialist causes. At the end of the day, I say more comrades is better.
My thinking is this look at Catholicism, they adapted to Roman patronism, they adapted to feudalism, they adapted to capitalism, they’ll adapt again with a new economic system
liberation theology could be to communism what calvinism was to capitalism
Yeah it’s definitely disappointing.
The irony in some of these comments castigating him for supposedly not being marxist, and doing so by applying the most dogmatic, context-free invective.
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