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WB: The Show Must Go On
Billmon:
There is, however, a big risk, which is that Sheikh Nasrallah, the Hizbullah leader, will soon feel compelled by pressure from his own clueless hotheads to unleash the Tel Aviv rockets. This would force Israel to respond with some sort of savage escalation, and since the only available instrument is pure terror bombing [unless Jerusalem wants to take the war to downtown Damascus] the civilian death toll would probably soar even higher.
Welcome to the "new" Middle East — the geopolitical equivalent of the "new" Coke. The recipe may be different, but it still tastes like blood.
The Show Must Go On
I can’t really figure out what c&l’s john amato is about, he posts this video from chris matthews I guess in order to offer a sensible critique of the outcome of u.s. occupation: a “frakenstein” of shia power from tehran to s. lebanon.
I’ve argued, based on what little info there is about ahmadinejad, et al., that shia leadership throughout the region seems radicalized but lacks any expression of an ideology worthy of respect.
it’s hardly the case, however, that shiite intellectual traditions are nonexistent. here’s a snippet from the keddie book, modern iran:
Iranian Identity in the Face of Westernization
The increasing cultural Westernization of the Pahlavis was resented by the popular classes, by the bazaaris, and by the ulama, whose prestige and positions were attacked. Westernized habits were associated with Western politico-economic domination, and anti-Westernism and antiregime ideas turned increasingly to the masses’ Shi’i outlook. In the 196os thinkers began to discuss defense against Westernization and returning to Iran’s cultural identity. For this they denounced “Westoxication” (Gharbzadegi ).’9 This reaction can be understood in the context of the anti-imperialist struggle of Mosaddeq, and of rapid Westernization after the 1953 coup d’etat.
Jalal Al-e Ahmad was, in the 196os, the intellectual leader of a new generation of Iranian thinkers. Born in 1923 into a clerical family in the Taleqan Valley near Qazvin, he witnessed his father’s ruin after the laicizing reforms of Reza Shah. The father did not accept state control over his work as a notary, a post formerly reserved for ulama. Al-e Ahmad had to quit his family and work to pay for his studies. At twenty he became a Communist, in the years when occupied Iran was undergoing great social crises. Ahmad Kasravi’s influence on him was very strong.2° He quit the Tudeh party after the Azerbaijan events in reaction against Stalinism, and joined nationalist and socialist movements while teaching, translating, and writing stories with social themes. He was also an essayist, ethnologist, and critic. In the 196os he became the conscience of many intellectuals, and wrote a classic essay against Iran’s “Westoxication.”
When the ulama became leaders of the opposition he returned to an interest in Islam and went on pilgrimage to Mecca in 1964- Until his death in September 1969 he defended Islam against the policy of West ernization at any price championed by the regime, although his conversion was more political than religious 21 Al-e Ahmad found cultural roots and ties to the Iranian people in Islam. This feeling is found in a new way in Ali Shariati. After Al-e Ahmad died, Shariati took up the part of his work that was devoted to giving an Islamic response to the modern world .22
Two books by Al-e Ahmad will be discussed: On the Loyalty and Betrayal of the Intellectuals, a work of historical sociology where the author judges the attitude of educated Iranians by their services to the Iranian nation; and Westoxication,23 a violent pamphlet directed against a terrible malady that alienates Iranians from their identity and bewitches them with the West.
Al-e Ahmad’s viewpoint on Shi’ism was both critical and positive. The Shi’ism imposed by the Safavids crushed the independent spirit of the ulama and encouraged the religiosity of martyrs (the vanquished). The popularity of the Twelfth Imam arises from his being the hope and refuge of believers against the insurmountable inequities of this world. Islam, weakened by divisions between Sunnis and Shi’is, by mystical groups, and by Babism-Bahaism, was vulnerable to imperialism. Iranians succumbed to the image of “progress” and played the game of the West. Al-e Ahmad attacks nineteenth-century Westernizers like Mirza Aqa Khan Kermani, Malkom Khan, and Talebzadeh, and defends the anticonstitutional Shaikh Fazlollah Nuri for upholding the integrity of Iran and Islam in the face of the invading West 24
This does not mean that Al-e Ahmad was reactionary. His struggle was for the identity of the Shi’i Iranian. What he asked of Islam, at the moment (ca. 1963) when it again became the symbol of a national struggle against monarchy, was to raise politics to its just position. The ulama should cease their interminable ratiocinations over details and externals and consider real problems. Then Islam might again be a liberator as it was for the seventh-century Iranians.
Al-e Ahmad’s revolt, in part by its exaggerated tone, aroused the conscience of many Iranians. The Pahlavi regime had confronted differently the problems posed by the social and cultural transformation of Iran, spreading an official nationalist ideology. To soften cultural resistance, institutions patronized by the queen and honoring Iranian traditions were created. Some intellectuals found in them an aseptic place to express themselves and to write reports that were put aside. In these institutions no one could discuss religion or politics.
The paradoxical evolution of Al-e Ahmad from socialism to a political Islam was reflected in splits among intellectuals. Some, like the sociologist Ehsan Naraghi, remained secular while allowing Islam a role in national identity.25 Others sought an alternative to Westoxication in a deeper study of Islamic philosophy. Those closest to Al-e Ahmad’s path chose political opposition.
…
Ayatollah Taleqani appeared as one of the most liberal and progressive among the Iranian ulama; Sunni minorities approached him with their requests, as did also leftist groups, as they knew that Taleqam would welcome them and remember their common struggles against the shah and SAVAK. Possibly his long stays in jail with the nonreligious opposition helped him understand them. In the last months of his life, until one final statement, he ceased his former public statements differing from Khomeini’s policies.
…
In his Islam and Property, in Comparison to the Economic Systems o f the West, Taleqani developed his capacity for analysis. This is a response to contemporary problems presented in an historical context.39 Talegani discusses successively:
i. The evolution of property since the origins of humanity; the division of labor, exchange, money, laws, and the ideal community; the first economic theories, and the industrial revolution.
2. The appearance of workers’ power: here he examines Marxism, class struggle, extreme forms of capitalism, the dictatorship of the proletariat, and classless society. He criticizes Marxism as naive, for thinking [197] inequalities can be suppressed by giving special privileges to workers’ rule and by suppressing metaphysics. He explains such excesses in the context of struggles against capitalism.
3. The economy in the light of faith: Eschatology gives Islamic doctrine a transhistoric view of the economy; the legislator must both take account of spiritual aims and detach himself from his class conditioning.
Human laws (‘urf) are fragmentary, limited by history, and subject to change. They are easily diverted by a tyrannic power; are influenced by passions; and must be applied by coercion. Only Islam is the perfect legislator-it encourages reason to follow the path of God instead of misleading it; frees man from the slavery of human customs; teaches all to distinguish good from evil; and makes of a man controlled by passions a controller of himself. Because of these qualities, Islamic law (figh) is not accessible to all; only mujtahids can decide its application.
4. The economic bases of Islam and the roots of its precepts: God is the absolute owner of the goods confided to us; this is opposed to capitalism, for which property is absolutely free; and to socialism, which suppresses individual property. These two excesses permit the enslavement of man. The author applies this principle to analyzing the system of landownership and vaqf; in Islam, before Westerners came, feudalism (tuyuldari) never implanted itself durably. In Islam landownership is never absolute, and land reverts to the one who puts it under cultivation.
5. Money and the economic problems tied to it: Interest (riba) has created capitalism. Islam forbids hoarding but encourages commerce, which brings the distribution of riches. Utilizing a socialist slogan, Taleqani declares: One should take from everyone according to his abilities, and give to him according to his needs.
6. The specific features of the Islamic economy: Taleqani insists on the freedom of economic activity, of the production and distribution of goods. Natural resources belong to those who render them productive.
But there are limits, whose control is assured by the state (especially mineral resources).
7. Class differences, privileges, and their origin: Class privileges are not necessarily tied to money: for example, in the military classes. Islam, while recognizing differences among men, refuses the privileges engendered by monarchical regimes. Taleqani gives a history and criticism of the French Declaration of the Rights of Man, which is hypocritically advocated by the very people who constantly violate it. Inviolability of the principle of property opens the door to all the abuses of capitalism.
there’s much more than these examples of hip shiism. keddie says the radicalism of the revolution created “[t]he weakness of Shi’i ideologies … that of all apologists-namely, they try to show that their religion has provided in advance the key to all difficulties.”
though I doubt the implicit orientalism of matthews would permit acknowledgment of this rich tradition of thought surpassing the usual dualism of khoemenism v quietism, sunni v. shia, camel v hummer, animal v man, but the “shia crescent” probably is now, presently, a “frankenstein.”
Posted by: slothrop | Jul 31 2006 1:44 utc | 24
@slothrup, #24:
Thanks for the edification. Interesting book. Nevertheless, keddie hasn’t shed his post-Marxist formulation that resouce=economically exploitative opportunity. Odd, considering how close Iran is to the incredibly shrinking Aral Sea, and the super-salinated cotten fields which are failing in the ‘Stans.
Regarding Pollack’s nonsense, let me relate this:
Last year I was seeing a Dentist who was helping me remove the mercury from my mouth. Arriving early one day, I noticed a book for sale on the counter written by the Dentist’s brother, who just happens to be a huge mucky-mucky in the Zionist neo-con world (Not naming names). Well, I scanned the book in the waiting room, and I must say, the nature and quality of the arguments made, as well as the style of the writing wouldn’t have passed muster, and would have been instantly laughed off of this blog. Said Dentist had a hard time working in my mouth that day, as I was biting my tongue so hard.
@debs #26:
No jackboots. You are thinking things through in the right direction, basically.
I have been thinking the past few days if a case could be made that, in some respects, the Israelis have already surpassed the Nazis in sustained terror, if not sheer horror. Firstly, it is a clear canard that Israel has faced any sort of existential threat, and that this accounts for their actions. If anything, Germany was far more threatened. Secondly, one must take into account the relative size of the two countries when weighing the horror of their actions. Then, there is the absolutely chilling similarity of methods, many of which Billmon has recently detailed, including massive collective punishment. Also, according to Bill Blum, in his latest Anti-Empire report, “A few years ago, if not still now, Israel wrote numbers on some of the Palestinian prisoners’ arms and foreheads, using blue markers, a practice that is of course reminiscent of the Nazis’ treatment of Jews in World War II.” Of course, we have yet to hear talk about lampshades (arab skin may be too dark), and soap manufactories, but it is still early in the game.
@Billmon:
Thank you so much for your keenly insightful commentary lately, and your polished and entertaining writting style — probably more Gene Kelly (Singing in the Rain and Walking upside down in that little room) than Fred Astaire, but that’s just fine by my book.
******
Since some of us seem to have drifted into late night “Rude Pundit” mode, let me say this. It has been chilling to watch how our world leaders have been reacting to the latest spate of violence. Certainly no one is pulling a Blanco or a Nagin, and breaking down on camera. Rather, it seems to me that Bush and Bliar have been having trouble walking down that flag draped path to their podiums because their stiff little woodies have been getting in the way. And, as to Condilymphoma — all I can say is, watching her slink through public appearances in her new outfits, playing piano and filled with a kind of manic giddy glee, as if she were making her first appearance on the Ed Sullivan show opposite Liberace, is simply chilling. Only evil incarnate (or a neo-con, but I repeat myself) would show such near-orgasmic, vampiric, blood-lust. Perhaps she failed to remove her “double-your-pleasure” vibrator before primping. As to her new overly reddened lips, all I can think is “Venus Flytrap” or “Vagina Dentata.”
Apologies to all for my lack of couth.
Posted by: Malooga | Jul 31 2006 5:39 utc | 49
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