tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5380090049852721671.post4021140898430410936..comments2023-05-03T09:05:55.102-07:00Comments on Jacobinism: Tomorrow Belongs To UsUnrepentant Jacobinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09256579083755037018noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5380090049852721671.post-12724544464095036232015-08-16T14:31:13.898-07:002015-08-16T14:31:13.898-07:00I don't trust those people at all. The AKP see...I don't trust those people at all. The AKP seems determined to overturn Kemalism by degrees, depending on what it thinks it can get away with. Its rhetoric on Israel and Zionism these days is indistinguishable from much of what comes out of Tehran. Given that Turkey is a NATO ally that's pretty extraordinary.<br /><br /><a href="url" rel="nofollow">This article</a> on Ennahda by Hussein Ibish is worth a read.Unrepentant Jacobinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09256579083755037018noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5380090049852721671.post-19327145428486486472015-08-15T15:50:20.636-07:002015-08-15T15:50:20.636-07:00Good article, I really don’t have very much to add...Good article, I really don’t have very much to add. <br /><br />To add to your link between Jihadism and fascism. As for Al-Qaeda and ISIS, their ideology may be theoretically universalist, but their goal of reestablishing an Islamic caliphate stretching from Indonesia to Spain seems to me to resemble the ‘great nation’ projects of the fascists. And their mobilisation of chauvinistic violence and glorification of killing outsiders (non-Muslims) seem to me to resemble the fascist or Nazi attitude toward national or racial minorities. <br /><br />Add to that the Jihadist’s since of grievance and victimhood; whereby various discrete cases of ethnic conflict (like Bosnia) are portrayed as part of a global conspiracy against Muslims (people actually from Bosnia usually don’t see it that way) and you can see the parallels with fascism and with other forms of extreme nationalism. Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14855917510211963368noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5380090049852721671.post-82869846484411184852015-08-15T11:51:08.544-07:002015-08-15T11:51:08.544-07:00A really good read; I thought this was also releva...A really good read; I thought this was also relevant. https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/blogs/565696-jihadism-at-noonAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5380090049852721671.post-88180441096313436102015-08-15T02:37:36.642-07:002015-08-15T02:37:36.642-07:00Enjoyed reading your post. I would like to know wh...Enjoyed reading your post. I would like to know where do you classify so called "soft" Islamists like AKP in Turkey or Ennhada in Tunisia or PJD in Morrocco who are usually termed "Islamic democrats" are they on the same level as Jihadi groups like ISIS and revolutionary Islamists like HT & The Khomenists in Iran?The Rambling Infidelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08531924045611596309noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5380090049852721671.post-1241344525289388782015-08-14T18:34:58.832-07:002015-08-14T18:34:58.832-07:00Lets be concise here, there are certain problemati...Lets be concise here, there are certain problematic aspects within Islam which needs to be reformed/annuled/modified. Rest is just a lot of hot air. To deny that Islam has its flaws, which is causing a lot of grievance around the globe, is to be willfully ignorant.<br /><br />The main beneficiaries of acknowledging Islam's flaws would be us muslims.Jamalnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5380090049852721671.post-72856571799508200082015-08-14T17:22:15.246-07:002015-08-14T17:22:15.246-07:00And yet another point!
***The "Day After&quo...And yet another point!<br /><br />***The "Day After"***<br /><br />As is often the case with Utopian orientations, little consideration is given to the details of routinized life after the "Glorious Moment at the Barricades"--and without the great, romantic push of *striving* for Utopia, the actual matter of *living* in Utopia, and with the Redemption that it supposedly proffers, can be quite dull. The boredom that comes with the eventual routinization of the Great Drama of Striving can carry new problems--or maybe, the antidote to the problem. Who can say?Aloeveranoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5380090049852721671.post-10678529330503846282015-08-14T17:00:17.354-07:002015-08-14T17:00:17.354-07:00(Continued from previous post)
First Measures of ...(Continued from previous post)<br /><br />First Measures of the Coming Insurrection<br />by Eric Hazan and Kamo<br />Zed Books, 2015<br />We have witnessed a beginning, the birth of a new age of revolt and upheaval. In North Africa and the Middle East it took the people a matter of days to topple what were supposedly entrenched regimes. Now, to the west, multiple crises are etching away at a ‘democratic consensus’ that has, since the 1970s, plagued and suppressed any sparks of revolutionary potential. It is time to prepare for the coming insurrection.<br />In this bold and beautifully written book, Eric Hazan and Kamo provide a short account of what is to be done in the aftermath of a regime’s demise: how to prevent any power from restoring itself and how to reorganize society without a central authority and according to the people’s needs. They argue that neither a leadership reshuffle, in the guise of constitutional progress, nor a transition period between a capitalist social order and a communist horizon will do.<br />First Measures of the Coming Insurrection is more than the voice of a new generation of revolutionaries; it is the manual for the coming global revolution.<br />'This has been a period of many insurrections - from the Arab Spring to the Occupy movements in Greece, Spain and the US - but not of revolutions. Why? First Measures of the Coming Insurrection attempts to answer this vital question by soberly examining the logical space between insurrection and revolution and what it takes to traverse it. It is a serious reflection on what constitutes revolution that is bound to attract much attention.'<br />George Caffentzis, author of In Letters of Blood and Fire: Work, Machines, and the Crisis of Capitalism<br />'In these days of endless crisis and recurring revolt, Hazan and Kamo provide an exhilarating vision of the insurrectionary upheaval that lies ahead - and the steps that can be taken to ensure the creation of the irreversible. Combative, imaginative and exceedingly timely, First Measures of the Coming Insurrection will stand out as a key reference for the post-2011 generation of activists.'<br />Table of Contents<br />A moment to bring us up to date<br />I. It is right to rebel<br />II. Creating the irreversible<br />III. There's everything to play for<br /><br />---This is not to suggest that Jihadism is just a tool for other considerations beyond certain Islamic orientations--but Islam has "met and married" some of these other considerations in the current globalized atmosphere--probably with lethal offspring looming.<br /><br />______________<br /><br />(Sorry for the length!!)<br />Aloeveranoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5380090049852721671.post-55512831203495368902015-08-14T16:58:16.825-07:002015-08-14T16:58:16.825-07:00(continuing previous post)
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***...(continuing previous post)<br /><br />_________________<br /><br />***Jihadism Is Part of Something Larger***<br /><br />The above perspective and explanation by Hoffer is heavily psychological--more than a social scientist like myself can readily digest (although it seems plausible). But it does lead me to another social consideration which may get lost in the fray:<br /><br />Jihadism as part of something larger (The Seekers of Violence; the New Insurrectionists)<br /><br />It seems that there are a fair number of recruits to Jihadism who are not "native" Muslims, but new converts--and I suspect, although I cannot prove, that every such instant-convert to Islam has not suddenly become a knowing and deep believer in Islam. I suspect that a number of these people are just in love with violence--and choose Islamic Jihad as a dramatically convenient vehicle or bandwagon to jump onto in order to have a means for executing (no pun intended) their desires. These people make their seemingly quick and perfunctory conversion to Islam in order to pass on to more "meatier" actions.<br /><br />But--in addition to these gratuitous violence-prone players, there is a new, up-dated globalized view of Revolution that, in a way, sees Jihadist Islam as one idiom for that global revolutionary agenda: "The Resistance!!" or, "The Coming Insurrection". This idea has long been humped in certain circles and has now re-emerged in a contemporary-style global avatar--backed by certain theorists.I keep bumping into manifestos about this--the latest was prominently displayed in my local campus bookstore:<br /><br />(continued in next post)<br /><br /><br />Aloeveranoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5380090049852721671.post-13563759168791787532015-08-14T16:55:26.173-07:002015-08-14T16:55:26.173-07:00(This is a copy of my post regarding this piece on...(This is a copy of my post regarding this piece on the Harry's Place blog)<br /><br />In reading Jacobin's full piece, several somewhat disjointed thoughts come to mind:<br /><br />_____________<br /><br />***Beleaguered Solidarity***<br /><br />In other comments I have made in the past, I have referred to what I call "beleaguered solidarity" which is the social expression that tends to go hand in hand with the sort of ideas described in Jacobin's essay. This is a very powerful social force, in spite of (or because of?) its negativity and hatred. In the case of beleaguered solidarity, people are drawn together and forge connectedness not from some common benign interest (like, say, that found among members of the George Eliot reading society), but because of a real or perceived assault upon their individual or collective dignity and their hatred of the assaulters.<br /><br />This concern speaks to a very fundamental feature of human social organization and interaction. Insult, humiliation and loss of dignity have always been suffered or perceived everywhere--and have always stirred resentment, hostility, and revenge everywhere, although there were different formulations and degrees of it at different times and in different places (honor feuds, duels, sarcastic repartees in journals). Dignity is very important in human life. The broad, generic place of dignity in human life was the centerpiece of Renaissance writings on Humanism and man-centered (as opposed to God-centered) orientations, as expressed in, for example, Pico della Mirandola's essay "Oration on the Dignity of Man" (1486). Today, the concept of dignity has become a self-conscious concern in contemporary political philosophy (as in the writings of Jeremy Waldron or George Kateb and others), in the wake of-, and as an elaboration to, the concept of "justice" which has been so fore-fronted since John Rawls introduced it in the early 1970's--around the same time that multicultural demands for "recognition" took flight. So--the problem of wounded dignity, by itself, is not unusual or necessarily pathological--and very broadly topical today.<br /><br />But the sort of demand for dignity that we now see in Jihadism refers to a "pathological dignity", and coupled with its "beleaguered solidarity"--leads to great hatred. To quote Eric Hoffer, in the book referred to by Jacobin (*The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements*):<br /><br />"We do not usually look for allies when we love...but we always look for allies when we hate. It is understandable that we should look for others to side with us when have a just grievance and crave to retaliate against those who wronged us. The puzzling thing is that when our hatred does not spring from a visible grievance and does not seem justified, the desire for allies becomes more pressing. It is chiefly the unreasonable hatreds that drive us to merge with those who hate as we do, and it is this kind of hatred that serves as one of the most effective cementing agents. Whence come these unreasonable hatreds , and why their unifying effect? They are the expression of a desperate effort to suppress an awareness of our inadequacy, worthlessness, guilt and other shortcomings of the self. Self-contempt is here transmuted into hatred of others--and there is a most determined ad persistent effort to mask this switch. Obviously, the most effective way of doing this is to find others, as many as possible, who hate as we do...and much of our proselytizing consists perhaps in infecting others not with our brand of faith but with our particular brand of unreasonable hatred..."<br /><br />_________________<br /><br />Continued in following post<br />Aloeveranoreply@blogger.com