Iranian propoganda - "For you Palestine - Zahra's blue eyes"

[GePap]

Originally posted by lord of the mark

2. It is nonetheless possible to have antisemitism without Jews. Seems to work better in the muslim world though. How much this is due to the unresolved political conflict with Israel, and how much to problems within certain parts of the Islamic political world is a matter of dispute. However reading about the progress of Abbas and moderation in the Pal territories, and the continued virulence of antisemitic rhetoric in places like Pakistan, Malaysia, Nigeria, etc leads me to think its largely the latter.

Well, I think what is happening around the Muslim world is that the old fashioned European created anti-semitic propaganda of the Jews being "in charge" of some global conspiracy is becoming widespread. But I would say that this claptrap serve the same function now as it did back then, to blame the chnages of modernity on some sinister other- after all, such immense coail changes must be more than just the outcome of larger socio-economic forces outside of people's control- I mean, there must be answer, a way to end this without turning back on all the benefits of modernity...

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by GePap


In the end thought, "America" is a proxy for Modernity, since this is really what at least the salafist and Wahabbi's battle. Baathist nationalists are not really an internationalist movement like the Salafi and Wahabbi, so i would not include them.



The fact the movement is international is exactly what makes it weak. Nationalism always trumps everything else- the most successful Islamist movements are invariably also nationalistic to a large degree- the Iranian regime, Lebanese hizbullah, the Taliban. Its like the grave threat of International Communist revolution that was always touted before- in the end, local nationalist issues trump out. Politics are always local at the end.

Baathism doesnt cross the arab/non arab line, but as a pan arab ideology it does cross state lines. Baathism in power may not have done so so much - like Communism, the tendency to focus on state interests when you own a state is a pretty powerful force. I was thinking pan arabism more generally, which i think is still quite powerful among Sunni arabs in IRaq and elsewhere.

As for the triumph of nationalism -
1. Im not sure its always inevitable - Chinese and Yugoslav communism went one way - but other communist parties supported the USSR, either out of geopolitical domination, like eastern europe, or out of of other concerns, like Cuba and Viet Nam. In any case the triumph of nationalism over Int Comm within Comm states and parties had much to do with A. The decay of IC as an ideology generally and B. The extreme cynicism with which the USSR managed international communism, starting with Stalin. A Trotsky might have handled things differently.
2. Taliban nationalist? Place was practically run by Bin Laden and Zawahiri, IIUC, with Mullah Omar as a figurehead. Not nationalist at all. They used Pashtun solidarity as a weapon against the the tajiks and other ethnics, but that was simply manipulating the locals - you might as well call the British raj Pashtun nationalism. No, while the taliban may not have put all their efforts into suicidally attacking every other muslim regime - thats just sense, not nationalism. Socialism in one country. You build your revolutionary state before you take on the world. Or you take on the world with plausible deniability.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by GePap


Well, I think what is happening around the Muslim world is that the old fashioned European created anti-semitic propaganda of the Jews being "in charge" of some global conspiracy is becoming widespread. But I would say that this claptrap serve the same function now as it did back then, to blame the chnages of modernity on some sinister other- after all, such immense coail changes must be more than just the outcome of larger socio-economic forces outside of people's control- I mean, there must be answer, a way to end this without turning back on all the benefits of modernity...

just to be clear - i agree the content is largely of Euro origin - i dont buy the "its all in the Koran" claptrap of the far right (though of course the venom DOES get translated into locally meaningful - IE Koranic - terms)

when I said things particular to the muslim world, i was thinking in terms of the Q- why in Islam, and NOT in Chinese, India, non muslim African, or (to any considerable degree) Latin America - all places undergoing the traumas of modernization, and, in the case of Lat Am, a considerable Jewish presence and history? I think its the unique problems that Islam has with western origin modernization - a sense of shame at learning from what was historically viewed as a lesser and barbaric culture - a sense thats less important in India and China where the West was . till the 18th c ,something distant, not historically an adjacent civ - and a sense absent in non-muslim africa, which has no history of glory like Islam does. The Bernard Lewis question, and its answer, if you will.

[GePap]

Originally posted by lord of the mark


Baathism doesnt cross the arab/non arab line, but as a pan arab ideology it does cross state lines. Baathism in power may not have done so so much - like Communism, the tendency to focus on state interests when you own a state is a pretty powerful force. I was thinking pan arabism more generally, which i think is still quite powerful among Sunni arabs in IRaq and elsewhere.

Pan Arabism has been around since the early century, and yet its greatest triumph, the United Arab republic, fell apart in just a few years. Aab regimes are more likely to fight each other than do anything togther (except denounce Israel)

As for the triumph of nationalism -
1. Im not sure its always inevitable - Chinese and Yugoslav communism went one way - but other communist parties supported the USSR, either out of geopolitical domination, like eastern europe, or out of of other concerns, like Cuba and Viet Nam. In any case the triumph of nationalism over Int Comm within Comm states and parties had much to do with A. The decay of IC as an ideology generally and B. The extreme cynicism with which the USSR managed international communism, starting with Stalin. A Trotsky might have handled things differently.

I doubt that Trotsky would have achieved much at all, given that they were really trying to spread Leninism.

2. Taliban nationalist? Place was practically run by Bin Laden and Zawahiri, IIUC, with Mullah Omar as a figurehead. Not nationalist at all. They used Pashtun solidarity as a weapon against the the tajiks and other ethnics, but that was simply manipulating the locals - you might as well call the British raj Pashtun nationalism. No, while the taliban may not have put all their efforts into suicidally attacking every other muslim regime - thats just sense, not nationalism. Socialism in one country. You build your revolutionary state before you take on the world. Or you take on the world with plausible deniability.

The taliban took over well before AQ came to town. As for the notion that the taliban were figureheads, I had never heard that, I I find it unlikely as well. After all, their hosts in Saudi Arabia and pakistan were not particularly AQ friendly, certainly not SA.

In the end, people like Osama and Zawahiri might want to recreate he Caliphate, but men like Omar hardly would have such grandiose aims. You don't see the leaders of hizbullah, who might collaborate here and there with AQ for their own ends calling on the recreation of the Caliphate.

[GePap]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
when I said things particular to the muslim world, i was thinking in terms of the Q- why in Islam, and NOT in Chinese, India, non muslim African, or (to any considerable degree) Latin America - all places undergoing the traumas of modernization, and, in the case of Lat Am, a considerable Jewish presence and history? I think its the unique problems that Islam has with western origin modernization - a sense of shame at learning from what was historically viewed as a lesser and barbaric culture - a sense thats less important in India and China where the West was . till the 18th c ,something distant, not historically an adjacent civ - and a sense absent in non-muslim africa, which has no history of glory like Islam does. The Bernard Lewis question, and its answer, if you will.

Well, islam is part of the west. As much as we don't think of it that way, you can;t really separate the history of Islam and that of the Christian lands. Spain after all was one of the sites of a great and flourishing islamic culture. Jews have lived in these lands since before Islam begun. This is not the same as in india and China, places with their own ancient and long cultural traditions that predate the west and existed for most part without the west. Neither India nor China had to deal with the west until the 18th century to any worthwhile degree, while islam battled Christianity since the 7th century. Heck, the Capital of the last great Islamic Empire begun as Byzantium.

As for Latin America, well, Jews were never much of an issue- anti-semitism of the old Spanish kind persists, but their history is too radically different from the Eurasian experience.

[Sirotnikov]

get a thread, you two!


just kidding


I'm too sleepy to read this.... so:

[typical response]
LOTM you're probably right. all hail LOTM

Gepap - bad. antisemitic biggot. *sarcastic remark* go drink from the sea of gaza, you fool!
[/typical response]

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by GePap


Pan Arabism has been around since the early century, and yet its greatest triumph, the United Arab republic, fell apart in just a few years. Aab regimes are more likely to fight each other than do anything togther (except denounce Israel)

As for the triumph of nationalism -
1. Im not sure its always inevitable - Chinese and Yugoslav communism went one way - but other communist parties supported the USSR, either out of geopolitical domination, like eastern europe, or out of of other concerns, like Cuba and Viet Nam. In any case the triumph of nationalism over Int Comm within Comm states and parties had much to do with A. The decay of IC as an ideology generally and B. The extreme cynicism with which the USSR managed international communism, starting with Stalin. A Trotsky might have handled things differently.

I doubt that Trotsky would have achieved much at all, given that they were really trying to spread Leninism.



The taliban took over well before AQ came to town. As for the notion that the taliban were figureheads, I had never heard that, I I find it unlikely as well. After all, their hosts in Saudi Arabia and pakistan were not particularly AQ friendly, certainly not SA.

In the end, people like Osama and Zawahiri might want to recreate he Caliphate, but men like Omar hardly would have such grandiose aims. You don't see the leaders of hizbullah, who might collaborate here and there with AQ for their own ends calling on the recreation of the Caliphate.

Re: Pan arabism - it hasnt managed to succeed at combining states, but its been, I think, a potent force within states, one that inhibits local nationalism.

Taliban took power first - well yes, OBL didnt leave Sudan till he HAD to, since that was safer at the time then Afghanistan. But I have read that OBL and Zawahiri were pulling major strings in Afghanistan, and that they had much influence on Taliban domestic policy. They also provided international forces that fought alongside the Taliban against the Northern Alliance, and some funds as well. I suppose they competed for influence with Pakistans ISI, which first supported the Talibans rise to power, but then the ISI and AQ were hardly hostile at that time (1999 to mid-2001)

KSA was not friendly - well of course, though a wahabi state, KSA was NOT a Qutbist state, as Taliban Afghanistan was. And Pakistan (when was OBL hosted in Pakistan - surely youre either thinking of Sudan, or youre thinking pre 1991, before OBL had turned against KSA and even before he turned openly antiUS) was never an out and out qutbist state either, even when Islamism was strongest there - it was always more complex politically.

[chequita guevara]

Both Argentina and Guatemala have had recent outbreaks of antiSemitism in state power. It went further in Argentina, where you could be disappeared for being Jewish under the Videla regime. That only lasted a few years, but it happened.

[Ned]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


Remember, Ned. The people of Iran chose this. They established a democracy when they overthrew the Shah, and then put the mullahs in power. There was a struggel between the urban and socialist factions in Iran, and the rural, reactionary, clericalists. The reactionaries won out, then slaughtered the opposition.

Che, IIRC, Iran under the Shah was a democracy. It was just that he ran the secret police who were ruthless. The religious folks were anti-democracy from the get go. They allowed the forms of democracy, but the actuality of a dictatorship.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Ned


Che, IIRC, Iran under the Shah was a democracy.

er, uhm, No.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Ned


Che, IIRC, Iran under the Shah was a democracy. It was just that he ran the secret police who were ruthless. The religious folks were anti-democracy from the get go. They allowed the forms of democracy, but the actuality of a dictatorship.

As LOTM said, NO, Iran under the Shah was an absolute Monarchy much like the KSA. In a democracy, you really can;t run a secret police, in fact, secret police and democracy don't ever mix.

[lord of the mark]

secret police aside, the Govt under the Shah was directly responsible to the Shah, who was, of course, not elected. I dont think there was even an elected legislature, and if there was, it had no effective control of the govt. Ergo, NOT a democracy. What Ned MAY be recalling is that it wasnt a theocracy, and that women had equal rights. It still was not a democracy.

[lord of the mark]

"Elections for the lower house of the parliament were held in August. They were annulled by the shah on September 1, after the opposition had charged that they had been rigged by the government. The deputies elected in January 1961 held office until May 9, when both houses of parliament were dissolved. The shah thereupon gave Prime Minister Ali Amini (1905– ) the power to rule by decree. Opposition elements shortly thereafter loosely grouped themselves into a so-called National Front.

-snip-

The shah was formally crowned on Oct. 26, 1967. Although he had ruled the country for 26 years, the ceremony had been postponed until he had a male heir and Iran had attained social stability and economic development.

By the time of his coronation the shah’s rule had become virtually absolute, and he was pursuing a foreign policy less dependent on the U.S. than it had been before. Thus, in the late 1960s and early ’70s, he strengthened Iran’s international relations with Communist countries as well as with the West. In the early 1970s Iran also drew closer to the Arab bloc, except for Iraq, with which it was disputing territorial rights in the Shatt-al-Arab area and possession of several islands in the Persian Gulf. In 1971 Iran occupied these islands, and Iraq broke off diplomatic relations. The two countries temporarily resolved their differences and signed a pact in March 1975.

That same month a major change also took place in Iranian domestic politics. On March 2, the shah announced the end of the multiparty system and the formation of a single-party system, the Iran National Resurgence party. Elections were held in June, and a new national assembly was formed."

Ok, more on and off than I recalled. From 1975 till the regimes fall in 1979, there WAS a national assembly, but only one party was allowed. Earlier there were periods of multiparty participation, and also periods of rule by decree. AFAIK, however, even in the most democratic periods, the military remained under the direct control of the Shah.

[GePap]

I am sure the majlis was still there in Iran in some form- after all, the Shah did return after the overthrow of the elected Mosaddeq's government- I doubt he got rid of it outright.