Islamophobia

droid · Feb 4, 2008

Mr. Tea said:
Well yeees, these developments never occur in isolation, of course, but there's only so much apologetics and white guilt you can come out with, and it's important not to fall into the trap of seeing Muslims exclusively as passive victims, forever reacting in the only way they can to the actions of the West...their leaders have their own agendas, just as ours do, and they should be engaged with as such.

I don't think its fair to say that structural, historical causes are 'apologetic' and 'white guilt'. Look at the middle east. That entire region was carved up after WW1 and WW2, was the subject of multiple invasions and occupations, and the current authoritarian power structures evident there today were either put in place to shore up Western interests in the region or were a reaction to those interventions.

Take Iran. The Shah was put in place there by a CIA coup and the US continued to support and arm him for nearly 30 years, during which his secret (CIA trained) police: SAVAK had 'the worst human rights record on the planet' according to Amnesty International. The Islamic revolution was a genuine popular movement designed to remove the Shah from power, which was then (I believe) co-opted by extremists who eliminated their political opposition on the left in order to cement their hold on power.

Crackerjack mentioned above that Indonesia has only had a democracy for a few years (since 1998) - why is that? because an American supported coup ousted a nationalist leader and put in place a genocidal dictator who held onto power for over 30 years with their support.

Now, Im not absolving individuals of responsibilty here either. There will always be extremists with despicable ideas on the fringes of any society, but its only when the conditions are right that these groups gain popular support - the Nazis being the obvious example. I believe that ignoring these structural causes in favour of the implication that there is an inherent tendency in a 'culture' or people towards savagery is an irrational orientalist position that provides a false narrative - a narrative which has a political purpose in that it cloaks past and ongoing interventions.

crackerjack · Feb 4, 2008

droid said:
I don't think its fair to say that structural, historical causes are 'apologetic' and 'white guilt'. Look at the middle east. That entire region was carved up after WW1 and WW2, was the subject of multiple invasions and occupations, and the current authoritarian power structures evident there today were either put in place to shore up Western interests in the region or were a reaction to those interventions.

Take Iran. The Shah was put in place there by a CIA coup and the US continued to support and arm him for nearly 30 years, during which his secret (CIA trained) police: SAVAK had 'the worst human rights record on the planet' according to Amnesty International. The Islamic revolution was a genuine popular movement designed to remove the Shah from power, which was then (I believe) co-opted by extremists who eliminated their political opposition on the left in order to cement their hold on power.

Crackerjack mentioned above that Indonesia has only had a democracy for a few years (since 1998) - why is that? because an American supported coup ousted a nationalist leader and put in place a genocidal dictator who held onto power for over 30 years with their support.

Now, Im not absolving individuals of responsibilty here either. There will always be extremists with despicable ideas on the fringes of any society, but its only when the conditions are right that these groups gain popular support - the Nazis being the obvious example. I believe that ignoring these structural causes in favour of the implication that there is an inherent tendency in a 'culture' or people towards savagery is an irrational orientalist position that provides a false narrative - a narrative which has a political purpose in that it cloaks past and ongoing interventions.

This is a mostly fair analysis, though it does beg the question, at what point does colonial guilt stop being an excuse for repressive governments? There's a tendency to talk about 'US-backed coups' when often you're simply talking about govts who've murdered their way into power and had subsequent dealings with Americans (eg Saddam, though this obviously isn't the case in Iran 54, which was US- and UK-engineered).

Islamophobia is now used as a blanket criticism of anyone highlighting human rights abuses in Islamic countries or religious sects which are also on the American shitlist. It's been applied to people like Peter Tatchell. Iranian human rights campaigners have been booed when trying to speak at SWP-backed conferences because they refuse to subscribe to their 'it's the imperialists stoopid' narrative.

droid · Feb 4, 2008

crackerjack said:
This is a mostly fair analysis, though it does beg the question, at what point does colonial guilt stop being an excuse for repressive governments?

Well if it is an excuse (and that's not what I'm saying at all), I guess that when the west actually STOPS supporting and propping up repressive governments it might stop being one.

There's a tendency to talk about 'US-backed coups' when often you're simply talking about govts who've murdered their way into power and had subsequent dealings with Americans (eg Saddam, though this obviously isn't the case in Iran 54, which was US- and UK-engineered).

But hang on there -wasn't the CIA involved in the assasination of Qasim in 1963, and didnt the US give a list of names of 'undesirables' to the new Baathist regime (as they did in Indonesia)? Also, the US and Europe supported and armed Saddam through the WORST of his human rights abuses, so it can't really be claimed that they weren't involved and aren't culpable.

Islamophobia is now used as a blanket criticism of anyone highlighting human rights abuses in Islamic countries or religious sects which are also on the American shitlist. It's been applied to people like Peter Tatchell. Iranian human rights campaigners have been booed when trying to speak at SWP-backed conferences because they refuse to subscribe to their 'it's the imperialists stoopid' narrative.

That's bullshit, I agree. But given the current political climate and the hysterical demonisation of Islam and Muslims I can see how it could happen. It's not like idiocy is an exclusively right wing disease.

crackerjack · Feb 4, 2008

Also, the US and Europe supported and armed Saddam through the WORST of his human rights abuses, so it can't really be claimed that they weren't involved and aren't culpable.

Saddam scored arms off East and West. The USSR was actually the main supplier (followed by the French) but you never hear Saddam described as a Soviet client state.

I've no intention of expunging US or UK culpability from the mess that is currently the ME, but equally I think Islam should be written into the narrative too.

Gavin · Feb 5, 2008

Mr. Tea said:
their leaders have their own agendas, just as ours do, and they should be engaged with as such.

Our governments do engage with their leaders on the terms of the agendas they both have. Unfortunately, our homegrown brand of extremists (Cheney, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, etc.) care little for human rights abuses unless they serve to demonize resistant regimes in order to shore up liberal support for bombing strikes, sanctions, invasion or what have you. It's nonsense to believe our government doesn't work with leaders on the level of "agendas" -- they do, but their agendas are not ours.

"Colonial guilt" is cute to argue about, but it's beside the point. It's not that our governments were once bad and now we have to figure out how best to sensitively undo the hurt we have caused, and wring our hands enough times so that everyone knows we mean it. Our governments continue to engage in the exact same agenda today under different methods. We don't feel guilty because everyone figured out our hands were in the cookie jar 20 years ago -- we're stealing cookies today and we'll do it tomorrow too. People should feel guilty because we are still guilty and are moreso every day. Then they should do something about it besides pretending the sins are all in the past.

P.S. Chinese embassy protests (orchestrated by the Chinese government to protest the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Bosnia):

Put the bombers on alert, I heard someone burned a flag!

droid · Feb 5, 2008

crackerjack said:
Saddam scored arms off East and West. The USSR was actually the main supplier (followed by the French) but you never hear Saddam described as a Soviet client state.

My statement was accurate. When Saddam was committing the worst of his human rights abuses the US was his main arms supplier - including chemical weapons (along with Holland, France and Germany. This support continued even after Iraq had used chemical weapons against Iranian soldiers and civilians, and against the Kurds at Halabja.

About two of every seven licenses for the export of "dual use" technology items approved between 1985 and 1990 by the US Department of Commerce "went either directly to the Iraqi armed forces, to Iraqi end-users engaged in weapons production, or to Iraqi enterprises suspected of diverting technology" to weapons of mass destruction according to an investigation by House Banking Committee Chairman Henry B. Gonzalez (D-Tex.)...

...According to retired Colonel Walter Lang, senior defense intelligence officer for the United States Defense Intelligence Agency at the time, "the use of gas on the battlefield by the Iraqis was not a matter of deep strategic concern" to Reagan and his aides, because they "were desperate to make sure that Iraq did not lose." He claimed that the Defense Intelligence Agency "would have never accepted the use of chemical weapons against civilians, but the use against military objectives was seen as inevitable in the Iraqi struggle for survival",[5]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._support_for_Iraq_during_the_Iran-Iraq_war

I've no intention of expunging US or UK culpability from the mess that is currently the ME, but equally I think Islam should be written into the narrative too.

Can you really say it's absent from the narrative? Mainstream opinion pretty much puts all of the blame on Islam, whilst glossing over the fact that the West is a firm supporter of countries that practise the most dangerous strains of fundamentalism - Wahabism in Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and Sunni extremism in Pakistan.

vimothy · Feb 5, 2008

droid said:
Can you really say it's absent from the narrative? Mainstream opinion pretty much puts all of the blame on Islam, whilst glossing over the fact that the West is a firm supporter of countries that practise the most dangerous strains of fundamentalism - Wahabism in Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and Sunni extremism in Pakistan.

It's hardly a firm supporter, is it? The whole problem with Middle East policy is that it's quite obvious now that the strongmen are playing the foreigners as much as the foreigners are playing the strongmen. Give them aid; get back hatred. Of course, no one can contemplate not trying to buy out the dictators, because the alternatives seem so much worse (Saudi Wahhabis, Egyptian Salafists, Pakistani Deobandis, etc). I would describe the West as an extremely nervous supporter of nominally friendly regimes in countries that practice the most dangerous strains of Islam. After 9/11, how could anyone not be?

vimothy · Feb 5, 2008

Edit: double post

vimothy · Feb 5, 2008

droid said:
My statement was accurate. When Saddam was committing the worst of his human rights abuses the US was his main arms supplier - including chemical weapons (along with Holland, France and Germany. This support continued even after Iraq had used chemical weapons against Iranian soldiers and civilians, and against the Kurds at Halabja.

Where does your link show this, please?

crackerjack · Feb 5, 2008

droid said:
Can you really say it's absent from the narrative? Mainstream opinion pretty much puts all of the blame on Islam, whilst glossing over the fact that the West is a firm supporter of countries that practise the most dangerous strains of fundamentalism - Wahabism in Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and Sunni extremism in Pakistan.

So are we just arguing about a difference of emphasis? Cause it seems to me that 'mainstream opinion' is quite keen on pointing out America's grubby fingerprints whenever they appear. Perhaps it's different in the US (do you live there?), but in the UK it's very much part of the narrative - and I wasn't claiming Islam is absent from it, I said it merits its place, alongside the past and present misdemeanours of more powerful foreign forces.

That said, Vim's description of US relations with the likes of Saudi and Pakistan is way more accurate than yours. Pakistan, in particular, rec'd no support from the US between Musharraf's coup and 9/11 - after which it became a key ally for pragmatic and very necessary reasons. Implying that the US is a supporter of Sunni extremism there is at best disingenuous.

Anyway, we seem to be returning to familiar ground here, so I'd like to switch tack slightly. One of the reasons for Islamophobia is that Islamic currents seem almost wholly reactionary. In the 70s/80s Catholic priests across Latin America (opposed by Rome and the right-wing JPII, of coourse) developed a Liberation Theology, that was leftist, anti-imperialist and non-theocratic. Has there ever been a Muslim equivalent? Or is 'radical Islam' actually an oxymoron?

droid · Feb 5, 2008

vimothy said:
It's hardly a firm supporter, is it? The whole problem with Middle East policy is that it's quite obvious now that the strongmen are playing the foreigners as much as the foreigners are playing the strongmen. Give them aid; get back hatred. Of course, no one can contemplate not trying to buy out the dictators, because the alternatives seem so much worse (Saudi Wahhabis, Egyptian Salafists, Pakistani Deobandis, etc). I would describe the West as an extremely nervous supporter of nominally friendly regimes in countries that practice the most dangerous strains of Islam.

Firm as in the quantity and quality of support they recieve. And can you not see the massive contradiction here? Supporting the nations that tolerate, encourage, or actively particiapte in radical Islamism in order to stop the spread of radical Islam does not seem like a very sensible course of action to me. And what does that support say about the West's attitudes to human rights? That they are happy to support brutal tyrants as long as it suits their interests?

After 9/11, how could anyone not be?

Er - im sure you know full well that this didnt all start with 9/11 - it goes way back.

Since 1990, the U.S. government, through the Pentagon’s arms export program, has arranged for the delivery of more than $39.6 billion in foreign military sales to Saudi Arabia, and an additional $394 million worth of arms were delivered to the Saudi regime through the State Department’s direct commercial sales program during that same period.

http://www.fas.org/asmp/profiles/saudi_arabia.htm

Carter renewed financial assistance to Pakistan that had been cut off because of that country's dismal human rights record and its accelerated nuclear weapons program. Under Ronald Reagan, Pakistan became the third largest recipient of US aid, after Israel and Egypt.

http://www.alternet.org/story/18598/

crackerjack said:
That said, Vim's description of US relations with the likes of Saudi and Pakistan is way more accurate than yours. Pakistan, in particular, rec'd no support from the US between Musharraf's coup and 9/11 - after which it became a key ally for pragmatic and very necessary reasons. Implying that the US is a supporter of Sunni extremism there is at best disingenuous

Its true that US support for Pakistan in the 90's was minimal, but do we really need to go into the details of US support for radical Islam in the region in the late 70s and 80s? Its well known that they positively encouraged it, and the eventual outcome of that poilcy is one of the greaest ironies in history.

crackerjack · Feb 5, 2008

droid said:
Its true that US support for Pakistan in the 90's was minimal, but do we really need to go into the details of US support for radical Islam in the region in the late 70s and 80s? Its well known that they positively encouraged it, and the eventual outcome of that poilcy is one of the greaest ironies in history.

And this proves what? That American 'principles' can be flexible? That their Afghan policy proved shortsighted? Well duh.

vimothy · Feb 5, 2008

droid said:
Firm as in the quantity and quality of support they recieve. And can you not see the massive contradiction here? Supporting the nations that tolerate, encourage, or actively particiapte in radical Islamism in order to stop the spread of radical Islam does not seem like a very sensible course of action to me. And what does that support say about the West's attitudes to human rights? That they are happy to support brutal tyrants as long as it suits their interests?

The choice is pretty stark, isn't it? And it's certainly in the best interests of the current leaders to portray the situation in such a manner, but even so it seems impossible to imagine that out of the Egyptian middle classes will come a more moderate leadership than the current regime, that out of the Saudi hate factories a gentler, more responsible government will arise, that encouraging regime change in Pakistan would not end in chaos, sectarianism and an even more reactionary government.

Er - im sure you know full well that this didnt all start with 9/11 - it goes way back.

No, you are missing my obvious point. No one can not be nervous about the (already writ large) consequences of Egyptian and Saudi Arabian "friendship", just as they can not afford not to support them. We might hope it were different, and indeed, radicals who pledged that it would be so briefly held the reigns of American foreign policy. But we know how that one turned out. Business as ususal, please!

vimothy · Feb 5, 2008

crackerjack said:
And this proves what? That American 'principles' can be flexible? That their Afghan policy proved shortsighted? Well duh.

Exactly -- you could, for e.g., give that as evidence of America's "pro-Muslim" or "pro-Islamic" foreign policy. Clearly though, on this thread, we are going for easy black-and-white condemnations of choices we happily have never had to make.

vimothy · Feb 5, 2008

droid said:
My statement was accurate. When Saddam was committing the worst of his human rights abuses the US was his main arms supplier - including chemical weapons (along with Holland, France and Germany. This support continued even after Iraq had used chemical weapons against Iranian soldiers and civilians, and against the Kurds at Halabja.

Total US arms sold to Iraq, 1973-1990, $200 million (in 1990 dollars) or 0.5% of total conventional arms sales to Iraq in that period.

vimothy · Feb 5, 2008

crackerjack said:
Anyway, we seem to be returning to familiar ground here, so I'd like to switch tack slightly. One of the reasons for Islamophobia is that Islamic currents seem almost wholly reactionary. In the 70s/80s Catholic priests across Latin America (opposed by Rome and the right-wing JPII, of coourse) developed a Liberation Theology, that was leftist, anti-imperialist and non-theocratic. Has there ever been a Muslim equivalent? Or is 'radical Islam' actually an oxymoron?

Well, there's been plenty of Arab radicalism, though I'm not sure if that counts.

Slothrop · Feb 5, 2008

droid said:
crackerjack said:

I've no intention of expunging US or UK culpability from the mess that is currently the ME, but equally I think Islam should be written into the narrative too.

Click to expand...

Can you really say it's absent from the narrative? Mainstream opinion pretty much puts all of the blame on Islam, whilst glossing over the fact that the West is a firm supporter of countries that practise the most dangerous strains of fundamentalism - Wahabism in Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and Sunni extremism in Pakistan.

But this isn't mainstream opinion, this is Dissensus. Do we need to distort our own discussion of the subject to counterbalance the bias of a 'mainstream opinion' that very few of us subscribe to?

vimothy · Feb 5, 2008

Does everyone then agree that the West should cut support for extremist regimes like Egypt and Saudi Arabia and try to encourage democratic reform in the Middle East? Is democratic reform even possible given contemporary Arab culture?

I'm also interested in the new geo-political landscape that American interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan have created. I was hinting at this in the Ashura in Iraq thread, but no one took the bait. How does Dissensus read the "Shia Revival" in the Islamic World? Are they just a bunch of no-hope losers, always destined to be the oppressed step-children of brutal Sunni rule? What of Iran? What of the Kurds?

Mr. Tea · Feb 5, 2008

The case of Saddam, which crackerjack first brought up in this thread, is particularly illuminating on the points I touched on earlier. I've seen posts people have made on here in past threads (or at least blogs and opinion pieces they've linked to) which seem almost to call Saddam an American 'puppet' - or at least, the leader of a regime very actively supported, if not set up in the first place, by the US. Let's give the man his due, at least: Saddam was an extremely clever tyrant, and no-one's puppet - he manipulated the countries that supplied him more than they ever manipulated him. And even if merely being sold weapons by foreign powers had made him a 'puppet' - which it clearly didn't - that would have meant Russia and France were pulling the strings, not the US.

vimothy · Feb 5, 2008

And "Islamophobia" is in many ways a neat excuse. Pressing for reform is "Islamophobic" because that's just not how things are done round here (quoth the dictators and their puppets). The US invasion of Iraq was Islamophobic because it attacked a secular (LOL), Arab regime that was no immediate threat to American people (merely Iraqis). The idea that a different foreign policy approach to realist bartering with dictators could be used is "Islamophobic" because it doesn't sugar the pill in its assessment of the ills of the Middle East.

EDIT: Of course, and to run with Mr Tea's ball, no one (AFAIA) ever accused Saddam of Islamophobia, not even his Middle Eastern neighbours. They were silent as he turned Iraq into a giant prison (Sunni rule and Kurdish and Shia oppression -- business as usual), just as they are now loud in their criticism of American "imperialism".

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