The remarkable feature of this exchange is that the more they write, the further they move away from the argument itself.
Their most recent intervention relies on distortion, deception, guilt by association, character assassination and insinuation. Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain (CEMB) protests outside the Iranian, Saudi, Moroccan and Pakistani embassies in solidarity with those persecuted for eating during Ramadan is equated with French colonial officers drinking wine in Algerian mosques.
Their most recent intervention relies on distortion, deception, guilt by association, character assassination and insinuation. Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain (CEMB) protests outside the Iranian, Saudi, Moroccan and Pakistani embassies in solidarity with those persecuted for eating during Ramadan is equated with French colonial officers drinking wine in Algerian mosques.
An award from a French secularist organisation becomes an award from the French government. A postage stamp depicting Marianne who the artist modelled after FEMEN’s Inna Shevchenko apparently seals the deal that FEMEN and CEMB are propaganda tools of Western imperialism.
Criticism of Islamism becomes hostility to Muslims. Secularists become agents of a geopolitical project. I myself am apparently ‘acting according to a script,’ my reputation ‘stained by hypocrisy, double standards, racism and pro-Israel/Zionist tendencies,’ and, losing my ‘use-value.’ Even the timing of my responses appears to have acquired explanatory power. There is also reference to a Dawkins-Epstein-Rothschild-Balfour chain, which one will need to be heavily intoxicated to make sense of. In their next reply to this piece, I may end up being Epstein in drag so this will have to be my final reply.
With all this obfuscation, the question I have posed to them remains unanswered and is the one that matters most: why should criticism of Islamism be treated differently from criticism of every other reactionary force?
Their position is that criticism of Hamas in the context of genocide reproduces Israeli and US narratives and benefits imperialism. If you follow this logic, it means that we must cease criticism of the Islamic regime in Iran as it risks benefiting US and Israeli militarism. Apparently, criticism of Islamism is subjected to a special burden of proof, treated as politically suspect, and dismissed as serving the enemy. They forget that the burden of proof is not on those of us who also criticise Islamism. The burden is on those who demand an exception for it.
Majedi and Arjomand never explain why political Islam alone should be exempt from the standards applied to every other reactionary system, movement and state. Why should the Left, while rightly opposing Israeli state violence and genocide, be expected to treat Hamas’s violence against Palestinians as politically secondary? Why should women opposing war and militarism be expected to treat the Islamic regime in Iran or the Taliban as secondary concerns? These are not rhetorical questions. They are fundamental to people’s lives.
Majedi and Arjomand devote enormous attention to where Islamism came from (as if we do not know the history) and almost none to what it represents. This methodological error is the foundation of their argument. Hamas may have been fostered by Israeli strategy as a counterweight to left and secular forces. Political Islam and the Islamic regime in Iran may have benefited from Cold War calculations. Of course they have. But neither fact entitles these oppressive movements to political exceptionalism. To explain the origins of a movement cannot absolve it of accountability for its crimes or ignore its political character.
Whatever role Western powers played in fostering sections of political Islam during the Cold War, Islamism constitutes an independent pole of reaction in the region and beyond. It is a political project that seeks to regulate women, suppress dissent, control class struggle through religious identity politics, and organise social life through repression. The social character of Islamism, its programme, and its consequences for women, workers, secularists, dissidents, and minorities largely disappear from their analysis. So too does Islamism’s own use of the suffering of people in the region as political capital.
We have seen this before. During the 1979 Iranian revolution, sections of the Left similarly treated US imperialism as the primary danger and Islamism as a secondary concern. Since Majedi and Arjomand are so concerned with history, this may be one lesson worth revisiting.
In keeping with this tradition of anti-imperialist politics, they conflate criticism of Islamism with anti-Muslim racism, much as criticism of the Israeli state and Zionism is often conflated with antisemitism – to shield power from scrutiny. They treat ex-Muslims as a homogeneous political category to which motives, loyalties and intentions can be assigned in order to place collective guilt and blame. I have addressed these and related arguments in detail elsewhere and will not revisit them here.
The Third Camp, however, insists that humanity has no camp among reactionary powers. Neither justifies the other. Neither benefits humanity. Neither form of domination can be overlooked. Majedi and Arjomand signed the Third Camp Manifesto in 2006. Today, however, they ask us to treat political Islam differently, to exempt it from the standards applied to every other reactionary force, to suspend criticism whenever it may prove politically inconvenient, and to subordinate the struggles of women, workers, secularists and dissidents. Mansoor Hekmat had a name for this politics. He called it petit-bourgeois anti-imperialism and identified it as the main ideological refuge of Islamic reaction.
Given this reality, the distortions, the accusations, the guilt by association, the conspiratorial chains of reasoning are hardly surprising. All serve a single purpose: to avoid confronting the one reactionary force for which they demand an exception. At its core, it is a familiar politics: an anti-imperialism that dares not speak Islamism’s name.
With all this obfuscation, the question I have posed to them remains unanswered and is the one that matters most: why should criticism of Islamism be treated differently from criticism of every other reactionary force?
Their position is that criticism of Hamas in the context of genocide reproduces Israeli and US narratives and benefits imperialism. If you follow this logic, it means that we must cease criticism of the Islamic regime in Iran as it risks benefiting US and Israeli militarism. Apparently, criticism of Islamism is subjected to a special burden of proof, treated as politically suspect, and dismissed as serving the enemy. They forget that the burden of proof is not on those of us who also criticise Islamism. The burden is on those who demand an exception for it.
Majedi and Arjomand never explain why political Islam alone should be exempt from the standards applied to every other reactionary system, movement and state. Why should the Left, while rightly opposing Israeli state violence and genocide, be expected to treat Hamas’s violence against Palestinians as politically secondary? Why should women opposing war and militarism be expected to treat the Islamic regime in Iran or the Taliban as secondary concerns? These are not rhetorical questions. They are fundamental to people’s lives.
Majedi and Arjomand devote enormous attention to where Islamism came from (as if we do not know the history) and almost none to what it represents. This methodological error is the foundation of their argument. Hamas may have been fostered by Israeli strategy as a counterweight to left and secular forces. Political Islam and the Islamic regime in Iran may have benefited from Cold War calculations. Of course they have. But neither fact entitles these oppressive movements to political exceptionalism. To explain the origins of a movement cannot absolve it of accountability for its crimes or ignore its political character.
Whatever role Western powers played in fostering sections of political Islam during the Cold War, Islamism constitutes an independent pole of reaction in the region and beyond. It is a political project that seeks to regulate women, suppress dissent, control class struggle through religious identity politics, and organise social life through repression. The social character of Islamism, its programme, and its consequences for women, workers, secularists, dissidents, and minorities largely disappear from their analysis. So too does Islamism’s own use of the suffering of people in the region as political capital.
We have seen this before. During the 1979 Iranian revolution, sections of the Left similarly treated US imperialism as the primary danger and Islamism as a secondary concern. Since Majedi and Arjomand are so concerned with history, this may be one lesson worth revisiting.
In keeping with this tradition of anti-imperialist politics, they conflate criticism of Islamism with anti-Muslim racism, much as criticism of the Israeli state and Zionism is often conflated with antisemitism – to shield power from scrutiny. They treat ex-Muslims as a homogeneous political category to which motives, loyalties and intentions can be assigned in order to place collective guilt and blame. I have addressed these and related arguments in detail elsewhere and will not revisit them here.
The Third Camp, however, insists that humanity has no camp among reactionary powers. Neither justifies the other. Neither benefits humanity. Neither form of domination can be overlooked. Majedi and Arjomand signed the Third Camp Manifesto in 2006. Today, however, they ask us to treat political Islam differently, to exempt it from the standards applied to every other reactionary force, to suspend criticism whenever it may prove politically inconvenient, and to subordinate the struggles of women, workers, secularists and dissidents. Mansoor Hekmat had a name for this politics. He called it petit-bourgeois anti-imperialism and identified it as the main ideological refuge of Islamic reaction.
Given this reality, the distortions, the accusations, the guilt by association, the conspiratorial chains of reasoning are hardly surprising. All serve a single purpose: to avoid confronting the one reactionary force for which they demand an exception. At its core, it is a familiar politics: an anti-imperialism that dares not speak Islamism’s name.
♞♟♜
For those wishing to follow the debate in full, the relevant articles are listed below in chronological order:
Azar Majedi and Homa Arjomand’s Islamist Propaganda and Morality, Maryam Namazie
Masks Are Torn; Ex-Muslims From Frying Pan To Fire, Azar Majedi and Homa Arjomand
Against Political Erasure: The Third Pole And The Limits Of Anti-Imperialism, Maryam Namazie
Ultimate Absurdity! Maryam Namazie’s belated reply or a timely damage control? Azar Majedi and Homa Arjomand
 |
Maryam Namazie is a political activist, campaigner and blogger |
No comments