"Resistance inspires people, but Islam frightens them"

A critique of the anti-war movement from a Greek perspective

"Resistance inspires people, but Islam frightens them"
Friday, 04 April 2008

http://www.antiimperialista.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5600&Itemid=55

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I found this article interesting. Leftists are unconsciously guided by
racist Ashkenazi Russian traditional beliefs about Islam and Muslims,
which predate Marxism. In reality, the biggest difference in terms of
lifestyle is that the leftists' relationship with women is
exploitative, whereas Muslim men put their money down first as proof
of their dedication to a relationship. All leftist activist women I
knew either had abortions or raised their children alone while working
a job. So, it's easy to see why you find far more young women in the
west joining the Islamic movement than the leftist movement these
days. Sticking with leftism when you COULD have God-given rights is,
from a very practical point of view, a huge step backwards.

As for Greeks - how can they overcome the unconscious poison resulting
from the combination of Orthodox Christian spite towards Islam AND the
traditional Marxist contempt towards Islam? The easiest way is take a
boat over to Kucadasi or anywhere in Turkey really, and talk to a few
people. I used to fear the Muslim way of life until I went to Turkey.
Muslims are so great. When you go to Greece people seem introverted,
cold, resentful and bitterly protective of their anger at something in
their past that is not important. When you go across the water to
Turkey it's like the sun came out from behind a cloud. Everyone is at
peace with themselves and the world in a way that people in the west
don't often experience. -WVNS

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Following speech was held by Georgia Mylonaki of the association
Intifada (www.intifada.gr) at a seminar of the Cairo conference in
March 2008:

The Role of International Anti-War Movement in Supporting the Resistance

A critique of the current pacifist nature of the movement, why are
movements shy to openly support resistance, challenges, proposals for
changing this attitude, political benefits etc.

The Anti-War movement in Greece is being developed within a supposedly
privileged environment if compared to that of the US or the rest of
Europe, the reason for this is in brief the following:

-The Greek people is generally regarded as anti-American, which means
against the American imperialist domination –the demonstrations
against Bush visits in the country are of the most massive ones

-The Greek people is deeply political and traditionally pro-Arabic

- The people has and preserves memories of occupation, resistance,
civil war and inflictions put upon by the great powers and this
facilitates the identification with the peoples under attack and the
understanding up to a point of the major political conflicts.

-There is no strong representation of the Israeli lobby and false
accusations of anti-Semitism are scares.

Illustrative example of the easiness to identify with the resistance,
and more importantly the armed one is the numerous Greek delegations
composed by several different groups that participated last year in
the Beirut conference for the Resistance. They participated stating
that they support the resistance of Hezbollah, a stated Islamic and
armed movement.

Nevertheless, even within this privileged environment, this support is
sustained in a verbal level and does not manage to consolidate in a
stable, constant and essentially active manner.

The major reason for this is that the Islamic front line of the
resistance movement in the Middle East at this point may be widely
accepted as an honest patriotic and anti-imperialist victorious
movement, but is still under scrutiny regarding it's ideological roots
and aspirations. Resistance inspires people, but Islam frightens them.


No religion, just politics

For the true Left the alliance with the resistance movements is
granted, the obstacle is the "Islamic" denotation. Of course I do not
suggest the demodulation of these movements the core of which is
Islam. What I do suggest is the approximation of these two based on
commonly accepted clauses: occupation, imperialism, war, class
struggle. The discussion at this level is both feasible and essential.
The issue of religion seems to divert the discussion in gnarled paths
that can easily be used by the enemies of the resistance and hinder
the approximation of the natural –regardless religion- allies.
Imperialism uses all doctrines and peoples of all doctrines resist
imperialism, this discussion could start and end right here.

The fact that Hezbollah is widely accepted whereas Hamas is put in the
corner shows two other things: firstly how much easier it is to accept
a movement not anticipating to govern and secondly the extent to which
the western movements are manipulated by the imperialist propaganda.
It took a wall explosion in Gaza (with the free people returning to
the besieged and "undemocratic" Strip) a wide scale massacre in
Jabalyia and a holocaust Israeli statement for the anti-war movement
to start faltering about the major injustice in Gaza. Until then they
just let the internal political fight evolving and the siege
suffocating the people and still they have not taken yet a clear stand.

We all saw a democratically elected government being ousted and it's
parliamentarians thrown in prison without denouncing Fatah's
traitorous coalition with the occupation forces. We all stood still
when Gaza was in claim. We all accepted that a civil war was erupting
instead of denying it, we did not take the stand to say that a civil
war is a full scale open war that claims thousands of lives, not
fights here and there that were quite easily taken under control. No
matter how tragic this was, it was not a civil war.

The fact that the European anti-war movement is mostly dominated by
left activists does not facilitate this conjunction with the Islamic
movements. The left feels that by relating it's goals with the ones of
the Islamic anti-imperialist movement it is taking a "big leap
backwards". Should we get rid of the "Capital" and apply the "Quran"
instead? This is not an outspoken question but it is one that hunts
many left brains and activists.

The point is though that this is a question not actually posed. At
least not in the West. The Islamic oriented anti-imperialist movement
so far has not imposed any ideological or religious conditions in
order to begin it's dialogue or cooperation with the movements of the
West.

The ideological and political war between the left or the Islamic
trend may be the next major war if the two manage to come alive out of
the global battlefield of the major imperialist attack we live today.
But we are not there yet, at this point we have a common enemy. And
smart warriors join forces against the common enemy. Coalitions do not
have to make it all the way, neither do they need to be on a 100%
scale. What they do need is identify between the major and the
secondary elements and proceed if there is agreement on the major issues.

When the anti-war movement states "no to war" or "no to occupation" it
shows that it has covered half the space of supporting the resistance.
The next question is: yes to what? The only legitimate-honest answer
to this is a series of "yeses", Yes:
-only to the democratically elected governments of the people
-to the true resistance and it's leaders that are born from within the
people, regardless of it's political or religious orientations
-to the ideological and political struggle that under occupation may
not always be as clear or as bloodless as we would wish, but keeps
evolving
-to the right to claim lives of the occupation forces when the same
forces claim the lives of the people
-to the right to make open propaganda for a just yet slandered cause

More than ever the creation of a stable network of open and permanent
communication with the resistance movements is needed. It is of most
importance to forge relationships of trust in order to deepen the
political discourse that may lead to cooperation in certain issues
under common goals. The attack is global, and so has to be the
resistance.


Thankfully the people are not that easy to manipulate but
unfortunately neither are they that easy to put in motion. All the
official statistics, as well as our personal experience show that the
people no longer trust the dominant mass media and that they are open,
if not thirsty, for alternative and true information. They are eager
to abolish the false dilemmas and to adopt the causes of the resistances.

It is illustrative that two events of the newly formed Madisa Center,
one with the title "Islam and Woman" and the other with the screening
of an openly pro-resistance documentary created in Gaza in early 2008
managed to fill entirely spaces with more than 300 seats and this with
minimum "advertising". Seemingly illustrative is the fact that when
the Palestinian member of the Knesset Mohamed Barake stated in an
event of the Intifada Association in Athens that there are more Hamas
victims in Gaza than from the Israeli occupation it was the audience
that answered that this is totally untrue, the broad audience, not the
members of the association. The demand of the people to identify with
the resistance is here, but the supply is weak.


Organizations

The majority of the anti-war/anti-occupation organizations in Greece
and I believe in other parts of the world as well, are composed by
simple workers, unionists and parents. People intensely active
politically in various issues and with obvious luck of free time. This
has implications both to their difficulty to disseminate information,
reflect upon them and adopt a truly progressive and open stand towards
the resistance. And of course to their ability to "act".

From this point a chain of limited action is created that restrains
the possibility of recruiting new members and maintains the immobility
of such groups. When the "enlightened" few are ill-informed,
overworked and prejudiced, on what bases will they attract more people?

Of course taking under account the intense of the attack of the
capital against the working class of Greece and of the entire world,
it is even a miracle that these groups manage to survive. On the other
hand if they had truly understood the great importance of actively
supporting the resistance and help it's defeat in the east, they would
have prioritized their tasks differently. War is still far away, so we
may think.

The understanding of the importance of the major attack that is being
imposed and it's possible outcomes is the one key that could activate
the chain of the unrest in the West in an effective way, the second
key is the transition of these groups to a more professional way of
action. Maybe then we could start speaking for concrete results that
would motivate broader popular audiences.

Such action has to be unrestrained by partisan conflicts and by the
"monopolization" of the resistance. Egotistic and privileged relations
do not serve the goal of the resistance itself that is fighting among
other things to gain broad acceptance nor does it serve the people who
are deprived from important contacts and resources. So it is important
for the resistance as well to choose just partners who evaluate the
resistance higher than their partisan political aims.

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