Conversation on Islam

So I tend to have a pretty careful view of Islam. I acknowledge that liberals go too far in trying to make out Islam as if it's progressive, (it's not) but also that many rightists are trying to use it as a broad nationalistic scapegoat. A more nuanced view is important - not a centrist one, but one that acknowledges people who subscribe to Islam are not a uniform mass, that many are somewhat irreligious, and that we need to ultimately view them as fellow proles. At the same time we need to realize it is a deeply reactionary set of beliefs.

The source behind this thread was spurned by a chat I had recently with a Christian Randian lolbert friend of mine (yeah I know).So we got into discussing the Middle East, & he at least agreed the situation was very complicated & that the US & the West had fueled many of these conflicts, through its influence & the earlier Sykes-Picot deal.

Things started to go south when i was talking about how Saudi Arabia directly teaches & funds extremist Muslim views. He disagreed, & said that "well that's just Islam." He went on to explain that he believes the US has done a good job of hitting military targets in the area, & that the wars were necessary. He said that the geopolitics while "complex," still necessitated US intervention. He went on to justify this by saying that if we were to fully pull out, (what I earlier suggested) then all "this" (we had a made nearby, & he made a circle around the Middle East) becomes the Islamic State.

I disagreed, but didn't have sources to back this up in person. He continued denying my point about the US fueling endless war & profiting via a war economy, saying that "while Western influences have contributed to the problem, it's far too messy now to pull out. Every time the Western world has removed itself from the Middle East - for example after WW1, in Iraq after the Gulf War, after Obama pulled us out of Iraq, etc - Islamism takes over. When left to their own devices, middle eastern states can't sustain themselves & tear themselves apart ethnically and religiously, all because of Islam. That's it's natural order. Al-Qaeda started because we left the middle east, ISIS started because we left Iraq. This will only sort itself out if Islam can have a major reformation, which it won't. These destructive struggles and mindless warring have been characteristic of the region since the time of Muhammad really."

Unfortunately I had to leave shortly thereafter, but the amount of idpol and bullshit there really stunned me. I didn't really conclude too much as I had to get going, but holy fuck. I would've brought up Zizek's point about the secular left in the Middle East just a few decades ago, or gone further in depth about America propping up and arming these terror groups. (which he rejected) I briefly mentioned Gadaffi having a pretty stable government, but he literally just laughed at that.

Other urls found in this thread:

jacobinmag.com/2017/01/syria-war-crisis-refugees-assad-dictatorship-arab-spring-intervention-russia/
twitter.com/SFWRedditGifs

I don't really know what else needs to be said besides this

Based Rafiq.

As far as you recognize that 'many' in this context means a number that is not comparable to the state in current secular western nations.

OP Here

The dude claims we should be isolationist, but that we just can't in this case. I never talked about Capitalism or anything, because I am "somewhat" trying to hide my powerlevel. (also because I'm kinda a pussy lol)

I should mention the context - I myself am a *closeted* atheist who still has to attend church every Sunday with my family. My family is a bit better - but there we're surrounded by a deeply conservative/reactionary crowd. Years ago I was too, but I've continually moved left over time. Throughout high school i was more of a liberal, & over the past year or so (senior year & now to freshman year) I've become an actual leftist. But yeh. At school I'm a bit more based - actually started up a leftist club at my University & got a few Maoists, a Bookchin-ite, an M-L, and some vanilla Socialists there. But yee,around church people I am a bit more sheepish sad to say.

Anyways the scary thing about this dude is he is pretty intellectual - reads a lot, & has a lot of sources/information - and yet this hideously idpol view still comes out. It's hard to really converse with people like this sometimes.

This

t. Raised shia muslim and still part of that community

True for sure, but also thinking about some places that used to be more secular or moderate, - such as Afghanistan - or had a stronger secular left. Ultimately we aren't supporters of any religion, as they are reactionary & idpol fueled, but that doesn't mean we should persecute fellow proles on that basis, nor should we allow the right to use them as a mass scapegoat for Capitalism.

there's a very particular naive view of Islamism that was rather popular amongst the western left during the Bush/war on terror era. For a while, western Leftists tended to portray jihadists as vaguely maoist grassroots revolutionaries fighting against 'imperialism', rather than as a major reactionary force drowning in gulf petrodollars. That was also the heyday of naive cultural relativism, a time where people could just tell you to 'go read Edward Said's Orientalism'. Fortunately, this attitude seems to have fallen somewhat out of favor, after the Syrian War and the establishment of Rojava, together with the emergence of a global internet that makes it harder to disregard the people on the ground for simplified black and white geopolitics based purely on theory. Some people in the left are still falling for the narrative, though, as this Jacobin magazine article shows. The fact is, the defenders of the 'syrian revolution' in the west have been trying to gloss over brutal sectarian nature of some of the syrian revolutionaries. In an ironic twist, it's now the neocons and the regime change shills who are most likely to tell you to read 'orientalism'.
jacobinmag.com/2017/01/syria-war-crisis-refugees-assad-dictatorship-arab-spring-intervention-russia/

1. The most sectarian and genocidal Islam is inseparable from US Imperialism.

2. Groups like Hezbollah are non-sectarian and hold up better against imperialism than 99% of western leftists.

Imperialism died 70 years ago.
Please use the correct term for what you`re describing(ie. neo-colonialism)