28.11.2002

Proud to march with muslims

In voting in favour of the motion put by Martin Thomas, I believe that Marcus Ström made a political mistake. Thankfully the motion was defeated by the votes of the other members of the SA executive. Marcus makes the accusation that in allowing anti-war demonstrations to be endorsed by the MAB, the left is displaying "inverted islamophobia", and goes on to argue that since the MAB is aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, and is therefore representative of the "right wing" of the muslim community, the MAB is "to the right of the Justice and Development Party that has just taken power in Turkey". Yet he conspicuously does not argue that the MAB is a fundamentalist or clerical-fascist organisation, which in my book is the real dividing line determining whether or not it is permissible to engage in any kind of joint mobilisation. Marcus appears not to be prepared to push his position to its logical conclusion, with his statement that, "There was no suggestion that future demonstrations of the Stop the War Coalition exclude the MAB". But surely, if the MAB is considered too reactionary to be an endorser of anti-war demonstrations, then its supporters are also too rightwing to attend an anti-war march? To say one without saying the other is self-contradictory and nonsensical. The MAB is not a fundamentalist or terrorist organisation. Indeed, it has made clear that, more forthrightly than some elements of the Socialist Alliance itself, it regards such actions as the September 11 suicide hijackings in the USA as "atrocities" and "criminal acts" which are to be "condemned", the works of "bands of fanatics". These clear statements signify to me that, despite the fact that there are elements around it who may not agree with these sentiments, the MAB is a non-fundamentalist muslim organisation that it is perfectly principled to make practical agreements with to mobilise against the Bush/Blair war drive. Its politics, to be sure, are pretty conservative and, as is laid down by the Quran itself, it seeks a society based on Quranic law. This is something, obviously, that socialists cannot countenance and seek to combat by means of the class struggle and the arguments of scientific socialism. But these are mainstream beliefs of the islamic religion itself - to regard those religious currents that seek such a society, even when those beliefs are to be fought for in an avowedly peaceful and legalistic way, as beyond the pale is effectively to write off all who adhere to what are fairly mainstream beliefs in one of the great world religions. The logic of the position put forward by Martin Thomas, and unfortunately voted for by Marcus, is that these religious beliefs alone, and not merely a programme that fights for them by terroristic/fascistic methods, should be grounds for exclusion of people from the anti-war movement. This to me seems to conflict with a Marxist view of religion as in part reflecting a distorted reaction to oppression, or, as Marx put it, "the heart of a heartless world". To say this is hardly "inverted islamophobia", but elementary tactics for working with large numbers of oppressed people who have a religious consciousness. It would be wrong, for instance, to fall into the error most classically typified by Zinoviev at the 1920 Baku Congress of the Peoples of the East and adopt the slogans of islamic 'radicalism' as our own, but it would be equally wrong to shun those with such consciousness and refuse to work with them for limited common objectives - like organising a mass anti-war demonstration. Comrades may well regret that there is not some ideal, secular ally we can find among the Arab/muslim diaspora communities in order to connect the Arab and muslim masses with the wider anti-war and working class movements. Unfortunately, I do not see any such organisation even trying and, if they are, succeeding in doing so. It may well be that such a progressive movement will emerge from the contact and dialogue of the muslim brothers and sisters that are coming into contact with socialist and revolutionary literature and ideas - perhaps in some cases for the first time, as a result of the united front between the socialist anti-war movement and the followers of the MAB. There is no guarantee of this, of course, but I believe it is a realistic possibility and something positive to hope and struggle for. However, in the context of the current massive repression of the Palestinians, and the overtly bigoted and anti-muslim statements of elements of the Bush administration at least, and given that my 'own' government, for all its 'anti-racist' credentials, is moving in tandem with Bush in this reactionary imperialist crusade, I am proud to have marched with many ordinary muslims, mobilised mainly by the MAB, against this reactionary obscenity. Ian Donovan