What is understood by the movement against Islam hostility

Internet Statement 2005-18

What is understood by the movement against anti-Islam hostility?
-The enlightenment of Dimitri Tsalos

What is hidden behind the term "movement against anti-Islam hostility"? In the preparatory discussions around the Iraq solidarity conference there occurred considerable arguments over the question of Islam, which went to such length as substantial hostilities, formulated in a written way, against our representatives who only had dared to touch upon the problem of Islamism, and to place into the centre a support of democratic, secular, and communist organizations, and to ask for the character of the different forces of resistance. When our representative turned only against the formulation in protocol, "... against disinformation, against anti-Islamism ", this led to an instructing letter, in which Dimitri Tsalos elucidated to us how he estimates the political Islam and what is hidden behind the "movement against anti-Islam hostility".

In the current call to the Iraq conference one tries to convey the impression of a general conference about the resistance. Originally it was suggested that the movement against the war in Iraq and the occupation should understand itself also as a movement "against anti-Islam hostility". Professors and well-known journalists are speaking now, but the aspired movement is still specified further as "movement against war, racism and anti-Islam hostility".

On the second meeting for preparation, it was emphasized that the letter of Tsalos were an initiative of the author, but when some of his remarks were quoted by our representative in Berlin they did not find an objection with the substantial initiators. It can be considered as a proof to what is understood there by the movement against anti-Islam hostility.

The letter begins directly:

"But what is 'Islamism'? Is not that exactly the combat term of Bush, CNN, Bild, Beckstein, and Anti-Germans [1] ?
‘Reactionary Islamism ' - that is the extremely undifferentiating, euro-centric-culturalistic term which puts every Muslim in the world under general suspicion."

What should that euro-centric-culturalistic term be, that is accused here? It is already for a long time an elementary component of Marxism and every halfway realistic historical opinion, that the European society took a progressive role in the world over a long time by the development of capitalism, that it was a spearhead during the destruction of the old societies in the time of approximately 1400-1900. The development of a society, which in its womb carries in principle the overcoming of the exploiter society, contains an extremely revolutionary historical role, which certainly had and also has a set of negative sides, but in its essence must be seen as a pioneer role in human history. Also the earlier forms of colonialism up to the age of imperialism and the development of the international traffic routes were altogether a revolutionary achievement which - fortunately - also joggled heavily the reign of Islam. The source for this change lay in the structure of the classes of European society itself, as out of the end of the Great Migrations it had developed then and had been developing further since. Regarding such a background, what now is meant with the term “euro-centric-culturalistic"? It does not mean anything but the denunciation of exactly this historical process, it is agitation against progressivism as such, it is expression of reaction, which just like the Islamists would like to undo these historical results.

The term "Islamism" is a term against political-religious currents, and it does not put all Muslims under a general suspicion. Here Tsalos tries, by intending to represent the totality of Muslims as victims from the beginning, to distract from the nature of these currents. Tsalos says further:

"In mass-media propaganda it always ends up with the assertion: 'Muslims are anti-democratic per se.' This has to be called racist, and, in the long run, it serves the psychological war recruitment in Europe; to expose this, to fight this, is a central challenge.
A designation, which is much more exact than the wholesale-defamatory, manipulative term ’Islamism’, is the political Islam.“

The citizens of Islamic states are not anti-democratic per se, but we must reject a "political Islam". That is, in any case, a political-religious direction toward theocracy and the latter must be fought. We do not live in the 15th but in 21st century.

Tsalos continues saying:

“Due to the fall of the communist movement in the Islamic world for the impoverished masses often only remained the political Islam for the creation and defence of an own identity. This has happened and is happening under quite very progressive aspects.“

What does that mean? Why has the communist movement gone under in the Islamic world? In Pakistan in 1977 there was an Islamic-fundamentalist counter-revolution which was significantly incited by the USA, and was also reproduced in Afghanistan. These movements in Pakistan and Afghanistan fought the communist movements within these countries resolutely. In Afghanistan, one can say, the Islamic killer organizations took part in the extermination of the communists of however direction. To say, that the fall of the communist movement virtually just left the Islam for the masses, is sheer cynicism. Just as well people could have said under the Nazi regime: 'because the Nazi movement has broken temporarily the backbone of the KPD, the Nazi movement itself in its different facets becomes the only identity, to which we can tie to, and which we have to promote.' In fact, there have actually also been people, which represented such a thing. That is a mop of scoundrels; they must go, get fascist subjects out of the left movement! First Islam slaughters the communists, and then it is said afterwards: now the masses do not have anymore something to identify with, now we must support the Islamic movement. For those who advocate such a view, also only the rudimentary, there is in our opinion only one thing left: Get out!

Furthermore, it is ignored that Islamism also has a special relationship with the German reaction. In more recent time the national administrations of the Federal Republic tacitly supported Islamism because they saw in it a controlling instance to the Turkish population resident here. The entire so-called "multi-cultural-direction" covered the political Islam, with tolerance from relevant parties like the Social Democrats and even more so the Greens because they saw its reactionary role within our society. So out of all countries the conditions in the German Federal Republic helped the Islamic fundamentalism prosper magnificently. And now under the pretext of the alleged support of the Iraqi resistance the erupting criticism of Islamic fundamentalism should be abandoned? This is out of question.

Furthermore, a fundamental point to be mentioned is that the entire revaluation of Islam relies on the significance of the soil exploitation in the Middle East – above all oil and other mineral resources – which since the year 1974 due to the energy high-price strategy and the then following financial extortion politics in relation to countless states, experienced an corresponding support. Enormous extra profits moved not only into the oil monopolies, but also into the Middle East, and there they supported and produced the parasitic Islamic and quasi-feudal regimes, who also take part in the exploitation of the whole area from the Mediterranean to the Indian ocean and have become a centre of the international reaction, of the lackey-reaction of US imperialism, to put it more exactly. It is these oil billions, which launch the expansion of the Islamic fundamentalism into the neighbouring areas, last but not least into Europe, into the Caucasus area and also into central Asia. Yet we, according to the organizers of the so-called Iraq-conference, are not even allowed to use the term "Islamism", because it is this term which affronts that tendency.

By the way, it is the Gulf States, which are typical in this respect, which attract on a not-national basis the job seekers from the entire area of the Indian Ocean, exploiting them as temporary workers there, without any chance that they as wage-earners acquire any rights. This forms an important component of the world-wide migration. On the one hand, due to the extra profits they are capable of paying the migrants higher wages than in their homelands; on the other hand they promote the complete lack of rights. The Gulf States have a corrupting effect on the entire region. And they belong to the financiers of Islamism and fundamentalism all around the world.

Due to the oil funds, already in former times, the ground for this extermination of the communists and revolutionary democrats has developed. The social situation was most dangerous in Indonesia and in Iraq because that were the states which had oil, but which also had a strong working population, building a real nation. The massacre of the communist movement in Indonesia 1965-66, with more than one million victims, almost approximates the Nazi-fascist overthrow in terms of numbers. Summing up the totality of events at that time, we must assume not only a background role of the USA, but also a supporting role of the Soviet revisionist leadership at that time.

For the present spreading of the political Islam it must be denied decidedly that this took place “under quite very progressive aspects“. Hizbollah e.g. and Hamas are bribed organizations, which in the case of the Hamas were promoted massively by the Israeli Zionists, which have likewise a theocratic component, because the Israeli Zionists know that with such discredited movement eventually no international solidarity can develop and the Palestinians become isolated.

Stop it, that people, which stand behind elements slaughtering communists, want to kindle so-called progressive movements, in order to initiate further dirty machinations against the communist movement in the whole world.

“After the historical failure of the Left, the political Islam was and still is for million people the only possible answer to those ‘blessings’ of the west, which read there: Exploding pauperization, political suppression, cultural subjection, war.“

Islam is cultural submission, already therefore it cannot be any alternative. Islam is, even more, political oppression, therefore it cannot be any alternative. Islam also means war, therefore it cannot be any alternative. And the pauperization? Islam did not ever change a thing about it, on the contrary. The Islamic society model actually is also developed in such a way that to a small minority of traders and of the theocracy, the legal scholars, it provides advantages, while the large mass of the people lives in misery. As a “substitute” there is the "Zakat", the alms-support of the poverty-stricken. But the development of revolutionary classes is not permitted. That must be fought decidedly, that is intolerable.

The demagogy is continued in the paragraph:

„In reference to the Iraqi resistance, which completely undisputedly is carried also by Muslim forces, I would like for example to refer to Al-Sadr and ask you: Is Al-Sadr, only because he is a clerical and not a secular leader, automatically reactionary with his entire basis?“

That nobody claimed, for sure. Because someone is a cleric and not a secular leader, he has not to be a reactionary by all means, there have always been exceptions. Just then: which kind of politics does Al-Sadr make? Has he not reintroduced the Sharia? Is he not implementing the Fatwas? Is not the theocratic regime also located in his program? Or is he maybe pro secular democracy? The latter would be anyhow completely new for us. Perhaps Dimitri Tsalos can once clear up for us details of the program of Mr. Al-Sadr.

"The political and social demands, which I know of Al-Sadr anyhow, are not only acceptable, they are progressive. The future and stability of Al-Sadr may still be open, but at least so far I could not recognize reactionary moments."

One would have to see that particulars at once.

“Then there are surely figures such as Sarkawi. But is there really a Sarkawi? We should not run into traps, here.“

In fact, Sarkawi is such a bloody puppet figure or perhaps only a bugbear, which US imperialists developed in order to give their own rule pretexts for their crimes. It doesn’t dispose of once and for all that there actually is also a reactionary terrorism which in fact accompanies this "Jihad" ideology. If one observes the news on the development in Iraq, one must see that this kind of "resistance" infiltrated Iraq since the rule of the USA over Iraq in 2003.

What D. Tsalos basically disavowed, is the reactionary character of the theocratic fascist Islam, and that is what cannot be abided. In this way, the movement itself is led to the hangman. We may not permit that such a direction spreads its criminal theses unpunished in Germany and the European states, and adds to the reinforcement of the pestilence of this reaction on this continent.

“You continue to write, ‘that there has already been a very close co-operation especially between representatives of US imperialism and of Islamism for a very long time and still is.’ I do not see, where in the present epoch should exist an essential co-operation between US imperialism and ‘Islamism’. Not even those Wahhabi Muslims can imagine themselves to be safe from now on. That in the past, there was such a co-operation is granted.“

The million times mass murder, which the Islamic forces committed at the communist movement, is not granted. We also cannot overlook the beginning of these criminal movements, which co-operated with the worst reaction, that is, when in the years 1965-66, the largest butchery was operated in Indonesia. By the way, it is said with Tsalos: “That was the phase, when the USA instrumentalized parts of Islam in the fight against the Soviet Union.“ There he is mistaken. Especially the Soviet Union played a very doubtful role in relation to Indonesia and the persecution of the Indonesian communists, it was the time in which the Soviet Union offered its services to US imperialism, designed together with it "nuclear non-proliferation treaties ", and basically did not oppose the butchery. However, not the least of the reasons why the communist party of Indonesia was butchered was its ideological proximity to the CP of China.

Anyway, the representation is wrong that the anticommunist fascist character of political Islam was predominantly a consequence of the anticommunist strategy against the Soviet Union. It is rather based in Islam itself. Long time before there was a cold war global strategy, there already was fanatic Islam, which had written the extermination of communism on its banner.
And what concerns the today: what is with the Mullahs in Iran? We defend, by the way, the strivings for independence of the State of Iran, despite of the Mullah dictatorship, against US imperialism, this is natural for us. What happened during the take-over of the Mullahs in 1979? A revolution, the first signs of which were present in Iran, was led away to the Islamic dictatorship, and the forces from the worker cadres, which had carried the revolution in the core, were murdered by the Islamic fascists. Was that only part of the counter-revolutionary global strategy against the Soviet Union? The party, which at that time was close to the Soviet Union, the Tudeh-party, committed a catastrophic error when it even supported these Islamic forces. Thanking for it, it was slaughtered.

We cannot even think of it, that only rudiments of the same method and tactics, which led to the butchery of the communists, are now again publicised and promoted by the back door. Out with it!

“The cold war however is over and the USA now leads not only a military, but also a cultural, occidental campaign against the Arab-Persian world, against Muslims in Central Asia, on the Philippines and elsewhere.“

The USA does not by any means lead only a campaign against the Arab-Persian world, neither predominantly against the Muslims. This is a fiction. The USA leads a war which is directed factually against the entire population of the world, it competes with other imperialistic powers and arrogates like a loudmouth to exercise a dictatorship over the entire world. Do not we forget that by the so-called Neo-liberalism and by the capitalistic currents in the Soviet Union also millions of humans have died, in fact by the strategy of capitalism. And the largest military efforts, which the USA undertakes today, are directed against possible European rivals, still against Russia and even more against today's China, which possibly becomes a capitalistic competitor of the USA, not however against Islamic states, which basically only play a subordinate role as competitors. The martial tones against Islamic fundamentalism, which the USA strikes occasionally, serve them only as pretext, in order to arm against other peoples and to make clear the entire claim for dictatorship on the world. That actually must have become clear after all which became obvious about the relations of the Bush-clan with the Islamic world and in particular with such forces like the Bin-Laden-clan. All of that is wiped nicely under the carpet and it is acted as if the USA would seriously lead a war against the "Islamic Arab-Persian world", and thus this deceit picture of the USA is supported. Out with it!

"The anti-Islamic agitation reaches a historical peak in Europe."

That was still missing. True is that the Islam is used in order to support a reaction in the whole world, also and just and already for decades in Europe. Therefore, we also have to argue here with Islam, and, in addition, we also must strive for common ground with the population of Islamic origin in Europe, so that Islam is criticized, so that in this way, too, a democratic position can eventually be strengthened. Don’t we forget that the beginning of the Marxist movement among other things lay in the criticism of the religion, which is the modern prerequisite for the entire critical and conscious mankind.

A text of a Hülya Sekerci was added to the text of Mr. Tsalos, of an Islamic organization "for Human Dignity and Rights" which in its terminology already follows US imperialism, then an essay with the statement that anti-Islamism adhered exactly to the samples of Anti-Semitism, and the statement of Ulla Jelpke, who claims that Islam were the new ‘concept of the enemy’. In reality everything supports exactly the propaganda machinations of US imperialism itself. It is not about Islam, it is about the establishment of the radicalized dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, Islam thereby is functionalised.

For all these reasons, we cannot support such positions as represented by Dimitri Tsalos, in any way. On the contrary, unmasking is in. If a conference is made on this basis, it must be exposed also to the population. Don’t let anybody talk you into reactionary fascist Islam as a so-called progressive force!

Hartmut Dicke
10. March 2005

(Translation from the German original
April 6, 2005)

(April 14, 2005, Translation corrected - First translation canceled for some serious mistakes, which are in contradiction to the German original) )

____________________________________________________________________________________

Only for documentation, here follows the connected text of the quoted letter:

(date: 3 December 2004)

Dear comrade,

You write: "I am of the opinion that the Islamism is one extremely reactionary political trend." But what is “Islamism“? Is not that exactly the combat term of Bush, CNN, Bild, Beckstein, and Anti-Germans?

‘Reactionary Islamism ' - that is the extremely undifferentiating, euro-centric-culturalistic term which puts every Muslim in the world under general suspicion." In mass-media propaganda it always ends up with the assertion: "Muslims are anti-democratic per se." This has to be called racist, and, in the long run, it serves the psychological war recruitment in Europe; to expose this, to fight this, is a central challenge.

A designation, which is much more exact than the wholesale-defamatory, manipulative term "Islamism", is the political Islam. Due to the fall of the communist movement in the Islamic world for the impoverished masses often only remained the political Islam for the creation and defence of an own identity. This has happened and is happening under quite very progressive aspects. An example: In Lebanon the political Islam promotes education and professional activity of women in the context of one sex separation, and in addition it maintains own facilities.

After the historical failure of the Left, the political Islam was and still is for million people the only possible answer to those "blessings" of the west, which read there: Exploding pauperization, political suppression, cultural subjection, war.

In reference to the Iraqi resistance, which completely undisputedly is carried also by Muslim forces, I would like for example to defer to Al-Sadr and ask you: Is Al-Sadr, only because he is a clerical and not a secular leader, automatically reactionary with his entire basis? The political and social demands, which I know of Al-Sadr anyhow, are not only acceptable, they are progressive. The future and stability of Al-Sadr may still be open, but at least so far I could not recognize reactionary moments.

Then there are surely left figures such as Sarkawi. But is there really a Sarkawi? We should not run into traps, here.

You continue to write, "that there has already been a very close co-operation especially between representatives of US imperialism and of Islamism for a very long time and still is." I do not see, where in the present epoch should exist an essential co-operation between US imperialism and "Islamism". Not even those Wahhabi Muslims can imagine themselves to be safe from now on. That in the past, there was such a co-operation is granted. That was the phase, when the USA instrumentalized parts of Islam in the fight against the Soviet Union. The cold war however is over and the USA now leads not only a military, but also a cultural, occidental campaign against the Arab-Persian world, against Muslims in Central Asia, on the Philippines and elsewhere.

I am glad over the fact that with Dr. Ghayasuddin Siddiqui, whom I know personally, we have a promising referent, who in a respectable way exposes, why resistance against the "Islamism"-club nevertheless is a requirement of the hour.

The anti-Islamic agitation reaches a historical peak in Europe. Before it we may not close the eyes, most of all not at the conference.

Enclosed I give you three very informative texts, which argue on different ways with this topic.

With solidary greetings
Dimitri Tsalos

[1] “ Bild”: short for „Bild-Zeitung“: an extremely reactionary and vulgar German tabloid

“Beckstein”: the present Bavarian interior minister of the Christian-Social Union (CSU)

“Anti-Germans”: “Anti-Deutsche”, a present political current in Germany which is busy with propagandaa of US imperialism, especially of Bush and the war against Iraq, and of Israeli Zionism. Of fascist mentality against the German people.

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