Oh comrades come rally
I know it’s old news that Seumas Milne is a buffoon – but all the same…
These are good times to be in the “moderate Muslim” business. If you press the right buttons on integration and “radicalisation” and hold your tongue on western foreign policy, there are rich pickings to be had…Latest in the ring is the “counter-extremism thinktank”, the Quilliam Foundation…The foundation – named after a 19th century British Muslim – is the creature of Husain and a couple of other one-time members of the radical, non-violent Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir. All three are straight out of the cold war defectors’ mould described in Saturday’s Guardian by the playwright David Edgar, trading heavily on their former associations and travelling rapidly in a conservative direction.
What is ‘western foreign policy’ when it’s at home? Does ‘the west’ have a unified and unanimous foreign policy? I don’t think so. Perhaps it’s just – western foreign policy, i.e. wicked because it’s western; wicked geographically and as it were ethnically. It belongs to ‘the west’ or to (as one might say) members of the western community, who are of course by definition enemies and oppressors of ‘the east’ (which is also called ‘the south,’ which confuses things slightly). In short, it’s a rhetorical phrase which is literal nonsense.
More interesting is Milne’s fond view of Hizb ut-Tahrir – the ‘radical, non-violent Islamist group.’ Radical is an ambiguous word, if only because people on the left usually use it to mean left-radical. But the real weasel word is ‘non-violent.’ Milne’s insinuation seems to be that Hizb ut-Tahrir doesn’t advocate terrorist violence as a means, therefore it is non-violent period. But that’s crap. You have only to read Hizb on itself to see that. What Hizb ut-Tahrir wants is a global society that is violent in the most up close way possible – a global society that coerces everyone in the smallest details of life by forcing them to obey stupid oppressive rules from the 7th century. If that’s non-violent, what would violent be like?
Hizb-ut-Tahrir is a political party whose ideology is Islam. Its objective is to resume the Islamic way of life by establishing an Islamic State that executes the systems of Islam and carries its call to the world. Hizb-ut-Tahrir has prepared a party culture that includes a host of Islamic rules about life’s matters…As for the resumption of the Islamic way of life, the reality of all the Islamic lands is currently a Kufr household, for Islam is no longer implemented over them; thus Hizb-ut-Tahrir adopted the transformation of this household into a household of Islam. With regard to determining whether a household is Islamic or not, this is not dependant on whether its inhabitants are Muslims or not, but rather in what is implemented in terms of rules and in whether the security of the household is in the hands of the Muslims, not the Kuffar…Hizb-ut-Tahrir is not a spiritual bloc, nor is it a moralistic or a scientific bloc, but rather a political bloc that works towards the management of the Ummah’s affairs as a whole according to Islam.
And so on and so on. Milne is an idiot if he genuinely thinks that is ‘non-violent.’ It seems to be common knowledge that Milne is indeed an idiot (useful or otherwise) – and he does a brilliant job of demonstrating that by equating people who ‘defect’ from Hizb-ut-Tahrir with cold war defectors and also by calling their direction ‘conservative.’ What the fuck does he think Hizb is – liberal? Progressive? Left? Can he seriously think that a party that wants everyone to live under a regime in which Islam dictates every single aspect of their lives, and calls everyone who doesn’t want that ‘Kuffar,’ not conservative? Can he seriously think that fleeing from that nightmare vision is to travel ‘in a conservative direction’?
In particular, they want to put Islamism – an extremely broad political trend that stretches from the Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development party to al-Qaida – beyond the political pale.
And Milne thinks that’s a bad thing. And he thinks (apparently) he’s a left-winger. It beggars belief.
Seamus Milne is a moron.
I was particularly amused by the way he says “Husain has […] defended the government’s decision to ban the leading Muslim cleric Sheikh Yusef al-Qaradawi from Britain because he had defended Palestinian suicide attacks. Whatever else that amounts to, it’s scarcely a voice of moderation.” As if it’s just obviously true.
It’s quite obvious that Seumas Milne is demented, but it’s a kind of dementia that is quite widespread nowadays. I have a sense that, Quilliam foundation or not, Islam is stil a dangerous force, intrinsically dangerous. Because what you quote from Hizb-ut-Tahrir is not radical stuff in terms of Islam. So in one sense Milne is quite right, and that’s what makes it so very frightening: that someone can take something like this and say that it’s not radical or violent, because, in relation to Islam it tends to be the norm.
Perhaps I’m wrong, and simply a bit hysterical about this. I’ve been told so (on the Philosophy Mag site, for one thing). But I think that there is something deeply threatening about Islam, and I’m not confident that the Quilliam foundation or any other organisation can take the threat away. In fact, to the extent that they do take the threat away, to that extent we are still threatened. Because the Qu’ran, like the Bible, does not change, and it’s awaits its next interpreter.
Sorry about the bad proofreading — stil (still) in the first para, and it’s (it) in the second.
Eric wrote:
>Because what you quote from Hizb-ut-Tahrir is not radical stuff in terms of Islam. So in one sense Milne is quite right, and that’s what makes it so very frightening: that someone can take something like this and say that it’s not radical or violent, because, in relation to Islam it tends to be the norm.< Sorry, I don’t understand how this makes Milne “quite right”. On what precisely is he right?
Ophelia:
>And he thinks (apparently) he’s a left-winger.< By most of the traditional notions he *is* a “left-winger” – support for state ownership, anti-capitalist, etc. (Culminating with the failure of command economies in the Soviet block, of course, many people who are left of centre have long ceased to embrace these criteria. I recall hearing on the BBC an ex-editor of Soviet-era Pravda saying that one of the great achievements of humankind was the free-market.) Milne belongs to a section of the Left for whom my enemy’s enemy is my friend (or, at least, not my real enemy). So virtually anyone who is opposed to the United States or the “West” (which includes Israel) either has his sympathy or his critical support. Thus he thinks it deplorable that Ed Husain has “compared Hamas to the BNP”, though the covenant of Hamas contains material (Article 22) that could be a paraphrase of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (and probably is!). http://tinyurl.com/4469h8
http://tinyurl.com/3rxodd
David Thompson reproduces the following imaginary classified ad, which sums up Milne rather nicely:
Puerile spokesman for defeated revolutionary movement seeks violent theocratic reactionaries for a long term relationship based on shared interests of killing westerners (commuters or office workers will do fine) and subjugating the global masses to the dictatorship of a monopoly doctrine (any doctrine will now do) and to generally obtain revenge against liberal market democracies for failing to collapse under the weight of their own contradictions as predicted by the delusional ‘revolutionary’ mass murderers of an early era.
http://davidthompson.typepad.com/davidthompson/2008/04/nutshell.html
What beggars belief is not Milne’s views, but that he has a regular long column in the Guardian, a liberal, progressive and in its day, very feminist newspaper. His pieces are the kind of partisan rantings you should find in a small circulation far left groupuscule newsheet. My belief is sitting there with a paper cup and calling for spare change when I find his face and by-line there yet again.
Allen, well, I suppose it depends on which traditional notions we have in mind. There is at least a left tradition in which universalism, human rights, equality, and feminism are absolutely central, along with secularism and perhaps a dash of anti-clericalism.
But to put it much more crudely, someone who can’t see what’s wrong with Hizb ut-Tahrir is not part of any left I want anything to do with.
>The current editor, who wrote the article noted above…< Are you still talking about Seamus Milne? He’s an associate editor, and previously comment editor.
I was genuinely astonished to read that “Seumas Milne is a Guardian…associate editor” and that “He was the Guardian’s comment editor from 2001-2007” after reading the article. I’ve read some of his stuff before, and it belongs where KB says it does. Particularly the stuff about Hizb and Hamas is totally bizarre, but the comment pages of the Guardian are nowhere near this odd the vast majority of the time, so I was kind of surprised he used to be comment editor.
Eric – Islam may be intrinsically dangerous. I’m inclined to think it is, only to the same extent that all religion is (i.e. support of faith as an epistemic strategy, false metaphysical and ethical assumptions which can lead people astray in unexpected and damaging ways). But religions are dangerous to a greater or lesser degree. Islam is no more intrinsically dangerous than Christianity (cf. people like Irshad Manji), and some Anglicanism and other such relatively moderate forms of Christianity, while worth fighting against, are better than others (e.g. Catholicism, the kind of evangelistic Protestantism you see in the US).
It is better to take a pragmatic view, and encourage people such as those at Quillam or the Sufi Muslim Council; simply because the alternative is not just worse, but a whole lot worse. I have a perhaps naive belief that Muslims, confronted with the benefits of liberal society, will tend to reform the more psychotic aspects of their religious belief if given a bit of encouragement, and this strikes me as one of the better strategies we have. I don’t know that you were arguing against this, but I thought it was worth saying anyway, because some people seem to have an attitude that Islam is beyond the pale in the way that others aren’t, and I think this can lead to some bad political decisions.
Milne is not a lunatic. He is a mendacious, one-sided, authoritarian, hypocrite who perfectly logically and sanely represents other mendacious, one-sided, authoritarian hypocrites.
“What is ‘western foreign policy’ when it’s at home? Does ‘the west’ have a unified and unanimous foreign policy? I don’t think so. ………. it’s a rhetorical phrase which is literal nonsense.”
This observation is absolutely spot on. It is also a criterion of accuracy which has useful applicability in a broader context.
‘Religion’, ‘Big Business’, ‘US sentiment’, ‘Scientific opinion’ are all widely used tags which falsely imply a non existent unanimity of opinion, purpose and method. Reality is, all refer to complex systems, subject to rapid change under the influence of powerful internal interactions.
We use tags of convenience at the risk of talking nonsense.
things rarely ehomogenity of
Ophelia’s logic in action.
HUT wish to establish a state.
All states resort to violence to impose their rules. (Try knocking off a policeman’s helmet and prove my point)
Therefore HUT are violent.
Only anarchists are non-violent.
Thanks Ophelia you must have to be very clever to call yourself a philosopher.
As Islam is not a coherent philosophy, a bit of a pick and mix religion, open to interpretation by any bully, perhaps we (the non-Islamic loving left) should talk about ‘actually existing Islamic societies’ and put them on the defensive. I see that earlier this week in Indonesia, a breakaway sect of Muslims called the Ahmaddaya (or something like that) was declared illegal. Let’s make Milne and creeps like that explain their support for such actions.
Religion is, as several point out, intrinsically dangerous, and as G. Tingey says, different religions are, at any given time, more dangerous than others. Today it is Islam.
While I agree with this to a certain degree, I think that Islam is particularly dangerous, Irshad Manji and others like her notwithstanding. There is sufficient evidence, within the foundational documents of Islam, that the intention of its founder and his followers was to extend the bounds of the religion by force. These texts are still considered sacred, and there is no way, within Islam, for regarding them in any other way. The Qu’ran itself is either the direct and unambiguous word of God or it is not.
And one is left in no doubt where unbelievers stand within the terms of the Qu’ran. Aside from one verse which says there shall be no compulsion in religion (a minor verse, and seldom invoked, I suggest) the Qu’ran’s view of the unbeliever is resolutely hostile. The imagined generosity of Muslim lands with respect to their non-Muslim members is sheer imagination, since they suffered throughout history (despite the romantic effusions of some scholars) from the most severe oppression. The position of women is even worse, as so much that Ophelia has referenced recently on Butterflies and Wheels has made very very clear.
It is time we took our hands out of our pockets and got to work. This is a dangerous force in the world today, and it is something which we need to make as clear as we can. If the left wants to bask in the reflected glory of Islam, let it do so. We will just have to find another term to describe political positions that are truly radical, humane and concerned for freedom and rights. ‘Left’ is an old word which, as Nick Cohen has already shown, has no reasonable life left.
Let’s forget terminology and get on with the fights that need to be fought. I can point to one of them, linked, one after the other, by Ophelia. Women, apostates, kuffar: we’re all at risk. Have we not yet seen the writing on the wall?
resistor,
I don’t call myself a philosopher. Ever.
But of course your version of my ‘logic in action’ is imbecilic. HUT wish to establish not ‘a state’ but ‘an Islamic State that executes the systems of Islam.’ If you want to live under ‘the systems of Islam,’ by all means emigrate to such a state (or do you live in one already? is it bliss?). I don’t want to live under ‘the systems of Islam,’ and I think other people who don’t want to should be helped to resist.
HUT wish to establish not ‘a state’ but ‘an Islamic State that executes the systems of Islam.’
Which is a state. that enforces rules you don’t like – just as ours enforces rules others don’t like. I support a ban on the veil – does that make me an advocate of violence?
I do not want to live under an Islamic state, but the chances of HUT establishing such a state anywhere in the non-Islamic world are infinitesimally small (and pretty thin in the Islamic world too).
As for violence, how wonderful it is for us to in the west to live in freedom while our governments slaughter Muslims by the hundreds of thousands. The truly imbecilic are those (like your hero Hitchens) who supported a war that will drive more and more Muslims into the Islamist camp.
But the likelihood of HUT establishing such a state is entirely irrelevant to the question of whether or not HUT advocates such a state.
Yes, that state would be a state that enforces rules that I don’t like; that is of course my point. The Nazi state was a state that enforced rules that I don’t like, too.
Our governments ‘slaughter Muslims by the hundreds of thousands’ – oh yes? Where is that exactly? And do you take it to be the goal of ‘our governments’? Do you think ‘our governments’ are trying to slaughter as many Muslims as they can? Just kind of in general and at random – any Muslims, all Muslims, kill them all – is that what you take our governments to be up to?
And how many fucking times to I have to tell you that Hitchens isn’t ‘my hero.’ I think he’s a very good writer and also a very good talker; that’s what I was saying in the email to Norm (which was an email, so it was replying to something Norm had said plus it was in corresponcence style – it wasn’t a magazine article or review, it wasn’t a public statement). He’s not my hero.
If you’re very lucky, though, I might make you my anti-hero.
To Eric MacDonald
“These texts are still considered sacred, and there is no way, within Islam, for regarding them in any other way. The Qu’ran itself is either the direct and unambiguous word of God or it is not.”
I think there is probably another way. People can (and have) ignored large chunks of the bible inconvenient to their worldview, despite scriptural evidence to the contrary. I don’t really care if someone’s religion is less coherent or less reliant on their holy book if it’s less dangerous. I think muslims may well want to reform their religion, or shift it in a more moderate direction, and I think that’s a good thing.
Resistor – I think you are being very uncharitable in your reading here. All states are violent technically speaking, but there are degrees of violence. The state Hizb would want to enforce is extremely violent (cf. execution, apostasy and women’s rights in particular). As for your “The truly imbecilic…” sentence, it’s an obvious false dichotomy. You can condemn both if you want. It’s also worth noting that criticising Hizb does not automatically constitute a defence of the recent wars, as you seem to think it does.
Just one point in reply to Thomas Greenan. It is true that the Bible has come to be regarded as an historical text. It is. And there is practically nothing in the Bible to rebut this. Some Christian fundamentalists point to an obscure text in the NT referring to the scriptures as being God-breathed. And indeed, a long tradition of looking at scripture as inspired by God (though the means of inspiration has been disputed) has characterised Christian attitudes to the Bible.
However, the Qu’ran is not like the Bible. However it may be analysed historically, according to its sources, many of them terribly mangled, it presents itself in itself as the very word of God, God’s final word, in fact. This is a hurdle that Muslims cannot get over without abandoning their faith, and Islam will keep returning to this point until the end of time. Even to suggest that the Qu’ran is not, as it claims to be, the very word of God himself, spoken in the language of God, is to endanger one’s life, if one is a Muslim living under Sharia law.
I know there are some reform movements in Islam. They have existed before. They are always small, very quiet, and largely ineffective. Unless and until they become very prominent and widely accepted, there is no room for accommodation with a religion which calls everything and everyone outside it the house of war — that is, those who must be brought into the house of peace by force.
I am not, myself, as you can gather, confident that the changes you postulate are very likely. I question their possibility.
This is aimed at Eric MacDonald – I’d like to apologise in advance if the language seems intemperate at any point – that wasn’t the intention.
“This is a hurdle that Muslims cannot get over without abandoning their faith, and Islam will keep returning to this point until the end of time.”
This is a hurdle that SOME Muslims doubtless cannot get over, but equally some can and have got over this hurdle. Some people are in the process of doing this right now. The Sufi tradition is more mystical and has been criticised by those who prefer a more conservative and legalistic interpretation of Islam (this has happened in Iran, although I should point out that I know very little on the subject). Whether reformists have the best or most obvious reading of the Qur’an is not of any interest to me.
The point you make about people living under Sharia is a good one. But I do think there is a danger that if (in western societies) the debate is presented as “Conservative Islam or nothing” then moderately minded Muslims will feel obligated to choose the former. There are a bunch of reasons why people would want to moderate their views, especially if they live in the west; first and foremost that they have opportunities to do a bunch of fun stuff that Islam (scripturally or culturally) seems to prohibit senselessly – e.g. alcohol and other drugs, sex, general freedom and equality for women and gays, etc. If you allow the possibility that they can have these things AND keep their religion (after reforming it) then you’ll not have trouble winning converts. Johann Hari talks about this a lot. I personally have a friend who is a non-alcohol drinking, relatively pious Muslim who is pretty much best friends with a gay man and a lesbian, and he’s had to reassess his religious values accordingly. I think it would be very unhelpful for us, as non-Muslims, to tell him (and others in his position) that accepting gays isn’t in the spirit of Islam, or that Islam is intrinsically violent and imperialistic. He gets enough of that kind of nonsense at home.
You might not think that liberal reforms of Islam are possible, but you would just flatly be wrong. They can and have happened (as you seem to accept). What is the question is whether they can happen on a large scale. I don’t know that they will, but I think supporting them in their embryonic forms will make it more likely.
Point taken Thomas. I guess my point is still that encouraging religious belief of any kind is probably the least helpful thing that we can do at this juncture in world history. Reform may be possible. Look at American Christianity. Fundamentalism had been sidelined for almost fifty years, and liberal Christianity seemed to be safely in charge, and then fundamentalism and evangelicalism came roaring back.
So we convince Muslims that reform is possible and that reformed Islam is good. So we get a reform movement going, and, then, suddenly, when they are all nicely ensconced in positions of power (look at the US again), Islam takes on its conservative colouring once again. And then, beware. It’s happening slowly but surely in Turkey. Just watch what happens there. I think it will be a bellwether for other experiments with Islam and secularism.
However, I do take your point, and probably my hardline stance is not the best one in the short term. I feel very divided about this.
Yeah, that’s certainly a worry. It’s a difficult issue.