Maajid Nawaz on the British and European Left's Preference for Authentic Muslims as Angry Victims

Support a Caliphate?
Photo by Rebecca Reid/AFP/Getty

Ex-Islamist Maajid Nawaz, writing for The Daily Beast, levels an accusation - in his article, "Discount: The British Left's Hypocritical Embrace of Islamism" (August 8, 2015) - namely, that the so-called 'progressive' Left is a hypocritical "regressive left":

The desire to impose religion over society is otherwise known as theocracy . . . . [and] in Europe it is . . . the left . . . who flirt with religious theocrats[, . . . f]or in the UK, our theocrats are . . . overwhelmingly Muslim . . . . Islamism is an ideology that seeks to impose . . . Islam over society. When expressed through violence, I call it jihadism . . . . [A]ny desire to impose any version of Islam over anyone anywhere, ever, is a fundamental violation of . . . basic civil liberties . . . . But for . . . Europe's regressive-left[,] . . . Islamist tyranny . . . [is] an authentic expression of Muslim rage at Western colonial hegemony . . . . For don't you know Muslims are angry? So angry, in fact, that they wish to enslave indigenous Yazidi women for sex, throw Syrian gays off tall buildings and burn people alive? . . . For Europe's regressive-left . . . Muslims are not expected to be civilized. And Muslim upstarts who dare to challenge this theocratic fascism are nothing but an inconvenience to . . . [a] populism that screams simplistically: It is all the West's fault . . . . British Muslims are being spoon-fed regressive-left sedatives, encouraging a perpetual state of victimhood in order to score their petty ideological points against "the West." In the name of cultural diversity, . . . self-segregation and ghettoization have thrived . . . . [T]he problem begins when journalists and others seek out "community representatives," or "credible Muslim voices" to fit into convenient boxes[, they look to the angriest, which] . . . . lead[s] logically to nothing but ISIS-style bloodshed and theocracy.

Such is the consequence of the Left's search for 'authentic' victims as representatives and spokesmen for Muslims. But why "hypocritical"? Because the Left claims to protect the weak, but sides with Islamists, who are strong and gaining in strength within the world of Islam. Nawaz implies that the Left is aware of what it is doing, else he wouldn't call the Left "hypocritical."

Is Nawaz right? Does the Left know what it's doing?

Tom Coyner's Insightful analysis of such ageing leftists as Kim Ki-jong . . .

Tom Coyner
Google Images

Tom Coyner, writing for the Korea JoongAng Daily, has penned an insightful column, "You can almost see them coming" (March 11, 2015), about the kind of man who attacked the US ambassador. I provide a summary composed of excerpts:

The recent knife attack on U.S. Ambassador Mark Lippert . . . [was by one of] many [Korean] lone wolves . . . created . . . [through] historical, social and political factors, [for the a]ssailant Kim Ki-jong was . . . a walking stereotype of his generation of leftist radicals. He comes from the oldest fringe of [those] . . . [who] spent their youth . . . successfully demonstrating for genuine democracy . . . [in] South Korea. But their success carried costs, . . . . [for] many . . . from this group were eventually granted university degrees . . . [without] really study[ing] . . . credible sources . . . . [T]heir ideology-weighted ad hoc studies can be attributed to . . . . political material [that] often consisted of circulated mimeographed papers of questionable origins and doubtful intellectual honesty . . . . [Because] classrooms under censorship were devoid of honest, structured discussion and debates, this generation often uncritically accepted anything . . . banned as . . . the truth . . . [I]n fact much of it was propaganda, some of it originating from [North Korea] . . . . [M]uch of the [anti-establishment, uncritical] thinking that plagues Korean public opinion . . . can be traced to . . . . [a substantial number of] this generation of demonstrators . . . [who were] initially unwilling and . . . [are] now unable to move out of the narrow constraints of being dedicated political activists . . . . [Individuals who] . . . take a high profile position and later reverse [themselves are few]. Asian societies are too tight-knit to allow people to do political U-turns . . . . [P]olitical activists . . . start out and . . . remain part of political groups where . . . recant[ing] one's perspective [is treasonous] . . . . [Recanting] damages the integrity of the in-group that has fostered and supported the activist . . . . [This intransigence of the] activist is reinforced by a society that doesn't forget and by a small circle that doesn't forgive . . . . [T]hese individuals . . . [thus] forge ahead, often in extreme directions, as part of their intellectual and political growth . . . . [and] take on some kind of idealistic martyr-like identity as they live in near poverty . . . . [M]ost of these proletarian activists come from rather bourgeois . . . families, . . . [but] after expending their inheritances and relatives' support, . . . [they must] establish some kind of political group that acts as a financial support mechanism for . . . their daily expenses. To attract followers and financial subscribers, ageing activists must develop a charismatic agenda . . . . [since] agendas for moderation and accommodation do not attract dues-paying members . . . . [In] late middle age, [these activists] . . . often reach a state of pathos. They . . . find that their circles of friends have shrunk largely to just some other old . . . diehards plus perhaps gullible young people who make up an unstable . . . group [of] followers . . . . [These] graying activists have largely alienated their families, [and] . . . are usually single, . . . without children . . . . [T]hey are truly alone and almost isolated outside of contrived political events.

Kim Ki-jong's slashing of Ambassador Lippert's face and left hand was just such a contrived political event. I have nothing to add to Coyner's persuasive analysis, but if you are interested in his suggestions on how to deal with this problem, you should click onto his article.

British Left Begins to See the Light . . .

Kurdish Defender Against Islamic State

Photo: Fabio Bucciarelli/Getty
The Spectator

The Left has been very conspicuously silent about Islamism for many years now, but some Leftists appear to be waking up to the danger, now that the Islamic State has made Islamism's genocidal, misogynistic, theocratic imperialism all but impossible to ignore. Still, one can't but be surprised to hear this critique from the Left.

Nick Cohen's headline in The Spectator says it all: "Solidarity for the Kurds from - er - the British left. This is is not a misprint" (November 1, 2014).

Cohen then quotes Gary Kent - of the Labour Friends of Iraq - who simply admits:

The Labour movement has been behind the curve in getting behind the Kurds and our grassroots plea for practical action now aims to galvanise solidarity to avert further genocide and horrific crimes against women by Isis.

The Labour Friends of Iraq then get down to nitty-gritty:

We, non-Kurdish members of the British Labour Party and Trade Unions, are calling for an urgent and significant increase in the support from Britain and other countries to the people defending the world against the onslaught of the so-called Islamic State (ISIS). The Kurds of Kobani, Rojava and the Kurdistan Region, including Yezidis, Christians and other minorities, are on the front line of a global battle against the vilest fascism of our age. We must help them, we must call on the world to help them, and this help must be given by whatever means necessary. The Labour movement is an internationalist movement which understands deeply the plight of those who suffer under tyranny. We must now stand united in our efforts to secure changes to current UK government policy in this conflict.

The images of grandmothers and grandfathers fighting, and often dying, alongside their younger families is something almost impossible for us in Britain to comprehend. The tales of beheadings, the abandoned dead bodies of women with their breasts cut off, men with their eyes gouged out, sex slavery, genocides and mass executions, and reports of the burning skin of possible acid attacks are too horrific for the British Left to give a half hearted response, or worse.

We in Britain are privileged to live in a peaceful, liberal, secular and democratic society, and we must never forgot that such a society had to be fought for, won and defended. It did not happen through some passive progressive evolution, but was won and preserved through progressive politics, through agitation, and most recently through war against Nazism. Now, a powerful horror is being unleashed into the world by ISIS, who believe they are carrying out divine work. They will not give up, they will not stop. They have to be taken on, and defeated, and this has to be done intellectually, spiritually, and practically. The Labour Party does not turn away from those in need. We help. And we must do so with great urgency now.

Maybe the British Left will also learn to look at the Islamists at home in Britain and realize that critics of radical Islam are not suffering from some illness called "Islamophobia." If the Left now is going to support the fight against Islamism abroad, they'll also need to take the fight to the homefront. Too often, the Muslim leaders they talk to and listen to are not genuine moderates, but Islamists posing as moderates. The Left needs to listen to what these 'moderates' say in their own languages, for they often turn out to immoderates . . .

Fermi Paradox: The Solution!

Mangan Reformed the Answer?

Enrico Fermi looked up into the night sky and asked, "Where is everybody?"

He had seen a paradox. No, not Canis Major and Canis Minor! Not a pair of dogs! A paradox! Roughly (not ruffly!):

Given the age of the universe, there ought to be an enormous number of far superior civilizations out there that have mastered the science of hyperdrive space travel and therefore should have the ability to contact us, so why haven't they?

Theorists have postulated a barrier they call "The Great Filter." This hypothesized barrier stops even all great civilizations dead in their tracks.

What could this barrier be?

My old friend Dennis Mangan has an answer, beginning with the current Ebola crisis, about which he asks:

Is Ebola our Great Filter? No, probably not. However many people die, it won't wipe out the earth.

But this whole episode [with its politicization of the disease] suggests another explanation of the identity of the Great Filter. It's leftism. All civilizations eventually become leftist, and after that they accomplish nothing, or even actively die off.

I think Dennis is onto something here. Leftists glorify 'victims,' and what greater victory for victimology than to fail the "Great Filter Test"? "The entire universe is set against us!" they can then complain! Complain to whom is another question, one that would seemingly presuppose some argument from design. Bad design, though, and a culpable designer. A form of Gnosticism with no way out . . .

But anyway, if the best can't pass through the Great Filter, why should we?

John Pepple on the Left and Islamists

John Pepple

John Pepple of the blog I Want a New Left has a theory on why the Left aligns itself with Islamism. Kevin Kim drew my attention to Pepple's theory:

What are your thoughts on John Pepple's theory of the relationship between the left and Islam?

I clicked and found that Pepple traces the Left's orientation toward Islamism back to Vietnam:

I suggest that the left-Muslim alliance was the result of leftist fears that they would have to admit they were wrong about Vietnam. Let me note that Vietnam represents a huge mental investment for baby-boomer leftists. It was the most important issue of their youth in the sense that it generated the biggest protests and probably caused the most leftist ink to be spilled during that period compared with other issues. In addition, as nothing about the situation changed as time went on, young liberals and leftists became more and more radicalized. Admitting to being wrong about Vietnam, then, is tantamount to admitting that one's life as a leftist has been a waste of time, and almost no one on the left will admit that (while remaining a leftist). Even today few on the left will admit that they were wrong on Vietnam, and at the time of the relevant year in question, which is in fact about 1980, Vietnam was still fresh in everyone’s mind. Baby-boomer leftists thought, "We were right about Vietnam, and the conservatives were wrong." From this they generalized to, "We are friends of the Third World, and they [i.e., the conservatives] are their enemies."

Pepple then explains that 1980 was important because the Shah of Iran was overthrown that year, and the Left generally supported those who opposed the Shah, mainly Muslim opponents, because these opponents were of the Third World, and the Left maintained its support even when the Islamists in Iran began killing Liberals and Leftists. There may be something to Pepple's theory, but I see a different way, as I explained in a reply to Kevin Kim:

First, I've never before heard of Pepple's views (unless I've forgotten).

Anyway, Vietnam may have played a big role in the American Left's tolerance for Islamists, but that wouldn't explain the Euro-Left's tolerance.

I think the tolerance of the Left is rooted in its support for Palestinians, even to the point of justifying Palestinian terrorism.

Support for Third-World movements and anti-colonial movements also played a role, but support for the Palestinians' resistance turned into support for Islamist attacks on authoritarian regimes.

Something like that, I reckon . . .

I probably should fill that out some, but I'm too busy teaching an intensive writing course to take the necessary time, so I'll just have to leave my hypothesis suggestive rather than persuasive . . .

Nick Cohen on Left Fascism

Nick Cohen
Google Images

In his review of Hans Kundnani's Utopia or Auschwitz: Germany's 1968 Generation and the Holocaust, Nick Cohen ("Meeting the Nazi parents -- my political book of 2013," The Spectator, December 31, 2013) offers some intriguing remarks on the German leftists of 1968:

On first reading, the West German left of 1968 should have been anti-fascist. But it was not so simple. Although Kundnani has some sympathy with students confronting a brutal police force and unpunished war criminals, he rightly sees their belief that fascism grew out of capitalism as dangerously idiotic. The ideology had two consequences. First it downplayed the responsibility of the German people for Nazism and ignored the specifically German features of the European fascist movement -- most notably anti-semitism and Auschwitz. Second, by seeing West Germany as a continuation of Hitler's Germany, and all capitalist states as potentially fascist, it authorised violence . . . . [Despite] the quasi-Marxist ideas of the Frankfurt group . . . . Theodor Adorno . . . . saw "left-wing fascism" in the student movement -- and was screamed down by juvenile revolutionaries for his prescience. So it proved at least with some. The German terrorist groups despised democracy, glorified murder and targeted Jews -- just like their parents. (Although this time around they said they were fighting the "imperialist Zionist conspiracy" rather than the Jewish Bolshevik conspiracy.) Meanwhile Andreas Baader led a genuine cult of the personality. In true Hitlerian fashion, he persuaded his gang to commit suicide in their prison bunkers rather than submit.

Cohen's words on the terrorism of the sixty-eighters help illuminate the sympathy that too much of the current-day left seem to have for Islamists and the terrorism that the Islamists inspire. Mervyn Bendle would likely find Cohen's column (and Kundnani's book) worth reading.

As for Cohen, he has been labeled an "Islamophobe" . . .

Taking Exception to American Exceptionalism?

Walter McDougall
Familiar Photo

FPRI Notes

My old, paleoconservative history professor from UC Berkeley has posted an informative e-note on the origin of the familiar but puzzling concept "American Exceptionalism":

What does it mean to say the United States is exceptional? If it just means unique, then the claim is unexceptional because no two countries are exactly alike. If it just means that Americans have believed their country is special, then (as a British skeptic writes) there is "nothing exceptional about this exceptionalism. All great nations cherish national myths." If it means that the U.S.A. was exceptionally virtuous given its precocious dedication to civil and religious liberty, equality, justice, prosperity, social mobility, and peace and harmony with all nations, then ipso facto the U.S.A. is exceptionally vicious for falling so short of those ideals. If the term means rather that Americans are somehow exempted from the laws of entropy governing other nations -- that (as Bismarck reportedly quipped) "God has a special providence for fools, drunks, and the United States of America" -- then such exceptionalism can only be proven sub specie aeternitatis. Indeed, the very illusion that a nation is under divine dispensation may perversely inspire the pride that goeth before a fall ("thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God") or the many bad ends to which reckless adolescents are prone. Finally, if American Exceptionalism means that its power, values, and "indispensable" status render the United States exempt from the rules of behavior it makes and enforces on other nations, then enemies, neutrals, and allies alike are sure to push back.

One might get the impression that McDougall is skeptical of "American Exceptionalism." If so, one would be right!

For these reasons "exceptionalism" is more trouble and probably even more danger than it's worth: it either means nothing at all or altogether too much. But the principal reason to banish the term from historical discourse is that the icky, polysyllabic, Latinate moniker did not even exist until the mid-20th century! No Puritan colonist, no founding Patriot, no Civil War statesman, no 19th century poet, pastor, or propagandist employed the word. To be sure, most of them believed the United States to be an historic undertaking, even a "new order for the ages." But far from believing their nation to be an exception to the rules of nature governing other men and nations, they both hoped their example would transform the whole world and feared that a lack of republican virtue would doom their experiment. In neither case would Americans stand apart from the rest of the human race.

So . . . who coined this troubling, troublesome, risky expression? Not quite this guy:

Not until 1835 did a foreigner, Alexis de Tocqueville, catalogue the features of New World democracy and conclude: "The position of the Americans is therefore quite exceptional, and it may be believed that no democratic people will ever be placed in a similar one." Note, however, that he applied the term to Americans' position rather than to the people themselves, and argued that American institutions and values were the very opposite of universal. In any event, his adjectival usage had no echo and inspired no noun -- no "ism" -- among Americans themselves. Exceptionalism as some sort of birthright is an anachronism!

One might argue that this exceptional position places Americans themselves in an exceptional role -- and thus of course the opposite of universal -- but never mind. Yet if not Tocqueville, who then applied it to the American people? Not this guy either:

Flash forward to 1906 when another foreigner, German sociologist Werner Sombart, asked why the United States seemed unique among industrial, urban societies in that its working classes showed no interest in the ideology or politics of Socialism. He identified many reasons why American workers seemed content with capitalism, but nowhere did Sombart employ any word that could be fairly translated as exceptionalism. He referred instead to the "idiosyncrasies of the spiritual culture" (Eigenart der geistigen Kultur) or "American popular soul" (die Eigenarten der amerikanische Volksseele). But what was the source of this spirit? Must one hypothesize that it just dropped from the heavens "on the chosen people" (auf das ausserwählte Volk)? Not at all, he insisted, because the same entrepreneurial spirit could be found in London or Berlin. It was just purer and far more pervasive in the United States thanks to such factors as the Protestant ethic, democratic consensus, two-party system, high standard of living, social mobility, and safety-valve of an open frontier. For Sombart Americans occupied an extreme on the sociological spectrum, but were not exceptional, not "off the charts."

Idiosyncratic, extreme . . . but not exceptional. Where, then, did the expression come from?

The real origins of the notion of an exceptional United States lurk in the recondite disputations of the two greatest transnational movements in the early twentieth century: the Catholic Church and the Communist International. Both had reason to fear that Americans might be immune to their presumptively universal appeals.

Good Lord! Or not:

Ever since 1784, when Bishop John Carroll set up the first Catholic diocese in the United States, the Vatican displayed confusion about how to grow a doctrinal, hierarchical church in a mostly Protestant land that enjoyed religious freedom and material plenty. A century later European prelates grew alarmed by reports from American bishops about the erosion of doctrine and obedience among Catholic immigrants and their children. (European rabbis were equally alarmed about Jewish immigrants.) In 1899 Pope Leo XIII issued an encyclical, Testem Benevolentiae Nostrae, that condemned a heresy called Americanism, a name to which "there is no reason to take exception." The encyclical attributed this Americanism to the nation's revolutionary origins, individualism, Anglo-Saxon culture, liberalism, egalitarianism, and separation of Church and State, all of which tempted American Catholics to stray from the straight and narrow path.

That's it? Seems rather too little to attribute the concept of "American Exceptionalism" to Catholicism. This Communist debate, however, seems much more likely as the source:

Finally, in the 1920s, the American Communist Party leader Jay Lovestone rendered a diagnosis of American society that echoed those of Sombart and the Vatican. His purpose was to explain why his comrades' agitation and propaganda had achieved so little by way of organizing the factory workers of Pittsburgh or Detroit. The reason was, argued Lovestone, that capitalism in the United States was exceptionally productive and stable, which made it hard to "raise their consciousness," which meant the proletarian revolution would take much longer than elsewhere to develop. The report engendered discreet discussion, mostly in Russian journals, until Soviet dictator Josef Stalin anathematized the theory as a form of deviationism. Then Wall Street crashed and the American Communist Party coined the term, in . . . April 1930, in the form of an obituary. "The storm of the economic crisis in the United States," it proclaimed, "blew down the house of cards of American exceptionalism."

Hmmm . . . so there it is, a Communist coinage of the expression "American Exceptionalism." How ironic. I gather that in McDougall's view, "American Exceptionalism" was stillborn as a concept. But if so, how did this miscarriage of suchness come to be adopted by the mainstream?

Read the entire article to find out.

Roger Cohen on Islam for the 21st-Century

Muslim and Mosque
'The State of Things'
Jewel Samad
Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
New York Times

The violent and threatening Muslim reaction to this stupid film The Innocence of Muslims is forcing the hand of several prominent columnists, both liberals and conservatives, and writing in "A 21st-Century Islam" (NYT, September 21, 2012), Roger Cohen's turn has now come:

The Muslim world cannot have it both ways. It cannot place Islam at the center of political life -- and in extreme cases political violence -- while at the same time declaring that the religion is off-limits to contestation and ridicule.

An excellent point. Politics proceeds by debate, so if Islamists and other pious Muslims want to engage in the political process, they'll have to grow tougher skin elsewhere than the middle of their forehead! Or as Cohen puts it:

Politics is a rough-and-tumble game. If the emergent Islamic parties of nations in transition -- like the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Ennahda in Tunisia -- are to honor the terms of democratic governance they will have to concede that they have no monopoly on truth, that the prescriptions of Islam are malleable and debatable, and that significant currents in their societies have different convictions and even faiths.

They have no choice, for the Islamist alternative is unworkable:

The world has tried Islamic republics. It found them oxymoronic. As Iran illustrates, they don't work: Republican institutions, shaped by the wishes of men and women, fall victim to the Islamic superstructure, supposedly shaped by God.

That Islamic superstructure, of course, is the fundamental, ultimate aim of Islamists, and the West must deal prudently, in full awareness of this goal, with such Islamists:

But the West will not do so by compromising its own values. The porn-grade American movie that started the unrest was pitiful. The murderous violence that followed from Cairo to Benghazi was criminal. Charlie Hebdo, the French satirical newspaper, then had a strong editorial case for mocking the religious fundamentalism that produced the killing; it chose to do so through caricatures of Muhammad.

Gérard Biard, the editor in chief of Charlie Hebdo, put the case well: "We're a newspaper that respects French law. Now, if there's a law that is different in Kabul or Riyadh, we're not going to bother ourselves with respecting it." Alluding to all the violence, Biard asked: "Are we supposed to not do that news?"

He is right. There are too many hypocrisies in Islam -- deploring attacks on it while often casting scorn on Judaism and Christianity, claiming the mantle of peace while inspiring violence -- for it to expect to be spared the cartoonist's arrows.

As I was telling my wife last evening, the film is so stupefyingly stupid, I couldn't even endure watching the trailer on YouTube -- I had to exit that virtual cinema after only a minute and a half! Nonetheless, violent Muslim reaction to the clip has had the beneficial result of goading many, from the political spectrum's rebel-red left to its true-blue right, into affirming explicit support for freedom of expression, probably because the film is so monumentally stupid, no Westerner would possibly imagine that anyone could be legitimately offended.

No true Westerner, anyway . . .

Shin Young-Bok's Memories . . .

Memories of Chung-Gu Hoe

Shin Young-Bok

Yes 24

From time to time, my wife obtains a Korean book that I can read because it's also in English, and a recent case is a brief memoir by Shin Young-Bok (신영복), Memories of Chung-Gu Hoe, translated by Cho Byung-Eun in 2008 and relating the story of a young professor's friendship with a group of penurious boys encountered on a hike with some university students to Seo-O-Reung Tomb in 1966:

They were aged about 10 or so, and were dressed in clothing that blended into the rustic landscape and the country road that had two deep lines from traces of cart-wheel tracks.

One of the boys had a middle school cap without a school badge, and another wore a white sports cap, I remember. The white sports cap was ragged by many washings, the paper in the visor was clustered in a few places and the shape of the visor was far from being the original round shape, drooping over the boy's forehead. Furthermore, stained with mud, it was hardly even white.

What caught my eyes most was the boy's woolen sweater. The sweater seemed to be knit with recycled thread from old sweaters. The colors were in disarray, with different colors for the body and the arms, and the arms of the sweater were again divided into two parts with different thread from the elbow down. The kid in that sweater wore somewhat [sic., something that] looked like a cap on the head, though.

I remember I felt sorry for these shabbily dressed kids, which reminded me of the desolation of the 'spring poverty,' the hardest period for farmers in early spring after all the food from the previous year's harvest had dried up. They looked back at us as if they did not have stories to be deeply engaged in. (Shin Young-Bok, Memories of Chung-Gu Hoe, pages 8-10; cf. this site for a related translation, though both translations could use some editing.)

Shin decides to speak with them, and they become friendly enough to set up regular meetings once a month. After two years of these meetings, Shin determines to help them in their education, somehow, but his intentions are thwarted by his arrest on suspicion of belonging to a political group intent on overthrowing the government of South Korea. His meetings with the children were thus considered politically dangerous by the police. Undoubtedly, Shin was on the left, as an interview in the Hankyoreh makes clear, even a Marxist, as a JoongAng Daily article reveals (though the term "ontology" as used in this article is decidedly odd!). Given the time's poverty and dictatorship, such politics were understandable. Moreover, his sentence of 20 years seems out of proportion to anything that he had done, and the Hankyoreh article states that "he never became a member of Tonghyukdang, the Unification Revolution Party, though the prosecution charged him with this." I am no expert on Shin's life and thoughts, of course, but I find his politics today less congenial than I would have when I was a young man from a poor family. Even today, I can still identify with those penurious young boys whom Shin befriended, which is perhaps why I find Memories of Chung-Gu Hoe so touching.

Three years after Shin's release from prison, one of the former members of his group sought him out, but the man had lost contact with the others and eventually again lost contact with Shin, much to Shin's regret. There is always something to regret in life, if one looks back in judgment, and on those dark sleepless hours of the night, when -- as my high school math teacher Jim Scott once expressed it -- "We have to justify ourselves to God," we even regret the things over which we've had little control, for the small possibility that we might have done better if we'd only tried a bit harder . . .

Noteworthy 'Progress' in Korean Leftist Politics . . .

Oxymoronic 'United Progressive' Party Brawl

Korea Herald

As the above photo suggests, the United Progressive Party (UPP) may be a party, but it's hardly united or progressive, though -- as journalist Lee Hoo-Jee reports -- this so-called "Progressive party [is] on [the] verge of collapse" (Korea Herald, May 13, 2012), so there's at least some movement. Let's look a bit more closely at what's taking place -- and be aware that the reporter is using "mainstream" where "majority" would be more appropriate:

The UPP's mainstream party members clashed violently with the non-mainstream members at the central committee meeting convened to discuss the replacement of the current leadership with an interim emergency committee.

The mainstream members, also known as the "National Liberation" group, have refused to accept the party's internal investigation that ruled there were widespread irregularities during the voting of candidates for the party's proportional parliamentary seats. One of the winners of the proportional seat on the UPP ticket is Lee Seok-gi, who is considered one of the key NL factionists.

"They have now shown the public clearly that they will attempt to protect their status at all cost," said Yoon Pyung-joong, a politics professor at Hanshin University.

"It is a great shame as it was indeed an epochal development in Korean politics when the UPP came out the third largest parliamentary bloc (in the general elections), enabling aligned moves by various progressive forces in the future, which also reflected the spirit of the times."

That analysis comes from my old friend Professor Yoon Pyung-joong, whom I got to know during my three years at Hanshin University and who was one of the Leftist protesters against the rightwing dictatorship in Korea during the 1970s and 1980s but who has moved to the center over the past 15 years or so. His point is that the National Liberation faction of the UPP has thrown away the far Left's opportunity for political participation by demonstrating that it will turn to violence even against fellow Leftists to force its way. At issue is a vote-rigging scandal among Leftists that has already caused great dissatisfaction in Korea. I'm guessing that the NL's violent response to the findings of the UPP's own investigation implies that the NL itself is culpable for a lot of the vote-rigging.

Indeed, if reporter Kim Hee-jin is correct -- "UPP's internal meltdown was a long time coming" (Korea JoongAng Daily, May 14, 2012) -- the NL is hardly a democratic faction, but rather a group willing to play dirty for political power:

[B]ehind the vote-rigging debate is a significant ideological gap between the UPP members.

They were mostly former socialist student activists during the democratization movement in the 1970s and 1980s, but split into two groups: the so-called National Liberalization (NL) group, which followed North Korea's juche (self-reliance) ideology, and the Marxist-Leninist group called the People's Democracy (PD).

The party's largest faction is made up of former members of the Gyeonggi Dongbu Alliance, a regional chapter of NL members based in eastern Gyeonggi. Lawmaker-elect Lee Seok-gi is reportedly the leader of the alliance.

Although the two groups fought against the dictatorial administrations in the 1970s and 1980s and have some common policies such as advocating for minorities and labor activists, the PD members still haven't agreed on the largest faction's fringe, far-left socialism and reunification ideology that would have Pyongyang absorb the South.

The three co-chairmen of the UPP are also divided: co-chairwoman Lee Jung-hee is with the NL and Rhyu and Sim the PD.

"The NL members are biased toward pro-North ideology and it doesn't fit with today's democracy," said Shin Yul, a politics professor at Myongji University. "But the PD group is relatively rational, following European socialism, and they are critical of North Korean economics and politics."

Gyeonggi Governor Kim Moon-soo told reporters on May 5 that he is aware of the political ideology of the so-called NL members.

"I spent a year with the NL members in prison, so I know them very well through conversation," Kim said. "They think those who don't follow the [North Korean] leader are traitors. They also think they could do whatever the 'dear leader' said and not feel guilty."

The upshot is that whereas the People's Democracy group is a Marxist-Leninist faction that has evolved into something of a reformist party in a development that perhaps reflects (albeit more rapidly) the history of the European Social Democrats, the National Liberalization (NL) group is a hardcore Leftist faction that has failed to develop, toes the North Korean line, and makes no commitment to liberal democracy, but is instead fuly prepared to use violence to protect its political advantage gained in the recent elections, an advantage that looks to me to have been gained through vote-rigging by the NL itself, given its rejection of the UPP's own investigation. If the NL is willing to attack and brutally beat fellow Leftists, imagine how they'd treat their ideological opponents on the right!

Click on all three articles to read more -- that includes the link below the photograph -- and if anyone knows more about this NL group, let us know whether the initials stand for "National Liberation" or "National Liberalization."

Paul Berman on Globalizing "The Thought Police"

Blasphemy
The New Republic

Paul Berman, who has previously investigated Islamist ties to fascist thought and totalitarian movements, has a new essay published on Islamism, "The Thought Police" (The New Republic, March 14, 2012), in which he reviews the book Silenced: How Apostasy and Blasphemy Codes Are Choking Freedom Worldwide, by Paul Marshall and Nina Shea. For the most part, he praises their book and agrees with their analysis that Islamism is winning in the Muslim world -- and also in the non-Muslim world. But for what reason is Islamism winning?

[The reason] is systematic intimidation. The radicals, who are perfectly happy to argue in a conventional manner, are equally happy, should argument fail, to enforce through violence.

They use extreme violence, or at least its threat, to enforce silence not only in Muslim lands, but globally. Berman summarizes the past couple of decades, in which this global force has revealed itself:

The more expansive rethinking [of Islamists in their attempt to impose aspects of sharia on non-Muslims globally] emerged only in the course of the Rushdie affair in 1988–1989, when Ayatollah Khomeini and other leaders judged that corporal retribution for the satanic act of writing and publishing The Satanic Verses should be meted out even to Rushdie's publishing houses, translators, and booksellers in all parts of the world, unto California, which experienced an arson, and Japan, which saw a murder. The Age of the Rushdie Affair, having gotten under way, has not yet come to an end. Marshall and Shea summarize some of its continuing manifestations: the murder of Theo van Gogh, the Dutch filmmaker, on an Amsterdam street in 2004; the response to a dozen Danish cartoons in 2005 lampooning Islamic terrorism, which generated mass demonstrations, riots, and arson attacks and, all in all, 241 deaths around the world; the repeated attempts to murder the Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard, who drew the most pointed and memorable of the cartoons (the one depicting Muhammad with a bomb tucked into his turban), with would-be assassins arrested as far away as Chicago; the response to Benedict XVI's lecture at Regensburg, Germany, in 2006, which led to the murder of Christians in Iraq and Somalia and to bombings and shootings aimed at Christian centers in Gaza and the Palestinian West Bank.

Berman continues in this vein for several more paragraphs and concludes: "There are far too many of these incidents and unhappy life-stories to dismiss the lot of them as a marginal phenomenon." He then speaks of his pessimism about the Arab Spring, and readers of this blog will know that I share his pessimism, but he expresses it far better than I, so read his article.

On one point of his argument, however, I have some doubts. Relying upon Paul Marshall and Nina Shea, Berman appears to think that Islam's political dimension can be excised from its religious dimension. He cites three liberal Muslim scholars, the late, former president of Indonesia Abdurrahman Wahid, the late Egyptian scholar of literature Nasr Hamid Abu-Zayd, and the Maldivean professor in exile Abdullah Saeed, all three of whom argue that the current Islamist political movements are incompatible with various humanist traditions going back to Islam's medieval Golden Age. There's undoubtedly something to this argument, for there was a Golden Age, though I suspect that its golden shine was gild more than gold and its achievements due less to Islam itself and more due to an incomplete process of Islamization.

Why are the Islamists winning the argument among Muslims despite some 'humanist' traditions? Perhaps because their own traditions are deeper? Perhaps because they can point to an origin in which their religious founder and model for conduct was a man who combined the roles of prophet, general, and king? Perhaps because Islam has an affinity for totalitarian systems and for that reason flirted with the early twentieth-century fascism and now flirts with a left also restrictive of free speech? These are questions that have to be taken seriously even if Islam does have a few more enlightened traditions.

The Trouble with Europe, the Future of Korea?

Rachel Donadio

Photo by Jacqueline Mia Foster
New York Times

Well . . . the trouble with Italy, anyway (and Korea's future?). Rachel Donadio, in "Stuck in Recession, Italy Takes on Labor Laws That Divide the Generations" (NYT, March 19, 2012), describes a problem that plagues Italy (and likely other European countries), a welfare state that advantages the old, disadvantages the young, stifles the economy, and is no longer paying for itself:

[A] generational divide . . . is crippling the Italian labor market. While older workers came of age with guaranteed jobs and ironclad contracts granting generous pensions and full benefits, younger Italians . . . are now paying the price. They are lucky to find temporary work, which offers few benefits or stability . . . . [U]nions, business groups and countless governments have invested in the status quo to protect their constituents, at the expense of economic growth. Without . . . changes, . . . Italy is headed toward an economic and social implosion, with a rise in under-the-table work and a looming pension crunch . . . . Italy's employment rate and productivity have been stunted by high labor costs . . . [. L]owering the cost of firing workers and increasing protections for shorter-term contracts would encourage companies to hire, stimulating growth . . . . "We have to get away from a dual labor market where some are overly protected, while others totally lack protection and benefits when unemployed," the prime minister [Mario Monti] said shortly after taking office . . . . [adding] that "equity and growth" would be the watchwords . . . and that he aimed to increase employment . . . . The most delicate topic . . . is the infamous Article 18 of the Italian labor statute of the 1970s . . . . It states that workers cannot be fired without just cause and, if fired, can sue their companies to be reinstated . . . [and] generally win . . . . While such cases are pending in the . . . slow legal system, companies . . . [must] keep fired workers on the payroll . . . at the expense of a company's solvency.

Italy -- and Europe -- has to solve this very pressing problem, and the solution will mean fewer benefits for those whom the welfare state has long protected. The irony for me is that just as Europe's welfare system is falling apart in some countries, South Korea's government is beginning to move toward a welfare system without seeming to give this enormous change much thought. For instance, Seoul's current Leftist mayor, Park Won-soon (of the Democratic United Party), pushed for free meals provided to all elementary school students in Seoul -- all of them! -- because the mayor and others on the Left didn't want only impoverished students to receive free meals, for that would 'shame' them in the eyes of their peers. One sees where this sort of 'thinking' would logically lead: welfare for everybody so that nobody is ashamed to be on the dole! The Korean Left's ideological sentimentality overrides reason.

And Korea's government spending is already increasing so precipitously that Lee Eun-joo, in "Piling debt could haunt economic growth" (JoongAng Daily, March 20, 2012), notes the money spent on public works, public housing, and the like, and adds up the cost:

According to data compiled by the Ministry of Strategy and Finance and the Bank of Korea, Korea's public sector's debt, including debt held by central and provisional governments as well as state-run companies, reached 789.4 trillion won ($703 billion) as of the end of the third quarter last year, up 9.2 percent from the previous year. This is double the government's budget of 325.4 trillion won for 2012.

In the same issue of the JoongAng Daily, Yu Jung-jae editorializes about "The real consequences of welfare," noting that both Left and Right share blame for thoughtless welfare policies. Why would the Korean Right join in? Yu reminds us that much social welfare legislation began in Germany under the right-wing Bismarck as a means of exerting control over society since a state that offered pensions held more power over its citizens. That perhaps was true of a Prussian-inspired authoritarian state like Germany's in the late 19th century, but in a democratic state, the political parties support social welfare because it's popular and gets politicians votes, and that dynamic goes on year after year until the entire system begins to implode, as in Greece or Italy, as well as other European countries.

The good news is that some Koreans see the looming problems, and I hope that their more sensible warnings receive a hearing. Korea has a strong economy and a population with a work ethic. I'd hate to see that ruined by thoughtless welfare policies that only serve to land Korea in European-style problems.

Not that I would oppose a reasonable social welfare program for those in need, but the definition of 'neediness' seems rather elastic . . .

Sam Harris on Islam(ism?)

Sam Harris

My friend Kevin Kim recently quoted some provocative passages from the philosopher Sam Harris on "Islam and the Future of Liberalism," so I visited Mr. Harris's site and read the entire post, from which I draw the following bold words on Muslim 'extremism':

[W]e know that intolerance within the Muslim world extends far beyond the membership of "extremist" groups. Recent events in Afghanistan demonstrate, yet again, that ordinary Afghans grow far more incensed when a copy of the Qur'an gets defaced than when their own children are accidentally killed by our bombs -- or intentionally murdered. I doubt there is a more ominous skewing of priorities to be found in this world . . . . There must be at least 300 million Muslims spread over a hundred countries who think that a person should be put to death for [drawing cartoons of the Muslim prophet Muhammad] . . . . This is based on every poll assessing Muslim opinion I have seen over the past ten years . . . . Should Ayaan Hirsi Ali be killed for her apostasy [from Islam]? Millions of Muslim women would applaud her murder (to say nothing of Muslim men) . . . . There are . . . many nefarious people, [apologists] in both Europe and the U.S., who are eager to keep well-intentioned liberals confused . . . , equating any criticism of Islam with racism or "Islamophobia." The fact that . . . [there are] critics of Islam [who are Islamophobic] . . . does not make these apologists [for Islam] any less cynical or sinister . . . . In every case it is essential to ask, "What would these people [defended by apologists] do if they had the power to do anything they wanted?"

To help answer that question, Mr. Harris cites a statement in Article 8 in the Charter of Hamas, the democratically elected Islamist party that governs Gaza:

"Allah is its target [i.e., goal], the Prophet [i.e., Mohammad] is its model, the Koran its constitution: Jihad is its path and death for the sake of Allah [i.e., martyrdom] is the loftiest of its wishes."

In case this isn't enough to establish Hamas as "a death cult of aspiring martyrs," Mr. Harris then quotes from the same Hamas Charter a well-known hadith -- a tradition about Muhammad -- accepted by Muslims as the Islamic prophet's authentic words:

"The Day of Judgement will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Muslims, O Abdulla [O Slave of Allah], there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews." (related by al-Bukhari and Muslim [two respected early compilers of traditions about Muhammad]).

Based on this evidence from Hamas's own Charter, Mr. Harris concludes:

"It is only rational . . . for Israel [and Jews generally] to [infer that they are] . . . confronted by a cult of religious sociopaths."

From my attention to the statements of Muslim leaders over the past 33 years, ever since the Iranian takeover of the US Embassy in Tehran, when I first focused on Islam and read the Qur'an, I have to reluctantly agree -- there are very many Islamist sociopaths in the world, the problem appears to be growing worse, and not only Jews need be concerned, but all non-Muslims as well as any Muslims who don't conform to Islamist views. You know things are truly bad when experts over the years offer such palliatives as, 'Things aren't quite so bad as they seem.' That's only half-way true -- they're worse.

What then must we do? Offer critique, at the very least. Keep in mind, as Mr. Harris insists, that "[t]he moral high ground here is clear, and we are standing on it" when we defend free speech, freedom of conscience, equal rights, and human rights generally. We need not apologize for our position on such rights, though we do need to be more articulate in defense of these classical liberal traditions.

Lest there be any doubt, we must also understand that our words in defense of human rights will often be met with extreme hostility, even violence, so we must be neither surprised nor intimidated, but continue to speak our minds.

Yi Gwang-su: Pro-Japanese?

Yi Gwang-su

(Image from dosan.org)

Professor Kim Seong-kon published another interesting article in the Korea Herald today, "Humans between angels, demons" (September 7, 2011), which again lamented the Korean tendency toward extremes:

Koreans tend to think that the world is made of left-wing progressives and right-wing conservatives only, and do not realize the existence of neutral liberals and moderate traditionalists.

Kim finds this tendency especially characteristic of the Korean left:

Historically, leftists have always been extremely exclusive and hostile toward non-leftists. And they always want a scapegoat they can condemn, so they can be immune from criticism and look honest instead.

For that reason, suggests Kim, Koreans -- especially Korean leftists -- are harshly critical of Yi Gwang-su:

Perhaps this is why Korean leftists began condemning Yi Kwangsu in the 1970s and 1980s as an unpardonable pro-Japanese intellectual. There were so many pro-Japanese Korean intellectuals during the Japanese occupation. Why, then, does only Yi Kwangsu have to be blamed and condemned so severely as if he was an unpardonable sinner?

Obviously, Korean leftists chose Yi Kwangsu, the father figure of modern Korean literature, as a scapegoat, so they could be safe and looked absolutely righteous and truthful. Besides, leftist writers surely wanted to deny the authenticity of modern Korean literature by claiming that it was wrong from the beginning and thus invalid, because it was tainted by unpatriotic activities of its leader Yi Kwangsu.

Then, they wanted to replace authentic Korean literature with left-wing literature, which they thought was the absolute truth. Once again, the "we're always right; all others are invariably wrong" mentality prevailed in the ruthless leftist campaign to criticize Yi Kwangsu.

This is an intriguing argument concerning bias among literary critics. I'm too ignorant of Korean history and Korean literature to hold a firm opinion, but Kim's point is plausible. Perhaps the Korean left did attack Yi Gwang-su not merely because he was pro-Japanese (though the degree to which he was pro-Japanese is disputed) but also because he was the founder of modern Korean literature, which needed -- or so leftists thought -- to be replaced by socialist literature. I'd be interested in knowing more on this point. At any rate, Kim goes on to mount a defense of Yi Gwang-su by drawing upon Lee Joong-o's psychological analysis and citing Yi Gwang-su's own words:

In his insightful, thought-provoking book, "Apology for Yi Kwangsu," Lee Joong-o, a psychiatrist and professor emeritus of SUNY/Buffalo points out that . . . [the "either/or" mentality of excluding others] is, in fact, a mental disease that requires therapy. Intellectuals and writers should say, "No!" when all people say "Yes!" However, many Korean intellectuals and writers do not seem to have the courage to speak up and thus remain silent, even though they know something is seriously wrong. Other people, who are opportunistic, choose to join the trend and collaborate with the leftists in condemning Yi Kwangsu, which heightens what Lee called "the national frenzy."

Granted Yi Kwangsu was undeniably pro-Japanese, we still need to listen to what he had to say. In "My Confessions" Yi writes: "When I returned to Korea at the age 30, I dreamed of being a Gandhi for my country. Therefore, my pro-Japanese activities had nothing to do with my own personal benefits, safety or political power. Naively, I thought I did it for my people; I wanted to save the 38,000 Koreans whose name was on the Japanese colonial government's elimination list at the cost of my honor."

I wouldn't go so far as to label the mentality of "either/or" as a "mental disease," nor would I entirely trust Yi Gwang-su's confessional self-justification, but I do have some empathy for the man after a year-long struggle editing his novel The Soil, which my wife translated. Based on that novel alone, I wouldn't consider him whole-heartedly pro-Japanese, for his depiction of the Japanese is mixed. I realize that he changed, however, and became more of an apologist for Japan in the latter 1930s, though I know too little about that transformation to evaluate it properly. The man is a difficult case. See the Wikipedia entry on Yi Gwang-su concerning this complex issue of his fluctuating politics. Even during his nationalist period, he was strongly critical of Korea and Koreans, so a common thread might be traced through all his political changes. We should probably recall that he had been an orphan raised by followers of the Donghak religion, which carried out guerrilla attacks against the Korean government beginning in the 1892, the year he was born, so his earliest memories would have been of conflict with the Korean state several years before the Japanese colonial period.

I suppose the crucial question to consider in reflecting upon the critics of Yi Gwang-su is which Yi Gwang-su the critic is talking about. I don't think that we will get a rounded picture of the man until Koreans come to terms with the fact that "[t]here were so many pro-Japanese Korean intellectuals during the Japanese occupation," as Kim points out, and that rounded understanding will require Koreans to develop a less exclusivist "either/or mentality."

Mervyn F. Bendle: Email Response

Islamism

Blogger must be acting up again, for my old cyber-friend Kevin Kim has informed me by email of his unsuccessful attempt to post a comment to my blog entry on Mervyn F. Bendle's "Existential Terrorism," quoting me in bold font and concurring with my point:

"I'd really want to see how Islamism is heir to Augustine."

I think you hit the nail on the head. When I was about halfway through your blog post, a similar question was burbling through my mind.

Well, in the meantime, I had shot off an email on this very point, along with a second query on Leftist influence on Islamism, asking Dr. Bendle himself, who replied:

Thank you for your email and the interest with which you have read some of my published work. In response to one of your questions I think that you yourself provided an insightful assessment when you said:

"Clearly, this interpretation of Augustine's two cities is a controversial one . . . . I'd really want to see how Islamism is heir to Augustine. Is there supposed to be a direct line from Augustine to Islamism, or some influence via Leftist ideology (or via Fascism?), or is the "Augustinian paradigm" an ideal construct describing a system of thought that can arise within different traditions without direct or even indirect influence?"

I suspect that the latter is the case and that the underlying totalizing tendency (along with an associated obsession with 'purity') is inherent in this (monotheistic/monist) tradition and remains so. The alternative -- that this is a world-view that originated with Augustine -- seems unlikely to me -- given its archetypal quality. At any rate, there is a difficulty with tracing through a direct/indirect chain of influence from Augustine to early Islam and thence eventually to contemporary Islamism in that we cannot be very sure about the early history of Islam -- whether it emerged as it claims to have or whether, e.g., it emerged as a 'believers movement' within a matrix of heterodox Jewish and Christian communities, only claiming to have been a new revelation a century or so later (cf. Fred M. Donner, Muhammad and the Believers (2010)).

Regarding your other question, I think that Islamisim been most definitely directly (and indirectly) influenced by the Left ideologically, especially in its analysis of imperialism (of which it sees the Muslim world as a victim), in its organizational structures, and in its adherence to Comintern techniques of agititation-propaganda ('agitprop'). After all, for much of the 20th century substantial proportions of the Muslim world (esp. its intellectuals) were directly or indirectly informed by Marxist-Leninist thought, only swinging away from this form of secularism following the 1979 Iranian Revolution and the shift to an Islamist ideological paradigm (cf. Rapoport's 4 waves of terrorism).

With regard to Donner's work on early Islam, there's a lot of current scholarly investigation into pre-Islamic sources and speculations on Christian and Jewish communities as the matrix for early Islam (cf. Christoph Luxenberg), so that's something that I'm generally familiar with. Such Christian communities probably weren't Augustinian, though, so the "Augustinian paradigm" turns out to be something like what Max Weber called an "ideal type," I suppose. Augustine gets some bad press in some significant strands of intellectual history. Hans Blumenberg sees Augustine as having left a profoundly Gnostic imprint upon Western Christianity that had to be overcome in the late Medieval period for a 'Promethian' Modernity to emerge. The expression "Augustinian paradigm" thus might fit the West as more than simply an ideal construct. I wonder if it might better be jettisoned in analyses of Islamism. But what should one replace it with? Would Weber's ideal type of "sect" fit better? Is Islamism what Weber might call a "world-denying" sect? It certainly devalues the world, seeing whatever is not Islam as mere jahiliyya, i.e., ignorance of Allah, and therefore unworthy of preservation, deserving of destruction. But Islamists seek worldly power, so the expression "world-denying" can also be misleading.

Perhaps some knowledgeable readers can help me out on this?

As for the Left's impact on Islamism, I'll have to look further into this to see the kind and degree of influence. Dr. Bendle has not only directed me to Rapoport's article, he has also kindly sent me a couple of his own articles that might enlighten me on this point, and if so, I'll report back.

Mervyn F. Bendle on "Existential Terrorism" and the "Augustinian Paradigm"

City of God

St. Augustine

(Image from Wikipedia)

I've just read Mervyn Bendle's article "Existential Terrorism: Civil Society and its Enemies," Australian Journal of Politics and History (Volume 52, Number 1, 2006, pp. 115-130), which is available online through subscription. Here are the first three paragraphs, which clarify Bendle's point that much contemporary terrorism, the prime example being Islamist terrorism, aims at undermining the very possibility of civil society, that "social realm between the family and the state," and which also assert, though without yet clarifying, some connection between this contemporary terrorism and the thought of St. Augustine (page 115):

This paper relates a central trend in terrorist strategy to the history of attitudes towards civil society. Contemporary terrorism increasingly eschews attacks on political, military, diplomatic or corporate targets, and instead selects targets within civil society designed to maximize civilian deaths and injuries. This existential terrorism seeks to undermine the taken-for-granted ontological security that makes everyday life possible. This paper seeks to identify and analyze the origins and meaning of the ideological world-view that gives rise to such a terrorist strategy.

Civil society is the social realm between the family and the state composed of interrelated networks of intermediate institutions, including businesses, unions, voluntary associations, educational facilities, media, the Internet, charities, and churches, and that accommodates the free play of economic and cultural forces, and individual and group interests and differences. The importance of civil society is widely recognized in the social sciences, as Fukuyama notes: "Today [. . .] virtually all serious observers understand that liberal political and economic institutions depend on a healthy and dynamic civil society for their vitality." (Francis Fukuyama, Trust (Harmondsworth, 1995), p. 4.)

A vital aspect of the current crisis is that contemporary terrorism targets not only people and institutions that operate within the realm of civil society but civil society itself, i.e., terrorism targets the very possibility of an autonomous realm of everyday life, a social space of spontaneity, freedom, and difference. This impulse was manifest in the policies of the Taliban -- Al-Qaeda's Islamism in action -- but it is found in any group, regime, or society that has fallen ideologically under the control of what might be called the "Augustinian paradigm" of civil society. The present exploration of this situation provides insights into both contemporary terrorism and the nature of civil society. (page 115)

This is an intriguing insight, namely, that "contemporary terrorism targets . . . the very possibility of an autonomous realm of everyday life, a social space of spontaneity, freedom, and difference," in short, it targets civil society's very existence. Bendle finds this targeted attack on civil society by Leftists and Islamists, whose critiques of civil society are apparently interconnected, though Bendle doesn't demonstrate precisely what these links are. He does note the Left's post-1968 turn to the "Third-World" out of disappointment over the proletariat's nonrevolutionary character (page 127), but he doesn't clarify the Left's precise ideological impact on Islamism despite asserting that Islamism was influenced by Marxism-Leninism (page 116).

Bendle's identification of the "'Augustinian paradigm' of civil society" as culpable for the targeting of this "autonomous realm of everyday life" might seem odd, but he has already explored this to some extent in his article on "The Apocalyptic Imagination and Popular Culture," published in the Journal of Religion and Popular Culture (Fall 2005, Volume 11). Perhaps we can excerpt, for clarification, the specific work by Augustine that Bendle holds responsible for the terrible devaluation of civil society, namely, The City of God:

Book XIV Chap. 28: "Of The Nature Of The Two Cities, The Earthly And The Heavenly"

Accordingly, two cities have been formed by two loves: the earthly by the love of self, even to the contempt of God; the heavenly by the love of God, even to the contempt of self. The former, in a word, glories in itself, the latter in the Lord. For the one seeks glory from men; but the greatest glory of the other is God, the witness of conscience. The one lifts up its head in its own glory; the other says to its God, "Thou art my glory, and the lifter up of mine head." In the one, the princes and the nations it subdues are ruled by the love of ruling; in the other, the princes and the subjects serve one another in love, the latter obeying, while the former take thought for all. The one delights in its own strength, represented in the persons of its rulers; the other says to its God, "I will love Thee, O Lord, my strength." And therefore the wise men of the one city, living according to man, have sought for profit to their own bodies or souls, or both, and those who have known God "glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened; professing themselves to be wise,"--that is, glorying in their own wisdom, and being possessed by pride, -- "they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things." For they were either leaders or followers of the people in adoring images, "and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever." But in the other city there is no human wisdom, but only godliness, which offers due worship to the true God, and looks for its reward in the society of the saints, of holy angels as well as holy men, "that God may be all in all." (Paul Halsall, editor, Medieval Sourcebook: Augustine (354-430): The City of God: excerpts on the Two Cities)

In Bendle's reading, this Augustinian tradition of two cities gives rise to a pessimistic view of civil society, the locus of evil and impurity, over against the optimistic view of a utopian, pure society someplace up above or sometime in the future. Two aspects are emphasized by Bendle as characteristic of the "Augustinian paradigm": 1) totalism and 2) apocalypticism. Concerning the former, both Leftists and Islamists (though also Fascists, he notes) deny civil society its autonomy and seek to replace it with a different, totalizing system in which everything is controlled by the Leftist state or by the Islamist elite. Concerning the latter, Leftists and Islamists claim access to a 'revealed' truth of the utopian society to come, especially if the path to that future society is blazed by apocalyptic violence.

Clearly, this interpretation of Augustine's two cities is a controversial one. I'm not yet persuaded Bendle's is the most reasonable reading of Augustine, and I'd need to see more on this point. The interpretation looks to me to be of a radicalized Augustinian tradition. But even if this interpretation were the most reasonable, I'd really want to see how Islamism is heir to Augustine. Is there supposed to be a direct line from Augustine to Islamism, or some influence via Leftist ideology (or via Fascism?), or is the "Augustinian paradigm" an ideal construct describing a system of thought that can arise within different traditions without direct or even indirect influence?

I'll look around some more, but I might need to shoot an email to Dr. Bendle . . .

Mervyn F. Bendle on the Left, Islamism, and Religious Extremism

Quadrant Logo

Yesterday, I excerpted Mervyn F. Bendle's review of Robert R. Reilly's Closing of the Muslim Mind, and I'm now quite glad that I did, for I was introduced not only to Reilly's argument but also to a very interesting scholar in Bendle himself. He's apparently controversial in the Australian academic world because he expresses a rather vehement critique of the Left, as here, for example, when he takes on some Leftist treatments of terrorism:

[I]n 2006 I published two articles in the Australian ("Don't mention the terror", September 6; "Status quo defence fails", September 20) and another in On Line Opinion ("9/11: Treason in the Academic Comfort Zone?", September 11). These described the way in which the study of terrorism had either been ignored in Australia or had been colonised by the radical, postmodern Left, which was assimilating the study of terrorism to its prevailing ideological paradigm based on class, race, gender, anti-Americanism and cultural relativism, often under the guise of the neo-Marxist "critical terror studies" approach. My assessment was supported by two University of Queensland terrorism experts, Carl Ungerer and David Martin Jones ("Delusion reigns in terror studies", Australian, September 15, 2006). (Mervyn F. Bendle, "Hijacking Terrorism Studies," Quadrant Online, September 2008, Volume 52, Number 9)

Bendle goes on to offer an example of one 'expert' on terrorism who likens the July 2005 bombers to the Chartists, both groups having supposedly been similarly motivated by anger over a "democratic deficit" in Britain. According to this 'expert':

[There is] a parallel . . . for the four young men [that is, the Islamist terrorists] who ruthlessly attacked innocent London commuters in July 2005. The Chartist years were not that long ago. (Bendle, "Hijacking," Quadrant)

Concerning this sort of equivocating equivalency, Bendle angrily points out:

This is ridiculous: the Islamists who carried out the July 2005 bombings were not seeking political reform like the Chartists. In fact, Islamists are not seeking to extend democratic rights but rather to extinguish them. They adhere to an anti-democratic, violent, intolerant, exclusionary, xenophobic, misogynistic, anti-Semitic and ultra-repressive political ideology that seeks to create a theocratic state akin to that imposed by the Taliban in Afghanistan, and ultimately a "new Caliphate" stretching from Spain to Indonesia. (Bendle, "Hijacking," Quadrant)

Bendle is right about what such Islamists believe in and strive for, particularly those drawn to terrorism, yet the substance of Islamist ideology is often dismissed by the Left in favor of attention to "root causes" that shift blame to the West. I wouldn't tar all Leftists with the same brush, of course, for there are also scholars like Paul Berman on the Left, but Bendle is largely correct on this point.

From what I can gather, so far anyway, Bendle seems to be a solid scholar. Take a look at his fascinating article on "The Apocalyptic Imagination and Popular Culture," Journal of Religion and Popular Culture, Fall 2005, Volume 11, which analyzes the apocalyptic mentality pervasive among the Christian Right in America, some of it very far on the radical Christian Right, and the ways in which it overlaps with more secular forms of apocalyptic visions on the Right (as well as with American popular culture more generally). Bendle specifically notes such writings as the explicitly religious, evangelical Left Behind eschatological series and the rather more secular, albeit ultimately theistic, dystopian Turner Diaries, which happens to be virulently racist and ideologically antisemitic as well. Here's a sample paragraph from Bendle's "Introduction":

As this paper will show, the twentieth century saw a crucial shift within the apocalyptic tradition, from what might be called a Promethean to an Augustinian view of human nature and history, i.e., from a belief in human self-determination to a conviction of human sinfulness and weakness. In secular terms this was a shift from a utopian to a dystopian vision, from humanism to anti-humanism, from progressivism to conservatism. It involved a move away from a basically optimistic outlook that complemented secular faith in human progress based on reason, science, technology and social amelioration, towards a far more pessimistic view that distrusts these values, and instead sees the near future in terms of social disintegration, violence, war and ultimate catastrophe, before a final deliverance brought by divine power . . . . It is this dark vision that now shapes the contemporary apocalyptic imagination in both its religious and secular forms. (Bendle, "Apocalyptic Imagination," Journal of Religion and Popular Culture)

Bendle can therefore not easily be construed as merely some rightwing ideologue. He's broader and more interesting than that, so far as I can tell from reading a few of his articles.

I may look further . . .

Just to throw everyone for a loop: Laurie Anderson

Laurie Anderson, 1986

On a 'bad hair' day . . .

(Image from Wikipedia)

We haven't listened to Laurie Anderson via this blog in a long time . . . like, um, forever. Technically, that means that we could never have reached this moment -- as in the Kalam Cosmological Argument -- but who's counting? So, let's listen to "O Superman" on You Tube, using a different browser (so, open one), as we follow along reading the lyrics below for about ten minutes of weird, uneasy dissociation of sensibility:

O Superman. O Judge. O Mom and Dad. Mom and Dad.
O Superman. O Judge. O Mom and Dad. Mom and Dad.
Hi. I'm not home right now. But if you want to leave a
message, just start talking at the sound of the tone.
Hello? This is your Mother. Are you there? Are you
coming home?
Hello? Is anybody home? Well, you don't know me,
but I know you.
And I've got a message to give to you.
Here come the planes.
So you better get ready. Ready to go. You can come
as you are, but pay as you go. Pay as you go.

And I said: OK. Who is this really? And the voice said:
This is the hand, the hand that takes. This is the
hand, the hand that takes.
This is the hand, the hand that takes.
Here come the planes.
They're American planes. Made in America.
Smoking or non-smoking?
And the voice said: Neither snow nor rain nor gloom
of night shall stay these couriers from the swift
completion of their appointed rounds.

'Cause when love is gone, there's always justice.
And when justive is gone, there's always force.
And when force is gone, there's always Mom. Hi Mom!

So hold me, Mom, in your long arms. So hold me,
Mom, in your long arms.
In your automatic arms. Your electronic arms.
In your arms.
So hold me, Mom, in your long arms.
Your petrochemical arms. Your military arms.
In your electronic arms.

I last listened to this song by Anderson back in the early eighties . . . in Berkeley, of course. My thoughts turned again to Ms. Anderson the other day when I read about her in a New York Times article by Will Hermes, "Electronic Expressions in the Service of the Soul" (June 22, 2010). Ah, that brings back memories of a misspent youth . . . but listening to "O Superman" now, post-9/11, makes for a rather eerie experience:

Here come the planes.
They're American planes. Made in America.
Smoking or non-smoking?
And the voice said: Neither snow nor rain nor gloom
of night shall stay these couriers from the swift
completion of their appointed rounds.

Smoking or non-smoking? The 9/11 passengers didn't ultimately have that choice, did they. The lyrics were written post-Vietnam, a very different time. I wonder what Ms. Anderson thinks about the post-9/11 landscape, which means that I wonder what her new album, Homeland, is about, given the title. Mr. Hermes links it thematically to "O Superman" -- and cites some of her musings from his interview with her:

"Homeland" similarly twists together ideas of the personal and political, beginning with the title, a word that has acquired ominous overtones in the shadow of Sept. 11.

"It’s a very cold, bureaucratic word," Ms. Anderson said. "No one I know would say 'my homeland.'" She notes its recent pairing with the word "security," which she contends "is not about security, really, but more about control. The phrase doesn't make anyone feel particularly safe, does it?"

She's got a point. Americans don't generally speak of America as their 'homeland', and the expression "Homeland Security" serves only to remind us of American insecurity. Still . . . where does she go with that point? Vaguely in an ambiguous direction? Mr. Hermes writes of a song and its lyrics on the Homeland album:

"Dark Time in the Revolution" tries to square modern-day America with the nation Tom Paine was defining when he wrote "Common Sense." "You thought there were things that had disappeared forever/Things from the Middle Ages/Beheadings and hangings and people in cages," Ms. Anderson intones over Joey Baron’s inexorable tom-tom rolls. "And suddenly they're alright welcome to the American night."

Odd way to put things. The 'Medieval' "Beheadings and hangings" certainly aren't "alright" . . . though I suppose that she's speaking in irony. But in what sense is this the "American night"? I get that "people in cages" likely alludes to Guantanamo, but beheadings are with us courtesy of a far darker force in the world.

I guess I'll just have to listen to the new album and judge for myself.