Re: on israelian attack

["Nestor Miguel Gorojovsky" <gorojovsky@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

En relación a on israelian attack,
el 13 Feb 00, a las 3:23, Riad Koubaisi dijo:

.It may seems for the lefty in the west that the
> arabs countries have a very similar culture but that is not true,most
> of the commons between the arabs is a result of the islam govern in
> the old centuries{11cen-15century}so because of that relgion play an
> very important role in our region.

Not larger than the role it plays in current England or USA, where
the inheritance of a bourgeois revolution carried on under the
banners of the "proper Bible reading" gave a hold to religion in
popular thinking that may be paralelled to the one in the Arab world.
I think it was Antonio Gramsci who remarked (or was it Engels?) that
in England it was easier to be a Marxist than an Atheist, and that
what most English self-defined Atheists actually were was radical
Agnosticists.

For exampel we in lebanon payed a
> lot from relgion struggle or at least relgion struggle was the
> gunpowder of this war.

Yes, this is absolutely true. But there is something else than
gunpower in a war, and this "something else" (on which I will
carefully refrain to give my own opinion for the time being) is,
precisely, what invests the shots with social meaning. What is the
material reality behind "religious" strife in Lebanon? I think that
Gary can understand this question because, as a "North" Irishman
(hah, Gary, we're so far away you cannot beat me for this almost
insult!), he does positively know of the relationships between
religion, politics and social structure in a way little people can.

I was very interested by your separation of Egypt (that "north
African" country) and the countries in the Fertile Crescent. I tend
to believe that though it is adequately linked with your denial of
the existence of a potential Arab nation, the evidence you present is
quite weak: you just seem to recall the ill fated attempt by Nasser
(the United Arab Republic of the late 50s), which you depict as being
part of

an old strugle
> -from the era of summerian and pharaohs-between the syrian nation and
> the Egyptian one.

and as

>         an example of an Arab socialist {as Nasser saids}unity

I would, conversely, say (a) that there has never existed a Sumerian
nation or an Egyptian nation, certainly not during the era when you
are referring to (nations are a form of social structuring that are
linked with capitalism), and (b) that no matter how Nasser named his
regime it was clearly a national bourgeois one.

A good case might be made, I am sure, for socialist Arab unity,
precisely as an outcome of the impossibility of a bourgeois Arab
unity!

Well, here go my ideas,





Néstor Miguel Gorojovsky
gorojovsky@xxxxxxxxxxx