Re: [Re: Iran:Shiite Lessons for Socialism]

[Abu Nasr <abu-nasr@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

I don't think that Shiism is inherently more revolutionary than Sunnism.  One
must examine the actual situation in the countries in question.  Sunnism also
has the notion of the martyr "shahid" and the Sunni Islamic groups such as
al-Jihad al-Islami and Hamas clearly appeal to a kind of Islamic
internationalism or to the Islamic Ummah.

If Iran has been more domestically revolutionary than some Arab countries,
(and I don't think I would say so) the reason must be sought in the classes
and social situation in Iran rather than in the doctrines of Shiism.

It's true that 1400 years ago during the competition between Ali and Uthman,
Ali (on whom Shii base their movement) probably was more of a revolutionary.
It's also true that the Shii historically have opposed the established Sunni
regimes like the Umayyad and Abbasi Caliphates in the Middle Ages.  But then
where the Shia established regimes, as in Safawi Iran in the 1500s, their
regime wasn't more revolutionary than Sunni ones were.

Protestantism was revolutionary in Europe in the 1500s, but it is hard to say
that protestants today are more inherently revolutionary than catholics.

In the 1960s, the rule of the Shii Imam in the Yemen which was backed by Saudi
Arabia and the British can generally be regarded correctly as more reactionary
than the nationalist revolutionary movement that tried to oppose the Imam and
had the backing of Nasser's Egypt.

Of course one can go back to various texts and traditions of Shiism and find
revolutionary thought and practice.  The same goes for Sunnism.  The question
then is what classes or groups in society are in action at a given time.

In Iran in the 1970s the backbone of the actual street activity were the urban
poor in Tehran and other cities -- people who were proletarianised (i.e., had
no means of production) but were not yet a proletariat because they had no
industrial jobs (due to backward dependent development -- the Shah's so-called
modernisation) So they worked day jobs when they could find them, in
construction, carrying stuff for people, selling things for some petty shop
owner, etc.  Many of these people came from the countryside and their only
"ideological" background was traditional Islamic.  They couldn't relate to
Marxist intellectuals whom they never met much and who couldn't communicate
with them.  They related to those Mullahs who said the Shah's regime was
un-Islamic as a monarchy (which took power from the Mullahs) and gave wealth
to the new comprador bourgeois.  So the old bazar people, the mullahs and the
urban poor formed a kind of coalition against the compradors and the shah.
Since they were all Shia, (due to the imposition of Shiism on the country in
the 1500s) it was a shii revolution.

Probably the one main distinguishing feature of shiism that DID have an impact
on the form that the revolution took was the fact that for the Shia, the
mullahs or clergy are much more important than they are for Sunnis.  They are
much more regarded as authorities by the Shia who are required to find a
particular mullah and follow him, and historically in Iran the state had less
control over the Mullahs than Sunni states had over their ulama.  Shii Mullas
also are part of a religious hierarchy that is more defined and fixed with
different ranks, subbordination, etc., than the sunnis have.  This gives the
Mullahs more ability to organise and lead anti-state actions (when they want
to), whereas in Sunni Islam the ulama derive their authority from 1, going to
a university and getting a theology degree, and 2, from being state-appointed
authorities.  This kind of official ulama are not by nature interested in
revolutions since they are tied to the state.  But then the street produces
religious leaders who simply read the Qur'an and other texts and gain
influence and prestiege with or without recognised school credentials.  They
can influence the masses just as the Shii mullahs do, but the Sunni masses are
not required to follow their imam with the same singlemindedness that the shia
are, and neither these street leaders nor the big state-sponsored ulama are
part of a defined hierarchical organisation through which orders can be given
and handed down with virtually everyone expected to obey.  So Islamic
movements in Sunni countries can be more difuse, but also can often be closer
to the urban poor and petty-bourgeois masses, with all the good and bad that
that entails.

Revolutionaty greetings!

Abu Nasr


Julio Pino <jpino@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
At 01:34 PM 7/24/00 -0700, you wrote:
>
>>   Yes, we must go beyond Quranic exegis to find roots for the political
behavior of the mullahs in Iran. Iran is anti-imperialist both because of
its Shiite heritage and its position in the Middle East. Compare it to
Cuba: its strategic position in the Caribbean creates the basis for a
nationalist regime, but there is an anti-Yanqui and pro-worker tradition
dating back at least to Jose Marti and now embodied by The Communist Party
and Fidel.
 My point is that Shiite Islam contains revolutionarly elements that give
Iranian domestic and foreign policy a different spin than say that of Iraq
or Libya. The Ayatollah Khomemi himself declared that "Islam does not
recognize monarchy or any sort of heriditary rule as fit for Muslims",
implying the overthrow of the Saudi King, Gulf state emirs, etc.  The
Iranian Constitution declares that one goal of the Republic is to spread
revultion until the whole world goes Muslim-a Shiite Internationalism!The
messianism and  shahidism of the Shites bring them closer to Marxist
revolutionaries than any other force I know of in the Middle East.
Julio Cesar
 >If the US were to be Islamic and the Mid East were to be Christian, then we
>would constantly hear of Jesus the carpenter, who walked among the poor and
>was sold out to the Roman Empire by a member of the Traders guild. It is the
>historical tasks of the Middle East that leaves the Mullahs looking
>"anti-capitalist", because, and this is the one good thing they produce,
>they are representatives of a fight for national sovereignty.
>
>


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