Re: David Harvey: it's about a New Deal

[Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1@xxxxxxx>]

At 10:34 AM -0500 11/30/03, Louis Proyect wrote:
> I wish I knew what this meant. If this means that Islamic radicalism
> represents a "danger", I can't agree. Anti-colonial movements have often
> had questionable leaderships, going back to the Boxer rebellion--one of the
> most explicitly "anti-modernist" movements of all time. That is no excuse
> for opposing them.

A couple of points:

* I think that David Harvey is mistaken in believing that Islamic
radicalism is necessarily "anti-modernist" (if Islamic radicalism is
indeed what he has in his mind, that is).  Islamic radicalism tends
to be very sexist toward bourgeois and petit-bourgeois women, but the
fortunes of peasant and working-class women vary greatly depending on
the kinds of Islamic radicalism, the levels of national development,
etc.  The contrast between Iran and Afghanistan is striking.  Peasant
and working-class Iranian women (in education, employment, etc.)
fared better after the Iranian Revolution than before it, as the
Iranian Revolution was populist in political character and clerical
leaders were keen on economic development, thus in need of educated
women's labor as well.

* That said, leftists -- especially leftists who actually live in the
two-thirds world -- ought to maintain political independence from
Islamist and other seemingly or substantially populist tendencies at
all times.  Your physical and political survival depends on it.
Iranian leftists missed the window of opportunity to oppose clerics
in defense of women's rights and to even direct the revolution to the
left shortly after the overthrow of the Shah -- when they still could.
--
Yoshie

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