Why Islam is the new Marxism

The central conflict in the war on ideas lies in what we think is the underlying stuff of man and therefore how we think societies should be organised. Regardless of what ideology has ruled human affairs, they have all provided answers to this question. This is true in religion as it is in politics.

As the conflict in the Middle East continues to rage, and images stifle the quest for truth, the secular influences of groups like Hamas and Hezbollah are not obvious to the neutral observer. Nor is their attraction to the young Muslim in the Sydney street or the professional living in Indonesia clear.

As Paul Kelly writes in The Australian on August 9: “The core problem seems to be the attraction of the Islamist movement.”

The 20th century saw the demise of communism, despite its attraction to millions of people who felt poor or downtrodden. It was exposed as a totalitarian system which stifled the aspirations of man. But its stain is spreading within the casing of Islamic fundamentalism.

This does not seem obvious, especially considering bin Laden himself was instrumental in defeating the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan over two decades ago.

Furthermore, the Iranian revolution was in part a reaction to the perceived Godlessness of communism knocking at its doorstep. This was mimicked to a lesser degree throughout the Middle East, from Egypt to Jordan.

But the old Marxists are now rearing their influence in many of the Islamic political parties which are rapidly rising in popularity, in response to inept, autocratic Arab governments.

Arab governments have closed off opportunity to such an extent that secular forces such as communism or liberalism have minimal outlets. Furthermore, the Arab socialism of the 1970s, represented by the likes of Anwar Sadat, is seen to have been a failure.

One of the few places for a political voice is at the mosque and through religion. Religion provides the cloak for what is essentially politics.

As a result, political Islam is on the rise throughout the Arab world. The first municipal election in Saudi Arabia delivered wins for Islamic parties and of course there was the election of Hamas by the Palestinians. Many of the leaders representing political Islam have previous ties to Arab socialism.

This is particularly true in Egypt where the Muslim Brotherhood won a fifth of the vote in elections last year. The veteran foreign correspondent, Mary Ann Weaver, writes in her book A Portrait of Egypt: “A number of my former professors from the American University of Cairo were Marxists twenty years ago - fairly adamant, fairly doctrinaire Marxists. They are now equally adamant, equally doctrinaire Islamists.”

The developments in Egypt are potent for it has long been a leader in the region.

The similarities of communism and Islam are considerable. Both are egalitarian and advocate radical and economic change. They both demand a domination of the public space and share a dogmatic, ideological view of the world.

Political Islam is also supplying the social services in a collective context that communism promised, and the prestige of groups like Hamas and Hezbollah depend upon this. Their facilities are often described by locals as superior to those provided by the ruling governments.

It also promises to deliver the poor masses from oppression, except instead of the working class rising up against the bourgeoisie, the uprising to be encouraged is by hapless, impoverished Muslims against their oppressive Western masters, or puppet Arab leaders.

On a more fundamental level, despite communism being ultimately atheist, it, like Islam, believes the collective must be preserved at the expense of the individual. It takes a stance on what a human being is and therefore how we should be organised. It says that we are social beings first, individuals second.

Islam holds a similar view. Its laws and regulations, medieval though they may seem, are driven by a determination to preserve the cohesion and honour of the collective, which in Mohammed’s time was the tribe. God comes second. Politics, in the form of social science, comes first.

When I ask local Muslims, especially those that build cultural fortresses aimed at warding off the heathen West, what it is they feel they are preserving, their answers are almost always the same. They cite morality as the reason.

The belief is that despite the overwhelming superiority of the West in terms of technology, economics or military, at least the Muslims have one thing over their rich, powerful masters. They lead better moral lives.

Why? Because they believe they are better at maintaining families and communities and thereby contain the potentially corrupting energies of individual expression and endeavour.

The children raised in such cultural fortresses are often the ones most alienated, unable to compromise between opposites. They are the most vulnerable to radical ideologies which offer them a supra-national identity.

The promise of Islamism is a successor to communism, for it offers a better life for the poor, oppressed and alienated. It is cloaked in God, but its essence is strongly secular.

Unless the West fights the war of ideas at this level, offering a competing vision of morality as well as economics and technology, the lure of Islamic extremism will continue to flourish, especially while the television shows the Western class oppressors dropping bombs on the Muslim proletariat.