On 1/16/07, Doug Henwood <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
On Jan 16, 2007, at 3:02 PM, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
> The first thing to do is to understand different currents of Islam --
> e.g., not all Islamists are fundamentalists, and not all
> fundamentalist Muslims are Islamists -- and figure out which currents
> we could support if we had our own social force.
Dinesh D'Souza agrees! Except he thinks the secular left is very
powerful:
<http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2007/1/15/194522.shtml?s=lh>
Where does Dinesh D'Souza agree with me? That he thinks that
Washington needs to find some currents of Muslims it can ally with,
just as I think that leftists need to find some currents of Muslims
that we need to ally with? But we don't have the same currents in
mind. Also, what's your alternative? You think that there is no
current of Muslims with whom leftists should consider alliance? That
sounds like a political non-starter, rather Islamophobic actually.
Besides, I don't see the United Nations as being "taken over and
staffed by leftist Americans and Europeans pushing a secular,
anti-religious agenda worldwide." The UN organ that really matters,
the UN Security Council, is not interested in secularism vs.
anti-secularism, or religion vs. anti-religion, but it's a place where
differences among great powers get ironed out, alas, usually in favor
of Washington's geopolitical agenda.
I believe that Muslims, like others, are in favor of democracy, but,
unlike D'Souza, I don't see any evidence that they will be
pro-American, as long as Washington supports the Israeli occupation
and the undemocratic pro-American regimes like Egypt, Jordan, and
Saudi Arabia and itself militarily occupies many lands of the
predominantly Islamic world.
--
Yoshie
<http://montages.blogspot.com/>
<http://mrzine.org>
<http://monthlyreview.org/>
