Andre Vltchek

It may sound incredible, but it is true: in countries that have been damaged, even totally robbed and destroyed by the West, many people are still enamored with Europe and North America. Andre Vltchek, a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist, starts his article with these words.

These words clearly show what he has dealt with in the article titled, " In countries destroyed by the West, people should stop admiring the U.S. and Europe".

I could not take it, anymore. I decided to write this story, despite the fact that it is an intellectual ‘minefield’. I decided to write it, because it is how it is. Because I have to tell it; someone has to. And above all, because it is absolutely essential to combat the crooked selfie image with which the West has been infecting almost all nations of the world, including all those that it has been plundering.

Are we dealing with the so-called “Stockholm Syndrome” here? Most likely, yes. The victim falls in love with her or his tormentor.

For long centuries, the West has been colonizing, usurping, literally terrorizing the entire planet. Hundreds of millions have died as a result of colonialism, neo-colonialism, and imperialism. Wealth, cultural and educational institutions, hospitals, transportation, parks – all that Europe and North America possess to date and boast about, was constructed on mountains of bones, on genocide and unbridled plunder. That cannot be disputed, can it?

Slavery, mass murder, genocidal expansions; the West robbed the world, and then consolidated its power, promoting its exceptionalism through relentless brainwashing (called ‘education’), propaganda (called ‘information’), and twisted entertainment for the masses that inhabit poor countries (called ‘culture’ and ‘the arts’).

Shockingly and absurdly, Europe and North America are still loved and admired by many, even (or especially) in such places where Western regimes and companies plagued everything like locusts, leaving to the locals only burned land, poison and miserable slums. How is it possible?

Take Africa, a continent which was entirely subjugated by the U.K., France, Germany, Belgium and other European expansionist nations. Africa from where millions of men, women and children were brought in chains to the “New World”, as slaves. Where millions died during the ‘hunt’, where millions died in ‘transit centers’, and then, on the open seas. That’s tens of millions of ruined lives. The complete plunder of the resources, the unimaginable humiliation of the people, broken cultures, genocides and holocaust against local individuals from what is now Namibia, to the Democratic Republic of Congo. Great African heroes like Lumumba assassinated by the Western rulers.

And yet, many Africans see the West as some great ‘example’, as a ‘guiding light’, as a severe but respectable ‘daddy’, who uses the belt when it is necessary, but who also rewards justly those of his ‘children’ who ‘behave properly’.

It is repulsive, but undeniable. The greatest African writers are now teaching at U.S. and U.K. universities. They have been ‘neutralized’ and ‘pacified’, many of them out rightly bought. In many countries, African judges wear comical white wigs, doing their best to look like their British counterparts. The children of corrupt elites are collecting diplomas from the U.K. and French universities, imitating upper-class European accents.

To behave, to look and sound like the colonizers, is something that brings respect. The same on the Sub-Continent, of course.

The mannerism among the upper classes in India and Pakistan are those of the U.K. (and lately, of the U.S.). Elites there go out of their way to be more British than the Brits; more Californian than the inhabitants of the U.S. West Coast. Countless private Indian universities call themselves ‘American’ or ‘British’, with ‘Oxford’ or ‘Cambridge’ frequently ‘decorating’ their names.

‘To be accepted’ in Europe or North America is the highest honor, in almost all former colonies, therefore, in almost the entire world.

‘Well groomed’, well-educated and modern Asians, Latin Americans, Africans are expected to ape Westerners; to dress like Westerners, eat (and drink) like the Westerners and to ‘defend the same values’ as them. In fact, they are expected to be much more Western than the Westerners. But ‘expected’ by whom? Yes, you guess correctly: very often by their own people!

Ask and many in the ‘South’ will tell you: everything that comes from the West is beautiful, progressive and dandy.

The writer of this article, Andre Vltchek says, I was informed, recently, by a young indigenous professional lady in the totally environmentally plundered island of Borneo/Kalimantan “Every bule is beautiful,”. Bule is a vulgar, derogatory Indonesian word for the ‘whites’, and literally means ‘albino’. However, the lady was not joking, it was a compliment: she was brought up believing that every bule is actually superior and fine-looking.

In the indigenous Mexican state of Yucatan, right after the elections that brought to power President Obrador, I overheard the conversation of a dozen or so upper-class housewives in a Western chain café. Their references were fully European and North American: From vacations in Italy and Spain, to the films they were watching, books they were reading. Europe was their ‘mother-continent’, while Miami, their only true comparison. Before Obrador came to power, indigenous people were increasingly living in misery, their roofs broken, jobs disappearing. But the elites were, as always, in a European state of mind. The real Mexico was not on their radar. It did not matter, or didn’t even exist.

Even some of the poor in the ‘conquered world’ who are actually ‘concerned’ about Western imperialism, see it as an abstract problem. They see it as a strictly political, military or economic issue. The fact that Western imperialism has ‘culturally’ immobilized entire nations and continents is hardly addressed.

Even in China almost everything ‘Western’ had been, until recently, associated with modernity. Being ‘against the West’ was considered boring, gray and outdated. This attitude allowed the great infiltration of Chinese universities by Western academia, as well as the injection of Western nihilism into Chinese arts, culture, even way of life. Only recently, has this dangerous trend been reversed, but not after it had already caused great damage.

The power of negative Western propaganda packaged together with the promotion of extreme individualism, selfishness and consumerism, literally wiped out all internationalist zeal, humanism and higher principles, from the minds of tens of millions of young Czechs, Poles, East Germans, Bulgarians, and Soviets.

In the end, confused and increasingly cynical, what many East Europeans demanded was not ‘freedom’, but more money, more labels, and the ability to join the bloc of the countries that have been plundering the world.

So, what makes the West so successful, when it comes to brainwashing people all around the world? How is it possible after all that banditry, terror and ruthlessness, that most of the oppressed and conquered countries are still showing plenty of respect to the masters that reside in New York, London or Paris?

First of all, the West (and Japan) is often admired for the ‘high standards of living’.

In such miserable and collapsed countries like Indonesia, one often hears nonsense like: “European countries are more ‘Muslim’ than we are. They treat people much better than we do.”

Middle and upper class Southeast Asian families are travelling to Netherlands or Germany, and then exclaim after returning home: “Look at their parks, hospitals, bicycle lanes, trams, museums… We have to learn from them! They do so much for improving our world.”

That’s precisely what Africans admire about Europe. That’s how many ‘educated’ Indians or Southeast Asians feel. That’s what Peruvians, Hondurans or Paraguayans love about their Miami.

Are they wrong? Isn’t there, after all, plenty that poor countries could learn from the West? Yes; definitely they are wrong. Totally wrong! Let’s see ‘why’?

The West ‘arranged’ the entire world in accordance with its own feudal system of the past centuries. It brought the system of shameless oppressive regime to the global level. To admire this monstrous and regressive global system would be like admiring the arrangement of European societies some three hundred years ago. It would be essentially like saying: “Look, the aristocracy of France or England was actually quite fine, egalitarian, educated and healthy, and we should learn from how they lived, and copy their examples!”

Of course, the aristocracy, the royalty and the church of Europe has always lived well, even 300 years ago. They had good schools for their children, they had decent medical care, palaces, summer villas, sanatoriums with mineral waters, theatres, lavish parks, and tons of servants.

The only ‘tiny’ problem was that some 95% of the population had to work for the luxury they enjoyed, subsisting in total misery. Plus, of course, those tens of millions of un-people in the colonies were being exterminated like animals.

The same is happening now. The entire Europe (with the exception of the poor people there) has moved to the bracket of new aristocracy, at least comparatively. And the rest of the world is laboring, dying and being plundered in order to maintain this ‘wonderful-looking’ social-state project of the West.

Western standards of living cannot be replicated elsewhere. To believe that the West would allow Africans or Southeast Asians to build a social state is naïve, almost intellectually insulting. Singapore, South Korea and Japan are rare exceptions, where the West closed both eyes, for strictly strategic reasons.

In order for the West to prosper, maintaining a super high standard of living, with all the benefits for its citizens, billions of the ‘serfs’ all over the world have to suffer, sacrifice themselves, and work for close to nothing; the more of them that live in hell, the better. Nature has to be plundered in places like Borneo and Papua, DR Congo and soon in Brazil. People have to be ruled by pro-Western corrupt oligarchs, and by the military and religious leaders. Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and now Brazil, are perfect countries for the West: they happily and willingly sacrifice their own people, guaranteeing Western prosperity.

All those people who matter are very happy with this arrangement: The Western rulers, citizens of Europe, North America, Australia, New Zealand and Japan, as well as the rulers/elites in the poor countries. The only ones who are truly suffering are those billions of the poor, worldwide, but they matter nothing, and they are not told anything anyway, because the media is in the hands of the West and their lackeys, and so is ‘education’.

And as they are not told anything, they – the wretched of the Earth – are admiring the West, too. They eat Western junk food if they can save few dollars a month, they drink Nescafe instead of their traditional coffee, listen to the shittiest music, watch pirated Hollywood blockbuster movies and wear fake sneakers and jeans. They also dutifully follow religions, which were injected and upheld by the West, into their countries. The poorer the country, the greater appear to be the green hills and pastures of the Western paradise. And so, it goes on and on.

In India, Indonesia, Uganda, Jordan, Fiji, Honduras, one hears the same crap, from semi-educated, or West-educated local citizens: “People in the West are actually very good people, but their governments are bad.”

Frankly and honestly, the world is tired of this status quo, hearing admiring statements about European and other Western countries in the middle of the monstrous war zones, famine-stricken areas, brutal mines, on the banks of poisoned rivers and inside the slums.

Slaves have to rise and fight, if necessary die for freedom; not to admire their masters and tormentors. The crimes of the colonialists have to be exposed. The insane arrangement of the world has to be defined and then smashed into pieces.

The cute trams, bicycle lanes, parks, museums, operas, cafes, universities and hospitals in Europe are built on rivers of blood and the bones of ‘The Others’.

Everything is connected to this, including the fear and hate that the West feels and spreads about countries like Venezuela, Russia, China, Iran, South Africa, Syria or Cuba. They hate us; they hate those who resist, who are standing tall. And they should and will get back the same in return, hopefully, if the truth is pronounced often enough!

The Demise of the West

Paul Craig Roberts

The west, in the broad sense of the word rather than the geographical location, has developed the world to the benefit of the powerful and the rich rather than the public. But its days are numbered as the symbol of the western culture and civilization, the United States of America, is losing whatever it has and becoming more and more loathed by the people all over the world.

Paul Craig Roberts, economist and columnist, has authored a feature on the issue, titled "The Demise of the West, Western Elites Are Anti-democratic."

It is customary to speak of Western countries as democracies. In actual fact, the countries are oligarchies in which voting, which conveys the semblance that government is accountable to the people, seldom changes anything as elected officials are constrained by the power of organized interest groups. President Trump is the latest example. He has been blocked in his goal of reducing tensions with Russia.

The European Union has been an anti-democratic undertaking from the beginning. Deception was the method. At first it was a free trade zone. Then a common currency. Then unified fiscal policies which means centralization and political union with formerly sovereign countries becoming provinces in a European government. Countries that voted down joining were subjected to threats and browbeating and forced to vote again by which time the media had convinced the people that they had no alternative to joining or they would be “left behind” in a backwater existence.

Despite the facts, politicians maintained the fiction that EU member countries remained democratic and responsive to the will of their citizens. German Chancellor Merkel, who ended her career by her unilateral decision to impose a million or more illegal Third World immigrants on Germans and Germans’ resources, destroyed this fiction.

Merkel clearly does not care what the German people think. She revealed again her total distain for democracy at a recent event of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Berlin where she condemned those who think political leaders should listen to the will of the people. The German people, she said, are just “individuals who are living in a country; they do not define the German people.” The German people are whoever migrates to Germany as a result of the UN Migration Pact that she signed despite its rejection by the German citizens of Germany. “Nation states,” Merkel declared, “must today be prepared to give up their sovereignty.” Politicians must not listen, she said, to the will of their citizens when it comes to questions of immigration, borders, and sovereignty.

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, backed her up. Macron declared that French “nationalism is treason.” In other words, it is treason to think that France is French. Patriotism, Macron said, is inclusion of Africa, the Middle East, and Asia into France. The way for the French to gain sovereignty is to surrender their sovereignty to the EU in Belgium and give up all control, not that any currently exists, over foreign affairs, migration, and budgetary and fiscal policy.

Merkel and Macron speak of the submission of Germany and France to the New World Order, but they do not say what they understand the New World Order to be. Their words indicate that one of its features is the replacement of the German and French populations and cultures with those of the Third World, as in The Camp of the Saints.

In the US the New World Order means US hegemony over the world. The neoconservatives, who have controlled US foreign policy since the Clinton regime, believe that the US is “the indispensable nation” with the right and the responsibility to impose its ways on the world.

The globalist corporations understand the New World Order to be their immunity to laws of sovereign countries.

Others see the New World Order to be a Rothschild or other Jewish conspiracy to control the world economy and bleed it for their profits.

With so many different meanings, it is difficult to see which conspiracy against national existence is the threat. Or is it all of them?

Nevertheless, in the Western world, nationalism, the traditional basis of patriotism, now means, thanks to Identity Politics, “white supremacy.” According to Identity Politics, the ruling ideology in the US, white people must be disempowered and subjected to punishments for the assortment of crimes attributed to them.

Therefore, the views in the US, France, and Germany come to the same conclusion: white people are guilty and must give up their country to others. Any protests of this outlandish requirement is proof that whites should be strung up, and they likely will be with the support of their own governments. Do we see the first signs of it here? Will this, and this, and this, lead to this?

Iran is being used as a bargaining chip by East and West

(persia Digest) - A university professor in the US believes: Under these circumstances, Iran should not put all its hopes in one or two countries. Instead, it should have acceptable relations with all major players and thus improve its bargaining position.

Some experts in Iran believe that power and wealth are shifting from West to East and the world is on the threshold of a historic transfer of power. Furthermore, the attitude of the West towards Iran in general, and following Trump coming to power in particular, strengthens the viewpoint that Iran must pursue the look to the East strategy more vigorously. Others believe that the East is still unable to stand up to the West. Regarding Iran, the East is not only thinking about its maximum interests, it is even taking advantage of Iran’s limitations. This claim can be seen in Russia's decision to increase oil production in the current situation or China's conditions for settling Iranian oil money with Chinese goods.

Persia Digest (PD) has conducted an interview on this topic with Shireen Hunter who is a Research Professor at the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University in Washington DC, and she has published many books and articles on Iranian issues.

You can read the interview here:

Can the strategy of looking to the East be in Iran’s interest under the circumstances?

Iran's strategy of "Looking to the East" is nothing new. It experienced with it in the 2000s. A major problem with this strategy is that it still conceives of East and West in Cold War terms, whereas the dynamics of international relations have fundamentally altered. Unlike the Cold war era, inter-state relations are far more asymmetrical and a mixture of conflict and accommodation. Under these circumstances, states cooperate with others on some issues while disagree on others. This applies both to Western states as well as to other countries, including Russia and China. By not having constructive relations with the West, Iran puts itself in a position of disadvantage vis a vis Eastern states and enables them to take advantage of it.

Do countries such as China, Russia, India…change the quality of their relations with Iran to its detriment due to US sanctions, or are the sanctions a pretext to use Iran’s particular circumstances to their own benefit?

China, India, Russia and other states are after their own interest. In relations with Iran they want to maximize their own profits and not help Iran economically or otherwise. For example, neither China nor India want Iran to become a powerful state economically and thus compete with them. They also have no intrinsic strategic interest in Iran. For example, China still sees Pakistan as an important part of its security strategy, but it does not have the same view of Iran. China and India want to sue Iran to their own interest. As Iran has narrowed its options through hostility towards the West, these countries have treated Iran unfairly. Sanctions have given them an added excuse to try to gain advantages at Iran's expense.

If Iran, for any reason, does not choose to change its relationship with the West, especially the United States, and follow the strategy of looking to the East, what would be the requirements of such a strategy?

If Iran does not improve its bargaining position by resolving its problems with the West, especially America, Eastern states will continue to take advantage of it. But if Iran comes out of its isolation, then Eastern states would have to compete with the West in gaining Iran's cooperation on many fronts, and they would be more willing to invest in Iran and otherwise help it.

Some in Iran call Russia a strategic partner and cite the two countries’ cooperation in the Syrian crisis as an example. Can the Iran-Russia relations be strategic?

Russia has never considered Iran a strategic ally. On the contrary, throughout the post-Soviet years it has used Iran as a bargaining chip in competition with the West and as an instrument of its regional policies. Russia has treated Turkey much better than Iran and has even sought cooperation with Saudi Arabia on oil issue at Iran's expense. On the Caspian. it has sided with Azerbaijan and the Central Asian states. It has not even gotten Iran into the Shanghai treaty organization, while because of the Chinese support Pakistan is a full member. This, too, is natural since Iran has narrowed its option by its hostility towards the West. Russia has felt that Iran has nowhere else to go, Thus, the idea of Russia as a strategic ally is worse than an illusion. In general, in the post-Cold War era there are not many strategic alliances. Even US-Europe alliance is fraying.

From an American perspective, China and Russia are among the most important threats to its national security. To the contrary, Iran is trying to establish a link between itself and these two countries. Will such a link increase Iran's security? To what extent will the China-Russia-Iran triangle be a danger to the US?

In the foreseeable future, I do not see any coming together of China and Russia to counter America on the pattern of Cold War era politics. The relations among these states will be competitive but far from full scale conflict. Iran's participation in a so-called triangle will not have much impact, since neither China nor Russia will provide Iran with sufficient capacity to challenge America say in the Persian Gulf. If Iran were to do such a thing it would suffer total devastation. To protect its interests, Iran must finally realize that the Cold War distinctions between East and West are no longer valid. China and Russia do not have ideological dispute with America. Theirs is more of a classic great power rivalry. Under these circumstances, Iran should not put all its hopes in one or two countries.

Instead, it should have acceptable relations with all major players and thus improve its bargaining position.

Iran needs good ties with the East and West

(Persia Digest) - A university professor in the UK believes: “Iran must have closer ties with Europe for its economic development. But its security can be provided mostly by China and Russia. This requires a little subtlety in the ‘Neither East, Nor West’ slogan.”

Some experts in Iran believe that the world is on the threshold of a historic transfer of wealth and power from the West to the East. Furthermore, the attitude of the West towards Iran in general, and following Trump’s election in particular, strengthens the viewpoint that Iran must pursue the look to the East strategy more vigorously. Others believe that the East is still unable to stand up to the West. In Iran’s case, the East is not only thinking about its maximum interests, it is even taking advantage of Iran’s specific restrictions. This can be seen in Russia's decision to increase its oil production in the current situation or in China's conditions for settling Iranian oil money with Chinese goods.

Persia Digest (PD) has conducted an interview with Professor Anoush Ehteshami on the subject. He is a Professor of International Relations in the School of Government and International Affairs at Durham University. He has been publishing books and articles on Iranian foreign policy for nearly three decades.

You can read the interview here.

Can the strategy of looking to the East be in Iran’s interest under the circumstances?

The answer to this question needs an introduction. Iran’s foreign policy strategy was based on the “Neither East, Nor West” slogan. But after the end of the Cold War, it strengthened its ties with the East instead of the West and the slogan changed to “East-East”. Of course, China was not a world power at the time and Russia was a weak superpower. Even India did not have its economic power of today. Rising countries at the time were Japan, South Korea, and North Korea. Iran had ties with these countries before the 1979 revolution. Its military connections were strengthened with North Korea after the revolution and ties with South Korea also expanded significantly. As such, a gradual tendency towards the East grew in Iran after the Cold War.

Secondly, these global developments coincided with Iran's theory of an end to Western rule for the rising East. It was argued that Iran has an economic, cultural, geopolitical and ideological background that can strengthen the East and its relations with it in the medium-term so that it can shield Iran against America and the West.

Thirdly, international power has in practice shifted from the West to the East gradually over the past twenty years.

This gains momentum, however, only when the economic shift is tied to political issues. The East is rising beyond the shadow of a doubt. But there is no hegemony in the East and we must see what Iran is investing in by looking to the East. The East cannot yet meet the economic, military, and social needs of a relatively modern country like Iran. The question needs to be asked whether the East can respond to the needs of the Iranian middle class, which is stronger and more progressive than all the communities in the region, with combined spiritual and material aspirations.

A one-dimensional view of international relations is no longer viable, especially for a country like Iran which has a very strong industrial infrastructure and is highly specialized in terms of human resources, but with a weak economy and recovery stamina.

Iran needs good relations with both the East and West. Its primary industries date back to fifty years ago and are in need of new technologies and modernization. Iran’s main technological requirements are in the West. Countries like Japan and South Korea can help Iran, but are too afraid of the Unites States.

Iran exports most of its oil to eastern countries. This is also the case for its neighboring rival countries in the Persian Gulf whose main oil exports are also to the East. Iran’ economy is oil-based and it cannot afford to content itself with a look to the East. It must keep its oil and economic ties with the West as much as possible.

If Iran, for any reason, does not choose to change its relationship with the West, especially the United States, and follow the strategy of looking to the East, what would be the requirements of such a strategy?

The basis of Iran’s economic ties with the East is still unclear. How will this exchange take place? Except for South Korea and Japan, most of the economy in Eastern countries is run by governments. This is not a positive in the long-run, because state organizations are not competitive and these tend to pursue mainly tactical and political issues. Is Iran aware that economic relations with these countries are economically and technologically competitive or not? From the perspective of its partners, is this just in their favor, or is it a win-win situation?

Do countries such as China, Russia, India…change the quality of their relations with Iran to its detriment due to US sanctions, or are the sanctions a pretext to use Iran’s particular circumstances to their own benefit?

In my opinion, eastern countries like Russia, China, and India take advantage of Iran’s weak position. They are aware that Iran has no room for maneuver under the circumstances. Interestingly enough, Russia has announced it is willing to increase its oil production to replace Iranian oil on the market. These countries gave Iran a similar treatment under Mr Ahmadinejad’s presidency, because they knew Iran had no other options. I believe Iran’s strategy must be continued ties with Western Europe as leverage for its negotiations with the East. An Iran with alternatives cannot be taken advantage of.

Some in Iran call Russia a strategic partner and cite the two countries’ cooperation in the Syrian crisis as an example. Can the Iran-Russia relations be strategic?

This can be strategic insofar as their interests are identical. I do not believe this is a strategic relationship. History shows that Russia has always abandoned Iran in sensitive situations. Despite the fact that Iran and Russia are in synch over the Syrian crisis against the United States, Russia is not a strategically reliable partner for Iran. If Trump and Putin reach an agreement, Russia will simply prefer ties with the US to ties with Iran.

From an American perspective, China and Russia are among the most important threats to its national security. To the contrary, Iran is trying to establish a link with these two countries. Will such a link increase Iran's security? To what extent will the China-Russia-Iran triangle be a danger to the US?

I do not believe forming such a triangle will impact US opinion on Iran. Trump sees Iran as a rival for its interests in the region. The current administration does not seem to have the geopolitical perspective that such a triangle can pose a threat to its middle-term interests in the Middle East. Trump would be happy to pull out of the Middle East. Even if Russia and China replace the US in the ME, he will not consider this an issue for as long as they do not threaten the regional interests of the United States, Israel, and its allies. If such a triangle gives a new form to Iran's foreign policy, it may even be considered positive by the United States. Although China and Russia are considered serious threats to US National Security today, the United States seeks to contain it rather than confront it. For as long as the US has such a viewpoint, this triangle will not be a threat. But if India decides to join the triangle, then the US will have to worry.

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Will the formation of this triangle or square increase Iran's security against the United States? Iran is currently trying to join the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). Is this a good policy for Iran?

Joining the Shanghai Cooperation Organization will benefit Iran who must stabilize its Asian identity. This is where its security in Asia is defined. In my opinion, Europe will never provide security for Iran. Neither will India, Japan, and South Korea under these conditions. Iran needs China, Russia, and the SCO. This is a good policy for Iran at this point. It has no other options.

Is this not contradictory with the view that Iran should keep its relationship with the West?

These are not mutually exclusive. Membership in the SCO will not turn Iran against Europe; because Europe sees the SCO as a regional security organization like NATO. Iran must have closer ties with Europe for its economic development. But its security can be provided mostly by China and Russia. This requires exercising a little subtlety in the “Neither East, Nor West” slogan.

Where will we end up? Terrorism, Islamophobia and the logic of fascism

ILYA AFANASYEV 

Fascism is not only a form of prejudice, it is also a political logic. A logic that reduces complex problems to ‘us and them’ issues.

Rally for 'Patriotic Europeans against the Islamization of the West' (PEGIDA) hold German flags during a demonstration in Dresden, Germany, Jan. 5, 2015. Jens Meyer /Press Association. All rights reserved.

What is fascism? Perhaps one way to answer this question is to say that fascism is a political logic that assumes that there is an easy solution to complex political, economic and societal problems, and that this solution is grounded in being ‘honest’ and ruthless about who ‘us’ and ‘them’ are.

Political practice is then understood as a necessity and even a moral obligation to pursue this reductive identity-based vision to its logical conclusions. In this view, the complexity of society and all structural socio-economic conditions are rendered ultimately unimportant, while identity is equated with ideology and political action. Hence, for example, in classic Nazism, an integrated, baptised and ‘Germanised’ Jew, who had nothing to do with any ‘Jewish community’, was seen as ultimately representing the same coherent entity, conceived as a conscious and malevolent political agent, as a traditional religious Jew, who spoke Yiddish and practised Judaism. No matter what their appearances were, they were all the same at some level and must have been treated as an alien element in the body of the nation.

Today, a very similar logic is propagated by those who are obsessed with the connection between Islam and terrorism. Charlie Hebdo’s recent editorial ‘How did we end up here?’ is a perfect example of it. The article’s main argument is that every Muslim, who publically reveals her or his religion, engages in an act of terror and is, therefore, complicit in violent terrorism.

A peaceful intellectual, a polite baker who does not serve ham sandwiches or a woman daring to wear the veil in public – they all are members of the same entity that is not only different from ‘us’, but is also attacking ‘us’, either with their alien cultural practices or their bombs, a distinction between the two turned into a difference of scale, not of quality.

A conclusion, which is offered implicitly, is that to end terrorism we must admit that ‘Muslims’ are a problem, alongside those ‘politically correct’ lefties who do not want to acknowledge that. The only thing that is still missing here is an explicit form of biological racism: we are not yet told that everyone of ‘Muslim descent’ is guilty by definition. For now, we are ‘only’ sold comprehensive cultural discrimination.

At least, this is the case at the level of discourse. When one looks at it in practice, the situation is already more blurred, as police forces across western countries are systematically harassing those citizens and immigrants who look ‘Muslim’. For many liberals and leftists, the far-right undercurrent of Charlie Hebdo’s editorial is obvious in its attempt to build a case for a comprehensive discrimination against, in fact, a heterogeneous group of people mainly engaging in harmless activities. But we should notice that there is more to it. Fascism is not only a form of prejudice, it is also a political logic. A logic that reduces complex problems to ‘us and them’ issues.

Multiple factors, homegrown and otherwise

Terrorism is a complex problem. Any attempt to deal with it cannot be separated from understanding its multiple roots, causes and structural conditions. As even security services admit, Islamist terrorism in the west is linked to western countries’ foreign policies across the globe. This is logical in the most basic common-sense way: if you claim to wage a war, how can you be so surprised that there will be people who would want to bring it back to you?

But there is also a more complex socio-economic and geo-political dimension, related to both the west’s historical support of various Islamists movements, as well as its ongoing support of the most oppressive dictatorships across the world. Next, although systematic poverty and exclusion of (post)immigrant communities in Europe is not the only explanation of terrorism (neither is it its justification, for that matter), terrorism is indeed inseparable from the structural conditions imposed on those communities by European states and societies.

Finally, one should not dismiss the role of Islamism as a form of religiously-sanctioned political ideology and practice that attracts alienated individuals seeking empowerment. In that sense, all well-meaning proclamations that ‘terrorism has nothing to do with Islam’ are not only a form of wishful thinking, but also an explicitly harmful contribution to the reification of ‘Muslims’ as a coherent and uniform group.

The key point here is that none of the reductive singular explanations will do. Islamism and its rise in the Middle East, Central Asia, Africa and Europe is a complex story. The attractiveness of violent Islamism to a certain segment of immigrant and post-immigrant communities in the west (a very small segment, one should add) cannot be understood outside the long history and immediate politics of the west’s actions in Muslim-majority regions, those regions’ own political, socio-economic and ideological dynamics, as well as the systemic poverty and exclusion affecting minorities in the west itself. These are just three interconnected factors causing and shaping Islamist terrorism today. There are many more, as well as many more forms of terrorism, both in the west and in the world as a whole.

Banal binaries

All this should be fairly banal, but instead, we are constantly being sold a different identity-focused narrative. It is assembled in a few simple steps. There is a terrifying problem of terrorism, terrorism perpetrated by ‘them’ against ‘us’, and the only solution is to admit that there are ‘us’ and ‘them’ and stop pretending that ‘they’ are not a threat, with all their veils, refusal to serve ‘us’ ham sandwiches, smart talk of Muslim ethics and bombs.

Only when we admit that can we somehow get rid of the actual physical threat of terrorism. For now, nobody is yet telling us how exactly to solve this problem in practice (although Trump with his suggestions of banning Muslims from entering the US is coming close).

That is the difference between fascism as political practice and fascism as logic and rhetoric. But the latter is of course enabling the possibility of the former. This is why it should be resisted fiercely. To everyone who insists on a direct link between Islam, ‘the Muslims’ and terrorism, we should reply that there are no ‘Muslims’ as a coherent group, that religion itself, independently of whether we like it or not, is not a cause of political violence and that the problem of terrorism will never be solved by an insistence on any reductive identity-based approach to it.

Serious solutions

Of course, a genuine solution to the problem of terrorism is difficult to imagine short of a radical transformation of the world. Such a transformation would address the three problems singled out above and involve at least three massive structural changes.

First, ending the neo-colonialist practices of the west, Russia and China. Second, opening up a political space for going beyond the wrong choice between phony-capitalist murderous dictatorships and thuggish Islamism in the Middle East (and other post-colonial regions). Third, resurrecting the social state in Europe, one able to efficiently address the appalling conditions and exclusion of its post-immigrant communities.

While these changes remain utopian, the problem of terrorism is going to stay with us and will influence where we are going to end up. Its actual influence has nothing to do with challenges to ‘our way of life’ or any other pseudo-threats, omnipresent in the rhetoric of mainstream politicians.

The real danger is in what must be called the myth of terrorism: a view that terrorism is the ultimate form of evil, simultaneously an act of war and the most despicable vile crime, somehow both cunning and meaningless. This emotional and a-political understanding of terrorism is widespread and makes the job of those who want to reduce politics to scapegoating imagined communities easier.

The potential harm here is not only in increasing prejudices against people who are already discriminated against, but also in the replacement of necessary struggles over the forms of political-economic organisation and the distribution of wealth with reductive and simplistic politics of ‘us and them’. This is why we must prevent the supporters of fascist logic from using it to enable a new age of fascist politics to prevail in the west.

Why the West craves materialism & why the East sticks to religion

Why the West craves materialism & why the East sticks to religion, By Imran Khan

My generation grew up at a time when colonial hang up was at its peak. Our older generation had been slaves and had a huge inferiority complex of the British. The school I went to was similar to all elite schools in Pakistan. Despite gaining independent, they were, and still are, producing replicas of public schoolboys rather than Pakistanis.
I read Shakespeare, which was fine, but no Allama Iqbal — the national poet of Pakistan. The class on Islamic studies was not taken seriously, and when I left school I was considered among the elite of the country because I could speak English and wore Western clothes.
Despite periodically shouting ‘Pakistan Zindabad’ in school functions, I considered my own culture backward and religion outdated. Among our group if any one talked about religion, prayed or kept a beard he was immediately branded a Mullah.
Because of the power of the Western media, our heroes were Western movie stars or pop stars. When I went to Oxford already burdened with this hang up, things didn’t get any easier. At Oxford, not just Islam, but all religions were considered anachronism.
Science had replaced religion and if something couldn’t be logically proved it did not exist. All supernatural stuff was confined to the movies. Philosophers like Darwin, who with his half-baked theory of evolution had supposedly disproved the creation of men and hence religion, were read and revered.
Moreover, European history reflected its awful experience with religion. The horrors committed by the Christian clergy during the Inquisition era had left a powerful impact on the Western mind.
To understand why the West is so keen on secularism, one should go to places like Cordoba in Spain and see the torture apparatus used during the Spanish Inquisition. Also the persecution of scientists as heretics by the clergy had convinced the Europeans that all religions are regressive.
However, the biggest factor that drove people like me away from religion was the selective Islam practiced by most of its preachers. In short, there was a huge difference between what they practiced and what they preached. Also, rather than explaining the philosophy behind the religion, there was an overemphasis on rituals.
I feel that humans are different to animals. While, the latter can be drilled, humans need to be intellectually convinced. That is why the Qur’an constantly appeals to reason. The worst, of course, was the exploitation of Islam for political gains by various individuals or groups.
Hence, it was a miracle I did not become an atheist. The only reason why I did not was the powerful religious influence my mother wielded on me since my childhood. It was not so much out of conviction but love for her that I stayed a Muslim.
However, my Islam was selective. I accepted only parts of the religion that suited me. Prayers were restricted to Eid days and occasionally on Fridays, when my father insisted on taking me to the mosque with him.
All in all I was smoothly moving to becoming a Pukka Brown Sahib. After all I had the right credentials in terms of school, university and, above all, acceptability in the English aristocracy, something that our brown sahibs would give their lives for. So what led me to do a ‘lota’ on the Brown Sahib culture and instead become a ‘desi’?
Well it did not just happen overnight.
Firstly, the inferiority complex that my generation had inherited gradually went as I developed into a world-class athlete. Secondly, I was in the unique position of living between two cultures. I began to see the advantages and the disadvantages of both societies.
In Western societies, institutions were strong while they were collapsing in our country. However, there was an area where we were and still are superior, and that is our family life. I began to realize that this was the Western society’s biggest loss. In trying to free itself from the oppression of the clergy, they had removed both God and religion from their lives.
While science, no matter how much it progresses, can answer a lot of questions — two questions it will never be able to answer: One, what is the purpose of our existence and two, what happens to us when we die?
It is this vacuum that I felt created the materialistic and the hedonistic culture. If this is the only life then one must make hay while the sun shines — and in order to do so one needs money. Such a culture is bound to cause psychological problems in a human being, as there was going to be an imbalance between the body and the soul.
Consequently, in the US, which has shown the greatest materialistic progress while giving its citizens numerous rights, almost 60 percent of the population consult psychiatrists. Yet, amazingly in modern psychology, there is no study of the human soul. Sweden and Switzerland, who provide the most welfare to their citizens, also have the highest suicide rates. Hence, man is not necessarily content with material well being and needs something more.
Since all morality has it roots in religion, once religion was removed, immorality has progressively grown since the 70s. Its direct impact has been on family life. In the UK, the divorce rate is 60 percent, while it is estimated that there are over 35 percent single mothers. The crime rate is rising in almost all Western societies, but the most disturbing fact is the alarming increase in racism. While science always tries to prove the inequality of man (recent survey showing the American Black to be genetically less intelligent than whites) it is only religion that preaches the equality of man.
Between 1991 and 1997, it was estimated that total immigration into Europe was around 520,000, and there were racially motivated attacks all over, especially in Britain, France and Germany. In Pakistan during the Afghan war, we had over four million refugees, and despite the people being so much poorer, there was no racial tension.
There was a sequence of events in the 80s that moved me toward God as the Qur’an says: “There are signs for people of understanding.” One of them was cricket. As I was a student of the game, the more I understood the game, the more I began to realize that what I considered to be chance was, in fact, the will of Allah. A pattern which became clearer with time. But it was not until Salman Rushdie’s “Satanic Verses” that my understanding of Islam began to develop.
People like me who were living in the Western world bore the brunt of anti-Islam prejudice that followed the Muslim reaction to the book. We were left with two choices: fight or flight. Since I felt strongly that the attacks on Islam were unfair, I decided to fight. It was then I realized that I was not equipped to do so as my knowledge of Islam was inadequate. Hence I started my research and for me a period of my greatest enlightenment. I read scholars like Ali Shariati, Muhammad Asad, Iqbal, Gai Eaton, plus of course, a study of Qur’an.
I will try to explain as concisely as is possible, what “discovering the truth” meant for me. When the believers are addressed in the Qur’an, it always says, “Those who believe and do good deeds.” In other words, a Muslim has dual function, one toward God and the other toward fellow human beings.
The greatest impact of believing in God for me, meant that I lost all fear of human beings. The Qur’an liberates man from man when it says that life and death and respect and humiliation are God’s jurisdiction, so we do not have to bow before other human beings.
Moreover, since this is a transitory world where we prepare for the eternal one, I broke out of the self-imposed prisons, such as growing old (such a curse in the Western world, as a result of which, plastic surgeons are having a field day), materialism, ego, what people say and so on. It is important to note that one does not eliminate earthly desires. But instead of being controlled by them, one controls them.
By following the second part of believing in Islam, I have become a better human being. Rather than being self-centered and living for the self, I feel that because the Almighty gave so much to me, in turn I must use that blessing to help the less privileged. This I did by following the fundamentals of Islam rather than becoming a Kalashnikov-wielding fanatic.
I have become a tolerant and a giving human being who feels compassion for the underprivileged. Instead of attributing success to myself, I know it is because of God’s will, hence I learned humility instead of arrogance.
Also, instead of the snobbish Brown Sahib attitude toward our masses, I believe in egalitarianism and strongly feel against the injustice done to the weak in our society. According to the Qur’an, “Oppression is worse than killing.” In fact only now do I understand the true meaning of Islam, if you submit to the will of Allah, you have inner peace.
Through my faith, I have discovered strength within me that I never knew existed and that has released my potential in life. I feel that in Pakistan we have selective Islam. Just believing in God and going through the rituals is not enough. One also has to be a good human being. I feel there are certain Western countries with far more Islamic traits than us in Pakistan, especially in the way they protect the rights of their citizens, or for that matter their justice system. In fact some of the finest individuals I know live there.
What I dislike about them is their double standards in the way they protect the rights of their citizens but consider citizens of other countries as being somehow inferior to them as human being, e.g. dumping toxic waste in the Third World, advertising cigarettes that are not allowed in the West and selling drugs that are banned in the West.
One of the problems facing Pakistan is the polarization of two reactionary groups. On the one side is the Westernized group that looks upon Islam through Western eyes and has inadequate knowledge about the subject. It reacts strongly to anyone trying to impose Islam in society and wants only a selective part of the religion. On the other extreme is the group that reacts to this Westernized elite and in trying to become a defender of the faith, takes up such intolerant and self-righteous attitudes that are repugnant to the spirit of Islam.
What needs to be done is to somehow start a dialogue between the two extreme. In order for this to happen, the group on whom the greatest proportion of our educational resources are spent in this country must study Islam properly.
Whether they become practicing Muslims or believe in God is entirely a personal choice. As the Qur’an tells us there is “no compulsion in religion.” However, they must arm themselves with knowledge as a weapon to fight extremism. Just by turning up their noses at extremism the problem is not going to be solved.
The Qur’an calls Muslims “the middle nation”, not of extremes. The Holy Prophet (peace be upon him) was told to simply give the message and not worry whether people converted or not, therefore, there is no question in Islam of forcing your opinions on anyone else.
Moreover, we are told to respect other religions, their places of worship and their prophets. It should be noted that no Muslim missionaries or armies ever went to Malaysia or Indonesia. The people converted to Islam due to the high principles and impeccable character of the Muslim traders. At the moment, the worst advertisements for Islam are the countries with their selective Islam, especially where religion is used to deprive people of their rights. In fact, a society that obeys fundamentals of Islam has to be a liberal one.
If Pakistan’s Westernized class starts to study Islam, not only will it be able to help society fight sectarianism and extremism, but it will also make them realize what a progressive religion Islam is. They will also be able to help the Western world by articulating Islamic concepts. Recently, Prince Charles accepted that the Western world can learn from Islam. But how can this happen if the group that is in the best position to project Islam gets its attitudes from the West and considers Islam backward? Islam is a universal religion and that is why our Prophet (peace be upon him) was called a Mercy for all mankind. (Internews)