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since Wed, 26 Dec 2007 20:04:17.
Atzmon On Secularism and Marxism
Gilad Atzmon
Introduction by Israel Shamir
These two most recent and angry texts of our friend Gilad Atzmon are united in his rejection of atheism, of enforced godlessness of the Left. Like other most radical and leading members of our small community, he has turned to God and to Faith, and had parted with barren antireligious attitudes of yesterday.
Fight against God was (is?) an integral part of Marxist doctrine for historical reasons, caused by heavy participation of secular Jews in the Left and Revolutionary movements of 19th- early 20th cc. After parting with Jewish faith, these persons could consider themselves ‘ex-Jews’, ‘no Jews any more’, like Marx did. This way was too difficult for many of them, so they preferred to construct a new identity, nationalist secular Jewishness, i.e. to become ‘secular Jews’. These ‘secular Jews’ demanded from other members of the Left to part with their faith.
The Left doctrine including its anti-religious component has been exported to the large world outside of Europe as preferable, progressive, working radical opposition idea. It won the day in Russia and China, and elsewhere. Only after collapse of the Soviet Union the new radical native movements sprung forth, totally independent of European influence: Hamas of Palestine, Islamic republic of Iran, Hezbollah of Lebanon, and to some extent the Bolivarian revolution of Latin America.
The Left is still burdened by anti-religious attitude: the Marxist Communist ruling party of Nepal navigated itself into a heavy crisis by trying to wean people away from their faith. They objected to the native Nepalese cult of Child Goddess Kumari, and have brought down their own government. Likewise, the Chinese Communists unnecessarily antagonized the Tibetans by trying to fight their religious life.
Instead of joining with local radical anti-imperialist movements, the Left fights them. Thus, Communists of Iraq practically welcomed the US occupation, Communists of Iran supported the richest man of the land, Rafsanjani, against Ahmadinejad, Cuban Communists were against Castro, Venezuelan Communists were against Chavez and Palestinian Communists are against Hamas. This schism has to be defeated, if the Left is to survive and flourish.
Criticism of Gilad is not always fair: though historically Jewish Marxists were responsible for this development, nowadays they do not lead anymore. The non-Jewish Palestinian Left is as anti-Islamic as the Jewish Left. In Ramallah and in Yasouf, I’ve heard more anti-Hamas talk than in Golders Green. We have to restore the anti-imperialist front, and this calls for containing militant secularism on one hand and militant anti-communism, on the other.
Gilad is mistaken when he postulates his two points:
1. The Palestinian liberation movement is basically a national liberation movement. By acknowledging this we lose the internationalist Left with its opposition to nationalism.
2. Due to the political rise of Hamas, Palestinian resistance is now regarded as Islamic resistance. This is where we are losing the secularists and rabid atheists.
Hamas and the Islamic resistance are an important part, but not the whole of Palestinian resistance. And the Palestinian liberation movement today may be seen as a civil rights movement aiming to provide equal rights to all dwellers of Palestine/Israel. Likewise, there was a Black liberation movement of Black Panthers with its religious component of Luis Farrakhan, but it was the US civil rights movement that won the day with Obama’s victory. Without Black Panthers and Farrakhan it may never happen, but they had to concede ground. We should strive for a similar shift in Palestine, by speaking more forcefully for One State solution.
Recently, one Hussein Ibish, an indecently obese American Lebanese lapdog of Mahmud Abbas, attacked the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement) asking: what BDS would be promoting: an end to the occupation or an end to Israel? ‘End to Israel’, like ‘end to slavery’ or ‘end to apartheid’ is the correct answer to Ibish’s query. And at this point we may find an agreement of the secular and the religious wings, both at home and abroad.
[Click here to read the entire article.]
