Prioritise clarity over rhetorical flourish

Submitted by AWL on 3 December, 2013 - 6:16 Author: Janine Booth

In the discussion arising from Sean Matgamna’s introduction to Workers’ Liberty 3/1: Marxism and Religion, there are perhaps two issues that need a little more debate.

The first is the extent to which Islamism is a “modern” movement or the revival of a centuries-old movement. The former is often put as an explanation of Islamism as straightforwardly the product of modern Western imperialism, which is simplistic and inaccurate. But it is important not to counter one simplistic view with its mirror-image. Islamism has many modern features, and while it has centuries-old roots and a life of its own, it is shaped and popularised in response to Western governments’ military adventures against mainly-Muslim countries. More discussion is needed about the balance of modernism and revivalism in Islamism.

The second issue is the role of “envy” or “covetousness”. There is Muslim scholarship, and there are writings by Engels, which describe envy and covetousness of, for example, nomadic Bedouins towards richer townspeople in the Islamic world in the past. But this is different from the assertion in Sean’s article that “much of the Islamic world” now looks with envy and covetousness at advanced capitalist societies. For sure, there may be resentment — quite justifiably so — against imperialist oppression and inequalities in wealth. But “resentment” and “envy” are not the same thing. Neither is it helpful to slip from “Islamists” to “much of the Islamic world”. I have not yet seen a justification of the description in Sean’s article of “envy” and “covetousness” that convinces me: if there is not one, then that passage may be an unreasonable generalisation.

Perhaps it is a sloppy use of language. Certainly, it is the overall argument of the article that matters, and that overall argument is right. And certainly, scrutiny of many left groups’ back catalogue would reveal similarly unfortunate turns of phrase.

Moreover, there is a tendency to exaggerate the importance of language by people wanting to scandalise an article rather than argue with its politics; and by schools of thought such as post-modernism, which places language on a pedestal above the ideas, and even the material facts, that language describes. But language does matter.

It matters that it is as accurate as it can be; that it is as clear as it can be, to avoid multiple interpretations; and it matters that it avoids words or constructions which alienate or insult groups of people who we wish to engage with. In some places, this falls down on these.

Most notoriously, it does so in the phrase “desert tribes of primitive Muslim simplicity and purity eyeing a rich and decadent walled city and sharpening their knives”, with critics placing particular emphasis on the use of the word “primitive” and the imagery of “sharpening their knives”.

The author uses “primitive” to mean that the “simplicity and purity” he refers to is that of a previous, original age; critics say that, placed next to “Muslim”, it is a racist slur. Does “primitive” mean literally the same as “original”? Yes. Does it in today’s usage carry a more subjective, insulting implication than “original”? Yes, it undoubtedly does. (A comparison — not from the article — might be the word “retarded”. It is a synonym of “delayed”, but used to describe a person, is a much more pejorative term.) The author may not intend “primitive Muslim virtue and simplicity” — and the sentence that it is part of — as an insult, but he should not be surprised if people take it as such.

It is noticeable that the AWL’s many critics did not notice this supposedly obvious racism when the article was published in 2006, and many of those denouncing it now are applying the worst possible reading to the phrases used. But the wording is loose enough that it is possible to read it to have an insulting, even racist, meaning without being a sectarian mischief-maker.

The reference to “sharpening their knives” has been seen as a “trope” — an image often used by anti-Muslim bigots to create fear of a violent Muslim threat and therefore best avoided by opponents of anti-Muslim bigotry. A defence would be that just because bigots use a particular phrase or image, that does not necessarily make it bigoted or racist when anti-racists use it. True enough. But the AWL has rightly cautioned against using tropes in other situations, for example anti-semitic tropes used by some when discussing the Israel/Palestine issue.

We can (try to) insist that readers engage with what an article actually says. But when a passage can legitimately be read in more than one way, we have neither the right nor the power to insist that readers (especially those unfamiliar with the author or the AWL’s other material) read it in the way we want them to. It might be better if readers dealt with ambiguous meanings in an article by pausing and seeking out further reading and investigating the context of the author and the organisation, but that is not the political culture we live in.

The AWL argues for an vital set of politics that swims against the stream of both capitalist ideology and the mainstream left. There is no guarantee against ambiguity or malicious misrepresentation, but greater clarity can minimise the likelihood of it and isolate those who try it.

The AWL should say what needs to be said: it should do so in a way that prioritises clarity over rhetorical flourish.

Click here for continuation of the debate and here for background.

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