Islamism

"The British are... doing all in their power to foster the Moslem Brotherhood, a clerical-fascist organisation in Egypt... [the Muslim Brotherhood] refused to participate on 21 February, 1946, "Evacuation Day" as this was a real anti-imperialist movement and not a communal one.. "Slogans of solidarity among Moslem, Christian and Jewish workers were shouted throughout the demonstrations, and the fascist leader Ahmed Hussein, who tried to worm his way into the demonstration, was howled down and not allowed to speak." Tony Cliff, writing in 1946 In the Guardian on 13 July 2004, under the headline...

By Joan Trevor "The evil has landed" was the Sun's headline to describe the arrival of Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi in Britain on 5 July. Qaradawi is the spiritual leader of the Egyptian Islamist organisation, the Muslim Brotherhood. The Sun article said that Qaradawi supports suicide bombings by Palestinians in Israel, advocates killing homosexuals and condones wife-beating. Since when did socialists believe anything they read in the Sun? However, whilst the Sun's new-found concern for homosexual human rights probably has most to do with them looking for a new stick to beat Islam with, they did...

Once upon a time I was a Tao-y arty little hippy whose family happens to be flaming scarlet. It happens that I know a good deal about the diversity of the Islamic tradition, or at any rate more than Galloway, German and Livingstone, who appal me and my simple belief that atheism and feminism are the hallmarks of the Left. What follows is certain reflections on religion and the proposed legislation against inciting religious hatred which may be of interest to comrades. New Labour seems to view religion in terms of the devotees of Yahweh-Allah-Jehovah, a chap not a girl's best friend. The...

Gerry Bates (Solidarity 3-52 27 May) says "The PJP has called on Muslims not to vote Lib-Dems because the Lib-Dems are in favour of equal rights for gays and lesbians." Gerry knows this is not true. Jim Denham reported in early May on one of the left e-mail lists, that the leaflet had been withdrawn. The sequence of events is as follows: A draft leaflet by two candidates of the PJP in Saltley which had a homophobic comment, was available at a PJP meeting in Saltley on 2 May 2004. I am informed by Raghib Ahsan, a left wing ex-Labour Councillor and candidate for the PJP, that leading members of...

Gerry Byrne concludes her series of articles about Bolsheviks and Islam "By 1924, the Bolsheviks had turned their attention to Central Asia and the liberation of women there. Their approach combined propaganda about the benefits to women of the soviet law, and encouragement to participate in politics and production, with practical material benefits, education, training, social and medical care. "In the absence of native activists, it was the most dedicated and courageous members of Zhenotdel [Department of Working Women and Peasant Women] who donned the paranja [veil] in order to meet with...

About 35 people attended the AWL London forum on "Capitalism, socialism and Islam" at University of London Union last night. The other speaker was Shahed Salim from Just Peace - a loose network of activists formed during the 2001 Afghan war to provide a "Muslim voice" within the Stop the War Coalition. Just Peace seems to concentrate its activism on international Muslim "hot spots" such as Iraq and Palestine, plus domestic offshoots of the war on terror such as attacks on civil liberties; but it also has an ambition to help develop a wider "Muslim voice in politics". Shahed stressed that the...

The former MAB (Muslim Association of Britain) president Anas Altikriti will top the list of candidates for the George Galloway/SWP coalition Respect in the June Euro-election Yorkshire and Humberside. Although he was not selected as a candidate by the Yorkshire and Humberside convention last month, he was confirmed to top the list at a meeting in Leeds on Saturday 3 April. In fact, the Socialist Worker newspaper had already announced he had been selected the week before! The former president was previously MAB's director of press relations and was responsible for MAB's campaign to get Muslims...

Click here for Part 1. Click here for Part 2. Gerry Byrne continues an examination of the relationship between the Russian Bolshevik Party that made the Russian Revolution in 1917 and the Islamic subject states of the Tsarist empire they inherited. What, if anything, can it teach us about socialists' relationship to Islam today? "All Muslim colonised peoples are proletarian peoples and as almost all classes in Muslim society have been oppressed by the colonialists, all classes have the right to be called 'proletarians'. ...Therefore it is legitimate to say that the national liberation movement...

Modern Jihad: Tracing the Dollars Behind the Terror Networks by Loretta Napoleoni This book looks at the filthy-dirty business of the funding of modern "terror" organisations. If there are differences in the roots of and political outlooks of these groups - between for instance the Tamil Tigers and Islamic Jihad, between the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and al-Qaida, Napoleoni is not much interested in them. She quite explicitly sets out to write an "economic analysis" and to avoid political concepts. This, she says, is a new way of looking at the problem. I don't know about...