SWP and political Islam

Pic: Socialist Worker on the 7 October 2023 Hamas atrocity.

The Socialist Workers Party (SWP) in Britain holds a soft and controversial stance towards political Islam. Their viewpoint is rooted in an anti-imperialist framework. The SWP's perspective on political Islam understands it primarily as a response to imperialism. The SWP argues that political Islam, including movements like the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, or Hezbollah, generally emerges as a reaction to Western imperialism, occupation, and oppression, particularly in the Middle East. It sees these movements representing a genuine struggle for many ordinary people against dictatorial regimes, Israeli occupation, or American intervention. Although the SWP does not politically support the ideology of political Islam, it alleges that it often fills a void left by the absence of a strong left. According to SWP, Political Islam is not inherently reactionary and must be understood within its material and historical context.

For us, political Islam is a reactionary contemporary movement. The rise of political Islam as a movement is the result of an ideological-political vacuum stemming from the bankruptcy of the nationalist movement and the disarray of the local bourgeoisie in the Middle East. It is one of the alternatives of the  Right in society for the renewal of the bourgeois state and ruling structure, which emerged in the context of confrontation with the left and the working class that developed alongside the expansion of capitalism... From our perspective, political Islam is a general title for movements that use Islam as a primary tool for right-wing mobilization by the ruling class and a form of its governing regime against the left in Middle Eastern societies. By this measure, it competes with other sections of capital for its share in  global power, particularly with the dominant poles,

According to the political view of the  Socialist Worker, which is "anti-imperialist and anti-American," America is the source of all conflicts in the Middle East – and it denies the existence of class conflict in these societies, like any other capitalist society based on exploitation and wage Labor. In these societies, the bourgeoisie and the working class come into conflict with each other. However, the Socialist Workers believe that nationalism, political Islam, and capitalism in these societies, i.e., the Middle East, must be supported. In this way, it seeks to obscure the class struggle and the working class movement in the Middle East, which stands against capitalism and political Islam, because it believes that in the absence of a strong left, it is political Islam that fills the field. This view demonstrates its complete incompatibility with communism and the struggles of communists, as well as the internationalist struggle and solidarity.

It is precisely this political interpretation and method that have led the Socialist Worker Party throughout its history to stand in defense of the Islamic Republic of Iran and Muqtada al-Sadr in Iraq. It is appropriate to recall that in September 2001, shortly after the September 11 attacks, the Stop the War Coalition was formed as a response to the planned US-led war on Afghanistan when Afghanistan became the first arena of American retaliation, turning it into a field for American and Western military aggression and the fight against political Islam.  The Stop the War Coalition quickly became a central force in the British anti-war movement, especially in the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. This movement was active on the ground. In Britain, I, as a communist activist, was a member of the Stop the War Coalition. Within the committee, we held different views on the war. We held different opinions on the war and believed that the Middle East was the theater of a struggle between several social movements that existed before the war was launched by the United States and the West against sections of political Islam, shaping various political trends in these societies.

Unfortunately, the Socialist Worker Party, in the mass protest demonstrations, gave much more space to speakers of Taliban and political Islam than us to express our analysis and views of the war from the perspective of the working class. They altogether boycotted and silenced us! During the Iraq war, they applied the same political approach towards me and my comrades in the Worker-communist Party of Iraq. We, who were anti-war and defended freedom, equality, human and progressive values, and civility in society, were marginalized. Meanwhile, they provided a platform for representatives of movements that practice terror, bombings, femicide, honor killings, and target civilians, portraying them as symbols of resistance and thought!  They glorified and entrusted this position in the mass protests in Britain to the reactionary movement of political Islam under the pretext of gathering large crowds at the expense of attacking us as communists and socialists who are staunch defenders of the working class, secularism, progressivism, progressive society, and people's rights and freedoms.

The history of contemporary Iraqi and Kurdish society has been a history of conflict and confrontation between two opposing social movements: The nationalist and Islamic movements working to impose backwardness and reaction on society and deprive people of fundamental rights and freedoms, of modern life, versus the worker communist, progressive and secular movements advocating free, equal, and prosperous society.

The Worker-communist Party represents this latter front. It is a party that prepares the working class to liberate society. It aims to represent the working class in the struggle and offer a working-class solution to humanity in the political power struggle, which is key to revolutionizing the economic foundation of society. Its main struggle is for power and the fate of society...

 We are victims of those reactionary currents in the Middle East and have always fought against those movements to end their influence on people's lives. Simultaneously, the struggle against imperialism is part of our strategy for socialist revolution. Unfortunately, they did not want to acknowledge that there are communists and socialists in Iraq who could lead the people's struggle and resistance against occupation and who advocate a clear socialist revolutionary program. These criticisms expose the SWP's strategy of a tactical alliance with Islamist forces as short-sighted and antithetical to socialist principles, and highlight the need for unity based on class and uncompromising opposition to any anti-working-class ideology, whether religious or secular.

Yet, the SWP sees political Islam as a force that has a place in the political landscape of Muslim-majority countries in the Middle East and North Africa. Due to its populist and demagogic nature, it obscures the criminal nature of Islamist movements– evident in the Islamic Republic of Iran, terrorist groups in Syria, the Taliban in Afghanistan, ISIS, and other currents in Egypt, Algeria, Sudan, Syria... These are concrete examples of crimes, beheadings, mass killings, enslaving women and children, and committing terrorism against civilians.

Recently, at a rally concerning the Israeli war against Iran, they provided a platform to speakers who shamelessly defended the Islamic Republic of Iran. That reactionary, murderous regime that for over 45 years has brutally suppressed workers and people fighting for their freedoms. Routinely executes leftist, socialist, and activists of labor, teachers, youth, women, and political opposition figures. Tens of thousands of activists of the labor and women's movement and political dissidents languish in the dungeons and torture chambers of Evin Prison and other jails. Yet, the same party, under the banner of anti-imperialism and anti-Zionism, portrays the Islamic Republic as a hero standing against America and the West, showering this reactionary regime with praise!

It is truly shameful that while freedom-loving and progressive people of the world and the international anti-war movement stand against American and Israeli military aggression in the region, the ultimate responsibility for ending this dangerous situation falls on us – we who have no interest in starting or continuing these crimes against humanity – we can raise our direct, strong, and vocal objection to end this ongoing war in the Middle East... They provide a platform for the reactionary regime of the Islamic Republic of Iran to justify the crimes of that misogynist, murderous regime! They divert mass movements of millions demanding an end to the war, calling for an end to the crimes of the Netanyahu government and its allies in Gaza, Syria, Lebanon, and Iran... into the swamp of legitimizing the Islamic regime of Iran, at the expense of the working class and freedom-loving and progressive people of the Middle East! They cover up the crimes of political Islam! With this political stance towards political Islam and the Iranian regime, the Socialist Worker Party insults the struggle and sacrifice of those thousands of communists, socialists, progressive workers, and progressive people who have been imprisoned or killed by the Islamic regime of Iran or who have been assassinated by Islamist forces and groups in the region! With their stance, they become complicit in the crimes of political Islam and the Islamic Republic of Iran against the working class, the workers' movement, and the communist and egalitarian movements in the Middle East!

• 29/6/2025. Dashty Jamal is a member of the Worker-communist Party of Kurdistan