Islamism will rise!

Sounds like I’ve drank the kool aid that the EDL and their new spin off group ‘Britain First’ has been drinking with that headline. But I’m actually being serious, the political and religious system we know as Islamism is (in my opinion) going to rise, gain strength and become a major factor in the Great Britain and Europe over the coming years – perhaps even longer!

And this whole mess will be as a direct result of the current political mantra of what can loosely be termed ‘neo-liberalism’ and ‘neo-conservatism’. And as you read that, some of you might now be thinking that I’ve started growing dreadlocks and have started writing for the Socialist Worker. Alas, I’ve done none of these things, so allow me to give you my thoughts on what I see as a trend happening right now.

I’ve always been a bit of a political geek, I like to listen to political podcasts whilst commuting to work, I buy books my family consider ‘crazy’ and I enjoy political debate on TV and Radio and reading political commentary from those who blog and write articles on the internet. I’ve also changed political stances over the years, from a young teenage conservative, to a late teenage Liberal, social democrat in my twenties and now I think the best definition of my political stances would be to call myself a socialist libertarian; but I’m also something of a capitalist too – perhaps I’m simply a contrarian. And I’m still learning, evolution of thought never stops until the moment we cease to exist.

Anyway, as I said in the title; Islamism will rise. And I think we’re seeing the start of this right now..
This isn’t a rant about mass immigration, or Muslims, or the Quran. Islamist thought comes about as a direct result from a feeling of disenfranchisement from society and feeling like the society that governs us is essentially harming us, controlling us and using humans as mere resources. And this is what is happening right now.

Over the last 25-30 years, there has been a concerted effort by powerful people to buffer the wealthiest in society from the rest of us. Eliminating controls over corporate interests, reducing or eliminating estate taxes, land based taxes, and so on. Privatising everything possible, including healthcare, public education and some of the core functions of governments. This has been done in one or two ways, one is through a system of brutal dictatorship (such as Augusto Pinochet in Chile), where a government will implement massive reforms, reducing the so called public burden and violently kill off any opposing voices.

The second method of driving through massive changes that benefit the wealthiest but hurt those from the bottom up can be done by using crisis management as a means to slide through policies that hurt the country, but they get told ‘sorry, we can’t afford healthcare anymore’ or similar excuses as publicly owned systems get sold off to private interests (corporations or hedge funds). This second option is currently happening right now in the UK under what we call ‘austerity’ and is going on in Iraq under the banner of ‘rebuilding’ after the years of war ripped that countries infrastructure apart.

And as the state of our country and other western countries goes further to the Milton Friedman dream of a neo-liberal utopia, where the so called free market rules the world, then people are going to get angry as they get disenfranchised!

This is also why many on the left feel something of a brotherhood with Islamist groups and tend to ignore their odious philosophical leanings, assuming that there is no greater evil than that of an imposed neo-liberal economy. And just as these same economic sanctions brought about a rise in left wing guerrilla movements in South America, they’re doing the same here with young, angry Muslims. As a left wing guerrilla kills for an ideology of a socialist utopia, the Islamist takes up arms for the utopia of a Muslim Caliphate.

And in some respects, the two ideologies have many similar traits! After all, it was the first Muslim Caliphate (introduced by Abu Bakr) that introduced a guaranteed minimum income, something many on the left would like to see introduced as well. There were many egalitarian principles used in the first Muslim Caliphate, that today would be considered socialist by their very nature. So Socialism and Islamism can easily be shared as ideologies by an individual, or indeed an entire nation.

Right now, there are young people across Britain who are being told that they can never own their own home, that they might not have a pension when they get old (they can’t save because they’re too poor) and not one single politician or leader is giving them hope. These aren't just young Muslims, these are from every ethnic background, but they don’t come from wealthy families. The education system is eroding, people leave school without any real hope of making a good life for themselves. People then turn to addiction, drugs, alcohol or junk food. Some try to find a way out, a cause to fight for, to try and rid their world of what they think causes their lives to be so ****. Some turn to the far right (Britain First), some to the far left, some to religion or cults, but then Islamism takes in people due to it’s religious experience, plus the idea that Islamists believe that they’re fighting for a better world.

And this is why Islamism will rise!

Until there is a major political shift in this country, when someone can come along and provide people with hope for a better future and not piss it away after they get elected (Tony Blair), then I don’t see anything getting better – just worse.

And how long before other groups who feel disenfranchised start turning to violence? I can easily see a time within my lifetime when the UK loses it’s monopoly of violence.

(or perhaps I’m just being a negative bastard because England got kicked out of the World Cup)

No Timmers, you're missing my point. People turn to Islamism to strive for a better tomorrow, the neo-conservative argument that Islamists essentially follow the Quran to the letter of the word is too simple an explanation to why people join Isis in the first place.

How many parts of the world are full of hostile forces bringing death and destruction to people? The answer is many.. But why does the west care so much about Iraq?

Oil!

The current Iraqi government is a Shia controlled government, known for treating Sunni Muslims like dirt. This is why Isis has a lot of support on the ground there, people are being treated as second class citizens and suddenly a fighting force is telling them 'we're on your side'.

Not to mention the country is effectively an artificial creation of borders that really doesn't respect the Sunni/Shia divide, not to mention the Kurds.

On top of all of this, there is the added bonus of an odious debt, plus all the contracts to drill the oil being given to Western, Russian and Asian corporations (but not a single Arab one) by a puppet government after the fall of Saddam. A lot of the wealth of Iraq doesn't go to the Iraqi people, it's getting siphoned out by external influences. That alone creates anger and frustration.

It's too simple to blame this all on Islam or on Muslims, plus it distracts us from the real issues that cause people to turn to violence and guerrilla warfare. You can weaponise any religion if need be, Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism or Islam. However, in order to get people to follow such an ideology, you first need to create conditions that enable a massive disparity between the wealthiest and the poorest, then you need to keep that wealth gap in place through laws and tax systems to really set the scene for an uprising.

And this is what Islamism is. It's an uprising (albeit a very small one right now) against the powers that be, the status quo and the perceived ills of society. It's simple cause and effect...

You also missed my point.. The above illustration should clearly show we're both acknowledging the past and present misdeeds our governments have imposed upon Muslim countries.

I made reference to neo-conservatism and neo-liberalism being to blame for all this, I'll try and explain why.

neo-conservativism is the 'assertive' approach to freedom and democracy, in other words. Let's invade a country and impose a democratic government on those poor SOBs. However, as we all should know, democracy must be an internal force where the people demand representation and tear down dictators and monarchs. Otherwise, it is blind to the nuances of that particular culture. A good example is the current Iraq, a country containing at least three different groups of people who really never got on with each other..

Sound familiar? Yugoslavia was a similar failed experiment....

Plus, to fuel this fire we have neo-liberalism. Which is neither new (neo) or liberal (at least not in the classic sense), but thanks to Regan and Thatcher amongst others, the west is pretty much dominated by this ideology of the Market effectively writing policy for governments.

And so these imposed democracies have enshrined a system that fails the poorest in society, doesn't help the middle class and sucks up as much wealth as possible for those at the top.

And then we wonder why there are so many insurgents!

I see this becoming more and more the norm unless there is a massive shift in political thinking.

And of course the irony (for me), is that by creating and furthering such a massive divide in society, the wealthiest will suffer the most in the end of all this. As they build up their walls, live in gated communities, hire round the clock security and hope that keeps those poor people out (we're already seeing these communities crop up), they effectively imprison themselves. And when they do come out to enjoy the sights of the major cities, they'll be forever on their guard.

Gated communities...

Oath of Fealty, by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle early 1980's.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oath_of_Fealty_(novel)

covered much of this, not specifically the religion related aspects but what happens when wealth becomes truly divisive.