Osama bin Lenin?
The historian Niall Ferguson is the author most recently of The War of the World. In an interview in the “Ideas” section of today’s Boston Globe, he has this to say:
IDEAS: How do you understand radical Islamism? Is it, as some say, the successor to Marxism?
FERGUSON:
It is. The great category error of our time is to equate radical
Islamism with fascism. If you actually read what Osama bin Laden says,
it’s clearly Lenin plus the Koran. It’s internationalist,
revolutionary, and anticapitalist-rhetoric far more of the left than of
the right. And radical Islamism is good at recruiting within our
society, within western society generally. In western Europe, to an
extent people underestimate here, the appeal of radical Islamism
extends beyond Muslim communities.
IDEAS: To people who might once have been drawn to Marxism?
FERGUSON:
And for much the same reason. Here is a way to reject the impure,
corrupt qualities of western life and embrace a monotheistic zealotry.
That’s very satisfying.
I would say that Ferguson has a point. The term Islamo-fascism may in some of its users arise from a certain lack of imagination. With others is is a case of monkey hear, monkey repeat. I would like to suggest another possibility as well. There are currently no professedly fascist governmets to bridle at the term islamo-fascist. Some governments have still an attachment to Marxism. No one wants to offend a possible ally against terrorism. Or is that too far fetched?
Not to be more unkind than usual…….
But Ferguson is a Brit provacteur who couldn’t make a living in his own country and has come here to help ruin ours.
What does he know about Islam??? His academic speciality is/was economics and WWI.
What is the utility in rousing the Cold War metaphor by comparing Islam to Marxism. Just as bad as comparing it to fascism. And with the same intent: We should be on a permanent war footing.
He is a leading candidate for my Send the Brits Back Movement. (This is not ethnic prejudice! Patrick Allitt is certainly a welcome addition to our country even if his English sounds funny!)
>>Ferguson is a Brit provacteur who couldn’t make a living in his own country and has come here to help ruin ours.<<
Wha? From Wikipedia:
Niall Ferguson is Laurence Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University, where he teaches in both the History Department and the Harvard Business School. He also holds fellowships at Jesus College, University of Oxford, and at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. Ferguson was formerly the John Herzog Chair of Financial History at NYU, and Professor of Modern History at University of Oxford.
“Provacteur” sounds more Ted Kennedy than Chuck Schumer.
I have no particular brief for Ferguson’s thesis save that I found it suggestive. However, he’s not “comparing Islam to Marxism,” but rather Osama’s brand of “radical Islamism.”
Where’s Patrick Lang now that we need him?
I still think Ferguson has a point, which I thought was obvious. Fascism is nationalist in scope. Marxism is universalist, I would not like to see the term Islamo-marxist substituted for Islamo-fascist. I have no idea what an appropriate term would be.
Ferguson has his analogy wrong on two coutns. The more relevant tactical comparison would not be with Marxism, but with certain strains of anarchism, especially a la Bakunin. Marxists like Lenin always emphasized the importance of mass political mobilization. Radical Islamism is more akin to anarchist currents of thought and practice: the centrality of small, decentralized “cells,” the emphasis on the “politics of the deed,” i.e., assassination or terror. Moreover, Marxists always celebrated the secularism and cosmopolitanism of capitalist modernity, somoething Islamists despise.
Hey, folks, I live in Michigan out by the cornfield, so before you get to parsing the difference between fascists and neo-Marxists or start a donnybrook over Mr. Ferguson’s academic reputation and how funny he talks, and other things I just won’t understand, answer me this:
How does labelling the Islamic terrorists as neo-Marxists help us deal with them?
I asume Fr. Imbelli thought Ferguson’s remarks might have something to do with that when he posted his message, and I’d like to know more.
Eugene M. makes some good points but I hope no one is going to suggest “Islamo-anarchists”.
Jean,
I don’t think a label helps us deal with the problem, but it might help us talk about it without–what almost everyone wants to avoid–seeming to attribute the problem to Islam as such.
Except that in this case, the label has almost nothing to do with any accurate historical comparison and is instead an appeal to our own sensibilities about how well we stood up and fought evil that went under the names fascism and communism, and so, Ferguson more than implies, should we do the same wit Islamic extremism. Basically, Ferguson can’t wait for the U.S. to take up its imperial mantle even as he deplores that his own nation ever bothered to fight WWI.
http://www.bostonreview.net/BR30.1/chibber.html
Barbara, thanks for the link.
I didn’t realize until I checked that Ferguson was the same the guy I heard on NPR a few weeks ago. Just caught the mid-section of the interview on the way to the grocery store, so didn’t catch his name, but remembered the book title.
He made sense in the same way a theoretical discussion about benevolent dictatorships make sense if you’re not living in one.
But that Rudyard Kipling poem about “the white man’s burden” kept running through my head.