We’re familiar with the development of the theoretical basis of the Socialist Workers’ Party’s alliance with Islamism, from Tony Cliff’s determination in 1946 that the Muslim Brotherhood were “a clerical-fascist organization”, through Chris Harman’s conclusion that they should ally with Islamists “sometimes” in the hope that they might be turned on to Trotskyism, and on to the “Dave” Crouch’s thesis that “a majority of Muslim leaders supported the soviets, convinced that Soviet power meant religious liberty”, but that the nasty Mr Stalin had spoiled it all.
For a fuller picture, read Professor Fred Halliday’s piece at OpenDemocracy:
The habit of categorising radical Islamist groups and their ideology as “fascist” is unnecessary as well as careless, since the many differences with that European model make the comparison redundant. It does not need slogans to understand that the Islamist programme, ideology and record are diametrically opposed to the left – that is, the left that has existed on the principles founded on and descended from classical socialism, the Enlightenment, the values of the revolutions of 1798 and 1848, and generations of experience. The modern embodiments of this left have no need of the “false consciousness” that drives so many so-called leftists into the arms of jihadis.
(Via Normblog)
