filth of capitalism

[The Great Quail]

Barbara writes,

>But anyway, what do you think our Author would have to say about this:
>
>"This is what he has learned: "The problems didn't start with September 11
>or even with the war in Kuwait or Palestine," he says. "It started with
>colonialism. You came in, took our resources, made our people into slaves.
>You imposed borders on us which we didn't want, regimes which we didn't
>want. You planted dictators, kings, against our will.'"
>
>In case you don't recognize it, it's from the Washington Post article you
>posted.  Wouldn't this colonialist idea be a big theme in M&D?  I haven't
>even read it yet.... [snip]

The problem with Mr. Kureishi's statement is that it focuses all 
blame on one factor in a very complicated situation. And of course, 
that one factor is the Other, the alien, the European forces of 
colonialism; which removes all blame from the poor, oppressed 
subject. While colonialism profoundly influenced the shape and 
direction of the modern Middle East, it is hardly the only current in 
this two-plus millennia old river.

1. It profoundly ignores the imperial and expansionist tendencies of 
Islam and those who have embraced it. It ignores the history of Arab 
tribal warfare and ghazi raids, the disastrous Mongol conquest, the 
numerous Turkish invasions, the formation of several Turkish and 
Iranian empires, and the final formation and rather aggressive 
expansion of the Ottoman Empire, which took over Greece, the Balkans, 
and laid siege *twice* to Vienna.

2. It also how the forces of Islam interacted with Europe itself; it 
overlooks the weakness and short-sightedness of rulers who cut 
horrifyingly one-sided deals with the "filthy capitalists" in order 
to preserve their own power. It overlooks the numerous members of 
Islamic empires and principalities that attempted to adopt European 
modernity and were crushed by the regressive elements of society.

3. It overlooks the problems inherent in the development of Islam 
itself, with its regressive tendencies. There were numerous times 
when the Ottomans, the Egyptian powers, the Iranians, etc., more or 
less buried their head in the sand, or even actively pursued 
fundamental policies to combat modernism with inflexible tradition. 
After all, taken as a collective, the House of Islam (The "Dar 
al-Islam," the sweeping term for non-infidel lands covered under the 
banner of the True Faith) is still suffering from the "closing of the 
gates of ijtihad;" ijtihad being the power to apply human reasoning 
to the Holy texts and traditions in order to derive new laws and 
ideas. Basically the Sunni ulama in power stated that there could be 
no new changes in interpretation of religion and law; that the 
Shari'a must stand as is for the rest of time. And this happened in 
the fourteenth century!

4. And to address some of the other concerns voiced by Mr. Kureishi, 
while the forces of colonialism certainly wrecked havoc on the 
resources and economies of the Islamic powers -- often with the 
collusion of various factions both inside and outside of the "House 
of Islam" -- the author's claim to slavery is just ludicrous. The 
Europeans did not, in fact, enslave any Muslims, though the rulers 
and projects they supported might have lead to a form of conscription 
-- many Islamic leaders had the habit of taking their own peasants 
and forcing them into servitude for this or that purpose. Slavery was 
just as much an Islamic tradition as anywhere else, and it's quite 
self-serving to make such a claim. After all, the Ottoman Empire even 
demanded a tribute of Christian slaves from their conquered European 
territories, slaves which were converted to Islam and incorporated 
into the Empire in quite unusual ways. (And sometimes to the benefit 
of the "slave," who as Janissary or bureaucrat or even Vizier could 
make quite a nice living.) It may help to recall that the origin of 
the word "slave" is "Slav," and that the Dar al-Islam was quite 
involved in the African slave trade.

As for Mr. Kureishi's borders and dictators, the Eurpean/Russian 
forces of colonialism were only doing much the same thing as the 
various members of the House of Islam were doing themselves, from the 
expansive wars of the Prophet to the civil wars of the Rashidun 
caliphs to the numerous Mongol, Turkish and Iranian empires. Which is 
not to say that this makes it right; but it does indicate that these 
trends are more endemic to the abuse of imperial powers than they are 
specific to the West. It should probably be kept in mind that the 
"dictators" Mr. Kureishi fears we support are also often the enemies 
of his version of fundamentalist Islam, which after all is supportive 
of the Taliban, home-grown dictators, I would suppose. Mr. Kureishi 
is hardly a "freedom fighter."

In other words, while it may be undeniable that the European powers 
had numerous negative impacts upon the growth of the Dar al-Islam, it 
is pure self-serving folly to lay all the blame at the door of the 
West, and even more ludicrous the general assertions one hears that 
the forces of colonialism have a monopoly on imperialist evils.

So to answer Barbara's question, given the fact that Pynchon immerses 
himself in the total picture as often as he could, I would think he 
might have a rather level and well-balanced reply to the statement....

--Quail

PS: This post was written by a sick quail with a slight fever, so 
please excuse any sloppy writing or typos!





-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Great Quail, Keeper of the Libyrinth:
http://www.TheModernWord.com

"His fervour for the written word was an interweaving of solemn
respect and gossipy irreverence . . . "
       --Gabriel García Márquez