Not a serious response at all. Ah yes: please tell the families of my closest friends, whose families were raped, tortured, and murdered by the Iranian Islamist government, that Islamist are only the enemy when they are supported by the West. You are just writing off the political contexts of these countries as if they do not exist. You should be fucking ashamed of yourselves. I do wonder whether anyone here would be offering the same ‘critical support’ if it were a theocratic evangelical group (whether opposed to the west or not).

Your take is a reactionary take. Thank you for taking the time to make this response as this is exactly the kind of ultra brainworms that I’m taking about. Thank you for admitting you are not a Marxist or a Communist, as that makes this easier. The idea that something is only reactionary or a political enemy when they serve Western interests is literally the definition of campism, and is confirming my suspicion that, frankly, the vast majority of people making these kinds of responses are self-flagellating yankies on the internet who have never been to a Islamic country, encountered Islamists, know many Muslims outside of liberal, western contexts, and have no idea of the fundamentally reactionary nature of Islamism in the context of reactionary societies. The nature and function of these groups is not restricted to some Western-centric, myopic view (which annoying and ironically is here virtue-signalling as if it were not).

Them being reactionary is not uniquely determined by whether or not they happen to serve Western interests. This is insane and exactly the form simplistic reductionism and western-centrism that I’m talking about. The fact you can say something that is literally a right-wing cliché of leftist stupidity is pretty shocking honestly. The Taliban are a depraved group of ultra-reactionaries whose social structure is based on systematized rape whether you like it or not. We are not on TV here. We are a small group of (supposed) communists on a small internet forum. The idea that in that context we should be ignoring the self-evident truth because reactionaries are going to agree with a part is not only baby-brained and misguided, but leads, as we’re seeing here, to consistent confusion and reactionary positions. You are arguing to give implicit or explicit support to far-right groups who are THE principal, immediate enemies of the left in those contexts. Taking this position again tells me your communist is abstract, idealist, and moralist, and does not have any relation to concrete militant activity, because you would rapidly realize that if you say that shit to an ordinary worker, they are going to think, with justification, that you are insane, and it will de-legitimize the rest of what you are saying.

There also seems to be a basic misunderstanding of what Islamism is, and you are simplistically reducing it to one partial and not really correct aspect to make your point. You are equating Islamism with national liberation struggle, which is the same misunderstanding that many others are making here. Certain Islamist groups are involved what for some is, subjectively, a struggle for national liberation, and what may prove to be objectively so (we don’t know yet). But again, this is other example of the repeated ignoring of the point that Communists have to maintain a realistic conception of what the political possibilities are, including the critique that theocrats are fundamentally reactionary, and that political movements based on theocratic principles are fundamentally limited in terms of their progressive potential. I’m guessing again that if you are not aware of this view them you are not familiar with the Marxist analyses of religion. Marxists groups in Palestine (to the extent they exist: very litte) do cooperate out of necessity with groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and you are correct that for them, in this particular context, it makes sense to cooperate for the time being in the face of Israeli fascism. But that makes no difference whatsoever to whether or not those groups are reactionary more broadly. Like if Boko Haram murder a another village in a day, do we as Marxists not recognize it as indication of reactionary movements in certain contexts. Someone not doing so because they are in the West is not political acumen, it’s ignorance and cowardice.

Islamism is first and foremost a modernist ideology which aims to extend particular modernist yet interpretations Islamic principles to as many aspects of social, political, economic and cultural life as possible. Like Fascism, it shares a focus on a return to a pure, mystical past through violence and bloodshed, radicalization of mass-movements, functions similarly to crush left-wing groups, and erects an absolute friend-enemy distinction between those in the group and those outside of it. The nationalism of certain groups, such as Hamas, is a political realignment towards national contexts as a result of political pragmatism. But Islamists are ultimately internationalists. Hamas see Palestine as a Waqf they must maintain on the route towards a greater Caliphate. But Islamist groups are not concerned with liberating their people. They are violent, far-right, misoygynistic theocrats who exert extreme patriarchal controls over women’s bodies and commit atrocities against religious, sexual, and gender minorities. Every single time an Islamist group has taken power, it has crushed the left. It is a fundamental obstacle to the left in those countries. The future Communist movements of those countries will perhaps have to face Islamists as their principal immediate enemies as the international political situation deteriorates.

Independence of a state is not the same thing as national liberation, and the fact that people here can easily understand this when the formal independence of a state is from Western Imperialism, but not in other cases or senses, is pretty worrying and says quite a bit about how much actual real thought and reflection people are putting into these questions. You can say it comes first all you like, but firstly that can actually be contended. Secondly, even if true, it in no way implies the literally baby-brained video-game geopolitical calculus of “something is bad if and only if it supports the West’s interests”. If you honestly think that, they honestly there is a real fucking problem.

So maybe don’t get so fucking sassy if you’re basic ability to use the concepts we talking about here is lacking.

It’s in the modlog if you wanna check. I’m not confident in my ability to rephrase what they said in a more normal way.

foreign missions agencies

lol this has lapsed

Yes. I’m very aware. I’m guessing you haven’t seen other points where I’m fine with great degree of freedom of religion, indeed more than the vast majority of people on this site. You seem to be missing my point, which is that ML having to compromise through relations with Islamist theocratic states is a shame, in particular as the particular form of Shia Islam promoted by Iran is particularly nefarious, it being Islamist.