Wednesday, 17 August 2005

Phase I...ﺍﻠﺒﺎﻂﻦ ﻮ ﺍﻠﻈﺎﻫﺮ ﻮ ﺍﻠﻤﺘﻮﺘﺮ: ﺍﻠﻤﻫﺎﺠﺮ...Dimensions-The Epimenides paradox:Towards the creation of a Poststructuralist Islamic Anarchist Interpretation(s) (THE IDEA, 2005)



*Written in 2005 --- Below is the initiation (First Formulation) of the idea of anarca-Islam (that hadn't yet been named) till it evolved as an Undergraduate thesis (Second Formulation) and finally as an MAthesis at Queen's University (Third Formulation) available here: http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/mohamed-jean-veneuse-anarca-islam. 
*The MA-thesis is due for publication and release as a book in 2019 through AKpress/Minor Compositions.


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Preface: Times of Tearful Kings 

Yesterday I woke up sucking a lemon, this being a mad pornographic confession of proposed reels. This is it, with this being an infinite set/series of conversations coupled with silence/reflections, dispersed and reserved, very much alive in a multiplicitous curvature of space; indeed, intertwined with the paradoxical limit of a realistic exacerbation of a frenzied virtual temporary autonomous zone (TAZ) henceforth that already arrived/is scribed; perhaps it’ll become something more than a TAZ, a semi-permanent autonomous zone forthcoming, no longer just virtual, and beyond these remote control levers, & God knows best. Confined in a simulacrum, a delusional, hierarchical, institutionalized and absurd diabolic racist structure, I am transpiring visa a vie the portal of a delinquent and schizophrenic mind, with a pure intention at heart attaining all the while a calculable 'Weberian' notion of a charismatic leader; yet still (and as consequence) I'm attempting at abstaining from vanity and its lured genealogies through a forced (de)ejaculation, reorientation, of desire. 'Try and exercise will,' I say to myself 'if not wills, plural, despite the depressive drainage in-acting'. Performativity is the rapid/accelerated production of this seemingly meta-theoretical inaccessible language, at present, that is potentially transportable to those at the grass-roots --- &, God willing, will be in due time i.e. further accessible as I gather myself or what parts of me are left, enough at least, to coalesce another me that would then utter, speak, write, think, reflect over years. Otherwise this production produced and force fed down the reader's throat has resulted in nothing but a hygienic wreckage of my intentions and henceforth-subsequent actions --- accessibility is no doubt critical, given writing isn’t a narcissistic act, but also bearing in mind that matters will never be fully (mis)understood, narcissism aside. This is not a Aalim’s (scholar’s) 'know it all', nor 'is it a know it anything', but rather is a subtle confrontation, a shipwreck if you will, that through God’s grace & help will be left seductively open and filled with ample void for others to fill and carry on; even, perhaps, myself someday, sometime, later on...It requires in essence Tayseer (& therefore appeals to the literal disarmament of the AK, or at least its substitution with a different kind of AK, the pen becoming a sword and weapon; hence, instead, the laborious attempt at visibility, indeed making visible, what can be symbolically easy of its codes in due course deciphered, instead of ‘just’ a gun barrel pointed, even if the same affect is sought)...Without a doubt, it requires and demands radical Ijtihad (a struggle whose doors, out of hope, yet remains to be addressed as “the permanently possible”, (un)knowable)...Indeed, this, what’s written here is a form of initial and initiated dialogue(s) between the multiplicities that choose to engage in its dock(s); namely, tireless and unwavering faith sustained, guiding, & backing it up --- knowledge that thrusts everything forth...

Its attempt is at evoking the rizhomatic (think of maps and ask yourself where they begin and if they end, horizontal, vertical, 3-dimensional, directionless and with directions, the roots of a tree, offshoots, without centers, merely nodes)...This, here, proposes the vulgar assignment and emphasis on a 'perhaps', an openness to the possibility, in fact endless (im)possibilities, and that are/can be at once observed and applied. One prays that it will allow for the manifestation of an orgasmic pleasure of sorts, something greater than itself. Perhaps it’ll evoke a smile as an act of charity (maybe is all that this engagement amounts to, at least), if not regarded as a childish ignorant heap of trash, gibberish. Yet room is always going to be left open to deliver an unbound ‘libidinal’ crystalline energy melted, indeed that oozes, and that could act in this play of words as a forum in which there is no longer space for opposition between Islams and Anarchisms but rather an alternative to the unbound productive, discovered and undiscovered, governing bodies (that can be autonomous), and that currently lie in catatonic limbos superficially separated with their respective forces within these maps and networks. To carry on: Power gives rise to its own resistance, no? Then what? 

This is the beginning of the end of the beginning of something else. This is a Poststructuralist Islamic Anarchistic Interpretation ushered. Domains will be provoked and the potential for any seeming 'viruses' that may infect/affect both classical/traditional/orthodox interpretations of my parents, Islam and Anarchism, will be injected, as absolute (un)consciousness is interrupted by sensations and ideas evoked; yes, indeed intentionally to allow for subsequent interpretations to remain indefinitely, forever, hybridizing, procreating children, in marriage; for neither, Islam and Anarchism, let alone anything, to ever become reducible to a 'given', separated --- everything is, after all, conjoined, in relation and connected to an ‘other’. Therefore the objective here is to 'understand' what has become 'habit' or 'ritual' then break it, erupting it volcanically, whatever the consequences and fireworks that maybe ushered; that is, to demolish, what all too often, a plenty of Muslims and anarchists have been accustomed to... To do so, it’s necessary and critical to evoke the conscious, subconscious, and unconscious (and that isn't a machine but rather a factory). However, what this would be interpretation requires too are the 'gift(s)' of knowledge and practice, indeed endless experimentation, so that in daylight even after the darkest shadows, the outcome is a reciprocal 'counter-gift' freed. Respectively, pardon the nonsensical Vazaha poetry...All in due time will be as if multiple orgasms explosively released in an upping of the anti...



Paths of Nomadic Germinations & Politics of tactical Affinities

Bismi Allah. Allah-uma Ishrah Lee sadree Wayisr Lee Amree Washrah Okdatan Min Lisanee Yafqahu Qawlee. Learned to stay awake early but someone killed my show. You made your bed so lay in it, but who is to say I don’t want multiple sleepovers? We (those signified and whom identify as Muslim) have become like tainted roses, buried beneath, razed, and struggling to grow through a concrete blocked underground, only to find a posting upon rising to the surface, what few of us that make it, that is: 'No Trespassing', the signs said... The world over, the graffiti reads: 'Fuck your politicians and Holy Wars' and that have become common theme slogans intensified post-9/11; what is condescending is that some think that these images are becoming visible, just now, for the first time, when they have long infiltrated our psyche through colonial and imperial histories; for long ago they 'textured' what depths exist within us now. Wrote this one while dialing 1-800-Brooklyn, revised after pulling up a green chair and watching Islam(s) become worn out, disheveled like worn out clothes (Ibn Kathir: 87), pondering all the while when the Heavens will split asunder (Quran: 84:1). Aggressive passions beckon that one exercise patience and avoid bending the knees to superiors while stamping on subordinates; the way Chinese Mandarins accomplished what they accomplished with their autonomous Forbidden Cities of past. O Allah give us strength!, that we may become like Mandarins dancing around gear shifts, slitting through clouds with tactical magic potions of love, of death, in homage to your anarchic self...Mandarins who engaged in liberatory and destructive wars, internally and externally, as they migrated in rotation from province to province, as if in infinite nomadic Hijras (from Mecca to Medina and back all over again), reinventing knowledge and destroying/demolishing dialectical binaries (like black/white, secularist/religious) and matters related to superficial understandings of fate (for the 'other'  ---we--- have come to be accustomed to replacing fate with chance, raising hands and expecting the angelic alteration of circumstances, instead of striving to do so ourselves while maintaining Al-Tawakul ---reliance on a Creator, Allah; after all, God does not change a people until they change themselves). No Grate houses in England. No castles in Rhine. No grand villas in Italy. No city temples in Japan. No abodes amongst the freedom fighters; all there seems to be is suffrage for Muslims and people of color; no other end in sight than kill switches in an era of palpable loneliness and of course, warranted, there's a difference between being alone and being lonely. Even in pretense, among clouds, we pretend to travel in player modes, as panther packs, divided, congregating underneath flags of 'black, shades of green and colored red skin, everything in-between', conflictingly embracing 'white masks' territorially, economically, politically, socially, culturally, needless to say psychologically. We are colonized. We toil during Friday and Taraweeh prayers of the fasting month, Ramadan, those of us Muslim, relishing ecstatically in our self-inflicted misfortunes as outlawed post-modern small time traders in a neoliberal age. Hail, and then hail, I say again! In the meanwhile, our mentality hardly coincides now, with the multiplicities of schizophrenic identities of past, but rather resembles a simulacrum of 'white values' emulated (Taqleed) if you will; we’ve become copies of copies of an original whose meaning is distorted and disoriented, indeed, 'lost but somehow not forgotten', as we engage in rituals without a grafted idea of what's required at the level of our mental ecosophy, strategically, tactically, ethico-politically. We are caught in 'drama syndrome', re-enacting the perpetual 'guilt' of the colonized, assimilating or isolating ourselves, blaming nothing but the West and Israel for our atrocities; we only have to look to ourselves to realize what the problem, indeed what the catastrophes are. For some caught at the extreme poles, reactionaries, all they do is buy into the game of constructing revolutionary crises, neurotically embracing conspiracies within their breasts, as they bang their guerrilla chests as masochists seeking a dis-topic apocalypse…I hear screams in recurring nightmarish dreams of 'blames' aimed/hurled at and requested from God on the lured West; the 'white devil' they say. The ‘West’ it’s claimed has robbed us through appalling battles and left us bleeding, hemorrhaging from the inside out, on the sidewalk. O w-i-Lah! 'This White devil's values', these reactionaries claim, deprived us, of the possibility of becoming human. The result is our alienation from others and ourselves, a propagation of the racial stereotypes in an implacable drift, as we internalize racism ourselves (are you a Muslim of the Arabian peninsula, or North African, South Asian, Black, White, Hispanic, a convert?) in the absence of ethical and political fundamentals that used to pertain to us, that used to be valued by us, and beyond color lines depreciated (and we’re not talking liberal multiculturalism either)...The majority of us have become jihadis rising up yet who are still embracing essentialist empty categories, void of informed contexts, not knowing ourselves or our traditions, with truly few attempts at liberating ourselves from the dualities of isolation and assimilation by returning to socially just pillars. For those of us embarking on these false journeys, confined within binaries, the necessity arises to examine ﺍﻠﺒﺎﻂﻦ (that which we are hiding from, ourselves and our histories --- decolonizing)...The advice: quit blocking every compromise and passageway resulting from interminable defeats and construct ways out of your identity crises, through other worlds that you know little about; engage lines of flight before it all comes crashing down upon all of us, this earth, and God knows best. 

'Are we destined as solipsists to suffer everlastingly, sadistically, masochistically' when our suffering is in part our own doing? 'Everlastingly' is a proclaimed word that forecloses other Divinely created worlds upon this Earth; indeed it denotes everything yet (un)revealed, when our responsibility should've been to venture off on search of our collective 'Forbidden Cities' that have faded through colonialism and imperialism, to connect with ‘the other’, yet that still exists in capacity within and without us, given our shared and dissimilar histories, on this planet...But what serves as inspiration O Allah, to guide us, to be able to connect with others, for us to re-find ourselves without becoming self-righteous of what we know, as Muslims, and what we hold to be true, imposing it on others?

People of color’ (an ambiguous term I know), for the most part, have forsaken justice, better yet jurisprudence, by assimilating and isolating themselves in their little conclaves, ghetto islands; they’ve embraced absolute delivery, particularly Muslims, indeed deliverance, as fair exchange for 'suffering'. We have become introverts of Jean Veneuse, categorizing each other in a tripod neurotic eye, having internalized racism (and every other-ism) ourselves, as we become frustrated with the anguish created by our own abandonment of our own traditions and ways of knowing; not to mention the pent up aggression that partially rises due to its amalgamation and culmination to result in cataclysms as 9/11 (visited many a times upon us --- indigenous peoples of all kinds, many times over), following centuries of injustice and enslavement, with the devaluation and degradation that flows resentfully in and out in response as the cycle never ends. Decolonize; but again decolonization can’t take place without violence (Frantz Fanon)! Repeat it three times: 'Ruined are those who insist on hardship in matters of the Faith'. 


Our prayers (intentions) ought correspond with our compromised walks (actions), undoing the sedation that erupts – misdirected – within our clustered egos, connected to us via networks (past and future – that was just a present); with what reactionary responses (based on homogenous categorizations built on Western qualifications of race, sexuality, gender, ethnicity, religion and the likes and dislikes constructed) to release dead and false germinations and which in responding to we merely reinvent the wheel. We've cultivated false allegiances to Fascisms of all kind (different from Totalitarianism). Imprisoned, lacking sufficient air, light, nutrients, overcrowding each other on the surface, despite what barren wasteland lies ahead, we rob each other, us, as beings oppressed, of dignity and respect; so our collective strengths wavers, ever since and given we relapsed from affinity based germinations of past, towards conditions we know all too well now; generations bred ‘lost’, misguided in values, in ethical and political commitments, buying and selling ourselves and each other for dollar bills, the gold standard abandoned; Nixon. As for us, Muslims, all we’ve become good at are veiled supplications aroused, leaving our faces, with no Divine place to sprout, be received, answered and live, fulfilled; for how can prayers (Dua'a, be divinely accepted) if all the meanwhile we engage in heresy and hypocrisy, refusing to plant seeds (where intentions correspond to actions, within one’s best ability) sincerely, awaiting instead God's delivery of us and the commencement of resurrections as a consequence (Musnad Imam Ahmad: 2: 191). How can supplications be accepted, when our acquired property is through theft, the food we eat based upon the sufferings of our fellow species, human and nonhuman alike, our drink laced with Monsanto's GMOs and additives of all kinds and types? 


Alas, every dormant formation needs to erupt, and does, following cycles of internal uprisings and resistances against its hard, supposedly un-pierced, seed coating(s). The question is when, internally and externally, will adequate moisture (that is, un-diffused Ijtihad) explode beyond just dialectics, indeed breaking the shell and vaporizing into an (un)identifiable Jihad (perhaps the likes of which we have never seen or imagined before) on every perceived and unperceived front; a jihad based on a politics of acceptance, far more than a politics of tolerance. Repeat it three times: 'Ruined are those who insist on hardship in matters of the Faith'. This hallucinogenic oxygen requires its setting ablaze, indeed the temporal abandonment of the underground whip that controls and disciplines, and that instills reactionary fears, to the embracing instead of lit flames capable of ushering rebirths that lead the way and allow for hybridization processes towards everything radicle; indeed, for an unwavering photosynthesized uprising, to germinate, to commence, for all to become all at once. Overcome your fear and develop your differences with others as an 'other' while recognizing potential roots from which to build solidarity, better yet friendship, with someone/something else! Make connections, not severing(s)! Otherwise and God knows best, expect situations of frustrations; perhaps write letters to our unborn as a starting point, even those of your enemies --- construct worlds for our unborn children about to arrive from infinity in creating a proud legacy of immortality, that perhaps we maybe remembered fondly. Watch a priest carrying a prayer book, thought not to be subject to interpretations, save from their end, or so they think, and make him and her believe that the book of prayers is nothing more than a deck of cards to be shuffled, adopted and implemented in given circumstances and situations, and not that that means that these interpretations have no core ethical and political foundations. The echo of Ijtihad always reigns and there's no stopping it! This is an offering of folklores constructed from tactical magic potions of poststructuralist germination(s). That is, the ability to partake in imperceptible transitions of maneuverability and non-homogeneity in accord with what paroled inadequacies govern these 'postmodern' times; a condescending term, postmodern, I realize. Allow for colored shadows to emerge, in place of the white Eurocentric values; permit thus mobility on the surface to horizontally level the playground for everyone; become a crowd with all else, indeed, do so without a hegemonic strategy of one for all and all for one, in sight. Recall and remember 'Allah loves a slave who is pious, free of all wants and is unnoticed' (Riyad Al-Saliheen: 597). Enough with self-righteousness and self-pity!

An infant is (un)aware of the limits to his and her own powers and spirited potentials of engaging in space maneuvers and thus becomes a Wizard of Oz, sorcerer like, because of the very absence of the superego (developed later) in companionships and according to disciplinary and individualist socializations, particularly those away from and based on mutual struggles. The dormant superego has yet to access the child, and be made accessible to the child; if only to make, indeed teach a child to constantly revolt against them-self as opposed to turning them into individualist self-serving utilitarian cowards. In midsummer festivals of Vedic times, shamans engaged in prostitution with themselves, this earth, connecting with all surrounding energies and knowledge systems, each reviling/feeding off one another in returns, as if engaging in endless 'intercourse', germinating, and Allah (SWT) knows best --- Blasphemy they say again! But the 'intercourse' was like love made between helper cells, co-existing with one another, intersecting at various junctures, easing the burden off one another and themselves by confiscating residues and remnants against parasitic characteristics we've grown accustomed to covet; for we've forgotten that the 'original seeds of our ailments and diseases', 'will be and are a cause of humiliation and remorse on the Day of Resurrection' (Riyad Al-Saliheen) --- the diseases being authoritarianism and capitalism, with what arrives of Dante’s seven deadly sins; simply put, authority and capitalism, are two of the suppressor cells we must fight, combat and ward off. The new ghetto consists of cultivating Asabiyah (Social solidarity, friendship, and what have you --- and the more you give, the more you share, the more you love, the more you die and experience rebirth, the more you're rich). 

Begin to run wild and 'Plough (the earth) well thus, for verily, plough-ing is a blessed task…sow many seeds' and become 'like seeds that produce and put forth their sprout and fruit then strengthens it, so it becomes stout and stands firmly on its stem, delighting the sowers, and what flowers, and vegetation come next' (Quran: 48:29). 

Now imagine if you could backup, taking the other approach, abusing your own kind because they are of a different race or tribe and you don't have to go far to imagine this in today's epoch of supremacist 'ideologies'...Azo Bi'Allah this evil entrenched, for in choosing such a path you guarantee that you, yourself, will become null and void, with an empty soul, operating on the individualist will to survive all the meanwhile claiming your purist innocence on the grounds of necessity because of what 'wrongs' have been done towards you, and that you internalized; but unfortunately that you now pass onto others; oppression only breeds oppression, its self-serving self, while liberation flourishes towards all kind, for it’s guided by mutual sharing, affection and love, always concerned with the collective, even if at the expense of it self. You want to be selfish then be selfish, till the end of time, but realize you will lose touch, become arrogant, as you terrorize and suffocate to death by what fears are instilled in relation to those perceived to be 'below' you, those you supposedly ‘love’, while dismissing that 'On Doomsday, if any one has a palm-shoot in hand, he-she should plant it' for love seeks love and produces itself void of utilitarianism (Musnad of Ahmad ibn Hanbal: 5:440 and 3:184). Now who is to say if I am right and wrong, but what I see is breathing, raw, and closer to achieve for tilling ardent land, as opposed to us tearing each other apart, drying, bleeding, each other out. Missed lessons of our species are what created contemporary preachers positioned on phony pillars, a buried Ijtihad where every hand is a losing self-serving hand. 


The last sermon of the Prophet is now diluted, to most Muslims useless; all that is now encountered are proclamations and indoctrinations of re-claimed, false, islam-itude(s). We have embraced the racism & fascism, the anti-everything and anything, for our selves and edited out of the last sermon radical acceptance of diversity; now what's needed is multiplicity, the infinite Différend, when what used to be a cure is now proposed to be an ailment. Need we be reminded that 'an Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab nor a non-Arab has any superiority over an Arab; also a white has no superiority over black nor a black has any superiority over white except by piety and good action' (The Prophet's Last Sermon)...Is it not the case that 'All actions are but by intentions (that between the breasts lies the heart)', and that everyone shall have that which is intended of it, or that which one intends, either way, all which amounts to the same (Saheeh Al-Bukhari and Muslim). The demagogic 'losing' hand concerned with its own self, runs away from others; cheats its marriage and responsibilities with an artificial superior self claiming authority, subjugating it, and injecting it with calculations of judgment after judgment; indeed thrives on doing so while being afraid to lower guns to keep. O do you hear, feel, the elegiac wail of a cry!

Authoritarianism has now become hereditary, this industrialized 'claim to righteousness', piety and this pressure on a wound adorably yet rightfully dispassionately gaping, still bleeding; we've become gushing scars regulated by our addiction to fear and terror. Perhaps I am forsaken; perhaps we all are. No, I refuse such a thought, such a statement! Hope it is! Hope is what I believe and said! Demagogues have apparently attained knowledge of all our intentions, reconciling an abandoned monotheism with an embraced polytheism, worshipping money and power, both that pay homage to each other. The sun of your native 'identity' is now nothing but a shadow, regurgitating the flood of lofty empty words as you listen to a tyrant's voice and the 'objectionable' is neither altered with the hand, tongue nor heart. An alternative lies with germinations. Germinate and germinate again, multiply to infinity and beyond, whilst you are in this world like a stranger, nomad, traveler/wayfarer for you know not 'when evening comes, that you will live till morning, and when morning comes, you do not know if you will live till evening. And so take from your health (a preparation) for your illness and from your life for your death' (Forty Hadith). Magic (germinations) are revolts against the 'losing' hands of these demagogues, indeed one's own demagoguery. Embrace sorcerer tactics as Pitjentara youth did at the age of eight or ten in their sublime conquests for 'white flesh' across desert terrains and sands/soils that wash easier than blood; embrace rudimentary nomadic fashions and conquests of nothing but yourself. Flirt with art and transition slowly; indeed on your own pace; from the insatiable empathetic abandonment colored neurotic you’ve become, till you’re a network mosaic of refracted tonalities, off-white. Accept going blind, open your eyes as if you're seeing for the first time; stand on seashells rediscovering the sense of touch; abandon words, embrace silence and temporarily privilege another, the ‘other’, everything and anything other. Fast for a month, more, in solidarity, indeed in friendship, with those unprivileged poor even more. Feel what it is to go hungry, to have nothing for you are nothing and can be 'everything'. Witness the occupations of a former dispossessed network and the potential that is now paraded in endeavored quests. Practice unbridled austerities in unions with the infinite; have an affair, endless affairs, with all that is of the Divine, lasting an everlasting long time, beyond the days, the hours, the days, the minutes, the seconds --- forget time! 
Rhythmically even ballads of dead soldiers germinate in prison cells with no witnesses to scream bloody murder. Dis-alienate yourself from yourself and others and always remember: 'It is He Who sends down rain from the skies; with it We produce green [crops], out of which we produce grain, heaped up [at harvest]; out of the date-palm and its sheaths [or spathes] [come] clusters of dates hanging low and near; and [then there are] gardens of grapes, and olives, and pomegranates, each similar [in kind] yet different [in variety]; when they begin to bear fruit, feast your eyes with the fruit and the ripeness thereof. Behold! In these things there are signs for people who believe'(Quran-6: 99). For those who don’t have none but want some, let the punks know the prelude: Everything they owe isn't stipulated in the Magna Carta, the declaration of independence, doctrines of Manifest Destiny and the bloody 'constitution' founded by slave owners. Watch and witness the concepts of power and religion, as they de-funk, drunk off their heads with broken and rebuilt Anarchistic traditions. 'My People' are now living somewhere, everywhere, nowhere, free, only for me get to get a flash back: 'You got what is mine and I want that for it's a part of me and it belongs to my principled traditions no less!'.


If we choose to rise then we can be subjected to the stipulated personified marriage of ideas of recently lost times, and that shed tattoo tears for the most cosmological inspirations and aspirations, migrating far beyond an overture of almost exclusively mental, psychological and physical values. Mix mother tongues, as tectonic lines shift and eroticize the isomorphic naked realities that lie in the midst of fantastic fogs leading to Astigmatism. With Astigmatism comes commissioned visions that pry onto uncountable umbrellas, scintillating, despite the image’s duty-bound alliance with ushered 'distorted' and wavy mirrors --- just because you're anarchist doesn't make you a member of my community; just because you're a Muslim doesn't make you a member of my community either --- it's your chosen values; your chosen ethical and political commitments and their respective consequences. Love magic, words posit. To assume that the process of intercourse, in marriages, has reached climax (is to no longer assume space for tactical affinities, for playfulness, for discovery of unbound libidinal depths, for passion, for endless seas and oceans of love)...To assume dogmatism is to acknowledge restriction, impoverishment of the self and paralyzed de-amplification of the skill in being somewhere else and seeing the married mistress without feeling dutifully bound to her by marriage but rather by loving and rediscovering her and oneself over and over again as married. In this sense one ought ride the wave of becoming a nomad embracing the radiance without disregarding that, which remains as multiplicitous background choruses. Prepare an arsenal and reserve of disorderly flourishes, flowerings, of love and '(dis)abused' radical 'subaltern' literature(s) and bodies transitioning from a politics of demand to a politics of tactical affinities in an attempt at minimizing the hierarchy in your own mind; connect with the so many infinite hers, you as her, her as you countering your masculinities by femininities; undergo queering. Terrorize the manipulating and privileged center of marriage - devotion to her; the ‘totalities and closed holisms’ of 'Classical' Traditions. Reinvent yourself, others! Our Muqqadimah (the beginning), pays homage to my brother Ibn Khaldun, a cloud ushered with the ebbing tides and winds, not to clarify what confusion exist, but as a blacked-out blank slate, occurring and reoccurring in the evident lack of sufficient light belonging to one parent, if only to find/discover light once again…It’s time to become a shooting star bursting, exploding, like a radiant sun, lighting every sky all at once and for the first time; indeed, to cultivate spiritual and mental families of tonic singularities, belonging to known and unknown horizons in the hope of outshinoing the shininess itself. Learn to listen again. So let us begin and never end. Power, force, does not stop here. Let it dislodge you into everything, nothing, the ether, an endless uncontained atmosphere 7 skies of heaven above, as we become migratory radicals together guided by intentions and actions that as stated ought be dependent on Asabiyah(s); Affinities....Ya Hafiz!



An Exodus towards ‘Chaos’ 



The birth of a ‘sub-cultural inter-sexed race’ had begun long ago, arguably since the advent of non-linear time, and modern attempts to foreclose and hierarchize (discipline and control) our species, no longer analogically but rather dialogically, aside. The confiscation of our desires, their funneling to stock markets, were responsible for setting the stage for the reconstruction of the eminent and transcendent triple-edged swords of worldly ignorance, parasitic existences and what venoms followed. Its image would spiral continuously over the course of history, all the way back, resurrecting desire not merely as an idea full of energy passed off from generation to generation, like that shadow of a whisper in the dark alleyways of urban-satellite-cosmopolitan slums fed by rural peripheries, but rather as variant 'deviant' ways of life... 

European Classical Anarchism's conception of power and religion, requires a rewinding of the tape/clock back to the schisms between Bakunin and Marx, to 1871 and the International Working Men’s Association of 1872; not to mention the present day influence of Poststructuralist political philosophies, where 'minds and things' are called, rightfully so, to jurists for deliberation; as for bodies (astral and vegetal) they are languages where every word/act performed is a symptom subject to interrogative narratives and divergent accounts...

Bakunin emphasized the indispensable need for ‘disassembling’ the State and the Western church, if not Capitalism too, for 'the real enfranchisement of society' to begin. It is through this process of disassembling that these top-down, hierarchical, exploitative, and suppressive structures are broken and their power redistributed; but wait, aren't they already distributed, irrespective of hierarchies or not? Thus, here, there, I derive, though do not constrain my issues, for now, to two postulates that could be discerned and given rise to or that from the above statement appear: one regarding power and the second pertaining to religion. The first postulate recognizes that if there is to be any future for 'humanity', and us understanding what it is to become human, then the social setting in which we reside ought to be dictated not by a single authority figure (a Hobbesian Sovereign or Leviathan in the form of), a ruling aristocracy, a political party, a worker's tribunal, or even a national assembly, but rather, by a demolishment of politically organized forms of hierarchies i.e. adopting horizontalist 'approaches' to socio-political and economic organizing --- all in multiple forms. After all, bottom-up/top-down approaches, in best-case classical Marxist scenarios, assume power to be constructed through 'free associations or assemblies of workers, that would then proceed on to communes, the regions, the nations, and, finally, culminating in a great international and universal federation, liberated'. This proposal highlights the nature of Classical Anarchism's disdain of Classical Marxism, and the need to counter and resist state power, indeed the state’s insatiable infatuated concern with desire and its confiscation, at the service of Capitalism, using suppressive diminutive force; the power to conserve the law and the power to produce the law will always turn the state into, and make it become, following the institutionalization of whatever revolutionary war machines that may at different junctures exist, proceed, the quintessential propagator of war and everyday source and well of enacted epistemic/systemic violence...

And therefore within Classical Anarchism and Bakunin’s conceptualization there is a problem in the articulation of power... After all, Classical Anarchism's Euro-centricity aside, power is often seen and based upon a negative, limited, centralized, confined and consolidated understanding of power as a force strictly utilized to serve the interests of the minority at the expense of the majority, through the mere existence of an authoritarian state-enterprise. But power exists everywhere and nowhere and hence is not necessarily top-down or bottom-up; everyone's powerful and powerless at once; everyone oppresses and is oppressed, to relative degrees informed by varying positionalities. It is not that a minority possesses social evils that such a minority, need to be gotten rid of, exterminated, or to undergo 'expropriation', as articulated through Kropotkin; in other words, that mode of analysis will not suffice in dealing with power or privileges. Nor is it just as Bakunin posits that it is through glorified social positions backed by irrational inorganic and hence organized structures within a society, founded upon unjust exclusionary principles, that such institutionalized forms of power exist, are formed, indeed solidify; and that it is these types of evils that ultimately and only them that ought be resisted, for they give rise to and breed authoritarianism and corruptibility within us! Rather power, better yet force, can be positive and isn't strictly negative --- a point to be returned too; nevertheless that leads to the fact that demolishing the capitalist-State will not rid us of power that exists within us, and that functions through the social relations and privileges we have and exercise in relation to one another; across class, race, gender, sexuality, spirituality, age, ability etc visa vie our positionalities...

In order to shed light on Bakunin’s second postulate highlighted above regarding religion, I will shift focus onto another Classical European Anarchist, the dearly beloved Emma. Goldman’s sentimentality reiterates Bakunin’s notions regarding religion and its ability to confiscate the masses and pollute them when she proclaims that the tyrannical 'God, the State and society are nonexistent; that their promises are null and void, since they can only be fulfilled only by man’s subordination'. Goldman’s religion is the dominion of the human mind, or so she believes, thus totalizing all forms of political spiritualties. To Goldman, and Classical Anarchists, the fettered human mind requires liberation from this obtrusive institutionalized structure, which is imposed upon, rather than consciously chosen by, the ignorant masses; a false position that denies people agency in choosing faith in the first place, considering Goldman, herself, chooses hers to be anarchism; everyone’s got to believe in something greater than themselves after all, God-like --- there’s no such as pure atheism. Yet and even more so, Goldman and others were, in truth, referring to a particular experience of and with Euro-Christianity and fail to distinguish between institutionalized religion and spirituality/faith. Espoused, in a totalizing way in Classical Anarchism(s) is that 'religion' masks its motivating force, namely, the attainment of social control and power, thereby degrading and humiliating the masses; again this denies subjects agency and denies the multiplicity of different interpretations of religion within the same and even different discursive formations. This degradation and humiliation to these Classical Anarchists is nurtured and informed by the constant obligation upon 'la masse' to follow the priest’s authority/rhetoric, nonexistent for example in Islam (i.e. the priest), by responding to the shepherd who calls for the complete submission of the flock of sheep. After all, such preachers/priests have been given supposedly a right by God, in Christianity, as in Nietzsche’s Christianity, and thus, their authority cannot be called into question by the common person; but who is to say that's the case for all religions let alone different interpretations within the same religion. The image invoked is that of the preacher’s rhetoric of 'unquestionable truth' dissipating and spiraling downwards to the populous and thereby, in Goldman’s opinion, resembles that of a top-down structure of the oppressive state. However, it ought to be understood, as notoriously noted, that Goldman and Bakunin’s notions regarding 'religion' are predominantly influenced by a particular type of a specific 'sect' of 'religion'; namely, a particular form of Christianity brought forth by a Constantinian and Augustinian shift, and therefore uses the ambiguous signifier 'religion' as an ambivalent scapegoat as opposed to indicating a 'particular perception or a particular kind' of religion, on behalf of Classical Anarchism(s), which, well, remains inappropriate as it is essentialist and totalizing. 

I find beauty nonetheless in 
Classical Anarchism's objectives and that are primarily concerned with the reconstruction, the re-envisioning and liberation of humanity from earthly ignorance (the dominion of institutionalized religion through its reliance on the blind following populous) and parasitic venom (of the capitalist-state through which forces of oppression are reified). At this point, and in returning, I will (re)introduce and infract an examination of Classical Anarchist theorists, indeed on their notions of a totalistic conception of such a top-down/even bottom-up model of power within society...One which they construct as being purely negative and consolidated in the hands of a minority. First, not true, as power exists, as stated, with everyone! We're all complicit in upholding the dominant order! Their conception of power is problematic since Bakunin’s vision of Anarchism (as a “unique religion that can stir hearts and create a saving collective strength”), along with Goldman’s assertion that "Anarchism …stands for the liberation of the human mind from the dominion of religion...liberation from the shackles and restraint of government" ignores Anarchism's power itself as a self-direct-active-capacity to permeate every phase of human endeavor, and hence the potential for power to be viewed contrarily as a positive, liberatory form of force. Bakunin and Goldman’s statements imply that power is necessarily consolidated, centralized, restrictive, or repressive, which is not necessarily the case; in fact, not the case at all. Rather, power, or better yet its counter part force, can possess a liberatory attribute as well and the potential respectively, at least too from an insightful Classical Anarchist perspective, to liberate human beings. 
It's in this respect that Classical Anarchism's (un)conscious “purified”, “Orientalist” and “classical” image of power mutates and spirals with the advent of Post-Structuralism, that resurrects Anarchism not merely as an idea passed from generation to generation, but rather as a way of life... Nonetheless the beauty of Classical Anarchisms (plural not singular) is that they propagate their larval stages regardless of whether we're speaking of the discourse of Proudhon’s Mutualism, Bakunin’s Collectivism, Kropotkin’s Communism, French Anarcho-Syndicalism, or otherwise; Anarchisms emulate bamboo roots that shoot-of everywhere, decentralized, and allow for organic and fluid attitudes to partake within and 'underneath' an un-totalizable umbrella of moral, ethical and political self-realizations and obligations without authoritarian-utilitarian governance, be it capitalist-state or institutionalized-religious, to enforce it. We begin to see a recurring 'theme', which evidently requires more, taking into consideration that 'Le Différend' needs to have room too... 

Insurgencies and Assaults upon the Exodus: Towards infinite migrations 

An endorsement of the fundamental view described above, namely, that power, or better yet force, is not solely oppressive and negative but rather can be resistive and positive as well propels itself to the fore. 
The single perception of that which constitutes 'revolutionary' is totalistic; the disappearance of the state and capitalism won't disappear power. It is necessary for Classical Anarchisms, and respectively its particular multiplicitous shades, to comprehend as an example, the cultural and ethnic diversities that had been discounted, consciously and unconsciously, amongst 'anarchist/anti-authoritarian/anti-capitalist movements active today'; Anarchism needs to be decolonized. This is due to the fact that identities, whether they are associated with gender, sexuality, race, or religion etc are immeasurable and infinite in their representations. “First wave Anarchism(s)” (as recognized by some though the term is not endorsed nor is it particularly appealing to myself) and its ability to re-conceptualize and influence histories and theories recognizes the development of 'alternative' Anarchisms, as they exist amongst what is defined by some as 'people without a history'. The complexity and diversity of the multiple developments that branched out of Classical Anarchisms ought to be recognized, embraced, and commended. It is assumed that Classical Anarchism is the sole savior and that only 'it', as if there is one 'it', is capable of formulating resistance to negative and oppressive forces, to usher in what Goldman refers to as the 'new Dawn'; this is not true and is self-righteous --- enough of that kind of egomaniacal Western hegemonic talk. This viewpoint does not give much, if any, consideration to the historiography of Non-Western Anarchisms (even is they didn't call themselves Anarchisms), let alone other movements that choose not to be named or are nameless; like certain shades of Islam which will be briefly mentioned, and that were anti-authoritarian and non-hierarchal (as the “Mutazillate” and “Kharijites”); indeed that predominantly resided in Non-European spaces, prior to the advent of Western colonialism and imperialism. After all: “The most available anarchist literature does not tell this history, not because of necessarily a malicious disregard of Non-Western Anarchist movements but rather due to the fact that even in the context of radical publishing, centuries of "engrained Euro-centrism has not really been overcome"; there is ignorance, enough of it to be shared and to go around. However a failure to grasp the complexity of such interconnectedness, indeed of connected histories of resistance, and an attempt to develop a single genealogy (instead of genealogies) of Non-Western forms of Anarchism itself, as if a monolith on an international level, though luring and seductive as that maybe is destructive; as such an attempt would be engaging too in holism(s): Everything is not Everything nor is it Anything… From Sam Mbah’s African Anarchism to Frank Fernandez’s Cuban Anarchism, all must be recognized and the possibilities and room for so much more always be left open for connections to be made, and for the rhizome to grow and expand. The effect of adopting a homogenizing approach to Nonwestern Anarchisms mirrors Classical Europeans Anarchism's tendency to totalize its own self; once more, the same way it engages with a 'misguided surface' account pertaining to conceptions of power and religion. A case example of the 'subaltern other' is that of Indigenous movements in the 'West'. Though it could be easily contested that such a movement is not singular, it is also the case that although such movements geographically exist within the 'Western hemisphere' they are not 'Western' to begin with; 'the West' too is a European construct that in its cultivation subsumes all else. Radical literature as 'Wasase' conceptualizes what is defined as “Anarcho-Indigenism” as a starting point or a means of resisting colonialism, whether through the “Gandhian strategy of non-cooperation” or otherwise i.e. with state power and the Neo-Liberal Capitalist Global project as enemies; and doubtlessly it is a form of political spirituality. Furthermore there are “philosophical connections between indigenous and some strains of Anarchist thought on the spirit of freedom and the ideals of a good society; parallel critical ideas and visions of post-imperial futures that emerge from the two traditions of thought” and which “have been noted by a few thinkers”. However, despite “Anarcho-Indigenism possessing” these characteristics, there is at times no mention of such a movement in Classical Anarchisms or by Classical Anarchists, although one may find sections here and there on Resistance in “European” literature often dedicated to the unnamed other; despite that often enough the other isn't named and therefore is not truly acknowledged; there is no 'true' interest in 'Le Différend', in decolonizing or the recognition of the importance of decolonization. The pitfall of European Classical Anarchism's tendencies of ignoring certain Non-Western movements or oversimplifying them or imposing their own conceptions/language upon them lurks, though this does not imply that affinity, friendship, and solidarity can not take place at the grass-roots or within academia, but something needs to change; there has to be a give and take, an openness to alternate histories and sharing, and irrespective of Anarchism's intentions. Any broad analysis of 'Non-Western Anarchism(s)' as Western Anarchisms risks the development of an over-exaggeration of certain elements and relations and that can be espoused by any 'Non-Western' scholar/activist; in the end the connections in reality can be superficial. The examination of Anarchism of India, as an example, may fail to mention or develop a critical examination of the 'caste' system in Hinduism, along with a Gandhian perspective pertaining to it; hence it can lead to Orientalism. Instead what is often drawn upon or assumed is that “Gandhi’s passion for collective liberation” and his endorsement of a much fetishized non-violent pacifism is all that there is; indeed the necessity of removing “social evil” which, according to Gandhi, is the cause of “state evil”. There are important differences that would need to be discussed however: Gandhi’s notion of the origins of the state as an oppressive force does differ from Goldman and Bakunin’s conception of the state as the source of “social evil” and oppression. Upon conducting further research one could also find that in reference to the caste system in India, through “Gandhi: Saint or Sinner”, Gandhi is quoted, as believing that "to destroy the caste system and adopt the Western European social system means that Hindus must give up the principle of hereditary occupation, which is the soul of the caste system…The hereditary principle is an eternal principle”. As such a more detailed study reveals that Gandhi’s conception of the importance in preserving the caste system, though non-hierarchal, as it may want to be or appear, has “saved Hinduism from disintegration”. This alters and drastically undermines the belief mentioned earlier, regarding “Gandhi’s passion for collective liberation”, since it is radically different due to Gandhi’s endorsement of a (still) divided system of social order. However, what is often sought is a 'superficial' wish, a white-washing, to see Anarchistic conceptions of collective liberation as 'real' threads in Indian movements, for instance, when in fact a contradiction is played out and which more research/knowledge has yet to uncover.... 
Once more, with the advent of Poststructuralist philosophy, the philosophical and ethico-political image(s) of power moves away from a centralized or subordinating and oppressive force to one that is or can be interconnected and productive. The implications of this shift could simply be stated as follows: Power is and always will be infinitely produced, passed on and consumed not solely in between oppressors (the structures and upholders/defenders of the capitalist-state and institutionalized religion) but rather also resistors (Anarchists/others) even if they are 'idols' like Bakunin and Goldman. The repercussions of this are that, once more, “power not only intervenes in more places; its intervention is of different types” and it is this power that is exercised through oppression that gives rise to resistance within a given 'social space'. A chosen terrain as a 'social space' implies digesting the endless, constantly in motion, networks bifurcating it ... 
If the holism of Classical Anarchism is juxtaposed with that of a decentralized multiplicity of networks, a tree, in Post-Anarchism(s), then the philosophical tactics espoused by Goldman and Bakunin that are aimed at 'deconstructing' the hierarchal and centralized capitalist state or religious powers are misconceived in terms of understanding power and in need of revision. Hence, oppression is never localized or confined to a social space, nor does it find its origins solely in the state, capitalism or institutionalized religion. Oppression in European Classical Anarchism(s) was and is displaced, and its effects undermined by European Classical Anarchism's naive and misperceived roles of power. Furthermore, Classical Anarchism(s) identifies power through its suppressive force(s) rather than consciously recognizing the liberatory or resistive force(s) that arises from it. The image of power with which Classical European Anarchism “operates is that of a weight, pressing down- at times destroying- the actions, events, and desires with which it comes into contact”. This imagery, associated with Classical European Anarchists like Bakunin and Goldman, has an adverse psychological and physical effect, relying primarily and solely on state decentralization as a form of resistance, thereby achieving no significant change, and even if it succeeded historically, as in Spain, such success is merely temporarily on the micro or macro levels. On this matter, a political philosopher/scholar may discover that Bakunin and other Classical European Anarchists adopted a totalizing vision of power, engaging with it only in the context of the 'macro', where the main objective of the “Classical Anarchist Project” was to call towards a “decentralization in order to resist the reductive-ness of centralization while at the same time offering a vision of decentralization that was itself reductive”. This process became tautological in its nature, never really identifying the diversity of distinctive modes of agency/resistance, and understandings of power, that may be learnt from Non-Western Anarchisms; indeed the different relationships that can be cultivated and learnt from different understandings and workings of power. In essence, this viewpoint leads to a one dimensional battle, pitting Classical Anarchism against an illusive, anonymous, and at times impersonal structure: authority. However, this section argues that neither the capitalist-state nor religion necessarily assigns authority and that authority’s resultant attributes, power, takes on various directions of motion, within the rhizome, that is a given 'social space'. Furthermore, though it is not disputed that there is such a force whose nature is oppressive (as in, the state through its social structures), this force does not descend upon the social space it occupies, let alone exist on its own; it is formed --- constituted through us and derives its (il)legitimacy so. It is accompanied by other exploitative historical forces and potentially resistive, forces, providing a dichotomous affair between both, and outside both, with neither necessarily 'winning' nor 'losing' permanently. Instead, it is a permanent struggle, or a tug of war; between these '(un)discovered' occupants of the networks and assemblages within the recognized space. It ought to be understood as well, that in the process, these forces are never simply haphazardly 'present' in a network but rather, are discovered, appear and disappear, through a collectivity of infinite sites (re & de) territorialized by and through fate or chance (choose what you like, with fate neither denying agency nor choice), indeed knowledge/and ignorance of it arising as a consequence of infinite experiences/in-experiences...


Poststructuralist philosophy thereby challenges Classical Anarchism's unitary, totalistic, and holistic views on power and liberation, as well as the resulting existentialist bleakness that such a viewpoint places upon an individual, in order to jettison the subject as a relevant source of its own constitution or action. Post-structuralism, “confine[s] itself to neither analyzing the interiority of the subject nor the exteriority of the structures, but rather to occupy itself with examining the networks of the contingent practices that produces both the subjects and structures”. The rejection of subjectivity as a “viable source of political activity” as well as the denial of anything but a sole negative and repressive vision of power, represent some of the influences that Poststructuralist philosophy can have on Classical Anarchism(s); of course, remnants and residues will always remain behind, at the level of theory and the grassroots, and that which will never be understood. The strategy as posited by some is a new type or hybrid breeds of Anarchism(s), Post Anarchism or Poststructuralist Anarchism(s); though I may have disagreements with what emphasis people have on names because ultimately, as stated, it's the ethical and political commitments that should arrived with any adopted name that should matter most!)
If these proposed “Post-Anarchistic” contours, “along with some of the specific theoretical interventions that characterize it” are indeed to fulfill their vowed promises of incorporating the infinite multiplicity of perspectives and “subject positions” along with their uncovering of the inescapable plurality of representations, then that covenant needs to be further developed through works as ‘Who is this we that gives the gift? Native American Political Theory and the Western Tradition’. The author, Richard JF Day, of this article writes that the response of liberal multiculturalism to diversity results in the exclusion of dissenting voices from intercultural dialogue. Although the author focuses on Native American and Indigenous identity, the same issues also apply to other minority groups. While Day’s theoretical orientations may be utilized to examine 'subaltern' groups other than Native Americans, it is important to avoid making generalizations that deny the different environments, cultures, and circumstances of other minority groups as previously stated. Although the circumstances are different, yet similar, there are indeed nodes or points of intersection worth examining, whether in the context of a particular type of oppression or its reciprocated force of resistance. Hence Solidarity without solidity, indeed, Fluidarity! Thus, Post-Anarchism(s) intends to avoid tactically seeking a “single common language, but rather engage[s] in the creation of a diversity of languages that correspond to the diversity of” infinite experiences that exist, unlike Western Classical Anarchism(s); it does so while supporting the idea that infinite experiences are yet unrecognized or undiscovered and perhaps never will be. However, to begin this task that involves the inclusion of the 'subaltern other' in Post-Anarchism(s) it is necessary to remember that the potential for homogenizing needs to be avoided. In the end, these Anarchistic elements, which a warrior chooses to highlight in accordance to his and her or hybrid form of these socially constructed categories, results in a broad and bleak vision of them, unless they are precisely situated; otherwise and as illustrated earlier one is merely skimming the contour of these movements, leading to an unjust and sometimes falsified representation of them and one's self. 




Get Busy Child: The Muqaddimah

According to post-structuralist theories espoused by a philosopher in some book, it is interpreted that “if power creates its own resistance, then the liberation from specific forms of power must take into account of the kind of resistance that is being engaged in, on pain of repeating that which one is trying to escape”. Therefore, if as I believe that the genealogies of European Classical philosophies has propelled itself solely to the forefront downplaying, in the meanwhile, the importance and agency of, as an example, the Non-European, then the introduction of Islamic political philosophies and an examination of their genealogies are necessary in Eurocentric academia/social political thought.
As Hakim Bey states, “To take Islam(s) as an example – the ‘hyper-orthodox’ & the ulemocracy cannot so easily reduce it”, as had been done historically with regards to “religion” through Christianity by Nietzsche. It becomes necessary therefore to abstain from “a hegemonistic/universalistic ideology as to rule out divergent forms of ‘sacred politics’ informed by Sufism [e.g. the Naqshabandis], ‘radical’ Shia-ism [e.g. Ali Shariati], Isamilism, Islamic Humanism, Sunni-ism, the ‘Green Path’ of Col. Qadafi (part neo-Sufism, part anarcho-syndicalism), or even the ‘cosmopolitan Islam of Bosnia”. Henceforth it is necessary to comprehend and indicate that there is and will never be a single “monolith” of Islam let alone Islamic fundamentalism; in the end, whatever interpretation of either is nothing more than just a slanting ray of a setting sun, indeed an odor, a flavor, a draft and ephemeral qualitative complex that owes its value to the 'subjective aspect' which is never the last word of the search, but merely 'a truth' instead of 'the truth'. Islam is Dead. So is Anarchism. These variant and divergent traditions in Islam(s) could permit the creation, indeed the fusion, of a new open, un-holistic constellation whose contours are defined, just as Poststructuralist philosophy(s) is, through the specific theoretical and theological interventions that characterize them and are committed to their creativity. In treading this ground it becomes important to tread cautiously, not solely to avoid possible pitfalls due to generalizations, which may or may not be true, but also to not exploit either traditions of Islam(s) or Anarchism(s)…


Ibn Khaldun, acclaimed by some as the forerunner of modern, historiography, sociology and economics, wrote Al-Muqqadimah- Prolegomena to History in the 14th century. Ibn Khaldun’s grasp of the various branches, at the time, of Islams' theological and sociological models and practices of agency, identity, power, authority and the state, along with the influence of his writing(s) upon other Muslim scholars, has led to an engagement with the creativity of Islam(s). These Islam(s), in my opinion, varyingly retain the project of social justice, in the broadest sense, without necessarily having to rely on a theory of law based on a homogeneous collective identity and thus embrace the Poststructuralist philosophical concept of multiplicity, generally speaking. 

The phantasmal lure of Ibn Khaldun prevails in his ability to fashion and engage with theoretical and political philosophical paradigms a priori to some of the philosophers examined above; Hegel and Nietzsche to mention a few. Ibn Khaldun perceives 'the state' (though not to be confused with the European conceptualization of the modern state whose borders and politics are static, whereas the former ‘traditionally’ dynamic) as a natural goal of Asabiyah. Asabiyah is derived from the Arabic root asab (to bind); that is to bind the individuals into asabtun (a social group). Asabiyah is also derived from asaba, which designates the concept that is etymologically abstracted from the concrete form. Amongst the translations in which Asabiyah had been translated to are “spirit de corps”, “tribal spirit or loyalty” and “collective consciousness”. Asabiyah is an abstract concept, not necessarily prefaced in a consanguine relation, but is rather a ‘natural-nurtured’ bond that can be used to measure the strength and stability of social groupings. It is social, as well as psychological and physical of course, prescribed, though not confined, to nomadic or tribal groupings and thus is heterogeneously subject to multiplicities in its varying relations to individual and collective, subjectivities and identities respectively. Ibn Khaldun highlights that once asabiyah has “established superiority over the people who share it, it will, by its very 'nature', seek superiority over people of other asabiyahs…if an asabiyah overpowers another asabiyah and makes it subservient to itself, the defeated one gives added power to the victorious one, which as a result sets its goal of domination higher than before”. Ibn Khaldun continues and posits respectively “the weak people will have to submit to this new power”. One of the most important aspects of a dominant class’s hegemony is its ability “to struggle to assimilate and to conquer ‘ideologically’” a social space, whether intellectually or otherwise, while sacrificing the interests of numerous individuals “to serve the interests of the few”. This clearly resembles the work and perception of Ibn Khaldun, save that this Muslim philosopher and sociologist had identified what came to be understood as the logic of hegemony from his derived concept of asabiyah in the 14th century in contrast to Gramsci who writes regarding it in the 19th century; still both are dead and remain so. Alas, Ibn Khaldun’s conception is not strictly however confined to the logic of hegemony and that of hegemony of hegemony (the struggle for power between two dominant groups and within the same group ostensibly), but rather I would venture and posit that he proposed a logic of affinity as well. Ibn Khaldun comments “if an asabiyah is equal to another in strength, each will have to maintain its sway over its own domain and people…through cooperation”. This resembles and falls in line with Guattari’s “Fluidarity” and Richard JF Day's thoughts in “Gramsci is Dead: Anarchist Currents in the Newest Social Movements” whose representation of affinity based relationships as being non-coercive and non-universalizing, non-hierarchal and engaged in mutual aid offers a mutual un-soldering fusion or the possibility for horizons in relation to Islam(s) and Anarchism(s). Besides Ibn Khaldun anticipating the potential of communities ‘equal’ in strength, he identifies the possibility that these groups will refuse and be compelled not to exercise hegemony or coerciveness in relation to one another and instead seek “Le Différend”; these coming communities engage in mutual cooperation and respect. Ibn Khaldun engages in other worlds beyond that of merely abstract knowledge, citing historical examples, to engender universes of reference and existential territories where singularity and finitude are taken into consideration allowing thus for 'Fluidarity' to exist, as friction begins to dissipate between associated commitments to micro-politics built between individuals and the macro-politics of friendship or solidarity subsequently and at once emergent. 

The tenor of European Classical philosophies undermines itself, as much as possible within a given social terrain, positing the necessity of offering a non-Eurocentric multi-polar approach, which engages in a spirit of affinity with Non-European traditions that have the potential of revolting and reshaping the study of political philosophy and social movement theory. They eliminate many things and many people in the course of a search for a telos, when what one is dealing with is an incongruous group: observers, friends, philosophers, talkers, homeless, homosexuals à la grecque, transsexuals, intellectuals along with their varying degrees of participation and characterizations within the logos... 

Islam(s) represent here 'that which is veiled', but that which is veiled “is not absent or invisible, since the veil is a sign of presence, its imaginal reality, its power…. is unseen”. The sweetest phantasies that I can offer is that of an Auturi who would rather be a nomad that identifies as a Muslim anarchist migrant, located and dislocated at once…the nomad that who has no horizon, coming from no land and errant, a Muslim anarchist, dispossessed of any material belonging, and whose position of dispossession facilitates a chance with everlasting encounters and infinite disposed conversations... 




Dramatic Dead Ends: My Death toll in the Thousands 

Un-trapping the double pincer movement(s), Islam(s) and Anarchism(s) is identifying that all this is not a consequence of Chernobyl-style accidents. One needs hardly mention the almost delirious stockpiling of thousands of dominant modes in which any attempt to homogenize any groupings of these could lead to a collective extermination of any hope of 'Fluidarity'. 
“At the time I loved Gilbert, I still believed that love really existed outside ourselves…it seemed to me that if I had, my own accord, substituted the simulation of indifference for the sweetness of avowal, I would not have only deprived myself of a series of pleasures I had long yearned for, but that I would have fabricated, to my own taste, a fictitious and worthless love.” 
Sections of collective subjectivities are floundering or simply huddled around archaisms of religious and ideological fundamentalism. Moderation, leaning, neither too far to the extreme left nor the extreme right can be a response to these crises. Visible relations of force of the grand scale are not to be discounted but rather they ought take into account and inform that which is of, and belongs to, the molecular-local. All actions are but by intentions. Abstain from Demagoguery... 
Chains of commands attempt to over-code all possible points and connections within the network to regimes in arborescent systems that implement Hegelian dialectics that confine, dine and drink too little wine... Us, we seek an airtight vacuum in search of a pre-ordained 'God-given' teleological definitive outcome to be assured that we are righteous and on the truthful path. Your fate with society is written and that doesn't deny choice and you can rewrite society yourself... You cannot divert under the panoptic eye of surveillance, though once in a while you can shop at 9-11, engage in asymmetric warfare, proxy wars, appear and hide... But remember as Professor Challenger teaches: he neither subscribes obedience to your rules, nor merely follows his own...Professor Challenger just drilled a whole to the earth, spat on/pushed a button, becoming a body without organs, and the earth recognized ﺍﻠﺒﺎﻂﻦ (the veiled) that became interrupted with what volcanic earth shattering ruptures...
An alternative therefore is to interrupt and engage in Bakhtinian dialogics, where no one is in control...Decisions are emergent be they through consensus, dissents or otherwise, as are the very identities engaging in the process through which decisions are made --- becoming. Rhizomes and rhizomatic thinking implements that which is Bakhtinian in logic, making maps and not just tracings, between semiotic chains utilizing the events of the social space available and engaging with war-machines, indeed themselves becoming war-machines prior to their appropriation, crystalizing into a state form; be ware of becoming a state whether you’re a cop or a teacher. Be ware of the false rhizomes that profess the local and multiple yet remain subject to a single authoritarian logic, enclosed. If the war-machine fails then destroy it before it is incorporated into the state’s apparatus; indeed seek its homicide even if you're part of the cost; suicide. Engage in community building and know thy neighbor: 

Node One. "...And do good to parents, kins-folk, orphans, the poor who beg, the neighbor who is near of kin, the neighbor who is a stranger...” (Qurran: 4:36) and if you’re interested recall that your neighbor is not immune from your mischief...And remember Ali Abd Al-Razeq’s expression in Al-Islam Wa-Usul Al-hukum offers the possibility of re-shaping… Node 1 leads to Node 2:- The government of the Islamic 'state' can be of any kind: 

Node Two. “It can be an autocracy or bureaucracy; a monarchy or republic, a dictatorship or constitutional or consultative government; it can be democratic, socialist or Bolshevik; that the prophet was nothing but a Rasul or messenger for a religious call, purely for the sake of religion, unblemished by any tendency to rule or call for the formation of a state”. On the contrary Islam is a faithful unity explosive with multiplicity and the prophet called for that unity of the infinite and the infinity of the unified. It should be realized that ‘al-risalah in itself required the prophet to acquire some power in relation to the Umma (nation and community). But this is very far from the leadership of kings and their power over their subjects. Hence one must not confuse the leadership of al-Risalah (the message) with that of a king”. It is untainted by the urge to rule. For recall that you (Muslims) are all guardians and you are all responsible for your wards --- we are all and only Khalifhs (Caretakers, as stated in the Quran in its plural form). 

Node Three. If everything on Earth belongs to Allah (God) alone, and people are only entrusted with managing them, and live off the Earth and its offerings then a paradox envelopes with the capitalist concept of ownership based on the Roman doctrine of "the right to use and abuse". Islam lays the foundation for ecology, as the creations of Allah (including plants and animals) all have rights so do not trespass or confuse your rights what that of others. This is not similar to the concept of private possessions, introduced by Proudhon’s "What is Property?” and shared by most Classical Anarchists. We, Muslims, don't own property in the Western European sense...It is entrusted nothing more, and to be shared, nothing less...A primary pillar, Zakat (Alms Tax), “anti and non-capitalist levy on wealth” and the right of the poor over the wealthy as opposed to Riba (Interest). Riba to increase or grow endlessly without a service or labor in exchange becomes the "The usury that is practiced to increase some people's wealth, does not gain anything at God. But if you give to charity, seeking God's pleasure, these are the ones who receive their reward many fold.” 

Zakat acts a purification and a reminder for Muslims to remember 'what truly matters in life', to not forsake morality for the sake of materialism (Islam’s ethical conceptions of human relations and social organizations). A beloved Ramadan claims that, "The person who possess has duties before God and not before man. Islam does not conceive of poverty as a normal fact of the social universe. Nor does it envisage that the treatment to this distortion be the free generosity towards others, that in the hope of some miracle there will be a balance. The obligation places the question rather in the domain of morality and cannot be left to the discretion of each person. Social solidarity is a part of faith, as it is its most concrete testimony. It is not a question of goodness…rather a question of justice. Furthermore the managing of personal spending is to fight against egoism and hoarding"... To possess it is tantamount to having to share, becoming responsible and accountable …it is falsehood to shamelessly increase one’s property at the price of exploitation and social injustices...

Node Four. Ramadan’s proposal lay in the need of a semi-concrete strategy and thought-out solutions which are inscribed in and by solidarity without solidity which alone will allow us to achieve a real alternative project, as Islam in its fundamentals is radically opposed to the existing neoliberal economic order; over this point there is no negotiation! Cooperatives and the function of logics of 'Fluidarity' and affinity propelled by popular participation must be the subject of more in-depth studies. This is merely the beginning of the end of the beginning again... 

Node Five. An alternative view, illustrates a multiplicity of interpretations...Annihilating demagogues and gods of war is necessary where “The choice of the one placed ahead is delegated in Islam to those who leave themselves behind. One can be chosen by means of elections, a representative system or any other original idea". But if the important thing is that the people choose their representative then this means, fortiori, that one must be granted all the conditions that allow one the opportunity to choose with full knowledge of the facts. Any pressure or attempt (at coercion), to influence public opinion must be the subject of strict regulations, for this means that there is a real deficit in the real participation of the people. Just as is the case, moreover, with ignorance, illiteracy and misery which are, as many social phenomena, obstructing the real participation of the grassroots. The multi-polar solidarity brings forth issues of contention where proof lies in Surat Al-Hajj; bearing in mind that “In Islam general principles were given in the field of politics and social affairs. But the Quran does not mention details and particulars which have been left for the Muslim Ummah to formulate according to the needs of time and space.” …Ummah itself needs to be defined according to new ethical and political contours…Consensus and seeking consultation as Abu Hurirah’s “I’ve never seen anyone else who seeks consultation of his companions more than prophet” escalate Surat Al-Shura (43:38) to profound importance (as it can usher new depths and heights beneath and higher than the sun). 

Is it not more compatible with the Islamic method of Islamic legislation to leave matters to be brought before Shura unspecified and undefined, establishing only principles and general rules and leaving details to be worked out by Muslims in adapting the laws of Islams to a particular time and place, or were Abu Hanbal, Abu Hanefa, not following the examples of the prophets determining “indefinite lifestyle of islam(s)” open to others, the door to Ijtihad unhinged, burnt, broken. Engage in Asabiyah. 
Here's to drawing a porous circle A with Islam's I...




1 comment:

  1. Salaam

    The Inner Circle, an international queer Muslim organisation is hosting a Forum for religious leaders from 15-19 September 2014. The theme is reconciling Islam with sexual orientation and gender identity. You may attend as a participant and you may present a paper for discussion and debate. We will cover the cost of flights, ground transport, accommodation etc.

    Regards

    Abdul Karriem

    ReplyDelete