*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.
*The MA-thesis is due for publication and release as a book in 2019 through AKpress/Minor Compositions.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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...
Salaam
ReplyDeleteThe 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