Will the rest of the poor and oppressed countries in the world follow the Muslim lead in armed struggles against the imperialist system and fight for their national independence?


This writer confidently believes that a great upsurge in struggle for national independence and real development will soon occur in many countries not just in the Muslim countries in the near future as the results and effects of the economic recession in the US spread through to the worlds other economies.


The ideology of ‘globalist free trade’ imperialist imposed ‘development” of their economies as export of wealth economies will go to the garbage bin of history.


Sure, that sounds like a bit of leftist hyperbole, the old Marxist type wishful thinking But the reality is it is not this kind of leftist ideology or subjective wishes that will call this movement of the poor and oppressed peoples of the world into existence but the actual changing material conditions of these peoples lives. Necessity!


People born into poverty, may simply accept those continuing life conditions as their ‘fate” and by habit. . Conditions about which it appears nothing can be done. Religion may give some consolation, so the ruling classes everywhere promote and use religion to encourage that resigned acceptance of fate.


But the concept of Jihad struggle is not so passive it may take the movement for change in the Muslim world, a movement currently being led by religious leaders, out of the hands of the ruling classes


In many countries there has been the Hollywood /capitalist dream of improving their lives by the development of export of wealth economies under “free trade”. They have been patiently waiting and hoping that this improvement will take place. These illusions and assurances have shown in practice in most countries of the world to be worthless.


Only a minority can ever get rich under capitalism because the system itself is based on taking wealth not giving.


The enslavement by the rich countries, the destruction of their local food production everywhere in competition with the subsidised grains under the control of the imperialist food mafias of the imperialist heartlands is now creating increasingly desperate conditions that will lead to a worldwide upsurge of struggle.


FOOD SECURITY.

Basic foodstuffs are becoming increasingly unaffordable as the inflationary spiral set off by the Imperialist countries to solve their own economic problems has led to massive rises in the world prices of basic food grains and other foods.


 http://sydney.indymedia.org.au/story/rise-world-costs-basic-food



Consider what the effect of these imperialist imposed food prices will have on the billions of people currently subsisting on incomes of a dollar or two a day.


The reality is, that Billions of people now face the prospect of being unable to survive at the old “normal” rates of third world poverty just waiting for progress and economic development and will now have to fight to change their lives simply in order to survive.


So, not just the ‘normal” poverty they have been born into and are conditioned to accept, but a desperate food insecurity will drive forward the poor proletariat of the world to demand change too.


It is the proletariat. That class with no property interests and no interest in preserving its own conditions of exploitation. That is always the most revolutionary element, the most radical element in any movement for change. So any revolution or anti –imperialist or anti-colonialist movement for national liberation in which they play a role is bound in the end to be radical and practical whatever its ideological leadership may at first be.


US Imperialism and those nations allied with it are already being militarily defeated and weakened in Afghanistan and Iraq.


The coming world upsurge in struggles against imperialism, not just the Muslims but struggles by the people of many poor and oppressed nations will aid and support one another.

This mutual aid and support will create favourable conditions for international anti-imperialist military success, similar to those of the great upsurge in peoples struggle in the sixties bringing back into play the strategy for the worlds oppressed people of Lin Biao.
 http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/lin-biao/1965/09/peoples_war/index.htm

It is necessary for the left to get a grip on the fact that whatever anti- jihad anti-terrorist propaganda the imperialists and colonialist movements of those occupying and suppressing the peoples of Muslim lands may make, the resistance is at bottom an anti-colonialist anti imperialist war movement of the masses. That is making a great contribution to the struggle forward of all suffering poor humanity.


Those oppressed forced to live in desperate conditions of life may understandably resort to desperate measures even resorting to individualist suicide protest in order to be able fight back. That is not a form of jihad struggle we should encourage individual acts of protest cannot change the course of historical development.


The Israelis for example may have been able to co-opt the secular movement once led by Arafat with endless promises, but have not been so successful with Hamas So we now see the enormous rise in popularity of Hames with the Palestinian people.


The US imperialists are terrorised by these Jihad threats against their ‘freedom’ to exploit and its other lifestyle “values” and so have launched in reply, a so called world “war against terrorism”, directing the spearhead of its attacks against any or all Muslim peoples that even dare to fight back.


Movements for social change and economic progress have often in history taken on religious forms from the anti-feudalist peasant wars in Europe to the wars for building The Heavenly Kingdom in China. The glorious anti-colonialist Taipings. Or, consider the reasons for the rapid expansion of the Muslim system in its first years.

For poor Muslim peoples of the world today this movement of struggle against imperialism and imperialist colonial wars may at first take the form of a positive movement for defensive “JIHAD”.


Those living in the secular imperialist heartlands with their European culturally derived experiences of how social change is won, may see these kind of movements as crazy and incomprehensible and the left in these countries may believe that real progress can only come through secularist bourgeois democracy or socialism. Now!


Is this then really the secular great and final truth of the left.


The imperialists utilise this trend of thought for their own purposes demanding that the secular left should support imperialist war against the veil. Some of the left go along with that. Imperialist’s campaign to paint all Muslims black and even egg the imperialists on in the name of Women’s Liberation. Western style.


. But The Muslim religion like all world religions has different cultural standards in regard to women in different countries. Not all Muslims seek to apply rules for life on their women of the “Taliban” type that are centred on the practices of the Pushtun nation’s region.


That is the pro imperialist “left” especially prevalent in the left circles and the neo-cons influenced by Trotskyist ideas. With their old Euro centred ideas that socialism and democracy can only be delivered to the underdeveloped world by the ‘cultured” western imperialist working class making revolution first. Those with the ‘permanent scepticism” belief of the ‘impossibility” of an underdeveloped country being able to develop “socialism in one country” etc

This is the ‘Marxist left’ that never makes analysis of the actual international flows of surplus value, to see whether that exploited working class in the imperialist heartlands is actually exploited and not a net beneficiary class from imperialist exploitation. The ‘left” that pretends that those well off bribed working classes are still an exploited “industrial proletariat”. And about to launch a revolution, at the first sign of capitalist economic crisis, any day now.


Or, can the movements for anti imperialist anti- colonialist wars inspired by the defensive “Jihad concept” now sweeping the Muslim world deliver any economic and social progress?



Anarchists for example may see things only in terms of the personal liberation of the individual. But for the poor people of the world liberation is seen in material terms such as LAND BREAD AND OF RIGHT TO ENJOY THOSE IN PEACE.


Islam claims to promise them such a society and is inspiring many people to fight for change.


While the movement for socialism has often made itself irrelevant by attempting to impose its secularist concept for change on peoples who may not consider it important to them at all.


If the real left in the imperialist heartlands want to play a positive role in the future supporting the poor and oppressed peoples and gain some understanding of the movements for change in this world it is useful to gain some understanding of “Jihad.”

Jihad has been roughly translated by some as meaning ‘holy struggle”. Sometimes struggle by the individual and sometimes by Muslim organisations and societies.


For that purpose of understanding the role of jihad concept in today’s actual anti –war anti -colonial and anti- imperialist practice, this writer recommends as a start the two book reviews here.

 http://sydney.indymedia.org.au/story/maoist-book-review-osama-bin-laden


 http://sydney.indymedia.org.au/story/substantial-hezbollah-book-appears-finally


 http://sydney.indymedia.org.au/story/2008-will-we-remain-problem-or-part-solution-end-gap-between-rich-and-poor-worlds