[lit-ideas] Re: Question
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 7 Sep 2006 08:54:35 -0700
Irene wrote, "I heard a discussion on Qutb. Apparently one of the things
that turned him off to America is when he was in Colorado (1940's I think),
he and his Egyptian friends went to a movie theatre and were denied
admission because the movie attendants thought they were black Americans.
He told them they were Egyptian and they were let in. That experience of
racism was one of the things that made him think the U.S. was corrupt."
I suppose that's possible, but I read Sayyid Qutb's account of his American
experience and he didn't mention that. I don't recall any mention of
Egyptian friends. He did mention the "disgusting" freedom and "looseness"
of American women, especially the erotic way they danced. I saw a history
channel discussion of Qutb and one of the women who attended college at the
time he was there was questioned. She didn't remember him. She laughed at
the idea that girls danced erotically back in the 40s.
Irene writes, It makes one wonder about the term "Islamofascism" since there
are so many sects and only tiny minorities even among the fundamentalists
are militant. Painting everyone with one brush serves no purpose beyond
recruiting for the militants.
Islamofascist is accurate only if it is applied to something that equates to
the teachings of Sayyid Qutb, Maududi, Khomeini and their. Qutb for example
was actually attracted to Fascist literature. A fascist work which had
enormous influence in the Middle East, especially with Qutb was Man, the
Unknown by Alexis Carrel, 1935. I bought the book to read on a rainy day,
but it has not yet rained hard enough for me to take it down. I learned
about Qutb's interest in Carrel from Youssef Choueiri's Islamic
Fundamentalism.
On page 142 he writes, "In the West, Alexis Carrel (1873-1944) is hardly a
household name. However, in Islamic radicalist literature his views on
modern civilization, morality and human knowledge are quoted and requoted .
. . It was thus Qutb, in his preoccupation with the intricate problem of
power, who extracted from Carrel's views and recommendations a radicalist
theory of politics."
On page 144 Carrel is quoted to say "The democratic principle has
contributed to the collapse of civilization in opposing the development of
an elite."
Further down Choueiri writes, "Carrel called for a moral and social
revolution in order to create an equilibrium between material and the
spiritual forces of society. He abhorred complacency, laziness and
cowardice, and extolled instead the discipline of martial arts, sacrifice
and devotion to duty. His most radical suggestion resides in the creation
of a new elite that would restore humanity to the right path, and arrest its
degeneration towards barbarism. This elite would weed out the
feeble-minded, the unintelligent, the weak and the unfit. The laws of
natural selection, brutally suspended in favour of uniformity and
standardization, would be restored to play their vital part. Two techniques
are indispensable 'for the perpetuation of the strong': eugenics and
euthanasia. Eugenics is necessary because 'a great race must propagate its
best elements'. Euthanasia ensures the gradual disappearance of creatures
who infect the body politic with terminal diseases."
On page 146 Carrel is quoted to say, "It is a well-established fact that
discipline gives great strength to men. An ascetic and mystic minority
would rapidly acquire an irresistible power over the dissolute and degraded
majority. Such a minority would be in a position to impose, by persuasion
or perhaps by force, other ways of life upon the majority."
There is no nation that utterly fulfills Carrel's fascist ideal. The
Taliban were fascist in effect, but not to the Carrel extreme. They adapted
this teaching to the raising up of children in madrasses such that they
would follow Taliban teachings. The Taliban may have thought of themselves
as the "ascetic and mystic minority" "in a position to impose, by persuasion
or perhaps by force" their Islamist teachings.
Probably Osama considered his Al Quaeda such an "ascetic and mystic
minority." He should by this time have some doubts about how well his
revolution is going.
Baathist ideology is Fascist in nature but it was only encouraged in three
nations, Egypt, Syria and Iraq. Baathism died in Egypt as I recall with the
death of Nassar. It did in Iraq with the overthrow of Saddam. It now only
exists in Syria.
And yet Fascism combined with Fundamentalist Islam has been the ideal among
the Jihadists. But as Olivier Roy has written in his Globalized Islam,
there really aren't that many Muslims engaged in active Jihadism. On the
other hand, the Islamist teachings of Qubt remain popular and persuasive in
the Middle East.
Lawrence
_____
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Andy Amago
Sent: Thursday, September 07, 2006 7:08 AM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Question
I heard a discussion on Qutb. Apparently one of the things that turned him
off to America is when he was in Colorado (1940's I think), he and his
Egyptian friends went to a movie theatre and were denied admission because
the movie attendants thought they were black Americans. He told them they
were Egyptian and they were let in. That experience of racism was one of
the things that made him think the U.S. was corrupt.
It makes one wonder about the term "Islamofascism" since there are so many
sects and only tiny minorities even among the fundamentalists are militant.
Painting everyone with one brush serves no purpose beyond recruiting for the
militants.
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