About Eric Walberg --- ===
Pro-russian pro-Islamist anti-Imperialist anti-American anti-Israel conspiracy theorist. He is absolutely not a professinal Russian influence agent.
*Sources
White Phosphorus and Other Horrific Weapons Crescent internatinal (Iranian islamic revolution)
Eric Walberg The Zionists, Americans and Saudis are notorious for using white phosphorus against perceived enemies as well as civilians. The use of white phosphorus needs to be exposed and condemned.
Interview with Eric Walberg and Rodney Shakespeare, author of Binary Economics: the new paradigm (1999)1) What is the major problem of the French yellow ...
Eric Walberg is a Canadian journalist and an economics expert. As a UN adviser, writer, translator and lecturer he has lived in the Soviet Union and Russia, and ...
- considered for deletion at Wikipedia on March 8 2019. This is a backup of Wikipedia:Eric_Walberg. All of its AfDs can be found at Wikipedia:Special:PrefixIndex/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Eric_Walberg.
- The topic of this article may not meet Wikipedia's general notability guideline. But, that doesn't mean someone has to… establish notability by citing reliable secondary sources that are independent of the topic and provide significant coverage of it beyond its mere trivial mention. (March 2019)
Eric Walberg is a Canadian journalist and an economics expert.[1]Template:Primary source inline As a UN adviser, writer, translator and lecturer he has lived in the Soviet Union and Russia, and then Uzbekistan.[2]Template:Primary source inline
Views
Walberg describes the Cold War era as having mainly two games: "one directed against the Soviet Union and its European socialist allies, and the other against the nations struggling for independence from imperial control." Also, he believes that think tanks and the Israeli lobby have a "tremendous influence in shaping the Middle East policy of US."[3]
Books
Here's a list of his published books:
- Postmodern Imperialism: Geopolitics and the Great Games
- From Postmodernism to Postsecularism: Re-emerging Islamic Civilization[1]Template:Primary source inline
- The Canada/Israel Nexus[4]Template:Primary source inline
- Islamic Resistance to Imperialism[5]Template:Unreliable fringe source
References
- ↑ 1.01.1 "Eric Walberg" (in en). Middle East Eye. http://www.middleeasteye.net/users/eric-walberg. Retrieved 27 April 2018.
- ↑ "Eric Walberg". https://www.eurasiareview.com/author/eric-walberg/. Retrieved 27 April 2018.
- ↑ Michael, Gratale, Joseph (26 March 2012). "Walberg, Eric. Postmodern Imperialism: Geopolitics and the Great Games." (in en). European journal of American studies. ISSN 1991-9336. https://journals.openedition.org/ejas/9709. Retrieved 4 May 2018.
- ↑ "The Canada-Israel Nexus". http://www.claritypress.com/WalbergIV.html. Retrieved 4 May 2018.
- ↑ Watzal, Ludwig. ""Islamic Resistance to Imperialism" by Eric Walberg". https://www.globalresearch.ca/islamic-resistance-to-imperialism-by-eric-walberg/5515662. Retrieved 4 May 2018.
Twitter Results
- The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
Eric Walberg[edit]
New to AfD? Read these primers! [Hide this box]
- Eric Walberg (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)
- (Find sources: Google (books · news · newspapers · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS ·JSTOR · NYT · TWL)
Walberg is a journalist and author of books about politics in the Near East. He does not appear to have an advanced degree or regular employment. I found a review of one of his books in a minor academic journal, and reviews of 2 others in sources deprecated as FRINGE or not reliable on Reliable Sources Noticeboard: iranreview.org and foreignpolicyjournal.com (this is NOT the journal Foreign Policy,) and one review on a partisan website [1]. Sourcing is PRIMARY, and searches produce material he wrote, not articles about him. His Twitter page [2]. E.M.Gregory (talk) 14:00, 8 March 2019 (UTC)
- Note: This debate has been included in the list of Authors-related deletion discussions.E.M.Gregory (talk) 15:07, 8 March 2019 (UTC)
- Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions.E.M.Gregory (talk) 15:07, 8 March 2019 (UTC)
- Delete. (note: EMG discussed the subject with me prior to nomming). Seems to mainly produce fringey oped material, published in places such as www.eurasiareview.com. Does not seem to be covered as a subject himself in reliable sources.Icewhiz (talk) 20:15, 8 March 2019 (UTC)
- Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Canada-related deletion discussions. North America1000 21:28, 8 March 2019 (UTC)
- Keep (page creator)- A quick search shows that his works have got reviews in academic peer-reviewed journals such as this one and this one. One review of his works is published by the Arabic Aljazeera. His 'Postmodern imperialism : geopolitics and the great games' is found in 196 libraries around the world with the 'The Canada-Israel Nexus' being in 50 libraries around the world. His article on 'Great Game' is used and cited in "The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Imperialism and Anti-Imperialism". I've updated the article. --Mhhossein talk 18:54, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
- The 1st, of the 2 reviews your mention "Islamic Resistance to Imperialism," by By Joseph J. Kaminski, International University of Sarajevo. in ReOrient: A Forum for Critical Muslim Studies reads: "Walberg’s argument is based on essentialized binaries relating to Islam and the West. On 'the good side' is everything and anything that fits within the rubric of Islam: whether it’s Osama bin Laden, Hezbollah, Hamas, Hasan al Banna, Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), Sufism, or the Muslim Brotherhood; it does not matter. They all get defended or rationalized in one way or another throughout this work because, at least, they stand in opposition to the West, or 'the bad side.'" and concludes: " In my opinion, Walberg’s book lacks the nuance and depth necessary to properly tackle such an important subject."
- The 2nd is the review of Postmodern Imperialism: Geopolitics and the Great Games, by Joseph Michael Gratale, is the one that I mention in my Nom as published by a "minor" scholarly journal of a book put out by a very minor publisher claritypress.com. According to the review, Walberg's book focuses on "the unipolar dominance of the USA," “new developments in financial and military-political strategies to ensure control over the world’s resources," "extensive coverage of CIA sponsored coups, interventions, and wars orchestrated by the US in order to maintain a dominant position," "the Israeli lobby have a tremendous influence in shaping US policy," and "discusses at length the role played by Jews in global finance." FRINGE territory. E.M.Gregory (talk) 11:02, 12 March 2019 (UTC)
- Note that for fringe theories and promulgators thereof we have a higher sourcing and notability bar per WP:FRIND. Icewhiz (talk) 12:44, 12 March 2019 (UTC)
- OMG! Such scholarly peer-reviewed works are not reliable...? --Mhhossein talk 17:46, 12 March 2019 (UTC)
-
-
- You might find it useful to take a close look at WP:AUTHOR. Note that two reviews in minor journals is not enough to establish notability. His citation of FRINGE theorists, and the fact the author of one of the journal reviews found his scholarship inadequate, adds to the difficulty of establishing notability.E.M.Gregory (talk) 19:01, 12 March 2019 (UTC)
- Delete - based on the discussion of sources above. Almost nothing about the person published in 3rd party RS. My very best wishes (talk) 02:27, 13 March 2019 (UTC)
- Delete lack of coverage in multiple reliable sources independent of the subject. Also agree with other contributors above on the aspect of fringe theories. --DBigXrayá—™ 05:26, 14 March 2019 (UTC)
- The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
New to AfD? Read these primers! | [Hide this box] |
- The 1st, of the 2 reviews your mention "Islamic Resistance to Imperialism," by By Joseph J. Kaminski, International University of Sarajevo. in ReOrient: A Forum for Critical Muslim Studies reads: "Walberg’s argument is based on essentialized binaries relating to Islam and the West. On 'the good side' is everything and anything that fits within the rubric of Islam: whether it’s Osama bin Laden, Hezbollah, Hamas, Hasan al Banna, Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), Sufism, or the Muslim Brotherhood; it does not matter. They all get defended or rationalized in one way or another throughout this work because, at least, they stand in opposition to the West, or 'the bad side.'" and concludes: " In my opinion, Walberg’s book lacks the nuance and depth necessary to properly tackle such an important subject."
- The 2nd is the review of Postmodern Imperialism: Geopolitics and the Great Games, by Joseph Michael Gratale, is the one that I mention in my Nom as published by a "minor" scholarly journal of a book put out by a very minor publisher claritypress.com. According to the review, Walberg's book focuses on "the unipolar dominance of the USA," “new developments in financial and military-political strategies to ensure control over the world’s resources," "extensive coverage of CIA sponsored coups, interventions, and wars orchestrated by the US in order to maintain a dominant position," "the Israeli lobby have a tremendous influence in shaping US policy," and "discusses at length the role played by Jews in global finance." FRINGE territory. E.M.Gregory (talk) 11:02, 12 March 2019 (UTC)
- Note that for fringe theories and promulgators thereof we have a higher sourcing and notability bar per WP:FRIND. Icewhiz (talk) 12:44, 12 March 2019 (UTC)
- OMG! Such scholarly peer-reviewed works are not reliable...? --Mhhossein talk 17:46, 12 March 2019 (UTC)
-
-
- You might find it useful to take a close look at WP:AUTHOR. Note that two reviews in minor journals is not enough to establish notability. His citation of FRINGE theorists, and the fact the author of one of the journal reviews found his scholarship inadequate, adds to the difficulty of establishing notability.E.M.Gregory (talk) 19:01, 12 March 2019 (UTC)
-
Eric Walberg (@WalbergEric) · Twitter
https://twitter.com/WalbergEric
Nobel Institute: Irwin Cotler Does not Deserve nomination for Noble Peace Prize - Sign the Petition! chng.it/TzpS7DZQ via @CdnChange
Eric Walberg | Middle East Eye
https://www.middleeasteye.net/users/eric-walberg
Canadian Eric Walberg is a journalist specialising in the Middle East, Central Asia and Russia. An economics expert he has written widely on East-West ...
Eric Walberg, Author at Global ResearchGlobal Research - Centre for ...
https://www.globalresearch.ca/author/eric-walberg
Canadian Eric Walberg is known worldwide as a journalist specializing in the Middle East, Central Asia and Russia. A graduate of University of Toronto and ...
Eric Walberg – Eurasia Review
https://www.eurasiareview.com/author/eric-walberg/
Canadian Eric Walberg is known worldwide as a journalist specializing in the Middle East, Central Asia and Russia. A graduate of University of Toronto and ...
Eric Walberg Profiles | Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/public/Eric-Walberg
View the profiles of people named Eric Walberg. Join Facebook to connect with Eric Walberg and others you may know. Facebook gives people the power to...
Islamic Resistance to Imperialism: Eric Walberg: 9780986073182 ...
https://www.amazon.com/Islamic-Resistance-Imperialism-Eric-Walberg/.../098607318...
Islamic Resistance to Imperialism [Eric Walberg]
https://www.amazon.com/Islamic-Resistance-Imperialism-Eric-Walberg/.../098607318...
Islamic Resistance to Imperialism [Eric Walberg]
Eric Walberg̢۪s third book on geopolitical strategy focuses on the Middle East and the global ramifications of the multiple state destruction resulting from Western aggression, asking: What is left of the historic Middle East upheavals of 1979 (Afghanistan, Iran) and 2011 (the Arab Spring)? How does 9/11 fit into the equation of Islamic resistance? Is al-Qaeda̢۪s long term project still on track? What are the chances that ISIS can prevail in Iraq and Syria? Are they and likeminded jihadists dupes of imperialism or legitimate resistance movements?
Eric Walberg is known worldwide as a journalist specializing in the Middle East, Central Asia and Russia. A graduate of University of Toronto and Cambridge in economics, he has been writing on East-West relations since the 1980s. Formerly a writer for the foremost Cairo newspaper, Al Ahram, he is also a regular contributor to Counterpunch, Dissident Voice, Global Research, Al-Jazeerah and Turkish Weekly.His book, Postmodern Imperialism, is published in Chinese by Nankei University Press, and in Turkish and Russian.
July 11, 2015
Format: Paperback
In Islam, the first two adjectival "most beautiful names" of God are al-Rahman al-Rahim, the All-Merciful, the All-Compassionate. (Or, in Michael Sells' translation, "the Compassionate, the Caring.") The Arabic root of both words derives from "womb" and connotes the kind of outrageously generous love and compassion a mother feels for her children.
These days, the Western discourse on Islam – especially political Islam – is not exactly overflowing with compassion and generosity. As the French-Algerian Jew Albert Memmi wrote in The Coloniser and the Colonized, colonizers typically take a very ungenerous view of the people they are attacking, occupying, brutalizing and exploiting. If they admitted the humanity of their victims, they would look in the mirror and see a brutish criminal. So to avoid facing the truth, they project their own criminal brutality on the colonized victim.
Memmi notes that Western colonizers typically refuse to acknowledge the positive traits of colonized Muslims. Even an admirable virtue such as generosity – a notable feature of Islamic cultures – is made into a vice: "Those crazy Muslims don't know the value of money; accept their hospitality, and they'll feed you a meal that costs a month of their salary, and offer you a gift worth ten times that. They're just not frugal!"
Today, all over the world, Muslims are generously risking and sacrificing their lives in what any objective observer would recognize as a justified and noble struggle against the murderous, arguably genocidal imperialism of the West and its even more genocidal Zionist surrogate. (As British scholar Nafeez Ahmed's article headline reads, "Western wars have killed four million Muslims since 1990.") Yet unlike such non-Muslim freedom fighters as Che Guevara and Nelson Mandela, their Muslim equivalents get little Western sympathy, even from the supposedly peace-loving "progressive" intelligentsia.
Even Muslim intellectuals are often un-generous in their estimations of Islamic freedom fighters, especially those from a different school of thought. Iran's Islamic revolutionaries, for example, are without question the most advanced and successful Muslim freedom fighters to date; yet they are viewed with an incomprehensible lack of generosity by many Sunni and especially Salafi observers. Likewise, Iranian observers often take a dim view of any Sunni Islamist movements that include a Salafi element, even such relatively peaceful and non-sectarian ones as the Muslim Brotherhood. (To their credit, though, Iranians are reasonable enough to work with people from diverse backgrounds and outlooks; whereas the Salafi extremists of the so-called Islamic State, as well as less noxious Sunni/Salafi movements such as the Taliban, tend to be far more bigoted and sectarian.)
This near-universal lack of empathy, tainted by a million shades of purblind partisanship, is most unfortunate. But fortunately, Eric Walberg, an international journalist and Canadian convert to Islam, has stepped outside of the whole maze of prejudices and produced a holistically generous and compassionate account of Islamic resistance. His new book Islamic Resistance to Imperialism, published by Clarity Press, combines geopolitical erudition with pan-Islamic sympathies, filling what until now had been a gaping void in the literature of the phony "war on terror."
Walberg, a long-time Cairo-based foreign correspondent, is especially sympathetic and knowledgable regarding the Muslim Brotherhood, the oldest and best-organized Islamic movement seeking to reform Muslim society through peaceful democratic means. But he recognizes that the Brotherhood's efforts suffered a massive setback just when they seemed about to succeed:
"By 2012, Egypt and Iran had ‘caught up’ with each other: the political see-saw that these countries experienced in the past half century was finally coming into sync. Both were following an Islamic path in defiance of the US, though the MB had only taken the first tentative steps in exercising actual power. This synchronization of Egyptian and Iranian politics represented a potential coming together of Sunni and Shia political dynamics, which was the wish of Islamist reformists Afghani and Abduh more than a century ago, and has been happening gradually since the Iranian revolution, despite the opposition of the Saudi and Gulf monarchies…"
Tragically, Walberg notes, the fascist dictator al-Sisi strangled Egypt's experiment in Islamic democracy in its cradle and murdered thousands of non-violent political opponents. Since then, al-Sisi's Saudi and Israeli sponsors have succeeded in spreading the poison of anti-Shia, anti-Iran sectarianism designed to obscure and thwart the pan-Islamic agenda of the Islamic Revolution launched by the Ayatollah Khomeini.
Walberg's analysis follows the school of thought of Kalim Siddiqui, founder of the Muslim Parliament in London: "an important precedent for the émigré Muslim ummah—the creation of peaceful, constructive non-state institutions to reflect the views and advocate on behalf of Muslims locally and around the world, a democratic alternative to the seriously compromised OIC-type official international organizations sponsored by existing largely dictatorial Muslim states." Siddiqui saw Iran's Islamic Revolution as the harbinger of an Islamic awakening that would transcend sectarianism and stimulate a renaissance of Islamic civilization; his work is now being carried on by Zafar Bangash and colleagues at Toronto-based Crescent International magazine.
While approving of the rational, strategic approaches exemplified by the Muslim Brotherhood and the Iranian Islamic Revolution, Walberg offers a mixed verdict on the "al-Qaeda types" he labels "neo-Kharajites." (The original Kharajites were puritans who split off from the rest of the Muslim community and attacked their fellow Muslims for not being purist enough.) Such leaders as Osama Bin Laden – a major public face of Islamic resistance, for better or worse – may have pursued strategically counterproductive courses, and violated Islamic morality by targeting civilians (albeit vastly fewer of them than the West targets) but as a human being he was quite admirable:
"According to Michael Scheuer, former CIA Chief of the Bin Laden Issue Station (1996–1999), Bin Laden was 'pious, brave, generous, intelligent, charismatic, patient, visionary, stubborn, egalitarian, and, most of all, realistic ... wars are only won by killing.'"
To turn people like Bin Laden into bogeymen, the Empire has launched a massive campaign of calumny, disinformation, and false flag terror. Walberg writes: "The personal probity and integrity of Muslim leaders who become enemies of the empire is ignored, dismissed or worse. To discredit such jihadists, the secular Algerian leaders, as an instance, were willing to resort to creating a state of terror by infiltrating the so-called Armed Islamic Groups in the 1990s and perpetrating mass false flag terror both to turn the locals against the Islamists and to frighten the West into unconditionally supporting the coup makers. A similar scenario is taking shape in Egypt following the 2011 uprising and 2013 coup overthrowing the elected Islamist government, where most of the violence has been perpetrated by the security forces." (Unfortunately, Walberg does not go far enough in recognizing the vast scope and extent of the wave of "Gladio B" false flag terror launched by anti-Islam forces, which includes all of the most spectacular attacks attributed to radical Muslims at least since the 9/11 neocon coup d'état; he takes an open-minded but ultimately agnostic attitude toward the question of who was really behind 9/11, which is unsatisfying to those of us who have carefully investigated and largely solved that imperial crime.)
Walberg's generous take on Islamic resistance leaders extends even to such flawed figures as al-Zawahiri and al-Baghdadi, both of whom, Walberg recognizes, have damaged the Islamic awakening by encouraging anti-Shia sectarianism and unfocused brutality. Unwilling to simply condemn – there are plenty already who do that – he seeks to understand.
Most Westerners have probably never encountered a sympathetic analysis of Islamic resistance movements by an author who shares many of the general goals, though not all the methods, of his subjects. Even if you currently feel no sympathy whatsoever for any of the many Islamic resistance figures covered in Islamic Resistance to Imperialism, you owe it to yourself to consider the other side of the story, if only to understand the motivations of Muslims who sympathize with, or participate in, the many-faceted Islamic resistance movement.
August 11, 2015These days, the Western discourse on Islam – especially political Islam – is not exactly overflowing with compassion and generosity. As the French-Algerian Jew Albert Memmi wrote in The Coloniser and the Colonized, colonizers typically take a very ungenerous view of the people they are attacking, occupying, brutalizing and exploiting. If they admitted the humanity of their victims, they would look in the mirror and see a brutish criminal. So to avoid facing the truth, they project their own criminal brutality on the colonized victim.
Memmi notes that Western colonizers typically refuse to acknowledge the positive traits of colonized Muslims. Even an admirable virtue such as generosity – a notable feature of Islamic cultures – is made into a vice: "Those crazy Muslims don't know the value of money; accept their hospitality, and they'll feed you a meal that costs a month of their salary, and offer you a gift worth ten times that. They're just not frugal!"
Today, all over the world, Muslims are generously risking and sacrificing their lives in what any objective observer would recognize as a justified and noble struggle against the murderous, arguably genocidal imperialism of the West and its even more genocidal Zionist surrogate. (As British scholar Nafeez Ahmed's article headline reads, "Western wars have killed four million Muslims since 1990.") Yet unlike such non-Muslim freedom fighters as Che Guevara and Nelson Mandela, their Muslim equivalents get little Western sympathy, even from the supposedly peace-loving "progressive" intelligentsia.
Even Muslim intellectuals are often un-generous in their estimations of Islamic freedom fighters, especially those from a different school of thought. Iran's Islamic revolutionaries, for example, are without question the most advanced and successful Muslim freedom fighters to date; yet they are viewed with an incomprehensible lack of generosity by many Sunni and especially Salafi observers. Likewise, Iranian observers often take a dim view of any Sunni Islamist movements that include a Salafi element, even such relatively peaceful and non-sectarian ones as the Muslim Brotherhood. (To their credit, though, Iranians are reasonable enough to work with people from diverse backgrounds and outlooks; whereas the Salafi extremists of the so-called Islamic State, as well as less noxious Sunni/Salafi movements such as the Taliban, tend to be far more bigoted and sectarian.)
This near-universal lack of empathy, tainted by a million shades of purblind partisanship, is most unfortunate. But fortunately, Eric Walberg, an international journalist and Canadian convert to Islam, has stepped outside of the whole maze of prejudices and produced a holistically generous and compassionate account of Islamic resistance. His new book Islamic Resistance to Imperialism, published by Clarity Press, combines geopolitical erudition with pan-Islamic sympathies, filling what until now had been a gaping void in the literature of the phony "war on terror."
Walberg, a long-time Cairo-based foreign correspondent, is especially sympathetic and knowledgable regarding the Muslim Brotherhood, the oldest and best-organized Islamic movement seeking to reform Muslim society through peaceful democratic means. But he recognizes that the Brotherhood's efforts suffered a massive setback just when they seemed about to succeed:
"By 2012, Egypt and Iran had ‘caught up’ with each other: the political see-saw that these countries experienced in the past half century was finally coming into sync. Both were following an Islamic path in defiance of the US, though the MB had only taken the first tentative steps in exercising actual power. This synchronization of Egyptian and Iranian politics represented a potential coming together of Sunni and Shia political dynamics, which was the wish of Islamist reformists Afghani and Abduh more than a century ago, and has been happening gradually since the Iranian revolution, despite the opposition of the Saudi and Gulf monarchies…"
Tragically, Walberg notes, the fascist dictator al-Sisi strangled Egypt's experiment in Islamic democracy in its cradle and murdered thousands of non-violent political opponents. Since then, al-Sisi's Saudi and Israeli sponsors have succeeded in spreading the poison of anti-Shia, anti-Iran sectarianism designed to obscure and thwart the pan-Islamic agenda of the Islamic Revolution launched by the Ayatollah Khomeini.
Walberg's analysis follows the school of thought of Kalim Siddiqui, founder of the Muslim Parliament in London: "an important precedent for the émigré Muslim ummah—the creation of peaceful, constructive non-state institutions to reflect the views and advocate on behalf of Muslims locally and around the world, a democratic alternative to the seriously compromised OIC-type official international organizations sponsored by existing largely dictatorial Muslim states." Siddiqui saw Iran's Islamic Revolution as the harbinger of an Islamic awakening that would transcend sectarianism and stimulate a renaissance of Islamic civilization; his work is now being carried on by Zafar Bangash and colleagues at Toronto-based Crescent International magazine.
While approving of the rational, strategic approaches exemplified by the Muslim Brotherhood and the Iranian Islamic Revolution, Walberg offers a mixed verdict on the "al-Qaeda types" he labels "neo-Kharajites." (The original Kharajites were puritans who split off from the rest of the Muslim community and attacked their fellow Muslims for not being purist enough.) Such leaders as Osama Bin Laden – a major public face of Islamic resistance, for better or worse – may have pursued strategically counterproductive courses, and violated Islamic morality by targeting civilians (albeit vastly fewer of them than the West targets) but as a human being he was quite admirable:
"According to Michael Scheuer, former CIA Chief of the Bin Laden Issue Station (1996–1999), Bin Laden was 'pious, brave, generous, intelligent, charismatic, patient, visionary, stubborn, egalitarian, and, most of all, realistic ... wars are only won by killing.'"
To turn people like Bin Laden into bogeymen, the Empire has launched a massive campaign of calumny, disinformation, and false flag terror. Walberg writes: "The personal probity and integrity of Muslim leaders who become enemies of the empire is ignored, dismissed or worse. To discredit such jihadists, the secular Algerian leaders, as an instance, were willing to resort to creating a state of terror by infiltrating the so-called Armed Islamic Groups in the 1990s and perpetrating mass false flag terror both to turn the locals against the Islamists and to frighten the West into unconditionally supporting the coup makers. A similar scenario is taking shape in Egypt following the 2011 uprising and 2013 coup overthrowing the elected Islamist government, where most of the violence has been perpetrated by the security forces." (Unfortunately, Walberg does not go far enough in recognizing the vast scope and extent of the wave of "Gladio B" false flag terror launched by anti-Islam forces, which includes all of the most spectacular attacks attributed to radical Muslims at least since the 9/11 neocon coup d'état; he takes an open-minded but ultimately agnostic attitude toward the question of who was really behind 9/11, which is unsatisfying to those of us who have carefully investigated and largely solved that imperial crime.)
Walberg's generous take on Islamic resistance leaders extends even to such flawed figures as al-Zawahiri and al-Baghdadi, both of whom, Walberg recognizes, have damaged the Islamic awakening by encouraging anti-Shia sectarianism and unfocused brutality. Unwilling to simply condemn – there are plenty already who do that – he seeks to understand.
Most Westerners have probably never encountered a sympathetic analysis of Islamic resistance movements by an author who shares many of the general goals, though not all the methods, of his subjects. Even if you currently feel no sympathy whatsoever for any of the many Islamic resistance figures covered in Islamic Resistance to Imperialism, you owe it to yourself to consider the other side of the story, if only to understand the motivations of Muslims who sympathize with, or participate in, the many-faceted Islamic resistance movement.
Format: Paperback
Islamic Resistance to Imperialism
Eric Walberg is a Canadian journalist who converted to Islam and has been covering the Middle East for a number of years. I do not know whether there are other books about Islam by converts, but this one is written by someone who is fiercely political and who sees Islam as a remedy to the world’s ills.
Although Walberg does not say so explicitly, the notion of resistance to imperialism has been basic to Islam since the beginning of the Palestinian struggle against Great Britain in the nineteenth century. After the creation of Israel, Iran, Lebanon and Syria became known as ‘frontline states’ in that resistance (see my review of http://www.opednews.com/articles/Great-Games-And-The-Islami-by-Deena-Stryker-Awareness_Beheading_Charity_Civilization-141207-159.html).
This is an ambitious book that may suffer from being at once an argument for Islam as the solution to the woes of the modern world and an analysis of the various aspects of Islamism as well as a history of Islamism’s progress or lack thereof by country.
The fact that Islam is the fastest growing religion on the planet - growing faster, according to Time magazine, than the population -
notwithstanding Islamophobia - suggests that its appeal is fundamentally different from that of other religions, and Walberg makes that point eloquently, quoting Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood member Essam el-Erian, on the Iranian revolution:
“Young people believe Islam is the solution to the ills in society after the failure of western democracy, socialism and communism to address the political and socio-economic difficulties.” It prompted Saudi rebels to occupy the Kaaba that same year in an attempt to spark revolution, Syrian Muslims to rise against their secular dictator Hafez al-Assad in 1980 and future Al-Qaeda leader Aymin Zawahiri to conspire to
assassinate Egyptian president Sadat in 1981.”
And just as the US is credited with contributing to the rise of ISIS, according to Walberg “the imperialists had a strong influence on the development of political Islam during Great game II (empire against communism) encouraging Muslims opposed to theism/secularism and their nationality and/or socialist offshoots to resist leaders such as the Syrian and Iraqi Baathists and Egypt’s Nasser. This resistance caught fire in the 1980s as Afghans were catalyzed to oppose the Soviet occupation…”
In Part I Walberg sets out a theory of political Islam, first confronting “Political Spirituality and Jihad”, then the “Sunni Failure in Egypt” with theoreticians Banna and Qut’b, and finally Shia Success in Iran.
Part II traces “The Expanding Parameters of Political Islam”, reviewing the theory of violence against invaders as opposed to Bin Laden’s violence in the Imperial Center, Zawahiri’s violence against client Regimes, the legacy of Al-Qaeda, Terrorism before an after 9/11.
In “The Perils of Cooperation” Walberg reviews recent history in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Pakistan and Turkey, four very different examples,
turning then to “The Perils of Implementation”, which includes a much longer list of countries that have flirted or invested in Islamic power.
Finally he considers the Return of the Caliphate, Color Revolutions and the Arab Spring, to conclude with the Twenty-First Century Umma’s Striving for a New Modernity, Muslim, Christian-Jewish Understanding and Post-materialism.
There are two strands to political Islam, the first being exploitation:
"Western economies for nearly 100 years have been sustained and built on cheap fossil fuel from the Middle East and Persian Gulf. While the
vast majority of people in the Muslim world remain impoverished, their tiny ruling elites, sequestered into statelets, have enriched themselves by aligning with Western powers and allowing them to exploit the energy and mineral resources of Muslim lands.
Eric Walberg is a Canadian journalist who converted to Islam and has been covering the Middle East for a number of years. I do not know whether there are other books about Islam by converts, but this one is written by someone who is fiercely political and who sees Islam as a remedy to the world’s ills.
Although Walberg does not say so explicitly, the notion of resistance to imperialism has been basic to Islam since the beginning of the Palestinian struggle against Great Britain in the nineteenth century. After the creation of Israel, Iran, Lebanon and Syria became known as ‘frontline states’ in that resistance (see my review of http://www.opednews.com/articles/Great-Games-And-The-Islami-by-Deena-Stryker-Awareness_Beheading_Charity_Civilization-141207-159.html).
This is an ambitious book that may suffer from being at once an argument for Islam as the solution to the woes of the modern world and an analysis of the various aspects of Islamism as well as a history of Islamism’s progress or lack thereof by country.
The fact that Islam is the fastest growing religion on the planet - growing faster, according to Time magazine, than the population -
notwithstanding Islamophobia - suggests that its appeal is fundamentally different from that of other religions, and Walberg makes that point eloquently, quoting Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood member Essam el-Erian, on the Iranian revolution:
“Young people believe Islam is the solution to the ills in society after the failure of western democracy, socialism and communism to address the political and socio-economic difficulties.” It prompted Saudi rebels to occupy the Kaaba that same year in an attempt to spark revolution, Syrian Muslims to rise against their secular dictator Hafez al-Assad in 1980 and future Al-Qaeda leader Aymin Zawahiri to conspire to
assassinate Egyptian president Sadat in 1981.”
And just as the US is credited with contributing to the rise of ISIS, according to Walberg “the imperialists had a strong influence on the development of political Islam during Great game II (empire against communism) encouraging Muslims opposed to theism/secularism and their nationality and/or socialist offshoots to resist leaders such as the Syrian and Iraqi Baathists and Egypt’s Nasser. This resistance caught fire in the 1980s as Afghans were catalyzed to oppose the Soviet occupation…”
In Part I Walberg sets out a theory of political Islam, first confronting “Political Spirituality and Jihad”, then the “Sunni Failure in Egypt” with theoreticians Banna and Qut’b, and finally Shia Success in Iran.
Part II traces “The Expanding Parameters of Political Islam”, reviewing the theory of violence against invaders as opposed to Bin Laden’s violence in the Imperial Center, Zawahiri’s violence against client Regimes, the legacy of Al-Qaeda, Terrorism before an after 9/11.
In “The Perils of Cooperation” Walberg reviews recent history in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Pakistan and Turkey, four very different examples,
turning then to “The Perils of Implementation”, which includes a much longer list of countries that have flirted or invested in Islamic power.
Finally he considers the Return of the Caliphate, Color Revolutions and the Arab Spring, to conclude with the Twenty-First Century Umma’s Striving for a New Modernity, Muslim, Christian-Jewish Understanding and Post-materialism.
There are two strands to political Islam, the first being exploitation:
"Western economies for nearly 100 years have been sustained and built on cheap fossil fuel from the Middle East and Persian Gulf. While the
vast majority of people in the Muslim world remain impoverished, their tiny ruling elites, sequestered into statelets, have enriched themselves by aligning with Western powers and allowing them to exploit the energy and mineral resources of Muslim lands.
Walberg notes that “traditional Muslim scholars, the ulama, were not much help. Confronted by invaders, and faced at home with movements which sought to emulate the West, including nationalists and secularists, they retreated, shutting down debate about how to extricate the Muslim world from the grip of empire.”
In one of the most original insights of his books, Walberg writes:
"The new economic order, embedded in the legal systems being fashioned by the occupiers, was resisted by both secularists and Islamists. Marx et al clarified the underlying problem: ‘the law’ in each land was being fashioned to meet the needs of the economic order, where all economic activity was condoned as long as it is carried out in conformity with ‘the law’."
For Walberg:
"it is this enforced ascendancy of economic power over the popular political will that makes political Islam necessary today, after the defeat of the communist resistance to capitalism. Nothing short of a ‘new law’ will do, where a code of ethics is embedded. The communist revolutions for the most part failed to achieve this and Islamists became the main force of resistance to imperialism by default.
With this notion Islamic Resistance to Imperialism rejoins the growing global movement known as post-modernism, which is both cultural and economic, a rejection of senseless materialism based on the notion that ‘more stuff is better’, and a realization that community is better than
rampant individualism that leaves scope for a religion whose God demands above all that humans treat each other with ‘’respect, justice and dignity’.
In one of his most original contributions, Walberg makes the case that humans are wired for religion:
" Why would this ability of the brain evolve, if there were no underlying truth to it? The most sensible explanation is that indeed religion is the living embodiment of moral truth which helps people align themselves with the moral axis of the universe (and thereby survive). This is
possible without religion, but requires a highly developed moral sense.
(In A Taoist Politics: The Case for Sacredness, I wrote: “Now, as always, the masses need rituals and communion, while intellectuals require their serenity to be based on logic. By adding a touch of poetic intuition to scientific certainties, Taoism can bring serenity to non-believers while softening the impact of Otherness on believers.)
In the second part of the book, after reviewing the contributions of major players and in particular the various Sunni/Salafi movements, Walberg chronicles efforts to achieve an Islamic umma country by country according to two rubrics, cooperation with the empire and efforts to create an islamic state, in which the Iranian Revolution of 1979 is of course given pride of place. (Walberg documents its ideological background extensively in Postmodern Imperialism: Geopolitics and the Great Games (2011).) No less significantly, he clarifies the oft
confused similarities and differences between Hamas and Hezbollah, describing the Islamic State project, and concluding with efforts to arrive at a caliphate that would unite Sunnis and Shia, thus freeing the Middle East of its main source of turbulence.
Eric Walberg - Amazon.com
https://www.amazon.com/Eric-Walberg/.../B0050PRP2G%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scn...
Eric Walberg ... Postmodern Imperialism: Geopolitics and the Great Games by Eric Walberg ... Islamic Resistance to Imperialism by Eric Walberg (2015-03-01).
No comments:
Post a Comment