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
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 "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.
August 29, 2015
Pathways and Pitfalls of Islamic Struggles
Book Review of “Islamic Resistance to Imperialism” by Eric Walberg
By Richard Wilcox, PhD
August 28, 2015
Eric Walberg has now written three books on the topic of Islamic culture in relation to Western geo-politics and world events. He is a prolific journalist and scholar who has lived in Central Asia and the Middle East (1).
In Walberg's third book, “Islamic Resistance to Imperialism” (2015, Clarity Press, 304 pages), he presents a view of the world most people in the West, especially those exposed to a diet of mainstream media may not be familiar with or sympathetic to. Issues that deal with religion, culture and geo-politics are inherently complex. Even worse, disinformation is intentionally promulgated by Western governments and their lapdogs in the media to mislead the public into supporting the West's “war on terror.”
The constant drumbeat in the media is that Muslims are “terrorists” and that America needs to police the world to rid this evil. Since communist-totalitarianism in its most overt form fell in the East, a new boogie man needed to to be invented in order to justify the military industrial complex. The gradual demonisation of Muslims in the Hollywood media (See the documentary: “Reel Bad Arabs”) culminated in what I believe was a false flag terror attack on 911. The myth of the Muslim Terrorist was born.
For this reason, Walberg's book is a healthy antidote to our largely uninformed and biased views on the world's largest growing religious grouping.
Walberg's central thesis is that it is perfectly natural for a people to resist an invading force, and thereby the actions taken by Islamic resisters to Western aggression, who, depending on your point of view are either labeled “terrorists” or “freedom fighters,” are morally justified. According to Islam's holy book, the Quran, this is the action of “jihad.”
An important aspect of this thesis is the way in which the moral principles of Islam, which invoke peace at every turn, and only to fight unless you are attacked, have evolved over time to compliment and attempt to improve Islamic governance and resistance to invaders and imperialists. Perhaps the recent initiative toward normalized relations reached between US President Obama and Iran is an indication of some progress in an otherwise very chaotic and violent situation, and cause for hope amidst “the pathways and pitfalls of the Islamist struggles.”
Historical Context Of Islam
Walberg believes that ISIS and Islamic resistance fighters are tenacious and brave, and fearless of death. He accepts that while false flag (fake) terror exists, at the end of the day Islamic resistance is real and will be a hard foe for the West to defeat.
It is arguable to what extent which ISIS is doing its own bidding and is not being used as a proxy army by the West to attack majority Muslim population countries especially now as in Syria. Without doubt resisting forces such as Hamas in the ongoing Hell On Earth of occupied Palestine and Hezbollah which drove invading Israelis out of Lebanon in 2006, are classic examples of heroism on the part of Islamic jihadists/resisters.
Walberg provides the historical context of colonialism and illustrative cases of independence movements within the Muslim world. For each country, the paths and degrees of success or failure vary widely.
The Western media thrives on keeping the public ignorant by denying context, for example, such minor footnotes in history as Iran's government that was overthrown by the CIA in 1953. It may be their country, but its our oil. Most Americans don't know that, unlike the US and Israel, who are serial offenders, Iran has not invaded another country for two centuries.The US supported Saddam Hussein's attack on Iran in the 1980s (2).
Americans are propagandized by the thoroughly Zionist controlled, anti-Muslim, divide-and-conquer strategy media to hate Iran despite its rich and civilized cultural history.
On the other hand, the US de facto colony and ally of Saudi Arabia is not in reality a religious Muslim nation but a monarchy, and a particularly corrupt and brutal one at that. The moral hypocrisy of US policy is astonishing.
Walberg explains that after the end of the Cold War, with the failure of the communist model to offer a mode of resistance for third world and Muslim countries which were Western colonies, only Islamism remains for restoring a moral order to preserve Muslim societies. Various Islamic movements throughout history evolved when traditional Islam failed to repel invaders. Just as “necessity is the mother of invention,” jihadism has offered a moral and practical resistance.
Walberg writes:
“Even as the reform movements got underway, empire's strategies remain devoted to manipulating local forces everywhere to promote its ends, and what better way to neutralize Islam than using 'Islamic states'?. The first modern Islamic state, Saudi Arabia, was set up with the helping hand of Britain in 1932, and another one, Pakistan, in 1947. The logic being, if the local Muslims accepted their new post-colonial rulers, the rulers could keep their countries in compliance with empire, following the Islamic principle that you should obey even unjust rulers 'so long as they uphold prayer among you' .”
Sometimes “turning the other cheek” just as Christianity prescribes can result suffering at the hands of hostile enemies.
The Wahhabi faction of Islam, those that supposedly carried out the 911 terror attack, were fed up with turning the other cheek and took to the offensive.
In contrast to Walberg's thesis which does take into consideration much factionalism and failure on the part of a unified Islamic resistance to Western imperialism, there is also a huge amount of evidence that the Muslim world has been infiltrated by Western/Israeli military planners who use the so called terrorists as their own proxy armies to stir up trouble and dismember the old order in the Middle East.
The lines are often blurry which makes it difficult to differentiate between false flags and proxy wars vs the reality of a powerful Muslim resistance to Western imperialism and Zionist Israel. Interestingly, you never hear about ISIS calling for jihad against Israel, only against Israel's enemies such as Syria, who has been a long time supporter of the Palestinian struggle. Which tail is wagging which dog?
Religious Background
A major problem the largely secularized Christian West has with Islamic culture is an ignorant and distorted understanding of the Islamic religion. Walberg draws a philosophical connection between marxist critics of the moral bankruptcy of capitalist Western culture with some aspects of Islam that call for a God-centered order, rather than a human ego-centered and materialistic culture.
Ironically, most Americans/Christians probably do not know that Islam considers Jesus to be the “Messenger of God” and an important prophet in Islam.
Walberg writes:
“Living in submission to the laws of God liberates the mind, soul and body from the evil influences of the world. This is the very opposite of the meaning of freedom as understood by the secular world, which means dismissing the laws of God and giving free rein to worldly desires.”
Another way to look at this might be the cultural conservatism of the Amish vs the neo-liberal economic order run by Wall Street bankster gangsters.
A common misunderstanding of Islam is that it is a religion of war and revenge which advances its cause via Jihad.
“Jihad is in the first place a spiritual struggle inspired by and devoted to Allah, and jihad as war is strictly circumscribed by the Quran.”
Although the Prophet Muhammad fought bloody battles, he also declared to his followers:
“ 'We are back from the lesser jihad to the greater jihad.' The transcendent, allegorical 'greater jihad', he explained to them, is 'fighting the self [ego]', the inner struggle 'that takes people from the natural tension of passions to the peace of spiritual education'.”
“The only clear call to armed jihad in the Quran is when you are directly attacked: it then is an 'individual duty'...to fight to defend yourself and community....It is wrong to start a war: 'Fight in the cause of God those who fight you, but do not commit aggression.' ”
The Quran always favors peace and negotiation over violence. That not all Muslims follow this principle is no different than people of other religions who preach peace but participate in state coordinated violence on behalf of powerful interests. We are all potential pawns on a chessboard.
Muslims are taught to tolerate corrupt leaders rather than revert to violent overthrow, in order to avoid the devastation that follows from uprising and war, but neither are Muslims to cow to a bad ruler: 'The best Jihad is a speech of truth in the presence of a tyrant ruler' states the Quran.
In other words, the Quran cherishes the principle of Freedom of Speech.
When jihad has been justifiably implemented by Islamists, Western propaganda refers to it as “terrorism.” Yet if we compare the Quran which promotes peace and tolerance with the Jewish Talmud, the latter tends to support the idea of a true and abiding hatred of “the Other.” Distinct from the racial exclusivity of Judaism (3; 4), in Islam one is encouraged to convert as long as you promise to follow the rules.
Muslims can offer what is the best in humanity but are vulnerable to our worst tendencies as well. Journalist Robert Fisk's monumental work, The Great War for Civilization, catalogs the corruption and brutality of all sides of the conflicts in the Middle East over the past few decades, neither painting the West entirely as evil or the Middle Easterners entirely as victims. Corruption exists on both sides. Fisk ultimately blames the “West” beginning after WWI with the colonization of the Middle East as the root of current troubles. For this he has been called an “anti semite” due to his criticism of Israel.
In addition, Muslim lands lie over vast reserves of oil which beginning in the 20th century became the fuel to drive progress. Western imperialism brushed aside the interests of the indigenous inhabitants for the purpose of industrial manufacturing and war. Director David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia is a powerful cinematic triumph which takes artistic license including some exaggerations and distortions about Middle Eastern culture but conveys the geo-political and cultural complexity of the era.
Sunni Failure In Egypt Vs Shia Success In Iran
Walberg spent a number of years in Egypt as a journalist and therefore devotes much of the book toward understanding Egypt's modern history. He explains how the Muslim Brotherhood (MB)
has attempted to fuse spirituality with political action.
“The dilemmas facing Muslim activists graphically witnessed in Egypt in the twentieth century” were experienced by the MB. “A peaceful, evolutionary approach to renewing Islamic civilization” amidst the chaos that followed the break up of the Ottoman Empire following WWI, Western colonization of the Middle East for oil reserves, and the establishment of the state of Israel on stolen Palestinian land has tested the will and patience of Middle Eastern peoples and their devotion to peaceful resolution of conflict, in line with Quranic teachings.
Muslims have grappled with how to restore order to the region. But due to “extreme persecution of Islamic activists” which often “descends into violence” Muslim aims have been fractured. “Muslims who reject random violence and violence against civilians can be pushed onto the same 'side' as those who have turned to violence, when the powers-that-be persecute them both as if they were one united movement.”
Throughout the Cold War era the MB experimented with organic change from within, ultimately culminating in the 2011 Arab Spring, a true Islamic Awakening, according to Walberg. However, it was ultimately foiled when “the military's July 2013 coup put an end to this experiment, who collectively had boycotted MB government and fomented discontent by sabotaging the economy.”
On the other hand, in his chapter on the “Shia Success In Iran” Walberg examines how:
“[t]he major twentieth century [Islamic] reform thinkers (Banna, Qutb, Maududi, Khomeini, among others) all were motivated by a deep anger at the ravages of colonialism, the apparent success of the Zionist colonial project, and the suppression of Islam by Kemalist client governments. In one way or another, they advocated the revival of sharia law and creation of an Islamic state to replace the modern secular laws and nation states imposed on them. Like the earlier notion of the caliphate, the modern Islamic state is modeled after the example of Prophet Muhammad and rooted in Islamic law.”
In regards to the imposed regime of the Shah, by the 1970s Iranians had had enough:
“The Islamic movement in Iran movement led by Ayatollah Khomeini, instead of answering the soldiers' bullets with their own, appealed to the soldiers not to shoot and kill unarmed civilians. It was at this level that the very serious threat posed by the Shah's military was neutralized.” Khomeini “understood the West's nature well. Through the product of traditional Islamic education, he was clear about what imperialism and Zionism took for” which was in essence a “denial of God's authority.”
During recent decades:
“[t]he success of the Islamic revolution to imperialism in Iran shook the foundations of the imperialist order. In its attempt to bring Iran back under the hegemony” of the West, Zio-America “has used various tactics-- punitive sanctions, internal sabotage in Iran, assassination of leading figures of the revolutions....as well as the brutal eight year war waged against it via Iraq.”
After the revolution Khomeini's Iran was a much more humane Iran than the brutal and oppressive imperialist regime under the Shah.
To be sure, Iranians who have tasted the liberality of the West must have found that regime and those since to be less tolerant and liberal than what they have wanted. On a personal note, Iranians I have met in Japan on occasion and discussed politics with seemed focussed on the faults of their own country without a deep understanding of how their country is under attack from Zio-America.
I teach at one of Japan's top language universities and have met students from around the world there. One general characteristic is that people are especially critical of their own governments, sometimes without realizing the external pressures and threats that exist which cause their country's leaders to take conservative or oppressive political positions (in order to protect them from crime, drugs, pornography, prostitution and the cultural and political infiltration from the West meant to weaken national identities).
Terrorism: 9/11 And After
Walberg offers an interesting interpretation on the 2001, 9/11 terror attacks in the US. He both accepts the possibility that it was an “inside job” but also largely dismisses the overwhelming scientific evidence that the twin towers were demolished with high-tech explosives. He seems to prefer the notion that Al Queda really did carry out this massively complex, super-high-tech operation as it supports the thesis to the book of Islamic Resistance to imperialism. It could be that in this case his theory of history is undermining the strength of his research methodology.
I like some of the fresh journalism we find at a website called “Non-aligned media” featuring Brandon Martinez (5), who (also being from Canada, like Walberg) debunks the Canadian media's hyper pro-Zionist bias (one of my Canadian friends calls the the CBC, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the ZBC, the Zionist Broadcasting Con-job). Canadian Prime Minster Stephen Harper makes sure to put the interests of Israel first and his own country's interests dead last. Just as in the US, this all fits in nicely with the heretical ideology of Christian Zionism (Ala., the Scofield Bible), the aims of the military industrial complex to invoke perpetual war for perpetual peace, and the war on terror against the Muslim world.
One thorny issue that supporters of Islam do not fully acknowledge is that of mass immigration and multiculturalism.
When the West bombs the Middle East “back into the stone age” and causes huge refugee crises, it creates problems at both ends. Millions of innocent people are killed or displaced, but also the host nations (whose Zionist Occupied Governments initiate the bombings) accept millions of political refugees and immigrants which inevitable destroy the culture of the host country. We see this process being rapidly carried out in the US and Europe, and other Western nations.
In Japan, where I live, immigration is fairly tight, and almost no political refugees are accepted. This is viewed by the Western liberal media as “racist” and “xenophobic,” but in fact Japan is managing to stay relatively “Japanese.” I agree with Dr. David Duke that all of the peoples of the world have a right to preserve their heritage, culture and geographical boundaries while respecting others (6). When I moved to Japan I made every effort to learn the language and assimilate as best I could, though it has not been always easy and it is easy to carp, many foreigners I know who have lived here for decades cannot even speak the language well, and constantly carp about Japan's “inferior system.”
Conclusion
Walberg's book is a thorough education on the inner workings of Islam throughout history, especially in relation to its reaction against Western imperialism and interventionism in the Middle East. On a note of hope, he offers a detailed analysis of how Islam can regain the Ummah (nation, community) and in the final chapter examines the Caliphate which is that form of government where the nation's leader is “considered a political and religious successor to the prophet Muhammad” (7). Walberg's book is essential reading for anyone who wants to go beyond the mainstream pablum of Western propaganda in order to better understand Islamic history, politics, and the future of the Middle East.
Richard Wilcox is a contributing editor and writer for the book: Fukushima: Dispossession or Denuclearization? (2014) and a Tokyo-based teacher and writer who holds a PhD in environmental studies. He is a regular contributor to the world's leading website exposing the Fukushima nuclear disaster, Rense.com., and a regular contributor to Activist Post. His radio interviews and articles are archived at http://wilcoxrb99.wordpress.com and he can be reached at wilcoxrb2013@gmail.com.
References
1. Eric Walberg
http://ericwalberg.com
2. United States support for Iraq during the Iran–Iraq war
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_support_for_Iraq_during_the_Iran–Iraq_war
3. Judaism Discovered: A Study of the Anti-Biblical Religion of Racism, Self-Worship, Superstition and Deceit
http://www.amazon.com/Judaism-Discovered-Anti-Biblical-Self-Worship-Superstition/dp/0970378459
4. Honoring Rabbi Yosef : How His Approval Proves Jewish Supremacism
http://davidduke.com/honoring-rabbi-yosef-ho-approval-proves-jewish-supremacism/
5. Non-Aligned Media
http://nonalignedmedia.com
6. Dr. David Duke
http://davidduke.com
7. Caliphate
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caliphate
Book Review of “Islamic Resistance to Imperialism” by Eric Walberg
By Richard Wilcox, PhD
August 28, 2015
Eric Walberg has now written three books on the topic of Islamic culture in relation to Western geo-politics and world events. He is a prolific journalist and scholar who has lived in Central Asia and the Middle East (1).
In Walberg's third book, “Islamic Resistance to Imperialism” (2015, Clarity Press, 304 pages), he presents a view of the world most people in the West, especially those exposed to a diet of mainstream media may not be familiar with or sympathetic to. Issues that deal with religion, culture and geo-politics are inherently complex. Even worse, disinformation is intentionally promulgated by Western governments and their lapdogs in the media to mislead the public into supporting the West's “war on terror.”
The constant drumbeat in the media is that Muslims are “terrorists” and that America needs to police the world to rid this evil. Since communist-totalitarianism in its most overt form fell in the East, a new boogie man needed to to be invented in order to justify the military industrial complex. The gradual demonisation of Muslims in the Hollywood media (See the documentary: “Reel Bad Arabs”) culminated in what I believe was a false flag terror attack on 911. The myth of the Muslim Terrorist was born.
For this reason, Walberg's book is a healthy antidote to our largely uninformed and biased views on the world's largest growing religious grouping.
Walberg's central thesis is that it is perfectly natural for a people to resist an invading force, and thereby the actions taken by Islamic resisters to Western aggression, who, depending on your point of view are either labeled “terrorists” or “freedom fighters,” are morally justified. According to Islam's holy book, the Quran, this is the action of “jihad.”
An important aspect of this thesis is the way in which the moral principles of Islam, which invoke peace at every turn, and only to fight unless you are attacked, have evolved over time to compliment and attempt to improve Islamic governance and resistance to invaders and imperialists. Perhaps the recent initiative toward normalized relations reached between US President Obama and Iran is an indication of some progress in an otherwise very chaotic and violent situation, and cause for hope amidst “the pathways and pitfalls of the Islamist struggles.”
Historical Context Of Islam
Walberg believes that ISIS and Islamic resistance fighters are tenacious and brave, and fearless of death. He accepts that while false flag (fake) terror exists, at the end of the day Islamic resistance is real and will be a hard foe for the West to defeat.
It is arguable to what extent which ISIS is doing its own bidding and is not being used as a proxy army by the West to attack majority Muslim population countries especially now as in Syria. Without doubt resisting forces such as Hamas in the ongoing Hell On Earth of occupied Palestine and Hezbollah which drove invading Israelis out of Lebanon in 2006, are classic examples of heroism on the part of Islamic jihadists/resisters.
Walberg provides the historical context of colonialism and illustrative cases of independence movements within the Muslim world. For each country, the paths and degrees of success or failure vary widely.
The Western media thrives on keeping the public ignorant by denying context, for example, such minor footnotes in history as Iran's government that was overthrown by the CIA in 1953. It may be their country, but its our oil. Most Americans don't know that, unlike the US and Israel, who are serial offenders, Iran has not invaded another country for two centuries.The US supported Saddam Hussein's attack on Iran in the 1980s (2).
Americans are propagandized by the thoroughly Zionist controlled, anti-Muslim, divide-and-conquer strategy media to hate Iran despite its rich and civilized cultural history.
On the other hand, the US de facto colony and ally of Saudi Arabia is not in reality a religious Muslim nation but a monarchy, and a particularly corrupt and brutal one at that. The moral hypocrisy of US policy is astonishing.
Walberg explains that after the end of the Cold War, with the failure of the communist model to offer a mode of resistance for third world and Muslim countries which were Western colonies, only Islamism remains for restoring a moral order to preserve Muslim societies. Various Islamic movements throughout history evolved when traditional Islam failed to repel invaders. Just as “necessity is the mother of invention,” jihadism has offered a moral and practical resistance.
Walberg writes:
“Even as the reform movements got underway, empire's strategies remain devoted to manipulating local forces everywhere to promote its ends, and what better way to neutralize Islam than using 'Islamic states'?. The first modern Islamic state, Saudi Arabia, was set up with the helping hand of Britain in 1932, and another one, Pakistan, in 1947. The logic being, if the local Muslims accepted their new post-colonial rulers, the rulers could keep their countries in compliance with empire, following the Islamic principle that you should obey even unjust rulers 'so long as they uphold prayer among you' .”
Sometimes “turning the other cheek” just as Christianity prescribes can result suffering at the hands of hostile enemies.
The Wahhabi faction of Islam, those that supposedly carried out the 911 terror attack, were fed up with turning the other cheek and took to the offensive.
In contrast to Walberg's thesis which does take into consideration much factionalism and failure on the part of a unified Islamic resistance to Western imperialism, there is also a huge amount of evidence that the Muslim world has been infiltrated by Western/Israeli military planners who use the so called terrorists as their own proxy armies to stir up trouble and dismember the old order in the Middle East.
The lines are often blurry which makes it difficult to differentiate between false flags and proxy wars vs the reality of a powerful Muslim resistance to Western imperialism and Zionist Israel. Interestingly, you never hear about ISIS calling for jihad against Israel, only against Israel's enemies such as Syria, who has been a long time supporter of the Palestinian struggle. Which tail is wagging which dog?
Religious Background
A major problem the largely secularized Christian West has with Islamic culture is an ignorant and distorted understanding of the Islamic religion. Walberg draws a philosophical connection between marxist critics of the moral bankruptcy of capitalist Western culture with some aspects of Islam that call for a God-centered order, rather than a human ego-centered and materialistic culture.
Ironically, most Americans/Christians probably do not know that Islam considers Jesus to be the “Messenger of God” and an important prophet in Islam.
Walberg writes:
“Living in submission to the laws of God liberates the mind, soul and body from the evil influences of the world. This is the very opposite of the meaning of freedom as understood by the secular world, which means dismissing the laws of God and giving free rein to worldly desires.”
Another way to look at this might be the cultural conservatism of the Amish vs the neo-liberal economic order run by Wall Street bankster gangsters.
A common misunderstanding of Islam is that it is a religion of war and revenge which advances its cause via Jihad.
“Jihad is in the first place a spiritual struggle inspired by and devoted to Allah, and jihad as war is strictly circumscribed by the Quran.”
Although the Prophet Muhammad fought bloody battles, he also declared to his followers:
“ 'We are back from the lesser jihad to the greater jihad.' The transcendent, allegorical 'greater jihad', he explained to them, is 'fighting the self [ego]', the inner struggle 'that takes people from the natural tension of passions to the peace of spiritual education'.”
“The only clear call to armed jihad in the Quran is when you are directly attacked: it then is an 'individual duty'...to fight to defend yourself and community....It is wrong to start a war: 'Fight in the cause of God those who fight you, but do not commit aggression.' ”
The Quran always favors peace and negotiation over violence. That not all Muslims follow this principle is no different than people of other religions who preach peace but participate in state coordinated violence on behalf of powerful interests. We are all potential pawns on a chessboard.
Muslims are taught to tolerate corrupt leaders rather than revert to violent overthrow, in order to avoid the devastation that follows from uprising and war, but neither are Muslims to cow to a bad ruler: 'The best Jihad is a speech of truth in the presence of a tyrant ruler' states the Quran.
In other words, the Quran cherishes the principle of Freedom of Speech.
When jihad has been justifiably implemented by Islamists, Western propaganda refers to it as “terrorism.” Yet if we compare the Quran which promotes peace and tolerance with the Jewish Talmud, the latter tends to support the idea of a true and abiding hatred of “the Other.” Distinct from the racial exclusivity of Judaism (3; 4), in Islam one is encouraged to convert as long as you promise to follow the rules.
Muslims can offer what is the best in humanity but are vulnerable to our worst tendencies as well. Journalist Robert Fisk's monumental work, The Great War for Civilization, catalogs the corruption and brutality of all sides of the conflicts in the Middle East over the past few decades, neither painting the West entirely as evil or the Middle Easterners entirely as victims. Corruption exists on both sides. Fisk ultimately blames the “West” beginning after WWI with the colonization of the Middle East as the root of current troubles. For this he has been called an “anti semite” due to his criticism of Israel.
In addition, Muslim lands lie over vast reserves of oil which beginning in the 20th century became the fuel to drive progress. Western imperialism brushed aside the interests of the indigenous inhabitants for the purpose of industrial manufacturing and war. Director David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia is a powerful cinematic triumph which takes artistic license including some exaggerations and distortions about Middle Eastern culture but conveys the geo-political and cultural complexity of the era.
Sunni Failure In Egypt Vs Shia Success In Iran
Walberg spent a number of years in Egypt as a journalist and therefore devotes much of the book toward understanding Egypt's modern history. He explains how the Muslim Brotherhood (MB)
has attempted to fuse spirituality with political action.
“The dilemmas facing Muslim activists graphically witnessed in Egypt in the twentieth century” were experienced by the MB. “A peaceful, evolutionary approach to renewing Islamic civilization” amidst the chaos that followed the break up of the Ottoman Empire following WWI, Western colonization of the Middle East for oil reserves, and the establishment of the state of Israel on stolen Palestinian land has tested the will and patience of Middle Eastern peoples and their devotion to peaceful resolution of conflict, in line with Quranic teachings.
Muslims have grappled with how to restore order to the region. But due to “extreme persecution of Islamic activists” which often “descends into violence” Muslim aims have been fractured. “Muslims who reject random violence and violence against civilians can be pushed onto the same 'side' as those who have turned to violence, when the powers-that-be persecute them both as if they were one united movement.”
Throughout the Cold War era the MB experimented with organic change from within, ultimately culminating in the 2011 Arab Spring, a true Islamic Awakening, according to Walberg. However, it was ultimately foiled when “the military's July 2013 coup put an end to this experiment, who collectively had boycotted MB government and fomented discontent by sabotaging the economy.”
On the other hand, in his chapter on the “Shia Success In Iran” Walberg examines how:
“[t]he major twentieth century [Islamic] reform thinkers (Banna, Qutb, Maududi, Khomeini, among others) all were motivated by a deep anger at the ravages of colonialism, the apparent success of the Zionist colonial project, and the suppression of Islam by Kemalist client governments. In one way or another, they advocated the revival of sharia law and creation of an Islamic state to replace the modern secular laws and nation states imposed on them. Like the earlier notion of the caliphate, the modern Islamic state is modeled after the example of Prophet Muhammad and rooted in Islamic law.”
In regards to the imposed regime of the Shah, by the 1970s Iranians had had enough:
“The Islamic movement in Iran movement led by Ayatollah Khomeini, instead of answering the soldiers' bullets with their own, appealed to the soldiers not to shoot and kill unarmed civilians. It was at this level that the very serious threat posed by the Shah's military was neutralized.” Khomeini “understood the West's nature well. Through the product of traditional Islamic education, he was clear about what imperialism and Zionism took for” which was in essence a “denial of God's authority.”
During recent decades:
“[t]he success of the Islamic revolution to imperialism in Iran shook the foundations of the imperialist order. In its attempt to bring Iran back under the hegemony” of the West, Zio-America “has used various tactics-- punitive sanctions, internal sabotage in Iran, assassination of leading figures of the revolutions....as well as the brutal eight year war waged against it via Iraq.”
After the revolution Khomeini's Iran was a much more humane Iran than the brutal and oppressive imperialist regime under the Shah.
To be sure, Iranians who have tasted the liberality of the West must have found that regime and those since to be less tolerant and liberal than what they have wanted. On a personal note, Iranians I have met in Japan on occasion and discussed politics with seemed focussed on the faults of their own country without a deep understanding of how their country is under attack from Zio-America.
I teach at one of Japan's top language universities and have met students from around the world there. One general characteristic is that people are especially critical of their own governments, sometimes without realizing the external pressures and threats that exist which cause their country's leaders to take conservative or oppressive political positions (in order to protect them from crime, drugs, pornography, prostitution and the cultural and political infiltration from the West meant to weaken national identities).
Terrorism: 9/11 And After
Walberg offers an interesting interpretation on the 2001, 9/11 terror attacks in the US. He both accepts the possibility that it was an “inside job” but also largely dismisses the overwhelming scientific evidence that the twin towers were demolished with high-tech explosives. He seems to prefer the notion that Al Queda really did carry out this massively complex, super-high-tech operation as it supports the thesis to the book of Islamic Resistance to imperialism. It could be that in this case his theory of history is undermining the strength of his research methodology.
I like some of the fresh journalism we find at a website called “Non-aligned media” featuring Brandon Martinez (5), who (also being from Canada, like Walberg) debunks the Canadian media's hyper pro-Zionist bias (one of my Canadian friends calls the the CBC, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the ZBC, the Zionist Broadcasting Con-job). Canadian Prime Minster Stephen Harper makes sure to put the interests of Israel first and his own country's interests dead last. Just as in the US, this all fits in nicely with the heretical ideology of Christian Zionism (Ala., the Scofield Bible), the aims of the military industrial complex to invoke perpetual war for perpetual peace, and the war on terror against the Muslim world.
One thorny issue that supporters of Islam do not fully acknowledge is that of mass immigration and multiculturalism.
When the West bombs the Middle East “back into the stone age” and causes huge refugee crises, it creates problems at both ends. Millions of innocent people are killed or displaced, but also the host nations (whose Zionist Occupied Governments initiate the bombings) accept millions of political refugees and immigrants which inevitable destroy the culture of the host country. We see this process being rapidly carried out in the US and Europe, and other Western nations.
In Japan, where I live, immigration is fairly tight, and almost no political refugees are accepted. This is viewed by the Western liberal media as “racist” and “xenophobic,” but in fact Japan is managing to stay relatively “Japanese.” I agree with Dr. David Duke that all of the peoples of the world have a right to preserve their heritage, culture and geographical boundaries while respecting others (6). When I moved to Japan I made every effort to learn the language and assimilate as best I could, though it has not been always easy and it is easy to carp, many foreigners I know who have lived here for decades cannot even speak the language well, and constantly carp about Japan's “inferior system.”
Conclusion
Walberg's book is a thorough education on the inner workings of Islam throughout history, especially in relation to its reaction against Western imperialism and interventionism in the Middle East. On a note of hope, he offers a detailed analysis of how Islam can regain the Ummah (nation, community) and in the final chapter examines the Caliphate which is that form of government where the nation's leader is “considered a political and religious successor to the prophet Muhammad” (7). Walberg's book is essential reading for anyone who wants to go beyond the mainstream pablum of Western propaganda in order to better understand Islamic history, politics, and the future of the Middle East.
Richard Wilcox is a contributing editor and writer for the book: Fukushima: Dispossession or Denuclearization? (2014) and a Tokyo-based teacher and writer who holds a PhD in environmental studies. He is a regular contributor to the world's leading website exposing the Fukushima nuclear disaster, Rense.com., and a regular contributor to Activist Post. His radio interviews and articles are archived at http://wilcoxrb99.wordpress.com and he can be reached at wilcoxrb2013@gmail.com.
References
1. Eric Walberg
http://ericwalberg.com
2. United States support for Iraq during the Iran–Iraq war
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_support_for_Iraq_during_the_Iran–Iraq_war
3. Judaism Discovered: A Study of the Anti-Biblical Religion of Racism, Self-Worship, Superstition and Deceit
http://www.amazon.com/Judaism-Discovered-Anti-Biblical-Self-Worship-Superstition/dp/0970378459
4. Honoring Rabbi Yosef : How His Approval Proves Jewish Supremacism
http://davidduke.com/honoring-rabbi-yosef-ho-approval-proves-jewish-supremacism/
5. Non-Aligned Media
http://nonalignedmedia.com
6. Dr. David Duke
http://davidduke.com
7. Caliphate
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caliphate
November 16, 2015
I must admit I approached Eric Walberg's third book on geopolitical strategy with a bit of trepidation as I know him to be a great admirer of Islamic culture with high hopes for it as a unifying religion in a new and more peaceful world. He's long been a defender of the Muslim Brotherhood, which I had begun to have some qualms about prior to al Sisi's military coup.
Was this going to be an Islamic polemic?
To cushion any shock in this regard, I first had my wife (MA in Education, publisher for 13 years) read the book as she does not share some of my preconceptions and is only peripherally familiar with Islam. She found the book tremendously informative. Once a complete mystery to her, she indicated, Mid-Eastern events now made some sense owing to Walberg's exhaustive analysis of the various caliphates and sects, the main national players and his historical perspective.
With that analysis in hand, and with the recent chaos in France, I tackled Eric's book with enthusiasm. I was curious, firstly, if the book could shed light on questions I had about the human wave of refugees emanating from Turkey? (As I write this, a new mass wave of 300,000 is heading from Turkey toward Europe and Paris echoes to the sounds of gunshots and explosions.)
I quickly found this addressed on page 261 of Walberg's book, where Turkish thinker Abdurrahman Dilipak is quoting as legitimizing modern Turkey as the heir of the Ottoman Empire and seeing Islamization of Europe as a way to bring these states into the fold of this new Caliphate.
Ahmet Davutoglu, former Turkish foreign minister, was even more direct and is also discussed. His thesis, enunciated in 2008, is that the Ottoman re-assertion should begin with a “soft invasion” of Europe through immigration, bringing Islam with it. According to Walberg, under this doctrine the EU would be transformed through multiculturalism and Islam would reinvigorate Christianity and Turkey would act as a catalyst for world civilizational change.
This led me to another question I had as to the apparent deliberate action of Angela Merkel and other EU leaders to actually facilitate this “soft Islamic invasion” via NATO-member Turkey—an invasion that may have led to the recent carnage in Paris. And this Islamization of Europe, which had been on hold since the defeat of the Turks in Europe of the 16th century, apparently goes back as far as the bombing of Serbs by NATO in 1999. Along these lines, General Wesley Clark, former supreme NATO commander, famously stated in that year:
“Let’s not forget what the origin of the problem is. There is no place in modern Europe for ethnically pure states. That’s a 19th century idea and we are trying to transition into the 21st century, and we are going to do it with multi-ethnic states.”
Walberg, while I'm not sure he is familiar with the Clark statement, offers an explanation that accounts for the apparently contradictory NATO position on page 278:
“Even the Imperialists are beginning to recognize that Islam must be given a chance to rule, if only in order to sap the following of the violent alternative.”
(Swedish Jewish activist Barbara Spectre has expressed fears that the Jews—instrumental in politically implementing this NATO-desired demographic shift allowing nonwhite Islamists to swamp Europe—will be blamed for it by “antisemitic” white Europeans.)
The book also answered questions I had as to why the idea of an Iranian-Syrian alliance so terrifies (a) the House of Saud (which has aspirations to become not only the leader of the Ummah but also of a new Islamic Caliphate and (b) Turkey's neo-secularist Erdogan, who has the same goal. In Erdogan's case this was to recreate the pre-Sykes-Picot Ottoman Caliphate. At various times, this mercurial sultan of NATO has thrown in his lot with Assad, ISIS, the Saudis and even made overtures to Iran by joining them in an attack on Kurdish positions. He's also signed and backed out of major oil and arms deals with both Russia and China.)
The reason? Iran is predominantly Shia and Syria is predominantly Sunni. The Israelis, Saudis and Turks fear that unifying the two sects would be a prerequisite for any future Islamic Caliphate—and that this would be far worse if such unification took place outside of the control of the Turkish-Saudi-NATO nexus. Turkey, for its part, may have been temporarily sidelined by Russia's attacks on its proxy forces in Syria, but it apparently still entertains hopes of playing a pivotal role in a U.S.-French-NATO force occupying part of Syria and deposing Assad.
Importantly, in this book, Walberg shoots down the paranoia of Israel and its backers in the West over the intentions of Iran to head a new Caliphate and conquer the Mid East. Iran will not head a caliphate (or expand as feared) because of the Shia religious belief that this is not within the power of ordinary man. Such a kingdom must wait for the reappearance of the 12th “Hidden” Imam (also known by some as the Madhi.) Based on this belief (and its level-headed and peaceful actions) Iran's political and military moves may instead be seen in the light of simple preservation (I think much as its military response was to the unprovoked attack in the U.S.-instigated Iran-Iraq war.)
Further, Walberg sees the view of Shia (in general) to the Caliphates founded after Mohammad as significant. Their view, he notes, is that Islamic civilization was flawed after the early period of the Rightly Guided Caliphs (632-661) and that the Sunni subverted the khalifah (Islamic governance) into a hereditary sultanate. With the author's understanding, we can infer how Iran must view the actions of Erdogan and the Sauds. (The Salafist Sunnis, he notes, feel the same way about the alleged corruption of khalifah by Shia for promoting the hereditary transmission via the Prophet's descendants!)
Islamic Resistance to Imperialism seems cold to the Shia tendency toward inaction that, as the Salafists/Wahhabis point out, allowed all sorts of corruption to flourish. But it holds up the anti-imperialist Iranian Revolution as a positive development citing Pakistani Kalim Siddiqui's (1931-1996) praise of this revolution as the way forward for renewal of Islamic civilization...the harbinger of Islamic resurgence. In his view, Ayatollah Khomeini's vilayat-e faqih political theory allowed a renewal of action and Shia scholarship, and he urged convergence of the “two facets of Islam”--Sunni and Shia.
What about the other players?
Walberg perceptively observes that, unless they play second fiddle to Turkey, the Sauds will fail to keep the seat of Caliph—even with control of Mecca and Medina. Giving the Saud the designation of “premodern” he notes they are nothing without the (old Ottoman) empire behind them. Turkey's problem, after Erdogan's destructive meddling in Syria via proxy, will be that so much hostility has been engendered that Syria will be virtually impossible to assimilate in any Turkish caliphate.
What about the neo-Wahhabist ISIS/IS? The author sees them as rigid, non-inclusive and essentially Saudis-sans-empire. In a paradoxical way, though, he sees them as promoting Islamic unity by uniting Islamists of all stripes against their depredations. But this cooperation would no longer be under U.S. hegemony. (As for the so-called U.S.-inspired “color revolutions,” Walberg sees diminishing returns as each becomes progressively less successful and more counterproductive.)
The book winds down with a deconstruction of prevailing Western mythology about Islam and Christianity, i.e., that it is an offshoot of Judaism. Walberg cites Talmudic scholar Jacob Neusner in seeing “Judeo-Christian heritage” as a “secular myth.” Walberg sees the term “Islamo-Christian” as a more accurate term for Western Civilization, which would certainly be more accurate than “Judeo-Christian” if we talked about basic religious similarities rather than popular misconceptions. He feels Islam and Christianity should be natural allies against perversion and wickedness—which they should—but does not address the possible resentment of local populations to beatings, robberies and rapes by immigrants as a factor in islamophobia. (Another cause of resentment I've read about: high taxes paying for support of refugees' large families while native European families have both white spouses working to pay for this largesse who often cannot afford to have more than one child owing to child-care and other costs, as in Sweden and Germany.)
The book further points out that, in the U.S., Jews have had beth din (Talmudic) courts for over a century, with no public outcry but, for some reason, similar Islamic (sharia) courts arouse great public concern. One is tempted to ask, however, if the Islamic proclivity toward “integration without assimilation”--which Walberg attributes to Islamic thinker Tariq Ramadan--might not contribute to this concern over a fifth column. (Jews, even though de facto Israeli citizens, are adept at appearing assimilated in their host countries.)
Sadly, Islamic Resistance to Imperialism dances around the presence of Israel in the Mid East and how it benefits geopolitically from the (self-harming and dar al-harb/warlike-destructive) actions of the imperialist powers it controls—whose infrastructure (roads, rails, ports, bridges, dams and waterways) is deteriorating and whose citizens mostly grow poorer year by year to fund extravagant militarism and benefits to refugees caused by bad actions. “When do I get my house and car?” asked one Moslem “refugee” arriving in Germany recently—apparently not having got the message that many white Westerners are now mostly unemployed and/or poor and in debt and would have little or no net worth if liquidated. (In the U.S., half of 25-year-olds are still living with parents because they cannot find work.)
But in the book's last chapter “The Ummah in the Twenty-First Century” Walberg summarizes what he sees as the strengths of Islam and its potential appeal to Christians, Jews and Buddhists. A major strength he sees: “The Rothschild-Clausewitz geopolitical laws underlie modern capitalism—economic control by banks and war as the bankers' ultimate weapon—both of which Islam rejects.”
He cites Perennialist Rene Guenon's belief that modern civilization was overwhelming man's spiritual and metaphysical side in relating to “the grand design of the natural world.” In line with Foucault and Garaudy, writes Walberg, “he saw Islam as the only tradition that could resist this onslaught.”
The author calls for an end to sectarianism in the Muslim world, and cites as success stories Iran's Islamic revolution, Hamas and Hezbollah—all of which are non-sectarian. Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah is held up as an exemplar of his hope with the quote: “We are not at war with Sunnis. We are both, together, at war with extremist groups like the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.”
Nasrallah (the most popular Islamic leader followed by Assad and Ahmadinejad) Walberg points out, even backed Christian Michael Aoun in a Lebanese presidential election.
In closing, even if you disagree with Walberg, I'd say get this book and keep it handy if you want to have a deeper understanding of what's going on in the Middle East and—soon--your own backyard.
Was this going to be an Islamic polemic?
To cushion any shock in this regard, I first had my wife (MA in Education, publisher for 13 years) read the book as she does not share some of my preconceptions and is only peripherally familiar with Islam. She found the book tremendously informative. Once a complete mystery to her, she indicated, Mid-Eastern events now made some sense owing to Walberg's exhaustive analysis of the various caliphates and sects, the main national players and his historical perspective.
With that analysis in hand, and with the recent chaos in France, I tackled Eric's book with enthusiasm. I was curious, firstly, if the book could shed light on questions I had about the human wave of refugees emanating from Turkey? (As I write this, a new mass wave of 300,000 is heading from Turkey toward Europe and Paris echoes to the sounds of gunshots and explosions.)
I quickly found this addressed on page 261 of Walberg's book, where Turkish thinker Abdurrahman Dilipak is quoting as legitimizing modern Turkey as the heir of the Ottoman Empire and seeing Islamization of Europe as a way to bring these states into the fold of this new Caliphate.
Ahmet Davutoglu, former Turkish foreign minister, was even more direct and is also discussed. His thesis, enunciated in 2008, is that the Ottoman re-assertion should begin with a “soft invasion” of Europe through immigration, bringing Islam with it. According to Walberg, under this doctrine the EU would be transformed through multiculturalism and Islam would reinvigorate Christianity and Turkey would act as a catalyst for world civilizational change.
This led me to another question I had as to the apparent deliberate action of Angela Merkel and other EU leaders to actually facilitate this “soft Islamic invasion” via NATO-member Turkey—an invasion that may have led to the recent carnage in Paris. And this Islamization of Europe, which had been on hold since the defeat of the Turks in Europe of the 16th century, apparently goes back as far as the bombing of Serbs by NATO in 1999. Along these lines, General Wesley Clark, former supreme NATO commander, famously stated in that year:
“Let’s not forget what the origin of the problem is. There is no place in modern Europe for ethnically pure states. That’s a 19th century idea and we are trying to transition into the 21st century, and we are going to do it with multi-ethnic states.”
Walberg, while I'm not sure he is familiar with the Clark statement, offers an explanation that accounts for the apparently contradictory NATO position on page 278:
“Even the Imperialists are beginning to recognize that Islam must be given a chance to rule, if only in order to sap the following of the violent alternative.”
(Swedish Jewish activist Barbara Spectre has expressed fears that the Jews—instrumental in politically implementing this NATO-desired demographic shift allowing nonwhite Islamists to swamp Europe—will be blamed for it by “antisemitic” white Europeans.)
The book also answered questions I had as to why the idea of an Iranian-Syrian alliance so terrifies (a) the House of Saud (which has aspirations to become not only the leader of the Ummah but also of a new Islamic Caliphate and (b) Turkey's neo-secularist Erdogan, who has the same goal. In Erdogan's case this was to recreate the pre-Sykes-Picot Ottoman Caliphate. At various times, this mercurial sultan of NATO has thrown in his lot with Assad, ISIS, the Saudis and even made overtures to Iran by joining them in an attack on Kurdish positions. He's also signed and backed out of major oil and arms deals with both Russia and China.)
The reason? Iran is predominantly Shia and Syria is predominantly Sunni. The Israelis, Saudis and Turks fear that unifying the two sects would be a prerequisite for any future Islamic Caliphate—and that this would be far worse if such unification took place outside of the control of the Turkish-Saudi-NATO nexus. Turkey, for its part, may have been temporarily sidelined by Russia's attacks on its proxy forces in Syria, but it apparently still entertains hopes of playing a pivotal role in a U.S.-French-NATO force occupying part of Syria and deposing Assad.
Importantly, in this book, Walberg shoots down the paranoia of Israel and its backers in the West over the intentions of Iran to head a new Caliphate and conquer the Mid East. Iran will not head a caliphate (or expand as feared) because of the Shia religious belief that this is not within the power of ordinary man. Such a kingdom must wait for the reappearance of the 12th “Hidden” Imam (also known by some as the Madhi.) Based on this belief (and its level-headed and peaceful actions) Iran's political and military moves may instead be seen in the light of simple preservation (I think much as its military response was to the unprovoked attack in the U.S.-instigated Iran-Iraq war.)
Further, Walberg sees the view of Shia (in general) to the Caliphates founded after Mohammad as significant. Their view, he notes, is that Islamic civilization was flawed after the early period of the Rightly Guided Caliphs (632-661) and that the Sunni subverted the khalifah (Islamic governance) into a hereditary sultanate. With the author's understanding, we can infer how Iran must view the actions of Erdogan and the Sauds. (The Salafist Sunnis, he notes, feel the same way about the alleged corruption of khalifah by Shia for promoting the hereditary transmission via the Prophet's descendants!)
Islamic Resistance to Imperialism seems cold to the Shia tendency toward inaction that, as the Salafists/Wahhabis point out, allowed all sorts of corruption to flourish. But it holds up the anti-imperialist Iranian Revolution as a positive development citing Pakistani Kalim Siddiqui's (1931-1996) praise of this revolution as the way forward for renewal of Islamic civilization...the harbinger of Islamic resurgence. In his view, Ayatollah Khomeini's vilayat-e faqih political theory allowed a renewal of action and Shia scholarship, and he urged convergence of the “two facets of Islam”--Sunni and Shia.
What about the other players?
Walberg perceptively observes that, unless they play second fiddle to Turkey, the Sauds will fail to keep the seat of Caliph—even with control of Mecca and Medina. Giving the Saud the designation of “premodern” he notes they are nothing without the (old Ottoman) empire behind them. Turkey's problem, after Erdogan's destructive meddling in Syria via proxy, will be that so much hostility has been engendered that Syria will be virtually impossible to assimilate in any Turkish caliphate.
What about the neo-Wahhabist ISIS/IS? The author sees them as rigid, non-inclusive and essentially Saudis-sans-empire. In a paradoxical way, though, he sees them as promoting Islamic unity by uniting Islamists of all stripes against their depredations. But this cooperation would no longer be under U.S. hegemony. (As for the so-called U.S.-inspired “color revolutions,” Walberg sees diminishing returns as each becomes progressively less successful and more counterproductive.)
The book winds down with a deconstruction of prevailing Western mythology about Islam and Christianity, i.e., that it is an offshoot of Judaism. Walberg cites Talmudic scholar Jacob Neusner in seeing “Judeo-Christian heritage” as a “secular myth.” Walberg sees the term “Islamo-Christian” as a more accurate term for Western Civilization, which would certainly be more accurate than “Judeo-Christian” if we talked about basic religious similarities rather than popular misconceptions. He feels Islam and Christianity should be natural allies against perversion and wickedness—which they should—but does not address the possible resentment of local populations to beatings, robberies and rapes by immigrants as a factor in islamophobia. (Another cause of resentment I've read about: high taxes paying for support of refugees' large families while native European families have both white spouses working to pay for this largesse who often cannot afford to have more than one child owing to child-care and other costs, as in Sweden and Germany.)
The book further points out that, in the U.S., Jews have had beth din (Talmudic) courts for over a century, with no public outcry but, for some reason, similar Islamic (sharia) courts arouse great public concern. One is tempted to ask, however, if the Islamic proclivity toward “integration without assimilation”--which Walberg attributes to Islamic thinker Tariq Ramadan--might not contribute to this concern over a fifth column. (Jews, even though de facto Israeli citizens, are adept at appearing assimilated in their host countries.)
Sadly, Islamic Resistance to Imperialism dances around the presence of Israel in the Mid East and how it benefits geopolitically from the (self-harming and dar al-harb/warlike-destructive) actions of the imperialist powers it controls—whose infrastructure (roads, rails, ports, bridges, dams and waterways) is deteriorating and whose citizens mostly grow poorer year by year to fund extravagant militarism and benefits to refugees caused by bad actions. “When do I get my house and car?” asked one Moslem “refugee” arriving in Germany recently—apparently not having got the message that many white Westerners are now mostly unemployed and/or poor and in debt and would have little or no net worth if liquidated. (In the U.S., half of 25-year-olds are still living with parents because they cannot find work.)
But in the book's last chapter “The Ummah in the Twenty-First Century” Walberg summarizes what he sees as the strengths of Islam and its potential appeal to Christians, Jews and Buddhists. A major strength he sees: “The Rothschild-Clausewitz geopolitical laws underlie modern capitalism—economic control by banks and war as the bankers' ultimate weapon—both of which Islam rejects.”
He cites Perennialist Rene Guenon's belief that modern civilization was overwhelming man's spiritual and metaphysical side in relating to “the grand design of the natural world.” In line with Foucault and Garaudy, writes Walberg, “he saw Islam as the only tradition that could resist this onslaught.”
The author calls for an end to sectarianism in the Muslim world, and cites as success stories Iran's Islamic revolution, Hamas and Hezbollah—all of which are non-sectarian. Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah is held up as an exemplar of his hope with the quote: “We are not at war with Sunnis. We are both, together, at war with extremist groups like the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.”
Nasrallah (the most popular Islamic leader followed by Assad and Ahmadinejad) Walberg points out, even backed Christian Michael Aoun in a Lebanese presidential election.
In closing, even if you disagree with Walberg, I'd say get this book and keep it handy if you want to have a deeper understanding of what's going on in the Middle East and—soon--your own backyard.
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