Resistance

1. The "Essence of Man" as the Core of Conflict

Our present confl icts have to be distinguished – within Islam they are minor and mainly historical – but those with the West centre on Islam itself, and are essential.

A fundamental cleavage. The deepest conflict between Islamism and the West is not about power, sovereignty, or foreign policy, but a profound disagreement on the "essence of man" and how this shapes society. Western thought, over the last 200-300 years, has distorted its view of the human being, losing the centrality of man as a guide for future living. This flawed thinking, often espoused with good intentions, has led to global crises.

Western distortion. For Islamists, the West's tragedy lies in its transgression against the essence of man. Science and knowledge, once sacred, have been abused to rationalize domination, control, and war, all claimed to be in "the interests of mankind." Western values have become mere social contracts, easily discarded based on prevalent desires, reducing rationality to a tool for materialistic needs and eliminating God and ethical structures from society.

Islam's counter-vision. In contrast, Islam views the human being as integral to existence, not separate. Moral values like justice, love, and freedom are inherent to this existence, not man-made. Humans can achieve perfection by understanding and following this ethical order, which is more sublime than man's personal needs. This vision emphasizes that:

• Man is a harmonious being, not partitioned.
• Conscience perceives unchanging human values.
• Reason guides knowledge of existence and builds sound society.
• Governance does not permit domination of man over man or nature.

2. Western "Progress" and the Legacy of Catastrophe

Where we perceive a chain of events: he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet.

The angel's despair. Walter Benjamin's "Angelus Novus" metaphorically describes the angel of history, propelled backward into the future by the storm of "progress," witnessing a single, continuous catastrophe of mounting wreckage. Humans, however, are often blind to this reality, perceiving only a chain of natural, Darwinian events leading to an inevitable culmination. This blindness allows for the normalization of injustice and suffering.

Unseen violence. The "progress" of Western modernity, driven by a utopian vision of order arising spontaneously from free markets and individual choices, has brought immense destruction. This includes:

• Ethnic cleansing and massacres in the Ottoman Empire.
• The "Great Transformation" in England, destroying socially rooted markets.
• The "scientific racism" of the 19th century.
• The "shock therapy" economic experiments of the 20th and 21st centuries.
  These acts, often committed in the name of "human welfare" and "progress," are seen by Islamists as a continuous, systemic violence.

A call for introspection. Islamists demand that the West reflect on this "single catastrophe" and the wreckage it has wrought. They question how "science" and empiricism became so warped, leading to such tragedies while genuinely believing in acting for the best human interests. This reflection is crucial for finding common ground on the "essence of man" and examining the past with honesty.

3. The Protestant Ethic and the Birth of the Nation-State

This was the evil that the Anglo-Saxon world defi ned then – and condemns as vehemently today in Islam.

Cromwell's "axis of evil." The origins of Western hostility towards Islam can be traced to the 17th-century Protestant struggle against Catholicism. Oliver Cromwell, in 1656, framed Catholic Spain as an "axis of evil" that hated "liberty and God," imposing "restraint" on individual consciousness and hindering burgeoning English trade. This narrative established a pattern of demonizing enemies as "haters of liberty and God."

The Protestant engine. The dynamic Protestant ethic, rooted in Calvinism, gave new meaning to economic endeavor. It emphasized:

• Individual duty to use talents as a "call from God."
• Material prosperity as a "sign of God's grace."
• Abraham's story as a symbol of embracing change and faith alone.
  This ethos fused with nascent capitalism, creating a self-reinforcing belief that market economies manifest God's will and that Western societies were "elected" to be missionaries of modernity.

Nation-state as instrument. This Protestant vision shaped the Western nation-state, which became a powerful, centralized entity wielding a monopoly on violence and control over its citizens. It was designed to:

• Substitute secular "sovereignty" for God.
• Impose social changes required by free markets.
• Leverage ethnicity and confessionalism to divide and rule, as seen in the Ottoman Empire's dismantling and the subsequent ethnic cleansing of millions of Muslims.

4. Islam's Revolutionary Vision: Justice, Community, and Activism

Islam is all about activism. It is centred on direct social and political struggle to achieve the correct way of living – a commitment to struggle that is seen as appropriate today as it was in the time of the Prophet.

Beyond passive faith. The Prophet Mohammad's vision was not merely a new religion, but a revolutionary social and political project to build a just community. Islam (surrender) means submitting one's entire being to Allah's demand for justice, equity, and compassion. This activism, or jihad (striving), is central to Muslim life, aiming to achieve a correct way of living that provides intimations of the divine.

The Caliphate's demise. Mustafa Kemal's enforced secularization of Turkey and abolition of the Caliphate in 1924 was a traumatic assault on the essence of Islam. It destroyed the institutional structure binding Muslims and the symbolic head of the Sunni community. However, this act paradoxically created an opportunity for a revived Islamism to redefine the Umma (community of believers) as a transnational, ethical, and networked entity, challenging the Western nation-state paradigm.

Reclaiming social justice. Sayyid Qutb, radicalized by Western materialism and Egyptian prison torture, introduced the concept of jahiliyya (modern ignorance) to describe contemporary Muslim societies. He called for a revolutionary struggle to establish God's rule, rejecting the 1400-year Sunni compromise with worldly rulers. This shift moved Sunni Islam closer to the Shi'i demand for social justice, placing just governance at the heart of the Islamist agenda and emphasizing direct activism over passive acquiescence.

5. The Shi'i Awakening: From Quietism to Political Mobilization

The object of ideologising Islam, Shariati asserted, was to raise the consciousness of the people in order to ‘enter into action’; to grab the collar and shake it into a liberation movement and to give birth to an energised and determined entity.

A legacy of persecution. Shi'ism, historically a persecuted minority, developed a revolutionary ethos rooted in resistance against tyranny and a struggle for social justice, epitomized by Imam Hussein's martyrdom at Kerbala. However, this often led to a defensive "quietism" awaiting the Mahdi. The Shi'i of Lebanon, marginalized and impoverished, were ripe for a new form of political mobilization.

Najaf's intellectual renaissance. The Najaf "nexus," led by Mohammad Baqir Sadr in the 1950s, initiated a Shi'i intellectual awakening. Sadr's works, like Our Philosophy and Our Economics, critiqued Marxism and developed a comprehensive Islamic system, arguing that governance legitimacy comes from the people, not clerics. His vision of popular elections and oversight by Islamic scholars foreshadowed the Iranian Constitution. His execution in 1980 diffused this revolutionary thinking across the Middle East.

Shariati's mobilization genius. Ali Shariati, deeply influenced by Western thinkers like Fanon and Sartre, translated complex Shi'i concepts into a popular, revolutionary ideology. He reinterpreted Islamic terms to transform passive resignation into dynamic action, emphasizing:

• The need for a "social revolution" to exorcise monarcho-clerical Islam.
• The primacy of willpower, selflessness, and rational reasoning.
• The importance of military might ("iron") alongside consciousness and faith.
  This "Islamology" resonated deeply with Iranian youth, providing the ideological framework for mass mobilization that culminated in the Iranian Revolution.

6. Islamist Economics: An Ethical Alternative to Western Materialism

The Islamist aim is to radically change the ethical relationships between economic actors; to set a moral framework for those relationships; and – as a political objective – to tip the economic balance in favour of the individual and small-scale enterprises, and away from monopolies and large-scale economic concentrations of commercial power.

Challenging the "invisible hand." Islamist economics fundamentally rejects the Western myth of the "invisible hand" and the idea that individual self-interest naturally leads to optimal human welfare. Instead, it starts from a pragmatic view of human nature, acknowledging innate tendencies towards avarice and domination. The goal is not to compete with Western growth models, but to return to "old truths" about human happiness and harmonious living.

Ethical framework and redistribution. Islamist principles demand an ethical framework of regulation that limits individual and state economic actions. Key aspects include:

• Subordinating private and public property rights to God's demand for justice, compassion, and equity.
• Preventing wealth disparities that cause social antagonism.
• Mandating charitable giving (e.g., zakat, khums) as a redistributive mechanism to "cleanse and purify" individuals and ensure vertical circulation of money.
• Promoting selflessness and service to the community, fostering "detachment" from material possessions.

Critique of Western finance. Islamists criticize the Western financial system for:

• Fractional reserve banking and the exponential creation of M3 liquidity, fueling consumer booms and dangerous imbalances.
• Fixed interest rates, which skew the system towards bulk lending, increasing indebtedness, and concentrating commercial power in fewer hands.
  They advocate for a return to a financial system based on a standard (like gold) and micro-equity finance, where lenders share business risks, to prevent exploitation and promote individual self-reliance and small-scale enterprises.

7. The "Open Society" Paradox and the Inversion of Modernity

If ‘openness’ is, as Bergson affi rms, attachment to ‘ideals and aspirations’, then it is Islam with its aspiration for justice that can be called open and dynamic, while the West, which holds fast to the traditional myths of the natural order and progress, and is delimited by its instrumental thinking, is the society that might be termed ‘closed’.

Popper's flawed dichotomy. Karl Popper's influential "The Open Society and its Enemies" (1945) framed history as a struggle between the "good" open society (free markets, individual choice) and "closed" societies (traditional religion, static values). This secular reformulation of the Anglo-Saxon myth of freedom became a template for understanding Western societies and demonizing adversaries like Marxism and, later, Islamism.

Bergson's missing element. Popper, however, omitted a crucial aspect from Henri Bergson's original typology: "dynamic religion" as a key motor for change. Bergson identified dynamic religion, characterized by ideals, aspirations, and intuitive insight (gnosis), as a force that pulls humanity away from tradition. This omission allows for an inversion of Popper's construct: Islam, with its aspiration for justice and its embrace of dynamic, evolving thought, can be seen as "open," while the West, clinging to traditional myths of progress and limited by instrumental thinking, appears "closed."

Religion as critical site. This inversion highlights a paradox: religion, particularly Islam, has become a primary platform for deploying critical doubts about contemporary Western society. The Iranian Revolution, for instance, marked a watershed in recovering Shi'i Islam as a dynamic and revolutionary force, challenging the Western narrative of inevitable progress and universal prevalence. This suggests that the West's "blindness" to Islamism's dynamism is rooted in its own ingrained historical and philosophical biases.

8. Hesballah's Culture of Willpower and Networked Resistance

Hesballah defi nes its progress of awakening consciousness in terms of collective cohesion and development: ‘Its aim is to create communities of capability that have the resilience to resist.’

Beyond military might. Hesballah's success stems not just from military prowess but from cultivating a "culture of resistance" and a "psychology of willpower" within the Shi'i community. This involves:

• Strengthening individual psyche through philosophy and critical thinking ("independent brain").
• Cultivating inner self-assurance and resilience to overcome disproportionate force.
• Emphasizing steadfastness and rejecting psychological defeat.
  This approach aims to channel collective energy, including anger, into socially and politically useful endeavors, fostering self-reliance and mutual support.

Re-politicizing culture. Hesballah actively re-politicizes culture by stressing collective community values, norms, and role models (like Imam Hussein's martyrdom) that can be emulated in daily life. This counters the Western tendency to privatize culture as mere lifestyle choices, which effectively anaesthetizes political issues. The movement builds community cohesion through:

• "Networking": encouraging the exchange of favors and services without expectation of direct return, fostering selflessness.
• Extolling martyrs and linking personal roles to their values, building individual self-esteem.
• Providing extensive social and welfare services as vehicles for consciousness-raising and community resilience.

A new military model. Hesballah's military doctrine reflects its decentralized, networked organizational structure. It emphasizes:

• Personal responsibility and initiative for small, locally based militia units.
• Elimination of middle layers of command and control, allowing local autonomy.
• Strategic use of low-tech systems combined with episodic deployment of high-tech weapons.
  The 2006 conflict with Israel demonstrated this model's effectiveness, undermining Western military hegemony and offering an alternative to appeasement, thereby raising the "level of peoples' consciousness" across the Muslim world.

9. Hamas's Refusal of Subservience and the Psychology of Resistance

It is our normal, natural right to resist, to struggle against them.

Beyond emotional response. Hamas's resistance is a profound psychological and principled response to nationalist Zionism and occupation, not merely an emotional reaction. It aims to defend Palestinian rights and force recognition of their narrative, which is often dismissed or ignored by the West. This resistance is rooted in a deep sense of dignity and a refusal to accept subservience or the racialization of inequality.

The Oslo deception. The Oslo Accords (1993), widely seen in the West as a path to peace, were viewed by many Palestinians, including Hamas, as a "fait accompli" that further weakened their position. Arafat's secret negotiations and the subsequent Israeli crackdown fueled deep alienation. Hamas's initial reluctance to engage in armed struggle transformed into active resistance due to aggressive military occupation and the perceived failure of political compromise.

Resistance as a tool for balance. Hamas does not believe armed resistance can militarily defeat Israel, but it serves crucial objectives:

• Psychological antidote: Countering the dehumanizing effects of occupation, humiliation, and the erosion of Palestinian identity.
• Self-respect and esteem: Providing a means for Palestinians to assert their dignity and agency.
• Shifting the terms of debate: Forcing Israel and the international community to acknowledge Palestinian rights and narrative as equal to Israel's, moving beyond a framework of imposed preconditions.
  Hamas's refusal to recognize Israel is not "obdurate perversity" but a demand for a balanced starting point for genuine dialogue, where justice and rights are recognized as foundational principles, not mere political expedients.

10. The Instrumentalization of Language and the Nature of Power

We can talk about the differences between freedom fi ghters and terrorists, about legitimate resistance and illegitimate resistance, and we can participate in dialogues and in debates – but every religion condemns the killing of civilians.

Language as a weapon. Western demonization of Islamists is not born of ignorance but is a deliberate ideological operation. It uses language instrumentally to:

• Portray Islamists as irrational, extreme, and antithetical to Western values, foreclosing rational debate.
• Exploit the "war on terror" as an "opportunity" for "disaster capitalism," extending American interests and remaking societies.
• Create a "new orientalism" that delineates "civilization" (the West) from "barbarism" (Islamists), placing the latter outside the protection of international law.
  This "war of language" reduces the rich tapestry of Islamist thought to a narrow, hollowed-out meaning: "terrorism."

Schmitt's influence. This instrumental use of language and power reflects Carl Schmitt's "Concept of the Political," which argues that politics is about power and survival, not justice or morality. Schmitt's ideas, influential among American conservatives, suggest that:

• National unity is forged through opposition to an "enemy other."
• Government must take "decisive action" unencumbered by legal restraints ("state of exception").
• Liberals are "queasy" at using power, believing in mediation, while true politics is a struggle to destroy the antagonist.
  This thinking underpins "instrumentalist diplomacy," where demands for "transparency" and "good behavior" are false choices designed to impose Western will, not facilitate genuine dialogue.

The disintegration of meaning. For Islamists like Grand Ayatollah Fadlallah, this instrumental use of language leads to an "emptying of meaning" and can cause violence. Islam, rooted in a revered text and language, sees words as manifestations of reality and truth, not arbitrary tools for power-play. The Western "scientific" manipulation of language, aimed at controlling aspirations and justifying systemic violence, is seen as corrosive, undermining the very possibility of communication and empathy for victims.

11. The Limits of Western Thinking and the Call for Introspection

The measure of our futures may depend on the extent to which others in the West prove ready to criticise – to make that small symbolic gesture of human solidarity like the magistrate – and to follow the South African businessmen who understood the need to recognise their situation, and like Plato’s Athenian, work out how to haul politics back on to the safety of solid ground.

The Empire's blind spot. J.M. Coetzee's "Waiting for the Barbarians" metaphorically illustrates how an Empire, gripped by its ideology of "special rights" and "modern psychology" (torture as truth), remains blind to the humanity of the "barbarians" it oppresses. The magistrate's small act of returning an abused barbarian girl symbolizes a crucial "act of resistance" from within the elite—a crack in collective resolve, questioning the "normalisation of injustice."

Foucault's call for self-change. The Iranian cleric and Michel Foucault both suggest that escaping the "blackmail" of entrenched thinking and history requires a "change that he himself will bring about in himself." This involves:

• Courage to know: Critically examining the processes of thinking that led to historical tragedies.
• Transgression of limits: Deliberately challenging established ideologies and "limit-attitudes" imposed by conditioned thought.
• Political "sensibilisation": Allowing resentment and a critical view of the past to spur new political thinking and action.
  This internal critique, like the South African businessmen who challenged apartheid from within, can trigger societal change and move beyond a "bloody" future.

A new historical juncture. The current era, marked by the unraveling of the Western utopian project, economic crises, and mounting social unrest, mirrors the early 20th century when Islamist resistance first emerged. However, unlike then, Islam has now become a dynamic, revived force, offering an alternative economic and social vision. The West's continued reliance on instrumental thinking and the demonization of Islamism risks perpetuating a cycle of failure and further wreckage. The future depends on whether Westerners can make that "small symbolic gesture of human solidarity," question the purpose of their power, and haul politics back to a foundation of justice and respect.