More than opium: Marxism and religion (John Molyneux | International Socialism #119)

[struggle4progress]

Posted: 24 June 08

... Scarcely a day passes without a news item raising the alarm about alleged “hate preaching” imams, or a mosque being taken over by “fundamentalists”, or an opinion piece about the deeply flawed nature of Islam, or a radio discussion about whether “moderate” Muslims are doing enough to combat “the extremists” and prevent Muslim youth from being “radicalised”, or a TV programme on the plight of Muslim women, or a scare story about some stupidity committed in the name of Islam somewhere in the world ... For readers of this journal, it should be no mystery why this has occurred. It is not an expression of some visceral Christian hostility to Islam stretching back to the Crusades or the conflict with the Ottoman Empire (even though these atavisms are sometimes mobilised ideologically). It is because the majority of the people sitting on the world’s most important reserves of oil and natural gas happen to be Muslim and, secondarily, because, since the Iranian Revolution of 1979, much of these peoples’ resistance to imperialism has found expression in Islamist form. If the people of the Middle East and central Asia had been predominantly Buddhist or Tibet held oilfields comparable to those of Saudi Arabia or Iraq, we would now be dealing with “Buddhophobia” ... A Marxist needs to be able to understand why a belief in the divinity and immortality of Haile Selassie could inspire a musician of the calibre of Bob Marley in Trenchtown, Jamaica, in the 1960s, or why the belief in the divinity and immortality of Jesus inspired an artist (and mathematician) of the calibre of Piero della Francesca in 15th century Florence ... Marx’s insistence that religion is both an expression of suffering and a protest against it is the key point, giving the lie to any analysis which focuses only on religion’s narcotic and soporific effects. It also points in the direction of the important historical fact (to which I shall return) that there have been many progressive, radical and even revolutionary movements that have either taken a religious form, had a religious coloration or been led by people of religious faith ...

http://www.isj.org.uk/?id=456

[rug]

1. “Buddhophobia”

For readers of this journal, it should be no mystery why this has occurred. It is not an expression of some visceral Christian hostility to Islam stretching back to the Crusades or the conflict with the Ottoman Empire (even though these atavisms are sometimes mobilised ideologically). It is because the majority of the people sitting on the world’s most important reserves of oil and natural gas happen to be Muslim and, secondarily, because, since the Iranian Revolution of 1979, much of these peoples’ resistance to imperialism has found expression in Islamist form. If the people of the Middle East and central Asia had been predominantly Buddhist or Tibet held oilfields comparable to those of Saudi Arabia or Iraq, we would now be dealing with “Buddhophobia”. Seeping out from the White House, the Pentagon, the CIA and Downing Street, coursing through the sewers of Fox News, CNN, the Sun and the Daily Mail would be the notion that, great religion though it undoubtedly was, there was some underlying and persistent flaw in Buddhism. “Intellectuals” such as Samuel Huntington, Christopher Hitchens and Martin Amis would be on hand to explain that, despite its embrace by naive hippies in the 1960s, Buddhism was an essentially reactionary creed characterised by its deepseated rejection of modernity and Western democratic values, and its fanatical commitment to feudalism, theocracy, misogyny and homophobia.

This observation is interesting:

However, before concluding his argument on religion, Marx inserts one more highly significant paragraph:

Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless circumstances. It is the opium of the people.12

This passage is much better known than the previous one, but that is largely because of its much quoted final phrase (often presented as the essence or the totality of Marx’s analysis). In fact it is the first sentence that is probably the most interesting and most important for understanding the political role of religion. Marx’s insistence that religion is both an expression of suffering and a protest against it is the key point, giving the lie to any analysis which focuses only on religion’s narcotic and soporific effects. It also points in the direction of the important historical fact (to which I shall return) that there have been many progressive, radical and even revolutionary movements that have either taken a religious form, had a religious coloration or been led by people of religious faith.

It suggests the more economic privilege one has, the more likely one is to shed religion.

[AtheistCrusader]

2. And what of those of us that never had religion to begin with?

What does that say about our economic status, or that of our parents?

[rug]

3. I'd need more data.

Class analysis isn't based on anecdotes.

[AtheistCrusader]

4. Fair enough.

(I'd hazard a guess there are few enough of us to fail to constitute a class at all, but I too lack data.)

[Jim__]

5. I cross-posted part of the OP article.

I posted the following paragraphs into the thread New Atheism, Old Empire:

However, the fact that it has happened—the fact that Islamophobia has been developed, nationally and internationally, as the principal ideological cover and justification for imperialism and war (as straightforward racism was in the 18th and 19th centuries)—has enormously increased the importance of a correct theoretical understanding of, and political orientation towards, religion in its many different forms. Indeed it can be said that a deficient, mechanical or one-sided understanding of the Marxist analysis of religion has been a substantial contributing factor to a number of left individuals and groups completely losing their former political bearings and ending up as left apologists for imperialism.

The most notorious example of this is, of course, Christopher Hitchens, who has written a book on religion, God is Not Great (of which more later), and whose trajectory from leftist intellectual and radical critic of the system to “critical” supporter of George Bush has been precipitous and extreme (though in Hitchens’ case one cannot help suspecting that material inducements have played a larger role in his race to the right than any mere theoretical error). Other examples include members of the Euston Group, such as Norman Geras, and, among left groups, the French organisation Lutte Ouvrière, whose hostility to the hijab turned them into temporary allies of the French imperialist state against its most oppressed women citizens,1 and the sorry case of the semi-Zionist and Islamophobic Alliance for Workers’ Liberty.

These paragraphs and some others in the essay definitely seem related to the discussion in that thread.