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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: frankw1900 who wrote (45324)	9/19/2002 10:39:15 AM
From: carranza2	Respond to of 281500

I quoted Laqueur's review to point out that Kepel has had many critics and that his work is not uniformly accepted. The conclusions he seems to have reached appear to be quite questionable. As you correctly point out, Laqueur made other points in his review which are worthwhile. Joining Islamism at the hip to an equally millenniarist and backward ideology, which I believe has happened in parts of the movement, is not not healthy for Muslim populations or their neighbours. Other than the Baath party, do you know of any other backward ideologies that have become linked to militant Islam? what actually has closed down millenniarist movements in the past? Do you include Nazism and Communism in the list of millenniarist movements? If so, we all know the answer to that qestion.

To: frankw1900 who wrote (45324)	9/19/2002 12:02:30 PM
From: JohnM	Respond to of 281500

Nice post, Frank. A part of Kepel's argument is that the only Islamist movement to solve the problem of binding together the urban poor and what he calls the "devout" middle class into a successful political movement was Khomeini. And that the Iranian movement, itself, fell on hard times when the interests of these two groups began to visibly diverge. With K's death, the Iranian movement lacked anyone with sufficient political flexibility and authority to manage that fusion. He not only does not see Al Q as able to fuse these two groups together but it's ability to do so is on the decline. For that matter, any similar group is likely to have the same problems. Now, that analysis could shift if, for instance, something happened to endanger the Saudi government, such that a fusion was possible. Whether Al Q, or some similar group, is politically adept enough to pull that off, would be yet another question. Your brief history of parts of Islamism is very similar to Kepel.