Rhys
Member
We are so used to seeing mass movements of poor people as exclusively Leftwing phenomena, that we automatically try to assimilate Islamism to that model. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
There can be reactionary mass movements, as fascism was.
Not that Bin Laden and co. are a mass movement.
Imperialism, alas, has seen to it that there can be no effective mass movements in Arab countries with oil: they are replaced by 'religious' movements trying to get something like the same objectives, because only 'religious' cannot easily be repressed.
Militarist movements such as the IRA and the various very small extreme Islamic groups are a further reaction to near-absolute tyranny. It is easier to die than to struggle forever, aimlessly alive, against violent injustice, I suppose - and when you get into that state of mind, what does the object matter, since you'll be dead anyway?