The Communist Manifesto

 'A spectre is haunting Europe - the spectre of Communism.'

Thus begins Marx&Engels Communist Manifesto, this evening's quick read. (Pro tip: the Penguin Little Black Classics edition is very cheap)

'All the Powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcize this spectre: Pope and Czar, Metternich and Guizot, French Radicals and German police spies.'

The manifesto's intention is to present Communist views to tackle 'this nursery tale of the Spectre of Communism'. 

At its best, the Manifesto reads like the grandiose introduction to a world-changing adventure story, or the scene-setting prologue at the start of an actioney video game. (In particular, I am reminded of the Race Intro narrations from World of Warcraft: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQN5PgnBgU0) We are given a simplified overview of history, and empowering call to get out there and save the world:

'The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. 

Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes. [...]

Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.'

The Manifesto's criticisms of the capitalism are often still applicable: wage repression and the declining living standards of the working classes, etc, etc. And some of the suggested improvements are still appealing, eg. a progressive tax system. And there are some good lines throughout, eg. 'Political power, properly so called, is merely the organised power of one class for oppressing another.'

But the manifesto obviously has problems. A sizable section deals with responses to Communism's critics: this section does not seem at all large enough given the failures of Communism in the previous century. The tone of the authors often feels too confident, like prophets assured that their visions of the coming Utopia have come from some Proletarian Deity. 

Perhaps the worst thing is how simplified it is; I haven't read anything else by Marx or Engels, but I'm assuming the manifesto was their way of getting their ideas a wider audience, by dumbing it down and making it accessible to anyone: the manifesto is to their other work what Brian Cox's 'Wonders of the Solar System' is to, say, Sir Roger Penrose's 'The Road to Reality'. 

I get the feeling that if you replaced 'bourgeoisie' with 'Corporate Overlords', then a lot of it could once again be be very popular with those leaning to the left. If you replaced 'bourgeoisie' with 'Liberal Metropolitan Elite', then a lot of it could be popular with those leaning further towards the right.

I would write more, but I'm getting sleepy. In summary: it's a historically important read which has some good bits and you can get through it in one sitting; I have not been converted to Communism.

Magic Is Bad

"You shall not permit a sorceress to live" - Exodus 22:18

“A man or a woman who is a medium or a necromancer shall surely be put to death." - Leviticus 20:27

Those lines from the Bible make it quite clear that Magic is Bad, and were the basis for Europe's witch hunting craze during the 15th to 18th centuries. The Islamic ruling on magic is equally clear, and comes from the Hadith (the Qur'an's expanded universe):

"The prescribed punishment for the magician is that he be executed by the sword."

Islam, like Christianity, affirms the existence of magic and assigns it to evil forces. Christianity assigns it to demons and Satan (the Devil). Islam assigns it to evil jinn and Iblis (the Devil). In Islam, 'satan' is not the name or title of a single Devil; it can be applied to any human or jinn who is opposed to Islam and Allah. This is slightly similar to an early Hebrew tradition in which the word 'satan' (adversary) was applied to any angel or servant whom God sent to oppose or tempt someone (to be their adversary) - there are examples of this usage in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. These 'satans' are loyal servants of God, doing his bidding, and were eventually merged together into the single Jewish Satan (The Adversary) from the Book of Job, who is still a loyal servant of God. The 'satan' jinn of Islam are against God, but since God controls everything, they're also doing exactly what he wants? Islam is particularly irritating because it doesn't seem to have anything resembling a coherent mythology, because Muhammad was an illiterate merchant who only knew bits of Jewish and Christian lore, which he slammed inconsistently together, sprinkling some Arabian folklore on top.

Umar, the second Caliph of Islam (634CE - 644CE), asked his soldiers to kill every fortuneteller and magician they found during their campaigns against the Persian and Byzantine empires. However, later Caliphs were more relaxed, so it was down to the hardcore Muslims to remind everyone how to deal with magicians. During the reign of Al-Walid I, a magician was present at the caliph's court. He wowed the audience by severing a man's head then re-attaching it to his body: the audience cheered and yelled, "OMFG! He can raise the dead!"

But one audience member wasn't impressed. He went to the next show with a sword strapped to his back. (No security searches back then.) As the the show began, the Good Muslim charged through the crowd, sword drawn, and chopped the magicians head off.

Turning to the shocked crowd, the Good Muslim yelled, "If he can really raise the dead, let him raise himself!"

The Good Muslim was arrested and imprisoned.

Bilal Philips

Having done a bit more research into the author of my current Islam book, I discover that he holds fairly extreme views. I bought it in an Islamic Bookshop in Nottingham, so expected it to be fairly mainstream. Yes, the author is a Sunni Muslim, who make up 80% of Muslims. But he is a Hanbali Sunni Muslim, who make up 15% of Muslims. And he is a Salafi Hanbali Sunni Muslim, who make up an even smaller proportion of Muslims. His views are fundamentalist and extreme, which have caused him to be banned from entering several countries (including the UK), although his views are mainstream in Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Since Jihadi Islam (Al-Qaeda, ISIS, etc) is the most extreme branch of Salafi Islam, we could consider this author's views a sort-of 'moderate ISIS': he obviously shares a lot of their beliefs, but isn't quite THAT crazy. He has apparently denounced ISIS and received death threats from them.

Keep all that in mind when thinking about my most recent Islam posts, and any more I write based on his book. I feel I should re-iterate something I said in the first post of this new series:

'Since the Qur'an is a very tedious and self-contradictory book, it doesn't give you a very clear idea of Islamic belief, which meant that generations of Muhammad's successors have had to perform arduous exegesis to figure out what God was supposedly going on about... this means that it's very easy to create-your-own Islam to suit your existing prejudices and ideas, hence there are a billion interpretations of what Islam means.'

To give you some idea of the various branches of Islam, here's a handy diagram: