On the basis of the hypothesis that provoking the nuking of Mecca would fulfil a Wahhabi religious aspiration there is some interesting stuff at the end of this piece (Stephen Schwartz made similar observations in an article I'm still trying to re-locate). [The start, on Bosnia, isn't particularly relevant and the whinging misunderstood-Westerner tone is a little trying]
If Occidental technocapitalism has a dimension of "anti-plateuing cybernihilism" it is surely encountering a complementary 'desert' nihilism on the part of its radically iconoclastic Salafist anatgonists, for whom even the tombs of the prophet's family are idolatrous abominations. Everything that isn't desert is an offense against the all-erasing monopoly of God.
Money quote:
During the Ottoman centuries, Mecca and Medina became highly cosmopolitan, with many world Muslims of varied sects choosing to settle and die there. Their descendants often came to visit their ancestors' tombs. That sacred ground was the common heritage of all Muslims. It became Saudi property when the Wahhabis took over in the 1920s and, ever since, they have systematically destroyed all such sites, including the tombs of the Prophet's own family and companions. This always involved digging deep under the foundations to remove all fragments of bones. In Mecca, in the 1970s, they even tore down the dwelling of Mohammed's mother. A McDonald's has replaced it. To many eyes, even the Kaaba's Great Mosque of Mohammed has been utterly destroyed by total renovation.
The McDonald's is the final perfect touch, don't you think? (Would you like fries with that desert?)
Posted by at August 5, 2004 07:11 AM>>> If Occidental technocapitalism has a dimension of "anti-plateuing cybernihilism" it is surely encountering a complementary 'desert' nihilism on the part of its radically iconoclastic Salafist anatgonists, for whom even the tombs of the prophet's family are idolatrous abominations.
A great combination: the Gog-Magog Axis (0-0 or ----|----) ---> Desert ----> Tellurian Omega; The Desert-Complex is also rich (the surplus of the paranoid ground or a ritual ground for summing the Abomenon or as Ibn Hamedani insists, the Mother of all Plagues, the DUST-swamp?)
>>> Everything that isn't desert is an offense against the all-erasing monopoly of God.
This is exactly where they turn into the stealth mercenaries of Tellurian Insurgency ... they want God but they get the Tellurian Omega instead, the incinerating immanence with the Sun and the Core, the Hell-engineering Axis (the Z-Crowd sabotage again?)
Of course this, like Puritanism and radical Protestantism in Xianity, is one side of Islam one can unequivocally respect...
Zizek, who is fascinatingly ambivalent about Islam's anti-modernity (and unremittingly hostile to Cult Studs cultural relativism), has lots of interesting stuff abt this. re: the taleban destruction of Buddhist monuments and lack of respect for Buddhist 'culture', he asked: is culture then what is not believed in?
i.e. far from being hostile to (other) culture(s), it is America's tendency (as agent of capital) to transform everything into 'culture'...
Zizek also says that the real meaning of the interdiction on images in JCI theism is ethical (rather than Gnostic-epistemological), i.e. the only acceptable tribute to God is living the Godly life, not making images...
Posted by: mark at August 5, 2004 11:52 AMMark, I’ve read Zizek; found some of his remarks on WoT (esp. on the Islamic front) fascinating but should confess they are partly irrelevant; I don’t want to take the role of a propagandist for observational empiricism or eastern critics but Western high-intellectuals cannot get a relevant view as long as remaining in their secured bubbles and examining the Middle East from a relatively safe distance (i.e. not interlocking with more concrete levels, etc.). Islamofascism and esp. Salafism should be studied carefully (it needs a deeper surgery to uncover intricate motives and the assemblage of contemporary Islamic movements) ... Baudrillard gives a decadent view on War and Islamofascism because he can’t get rid of his PoMo hobbies, Zizek’s vampiristic lust for feeding on the subject, in the same way, obstructs what I guess could be a brilliant critique. While living in Asia, Nick and Anna have a great opportunity to remove this curse and I think they have succeeded ... for example what Nick discusses here is both insightful and absolutely relevant; needless to say, I’m looking forward to read more from this thread. Ok, sorry for being pathetically naive :)
Posted by: Reza at August 5, 2004 03:29 PMI've been trying to find the text of Philip K. Dick's "Null-O", because of its relevance. It's not online, but you can find it in Vol. 3 of his collected short stories.
Posted by: sauceruney at August 6, 2004 01:50 AMI'm not sure what yr saying Reza ... isn't what Zizek says consistent with what Nick drew our attention to? It isn't as if it's contradicting it... I'm a bit puzzled... Needless to say, disagree totally about Baudrillard (think it's ppl's obsession with Baudrillard being Pomo rather than Baudrillard's own txts which generate this kind of dismissal).
Posted by: mark at August 6, 2004 11:14 AMsauceruney
many thanks for addressing the article. unfortunately, i don't have access to these collections. could you give us some clues about the topic (the title sounds promising)?
Posted by: Reza at August 6, 2004 01:34 PMMark, i didn't criticized this particular thread of Zizek's discussion ... although i think it is not very relevant either. (i'll try to open it later parallel to Nick's explorations on Wahhabism, Islamic Apocalypticism, etc.) ... however, in the case of Baudrillard, i simply disagree: he is definitely a thought-monster (i can't deny it) but a decadent and rotting one (think we'd better discuss about Baudrillard on Cold Me forum or K-punk.
Posted by: Reza at August 6, 2004 01:47 PMReza,
I'll be reading it again sometime this weekend to refresh my memory and perhaps exercise some relevant "fair use" in transcribing a few paragraphs.
Posted by: sauceruney at August 6, 2004 02:28 PMReza,
I'm not asking anyone to swallow the whole of Baudrillard's or Zizek's project obv, that would be grotesque... I'd like you to say WHY Zizek's remarks are irrelevant I think... seems to me the belief (fidelity) vs culture thing is EXTREMELY relevant to the capital versus islamofascism struggle (tho it's interestingly cut across by Bush and Blair's role as believers)....
Agree that wider discussion of JB can be taken up at either k-p or CM....
Mark, what Zizek has neglected is the role of Islamic Apocalypticism and Petropolitics (on the islamic front) which fuel WoT. Wahhabism and other avatars of Islamic militarism have already purged the two words ‘belief’ and ‘culture’ from their vocabularies. From the first place, Salafism was nothing but a movement reinventing the religious anti-idolatry as an anti-nature / anti-manmade enterprise (“Let’s unleash the disassembling engine of the God to any dwelling / accommodating system on the Earth, any potential IDOL”) which cannot be analogously compared with Protestantism or other fanatic religious movements (it’s nearly irrelevant to them: you can carefully trace the history of Wahhabism or Islamic Militarism to locate the radical dissociations). From the first place, Wahhabism listed ‘culture’ not as an idol but as an accommodating system for idols; to purge idols, there is no course of action more effective than sabotaging [1] their unholy house; engaging universally with each idol may cause the enterprise to deviate. Looking deep into Wahhabism and Islamic militarism, we can see ‘belief’ is also considered as a Satanic system (For example see Hojjatian sect as the climax of this apprehension) since it has the most potent elements to attract the modes of idolatry; they consider ‘belief’ as the secret supporting system for idolatry (“belief as the farm of Shaytan”). The best solution is latching onto the most superficial (merely existing at surfaces) layers of everything to reduce the maneuverability of belief [2]. Take Salafism’s encounter with Koran as an example. What Zizek is discussing about are not the triggers of WoT but the aspects of islamic militarism which have already (hundred years ago) formed and now WoT is giving them an opportunity to crawl in and being (un)illumined. Repeating my previous statements: Zizek is not completely irrelevant. However, culture / belief Complex of islamofascism is just a by-product of WoT, previously formed (older than WoT) and now just distributed on a global scale by the petropolitical undercurrents of WoT. What Nick is discussing here however brilliantly depicts how Islamofascist incinerating machines (primitive Nukes) fuse with Techno-capitalist warmachines along paths of petropolitical undercurrents, and how these pestilential fusions bring both fronts to extravagant conclusions. IMHO, Nick has already got the belief-culture Complex and now trying to diagram how it mutates into a complementary machinery for techno-capitalism, accelerating it to complete burn-out and feeding its population dynamics (I’m eager to see what emerges through these processes).
[1] Since any direct tactical / crusading-style engagement installs intensive communication channels which increase the risk of contamination ... also, follow the old hatred of Islamic militarism for crusading-style tactics (see cold me -- the sample from homo-stasis -- my conversation with Nick on tactics).
[2] Another feature that is merging well with the Desert-Complex.
Posted by: Reza at August 7, 2004 03:35 PMThis New Yorker piece, called The Terror Web (http://www.newyorker.com/printable/?fact/040802fa_fact) has been discussed all over the Net. It connects with some issues tentatively raised previously.
The relation of Al Qaeda to edgy technocapitalist innovations has long been a matter of comment - with Reza raising it again here. The Internet is a special case, because the virtuality of the Caliphate drives it into intimate affinity with Cyberspace.
Huntingdon remarks in The Clash of Civilizations about the fact that Islam has a particular civilizational situation due (among many other things) to its lack of an actual central state. This forces it to seek its political unity in the converged virtual space where militant aspiration crosses the Net.
As far as integral politics is concerned, Islamism OWNS Cyberspace right now, although in the name of a political unit that can only exist as both virtual presupposition and actual conclusion of an apocalyptic (total) confrontation - which brings us back to the analytical nexus Reza is introducing: Petropolical teleonomy, Gog-Magog double-death and surreptitious Tellurian Omega ...
OK, Reza, I see where yr coming from now, and don't want to hammer on about Zizek, his uses are limited - but good for describing how things look from behind the Secumenical vizor, i.e. the problem with Islam - from its POV - is that these pple have the temerity to believe! lol
Not sure that you're right about Islamofascism having no connection with protestantism since many radical prot cults were iconoclastic for EXACTLY THE SAME REASONS as the ones you list...
was wondering: is this BwO desert religion really capturable by the term islamofascism? can see that they bleed into one another but are they the same?
yes, global Kapital and the Islamofascist Umma are like weird twins, both have no allegiances to any particular nation state, indeed are inherently transnational, even if they have affinities with particular regions...
can someone explain - briefly! :-) - the gog magog thing?
now might be the time to mention that about three years back scanshifts and I encountered an entity called Petros --- terrifying strata god worshipped by rogue splinter group of AOE led by Paul Monroe, an associate of Joe Wendigo's -- when we encountered It, Petros was manifesting as absolute mineral stasis (link with Burroughs' Insect People of Minraud) but can obviously assume more fluid (oil, petrol) and gaseous forms.
Petros obv feeds and feeds on WoT (after all, it petrifies) - puting out fire with gasoline...
Posted by: mark at August 8, 2004 08:56 PMMark, i've studied about many Protestant cults ... there are surely affinities but no there is not connection (for example read Ibn Taymiyya and Ben Baz)
it has so many functions of fascism (see Maraka Project) but really, i'm not sure about the term either.
the alliance is so violent and perverse that it looks like there is not ... thier alliance is packed along petropolitical undercurrents. (more on this soon)
Posted by: Reza at August 9, 2004 06:43 AMMark - surely there's no doubt a major strain of Cromwellian iconoclastic puritanism and Central European Calvinism were pretty straightforwardly theofascist -- by which i mean indefensible monotheistic tyrannies with certain 'bottom-up' characteristics -- (which isn't to defend their sleazy Catholic enemies)
Also think there's a danger of glorifying the Wahhabi desert in the name of the BwO -- if a desert results from erasure in the name of God it remains destitute, compensated by a transcendent plenitude, rather than swelling immanently into an Uttunuloid 'full-body of death'
PS. (esp. ref. to Reza's last) looks like 'fascism' about to undergo the inevitable slippage into a morass of polyvocality - perhaps not a bad thing (although these terminological discussions rarely prove decisive)
Posted by: Nick at August 9, 2004 07:00 AMNick
Totally agreed with you about BWO and Islamofascism; desert may look like a perverse BWO on a super-ficial level but the process of desertification actually happens when pseudo-fluxes hit autonomy and turn into strategic ungrounding processes, etc. (more on desertification in Pestis Solidus II, it will be available at cold me). Nick I impatiently look forward to read your remarks on Wahhabi desert. I think it has so many hyperstitional elements.
Mark, sorry i forgot to answer your question about the Gog-Magog Axis (aka the Yajooj-Majooj Axis) ... think Nick is obv better than me to diagram and minimalize the Gog-Magog participation. Nick, could you help us on the Gog-Magog Axis?
Posted by: Reza at August 9, 2004 08:46 AMthere are surely affinities but no there is not connection
well, what do you mean by connection? causal historical link? obv there is none. The connection - if that is the right term - is that they emerge from a similar abstract machine...
(for example read Ibn Taymiyya and Ben Baz)
tell me a little more about them and I might consider it ! :-)
on the Protestant fascist thing --- it's more complex than you're suggesting and surely not related to iconoclasm alone, if at all --- there were many extreme Prot cults who NEVER had power and were persecuted by all, including Cromwell ---
I'm interested in how much power (in the classical, governmental sense) that the extremist Wahabbis have -- my (very ill-informed) understanding was that there's lots of grass roots level rhizomaniac agitation and that they are ONE pressure on the decadent Saudi regime (which is surely due to collapse any time soon? If ever there was a country in classic conditions of pre-revolutionary ferment it must be SA).
Really, genuinely want to be put right here --- I just don't know enough!
Posted by: mark at August 9, 2004 09:15 AM>>> well, what do you mean by connection? causal historical link?
No
>>> obv there is none. The connection - if that is the right term - is that they emerge from a similar abstract machine...
just a very brief and inappropraite answer as this blog is consuming all my internet account and i'm nearly out of pocket: yes, both emerge from one infested germ-cell but they dissociate from each other; on another level, Wahhabism (and the rest of Islamic militarism) is dissociated from its phylumic thread; mutates and takes another path which is closer to the Z.crowd-infested germ-cell of monotheism (teleonomic subversion) rather than monotheism as a teleonomic appropriation. Surely, Islamic Apocalypticism is a Key. (more later) ... obv the common germ-cell can be considered as a connection but can't be brought to our discussion as an effective connection since all Abrahamic threads of monotheism share this connection.
Reza - sorry to pass the buck, but your false modesty here is ridiculous - all my Gog/Magog references are to your previous contributions - I agree with Mark that it would be great if you brought the discussion over here (how about a Gog-Magog focused post?)
Also Reza - could you explain financial basis of this blog? i've got no idea how it works (naive bourgeois parasitism in action)
Posted by: Nick at August 9, 2004 09:57 AMNick
Ok, I’ll try to post something ... the difficult step: I don’t know how to start since it needs a background (maybe Cold Me discussions work).
Your financial question: this blog runs through friendly communications; Abe hosts the blog on his server, Boris maintains technical problems and I graphically designed the site :)
Reza, am fascinated by the Wahabbism thing, but really need a LOT more help --- yr last post very dense ---- (I can appreciate why, given constraints)
Nick, wasn't Reza's point about finances to do with the cost of his IP account? --- the blog is free (thanks to Abe who doesn't charge for it - anti-capitalism! lol!)
But really if this is an opportunity to thank Abe, Reza and Boris again, I wholeheartedly take it ---- bravo chaps!!!
Posted by: mark at August 9, 2004 03:59 PM>>> Nick, wasn't Reza's point about finances to do with the cost of his IP account?
Yes ... in iran, the cost of an internet account is high (full-day account is too expensive so most of people use accounts with limited time: 10 – 100 hours in a month)
Mark, thank you very much ... I try to unfold the discussion but again the difficult step is the first step (I don’t know how to begin). Think starting the discussion from a mythological / fictional point is helpful. What do you think?
Posted by: Reza at August 9, 2004 04:30 PM