"Poets Exploding Like Bombs"

[poliphilo]

Young men love to fight. They particularly love to fight in a good cause. In the 1930s lthousands  of young British men- not street thugs, but scholars, poets, trades unionists, students-  went off to fight in the Spanish Civil War, in a cause that only tangentially touched them-  "for Communism and for liberty".  They included George Orwell, the poet Laurie Lee and -fleetingly- W.H. Auden. 

So what's so surprising about young British Muslims going off to seek martyrdom in Iraq?

Auden, who became tiresomely conservative in middle age, later disowned his poem "Spain". It's one long adrenaline rush. Strip out the specific cultural references and the overwhelming intelligence, and isn't this what jihadis feel?

Comments

[solar-diablo.livejournal.com]

I understand what you're getting at. And yes, there are those Muslims who are motivated to kill themselves and innocents around them as much by alienation from Western culture and religious fervor as by poverty or lack of education. I didn't mean to imply only the desperate were drawn to the jihadist's call, only naming some factors involved (particularly in the case of Palestinians).

There is a certain level where your comparison resonates for me, and maybe that is a matter of cultural prejudice. The Utopian vision of jihadists does not appeal to me any more than does the vision of communism. They are, in my opinion, unattainable "ideals" that in reality do more to oppress and restrict humanity than uplift it. Where the comparison fails is more in methodology. Yes, many were willing to sacrifice themselves for Marxist ideals, but only in particular expressions of Islam do you see 21st century individuals willing to kill themselves to murder others in the name of establishing theocracy.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I'm remembering myself in my 20s. There was a period there when I was so hungry for the just society that I'd have been willing cannon fodder for any plausible ideologue. I look at those jihadis and think "there but for the grace of God..."

[solar-diablo.livejournal.com]

You're a thoughtful individual, and spot on to be careful in otherizing these people. I can only agree with you there.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

When friends and neighbours of British jihadis talk about them it's usually with bewilderment.

"He was so religious..."

"He loved playing cricket..."

"He was always so quiet..."

[methodius.livejournal.com]

When friends and neighbours of British jihadis talk about them it's usually with bewilderment.

"He was so religious..."


I think there are some comparisons that work, and some that don't.

The young British men who fought in the Spanish civil war may indeed be compared with young British men who, burning with the sense of injustice at their own country's treatment of people in Iraq and elsewhere decide to join the jihan. And the same may be said of young Jewish men who have, at various times, gone to be soldiers in Israel.

And yes, I can empathise with them and know how they feel, and think that had I not been long ago convinced that as a Christian I was also called to be a pacifist, I might have been tempted on some occasions to do something similar.

But I believe it is a temptation to be resisted.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I've never been entirely sure whether I'm a pacifist or not.

I've never been put to the test.