Anti-imperialism
Its most influential ideologue was the Sunni theologian Muhammad Rashid Rida, a fierce opponent of Western ideas, who called upon Muslims to rise up in armed resistance by waging jihad against imperialism and re-establish an Islamic caliphate.
[2][3][4][5][6] Through his resolution in the Second World Congress of Comintern (1920), Lenin accused the anti-imperialism of pan-Islamists of favouring the interests of the bourgeoisie, feudal landlords and religious clerics; and incited communists to compulsorily fight pan-Islamism.
Some anti-imperialist groups who opposed the United States supported the power of the Soviet Union, while in some Marxist schools, such as Maoism, this was criticized as social imperialism.
Islamist movements traditionally view Russia and China as imperial and neo-colonial forces engaged in persecution and oppression of Muslim communities domestically and abroad, in addition to the U.S. and its allies like Israel.
[11][12] The relationships among capitalism, aristocracy and imperialism have been discussed and analysed by theoreticians, historians, political scientists such as John A. Hobson and Thorstein Veblen, Joseph Schumpeter and Norman Angell.
[14] Historians Peter Duignan and Lewis H. Gann argue that Hobson had an enormous influence in the early 20th century that caused widespread distrust of imperialism: Hobson's ideas were not entirely original; however his hatred of moneyed men and monopolies, his loathing of secret compacts and public bluster, fused all existing indictments of imperialism into one coherent system....His ideas influenced German nationalist opponents of the British Empire as well as French Anglophobes and Marxists; they colored the thoughts of American liberals and isolationist critics of colonialism.
Hobson theorized that state intervention through taxation could boost broader consumption, create wealth and encourage a peaceful multilateral world order.
Conversely, should the state not intervene, rentiers (people who earn income from property or securities) would generate socially negative wealth that fostered imperialism and protectionism.
[16][17] As a self-conscious political movement, anti-imperialism originated in Europe in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in opposition to the growing European colonial empires and the United States control of the Philippines after 1898.
We insist that the subjugation of any people is "criminal aggression" and open disloyalty to the distinctive principles of our Government... We cordially invite the cooperation of all men and women who remain loyal to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States.
Historians Peter Duignan and Lewis H. Gann argue that Hobson had an enormous influence in the early 20th century that caused widespread distrust of imperialism: Hobson's ...hatred of moneyed men and monopolies, his loathing of secret compacts and public bluster, fused all existing indictments of imperialism into one coherent system....His ideas influenced German nationalist opponents of the British Empire as well as French Anglophobes and Marxists; they colored the thoughts of American liberals and isolationist critics of colonialism.
For over a century, back to the days of Adam Smith in 1776, economists had been hostile to imperialism on the grounds that it is a violation of the principles of free trade; they never formed a popular movement.
Intellectuals and activists Britain based in the socialist, labour and Fabian movements generally oppose imperialism and John A. Hobson, a Liberal, took many of his ideas from their writings.
[36] As such, said financial and economic circumstances impelled national governments and private business corporations to worldwide competition for control of natural resources and human labour by means of colonialism.
[40] In the 20th century, the Soviet Union represented themselves as the foremost enemy of imperialism and thus politically and financially supported Third World revolutionary organisations who fought for national independence.
[41] Contemporarily, the term "anti-imperialism" is most commonly applied by Marxist-Leninists, and political organisations of like ideological persuasion who oppose capitalism, present a class analysis of society and the like.
He argued at the time that the United States would retain the character of a war economy; even in peacetime, US military expenditure would remain large, reducing the percentage of unemployed compared to the 1930s.
[45] The concept has been a core tenet of the British Socialist Workers Party with founder, Tony Cliff, examining its application to the First World War, American imperialism and colonial empires including Britain, France and Germany.
Academically the idea is seen as emerging with Richard Pipes' 1957 book The Formation of the Soviet Union: Communism and Nationalism, 1917–1923, but it has been reinforced, along with several other views, in continuing scholarship.
Prominent leaders in this resistance campaign included Ghazi Mullah, Hamzat Bek, Shamil, Hajji Qerandiqo Berzeg, Jembulat Boletoqo, etc.
He extended this anti-imperialist campaign to the theological level through the Arab Salafiyya movement; which professed the key theme of returning to the values of Salaf al-Salih.
Openly equating Western colonialism with atheism, Mawdudi called upon Muslims to rally in jihad against the imperialist forces to regain their spiritual, cultural, economic and military sovereignty and self-sufficiency.
Sayyid Qutb, an Egyptian scholar influenced by both Mawdudi and Rashid Rida, took their ideas to its logical culmination; proclaiming the necessity of a permanent, un-ending Islamist revolution not only against the imperialists but also its allied regimes in the Muslim World.
During the Cold War period, the Islamist intellectuals from the Muslim Brotherhood and Jamaat-e Islami also launched fervent anti-communist campaigns, ideologically critiquing socialism and Marxism and chiding leftists as agents of Soviet Imperialism.
[60]In his book "Al Jihad Fil Islam", South Asian revolutionary Islamist scholar Abul A'la Mawdudi made a comprehensive religious refutation of imperialism.
[62] Contemporary Jihadist movements such as Al-Qaeda, influenced by Sayyid Qutb's thought, declares itself as a "global revolutionary vanguard" waging jihad to defend Muslims from atrocities committed by the forces of Western imperialism and its allies.
[63] In the worldview of Egyptian Jihadist theoretician Sayyid Qutb, imperialist policies of the secular Western regimes were a continuation of their historical "Crusading Spirit".
[64] In his commentary of the Qur'anic verse 2:120 "{Never will the Jews be pleased with you, (O Prophet), nor the Christians until you follow their way..}", Sayyid Qutb writes: "The conflict between the Judeo-Christian world on the one side, and the Muslim community on the other, remains in essence one of ideology, although over the years it has appeared in various guises and has grown more sophisticated and, at times, more insidious.
Rather, they claim, the "Empire" is a conglomeration of all states, nations, corporations, media, popular and intellectual culture and so forth; and thus, traditional anti-imperialist methods and strategies can no longer be applied against them.
[citation needed] The Estonian political scientist Maria Mälksoo argues that "one of many blind spots" in postcolonial studies linked to anti-imperialist movements is that they often ignore Russian imperialism and colonialism.
