Was Karl Marx a Zionist NeoCon? -- Part 2 -- Was Marx the Previous Incarnation of Hugh Fitzgerald?

It is clear that Karl Marx would be considered quite politically incorrect today. He had a low opinion of Islam and Islamic society and of its capacity for civilization. Nevertheless, the Bolsheviks early declared their support for the political claims of Muslim peoples and nations against those of non-Muslims, even those of dhimmi peoples who had suffered mass murder at Muslim hands, like the Armenians [see here]. Curiously, the Bolshevik pro-Muslim, pro-Arab policy converged with that of the British Empire --supposed imperialist enemies and betes noires of Communism. This was especially so in the Land of Israel, where the British government was supposed to help Jews return to their ancient homeland and to foster development of the Jewish National Home, designated by the San Remo Conference and the League of Nations.

Here Karl Marx sounds like Hugh Fitzgerald, the learned anti-Islamist of the JihadWatch/DhimmiWatch websites. Even in 1853 there was a pro-Islamist or Turcophile press in Britain, just as today. According to Marx, this Turcophilic press was based on wealthy capitalists, bourgeois, politically Liberal, whose voice was the The Daily News, and who were interested in developing trade with the Ottoman Empire. Sound familiar? How about American business interests and publications that call for a pro-Arab policy against Israel on the grounds of business and trade? Marx first summarizes their argument:

"It is said that Turkey is decaying; but where is the decay? Is not civilization rapidly spreading in Turkey and trade extending? Where you see nothing but decay our statistics prove nothing but progress." [Marx's summary of the Turcophile position]

Here is Marx's response. He first points out that much of the trade with Turkey is in goods that go on from there to other countries, just as Holland imported many goods in transit to Germany:

. . . what every statistician would immediately, in the case of Holland, treat as a clumsy concoction, the whole of the Liberal press of England, including the learned Economist, tries, in the case of Turkey, to impose upon the public credulity. And then, who are the traders in Turkey? Certainly not the Turks. Their way of promoting trade, when they were yet in their original nomadic state, consisted in robbing caravans; and now that they are a little more civilized it consists in all sorts of arbitrary and oppressive exactions. Remove all the Turks out of Europe, and trade will have no reason to suffer. And as to progress in general civilization, who are they that carry out that progress in all parts of European Turkey? Not the Turks, for they are few and far between [in European Turkey], and can hardly be said to be settled anywhere except in Constantinople and two or three small country districts. It is the Greek and Slavonic [Slavic] middle class in all the towns and trading posts who are the real support of whatever civilization is effectually imported into the country. That part of the population is constantly rising in wealth and influence, and the Turks are more and more driven into the background. Were it not for their monopoly of civil and military power they would soon disappear. But that monopoly has become impossible for the future, and their power is turned into impotence except for obstructions in the way of progress. The fact is, they must be got rid of.

Strong words from Marx, a Hugh Fitzgerald avant la lettre. Needless to say, we do not wholly agree with Marx. He does not give credit to the civilizing role of the Jews living in the Balkans. Further, Albania had a Muslim majority already at that time, and Bosnia and Kossovo had large Muslim minorities, perhaps a Muslim majority in Kossovo, maybe. But the more than 150 years that have passed since Marx wrote these lines do show that Islam is an obstacle to civilization. So why do the United States and the United Kingdom [Britain] insist on promoting political Islam in the form of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, for example? Or through the pro-terrorist, pro-barbarian Annapolis Conference?
- - - - - - - - -
Coming: Peace Process frauds and lies, peace follies, peacemongering = warmongering, Jews in Jerusalem, Hebron, and elsewhere in the Land of Israel, etc.