NEWS CENTER – In a new series of articles, the English Nûçe Ciwan will be publishing the 3 English translated works of the Manifesto for Democratic Civilization by Rêber APO (Abdullah Ocalan) chapter by chapter every 2 days.
Today we will start with the first work:
“Manifesto for a Democratic Civilization: The Age of Masked Gods and Disguised Kings”
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Introduction
- On Method and the Regime of Truth; Section 1
2.1 – Continuation
2.2 – What constitutes the Human Being?
2.3 – Continuation
2.4 – Moral metaphysics
2.5 – Continuation - The Main Sources of Civilization; Section 2
3.1 – Interpreting the Evolution of Social Structures in the Fertile Crescent - Urban Civilized society; Section 3
4.1 – An Analysis of Civilized Society
4.2 – Problems Associated with the Expansion of Civilized Society
a. Problems with the expansion of the Sumerian and Egyptian civilizations
b. Developments in the Chinese, Indian and Native American cultures
4.3 – Stages of Civilized Society and Problems Associated with Resistance
Continuation
d. Christianity and Islam
It is not clear whether Christianity and Islam should be seen as civilizations or as moral systems (Christian and Islamic theologians and believers are themselves not clear about this). Although there is no easy answer to this question, it remains an important one. But even if they started off as belief and moral systems, it has not been explored sufficiently where and until when they remained like that, what their relationships with the civilized and the excluded societies were, and to what degree they formed or opposed civilizations. In my opinion, these two important belief and moral systems, formed during the Sassanid and Greco-Roman empires, represent a great offensive by the ideological culture against the deterioration of ideological culture, and against the vast proportions that the material culture had reached. If the intention was to construct a new civilized society, they would have based themselves on city and class formations, as happened in the construction of all classic civilizations. To the extent that they intended to established cities and classes, this was only because they wanted everyone to adopt their belief and moral values and not because they wished to become civilized societies themselves. Their most important objective was not to achieve power or to take possession of the material culture. On the contrary, they wished to attain the hegemony of a new ideological culture that would protect humanity against a meaningless material culture that was no longer on equal footing with ideological culture. Therefore, simply defining the age of Christianity and Islam as civilized systems is insufficient and may lead to misconceptions.
The collapse of Rome was not an ordinary event nor was it the collapse of an ordinary civilization. Indeed, with its collapse a tradition of civilized society at least four thousand years old also collapsed. The details of the internal and external reasons for its collapse do not concern us here. What does concern us is whether or not there was a connection between the values of civilized society and the general collapse, and if so, what role these values played in the collapse.
Rome can be seen as representative of all the initial and classical civilizations (with the exception of China). Not only because it too institutionalized slavery, but because it shared all the material and moral cultures of these civilizations. The fundamental reason for our inability to understand this reality is because these societies are analyzed on the basis of their daily oppression and exploitation. This flawed approach is one of the most significant distortions caused by positivism-the school of thought that, arguably, underlies the most pernicious aspects of European thinking. If a society is not analyzed on the basis of its material and ideological cultures, the conflicts and contradictions, the harmony or incompatibility between these two cultures of the society, a meaningful interpretation cannot be reached. Consequently, new paradigms for a freer life cannot be constructed. It should now be clear that the collapse of Rome also meant the collapse of the preponderant material culture of civilized society and its ideological culture, an ideological culture that had no bearing on a meaningful life. Even Rome’s architecture was the crowning of a four thousand year old architectural tradition, which included that of Egypt. The Roman pantheon was the final, most magnificent, stage of the top level of the four thousand year old Sumerian priests’ ziggurats. Thus, the material and ideological cultures that concomitantly
collapsed with Rome were at least four thousand years old. Similarly, an analysis of how and by whom this demolition was brought about indicates a history of resistance that forms one continuous whole. The history of external resistance to and attacks on civilization, starting with the early Amorites and Hurrites and ending, finally, with the Goths, dates back four thousand years. The long history of internal resistance began with Noah and continued until Mohammed. The story of every prophet indicates the length to which they went to gather the communities around them. What is important is not only that the history of resistance stretched over millennia, but also the vast area over which it occurred. From the Arabian deserts to the Taurus and Zagros skirts, from the
Central Asian deserts to the deep European forests, it left profound marks on both the material and the moral cultures of the nomadic tribes.
The Eurocentric structures of knowledge are not interested in investigating these matters (and this is precisely why “Eurocentric” is an appropriate description). But, without a meaningful interpretation of the historic civilizational sources of Rome’s material and ideological cultures, and without the real history of Rome, we will not be able to identify the roots of Europe’s material and ideological cultures.
The two hundred years prior to the collapse of Rome were described as centuries of darkness and complexities-no societal collapse is simply a matter of the events occurring in its few final years. This also applies to the collapse of the Sassanid Empire-the Eastern version of how the Sumerian priest-state came to its end. Although the Zoroastrian influence had strengthened its moral character, this influence was not strong enough to prevent Sassanid Iran’s moral collapse. Just as Buddha could not prevent the Rajahs from constructing civilized society based on material culture, and as Socrates could not cure the moral decay of the Athenian culture, so Zoroaster could not prevent the excessive luxuries of the huge Persian and Sassanid material, cultures. History shows us that the final period of the Iranian Sassanid Empire was no different from that of Rome. The Turanian attacks from outside and the religious and sectarian conflicts on the inside, slowly brought about its end. When the Mani
movement, a strong offensive of ideological culture, was eliminated around 250 CE, it was left destitute, unable to renew itself. If not for the wars waged by Islam, the Nasturi priests, just like the Catholic priests in the West, might have ideologically conquered Iran. Islamic occupation prevented this. Now that we understand what the collapse of the two big slave-owning civilizations entails, we can define the two famous movements that call themselves ideological alternatives: Islam and Christianity. The constructing of an own official society in
Rome led to many marginal sections within the society. These were not traditional migrating tribal groups with their own ethnic characteristics. They were the newly formed group of the déclassé, the rabble, or, as the Romans put it, the “proletariat.” They did not start off as identifiable groups with their own ideologies; rather, they were the unemployed of the slave-owning society. For the first time in history a new social stratum was formed and gradually new cults such as the Essenes in Roman Judea developed around them.
We do not need to concern ourselves with the ongoing debate whether Jesus was an historic person or a symbolic persona created by the conditions of the time. With the Siege of Jerusalem in 63 BCE, despite great resistance, the small Hebrew kingdom was conquered by the Romans and administered through governors. At the time of Jesus’s birth, Rome was at its peak under Emperor Augustus. The Jewish upper classes had become professional collaborators — their long history of collaboration with the Nimrods and Pharaohs prepared them well for collaboration with Rome. On the other hand, since the time of Abraham and Moses, the Hebrews always had a strong leaning toward freedom. Jesus was the continuation of this tradition. We can deduce from his last actions that Jesus had an ideological interest in Jerusalem —the reason for his crucifixion.
Initially, Christianity was not an organized movement nor did it have an ideological manifest. There was only a small group of followers loosely attached to Jesus. These early leaders of Christianity, the so-called disciples and later the apostles, had no hierarchic, ethical or official status in society. For such a group, life in Roman Judaea could not have been easy. Crucifixion, an often-used method of punishment in this region, was but one of Rome’s terrible inventions that drove many groups deeper into the interior or to the shores of Syria (the opposite direction of Abraham’s flight to the region where Jerusalem would later be built). A century after Christ’s death the first drafts of the Bible were compiled. One of the earliest was that of Marcion. The early saints within the Roman Empire surfaced in the 1st century and increased in the 2nd and 3rd centuries. The 4th century is the century of Christianity. After Emperor Constantine paved the way for Christianity to become the state religion, there was a huge increase in the number of saints and in the number of believers. During these centuries,
Christianity began to divide into various denominations and state Christianity developed.
A central doctrine of Christianity is that of the Trinity, the expression of God in three personae: God the Father, God the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Mary, the mother of Jesus, is not one of the Holy Trinity and not seen as divine, but veneration for Mary has been high ever since the first century, so that one could interpret the Father, the Mother and the Son as a trinity of god figures. I am not going to embark on a theological discussion, but I must indicate that the roots of the belief in the Divine Family can be traced back to our earliest history. The Sumerians were the first society to channel this belief into the ziggurats, the official temples. The initial pantheon trilogy consisted of the goddess Inanna (the Mother), the god An (the Father), and the god Enki (the Son). Thus, the often heard claim that Christianity has been strongly influenced by paganism is not something that should be brushed aside. What is of more interest to us, is that Christ came from the Abrahamic tradition, a tradition strongly opposed to paganism. The religious movement resisting in the name of Christ seems to have reconciled these two traditions.
This matter has» confused people over the ages and has led to discussions, divisions, and conflicts between denominations. At the heart of the discussion is the question whether Christ is of divine or mortal essence. Mostly, those who accept Christ’s divine essence are those who align themselves with official Christianity. In 325 CE, the Christian bishops convened for the First Council of Nicaea declared that the Son was of the same divine essence as the Father; thus, that Christ was truly human, but at the same time, truly God. Constantine (the convener of the council) himself accepted this interpretation. Thus, the state’s concept of divinity is the concept that has been officially accepted. Those who claim that Christ is only of human nature mostly were those who have not been integrated into the state.56 (A parallel can be drawn with the division between the Sunni sect, being the state religion, and the Alevi sect, whose members have not been integrated into the state.) The foundation for this was laid by the Sumerian priests. The initial separation of religion based on two different social strata began with the Sumerians, whereas the concept of the divinity of humans was handed down from the Neolithic culture. Or, rather, the concept carries some important remnants from that culture (paganism too has retained some of these aspects). Christianity underwent two important changes in the fourth century. The first was that it became a state religion. In this form it also became the religion of civilization. This was Rome’s attempt to overcome the moral crisis, or the crisis of legitimacy, experienced by the Roman material culture. The second change was that it became the religion of the masses. It was no longer the belief of small groups of saints but the official or unofficial religion of large numbers of peoples, amongst the Armenians, Assyrians, Greeks, Latins, and others. This is how we entered the infamous Middle Ages-the so-called Dark Ages. On the one hand, based on the legitimacy of Christianity we had the original, collapsed Rome replaced by the Rome of Constantine. On the other hand, there was the incredible development of Christianity as a large offensive of the ideological culture. The two main actors of this period —Christianity of Constantine’s Rome of and the Christianity adopted by the masses-acted according to the division around the doctrine of the Trinity: the religion with an official god and the religion of unofficial gods. The historical division continues, although in changed form, and conflict between them has caused much bloodshed. The previous conflict between Christianity and paganism has become the conflict between the Divine Christ and the Human Christ. Ultimately, though, this division is but the continuation of the ancient struggle between the civilizations, various classes and ethnic forces under new conditions and masks. A clearer interpretation of this division is that part of this new offensive of the ideological culture, with its profound historic roots, had become part of civilization by reconciling with the material culture and therefore corrupted. Another part had refrained from reconciliation and continued to pursue ideological and cultural hegemony.
The thousand years after the fall of Rome (more or less from 500 CE to 1,500 CE) can be seen as a period of rivalry, conflict, and reconciliation between those who struggled for the supremacy of the material culture and those who struggled for the supremacy of the ideological culture. Calling the Middle Ages “dark” or “feudal” can only partially explain what it was that really happened during this time. If we can answer the question of what filled the vacuum left by Rome’s collapse, we may arrive at a better understanding of the forces that caused the collapse of the Roman material culture. Elements of the material culture continued in the East in the Byzantine cities. In Europe, it reappeared in the newly constructed cities. Indeed, the history of modern Europe’s material
culture can be attributed to this new movement of urbanization. If cities such as Paris were mere continuations of the 4th century Roman settlements, then the domination of the material culture around 1,500 CE would not have been possible. Not only could the medieval cities not be compared to Rome, they did not even surpass the Mesopotamian cities of 3,000-2,000 BCE or the Aegean cities of 600-300 BCE. Even the medieval European castles did not surpass the castles of Taurus and Zagros of 2,000-1,500 BCE. In short, the urbanization of Europe between 500 and 1,500 CE could not have provided the necessary power to surpass the “dark” ages. But the new moral culture, the hegemonic ideological culture of Christianity, did have this ability. For European history, Christianity’s superiority undoubtedly has had important consequences. Historians interpret this period to be the conquest of Europe by the moral culture of Christian belief and values rather than material culture, and I agree.
The really important question, is why Rome remained at the level of a material culture of two thousand years ago. And even more importantly, how was it ossible for a system of beliefs and moral values such as Christianity, which was not really in a position to satisfy the present need for ideological culture, to conquer Europe. I believe an important reason is the fact that Europe only experienced the Neolithic culture at the time and was, so to speak, virgin soil. As a result you can reap what you sow and its one thousand year old history has proven this reality. The second reason could be external factors: the threat of the Turks (both as Muslims and as pagans) and of the Arabs coming from Sicily and Spain. When seeing these two factors in combination, it is possible to understand the long duration of the “darkness” of medieval Europe. There was a need for Christianity because paganism collapsed with the collapse of Rome. Even before Christianity, the belief and moral system of European paganism had proven to be insufficient. As a result, the conditions for the hegemony of Christianity, ideologically and culturally, were ripe. However, its material culture had always been weak compared to that of Rome and the East. Obviously, it was impossible to establish magnificent cities like Paris from communities who had just left the Neolithic period. As a result of this double incompetence (the inability of Christianity to overcome the need for ideological culture, and the structure of cities that had not surpassed those of thousands of years ago) it was possible for Europe to launch its grand material offensive in the 16th century.
There is, however, a close relationship between the grand offensive of the material culture and the hegemony of Christianity as the ideological culture. (Indeed, the fact that major religions have always been in conflict with sectarian splinter groups proves that this is a universal reality.) European capitalism, as the offensive of a splendid material culture, used the weaknesses of Christianity —such as its lack of strong ideological content— to construct a new age by transforming the merchant and profit cult into the new official power of civilization. No previous civilization had dared to do this. This is how the transition from the middle stage to the final stage of the material culture came about in the West. I will discuss later whether this age, capitalist modernity, should be seen as the crisis of the civilization, whether it had become a cancerous disease, or whether it is the final stage of old age. The story of Islam is more complicated, as Islam became rapidly civilized and has been involved in serious conflicts with Judaism and Christianity since its inception and, internally, with itself. I see the two hundred years before Mohammed as the crisis of the last phase of the slave-owning civilization. Christianity came out of this crisis as the stronger side. It succeeded in becoming the first organization for the poor and un-influential of society. It succeeded as an alternative power. Although there are problems associated
with Christianity, I shall evaluate these problems under Islam (since they arose from the same roots). This section shall be finalized with a look at other possible alternatives and the rise of Islam.
Before I proceed, I need to raise several points. Firstly, Islam is the final religion in the Abrahamic tradition and this is how it constructs itself. Hence, its roots include the Abrahamic tradition that is at least two thousand years old. We can conclude from this that the conflict between the Arabs and the Jews is in a way the conflict between two sects of the same religion. Secondly, Mohammed viewed the mentality of Mecca, his hometown, as ignorance. It is indeed a way of criticizing the paganism of Mecca. Thirdly, Mohammed’s dialogues with the
Nestorian priests could be seen as a link to Christianity. Fourthly, his involvement with trade is due to his being employed by the merchant Khadijah, whom he later married. Fifthly, he was severely influenced by the tribalism that reigned amongst Arabs for thousands of years. Sixthly, he lived during the last magnificent stages of both the Byzantine and the Sassanid Empires. Although these are the main factors that ensured the birth of Islam, there are of course other factors. What I am trying to point out, once again, is that the birth of Islam was also not a “miracle in the desert” but the product of strong material and historical circumstances. Not only are its strengths linked to these circumstances, but so are its weaknesses. Islam is not a synthesis of civilizations, like early Sumer or late Rome, but predominantly a movement of beliefs and morals.
Mohammed’s life is much better known than that of Abraham, Moses, or Jesus. Many of his characteristics are also known. His message, the Qur’an, does not target a single nation, tribe or class but the whole of humanity. I believe that the concept of Allah, the most used in the Qur’an, should be the main topic of Islamic theology. Mohammed was deeply influenced by this. He Viewed Allah as the Lord of all worlds. The term “Allah” is conceptually so wide that sociologically speaking it has the capacity to integrate the divine in nature with that in society. The ninety-nine attributes it contains define the combined effects of the forces of society 21nd the forces of nature. However, the issues its followers would like to understand as “perpetual laws and orders” are extremely unclear. This is because no attributes with social roots, which are necessarily transitory, and not even all aspects of nature, can have the value of a law. The concept of the immutability of law itself resulted from the extreme formalism of Hebrew tribalism. This understanding of law as changeless might have been useful in overcoming tribal anarchy, but in later centuries it led to great conservatism in the Islamic society. In any case, if we consider the rapid nature of social development, it is clear that there are potential dangers contained in the Ummah concept. Mohammed’s strong belief in Allah determined his metaphysical strength. At least, by accepting the existence of a superior power, he escaped contracting the familiar disease of being the god. Keeping in mind the big dispute over the divinity of Christ, Mohammed’s approach clearly was more productive. But one of his failings was his inability to overcome the Judaic rigorousness. The heavy bill is now being settled in the Arab-Israeli conflict.
It is worth discussing whether Mohammed intended a society with a predominantly material or a predominantly ideological culture. In Christianity, the moral aspect is prevalent, but Islam appears to have established a strong equilibrium between the material and the ideological culture. Despite its insufficient and controversial content, I see this equilibrium as the strongest feature of Islam. One of Mohammed’s hadiths, “work for this world as if thou will never die and work for the afterlife as if thou will die tomorrow,” explains this structure well. It is known that he was not in favor of the classical Roman, Byzantine, Sassanid or the more ancient Pharaoh and Nimrod systems and that he vehemently criticized them. Thus, from this perspective, he was a strong critic of civilization. However, neither the material circumstances nor the ideological capacity of his time sufficiently explains his ideal of a city-state. (It is similar to the socialists of today not being able to find an alternative system to the modern state.) But his emphasis on morals indicates that he was aware of the problems inherent in civilized society. This made him a great reformer, even a revolutionary: he refused to acknowledge any society where morality was not prevalent. His rules about interest prevented the development of the capitalist society in the Middle East. In this regard, he was ahead of both Christianity and
Judaism. He had well-known abolitionist tendencies, was quite affectionate and favored freedom. Although he was by no means desirous of equality and freedom for women, he did despise the profound slavery of women. He recognized the differences in class and ownership in society but, like a social democrat, he tried to prevent the forming of monopolies and their social hegemony by using excessive taxation.
This short summary shows us that Mohammed and Islam neither wanted an unbalanced material culture, nor wanted to remain a purely ideological culture. It is this aspect that strengthened Islam both against civilizational powers and against other ideological and cultural formations. As far as I can see, no other social movement, apart from those of the Sumerian and Egyptian priests, was able to maintain the unity of material and ideological culture as Islam did. If radical or political Islam is still growing strong today, we need to understand the structural aspects of this religious movement. It may be worthwhile to reexamine the development and changes the material and ideological cultures went through at the end of the Roman and Sassanid civilizations. The four thousand year old slave-owning system had deeply damaged humanity’s conscience and morality and created a big moral vacuum. Rome’s attempts to fill the vacuum failed, as evidenced by its own collapse. There clearly was also a big vacuum in the world of belief. People now realized that the gods they had been made to believe in for the past four thousand years were not what they were said to be. Paganism had lost the element of sacredness; the huge material structures left a ruined humanity behind. We could call this period a state of crisis and chaos. Continuous wars turned the idea of peace into a mere utopian ideal. Old laws and life styles lost their significance but there was nothing to fill the void. In the center, the threat coming from the movements of the unemployed masses and the vast number of abandoned slaves intensified; on the periphery, the threat coming from the
nomadic tribes was as intense. It must have felt as if the foretold arrival of heaven and hell had dawned. All awaited a message of salvation. And, indeed, it was an ideal setting for this message to reverberate throughout society. Great movements had to be born; thus, there was an urgent need for a new utopia and new programs. This time, the structural and functional crisis of the system of slave-owning society was irreparably deep; society could no longer be ruled through (even newly constructed) slave-owning systems. Under circumstances like these, the human conscience and mentality desired something new. When the last material structures upholding the system could no longer be sustained, the circumstances for the world religions had been prepared.
Much has been said about the feudal society that existed in the aftermath of the old slave-owning society. It was, however, based on similar principalities that date back to 4,000 BCE. Stronger castles had been built around 2,000 BCE, and even at that time there were peasantry and servants around these castles. In the event of an empire disintegrating, anyone in any of the ethnic communities could easily have formed their own principality. After all, the empire was the unity —the federation or confederation— of such small states. The small states that were formed after the fall of Rome and the Sassanids came about in the same way. The villages and the mentality of the villagers were, in fact, not so different from the period of Neolithic institutionalization around 6,000 BCE.
Nothing had changed in the relationship between woman and man, and nothing had changed in the relationship between serfs and seigniors. The essence of ownership remained unchanged and there was no revolutionary
development in the means of production. Thus, the material order that formed around the 5th and the 6th centuries cannot really be called a new civilization. As a matter of fact, the urban structures in Europe were not sufficient to form a new civilization. The empires that came about in the West were nothing but remnants of Rome. The same can be said about the East. Calling them the remnants of the system preceding capitalism is more meaningful; at best they can be called a revisal of the old. In other words, we should not deny the material structures preceding capitalism. Most probably, the period of chaos came about because in order to make the transition to capitalism different structures than those of the slave-owning systems were needed. The
urbanization of Europe, especially after the 10th century, heralded capitalism. Thus, we should not take concepts such as feudalism and Dark Ages too seriously. A more realistic interpretation is that a four thousand year old social system of masked gods and enslavement had dissolved within the scope of the
longue durée, the long term. The dissolution of the Neolithic system still continues today. Long-term systems may take hundreds of years to collapse or to be revised. If we need to give it a name, then the period after the 5th and 6th centuries can be called the Period of Late Systems. So what does all this mean in terms of Islam and Christianity? Their utopia, like all utopias, makes promises of paradise or talks about millennia of happiness.
The “promise for paradise” reminds me of the longing for an oasis. Its opposite is an infertile life. The prophets promised hope and a future for their communities; the quest for paradise is nothing but a promise of a future in a new world. We can also look at it as a harbor inevitably constructed by those who have lost hope. In this regard, Saddam Hussein’s relationship with the Qur’an just before his execution is quite intriguing. The Qur’an provides
exceptional power to construct the minds of those who have no hope left. One cannot properly understand the messages brought by the Holy Books without understanding the conditions of slavery. Given this and themetaphysical nature of the human, the construction of many a utopia, including heaven (and its counterpoint hell), was inevitable. This is what being human entails. Without striving for a better future life cannot really be lived. And there would have been no foundation for us to base our efforts for a better life upon. Fear of death itself, I believe, is a social construct. In nature, death is experienced differently from the way it is experienced in human communities. The profound pain and grief caused by socially experienced death result from its contrast with the reality of natural death. If there were no death, we could not have talked about living. This is why the most precious part of life is becoming aware of death. The alternative is to strive for immortality.
The utopia of Islam and Christianity held an intriguing promise for ending slavery, even though it was not clear what outcome could be expected. The question of an alternative was evaded with the promise of a life that would be like living in paradise. The communities at the monasteries and madrasahs can be seen as examples of the new society to be constructed. Madrasahs, monasteries, different orders and denominations are all attempts at construction programs for a new society. Christianity and Islam both have pursued this goal intensely —for two thousand and one thousand five hundred years respectively. On the other hand, the heads of the Christian churches as well as the conquest commanders of Islam easily created a late, revised slaveowning system. These late slave-owning societies are just interim societies following the conquest and do not represent permanent systems of living for the entire society. Calling them Islamic and Christian civilizations would be unjust. The aim of the utopia was not the creation of new civilizations but to salvage life and to turn it into something beautiful.
Thus, we see that the belief and moral systems of the two religions do not give us a consistent answer to the question as to whether or not they were civilizations. But their role in surpassing the four thousand year old system was significant. Although there were some revised slave-owning regimes, principalities, city-states and empires constructed in their names, none of these can be considered Islamic or Christian civilizations. If they are considered thus, one must put this down to ideological distortions. The priest cannot simply come out of the church and become an emperor, and neither can the imam become the head of state. These religions have always seen turning their structures and organization into states as a wrongdoing, and have warned those clerics who use the church to become heads of state to comply with the requirements of religion. Not that their warnings have had any effect or ever will.
We might now be in a better position to answer the question of why we ended up with capitalist civilization. The ground for capitalism might have been prepared, intentionally or unintentionally, by bringing the gigantic empires (which were in the way of capitalism’s development) to collapse and by the monotheistic systems not turning their aims and structures into civilizational constructs. Wallerstein’s argument that empires were in contradiction with capitalism is indeed a very strong one, whereas Max Weber clarifies this by showing how the spirit of the Reformation paved the way for capitalism. Max Weber calls the capitalist civilization “the elimination of magic from the world.” Of course, in a highly advanced system of material culture a magical life cannot exist. Such a life is only possible in the world of ideological culture. Islamic, Christian and similar cultures do not have the skill to enchant the world of capitalist life. This can only be procured by the power and skill of the sociology of freedom, which can utilize the entire inheritance of the ideological culture. I shall discuss this point in detail. I shall demonstrate that life itself is the most magical element there is. Therefore, our slogan should not be Socialism, not capitalism, but rather: Free life, not capitalism! But could there have been a solution that did not include civilization? The only way in which this could have been accomplished would have been something
like going back to the Neolithic society. Since the cities could not be removed, trade also could not be prevented. The male-dominated society could not have been abandoned. No matter how much it was criticized, the state could not have been removed under those circumstances. Indeed, monasteries, madrasahs, different denominations and the Sufi way of life grew from such despair. They saw the degenerative and damaging effect of all the mentioned classifications above and wanted to escape them. However, their remedies could never be anything but marginal. So, they always left the door open for the emergence of a new civilization.
Perhaps another glimpse of the Hebrew tribe’s story will be instructive. During the Roman and Persian-Sassanid periods, the Jews spread throughout the known world. They were experts in matters of trade and money. They were the spirit of the material civilization (or rather, its filtered power). They also had a very strong tradition of literacy. Their authors took the position of the prophets. They were the leading proponents of a new system of civilization, i.e. capitalism. Furthermore, they were the experts on religion and god. Their mark on the utopias cannot be missed —the infiltration of the power of money and trade into the new belief systems was enormous. Christianity conquered all of Europe in its own age of ideological culture. Its influence in Asia was limited, although traces of its influence were present in African civilizations. Islam rapidly conquered all of Arabia, North Africa, and Central Asia. Not only were all the old systems of civilization conquered, new regions were added to the empires of ideological culture. However, what happened was not an expansion of civilization. Rather, we can call it the development of the moral world. This is exactly what Christianity means with its “thousand year reign of peace” and Augustine with his “City of God.” Both the Christian and the Islamic utopias were influenced by classical Greek philosophy (and played a role in its revival). Their roots are partially in Aristotle and Plato,and partially in the Egyptian and Sumerian mythology. Both have weak scientific bases and as freedom utopia, they are unsophisticated. But the moral side of both is well developed. Let me repeat that for a religion morality is the essential aspect, not theology. Because morality does not lose its importance, similar moral doctrines have retained their importance in Christianity and in Islam. Utopias are not always faultless-they mostly serve contrary to their objectives. The Christian and Islamic utopias served the onset of capitalism, despite their
objectives. It is also true that these utopias have been in severe conflict with each other. In addition, in the name of Islam, limitless and unjust seizure of land and culture took place for the benefit of barbaric and dominant tribal
aristocracies. It is often said that Islam impeded the progress of Christians but this is a reality for all religions. Moreover, the conflict between those elements of Islam and Christianity that became the state itself cannot be called conflict between Islam and Christianity. These conflicts have their origins in civilization, and religion is only used as their disguise. I shall elaborate on these matters my forthcoming book, The Sociology of Freedom.
In conclusion, the ideological and material cultures are problematic matters but nevertheless they are realities and a study of these cultures is much needed. The role of the conflict between slave and master, serf and seignior, in the making of history is both limited and indirect —the wheels of history turn differently. It is this “different turning” that I am investigating. I know my attempt is amateurish and unpolished, but this work is necessary —not only so that we can understand history, but also so that today’s problems can be resolved. The subject matter will not be complete without an evaluation of the other branch of resistance, the migration of peoples. In the final stages of the slaveowning civilization, the migrating Goths and Huns in Europe and the Arab tribes in the Middle East progressed very quickly from resistance to taking the offensive. The migration, resistance, and offensives of these peoples with their advanced tribal hierarchies and their pre-civilizational patriarchal societies were very much alike to movements of the ideological culture. Although their communities were partially egalitarian and carried elements of the Neolithic culture, still, they were in admiration of the civilization. They did not have the ability to develop metaphysical systems that came close to that of a religion.
Mostly, they were soldiers of fortune and willing to shed their blood for various empires. Yet, they must still be regarded as amongst the most important history-makers. If it were not for the Germanic, Turkic, Mongolian, Arabic, and before them the Hurrian, Amorite and Scythian assaults, the course of history might have been different. Whilst the Germanic peoples and Arabs destroyed both Roman Empires, the Turks and Mongols played their role in the destruction of the Iranian as well as the eastern Roman Empire. Afterwards, however, all the tribal chiefs either crowned themselves or took positions in the army or bureaucracy. The rest either formed new tribes or lived as the déclassé at the bottom of society. Although these forces played an indisputable role in the collapse of the slave-owning system, they were not able to present alternative systems and to construct something new. They were able to destroy and loot, but not to create and protect.
