Transcript of the Americano Podcast: Does MAGA Communism make any sense?
June 14, 2024
The original audio of this interview has not yet been recovered.
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Freddy Gray (@Freddygray31): Hello, and welcome to the Americano podcast, a series of discussions about American politics, power, and prejudices. This year, 2024, is an election year in America, a presidential election year. And so we will be doing two podcasts a week rather than our usual one because we want to and because we know you can’t get enough Americano in your life. Today, we are going to be talking about MAGA communism. MAGA, in case anyone doesn’t know, there might be some British people who don’t.
MAGA stands for Make America Great Again, which is obviously the movement most associated with Donald Trump. And communism, most people know what communism is, but it’s quite a strange combination of things. I am delighted to be joined to discuss this strange concept by Haz Al Din, who is, one of the, leading theorists of MAGA communism and one of its big influences online and elsewhere. Has thank you very much for coming to Americano. I’ll start with the obvious question.
What is MAGA communism?
Haz Al-Din (@InfraHaz): Well, Maga communism is a slogan. It’s an analysis. It’s an overall strategic perspective, which is based on the idea that the Maga movement in 2015, ‘20 ‘16 marks, and especially Trump’s election, marks a new chapter in the history of American politics and requires that communist in this country need to gain a new perspective. They’ve kind of just been out of touch from the American working class for a very long time. They’ve lacked any kind of basis or justification for even being relevant.
And the MAGA movement or MAGA is reorienting politics, not just in America, but you could argue on a global level. There’s this tendency for politics to be refocused toward the question of national sovereignty, toward the question of, more national specificity, you know, after this era of so called globalism. And we found very intriguingly that it had never been questioned very much by American communists. The question of, whether America is sovereign, whether we have, sovereignty as our own country. But it’s clear from MAGA, at least from our perspective, that there is a contradiction between, American sovereignty and the demands necessary for the maintenance of the, global American empire, if you will.
From the communist anti imperialist perspective, this makes MAGA a viable basis from which to rearticulate the relevancy of communism in the new age.
Freddy Gray: Well, that’s very interesting. Let me carry on with another obvious question, which is Donald Trump, in his speeches, often talks about the need to get rid of communists and Marxists and so on. Doesn’t that make you slightly out of line with what what MAGA is?
Haz Al-Din: I regard that as very superficial. I regard, Trump’s words. I regard, even his, his political leadership in general because I will be the first person to argue that in 2016, Trump betrayed his base after taking power. He didn’t introduce many, you know, radical changes. He didn’t drain the swamp.
He didn’t do any of the things that he promised. But the difference is that what MAGA did it did is it changed the discourse. It changed how we look at and and and it changed how we understand what are the primary contradictions within American politics. What are the main issues? What what do we actually want as a country that we’re not getting?
Right? And MAGA reintroduced on the table the question of, national sovereignty, the question of reindustrialization, questioning. For the first time, a mainstream political candidate was able to question, the the policy of, you know, unilateral foreign interventionism throughout the world. And that there may be, ideologically, obviously, differences we have with Trump or many other of the prevailing ideologies within MAGA. But we don’t consider MAGA to be an ideology.
We consider it to be a new chapter in American history, a a new development of history that’s objective, that doesn’t really have any regard for ideology. So on that level for us, the ideological stuff is not just ill informed because what do they mean by communist? Right? It’s not just ill informed, but it’s also superficial. It’s it’s an ancillary detail to this kind of broader, orientation in American politics.
Freddy Gray: Okay. You you mentioned sovereignty a couple of times there, and that was another thought I had about what what I could ask you, which is that MAGA is a a nationalist movement. The clue is in the name. Make America Great Again and also America First. Those are national sentiments, and it’s it’s clearly a nationalist movement, in many ways.
Communism historically has not been a nationalist movement. It’s a class consciousness is supposed to supersede, obviously, it depends which communist you talk to, but it’s supposed to supersede, kind of boundaries, borders, and so on. How do you square that apparent paradox?
Haz Al-Din: Well, as communist, we like to regard ourselves as capital c communist, meaning Marxist Leninist. And for the layman, that’s going to be kind of called Stalinism for most. And this mainstream form of communism, which, develops after the nineteen thirties, places a very strong emphasis on national form. The fact that class struggle, the fact that, communism itself takes a national form. And, that’s keep in mind, that’s the form.
The form is national. And there’s no way to have internationalistic solidarity unless you get your own house in order, right, which is your country. So you’re not beginning as an individual who says, you know, I don’t care about my country. I just have this individual solidarity with the world. That’s what, communist called cosmopolitanism.
International solidarity is is, based on a solidarity between nations. So we have to have a sense of national belonging and, national existence. And in in that regard, sovereignty in terms of, MAGA, we don’t really just see that as nationalistic. We see it as a demand for popular sovereignty because let’s remember the context in 2015. Many people felt like the primaries, the Democratic primaries, myself included, were rigged, more or less against Bernie.
Right? Many people felt like that for so long, the duopoly did not provide meaningful choices in these elections that everyone represented the same establishment. Trump, for the first time, gave a mainstream articulation and expression. He did what Ralph Nader couldn’t do and so many before him, which is an alternative, grounding for American politics. And that to us reflects the kind of genesis of a new aspirational popular sovereignty.
Because remember, sovereignty isn’t just about your nation being distinct from others. It’s about popular sovereignty. It’s about people having a new relationship to political power.
Freddy Gray: Right. So what would be the difference between MAGA communism and national socialism, say, or or for want of a better word, fascism?
Haz Al-Din: I mean, not not Nazism, Nazism, historically, if you look at the historical roots, right, emerges amidst a huge and flourishing socialist and communist movement in Germany, something we don’t have. It gets financed, I don’t mean to sound like a conspiracy theorist, from the top down by entrenched elite interests as a counter revolutionary movement. And, it rises to power of being appointed on that basis and so on and so on in order to embark upon a policy of, war for the sake of protecting the hegemony, the elite monopoly, financial, and industrial, capitalist class.
Freddy Gray: So so you’re saying Nazism is a sort of perversion of what could have been a true national socialism?
Haz Al-Din: No. Absolutely not. And the notion of national socialism, that phrase is an opportunistic attempt to hijack, the then well existing and already a national inform communist and socialist movements. The KPD, for example, the Communist Party of Germany, they adopted the common trends policy of of and this was always the orthodox policy for communist of patriotism, of placing a strong emphasis on the national forum. Ernest Talman, the leader of the Communist Party of Germany, he constantly talked about the pride and love he had for his nation, in Germany.
So it’s not saying that it’s national socialism means that you’re making the content itself, national. Right? But it the only the form is national. So that would be my way of, rejecting the association.
Freddy Gray: But America First and, if you like, economic policies that help put America First are about American workers first, putting American workers first. I’m not sure that’s always been, what communism has done. I think communism has always sought to, you know, help workers in in all countries because class is supposed as I said earlier, class is supposed to supersede all else.
Haz Al-Din: I think that was more Trotsky’s view. But, for all of the mainstream communists historically, of course, you put your own nation’s workers first. You put the workers of the nation you live in first because that is the basis, that is the context in which, communism can develop. It has to be a national context. It has to assume a national form.
It doesn’t assume the form of some enlightened individual who claims that they’re they’re above their own nation and their communities and declares this kind of unilateral universal solidarity with the world. Internationalistic solidarity, for example, like when East Germany would fund third world liberation movements with arms around the world, the Soviet Union did the same. That would be an example of the internationalism you’re talking about. But they would only have been able to be put in a position of being able to have that solidarity once they got their own house in order, once they put their own workers first.
Freddy Gray: So is your sort of would a more ideal version of communism that we have historical precedent of for you be China and Mao and, you know, what Xi Jinping is doing now, which is a which is a very nation centered form of communism?
Haz Al-Din: Yeah. I mean, MAGA communism, this kind of understanding of America’s analysis, it draws heavily from what they call in China Xi Jinping thought, which is a new synthesis and contribution to Marxism Leninism. And we’re we’re basically applying that to the American context.
Freddy Gray: Yes. I do think I mean, you’ll never do we’re gonna run up against the sort of the what a lot of people consider to be the founding ideals of America, which it’s about individual freedom and happiness. Do you think that you risk being sounding slightly ridiculous applying this in an American context?
Haz Al-Din: I think it’s actually interesting. Communists historically have always regarded America actually as the ideal context for a communist movement and for communism to take power. And the reason for that is because America basically, to use a British term, they discarded all of the medieval and feudal rubbish that was in Europe more or less. And, yes, slavery was, still existed here, but then we had the civil war and so on. And then we basically have a country which has as a founding and core principle the the view that all men are created equal, the view that nobody has a higher rank than someone else just because of the blood or where they’re born or where they’re from.
And this idea of e pluribus unum, taking all the various differences, including individual differences, but this was in the context of the states, and deriving some kind of, deeper unity out of that, higher unity from that. Right? A union, an American union. I think that is very much, that that is why maybe, there was such a tension between Americanism and communism because they’re so similar, I think. They’re both kind of aspiring toward this new vision for a unity, a new form of the unity of humanity, on a higher basis.
So I I actually think that the ideals, the founding principles of The United States make it destined for communism in a way that many other countries, might not be.
Freddy Gray: Because you you see it all in a kind of sense in a in a in a Marxist way that we are going through the process of capitalism in order to achieve communism. Is that what you’re saying?
Haz Al-Din: I would even go farther. I think we’ve already more or less gone through that process, and now capitalism has ceased to be an economic reality of civil society, but actually a political reality enforced dictatorially. I see the economic hegemony of the capitalist class not necessarily being rooted in the relations of production that we that have now developed, for example, the information age and so on, but rather a monopoly that’s maintained by political force. I think that if we if this dictatorship were to be dissolved, the premises, the roots for a socialist or a communist society, they’ve already been developed in my view. The Internet age, the information age, has given rise to new relations of production, which I don’t necessarily think I would characterize as capitalist.
Freddy Gray: Does it strike you as interesting that the leading thinkers of neoconservatism, as it originated in America, and I I’m presuming from what you’ve said that you’re not a fan of neoconservatism, all came from the left, and they came in indeed from communist communism, some of them. And also neoliberalism, to a large extent, has its founding to people who had who were communist thinkers. I wonder what you think of this idea that neoconservatism and neoliberalism were, in fact, ways of speeding up, the decline of the free market, because they they were inherently internationalist. They were imperialistic, and they wanted to, take over the world in order to destroy it through what people call cultural Marxism and so on. Because to a lot of people, that does seem to be happening.
Haz Al-Din: Well, the the the truth in, what you’re saying is the the ex communist in question were ex Trotskyists more specifically. And it’s Trotsky who had this vision of this kind of, you know, again, this unilateral vision of communism or just imposed from the top down upon the entire world. How much that Trotskyism came to influence and inform the neoconservative outlook, is my best guess. We don’t know beyond speculation and and pointing out the coincidence. But what I will say is that the tendency of world history, the tendency of American capitalism, this is very important because it’s, it’s such a a great irony, actually.
American capitalism was never about competition. It was never about a free market. At least American industrial capitalism when it becomes a world hegemon. American capitalism actually always took the form of the consolidation of these huge and unprecedented forms of monopolies, like Standard Oil, you know, like, the the rise of JPMorgan and so on and so on, the Vanderbilts, the railroads. And the logic of America even Fordism, the logic of American capitalism is this kind of, laying the foundation for communism by this kind of, this overwhelming standardization of every facet, every aspect of the economy, to basically fix the market and and and, turn the economy into what today amounts, I would argue, to basically a planned economy.
And we’ve gotten to the point with BlackRock and their ESG scores, which basically allocate investment and capital to industries on the basis of expressly, their own, of course. I don’t agree with their values, but their own notion of what constitutes, something socially valuable or harmful. Right? So I don’t I don’t think that’s that was just because of neoconservatives or neoliberalism because we can trace the roots of that tendency and that phenomena to well over a hundred years ago. But it’s possible that, you know, Trotsky has combined their, vision of, you know, anti communism in the sense of, like, anti Stalinism with the, you know, the geopolitical interests of the, the establishment in the in The US to basically, turbocharge it and kind of embark upon this global crusade to eliminate all illiberal states and so on.
Freddy Gray: So forgive me if I’m not quite following what you’re saying. You’re saying that, the the the American economy or the the modern global economy dominated is by America is becoming a kind of planned economy and maybe corporatist, the sort of alliance between big business and governments. Is that what you’re saying? And that that is a precursor to a possible communist movement?
Haz Al-Din: I think it’s already heavily planned. I I think it already is basically a planned economy. If you look at how the oil industry run, it’s run like a planned, you know, a planned economy. But do I think that that was a necessary prerequisite for communism? Not necessarily because the prerequisites for communism, you know, developed much, much earlier.
But it’s gotten to this point where the incompetence of western communist has made the dictatorship of the ruling capitalist class totally uncontested. So for decades and decades, they’ve just had free reign to basically reap the benefits of an increasingly socialized mode of production, but the profits, the benefits, the control is all being privatized. And that’s a political question today, not necessarily an economic one.
Freddy Gray: Going back to MAGA, how do you see do you have a sort of time frame to to work to how long you think it will take MAGA to become communist? Because I could see there’s a class consciousness. Certainly, it seems to be, you know, people, generally working class people or poorer people or less educated people who embrace MAGA because they they they despise the, the political system.
Haz Al-Din: Yeah. I I don’t have any illusions about MAGA, you know, suddenly becoming a communist anytime soon. But MAGA communism is more about a awakening of communists in this country, of cadres, of politically minded people to help build the communist party. Right? And we’ve always had a slogan, communist party USA twenty thirty six, that and by 2036, we want this to be a mass movement that has political relevance in this country, not to seize power.
We’re not that delusional. We just want it to be a viable political alternative that people can look to and see as a a real contender for, political power.
Freddy Gray: You mentioned I think you mentioned that you were a Bernie Bernie Sanders fan, originally or you were on his side.
Haz Al-Din: Yeah. I never harbored illusions because even then, I was a Marxist as well, but I could clearly see that this was a new chapter in politics. This was a new kind of, way in which socialism was gaining popularity. And, I was looking upon to see what would happen with that. And the way in because I had always harbored and this is the orthodox position among the mark Marxist left, if you will.
Right? The orthodox position is that, you know, obviously, we are not social democrats, but, there is you have to start from some kind of context to derive the relevancy of the communist position. So, you know, Bernie Sanders, is a good square one. It’s, okay, getting people talking about socialism. He’s kind of accelerating the contradiction by raising the economic question.
And the idea was that, you know, you do this through the mainstream established political institutions. No problem working in a Democratic party. This is the political reality as ex exists now, and, you know, this is basically how we have to proceed. And I think the big shock with Bernie, the way the DNC basically conspired against him is it showed there’s no possibility of working in the establishment. There’s no possibility of doing politics as normal.
Right? Even if it’s for some ultimate, you know, more revolutionary goal, you can’t begin with the established form of politics that we have. You know, MAGA arose, not through traditional media, but through the Internet, through social media, right, through this kind of algorithmic form of articulating a popular consciousness. And to me, that’s kind of a beginning of a new popular sovereignty, a new context for politics itself. And, the choice between reformism and this adventuristic, drastic revolutionary action is no longer the only choice we have.
We also have this new way to begin with politics that’s not just, you know, going along with the establishment, and it’s also not this, you know, adventurism, but is this new form of, politics that’s emerging because of the Internet, because of the information age. And in my view, you know, communists are always supposed to be at the avant garde of history. They’re always supposed to be at the latest development of most progressive and advanced, technology and form of culture and so on and so on. And I think that, it’s such a shame how much they missed this, how much how behind they were as far as these new realities of politics and and the information age in general.
Freddy Gray: And you were also and that’s how I got my research from. You were also a member member of the of the American Communist Party, or you you worked with them and you became disillusioned or perhaps even you clashed with them. What what happened there? Tell us a little bit about your story.
Haz Al-Din: It’s it’s a funny story. I never formally applied for membership, but I told my followers as soon as I gained, even a little bit of relevancy online to join the Communist Party USA and don’t cause disruptions and, you know, you know, be disrespectful to leadership or anything. But join it, follow its rules, and, you know, through participating in their democratic process, you know, let’s restore this party to greatness. Let’s get them to disalign from the Democratic Party and pursue full political independence. Let’s get them you know, there was a a a guy who I, had a great respect for, Steve Estrada.
He was running in, Long Beach, California. And we we wanted to kind of focus more on the communist party fielding its own candidates by by precisely kind of changing how they present these ideas to people, how they the context from which their relevancy is derived. Right? And, the party really kind of gave Steve the cold shoulder. They were not on board with pursuing political independence, the leadership.
They wanted to continue just, following the Democrats because they had this analysis that MAGA was fascist. And so they were perverting the antifascist policies in the nineteen thirties of the global communist movement and trying to apply that today and say that, you know, we need to form a a united front with the Democrats to stop fascism, which is MAGA. But they’ve been saying that for, you know, I don’t know, four or five decades. Every time there’s a election, they say the Republicans are fascist, so we need to go with the Democrats. And, I guess they’ve saved this I guess the CPUSA has saved this country from fascism many times, I think.
You know? I don’t know. But but exactly when they plan on making communist politics in particular relevant is a mystery to everyone. Anyway, eventually, you know, there there are these kind of more woke, I don’t know what to call them, leftist. This is a newer phenomena.
It was always foreign to the communist movement. And they did not approve of us because of our political incorrectness, because, we didn’t agree with these kinds of ideas, like the notion that it’s realistic to call American workers settlers living on stolen land, that they don’t have a country because it’s all stolen and yada yada yada, that we should burn the American flag. We didn’t agree with these things. So they it’s interesting. These extremely, you know, radical leftist, quote, unquote, allied with the, the leadership and told them that we were a bunch of bigots and racists and whatever.
And that gave the leadership, an an undemocratic, pretext to say that, okay. Anyone openly identifying with, myself, you know, my followers, they you have no place in the party. So, immediately, I told my followers to basically not bring up their views, to just go along, just follow the rules. But continue to work within the party to eventually change their ridiculous, and undemocratic policy. Now just recently I don’t mean to bore you, but this is important.
Now just recently, they had their thirty second national convention. And every four years, they have these conventions to decide party policy and strategy and and leadership and so on. And because of, what happened in Gaza, Biden has become very unpopular, not just among my followers, but among the left in general, among many liberals, actually. And that was felt very heavily within the party. And, it’s it’s incredible because they held a vote on what on a resolution within the party of whether to continue supporting Democrats.
And there’s a strong possibility that the vote the majority of people who’ve it was a voiced vote. Majority of people shut it down, didn’t want the resolution to pass because they didn’t want the CPUSA to continue following the Democrats. And what the leadership did is an unprecedented they they refused to count the votes, and they sent the decision to the national committee, which they themselves appoint, meaning it’s gonna pass without a majority. So they’re ignoring pressure within the party that exists now.
Freddy Gray: Stop the steal. Is that the Yeah. I’m afraid.
Haz Al-Din: Yeah. I mean, really. It’s like a microcosm of America, I guess. Yeah.
Freddy Gray: When you say, your your political incorrectness, what are you politically incorrect about?
Haz Al-Din: You know, it’s it’s I I was a streamer on Twitch, and a lot of what I do is about comedy. A lot of what I did was about comedy. You know? I had always from the side I’ve always looked at, like, communist influencers or Marxist influencers, and I always disliked how they lacked a sense of humor. I disliked how out of touch and full of themselves they were and whatever.
So I I went out of my way to be as, authentic, genuine, and relatable as I could be. And, and that also means, you know, when it comes to my humor and when it comes to comedy, it’s like no no I mean, within reason, of course, but I’m not going to artificially limit, you know, something that I find funny just because it might offend. I really believe that comedy should not be have any political correctness and so on. So I guess there are many things I said that were that were offensive. For example, I only recently knew this was a extremely controversial thing.
I you would casually use the r word. Right? And, like, I got really a lot of fire for saying things like that. Right? And it’s just kind of things like I mean, I I wasn’t even I wasn’t even, it wasn’t really even, like, racism or anything like that.
It was just kind of, like, small things where you cross a line, and then you’re supposed to apologize. But I kept doubling down, and I was like, no. I mean, like, I’m not gonna do that. Right? So that already puts a crosshair on your back.
Then coupled with the view that I’m saying, like, yeah, we should not be burning the American flag. We shouldn’t be calling this country completely illegitimate, because of what happened hundreds of years ago. This is a real country. I mean, you’re you’re you’re shooting yourself in the foot telling American workers that they should feel guilty and calling them settlers or whatever. And people were able to, I guess, put two to two together in their own head and be like, alright.
This person is clearly some kind of right winger, and he’s whatever. They canceled me, basically. Right?
Freddy Gray: Well, is your main problem with western leftism then, you know, and so on is all about identity politics, and you think, it should really be about class struggle?
Haz Al-Din: That’s the essence of it. Yeah. I mean, I I I I also I have this it’s it’s it’s been a problem since the post war period, the sixties or seventies, where the things that motivate people to become communists are no longer the same as they were, like, a hundred years ago. Like, a hundred years ago, I imagine people became communist out of this kind of selflessness, this kind of devotion to a higher cause that they dedicated their whole lives to, that there wasn’t much social capital or value to be gained from. And, it was a very kind of noble saintly type type of thing, at least from what I can read about their biographies and so on.
But then in the student movements of the sixties and seventies, they introduced a new dynamic, which which continues to, play out to this day, which is being a radical leftist somehow has become a a very, very big form of social capital, gaining social currency, virtue signaling. I am such a good person. Therefore, I should reap I should have more kind of clout and benefits and, be regarded better social. So you have people who are starting to inauthentically identify with these kinds of labels just to kind of outdo their peers. And that arms race, which began with kind of this philanthropic liberalism, it became an arms race of extremism and virtue signaling, and that’s why it eventually took over the, huge swaths of the communist movement in the West.
That that is a very new phenomena, and learning how to bypass and circumvent that phenomenon I mean, I I think I’ve made maybe a contribution, which is that communists are probably people that will have to deal with being canceled, will will have to deal with being ostracized from careers, from platforms even, and so on and so on. And just just by not going with what’s trendy and what’s popular, but by being faithful to the principle, by being faithful to the, to the the history, the outlook of of Marxism Leninism and refusing to compromise that. And I think that’s what’s gotten me in trouble. But the reason and and, you know, I don’t I I I’m not I’m not trying to just be edgy and shocking. I mean, in my past as a streamer, you know, I had just gotten started out with that, and things were much more incendiary and inflammatory as they are now.
But I I do think there’s a lot of value to be gained from just as a square one, how to filter out the right kinds of communist. Well, the ones that are just trying to pander to gain, you know, virtue points, brownie points, whatever you wanna call it, I don’t think those people will have any place in the future communist movement.
Freddy Gray: You sound a little bit, though, like what a lot of people always say about communist, which is that you’re always trying to purify the movement, and that inevitably involves kind of, increasing cultishness and, and perhaps even violence in the end. I just wanted to touch on, what you said there about the religious fervor of of kind of communism, because, I mean, I I imagine from your name, you you have Arab, origins. Is that right? Did did you grow up as a Muslim? Yeah.
Did you grow up as because I wonder what you think first of all, what what does communism what does communism and and not Trotsky, but, you know, Lenin and Marx, what they thought about religion, that religion was really kind of spiritual oppression. And do you agree with that? Because particularly when it comes to MAGA, MAGA has a very, very strong Christian element. What how do you deal with that?
Haz Al-Din: Really quick before that. Sorry to interject. Regarding the thing about purity and the cultishness, I think that I I think there’s a misunderstanding. We don’t need to purify anything. We just need to maintain our own line.
It’s them who have the purity, mentality. We don’t have to we don’t have to kind of, cancel them because we’re willing to work with anyone. Anyone who’s willing to work with us, though, has already, has already kind of, become impure just by association. So that’s really the kind of logic behind it. But to get to get to the point you wanted to mention about religion, yeah, I I I grew up as a a Muslim.
Both my parents are from South Lebanon, and, I recognize the new significance religion has. And I think communists around the world are increasingly cognizant of that. In the time of Marx and Lenin, I think in the modern age, religion had a different significance for intellectuals in general where, it was associated with the prevailing religious institutions, which had a very specific social function. Right? And, admittedly, it’s very true that that social function involved enforcing the status quo and, you know, clamping down on the possibility of any kind of, you know, revolutionary position in general.
And the churches were corrupt. They were bought out, and the same could be true in the the Islamic establishments. They aided and abetted colonialism in in this period. Right? And they pacified people.
So Marx’s view was correct. I just think that with as the development of communism and it gained more experience, communist had to learn through experience itself that religion could not be reduced to that. It can’t be reduced to this kind of to the institutional form that it took, that there’s something about it that very strongly, reverberates in the consciousness and the the hearts of the masses. And, you know, even if you read Soviet textbooks in the seventies, they they they will concede this. They say, you know, it’s necessary for a new alliance between communists and religious people to learn about one another because we don’t have it all figured out when it comes to religion, to work together and in the process, learn from each other.
And I think that’s kind of, my perspective as well. I I think that religion today is not principally a tool of capitalism. On the contrary, I think it’s so interesting how religion today has even in many ways become aligned against capitalism. Even the pope I’m not a Catholic, but even the pope has made comments critical of of capitalism today. Right?
And, it’s very, common in religious establishments and institutions for there to be criticisms of the policy of war, the policy of, you know, financial tyranny and so on and so on. So I I my view about the relationship between communist and religion is that we should help believers see the connection that it’s not enough just to follow the, word of the gospel. The spirit of the gospel must be applied to the real world. And in our view, that is itself, what communism is. It’s the application of the values in the Bible, in the Quran, in the sacred texts of the world’s major religions.
And it’s applying that to reality itself, not just in the form of prayer, not just in the form of contemplation, but through deeds, through actions, through what kind of social systems we have, through what kind of, communities we build.
Freddy Gray: But but there’s a reason, is there not? Where if you look at China or if you look at communist Russia, that religions were violently oppressed, was because there’s a fundamental contradiction, a fundamental clash between, the freedom of conscience that, Christianity, is all about, and communist structures, which which do not like freedom of conscience because inevitably, power structures become centralized in communist countries. And and people are want to resist them and are unable to because, they are suppressed because communism tends to suppress freedom of conscious, freedom of the individual.
Haz Al-Din: I I don’t think it was a matter of freedom of conscience. For example, in the Soviet Union, there was always a freedom of religion. It was the status of recognition of the Orthodox church, whether it should be entitled to, exceptions from the law in general, that was that was the source of most of the trouble. But by the, late nineteen thirties, Stalin begins to clamp down on the militant atheism of many, organizations and activists and reestablishes relations with the Orthodox church. And, eventually, the church is granted special privileges as it was in the past.
And this marked a new chapter in the beginning of a new relationship between, communism and rules, and which up to this day continues in Russia itself because the communist party of the Russian Federation is allied with the Russian Orthodox Church. But, to get to talk about the thing about freedom of conscience, I actually think I disagree with that perspective, when it comes to, Christianity or other major religions. I think historically, the church, for example, in the middle ages and so on, played a very, repressive role in terms of freedom of conscience. There was kind of a lot of
Freddy Gray: That that’s, yeah, that’s undeniable. Tolerance. Yeah. That’s that’s undeniable. But, I mean, there there was the enlightenment, which I think you could very definitely argue has Christian origins, and there was liberalism spring out of that.
And the Catholic church, although it wasn’t always comfortable with any enlightenment, certainly has believed for hundreds of years now in freedom of conscience.
Haz Al-Din: Yes. I think maybe, but, I don’t know. Hundreds of years. I think the Catholic church was forced to concede that because of these kinds of anticlerical liberal revolutions and movements, which gained traction in the nineteenth century and the, eighteenth century, which usurped its political authority, in many ways. But I I I I I do agree that it’s it’s a it’s part of the religion in essence, like, how it should be, basically, to that there is freedom of conscience.
But I would also then say it’s the same thing when it comes to communist. If you look at the words of Stalin or Mao and Lenin and Marx or whatever, they also believed in freedom of conscience. Right? They believe that, you know, everyone should be entitled to have whatever belief, whatever outlook, whatever view they, that is true to their conscience, should be free to make any kind of criticism they like.
Freddy Gray: So so in the future, when you’ll say chairman has of, the People’s Republic Of America, you will you would allow, religion in your benevolence.
Haz Al-Din: I mean, it’s such an honor to be granted this, this hypothetical role. But, yes, I mean, a communist party rising to power, in America would not only tolerate religions, but I think would do more to promote religious values than, liberalism is able to by actually recognizing see, in the Soviet Union, it the connection wasn’t necessarily always recognized. It’s after the Soviet Union dissolves that people like Putin will say, well, the the moral guide for, the moral code for communist builders, it was like the Soviet Bible or something. He’s like, this is all of this is in the Bible. It’s all biblical values.
Right? There’s that biblical foundation that’s there. It just was never officially recognized. I think there’s so much room for being able to have a dialogue with religions, to recognize the commensurability, the even in many cases, the identity shared between, communism and religion. So you so to answer in in short, yes.
Freddy Gray: Hazal, it’s been great to have you on Americano podcast. I do hope we’ll get you on again. Very interesting to hear your unique, as far as I’m concerned, perspective.
Haz Al-Din: Well, thank you so much for having me on. It was a pleasure.
Freddy Gray: That’s all for this episode of the Americano podcast. I’d like to thank my brilliant producer, Natasha Feroze, and urge you to leave a generous, kind, and warm hearted review of this podcast, on whichever platform you listen to it.