Islam in Gramsci’s Journalism and Prison Notebooks: The Shifting Patterns of Hegemony*
In: Historical MaterialismSearch for other papers by Derek Boothman in
Current site
Google Scholar
Abstract
Gramsci recognised the inestimable historical contribution of Muslim and Arab civilisations, writing on these in his newspaper articles, his pre-prison letters and the Prison Notebooks. The Islamic world contemporary with him was largely rural, with the masses heavily influenced by religion, analogous in some ways to Italy whose economy was still largely oriented towards a peasantry among whom the Vatican played a leading (and highly reactionary) role. In addition to factors such as the politics-religion nexus, what Gramsci was also analysing, without saying as much explicitly, was the upheaval caused by the disintegration and dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire, and the inter-imperialist rivalries over the spoils and the construction of new states from its ruins. Here he draws attention to the first hesitant and contradictory anticolonial stances being adopted among the traditional leaders, as well recognising the basis for more popularly-based movements. In both Catholic countries and, as Gramsci knew especially from the experience of his Comintern work, in parts of the Muslim world, these movements could at times assume a left and politically radical orientation. What emerges is a picture of conflicting hegemonies involving principally religion, class, the political ambivalence of many religious leaders, and a burgeoning nationalism contraposed to the supra-nationalist claims of religion. But the factor underlying everything is the potential of the masses who, if awakened from torpor and detached from European colonialism, were judged capable of rupturing previous imperially-determined equilibria.
Purchase
Buy instant access (PDF download and unlimited online access):
Institutional Login
Log in with Open Athens, Shibboleth, or your institutional credentials
Personal login
Log in with your brill.com account
-
Ageron Charles-Robert ‘Les communistes français devant la question algérienne de 1921 à 1924’ Le Mouvement Social 1972 78 7 37
-
Boothman Derek Baldussi A. & Manduchi P. ‘Gramsci e il Comintern sui mondi arabo, musulmano e palestinese-ebreo’ Gramsci in Asia e in Africa 2010 Aipsa Cagliari
-
Carr Edward Hallett A History of Soviet Russia: The Bolshevik Revolution 1917–1923. Volume 1 1966 [1950] Harmondsworth Pelican
-
Carrère d’Encausse Hélène & Schramm Stuart Le Marxisme et L’Asie 1853–1964 1965 Paris Armand Colin
-
Choueiri Youssef M. Arab Nationalism: A History 2000 Oxford Blackwell
-
Communist International 1929 London Modern Books
-
Devoto Giacomo Il linguaggio d’Italia 1974 Milan Rizzoli
-
Farsoun Samih K. Arab Society: Continuity and Change 1985 London Croom Helm
-
Engels Friedrich ‘On the History of Early Christianity’ The Revolutionary Movement in the Colonies 1955 [1894–5] in Marx and Engels 1955
-
Fisk Robert ‘Suddenly, Those Armenian Graves Opened Up Before My Own Eyes’ The Independent on Sunday 2006 October 15
-
Gellner Ernest Nations and Nationalism 1984 Oxford Blackwell
-
Gramsci Antonio Socialismo e fascismo. L’Ordine Nuovo 1966 Turin Einaudi
-
Gramsci Antonio La costruzione del partito comunista 1923–1926 1971a Turin Einaudi
-
Gramsci Antonio Hoare Quintin & Geoffrey Nowell Smith Selections from the Prison Notebooks 1971b London Lawrence and Wishart
-
Gramsci Antonio Gerratana Valentino Quaderni del Carcere 1975a Turin Einaudi
-
Gramsci Antonio Sotto la Mole 1975b [1960] Turin Einaudi
-
Gramsci Antonio Hoare Quintin Selections from Political Writings, 1921–1926 1978 London Lawrence and Wishart
-
Gramsci Antonio La Città Futura 1982 Turin Einaudi
-
Gramsci Antonio Il nostro Marx 1918–1919 1984 Turin Einaudi
-
Gramsci Antonio Buttigieg Joseph A. Antonio Gramsci: Prison Notebooks 1992a Volume 1 New York Columbia University Press
-
Gramsci Antonio Santucci Antonio A. Lettere 1908–1926 1992b Turin Einaudi
-
Gramsci Antonio Rosengarten Frank Rosenthal Raymond Letters from Prison 1994 Volume 2 New York Columbia University Press
-
Gramsci Antonio Boothman Derek Further Selections from the Prison Notebooks 1995 London Lawrence and Wishart
-
Gramsci Antonio Buttigieg Joseph A. Antonio Gramsci: Prison Notebooks 1996 Volume 2 New York Columbia University Press
-
Gramsci Antonio Buttigieg Joseph A. Antonio Gramsci: Prison Notebooks 2007 Volume 3 New York Columbia University Press
-
Gramsci Antonio Boothman Derek Bellini Camilla, Bianchi Erica, Boothman Derek, D’Alessandro Monica, Ferraresi Adriano, Foschi Maria Lucia, Guerrieri Manuel, Locatelli Marco, Malaguti Luna, Palmieri Federica, Romolo Angela & Tassinari Caterina ‘The History of the Subaltern Groups: Rome and the Middle Ages in Italy’ International Gramsci Journal 2010 2 14 20
-
Gran Peter Islamic Roots of Capitalism: Egypt 1760–1840 1979 Austin University of Texas Press
-
Hodgkin Luke A History of Mathematics: From Mesopotamia to Modernity 2005 Oxford Oxford University Press
-
Kapuściński Ryszard Verdiani Vera In viaggio con Erodoto 2005 [2004] Milan Feltrinelli
-
Malaka Tan ‘Communism and Pan-Islamism’ 1922 available at: <http://www.marxists.org/archive/malaka/1922-Panislamism.htm>
-
Marx Karl & Engels Friedrich On Religion 1955 Moscow Foreign Languages Publishing House
-
Omissi David Air Power and Colonial Control: The Royal Air Force 1919–1939 1990 Manchester Manchester University Press
-
Owen Edward, John Roger & Sutcliffe Robert B. Studies in the Theory of Imperialism 1972 London Longman
-
Owen Roger State, Power and Politics in the Making of the Middle East 2000 Second Edition London Routledge
-
Rodinson Maxime Porcelli M.G. Il fascino dell’Islam 1988 [1980] Bari Edizioni Dedalo
-
Safarov Georgij Ivanovič ‘Sidi-bel-Abbès’s “Extreme Left” ’ Inprecorr 1922 2 102 826
-
Spriano Paolo Storia del Partito Comunista Italiano, Vol. I: Da Bordiga a Gramsci 1967 Turin Einaudi
-
Sraffa Piero Gerratana Valentino Lettere a Tania per Gramsci 1991 Rome Editori Riuniti
-
Van Ravenstein Willem Inprecorr 1922 Volume 2 979 988
-
5.
Devoto 1974, p. 231.
-
6.
Gramsci 1996, Q5§42.
-
7.
Gramsci 1996, Q5§123, pp. 363 and 365.
-
8.
Q20§4: Gramsci 1995, p. 78
-
9.
Q2§30: Gramsci 1995, p. 212.
-
10.
Gramsci, ‘L’armistizio e la pace’, in L’Avanti!, 11 February 1919; now in Gramsci 1984, p. 540.
-
11.
Gramsci 1992a, Q2§30; Gramsci 1995, p. 212.
-
12.
Gramsci 1992a, Q2§90; Gramsci 1995, p. 134.
-
13.
Engels 1955, p. 317, note.
-
14.
Kapuściński 2005, p. 209.
-
15.
Gellner 1984, pp. 73–81.
-
16.
Q5§90: Gramsci 1995, p. 135.
-
17.
Owen 2000, p. 18.
-
18.
Owen 2000, pp. 222–5.
-
19.
Farsoun (ed.) 1985, p. 5.
-
21.
For all this, see Gramsci 1992a, Q2§30, and Gramsci 1995, pp. 210–11.
-
23.
See again Q2§30 in Gramsci 1992a, and for this literal translation (‘Arab nation’) Gramsci 1995, p. 211.
-
24.
Q2§90: Gramsci 1992a.
-
25.
Q2§30: Gramsci 1995, p. 212.
-
29.
Choueiri 2000, p. 127.
-
30.
Gramsci, ‘Delitto e castigo [Crime and Punishment]’, L’Avanti!, 21 March 1918, now in Gramsci 1982, pp. 758–9; also in Gramsci 1975b, pp. 378–9.
-
31.
Gramsci 1994, pp. 152 and 136. See the letters to his sister-in-law Tania of 21 March 1932 (Gramsci 1994) for the direct quote used and of 8 February 1932 for the question of pro-fascist and non-fascist Jewish intellectuals respectively.
-
32.
Sraffa 1991, p. 52; letter to Tania of 1 March 1932. Sraffa himself, though a frequent visitor to Italy, had been at Cambridge University since 1927, called there by Keynes.
-
34.
Q5§90 in Gramsci 1996 and Gramsci 1995, p. 136.
-
37.
Carr 1966, p. 329, n. 3.
-
41.
Q2§78 and Gramsci 1995, p. 196; translation quoted from latter version.
-
43.
Cf. Gran 1979.
-
45.
Gramsci 1995, pp. 120–1.
-
46.
Gramsci 1994, Q2§90; and Gramsci 1995, p. 133.
-
47.
Gramsci 2007, Q7§62.
-
48.
Gramsci 2007, Q6§32 and Q7§71 respectively.
-
49.
Gramsci 2007, Q7§71.
-
50.
Gramsci 2007, Q7§62.
-
51.
Gramsci 1994, Q2§86.
-
52.
Gramsci 1994, Q1§149, paragraph headed by Gramsci ‘North and South’.
-
53.
Gramsci 1994, Q2§40, dating to early June 1930.
-
54.
Cf. Gramsci 1994, Q1§61, dating to early 1930, on the USA, and repeated in Q22§2, for which see Gramsci 1971b, p. 286.
-
55.
Q15§5 in Gramsci 1995, pp. 222–3.
-
57.
Gramsci 2010, p. 16.
-
58.
Gramsci 1996, Q3§125.
-
60.
Gramsci, ‘Il fronte antisoviettista dell’Onorevole Treves [The Honourable Treves’s Anti-Soviet Front]’ in L’Unità, 18 May 1925 and also the following day, after seizure of the 18 May issue; now in Gramsci 1971a, p. 397; cf. again ‘La politica estera del Barnum’, Gramsci 1966, p. 219. The wording ‘republics of the Soviets’ is here preferred to ‘Soviet republics’ to emphasise the Soviets as institutions, as Gramsci and others were doing at the time, which is perhaps indicated by ‘soviettista’, used instead of ‘sovietico’, which later became dominant and took on the nature of an adjective almost of nationality. For strike action in the Middle East, see for example the fairly frequent articles from Jerusalem of ‘J.B.’, published in Inprecorr.
-
63.
Carr 1966, pp. 338 and 330 respectively.
-
64.
Gramsci 1996, Q3§12; for its rewritten form, Q25§1, see Gramsci 1995, p. 53.
-
67.
Gramsci 1978, p. 316.
-
68.
Communist International 1929, pp. 28 and 5 respectively.
-
69.
Spriano 1967, p. 502.
-
70.
Cf. Maxime Rodinson (Rodinson 1988, p. 100), citing the ‘celebrated letter to the secretariat of their party by French communists in Sidi-Bel-Abbès, in Algeria’, published in Carrère d’Encausse and Schramm 1965, pp. 268–71.
-
71.
Safarov 1922.
-
72.
Cf. Ageron 1972, p. 31, n. 54.
-
73.
Gramsci 1992a, Q1§48 (pp. 160–1).
-
74.
Q16§37; Gramsci 1975a, p. 1646.
-
75.
Cf. Q16§11 in Gramsci 1995, p. 66, and its first draft in Gramsci 1996, Q4§53; see also Q25§1 in Gramsci 1995, p. 53.
-
76.
Gramsci 1992a, Q1§43; cf. also the rewritten version of Q19§26, in Gramsci 1971b, p. 98.
-
77.
Gramsci 1992a, Q1§43; cf. Gramsci 1971b, pp. 101–2.
-
78.
Gramsci 1992a, Q5§90; Gramsci 1995, p. 136.
-
79.
Gramsci 1992a, Q2§90; also Gramsci 1995, p. 133.
| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 1100 | 207 | 22 |
| Full Text Views | 237 | 8 | 0 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 161 | 21 | 0 |
Islam in Gramsci’s Journalism and Prison Notebooks: The Shifting Patterns of Hegemony*
In: Historical MaterialismSearch for other papers by Derek Boothman in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Abstract
Gramsci recognised the inestimable historical contribution of Muslim and Arab civilisations, writing on these in his newspaper articles, his pre-prison letters and the Prison Notebooks. The Islamic world contemporary with him was largely rural, with the masses heavily influenced by religion, analogous in some ways to Italy whose economy was still largely oriented towards a peasantry among whom the Vatican played a leading (and highly reactionary) role. In addition to factors such as the politics-religion nexus, what Gramsci was also analysing, without saying as much explicitly, was the upheaval caused by the disintegration and dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire, and the inter-imperialist rivalries over the spoils and the construction of new states from its ruins. Here he draws attention to the first hesitant and contradictory anticolonial stances being adopted among the traditional leaders, as well recognising the basis for more popularly-based movements. In both Catholic countries and, as Gramsci knew especially from the experience of his Comintern work, in parts of the Muslim world, these movements could at times assume a left and politically radical orientation. What emerges is a picture of conflicting hegemonies involving principally religion, class, the political ambivalence of many religious leaders, and a burgeoning nationalism contraposed to the supra-nationalist claims of religion. But the factor underlying everything is the potential of the masses who, if awakened from torpor and detached from European colonialism, were judged capable of rupturing previous imperially-determined equilibria.
| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 1100 | 207 | 22 |
| Full Text Views | 237 | 8 | 0 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 161 | 21 | 0 |
