Download Islam and the Global Oil Economy

Islam and the Global Oil
Economy
•
“They hate our freedom” President
George Bush in an address to a
joint meeting of congress and the
American people September
2001.
– Radical Islamic movements
are often portrayed to be
fundamentally at odds with
western conceptions of
freedom.
– The terrorist attacks on the
World Trade Center are seen
to be an expression of radical
Islam’s hatred of western
economic freedom and
capitalism more generally.
McWorld vs. Jihad
• McWorld: The globalizing
powers of capitalism.
• Jihad: In this instance,
the “narrowly conceived
faiths” opposed to the
homogenizing force of
capital.
• This play on words
seems to suggest that the
Islamic faith is in some
way fundamentally anticapitalist and antimodern.
Is there one Islam?
• Like Christianity, the
Islamic faith can take on
a variety of different
forms and traditions
– Sufism and Wahhabism
– Differences revolve around
interpretations of the
Prophet’s thoughts and
beliefs, interpretations of
Sharia law, and
interpretations of who
should be the Prophet’s
successor.
Islam and Capitalism
• Given the diversity of Islamic
traditions, it is impossible to
assume that there is
something fundamentally anticapitalist about Islam.
– It may be better to think of
Islam as a diverse set of
traditions that revolve
around the Koran and the
teachings of the Prophet,
rather than as a
homogenous, coherent
entity.
Radical Islam and the Oil Economy
• Mitchell argues that instead of thinking in simple
binaries, such as McWorld vs. Jihad, we should
think of the rise of radical Islam as a process of
McJihad.
– By this he means that in two of the most powerful
global industries, arms and oil, the mechanisms of
profit making appear to depend in large part on the
social force and moral authority of conservative
Islamic movements.
– In other words, the mechanisms of global capitalism
depend in important ways on the existence of radical,
authoritarian Islamic regimes.
The political economy of oil
•
•
•
Oil is a strategic commodity with a low
elasticity of demand. This allows for
enormous profits to be made.
Oil is the second most abundant liquid
in the world. Therefore to make profits
oil companies and oil producing
countries need to actively create
scarcity.
One country, Saudi Arabia, has the
greatest surplus of oil in the world.
–
–
Its unused oil capacity, which can be
easily turned off and on, is greater than
the total oil production of every country
except Russia and the US. Around 3
million barrels a day of surplus
capacity.
The possibility of earning oil profits
anywhere in the world depends on the
political control of Saudi Arabia.
Political control of Saudi Arabia
• The monarchical rule of Saudi
Arabia is achieved through an
unstable relationship between
multinational oil companies
and radical Islamic
movements.
– The global political economy
of oil depends in large
measure on the existence of
radical Islamic movements.
– Loss of control over Saudi oil
would threaten the possibility
of extracting massive profits
from the sale of oil.
Wahhabism and the formation of
Saudi Arabia
• Wahhabism, otherwise know as followers
of the doctrine of Tawhid, or muwahhidun.
– Ikhwan, or Brotherhood, are followers of this
Islamic tradition.
– Their goals were:
• 1. To replace the polytheistic traditions of Arab
nomads and “heretical Muslims” with the strict
monotheism of tawhid
• 2. To create an egalitarian Muslim society opposed
to colonial relations with the west.
•
Initially with British, and later with
American military support, Ibn
Saud, the first king and founder of
Saudi Arabia, was able to mobilize
the religious zeal of the Ikhwan to
expand his control over the
Arabian peninsula following World
War I.
– As new parts of Arabia fell
under his control he gained
favor with the Ikhwan by
allowing them to pursue one of
their primary goals: to punish
people they thought to be
heretics (including Shia
muslims) or people who acted
‘immorally’.
The rise of the house of Saud
• After taking control of the Arabian peninsula Ibn
Saud renamed the region Saudi Arabia, the only
country in the world to be named after a single
family.
• Ibn Saud used oil rents derived from Aramco
(The Arab American Oil Company) to finance the
consolidation of his power in the region.
– Ikhwan leadership were willing to ignore the presence
of a foreign oil company in exchange for weapons
and support for their program to convert Arabia to the
teachings and discipline of tawhid.
The Mujahideen
•
•
By the 1950’s the Ikhwan militias
became incorporated into the formal
mechanisms of rule in Saudi Arabia,
renamed the National Guard, their
members are known as mujahideen
(those who fight jihad).
In the 1980s the madrasas (religious
schools) run by the Ikhwan became
sources of political discontent in Saudi
Arabia over rising poverty among the
middle class and the perceived
colonial relationship between the
Saudi elite and the US government.
–
To quell this dissent the House of Saud
exported as many as 12,000
majahideen to Afghanistan to fight a
jihad against the Soviets. This was in
part coordinated by a young
mujahideen named Osama bin Laden.
Al-Qaeda and Afghanistan
• Cold war politics in the
US: funded the
mujahideen and drew out
the conflict in order to
draw the USSR into a
Vietnam like quagmire in
Afghanistan
• From the mujahideen
emerged Al-Qaeda.
• The mujahideen’s
success against the
Soviet’s emboldened their
movement.
Conclusion
• In order to maintain the global scarcity, and
therefore massive profits, of oil, multinational oil
companies financed the arming and training of
radical Islamic movements.
• This was done in order to gain political control
over the massive oil fields of Saudi Arabia.
• Thus, the rise of radical Islamic movements in
the Middle East have their roots in efforts to
control the production of Saudi oil through the
moral control of radical Islam.
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