AWL week school discusses religion, "fundamentalism" and anti-imperialism

Submitted by AWL on 23 December, 2013 - 4:31

The AWL held a week-long school on religion, religious "fundamentalist" politics and anti-imperialism at University of London Union between 16 and 20 December.

We hold these events from time to time to allow members, sympathisers and interested people to discuss issues and learn about things in more depth than is usually possible at a one- or two-day event. The background to this school was the recent controvery around Marxists' attitude to politicised religion, and "political Islam" in particular. One of the aims was to allow people to consider the issues behind the controversy in depth.

Over the five days we discussed issues including the existence or otherwise of God; Marxist attitudes to religion; multiculturalism and cultural relativism; anti-Muslim racism/bigotry; Trotsky's theory of 'permanent revolution'; the history and changing nature of imperialism; national conflicts, particularly Ireland; the nature and roots of political Islam; and concepts of universalism and historical progress.

We hope to hold regional dayschools on some of these issues in the new year.

For the agenda and reading from the week school, see here.

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