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"Against the Modern World" Mark Sedgwick
New York: Oxford University Press, 2004
About the book:
Against the Modern World is the first history of Traditionalism, an
influential yet surprisingly little-known twentieth century anti-modernist
movement. Involving a number of important, yet often secret, religious
groups in the West and Islamic world, it affected mainstream and radical
politics in Europe and religious studies in the United States. Emerging
from the 'discovery' in the West of non-Western religious writings, at a
time in the nineteeth century when progressive intellectuals had lost
faith in the ability of Christianity to deliver religious and spiritual
truth, it was fuelled by the widespread religious scepticism that followed
World War I. It found its voice in Rene Guenon, a French writer who
rejected modernity as a dark age, and sought to reconstruct the Perennial
Philosophy - the fundamental truth uniting all the world's religions. Mark
Sedgwick reveals how this pervasive intellectual movement helped shape
major events in twentieth century religious life, politics and scholarship
- all the while remaining invisible to outsiders.
Из книги
Michael
Sedgwick, "Against the Modern World"
стр. 236:
Dugin's movement followed Neo-Eurasioan theory in being
multiconfessional. In addition to Mufti Taj al-Din, there were
representatives of
Russia's
three other established religions -- Orthodoxy, Judaism and Buddhism.
Given the close relations between the Orthodox hierarchy and the Kremlin,
Orthodox participation reflected the centrist more than the radical
element in Dugin's approach. Radicalism more than centrism was visible in
the movement's representative of Judaism, Rabbi Avrom Shmulevich, but the
religions that really mattered were Orthodoxy and Islam.
стр. 238-240:
The more important group <чем группа МАОФ и Букарский в дугинском
движении> is Be'ad Artzeinu, which in 2002 claimed several hundred
members, all of Russian origin. Two of its leaders were in Moscow for the
founding congress of the Eurasia movement, Rabbi Avrom Shmulevich and
Avigdor Eskin, both Israeli citizens of Russian origin*. At present <как
я понимаю, имеется в виду конец 2003 года>, Be'ad Artzeinu has launched
only one action -- a protest outside the Latvian cembassy in Tel-Aviv in
April 2001 -- but the previous activities of Eskin suggest that other
actions may be expected.
<далее подробно описан сам протест, а потом начинается "про вас">
The biography of Shmulevich demonstrates how an Israeli can become a
Neo-Traditionalist, on the face of it a surprising development, given both
Traditionalism's and Neo-Eurasianism's emphasis on Islam and Dugin's
previous connection with groups widely seen as fascist and Anti-Semitic.
Shmulevich was brought up in
Murmansk by
secular Soviet parents, vaguely aware that he was "Jewish" but in no way
religious. After rediscovering the religion of his grandmother, he
emigrated to Israel and became a Hasidic (pietist) rabbi (it is not clear
in what order these events took place**). The Hasidim, who are in some
ways the Judaic equivalent of the Sufis, are fiercely Orthodox, and the
fiercely Orthodox generally take one of two extreme positions regarding
the state of Israel. At one extreme, they may reject it as irreligious,
blasphemous attempt to hasten the redemption. At the other extreme, they
may see Israel as an element in the redemption. In this case, Israel's
unexpected conquest of Judea and Samaria in 1967 is seen as a divine gift,
and any attempt to relinquish these "occupied" territories is
blasphemous***. This is the position that Shmulevich took. He joined some
250 others in a controversial, symbolically important and heavily defended
"settlement" in the center of Hebron, a city of some 40,000 Arab
inhabitants, known by them as al-Khalil.
In Israeli terms, Shmulevich and his companions are indisputably radical,
generally described in the press as "right-wing extremists" (In Israeli
use, the terms "right" and "left" are applied in a very different sense to
that in America and Europe, principally denoting approaches to the
Palestinian question: the left favours land for peace, and the right does
not). The Neo-Eurasianist approach to the Palestinian question is well
illustrated by the activities of Avigdor Eskin, another Hebron settelr of
Russian origin, an associate of Shmulevich, and a member of Dugin's
Eurasia movement.
Eskin and
Shmulevich's participation in a Eurasia Movement that aims to embrace much
of the Islamic world is clearly paradoxical. The alliance with Islam was
clearly not the element of Neo-Eurasianism that appealed to them. What did
appeal was the anti-Americal elements in Neo-Eurasianism, which fit well
with many settler's view of their own government as betraying them, the
Jewish people, and Zionism, under American pressure. Even the government
of Prime Minister Sharon seemed to many settlers only a slight improvement
on that of Prime Minister Rabin, in that it did not entirely reject the
possibility of compromise with the Palestinians and it appeared amendable
to American pressure. Shmulevich's explanation of this betrayal was the
"process of subordination of the political elite to Western influence****"
against which Neo-Eurasianism struggles.
Shmulevich and Eskin are Neo-Eurasianists rather than Traditionalists, and
there is no evidence that either of them has ever read Guenon. Even their
Neo-Eurasianism is a consequence rather than a cause of their other
activities -- Eskin's stance preceded by the development of Neo-Eurasianism,
and his first known political activity was in 1979, when, at age 19, he
and three other young settlers were arrested for breaking into Palestinian
houses in Hebron, where they "overturned furniture and assaulted
inhabitants". Three years later, in 1981, Eskin was again arrested, this
time during a protest in front of Soviet Airline Aeroflot's offices in New
York, and charged with "rioting, unlawful assembly, disorderly conduct and
attempted criminal mischief". The Israeli Neo-Eurasianists represent a
development of Dugin's activities that can not even be described as "soft"
Traditionalism
<"мягким"
традиционализмом автор считает взгляды, например, Мирчи Элиаде>. To the
extent they make use of ideology partly derived from Traditionalism,
however, they too are descended -- albeit indirectly -- from Guenon's
work.
* Lev Gorodetsky, "Risky Ruskies: Russian Fascists's troubling cry: "Euroasia
above all" is his platform", online at Jewsweek, June 17, 2002
** Arseni Volkov, "They called him Nikita", Interview with Abraham
Shmulevich, online
*** see Aviezer Ravitzky, "Messianism, Zionism, and Jewish religious
radicalism" (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1996)
**** Aleksander Sherman, "Here Everything is as usual: they are shooting
(interview with Avrom Shmulevich, April 5, 2001), online
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