Day by day I begin to wonder more and more if I can even call myself a communist anymore. Its becoming hard to really reconcile my faith with communism if the ideology itself is theorically opposed to it. Bukharin's book, "ABCs of Communism," has an entire section on Chapter 11 that directly talks about why religion and communism are incompatible. Communists believe history is driven by class struggle and material conditions. Religious people believe in stuff like divine intervention or divine will. A communist would probably look at islam (my faith) and be like "No prophet was sent a message by God and acted upon it, it was their material conditions that made them act." I don't see how one could believe both, it feels like its either or.
Sure, it is perfectly possible for religious people to largely agree with Marxists on such things as historical materialism and present-day class struggles, not to mention struggles for national liberation, against racism, etc. It is possible be anti-capitalist and fight for a classless, moneyless, and stateless society where MOP is colletively owned but at the end of the day, there is philosophical tension.
I feel at best, I can be an ally, but the way I see it, I will never be one of them. I do not belong. My voice does not count equally and my beliefs make me suspect. I have faced hostility from leftists that are atheist and hostile towards religion and been called a revisionist. If this is how me and others are gonna be treated just because of our faith, I'd rather die than simply be used as cannon fodder in a revolution.
As a shi'ite brother, thank you for helping fight sectarianism. It can be very difficult to organize when suspicious of eachother's true intentions. My experience with organizing for Palestine has brought me into working with Sunni comrades, and we've never had an issue. I just hope that this tendency amongst the youth can carry back over to our elders.
On the Shia side of things, it's been helpful to identify Hamas' valiant struggle and compare it with our Imams as a way to break the paranoia some Shia often have towards Sunnis. If you're mother is accepting of Iranian anti-imperialism, then may I perhaps suggest bringing up the works of Ali Shariati?
He was a Marxist inspired sociologist, whose work has basically defined the trajectory of revolutionary Iranian political thought. His works build upon other Muslim socialist works like "Abu Zarr: The God-Worshipping Socialist" which he translated to Farsi from Arabic, originally written by Abdul Hamid Jowdat-al-Sahar, an Egyption author. There should be quite a bit of common ground to look through, but it's unfortunately difficult to find any translated works (very few exist in English).
Assalamualakum brother, I am with you. I will take your suggestion into account. Though bringing up philosophers, their philsophy, and explaining all these terms like socialism might be a little hard for her to understand. I think on top of the things I already show and explain to her (Beliefs, culture, anti-imperialism, etc.), the next step is probably to explain to her the violence our sect (sunnis) have done to shias in an effort to gain sympathy from her.
Hello comrade, something i would suggest is to not to go to her with these concepts directly. As someone who has debated (over)religious people and other prejudiced groups of people, most of the times speaking of such concepts (philosophical, political, etc.) can cause them to put their gaurds up and not agree on things even when it makes sense to them. Instead, I would suggest to take a more indirect approach. Recommend her some short stories, documentaries, or fiction that discusses such themes first. Maybe read/watch them together and then talk about it, analyse it. You could then in your talks bring up your analysis, shaped by dialectical materialism, anti-imperialism etc, which might make sense for her and might help her to question her prejudices herself, especially since she has gone through the emotional journey of the story, she will be less gaurded and more understanding.