A new report by One Law for All entitled “Siding with the Oppressor: The Pro-Islamist Left” exposes Stop the War Coalition, Respect Party, Unite Against Fascism and individuals such as Ken Livingstone and George Galloway and their agenda and methods. This section of the Left uses accusations of racism and Islamophobia and a conflation of Muslim with Islamist in order to defend Islamism and Islam rather than out of any real concern for prejudice against Muslims or their rights, particularly since Muslims or those labelled as such are the first victims of Islamism and on the frontlines of resisting it.
The report has been written as a companion volume to “Enemies not Allies: The Far-Right”. Like the far-Right which ‘despises’ multiculturalism yet benefits from its idea of difference to scapegoat the ‘other’ and promote its own form of white identity politics, the pro-Islamist Left also uses multiculturalism to side with the oppressor by viewing the ‘Muslim community’ and ‘Muslim world’ as homogeneous entities thereby ignoring and silencing dissenters. This politics of betrayal sides with the Islamic far-Right and the oppressor. Challenging this perspective is especially important given its wide acceptance as ‘progressive’ in mainstream society.
Any principled point of view must oppose all forms of fascism, including Islamic fascism, and instead side with the countless people, including Muslims, who are fighting and challenging Islamism here in Europe as well as the Middle East, North Africa and the world.
The below is my postscript to One Law for All’s new publication Siding with the Oppressor: The Pro-Islamist Left. It is a companion volume to Enemies not Allies: The Far-Right. You can read full report here.
The politics of the pro-Islamist Left is a politics of betrayal.
It’s a betrayal of the dissenters and victims of Islamism but also of the very principles that the Left has historically defended (from social justice, egalitarianism, secularism, universalism, and human liberation, including from religion).
This Left uses multiculturalism, charges of racism and Islamophobia, and anti-imperialism, amongst others to defend the far-Right political Islamic movement.
Multiculturalism and Cultural Relativism
The Pro-Islamist Left relies on multiculturalism (not as a positive lived experience but as a social policy and political point of view) to deny the existence of dissent by pigeonholing innumerable individuals with innumerable characteristics into one imagined homogeneous grouping: ‘the Muslim community’ or ‘the Muslim world’. And since it is those in power that determine the dominant culture, this point of view sees Islamist values and sensibilities as that of ‘authentic Muslims’.
In fact, ‘Muslims’ or those labelled as such include secularists, ex-Muslims, atheists, free thinkers, women’s rights activists, LGBT campaigners and socialists.
Conflating Islamism with Muslim is a narrative peddled by Islamists in an attempt to feign representation.
Contrary to how it’s viewed, regressive Islamists are given authority as ‘community leaders’ not because they actually represent the ‘Muslim Community’ but because of their access to the state, political power and their links with the political Islamic movement. Multiculturalism is a cheap way for the state to outsource social control.
Clearly, the ‘Muslim community’ is not synonymous with Islamism any more than English is synonymous with the English Defence League or Christian with the Christian-Right.
Ironically, like the far-Right which ‘despises’ multiculturalism yet benefits from its idea of difference to scapegoat the ‘other’ and promote its own form of white identity politics, the post-modernist Left also uses multiculturalism to defend cultural and moral relativism and side with the oppressor.
To accept the Islamist narrative that Muslim equates Islamist is to hand over countless individuals to the political Islamic movement and to ignore the dissent, political, social and civil struggles and class politics.
This conflation means that those who challenge Islamism are accused of cultural imperialism and orientalism because the pro-Islamist Left has bought into the culturally-relativist notion that societies in the Middle East and North Africa (and the ‘Muslim community’ in the west) are ‘Islamic’ and ‘conservative’. Whilst those in power determine the dominant culture, there is no one homogeneous culture anywhere. Those who consider opposition to the veil or Sharia law as ‘foreign’ and ‘culturally inappropriate’ are only considering Islamism’s sensibilities and values, not that of the many who resist.
Only those who see their rights and lives as separate and different from those deemed ‘other’ and who have bought into (or are selling) Islamism’s narrative can see solidarity and the demand for equality in this warped way.
In fact, this politics doesn’t merely ignore dissent, in many ways it forbids it. The likes of StWC, Socialist Workers Party, Unite against Fascism, Islamophobia Watch, and Respect Party or Ken Livingstone and George Galloway are there as prefects to silence dissenters and defend Islamism as a defence of ‘Muslims’. There are many examples to show that they equate Muslim with Islamist.
In responding to those opposing its alliance with the Muslim Association of Britain (which is understood to be a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood), the StWC’s leadership Andrew Murray and Lindsey German have written:
Anyone remotely acquainted with the British trade union movement will be aware that neither sexism nor homophobia are uncommon in its ranks. […] woman can be subjected to more crude sexist behaviour than they might be likely to encounter within the Muslim Association of Britain. No one would suggest that an anti-war movement should have no truck with trade unionism until its ranks are 100 percent cleansed of such behaviour. Yet this is good enough as a stick to beat Muslims. Such attitudes indicate a form of racism, a desire to hold their organisations at arm’s length for the flaws which are, in some measure, tolerable in ours.
The comparison is absurd. The difference of course is that the ethos of the trade union is not anti-woman, its ethos does not say that apostates should be killed or as the head of the MAB said recently at a debate with One Law for All that women should be stoned to death. StWC’s alliance with the MAB is akin to aligning with the EDL and then saying that racism exists in the ranks of the trade unions too so why single out the English!?
Racism and Islamophobia
This pro-Islamist Left deems any criticism of Islam or Islamism as racism or Islamophobia. However, criticising a religion, ideology or political movement – far-Right or otherwise – has nothing to do with racism. In fact, Islamophobia is a political term used to scaremonger people into silence.
In some ways, these bogus accusations serve Islamism in the same way that Sharia law serves them where they are in power. It helps to threaten, intimidate and silence criticism and dissent. Charges of offence and Islamophobia are the equivalent of ‘secular’ fatwas. It is a warning by the powers that be of what is acceptable and what is not; of what is sacred and cannot and must not be challenged.
This is of course not to ignore that racism exists. Of course it does. But racism cannot be stopped by silencing much needed criticism of Islam and Islamism. Also as campaigner Rahila Gupta says: ‘Recent anti-racist alliances… reveal the capitulation of the left to the fascists within while organising against the fascists without. We should be sophisticated enough by now to construct a politics that is simultaneously anti-racist and anti-fundamentalist so that vulnerable groups like women, lesbians and gays and religious minorities do not get hung out to dry. As feminists we have been abandoned by those who should have been supporting our right to make ‘legitimate criticism’. They feel now, during the War on Terror, is not the right time. In a racist society, it is never the right time. When we expose the underbelly of our communities we are told that we are providing ammunition for racists. For us it isn’t a choice. We can’t hide one evil to fight another.’
Anti-imperialism and force of resistance
Fundamentally, this Left’s support of Islamism comes down to its affinity with Islamism, which it sees as a force of resistance against imperialism. If racism was its real concern, it wouldn’t support the blatantly racist notion of different and lesser standards and rights for those deemed ‘different’.
This Left is part of an anti-colonial movement whose perspectives coincide with that of the ruling classes in the so-called Third World. It is on the side of the ‘colonies’ no matter what goes on there. And their understanding of the ‘colonies’ is Eurocentric, patronising and even racist. To them the people in these countries (and the ‘Muslim minority in the West’) are one and the same with the Islamists they are struggling against. This is why StWC manhandles and expels anti-Iranian regime activists from its demonstrations and rejects resolutions that simultaneously opposes a war on Iran and the regime’s attacks on the working class and population at large. It sees Islamism as a force for resistance whilst it is nothing more than a regressive force for repression. But an enemy’s enemy is not necessarily an ally.
As Women Living Under Muslim Laws says:
Fundamentalist terror is by no means a tool of the poor against the rich, of the Third World against the West, of people against capitalism. It is not a legitimate response that can be supported by the progressive forces of the world. Its main target is the internal democratic opposition to their theocratic project and to their project of controlling all aspects of society in the name of religion, including education, the legal system, youth services, etc. When fundamentalists come to power, they silence the people, they physically eliminate dissidents, writers, journalists, poets, musicians, painters – like fascists do. Like fascists, they physically eliminate the ‘untermensch’ – the subhumans –, among them ‘inferior races’, gays, mentally or physically disabled people. And they lock women ‘in their place’, which as we know from experience ends up being a straight jacket…
What’s most ironic is that Islamism is a force that came into existence as a far-Right, anti-Left movement, supported by Western powers. It’s only after 9/11 that their relationship has changed and only to some extent. It’s still a close ally in helping to manage revolutions and rebellions in the Middle East and North Africa.
This politics of betrayal supports a far-Right movement that has slaughtered an entire generation in a place like Iran, that just recently assassinated socialist leader Chokri Belaid in Tunisia, and that shot 15 year old Malala Yousefzai in Pakistan for wanting education for girls…
Clearly, the Pro-Islamist Left’s politics of betrayal is just as inhuman as that of the far-Right. It’s particularly dangerous given that unlike the far-Right it has managed to gain portrayal in mainstream discourse as ‘progressive politics’.
Any principled position must oppose the far-Right of all varieties but also this pro-Islamist Left and rather side with universalism, equality for all, secularism as well as citizens and human beings, irrespective of beliefs.
DM murdock
I am pre-muslim and Arabian from middle east , I read yor works and I am big fan of you and now I am trying to convey your works to Arabic languge especially did moses exist , christ conspiary , but as the message that you got , it is too difficult , we are suffering from Terrorism acts what called ” Haad Alredaa” Apostasy it causes Beheading to us . thank you for your past and next works
Hi Maryam,
An excellent article as always.
It does somewhat worry and confuse me that, just to pick upon one topic, women in the Islamic world get such a raw deal in the 21st century. This is in part due to Arab cultural practices, but also various parts of the faith which fail to condemn them or outright prop them up.
When defending the rights of women, whoever they are, I find it astounding to hear cries of bigotry, Islamophobia, xenophobia, racism etc. It is as if everyone has forgotten the long hard struggle in the west for these rights. As if only some women deserve to be treated as equal.
Though I do think they are will intentioned, they are trying to fight against all the above, it gets pointed in the wrong direction.
The biggest victims of Islam are Muslims, and especially Muslim women. I want to reduce the effect of Islam, not because of prejudice, but because I want to raise the rights, freedoms and education levels of all people no matter where they are from, what colour their skin or any religious or cultural group they say they subscribe to.
With Christianity in the west, it is almost always used as a general totem for ‘goodness’. Though a hypocritical and deeply forgetful position, I would be happy if we could get the Islamic world to this same stage.
Of course, the (almost unthinkably) intellectually honest position of simply saying that Jesus didn’t raise form the dead, that Mohammed didn’t speak to God and that Abraham isn’t a great role model is the ultimate goal. But I’d settle for women not having acid thrown in their face for honour, the right to drive, the right to apostasy without physical punishment or death, the right to walk alone and wear what they like as short term goal. Is that so much to ask?
It is hard enough to argue with such deeply engrained social norms and a book they think is the actual word of god, without people who already have the freedoms we are fighting for joining the wrong side.
I think the main causes are ignorance and a justifiable sensitivity to anything which even looks like it may have a hint or racism and hate. The cures are, as always, more thinking, and more writing like yours.
Regards
Thank you for this very important and long overdue (to my ears at least) debate. You have helped me by putting a label (the pro-Islamist left) on many of my comrades who began to make me feel increasingly uneasy as time went on.
You say “this politics doesn’t merely ignore dissent, in many ways it forbids it.” I know exactly what this means. As a teacher in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets I frequently felt intimidated at meetings where I got the distinct impression dissent was not welcome on these issues.
The phrase “knee-jerk anti-imperialism” is a phrase I recall from debates among small left groups in the seventies. So the idea was around then. Hopefully now that social media is so prominent the idea can be made more widespread and the issue squarely faced.
Hi Ian…
Taking about “anti-imperialism”….
Here is another clue, for your comrades,. next time the conversation gets on that topic……
Just tell them : « How do you call an ideology whose ultimate goal, written black on white in a very widely circulated book., is to “submit” the entire Earth —through persuasion or, else, through mass slaughter—, in order to “unify” the world…. but as long as it’s under their inhuman rule ».
? ?
Tell them to get better informed on that one, and to read what is called “the Medina suras” in the coran : it’s literally appalling —and shattering !
How can they label themselves “anti” imperialists, and at the same time, be so lenient and justificatory with one of the most totalitarian dogma ever written by a group of human beings ??
The answer, as usual, is : ignorance, sometimes reinforced by guilt-ridden thoughtlessness (i.e. : « I don’t even wanna hear about this part of the story ! ».
Oh, and before you all say: “Oohh, just a far-Right racist”:
*I’m NOT religious
* I support gay rights
*Unlike you terrorist-Palestine supporters/sympathisers, I FULLY support Israel and Zionism.
*I fully support Western civilisation
I know this is an old post, but it gives me a smile. I am all you listed as well. And as an ex-Muslim I can clearly see right-wing extremists as well as left-wing extremists (who think everyone who disagrees with them are idiots, racist, bigots, and extremists…sighes). I see both sides as anti-freedom and anti-free speech, and both have very common tactics in silencing different points of views.
I never understood why left-wing extremists have an adamant hatred of Israel. They are one Jewish state in a SEA of Muslim states (which were all under the control of Ottomon Empire in the past and separated by British/Western forces, which is why there are still land disputes to this day; you can not claim that Arabs are entitled to Israel and not the Jews (similar to Shittes, Sunnis etc) as BOTH lived there. The only true democracy in that region for decades, most liberal, most free, least racist (most Arab/Muslim countries in the ME will not give you citizenship unless you are Arab or even down to “their type of Arab” example Palestinians to this day are treated as cattle, and less than human citizens in Lebanon and Jordan no matter how long they lived their, compared to many Israeli-Palestinians who have found peace and citizenship in Israel also all Jews who were kicked out from Muslim countries, the left NEVER talks about this, were happily welcomed into Israel) , pro-feminist, most gay-accepting, most international/immigrant accepting country in the Middle East.
And they call them far-right!! Then what does that make Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan???
It’s okay, the truth will always stand. And the people who stand with freedom/liberty/peace will always win. I’m proud with Canada’s stance and support for Israel. It is an amazing country, surrounded by many enemies and a beacon of hope in the ME! Zonism is a Jewish right, as all people should be have the right to exist and live peacefully. If Muslims were in the same position as the Jews today (one Muslims country surrounded by enemies of Christian and Jewish countries who hate them because they are Muslim) I would have supported them too, sadly the far-left only decides with one mind and bias
Let me be clear: I, and those like me, KNOW that Islam, Muslims and the far-Left filth (which includes many CEBM members) are the main enemy. The CEBM, by the way, was found to be allied with that scum org, TellMamaUK, so they’re no friends of freedom, or of England.
Again: This is OUR nation. Our forefathers lived, died and fought for it.
Your comparisons are pretty disgusting. Oh, its good that you oppose Islamism, but your definitions of far-Right are fucking WANK. Firstly, Robert Spencer et al are FAR from being far-Right. Robert is a patriot, and he’s worth more than all of you fucking put together. Secondly, England is OUR fucking nation, and fighting our racial/cultural destruction (the filthy ideology of multiculturalism) is NOT far-Right. Its not even Right-wing. You fucking conflate resisting the destruction of our race (White), both domestically and globally, with being far-Right? Fuck you. Thank you.
Let’s see…
1) — “not religious” : not a criterion for “left” or “right” leanings ;
2) — “support gay rights” : not a criterion either >>> there ARE “NF gays”, in case you didn’t know…
3) — “support Israel” : if you mean PRESENT DAY israel, YOU ARE extreme-right ( today’s israeli government applies an extreme-right wing policy )
4) — “support “western civilisation” : usually… a typical “white supremacists” blabber
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Conclusion : try to open some basic books about modern politics ok ?
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And for your own information, remember : “RACES” DON’T EXIST / ONLY RACISTS EXIST” ! ! !
Interesting, albeit largely incorrect, evaluation, my friend.
To double-m :
The BIG difference between fighting against a fascist doctrine —whatever it is— and being racist, is that, in the first case, you fight against a mere humain intellectual construction. I.E. : people are responsible for the intellectual choices they make.
The counter-proof… is that anybody can change their philosophical and political “allegiances”, or even change their religious beliefs (CEMB, and, soon, CEMF are living evidences for this !).
Racism, on the other hand, is hatred of people… not for what they think —always debatable—, but for what they intrinsically are ! !
As I use to say, you can scratch the epidermis of a Black guy or of a coppery-skin American-Indian for hours with a scratch-pad, it won’t turn white or beige ! These guys are BORN like that, and nobody will be able to change it (compared to personal choices).
That’s why anti-islamism, anti-evangelism, anti-israeli policy —to name a few— is intellectual debate, and antisemitism, anti-Arabs or anti-Pakistanis is racism, pure and simple.
QED…
PS : Also, lets remember that all Arabs aren’t muslims, and all muslims aren’t Arabs —which proves the stupid emptiness in these racists’ heads, who, in their blind hatred, mix-up everything in a disgusting and foul-smelling stew…
Very well put.
There are a lot of liberals out there falling over themselves to cry ‘racist’ at the first possible opportunity.
I wonder if they have league tables and things, or get together to see who pointed the finger with an apocryphal accusation the most times on a given day.
It is part of a very shallow and easily misguided rotten vein through the heart of modern Western society.
The worst of their ilk to my mind is the ultra wet liberal British comedy worker (Mitch Benn, Jeremy Harding and Mark Steel amongst them).
If they all got up and became involved in a genuine cause they might really do something to improve the world. But no, that would be too hard, and might require some actual thought and understanding of world events on their behalf. Much easier to pick an imagined criminal closer to home to be the recipient of their self gratifying collective abhorrence.
I agree that being anti-Arab is racist. How is being anti-Pakistani racist? Pakistanis are not a race. DNA-wise, the overwhelming majority are of the Subcontinent.
Besides, criticising mainstream Pakistanis should fall in the same category as criticising any other nationality. For example, if the vast majority of Pakistanis hold attitudes of, at minimum, silent acceptance of oppression of minorities and, on that basis, someone generalises that Pakistanis are intolerant of minorities, is that person anti-Pakistani?
“Siding with the oppressor”same can be said for you really as you are helping with some sort of smear campaign.
It’s not a smear campaign. It is relating facts about a section of the Left that defends Islamism at the expense of people and their rights. The truth is not a smear. The facts speak for themselves. I side with people – not the far-Right, not Islamism. I oppose US-led militarism and Islamism. I am on the Left but will expose and oppose that section of the Left that betrays its principles and sides with Islamist criminals. If you want to debate the report’s findings, do it but calling it a smear campaign won’t allow us to take you seriously.
We all agree that racism is a horrible, hateful thing. When the extreme and sometimes downright delusional left, quite incorrectly accuse people who are wary of, or even anti Islam, of being racist… it is pure and simple hate speech; nothing more, nothing less.
Islamophobia is nothing but a trendy rabble rousing term, the implied meaning of which defies the true definition of the word. Oh yes, there is persistent and irrational fear present in the west relating to Islam, but it doesn’t belong to the people who question it. The only true phobia exhibited, is when people refuse to condemn barbaric acts and harmful intentions because it hides behind the veil of Islam.
Thank you for a great article! The choice is not between Islam and Western conservatism. In fact, I would argue that the two are a lot more related than they’re willing to admit. What needs to be communicated much more clearly is that there’s a third position that sees both of those ideologies equally critically. I’ve tried to explain this many times, but I have trouble getting through to many European progressives. Their responses usually involve some sort of accusation of racism. When I ask them whom exactly I’m supposed to be rascist against (my family comes from the Middle East), they switch to some variation of “intolerant”.
I’d really be interested in a successful communication strategy for this issue.
Email me Maryam at maryamnamazie AT gmail DOT com
« Sometimes it’s hard to know where lines should be drawn » ???
Well… I think maybe you are making the well-known confusion between doctrines and people… What is complex, I agree with you, is the inner functioning of people. But is turns out to be very simple when we come to doctrines. Most of the rulers that have been branded “tyrants” or “dictators”….. have always announced clearly what they intended to do, by the time they would be elected (rarely) or seize power ! !
And even worse… they always did what they said they would do ! !
Look at “What Is to Be Done?” by Lenin… “Mein Kampf” by Hitler… the “Little Red Book” by Mao… and, more recently, the “Green Book” by Muammar Gaddafi…
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So… It doesn’t take five years of political studies in a university to read their doctrine, make one’s neurons warm up a bit…. and make up one’s mind, doesn’t it ??
For example, when a doctrine states that, generally, women are worth HALF of a man, that people who don’t agree with that doctrine should be “invited” [sic !] to submit to it, and if they turn it down, then any “faithful” has the right to kill them, even from behind… well… no matter which way you look at it, I call that mere, straightforward fascism.
And to me, fascism is fascism.
Whoever propagates it, and whatever he or she would be : a Zulu, a Patagonian, an Inuit or a Saudi.
Period.
I really think that the phenomenon described in this article, comes, unfortunately, from a degeneracy in these so-called leftists’ political keenness and awareness.
I’ve never been a “leftist” (being a long-time rationalist libertaire), but I’ve known quite a few of ’em in my day and age (fifties, sixties, seventies…), and they sure welcomed, organised and supported Middle-East or subsaharian-african immigrants…. as repressed and humiliated people. But I can assure you that they’d never have defended them, if they had seen that these immigrants had such a fascist agenda —like, for example, “establishing sharia” in the countries who welcomed them ! !
Today, the problem pointed out in the article seems to be, merely, the result of a dramatic lack in the most basic religious and political analysis….
Dumbness wins !
So… These stray left-wing militants are just what Caroline Fourest, a renown essayist and expert on these topics, calls “their useful Idiots” [ “leurs Idiots utiles” ].
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Gloomy times….
I agree with Bjarte – also with atheist’s observation that there does seem to be quite a lot of mainstream Islamophobia from the right in the US. I agree with the post too I think – although (and this fits in with Bjarte’s point) there’s some complex middle ground, and sometimes it’s hard to know where lines should be drawn.
I think the key concept here is over-compensation: To be sure, there is such a thing as prejudice against Muslims, it is often disguised as religious criticism, a fake concern for the treatment of Muslim women etc. Leftists know this, thus they have learned to be suspicious and always on the look-out for hidden hidden agendas.
But then you get into something rather like the pattern-detection problem: The difference between reality and a map is that the former doesn’t come with neat, painted borders, thus if you are determined to make sure you stay on the “right side” (as in “never siding with white racists”), you are inevitably going to generate a lot of false positives and dismiss some actual, legitimate criticisms in the process.
Of course some of it is also just plain cowardice and hypocrisy. As Nick Cohen has argued, nobody has more reason to feel betrayed by western liberal’s hyper-defensiveness re. the oppressive nature of Islamism than those in the “Muslim world” who actually share their values (feminists, queer rights advocates, religious dissidents etc.) and don’t think they should be limited to white people.
I’ve never in my life seen a “pro-Islamist Left”… of course, I’m an American, and we don’t even really have a “Left” anymore either.
You’re not looking hard enough…
Then fucking provide an example instead of dancing around you patently false assertion. The reason you won’t address the direct rebuttal of your specious claim is because you can’t. You want to know who in the US unashamedly supports oppressive Islam? Anyone who supports invests in and benefits from oil and the oil business because you can’t get more oppressive than that.
But you didn’t write that, now either provide an example of “lefty” groups in the US who are supporters of the latest incarnation of an abusive and oppressive religion or have a coke and a smile and shut the fuck up.
Your shitty writing being linked to Reddit is bad enough but to then attempt to deflect from your unsupported assertions is just cowardly.
Then you’re not paying attention.
You seem to be focusing on the UK. I can’t speak to that, but here in the US, we left wingers are constantly accused of siding with Islamic terrorists because we’re anti-war and pro-civil rights. The Islamophobia of the US mainstream is profound, and we tend to focus on that simply because we’re right in the middle of it.
It’s the same with this left everywhere, including in the US. There are many examples of this Left there defending the veil, Islamism and so on using the very same justifications. I have a problem with the term Islamophobia – to me it is a political term used to scaremonger people into silence. There is of course racism and bigotry but that will not be addressed via silencing criticism and free expression or siding with Islamism. I think it’s very clear. Similarly the far-Right like the English Defence League or Stop Islamization of America may be taking advantage of real grievances but their aims are clear. I think it is the same with this Left. Their aim is to defend Islamism because of their affinity to it as it is seen to be an anti-imperialist force… It’s a cop-out to say that the report only addresses the UK so it is irrelevant to the US. The Left should begin to acknowledge this section and its defence of Islamism at the expense of many Muslims, ex-Muslims and others.
I take your point that some on the left may defend Islamism because they see it as a force in opposition to Western Imperialism. I agree with you that this point of view is delusional. I also agree that the left should work to defend ex-Muslims, and atheists in Theocratic Muslim nations, and really ex-believers and dissenters from religion of any kind.
Where I disagree with you is in the notion that “Islamophobia” is a merely political term. I consider it to be a real and dangerous form of bigotry. Please understand that I’m not accusing anyone blogging at “Free Thought Blogs” of Islamophobia, just arguing that it’s real.
My problem with the whole “Islamophobia” meme is that it blurs the very important distinction between phobia against Muslims as people and phobia against the religion of Islam (i.e. the alleged teachings of the prophet Mohammad as represented by the Quran, the Hadith, or the interpretations of later Muslim clerics). There is much to criticize about Johann Hari, but I think he hit the nail on the head when he said:
Whatever’s legitimate about the “Islamophobia” term can be expressed better (because less confusing) by expressions such as “Anti-Muslim bigotry” or even better “Anti-Arab bigotry”, “Racism against people of Middle-Eastern decent” etc.
Point taken about fake respect, and also about the potential for confusion in the term “Islamophobia”.
Most so called “atheists” I read here in the US are slavering Islamopanderers without a clue, sharing faux butthurt with their Muslim buddies. There is no such thing as Islamophobia except in the minds of Islamopanderers, Muslims and whiny faux atheists. “Islamophobia” is a contrived, invented term, nonsensical term devised to silence criticism of Muslims and Islam. Apparently, it worked with you.