Diane writes: Whilst I agree with stopping any form of Sharia Law here, as far as I can see it’s the United Against Fascism group who are in bed with Islamists, not the far right. They defend radical Islam.

Maryam Namazie responds: Yes of course Diane, the Left such as the Socialist Workers’ Party and George Galloway defend Islamism – and of course some more than others. Even so, the far-right – my enemy’s enemy – doesn’t make a friend.

But that doesn’t mean that I think the sad excuse of much of the European Left is any better (even though I myself am on the Left).

It is an anti-colonial movement whose perspectives coincide with that of the ruling classes in the so-called Third World. This grouping 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. In the world according to them, the people in these countries are one and the same with the regimes they are struggling against just as the ‘Muslim community’ here is one and the same with reactionary Islamic organisations, Sharia councils, and parasitical imams. Which is why at Stop the War Coalition demonstrations, they carry banners saying ‘We are all Hezbollah;’ at meetings they segregate men and women and urge unveiled women to veil out of ‘solidarity’ and ‘respect’.

This type of politics denies universalism, sees rights as ‘western,’ justifies the suppression of rights, freedoms and equality under the guise of respect for other ‘cultures’ implying that people want to live the way they are forced to and imputing on innumerable people the most reactionary elements of culture and religion, which is that of the ruling class.

In this type of politics, the oppressor is victim and any criticism racist…

I suppose the whole point of the One Law for All Campaign is to create an alternative space for decent people to resist in a way that does not inadvertently bed them with the fascists or the Islamists and their apologists.

In all of this Diane, you need to choose where you will stand in the battle that lies ahead.

I hope you will choose to be out and about on November 21.

***

To read more of my criticism of cultural relativism, click here.

To read more of my criticism of the far-Right and European Left, see my open letter to anyone who will listen