Yesssss – finally the progressive liberal Muslims are starting to get a voice in the UK media. The Independent quotes four who were on Panorama last week.
Last week four British Muslims told the BBC’s Panorama why they believe the government is right to identify “non-violent extremism” as the ideology that helps lays the ground for violent extremism. They explained that this non-violent ideology is the politicised version of puritanical Sunni Islam that dominates Saudi Arabia and which has been exported to Britain and around the world over decades.
The programme showed how Salafi Wahhabism is wreathed in anti-westernism, contempt for parliamentary democracy, reactionary attitudes to gender equality and gay rights, and disdain for other faiths. Through its UK-based adherents, this puritanical strain of Islam has taken on a life of its own here with a proliferation of Islamic teaching institutions, activist groups and Islamic satellite channels. It “takes young Muslims to the front door of violent extremists” said Sara Khan.
And yet many on the left persist in thinking that Islamism is an ally.
Adam Deen runs an institute promoting “critical thinking and rational thought” among British Muslims. He told Panorama that puritanical Islam is “a cancer. We have to pinpoint where the problem is.” It is rare and brave for British Muslims to speak with such candour. They know how hard it is for many ordinary Muslims, let alone extremists, to accept that Islamic theology is prone to being turned into bad theology when it morphs into a toxic political ideology.
Barely had transmission begun when Deen’s twitter account was hit by a stream of abuse. He was a “coconut aren’t you lad?” (brown outside, white inside); a “scumbag white man”; a “white liberal man”; a “kafir lover” (a derogatory Arabic term for “infidel” or “disbeliever”); he had been paid by David Cameron to “become a complete donkey for the Home Office, Kafir lover”; he was a “Kafir apostate” (a Muslim who had abandoned Islam) who should go to Saudi to be “executed”; a “little snake”; “quite frankly mate, get lost” – and so on.
Of course. That’s what Twitter’s for, innit.
Likewise Khan was dismissed as a “feminist” who was “parroting the same rhetoric” as another interviewee Manwar Ali. An ex-Afghan jihadi who has long since renounced violence, Ali explained that dividing the world starkly into “them” and “us” (believers and non-believers) was the first step on the road to violent extremism.
See the Twitter comments above.
Last autumn, Khan led a campaign by Muslim women against the “barbarism of Islamic State” promoted by The Sun newspaper’s front page featuring a woman wearing a Union Jack hijab. This provoked a mouthy young Islamist called Dilly Hussain to describe Khan as “the government-friendly desperado”. He is deputy editor of a new website called 5Pillars which refers favourably to the extremist organisation Hizb-ut-Tharir as “working for the re-establishment of the Caliphate”.
While Hussain sermonises about “Islam’s true teachings of brotherhood” he also does a particularly venomous line in abuse against the “sisterhood”, describing Khan as an “airhead” who belongs to an “ultra-minority of secular liberal ‘Muslims’ who service nothing and no one but Islamophobes.” He has likewise called another female Muslim critic a “stupid liberal cow”, a “fat cow” and a “p***head” who writes “drunken liberal garbage” and should “do one”.
The personal vituperation and constant smearing by Muslims of co-religionists who dare to challenge this kind of non-violent extremist narrative helps explain why more have not put their heads above the parapet.
There’s much more; read the whole thing.
I hope they can start a successful backlash. At any rate the responses from their opponents reveal them to be exactly the kinds of people associated with other campaigns against justice and reasonableness in all its forms, e.g. MRA’s.
I hope British law doesn’t forget about harassment of Muslims by other Muslims if they cross the line. And I hope the harassment is drawn to wider public attention by the national news outlets as it was in the case of Caroline Criado-Perez.
It’s not about hating non Muslims and secular Muslims, it’s about ethics in religious journalism!
They’re hard at work on that backlash. And it is happening.
@Ophelia:
What? Who on the left thinks Islamism is an ally? Can you name 3 prominent democrats who think Islamism is an ally?
3 writers for the Nation?
Does Ralph Nader think Islamism is an ally? Zinn? Chomsky?
Do any of these women qualify as leftists who think (or thought) of Islamism as an ally?
I don’t think of Friedan or bell hooks or Angelou as being particularly close allies of Islamists.
Maybe there are some transfeminists that are fist-bumping the Wahhabists?
Who exactly are these “many on the left”? What makes you think that they think of Islamism as “an ally”?
An ally in what cause, exactly? Feeding the poor, maybe?
I find this statement of yours absolutely nonsensical any way it’s parsed.
@CripDyke Quite. To identify islamism as an ally is to abandon any claim to being on the Left. So it’s just sniping. There are a tranche of atheists who think atheism is automatically juxtaposed to the Left. Kinda gives you a clue as to where those atheists really are on the political spectrum.
Dear liberal
Who are the allies?
Well, lets put it this way – all of those liberals whose first instinct to the Charlie Hebdo murders was to accuse the magazine of being racist? Yes, they count as very much being allies. Every post talking about how provocative the magazine was? Allies. Every word about how there should be more limits imposed on free speech in response to this? Allies.
Every word about how the real motivations of this were economic disparities, oppression, colonialism, xenophobia et cetera?
Yeah fuck you, you’re not an ally to “Muslims”, you’re an ally to Islamists.
Muslim immigrants as a whole in France deal with those same disparities, oppression, colonialism, xenophobia et cetera – without killing people for drawing pictures they don’t like. But you want to throw them all in the same box.
You generalize these terrorists to represent the entire community – and then you defend the group you have stuck in this box together. Oh, don’t criticize what their terrorists are fighting for, that’s “punching down.”
Because you know mocking somebody who is supposed to be besties with an all powerful, all knowing being is somehow bullying the weaker party.
And yeah that’s such a great upgrade on the rightwing – “Oh we think you want the same things as these terrorists, but we’ll defend you on that.”
“Aren’t we so much better than the xenophobes – we think the exact same things about you, but we’re willing to defend you over them, no matter what you might think about the issue.”
No matter that Muslim voices, such as the mayor of Rotterdam, say that if you don’t support free speech you can fuck off out of their countries (because realize once you are a citizen it is your country), no matter about the ex-Muslims who face the same issues as Muslims but with the added pressures of being apostates in a religion that doesn’t tolerate that, no matter about all of this, the legitimate voices of Islam are offended.
You know who I admire after the attacks? the Cumhuriyet. They’re one of the largest newspapers in Turkey, their sales figures show that their point of view isn’t entirely unusual for the area.
They’re getting criminally probed for their coverage of the Hebdo attacks and publishing some of the cartoons in the French paper (thus offending religion). The only reason they didn’t publish the cover was because the cops were there to stop them.
They’re Muslims, but hey, they must be offended too mustn’t they? After all the Jihadis are offended.
And that matters so much more than the 17 people killed in France, it matters so much more that the extremist are offended, and the “moderates” are offended and they’re the real voices for Muslims aren’t they?
You deplore but… you want to help them achieve their aims. Oh, you deplore but… you support the goals of the violence.
That is being an ally. There is no other word for it.
I do find it rather odd that we have such a hard time, in the west, realising that there’s more than one form of Islam. We can recognise a thousand and one sects of Christianity, but even if you can find someone who recognises Sunni & Shia, they’re unlikely to be able to tell you the difference, and either way, they’ll either condemn all Muslims for the actions of extremists, or they’ll call any criticism racism. How can we hope to achieve anything with regard to Islam with such a simplistic understanding of it?
I’m glad there are some who’re taking a definitive stand against their extremist cousins. What can we do to support them?
Ever since I read the Euston Manifesto and Nick Cohen’s “whats left” about 7 years ago I’ve been banging this particular drum as it just didn’t make sense that the liberal left would ally itself to Islamists. Cohen shows exactly how things became twisted.
Its nice that people are catching up.
However, someone asked who among the left was critical of this stance and mentioned that ethnic cleansing denier Chomsky
“Noam Chomsky: Oh, Nick Cohen’s a maniac. If you’ll notice, he never cites anything. Does he cite anything? That already gives you the answer. Go back and check. He doesn’t cite anything. These are just diatribes, tantrums. I’m not interested in them.”
https://www.guernicamag.com/interviews/chomsky_half_full/
Read some of the criticism from 7 years ago from supposedly liberal left publications, from supposedly liberal left writers of The Jew (yes, most of them mention his ethnicity) Cohen, and you will see what I mean.
Danny Butts:
This is ridiculous. The question was: “Who on the left thinks Islamism is an ally?” It was not “Who has ever said something critical of Nick Cohen?” so your so-called evidence is completely irrelevant. Here’s the context that precedes that comment (happily, you did link to the interview from which it was taken, which coincidentally I had posted about at the time):
Chomsky is clearly saying that Cohen is misrepresenting him, and he’s angry that Cohen publishes (mis)characterizations of his views without citations. That’s a legitimate complaint. Whether his statement about Cohen is entirely true or not, I don’t know, nor do I know exactly where I stand in terms of their disagreements when their views are accurately represented, but I do know how annoying it is to be misrepresented on the basis of no or weak evidence, as you’re doing too when you present that quote in response to the question asked. And I assume you’re aware that Chomsky is also Jewish.
Athywren:
Yes. People who are quite capable of distinguishing those who attack abortion clinics from themselves or their friends who go to church, their Catholic family members from Bill Donohue, suddenly become incapable of making these distinctions when it comes to Muslims. Equally unfortunate, there’s a strange inability to recognize the similarities between Christian and Islamic extremists (and across the religious – and nonreligious – Right), a recognition that’s necessary to the struggle against them.
This particular mischaracterization will make me especially suspicious of Cohen’s work going forward (I know little about him): “Chomsky is as reluctant to admit that al Qaeda is an autonomous movement as he is to admit the existence of the democratic and socialist opposition to Saddam Hussein.” He doesn’t provide a citation because Chomsky did not in fact refuse to “admit” the existence of that opposition. His opposition to the invasion and occupation of Iraq had nothing to do with such an imaginary refusal, as Cohen had to be well aware. He made a spurious accusation in order to smear opponents of his support for the invasion and occupation (which evidently he continues to think was the right move, so points for consistency if not for reason or ethics).
SC (Salty Current), OM
I agree with the majority of that article, particularly
“Iraq shocked liberals into the notion that they should stay out of the affairs of others…as the Nato governments who sent troops to Iraq did not. But unless you are careful you are going to have difficulties supporting the victims of oppressive regimes if you devote your energies to find reasons to keep their oppressors in power. Go too far in a defence of the status quo and the idea soon occurs to you that an oppressive regime may not be so oppressive after all.”
And if you don’t think it would be easy for me to
find quotes by Chomsky supporting Islamist organizations, go on dare me.
Opps sorry, missed that [citation needed] for ethnic cleansing denier Chomsky.
Well Chomsky on Serb atrocities “a good deal of what has been charged has no basis in fact, and much of it is pure fabrication.”
And the concentration/exermination camp at Trnopolje
” it was probably the reporters who were behind the barb-wire, and the place was ugly, but it was a refugee camp, I mean, people could leave if they wanted and, near the thin man was a fat man and so on …”
And then there was that time that he agreed against the evidence that the victims of the Srebrenica massacre was “greatly exaggerate” and that the cause of death was “undetermined”. He also supported a claim that the majority of the victims of the Rwanda massacre were militia.
[he had written a glowing forward to a book that made these claims and then weaseled around what was being claimed]
http://www.monbiot.com/2012/05/21/2181/
Doesn’t surprise me at all.
Bilge. Cohen is here (again) mischaracterizing his opponents’ views. I saw little or no evidence of voices on the Left opposing the invasion because they preferred to find reasons to keep oppressors in power or defend the status quo. The reasons for opposition included but were not limited to: major justifications for the invasion were highly questionable (and we now have long known them to be false, and to have been known to be false at the time by the people claiming them), waging an aggressive war is a crime; the historical pattern of US-British “regime change” is a very ugly one; only the most credulous* could believe that a just and democratic society would emerge from a US-led invasion and occupation given that the motives behind it were very plainly oil, imperialism, and corporate power and enrichment (hence the pattern noted above; you have to be an utter fool not to recognize this now); it would likely lead to mass deaths, destruction, and violations of human rights (as it has); it would further the security-state status quo domestically in the US and its allies; there are means of supporting democratic-justice movements around the world (which themselves are often hostile to the actions of the US government, which in turn is hostile to them) that are made more difficult by invasion, occupation, and war. That war has gone a long way in supporting authoritarian violence and defending the status quo, at almost unimaginable costs and based on criminal lies.
For the past two weeks, I’ve dealt, and watched other people deal, with people making assertions that are plainly false, unsupported by or in some cases contradicted by evidence, or responding to such a twisted representation of what others have been saying that they’re not actually contributions to the discussion at all. In almost every case, the person has then Gish galloped away from their error or dishonesty. This is intellectually dishonest and no one should have to put up with it. The question asked was very clear. You pretended to respond to it but didn’t, and your example was as dishonest as Cohen’s characterization of Chomsky. I’m not interested in arguing with people who have so little respect for the truth that they’re willing to twist the facts like this.
I have little doubt that you believe you can produce statements by Chomsky demonstrating the absurd contention that Chomsky, who is for the record not a liberal but an anarchist like me, thinks Islamism is an ally. (I don’t agree with every statement Chomsky makes about politics or religion, but I know he doesn’t consider Islamism an ally. The US government, in contrast, literally, formally considers at least some Islamists allies.) You’ve also vaguely called upon people to read statements from several years ago (also suggesting that many were anti-Semitic), without providing any names, links, or specifics. I fully expect that they will be as confused or stupid as your first attempt. But at the very least you could acknowledge that what you provided above in no way showed that Chomsky thinks Islamism is an ally. I’m willing to argue with people with whom I disagree; I’m not going to continue talking to someone who’s willing to distort things in this way to try to score points.
*And unjustifiably ignorant, given the ready availability of US government intervention in Latin America.
Danny Butts
Cohen, is talking out of his ass there.
The major reason we (as I too opposed the invasion at the time) opposed it was because there was no evidence for the claims that spurred it. Even without that a war of aggression was not something to be undertaken lightly.
Further we recognised that the US was already committed to Afghanistan, and dividing the military’s attention into another front would only undermine that effort, allowing the Taliban to come back and do things like, I don’t know, spread to Northern Pakistan.
Further still we recognised that there was no proposed plan for what came next, after the war. Sure you can depose a dictator, what is your plan for maintaining law and order after he has gone?
We foresaw the rise of groups like Isis as a result of the war, and we haven’t been shown to have been wrong yet. Opposing the war in Iraq wasn’t anything to do with being an ally to Islam, it was everything to do with paying attention.
That seems to be a very complicated and long-running debate, in which, in my preliminary and superficial reading, Monbiot is probably right to challenge some claims made and at least tacitly supported about some specific cases, the ethics of claimsmaking, and even the pattern of presenting events; but at the same time misrepresents some arguments and fails to fully appreciate the broader argument they’re making about official-mainstream narratives of genocide, how they’re structured by power, how questioning these narratives is received, and where his own articles fall in all of this. To toss out the claim that Chomsky is an “ethnic cleansing denier” on that basis, or on the basis of a few decontextualized quotations, even aside from its irrelevance to the topic at hand in this thread, is not OK.
Honestly, we can’t have conversations about anything if this is going to be the manner of proceeding – fling out serious allegations without any support and then if asked to substantiate them provide scattered, decontextualized, one-sided and misleadingly framed bits of information, while not furnishing any basis for understanding what the words or images were in response to.
Always good to see the US Army defending our secular values against religious extremists.
Crip Dyke @ 4 –
That’s a bizarre comment. It’s as if you’ve never read this blog before, yet I know you’ve commented here in the past.
I didn’t say “the left” tout court; I didn’t even say most on the left; I said many on the left. If you draw a blank on that…I don’t know what to tell you – I guess go back to the fatwa on Rushdie and work your way from there.
@17 Ophelia Benson – Well plausibly denied. “Many” doesn’t mean “many” when you say it. Deft.
What did I say that’s incompatible with the meaning of “many”?
@brucegorton & Ophelia Benson:
The original claim was:
This can only mean – supposing this is uncoded English – that there are people legitimately “on the left” that believe, in their own minds, that Islamism is their ally.
brucegorton goes off into the wilderness of noting that many actions taken by people who place themselves on the left have real-world effects that are beneficial to Islamists and Islamism.
Ophelia’s only response is:
No reply to the substance. And yet it’s undeniably true that Ophelia’s blogging has been far more about unintended consequences of actions taken and ill-considered positions/policies/opinions held by persons on the left than about those on the left who are willing to stand up and say,
You are welcome to disabuse me of my error, Ophelia, but there is a vast, vast difference between the claims that left-leaning idiots that unintentionally help Islamism and that
Please, feel free to counter with the evidence of your blog (or, brucegorton, to counter with something actually remotely on topic), but I have read your blog – at times I’ve read every items for months in a row. I don’t even remember the terribly wrong-headed (and, frankly, mendacious) Nicola what’s-her-name stating or implying that she believed Islam was her ally while she was defending a policy of forced gender segregation at university events in the UK.
Something of substance on this new claim of left-leaners (in fact, “many” left-leaners) actually thinking of Islamism as their ally would be nice if you intend to persist in it.
That’s where you went wrong. There isn’t a vast vast difference; they’re the same claim. I didn’t say and didn’t mean “there are many on the left who are willing to stand up and say ‘Islamism is my ally’.” On the contrary. I’m still talking about people who don’t realize that the people they’re defending or praising are not just Muslims but Islamists. After all this time, there are still many who just don’t get it.
Honestly I think that was reasonably obvious from the context, especially in the larger context of my blog over the years. But hey, you said on PZ’s blog the other day that you’ve stopped reading me, I’m stupid, etc, so I guess your misinterpretation is understandable.
As for what I “intend to persist in” – you don’t get a veto on that.
Oh, bullshit.
I can’t find it at the moment, but I’m quite sure I didn’t say you were stupid. I am sure that I said I stopped reading you…but I’m pretty sure (I can’t find the comment at the moment) that I said it in the context of having started reading you again, because we were discussing a current item. I don’t remember if I said I largely stopped reading you or stopped reading you for a while or just left that implied since we were talking about a current item, but fuck, who cares?
I stopped, I started again. I am not as regular a reader as I once was. What the fuck does that have to do with whether or not your claim is remotely accurate?
Moreover, where do you get off insisting that I’m some jerk willing to call an obviously intelligent woman stupid? Point out the evidence, please, or this is ethically careless at best.
What I am sure I said was that I prefer my snark with more analysis.
This is a stylistic choice. I’m perfectly happy to consume (or create) analysis whose form is **entirely** snark, such as analysis that is over-the-top sarcastic where every sentence must be read to mean the author (possibly but not necessarily me) endorses the exact opposite of the plain declarative meaning of the text. I don’t overdose on snark here.
But your blog, much like Ed’s blog, is much more repeating/amplifying news items and the analysis of others. The snark is there, but it’s not analysis in and of itself. I find your aggregations useful, and so I sometimes read your blog. I find much of the news you cover important, so I occasionally comment. But I don’t happen to find your style to be my favorite. Just like I don’t comment on Ed’s blog nearly as much as I comment on Pharyngula or even proportionately as much as my commenting vs reading ratio in certain other spaces.
That isn’t a slam on you (or Ed), it’s a personal preference. And it’s so far from calling you stupid I have no clue from whence that bullshit came.
As a separate matter, I find it a bit ridiculous to say that someone thinking of a particular philosophical movement as an ally is occurring when someone unintentionally supports that movement. Nonetheless, you’ve clarified that you intended nothing more than the latter. I do find well supported by your blog the claim that unintentional support of islamists occurs, and the sentiment and snark on that point are thus thoroughly justified and have no further interest in that discussion. I find your wording, again, to have a very different meaning than you perceive and intend, but you’re not making the claim I thought you were, so I have no interest in finding out what evidence you have for a claim you’re not making.
Finally, there’s me:
and there’s you:
That I think it “would be nice” if you happen to do something is not equal to “I happen to believe I get a veto on your choices”.
Again, I find this ethically careless at best. You are imputing to me a desire to control you and implying that I am making an attempt to control you. Neither is true. Both are contrary to good ethics. And you have evidence of neither.
Say what you want, but you’d be unwise to think that other people can’t read for comprehension.
Huh. You seem very unfamiliar with implication and indirection…which is odd, since you use them. No, you didn’t literally say “she’s stupid.” You said “I’m sure she’s smarter than THAT” – what’s known as a backhanded compliment or damning with faint praise. The clear but indirect meaning is “she’s not THAT stupid [but she is stupid].”
Ah, yes, I could easily see myself saying, “I’m sure she’s smarter than that.”
If you point me to the comment, I could be more certain, but my vague memory is that I was eliminating a line of interpretation (e.g. “She might have meant X, but that would require she be ignorant of Y, and I’m sure she’s quite competent in the area of Y, so that eliminates interpretation X”).
This is a vague memory, so I can’t at all be certain, but no, I do not think of you as stupid and I do not call you stupid. If I gave that impression, I was in error.
I certainly have used the technique of damning with faint praise, but don’t believe I’ve ever intentionally done that with you.
Now please, if you would, address the bullshit claim that I both feel I’m entitled to exercise a veto over your behavior and/or am attempting to exercise a veto over your behavior.
Feeling hurt over a (reasonable) interpretation of something I said which I certainly didn’t (and wouldn’t) say directly is no excuse to turn my reaonsable critique of something you’ve written into an exercise in illegitimate control.
Well for a start you’re doing it right now – you’re telling me to address things. Saying “please, if you would” doesn’t change that. You’re lecturing me from a very very great height.
At any rate, I think my comment @22 is perfectly clear – it quotes the exact phrase that strikes me as so very…peremptory.
And yet many on the left persist in thinking that Islamism is an ally.
Citation please? Because so far, none of the examples you quote show any sign of originating from Western liberals or leftists. In fact, most of it sounds like it came from other Muslim extremists, who seem to hate liberals no less than non-extremist Muslims.
I haven’t given any examples on this thread. It’s a silly question. I’ve been giving examples for literally years here.
Every word about how the real motivations of this were economic disparities, oppression, colonialism, xenophobia et cetera? Yeah fuck you, you’re not an ally to “Muslims”, you’re an ally to Islamists.
brucegorton, if you can’t tell the difference between identifying possible social factors fueling extremism, and actual support for extremism, then you really have no clue what you’re talking about.
Also, you don’t cite even ONE person saying anything close to the sentiments you ascribe to “leftists.” I could quote plenty of people taking the side of the “offended” extremists, but guess what — they’re all right-wingers! Latest case in point: THE POPE.
Bwahahahahahahahahaha.
Oh, this great height of mine! All the power which is mine, mine, mine! Oh, the ravages which I inflict on the people who displease me as greatly as you have, Ophelia! As soon as I finish talking down to you from the very great height of comment #30 (presumably) on one item on your personal blog, I intend to wrest control over the Sith from Darth Capacitated and utilizing that newly stolen power with the leverage inherent in my position at this very, very great height, I shall rule the galaxy as Father and Son!
Or something.
Raging Bee
Oh yes every time anybody ever criticises the left, it is all mythical. The reason why I don’t accept any of that as arguments is that Muslims aren’t the only people subject to all of that, and frankly most Muslims who are subject to all of that aren’t in line with the terrorists.
Further, if you look at terrorism from other groups – lets take South Africa as an example. We hear there is a bombing out here – we assume it is probably the Afrikaans rightwing, who are very Christian. They are also historically privileged, and fall within the most economically powerful population in our country.
They are for the most part the beneficiaries of all of that stuff listed as motivators towards terrorism. In America your home grown terrorists are far more likely to come from the politically privileged religious right than from, for example, the black community.
The Ku Klux Klan largely benefited from all of those factors listed.
The main thing you get out of all of these groups is not that they are economically downtrodden, but hold to honour cultures in which insults must be avenged.
When you fall into the trap of citing social ills such as economic disparities, oppression, colonialism, xenophobia et cetera you are falling into the trap of thinking that those guys were unique to the Muslim community.
Not only that, you are linking members of that community who are protesting all of those issues to those terrorists. The Charlie Hebdo shooters were not social justice activists – and associating them with people who are only serves to undermine them.
Meanwhile they are in much the same bracket as the religious right of other religions. They can be promoted by making it seem like they’re fighting for social justice – but they really aren’t. They’re fighting for the dominance of their own particular religious outlook within their given communities.
The current pope is considered a liberal when it comes to Catholic popes. He was largely trumpeted as being the best pope in ages by liberal circles on election.
For an example that fits the model I set out pretty damn perfectly, USA Today’s Dewayne Wickam just got highlighted on this blog doing exactly what I was talking about.
And I am not alone in noticing this trend on the left after the Hebdo shootings.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/marginoferr/2015/01/08/jesuischarlie-why-i-wont-let-the-muslims-off-the-hook/
There is a reason Kiran Opal wrote her piece:
http://kiranopal.com/kuffarsplaining-a-how-to-guide-for-talking-about-islam/
There is a reason why this came out at reason.com
http://reason.com/blog/2015/01/08/charlie-hebdo-agnostics-im-against-murde?n_play=54b0d745e4b039251dbb62c2
There is a reason Yemisi’s second point is there:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/yemmynisting/2015/01/12/the-charlie-hebdo-tragedy-the-five-crowds-that-are-getting-it-wrong/
There is a reason Kenan Malik wrote his piece at Pandamonium
https://kenanmalik.wordpress.com/2015/01/08/je-suis-charlie-its-a-bit-late/
There is a reason why websites had to be set up specifically to give context to the Hebdo cartoons.
Those aren’t responses to the right, they’re responses to the left. The right? You want the responses to them you can see people mocking Fox News’ “No go zones” and the city of Birming.
Ophelia–
I too would like to know who, on the left end of the spectrum, sees Islamism as an ally of any sort, since the political movements that mark it are basically right-wing extremism warmed over with Islam. The only reason we don’t recognize it as such is that right wing Christians hate it, but that doesn’t alter the fact that the only difference between ISIS and say, the Dominionists is that the former were in a country with a power vacuum with a different religious cast — one we created, by the bye. The politics they espouse are remarkably similar.
It was left wing people who said, “you know giving money to the Saudi Royal family is a bad plan.” It was left wing people who said creating a power vacuum that feeds radicals by invading and bombing is a bad idea. (I mean, what effect would it have on your opinion of the French if they sent a drone and blew up your house?)
The leftists in every country in North Africa and the middle East have been targets of the US-allied governments there from day one. In Pakistan, Musharraf went after the unions, not the Islamic parties. The revolution against Mubarak in Egypt didn’t start with the Muslim Brotherhood, it started with the textile workers and the labor organizations. Who by the way were very much on the outs with the MB– and at Hilary Clinton’s urging kept out of key government posts. The USSR has been gone for 22 years and the State Department is still nervous about labor movements.
If you’re talking about praising people who are Islamists, please give up a few examples. Saying that the policy of warfare or institutionalized racism is a poor idea is not the same as praise for such.
The entire left critique has been, from the start, that racist policies only strengthen the right wing Islamic radicals. If you tell people that they are unwelcome, that they are not equals, that they don’t “belong here” no matter how many generations they stay, if you demand that every time a Muslim does something horrible that they condemn it when no similar demand is made of (white) Christians (I don’t recall anyone asking Norwegians to make sure all the Lutherans came out and said Anders Breivik was awful, and nobody said that Christian Churches need to all publicly disavow Timothy McVeigh) then what effect do you expect?
Pointing out that certain policies are going to make your radicalization problem worse is not calling Islamism an ally. Quite the reverse, I should think, since the point is how to undercut them. Outlawing headscarves and treating every expression of piety as a step on the road to radicalism is likely going to have precisely the opposite effect from what you want. I don’t see how saying that is allying oneself with Islamic radicals, I really don’t.
It really seems to me you’re falling into the same camp that said your calling out sexism would damage the Atheist movement somehow. Are you an unwitting ally of people who want to oppress atheists? Of course not.
When I call out the police on their behavior towards African-Americans, that doesn’t mean I support Tyler Perry’s retrograde attitudes about women, or Clarence Thomas’, or Bill Cosby. Just because various hip-hop artists call out the cops too doesn’t mean I think their lyrics about women are good. Am I an unwitting purveyor of misogyny because I say that black men should not get randomly shot by cops? You would I think call that a pretty silly position. You’d tell me that the two are only distantly related, I would bet.
As to the left’s position (I don’t know if you read French but Google translate works, sort of):
For example the CGT (http://www.cgt.fr/La-CGT-horrifiee.html)
The PCF: http://www.pcf.fr/64632 and http://www.pcf.fr/64565
The French Socialist Party: http://www.parti-socialiste.fr/communiques
The Communist Party of Great Britain: http://www.cpgb.org.uk/home/party-news/on-the-charlie-hebdo-shooting
Unite Against Fascism: http://uaf.org.uk/2015/01/uaf-condemns-paris-shootings/
I brought out all this on the Paris shootings because it was easiest to organize and get to real position papers / press releases. But either way, I don’t see much here that sees Islamism as an ally, and in fact the unwitting ally issue you brought up is explicitly addressed by all of the parties here at various points (not in the Charlie Hebdo material much, but certainly if you dig a bit back in there). Heck, there was some split in the British left (the SWP and SP as well as with the Communists) over how to approach the Muslim community at all — class-based or not, was the question, at least in terms of political strategy and that was back in 2004. Labor doesn’t seem to know what their position is on that point, but that’s about par for the course since Tony Blair.
So I am a little lost as to that remark. Really, I am just baffled because you’ve called out loads of folks on those same kinds of errors I just outlined.
To repeat what I said @ 21 – I didn’t say and didn’t mean “there are many on the left who are willing to stand up and say ‘Islamism is my ally’.” On the contrary. I’m still talking about people who don’t realize that the people they’re defending or praising are not just Muslims but Islamists. After all this time, there are still many who just don’t get it.
This isn’t that complicated. There are a lot of people on the left who persistently confuse “Muslims” with Islamists – so when they see headlines saying, for example, “Muslims riot over Prophet cartoon,” they conclude that that means Muslims in general when it means Islamists. Non-Islamist Muslims don’t take it for granted that they have the right to stop people drawing cartoons of Mohammed.
No. It’s not that complicated.
The phenomenon you’re describing is people on the left who think of muslims as disadvantaged and in need of the same kinds of protections as some other groups, perhaps even groups to which the lefty belongs. That reasonably might mean that the lefty things of muslims as allies.
They might be wrong. They might be confusing muslims with islamists, but they aren’t actually thinking of islamism as an ally.
You’ve clarified in comments that you didn’t mean anything of the sort, but to pretend that you can’t understand why people are taking the phrase “thinking of islamism as an ally” to mean, y’know, actually having a thought go through your head to the effect of, “Gee, Islamism is my ally,” is rather unfair to your readers.
English means something. Words mean things. “I think of islamism as my ally” is a phrase that has actual meaning. It would be nice if everyone would read your revised claim so you don’t have to repeat yourself, but
belies the fact that it becomes complicated when you use words in a way that simply don’t mean what you intended. Pretending your readers are daft doesn’t help the situation.
I’m not pretending anything, Crip Dyke. You’re calling me a liar now. Basta. Fuck off.
“Mick Nugent’s comment threads have become a haven for rapists.”
“I defy you to identify anyone commenting on Nugent’s blog who is a rapist.”
(Don’t mind me, my mind just runs to analogy sometimes.)
Ophelia —
that’s the problem though. I outlined and cited several positions that relatively obvious leftist organizations take. I don’t recall anyone praising Islamists of any stripe. Nobody I know said that shooting cartoonists or rioting over the Danish cartoons was a good thing.
On the other hand, saying that you understand where it comes from and that there are ways to deal with that which don’t involve just calling them savages, well… that isn’t praising them either, any more than acknowledging that poor white folks who become Neo-nazis often do so for a reason, and it isn’t just blind hatred. If I told you that 40 years of economic dislocation had something to do with it I don’t think you’d find that controversial.
Revolutions don’t always come from the left. That applies just about anywhere. ANd honestly, on first read your statement is pretty easily refuted. I know you tried to clarify it but you haven’t really offered any examples of the phenomenon you’re taking about. I haven’t heard any leftists praising Islamists. I have heard people saying that racism is no good even if the targets are right wingers themselves.
Christ on a cracker, there was more than one Japanese fascist floating around in 1941. That doesn’t justify putting them all in camps, and saying so doesn’t mean I support the aims of Japanese fascists. But minus an example of a leftist praising an Islamist for their — well, I dunno what, exactly — it would seem you end up taking that very position, and it’s unlike you. So I am still mightily confused.
People are asking for evidence of “leftists” allying with “Islamist”?
easy
http://stopwar.org.uk/officers
Vice President
Anas Altikriti
Anas Altikriti is President and founder of the Cordoba Foundation, a UK-based lobby group for the Muslim Brotherhood.
Officer
Shamiul Joarder Head of Public Affairs of the Friends of al Aqsa; Muslim Association of Britain (sub assoc of the muslim brotherhood) and member of the Muslim safety forum
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/journalists/andrew-gilligan/7908273/Police-Muslim-forum-headed-by-Islamic-extremist.html
I await the “no true leftist”.
Crip Dyke’s criticisms were accurate. I can see no lies that she told.
I am disappointed.
What are you talking about? Who said Crip Dyke told lies? I pointed out that Crip Dyke had reached the stage of calling me a liar, by saying I was “pretending” things.
@Danny Butts — as the saying goes, “I do not think that means what you think it means.”
By that logic every time Ophelia agrees that helping the poor is a good idea she must be an ally of the Catholic Church. Coalitions are just that, and sure you can work on a given issue with people, but that doesn’t make anyone long term political allies. As I noted (with citations) I don’t think many leftists would say they agree with the goals of the MB. Again I think I can state pretty categorically that nobody on the left has said Islamism is an ally in any way. Individual people might be working with someone on a single campaign or issue, but the rest doesn’t compute. And one can certainly disagree with the choices, because of what they might represent.
It’s not about “no true leftist.” It’s the difference between my agreeing with Ron Paul that the NSA is out of control and voting libertarian. I won’t do the latter. Ron Paul voted against military action in Iraq, so did Charlie Rangel, so they are obviously allies and Rangel believes in libertarianism or Ron Paul is a secret liberal, right? If I said “Ron Paul thinks liberalism is his ally” you’d say that was dumb.
And what the police in London do with their engagement (such as it is) with Muslim citizens has nothing to do with the left in particular. I think their methods of engagement are kind’a shortsighted and dumb. (As we would say in the US, not beating up and harassing people can’t be that hard, and choosing someone as “leader” to engage with is dicey). But that’s another discussion.
There’s another, somewhat deeper problem though. The whole “they are giving unwitting help to Islamists” strikes me as awfully similar to the old canard that people on the left were unwitting dupes helping the USSR destroy the country whenever they called out things like institutionalized racism. I think that’s problematic at best.
You should look into the SWP in the UK.
Apologies. I misspoke. You were objecting to Crip Dyke’s saying that you are pretending things–that, in essence, when taken at face value, the statement that “many on the left persist in thinking that Islamism is an ally” is a lie.
I agree with her. I think your intended meaning–which I garnered from reading your subsequent comments–and the meaning I took from it when reading it the first time around are sufficiently far apart that her criticisms are fair.
I would love a citation of someone from the Socialist Worker’s Party saying something that can be construed by reasonable people as meaning that Islamism is an ally.
So you want me to know that you also think I’m lying. Duly noted.
You can do your own research on the SWP; this isn’t obscure.