Maajid Nawaz on the British and European Left's Preference for Authentic Muslims as Angry Victims
Ex-Islamist Maajid Nawaz, writing for The Daily Beast, levels an accusation - in his article, "Discount: The British Left's Hypocritical Embrace of Islamism" (August 8, 2015) - namely, that the so-called 'progressive' Left is a hypocritical "regressive left":
The desire to impose religion over society is otherwise known as theocracy . . . . [and] in Europe it is . . . the left . . . who flirt with religious theocrats[, . . . f]or in the UK, our theocrats are . . . overwhelmingly Muslim . . . . Islamism is an ideology that seeks to impose . . . Islam over society. When expressed through violence, I call it jihadism . . . . [A]ny desire to impose any version of Islam over anyone anywhere, ever, is a fundamental violation of . . . basic civil liberties . . . . But for . . . Europe's regressive-left[,] . . . Islamist tyranny . . . [is] an authentic expression of Muslim rage at Western colonial hegemony . . . . For don't you know Muslims are angry? So angry, in fact, that they wish to enslave indigenous Yazidi women for sex, throw Syrian gays off tall buildings and burn people alive? . . . For Europe's regressive-left . . . Muslims are not expected to be civilized. And Muslim upstarts who dare to challenge this theocratic fascism are nothing but an inconvenience to . . . [a] populism that screams simplistically: It is all the West's fault . . . . British Muslims are being spoon-fed regressive-left sedatives, encouraging a perpetual state of victimhood in order to score their petty ideological points against "the West." In the name of cultural diversity, . . . self-segregation and ghettoization have thrived . . . . [T]he problem begins when journalists and others seek out "community representatives," or "credible Muslim voices" to fit into convenient boxes[, they look to the angriest, which] . . . . lead[s] logically to nothing but ISIS-style bloodshed and theocracy.Such is the consequence of the Left's search for 'authentic' victims as representatives and spokesmen for Muslims. But why "hypocritical"? Because the Left claims to protect the weak, but sides with Islamists, who are strong and gaining in strength within the world of Islam. Nawaz implies that the Left is aware of what it is doing, else he wouldn't call the Left "hypocritical."
Is Nawaz right? Does the Left know what it's doing?
posted by Horace Jeffery Hodges @ 7:20 AM
7 comments
7 Comments:
A good piece, it identifies the racism whereby "Muslims are not expected to be civilized". Because, of course, "victims" have no agency, do they? (It's similar to the way in which some feminists deny that sex workers have the ability to make their own decisions.)
It's a lengthy read, but this article offers an interesting stance on the Left's role in breeding communalist politics in Britain (althought there is one major howler in the piece: the Communist Party of Great Britain imploded before the collapse of the Soviet Union).
I became politically conscious in the era of Grunwick and Rock Against Racism, when the phrase "Asians" was used, and the emphasis was on immigrants uniting against exploitation in the workplace and racist violence in the streets. Then, post-Rushdie, the emphasis was increasingly on "Muslims" and the so-called Marxist Left began to forget its class analysis and started tacitly to accept an Islamist view of the world, in which non-sequitirs such as the sea of "Free Palestine" placards supplied by the Muslim Association of Britain to the big demonstrations against the Iraq war seemed to make sense.
We are currently struggling with this issue right at this moment, with the sole non-neoliberal candidate in (and possible winner of) the the Labour Party leadership election being deeply tainted by his association with anti-Semites (at least one of which, he has apparently forgotten about - surely he just needs to check his Xmas card list?)
Thanks for the informative summary - as an outsider (despite time in Europe, some of that time in England), I lack this sort of information - I'll try to take a look at your links soon.
Jeffery Hodges
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The "Croissants and Roses" article is fascinating. I suggest reading the PDF version--it is a cleaner edit.
We live in "interesting times"... as in the Chinese curse.
Thanks for the advice, Carter, and the reminder of our interesting times.
Jeffery Hodges
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Off-topic post:
If you're not already familiar with Muslim-turned-atheist Faisal Saeed Al Mutar, you can browse his sometimes provocative FB posts:
https://www.facebook.com/faisalsalmutar
Sonagi
Thanks.
Jeffery Hodges
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