War of Ideas against Islam Chapter # 5 Why Leftists love Islam The politics of toleration of Islam can be reduced to the principle of "let's pretend." . Let's pretend that Islam is a religion of peace, let's pretend that Muslims are little different than Christians, let's pretend that opposition to Islam is irrational and uninformed, let's pretend that the Left is informed and understands Islam for what it supposedly is, a religion of the oppressed. And let's pretend that it serves everyone's best interests that the many crimes committed in the name of Islam have nothing at all to do with "real Islam," which is benign and humanistic.
All of these "let's pretends" are blatantly false, of course, and have nothing at all to do with reality and everything to do with oil wealth and Left wing ideology. The result is a politics of the status quo, with conservatives happy to sign on because, like George W. Bush, they are committed to protecting oil corporation interests in the Mid East. About Left-wing ideology, now would be a good time to discuss an article by Michael Brown published recently, in 2017, at the site: The Stream. The title is "The Liberals’ Misguided Love Affair With Islam," and it is an indictment of a mentality that needs to be exposed for what it is, an ideology based on false premises. The crux of the matter is a question that cannot be answered by Leftists in a rational manner: Why do many liberals defend a faith that would not defend them? Indeed, why do they defend a religion that is illiberal in nearly all of its core beliefs and values? Yet no-one can say that, in fact, today's so-called liberals don't do exactly this. By the way, you will note that various qualifications are used here in discussion of liberalism. This is anything but a Right wing screed against the evils of the Left. As a political Independent who identifies as a Radical Centrist, my view is that Right and Left, while each have characteristic failings of their own, are approximately just as wrong about issues that matter and approximately just as ignorant about religion, any religion, but especially Islam. However, it so happens that "liberal" policy has come to dominate thinking even among conservatives when the issue is Islam and this fact needs to be addressed directly. Also please note that many people still respect what for Americans is "classic" liberal tradition going back to the era of philosopher John Dewey and of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, which has almost nothing to do with today's travesty of liberalism as found in the leadership of the Democratic Party as it has become. Classic liberals are often opposed to the Leftists who sometimes use "liberal" terminology to describe themselves. That is, I have little use for Republican Party orthodoxy and regard it as antediluvian in character and plutocratic in intent. Anyone who reads this paper expecting some sort of affirmation of conservative politics should be disabused of any such thing. Yet the Democratic Party needs severe criticism; there should be no mistake about that. The problem of false assumptions having been addressed, let us look closely at Michael Brown's article. "Why is it" Brown asked, "that the most liberal political leaders in the West are often the strongest defenders of Islam? Why are they constantly telling us that real Islam is neither radical nor violent?" What is also an issue is why the Left is as intolerant as it is. If the record of the Right on the issue of free speech is spotty at best, the record of the contemporary Left is increasingly like that of Communists of yore, shouting down anyone who has different opinions than they do. Take your pick, David Horowitz, Ann Coulter, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Pamela Geller, Valdas Analauskas, Jack Cashill, etc, the list is lengthy. They have all been shouted down at various times in the recent past, mostly on college campuses, when they tried to speak. We should add the name Robert Spencer, who was the featured speaker at the University of Buffalo not long ago. Michael Brown began his article with reference to Spencer's appearance at the school, where he had intended to talk about Islam, a subject he has written several books about, of which he is as well informed as anyone gets. What is ironic was that the casus belli on that occasion was Spencer's attempt to quote verses from the Koran, verbatim, which he was reading aloud when the crowd went on a rampage, yelling: “Not on our campus! We are progressive. We are liberal. We are enlightened. You will not bring your hate-filled bigotry here!” Not precisely the words used by the students, but as the article noted, close enough. The point is simply that the words Spencer spoke were not Right-wing diatribe against Islam but direct quotes from the book that all Muslims regard as sacred and 100% true. And the point is that the crowd that day consisted predominantly of Leftist students and Muslims with whom the collegians were allied. It isn't that Spencer was unqualified to address a university audience. To cite part of his credits discussed in the article, Spencer has “led seminars on Islam and jihad for the FBI, the United States Central Command, United States Army Command and General Staff College, the U.S. Army’s Asymmetric Warfare Group, the Joint Terrorism Task Force, the Justice Department’s Anti-Terrorism Advisory Council" and still other such agencies. He has been a consultant to the U.S. State Department and to the Foreign Ministry of Germany. He has appeared on the BBC, on ABC News, CNN, and Fox TV. You would think that, even if you disagree with his views, he deserves to be heard. . At any rate, Spencer was not defending nor advocating violence; quite the opposite, he was attacking violence as unethical and immoral. Hence the relevance of the quotes from the Koran, verses that do, in fact, advocating violence. No-one is supposed to acknowledge the obvious? What is even more out of joint is the willingness of people on the Left to support Muslim organizations that advocate and sometimes carry out acts of violence. As Michael Brown noted, various feminists and LGBT activists generally support Hamas, the terrorist organization that rules Gaza, and has ruled it ever since the one -and only one- election held there in 2007, no new elections needed. Hamas, of course, is infamous for the demand in its charter for the destruction of the state of Israel. It is also predicated on Muslim social values which, nobody should need to be reminded, are far more oppressive than anything known in Christianity since at least 17th century Massachusetts under the Puritans, indeed, not even then since Puritan punishments never were as extreme as those demanded in strict Islam. You would need to go back to the Spanish Inquisition of the 16th century to find anything comparable. Hence we find groups on the Left, speaking of militant homosexuals and zealous feminists, supporting Hamas policies that are the equivalent, or worse, of those of Torquemada and his sadistic accomplices 500 years ago. Hence brown's plaintive question: "Why in the world would groups like this support Hamas? Hamas would kill or imprison them for their beliefs (and their sexual or romantic proclivities)." There isn't a rational explanation. The only plausible answer is that Leftists are captive to an ideology that serves the functions of religion at its worst, that is intolerant, that rejects the value of free speech, and is willing to excuse and justify violence as long as it advances their political interests. Hence contradictions galore on the Left, such as an incident where a 12 year old Christian boy was publicly condemned for his opposition to same-sex 'marriage' while at the same time as the Left defends Islam -which demands the death penalty for acts of homosexuality. None of this makes any sense, observed Brown, unless you conclude that there is something deeper going on than anything rational. This is precisely the case. The psychological foundation of the contemporary Left is irrationality, raw belief without a semblance of self-criticism. The problem with people like Michael Brown isn't that they are unable to see the weaknesses in the Left but that they can't see weaknesses that exist on the Right. Hence the conclusion of the article which says: "The Left needs to end its naïve love affair with Islam. And may peace-loving Muslims help lead the way in working against radical Islam." It is obvious, in other words, that Brown is not working with much, at all, of a foundation of knowledge about Islam. The point is that -structurally- Islam is something that can be fairly characterized as proto-Fascism. Not merely as a figure of speech but in actual fact. This is in reference to the career of Mohammed Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, someone who spent virtually all of WWII in Nazi dominated Europe, partly in Italy and Bosnia, but mostly in Berlin where he broadcast propaganda to the Muslim world on a regular basis. Sometimes referred to as the Arab version of Lord Haw Haw, Husseini was someone who met Mussolini and Hitler and had a working relationship with Heinrich Himmler and at least some connection to Adolph Eichmann. There are many publications about Al-Husseini including a popular 2008 book by Dalin and John F. Rothmann, Icon of Evil: Hitler's Mufti and the Rise of Radical Islam. The book has approximately as many unfavorable reviews as otherwise but is very informative despite flaws that even its advocates acknowledge. The Wikipedia article about Al-Husseini is comprehensive and well researched and includes a lengthy bibliography for anyone interested in the subject of Muslim / Nazi collaboration. What is important is that the life story of Al-Husseini, in his era the leading spokesman for anti-British Arab nationalism, is that he served as inspiration for a sequence of Muslim terrorists that eventually included _Yasser Arafat_ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasser_Arafat) and the founder of Hamas, Sheikh _Ahmad Yassin_ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmad_Yassin) . You cannot give all "credit" for Nazi-Muslim co-operation to Al-Husseini, of course. He was active in the years that the Muslim brotherhood came into being and it, too, was pro-Nazi. And the Brotherhood had its own leaders, like Sayyid Qutb, who were influenced by the Third Reich all on their own. But the point to make is that these developments were possible because of the close affinity that Muslim activists saw between Islam and Nazism, which they respected and sometimes emulated. With the Nazis sometimes expressing deep appreciation for what the Mufti was doing and what the Brotherhood was trying to do despite considerable opposition from pro-British elements in the populations of Egypt, Palestine, Jordan, Iraq, and other Arab nations. There were different emphases between Nazis and Muslims but basically they were united in their intense hatred of Jews. To be sure, while giving lip service to the Arab desire for independence from the British, and also the French, the Nazis were not committed to any such objective, but were in complete agreement about the final disposition of the Jews. Hence, in addition to the 1941 draft declaration of German-Arab cooperation, Hitler made sure that his over-reaching goal was made clear to Muslims throughout Dar al-Islam. Presuming Axis victory in war, Hitler said, as quoted in the article, "Germany’s objective would then be solely the destruction of the Jewish element residing in the Arab sphere under the protection of British power"... That is, there should be no refuge for Jews, anywhere, and the Jews of the Mid East should be exterminated. By 1943, the Holocaust then in full operation, Al-Husseini knew many of the salient facts and broadcast the news, whatever was not militarily sensitive, to his Arab listeners, saying that Muslims, as bidden by the Koran, should do likewise and not wait for German armies to do it for them. Himmler took special interest in Husseini's work and by 1943 there were three SS divisions operating in the Balkans, under at least nominal command of the Mufti, killing Jews. Exact figures are not available but some estimates put the tally of dead Jews as a result of these actions in the 200,000 to 300,000 range. Not everything went according to plan, however, the Chetniks -mostly Serbians opposed to the Nazis- were unimpressed with the Muslims, most of whom were Bosnians and whom the Chetniks despised. Hence about 85,000 Muslim deaths and large scale desertions, but in these years the Jews could take scant comfort since, of any ethnic group, they suffered the highest death rate. Apart from military operations, Al-Husseini also was instrumental in making sure that no Jews (or very few) ever escaped from Europe to find their way to Palestine. Al-Husseini was very busy as a "lobbyist," one might say, enlisting support from ranking Nazis to prevent any Jews from emigrating to the Levant. This included Hussein's successful efforts to block the emigration of 500 Jewish children in 1943 despite considerable efforts by many people to allow their departure. After the war, Husseini, although the British wanted him tried as a war criminal, was able to return to the Mid East ostensibly as the one man who could hold together disparate groups in the Levant as the French re-established control over Syria. Husseini went on to take part in early efforts that led to the establishment of the Palestine Liberation Organization. By 1970 he was no longer relevant to the new directions taken by the PLO and was effectively shunted aside; he died in Lebanon in 1974. But his legacy continues in the Mid East and does much to explain the Nazi / Muslim rapprochement of the WWII years and its subsequent reinterpretation by Muslim terrorists in our own era Which is to say that while Leftists condemn the very anti-Nazi Israelis, slandering them as Zionist Nazis, the real Nazis of the piece, Hamas and at least elements of the PLO, and the Muslim Brotherhood, are regarded as innocent oppressed people seeking simple justice. The left, in other words, lives in a sort of reverse Alice in Wonderland universe where right is wrong, where wrong is right, and logic doesn't matter as long as you have "faith." Its just a different kind of faith than most of us are accustomed to when using the word. The trope about "peace loving Muslims" is unmitigated nonsense. Of course, there are Muslims who have little or no interest in terrorism or violence more generally. They can be referred to as MINOs, Muslims In Name Only, people who identify with Islam for a number of reasons, family heritage, ethnic loyalties, no options as far as all practical matters are concerned, or westernized citizens of non-Muslim nations, or even of Muslim nations that are undergoing dramatic changes along Western lines, and so forth. What they have in common is ignorance of the Koran, ignorance or indifference to the Hadiths, and maybe identification with modern ways of life as among some elites. The point is that they are peaceful despite Islam, not because of it -which is the exact opposite of the case for Christians, Buddhists, contemporary Jews, modern Hindus, and others. The point is also that we cannot depend upon the levels of ignorance found in many parts of the Muslim world. It cannot last forever, and where knowledge of Islam arises, as opposed to custom or local traditions, authentic Islam asserts itself again and again -as in Indonesia, Egypt, the Caucasus, the "stans" of central Asia, and so forth. And authentic Islam decidedly is violent, intolerant, and criminal in character. In sum, there are no intrinsically peaceful Muslims to rely on for anything. If they are peaceful and nominally Muslim that is all they are, nominal, not something else. So let us stop the bleeding heart weeping and wailing, shall we? Or should we have sympathy for the poor starving Nazis, the oppressed Fascists, the downtrodden totalitarians? Get real, in other words. Misplaced sympathy is exactly that, misplaced. Meanwhile Christians throughout the Mid East, and Hindus in Pakistan, are attacked and killed by Muslims on a regular basis, or must endure humiliation and suffering, and the Left could care less. To offer a personal opinion, Leftists are morally sick, they do not know good from evil. Leftists weren't always this way, some were extremely moral in the past, to speak of religious Socialists, mostly Christians, but that era is lost in the mists of time. Today's Leftists are nihilists. Yet, ironically, Leftists are very religious. Indeed, they are religious fanatics. This was made clear enough by Dennis Prager in an article he published on October 2, 2012, entitled: "The World’s Most Dynamic Religion Is …" What is this religion? Christianity? No. Islam? No. Resurgent Hinduism or Buddhism? No. The answer is Leftism. You might prefer to give this "faith" another name. A case can be made that we are referring to Cultural Marxism, for instance, a view that makes very good sense, or maybe Atheistic Triumphalism, but in any case it is a phenomenon of the Left. And it is pervasive. Of course, as Prager noted, not many people see Leftism as a religion. After all, the Left is avowedly anti-religious. It does not matter that some of its legendary heroes were very religious, like Baptist minister Martin Luther King, Jr., or Socialist candidate for president Norman Thomas, a Presbyterian minister. These days what matters is the view that traditional religion is retrograde, obsolete, and a stumbling block to progress. As well, Leftism "convincingly portrays itself as solely the product of reason, intellect, and science," and, hence, "has not been seen as the dogma-based ideology that it is." And it is dogmatic, intolerant, and closed-minded. Which is another fact that is hardly ever seen for what it is because part of the dogmatism of the Left is its claim to be broad minded, tolerant, and welcoming of many points of view. All of this, "explains why anyone who opposes Leftism is labeled anti-intellectual, anti-progress, anti-science, anti-minority and anti-reason (among many other pejorative epithets): Leftists truly believe that there is no other way to think." Which, if you know any Leftists, speaking of hard-line Democratic Party voters in America, or staunch Congress Party voters in India, pretty well characterizes the contemporary Left. And by no means only in the United States or the subcontinent. Leftism, said Prager, "dominates the thinking of Europe, much of Latin America, Canada, and Asia, as well as the thinking of the political and intellectual elites of most of the world. Outside of the Muslim world, it is virtually the only way in which news is reported and virtually the only way in which young people are educated from elementary school through university." If you have the poor taste to oppose the Left you are branded as an "extremist." To be sure, there are a good number of actual extremists on the political Right. In America this means malcontents who are racists or members of fringe militias -or who are religious fanatics sometimes associated with dispensationalism, the view that America should become a Christian theocracy. Generally such people vote Republican. In India the extremists of the Right usually vote for the BJP, the party of Prime Minister Modi. But, as in America, the leadership of the party wants nothing to do with extreme elements, local mobs who attack Christians, for instance. And the GOP leadership in the United States (where GOP stands for "Grand Old Party" not "Government Of Pakistan") would like to lock up its extremists. So, there are people on the extremes. But this is not what Leftists generally mean. The American Left has something else in mind. As Prager put it, "merely believing that marriage should remain defined as it has been throughout recorded history, as between a man and a woman, renders you an extremist. So, too, belief that government should be small — the Tea Party position — renders one an extremist." Do Leftists riot in Oakland or Los Angeles and cause large scale property damage and injuries to people in the streets? None of that counts, what does count is the fact that one Tea Party stalwart was seen on TV carrying a gun -which is perfectly legal in several US states- and therefore Tea Party people are armed crazies out to shoot up the country, a viewpoint that I have heard in person, and despite the fact that there is zero evidence of Tea Party criminal behavior anywhere. But so what? The Left wants to characterize the Tea Party as a population of violence-prone lunatics. Therefore, Richard Stengel, the managing editor of Time Magazine, speaking on MSNBC, insisted that the Salafis, the most militant among all Muslim groups, are “the Tea Party of Muslim democracy.” Which was utter nonsense, and, besides, what Muslim democracy? As Prager continued, and he is Jewish himself: "If you want to understand why so many Jews vote Left while nearly all the Western world’s opposition to — and frequently hatred of — Israel emanates from the Left, one explanation is this: For most American Jews, their religion is Leftism, while Judaism is their ethnicity and culture. The Reform, and increasingly the Conservative, movements have, to a large extent, become political movements that use Hebrew and Jewish rituals" and that is the extent of their formal Judaism. Which is a far cry from Will Herberg's Protestant, Catholic, Jew, his book of the 1950s era that was all about vibrant and faithful believers of America's dominant religions. Today almost all observant Jews are Orthodox. As Prager concluded, "Only the United States, of all Western countries, has resisted Leftism. But that resistance is fading as increasing numbers of Americans abandon traditional Judeo-Christian religions, lead secular lives, are educated by teachers whose views are almost uniformly left-wing and are exposed on a daily basis virtually exclusively to leftist views in their news and entertainment media." In so many words, how do you counter the non-rational arguments of fanatical religious believers? You can't. But what you can do, if you have a base of knowledge about religion to draw upon, is to point out that Leftism is a religion and that its dogmatic assertions are not truths but are just that, dogmatic assertions. To be sure, a lot of people, including and especially the news media, are religious illiterates. A little story I like to tell gets this point across nicely. It goes like this- There is a semi-annual get-together in Florida organized by an Evangelical scholar who works at a DC think tank, who was perplexed and annoyed by reporters who were assigned stories about religious topics and were clueless about much of anything to do with religious questions, like a journalist from the New York Times who called him to ask about the latest Southern Baptist Convention brouhaha over the role of men in marriage. "Well," said the Evangelical, "as it says in the book of Ephesians...." "Stop right there," said the reporter. "What is epesh... what did you say it was? Who is the author? When was it published?" This was what brought about the "Religion Boot Camp," now held in Florida every year for news people so that they can learn the basics of religion. These people really are lost in space when the subject of religion comes up. As are countless others. Which is pathetic. Really pathetic. But how is it remotely possible for the Left to be a religion? The answer is quite simple, although you would need to make an effort to become informed on the subject. -- -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
