Thursday, August 24, 2006

Why does the left identity with Islamic fascists?

A feminist wakes up to the fact the Hezbollah isn’t a feminist’s best friend. Sarah Baxter writes:

As a supporter of the peace movement in the 1980s, I could never have imagined that many of the same crowd I hung out with then would today be standing shoulder-to-shoulder with militantly anti-feminist Islamic fundamentalist groups …

Hassan Nasrallah, … regularly issues bloodcurdling threats against the Jews. “If they (the Jews all gather in Israel,” he has said, “it will save us the trouble of going after them on a worldwide basis.” For some on the left such words are merely understandable hyperbole, provoked by decades of Israeli ill-treatment of the Palestinians, but I prefer to take Islamic fundamentalists at their word …

Why? Because they not only talk centuries-old nonsense about the place of women in society, but they also purposely oppress the female sex whenever they are given the chance. As regards their treatment of women, there is no discernible difference between their acts and their words.

What has happened to feminists who criticize Islam? Phyllis Chesler has found it impossible to be published in the left-wing publications as they “in effect excommunicated her.” Julie Burchill and Melanie Phillips suffered a similar fate.

Andrea Dworkin died last year virtually unmourned by women on the left in part, as her friend Christopher Hitchens remembered, because “she wasn’t neutral against a jihadist threat that wanted, and wants, to enslave and torture females. That she could be denounced as a ‘conservative’,” he concluded, “says much about the left to which she used to belong.” …

The left has decided that No-Nukes was only for the West:

Recently Kate Hudson, chairwoman of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, wrote a breathtaking apologia for the Iranian nuclear energy programme, … Since when, by the way, has CND regarded Britain’s nuclear power plants so benignly?

The author sums it up:

The Middle East is engaged in a titanic struggle between modernity and theocracy. Whatever one’s views about the Iraq war or the conflict in Lebanon, it deserves more than slogans about “We are all Hezbollah now” and fury against Bush and Blair. I don’t agree with Chesler that we are witnessing the death of feminism, but for now it is MIA: missing in action.

5 comments:

Demosthenes said...

I strongly recommend reading one of Phyllis latest two books. They are both excellent, but a little redundant to read both as I did. At the very least, I suggest reading the seventh(?) chapter of The Death of Feminism: What's Next in the Struggle for Women's Freedom where she discusses being married to a moslem man in Afghanistan. It's a powerful story that I mention every chance I get to evangelize the evil of Islam.

Also, there is nothing more fun steering a conversation with a puny campus leftists to the topic of Islam and then denouncing them for being homophobic for supporting the Islamic nutcases. I find it works best when you foam at the mouth a little and act slightly physically intimidating.

The Infidel Sage said...

That is always the question that is not answered. I suspect they don't really have an answer. The odd alliances between the appeasers and capitulators on the Left and the various fanatics of Islam defies common sense. I have written some on this subject as well. I appreciate you addressing the subject.

Dave
www.theinfidelsage.blogspot.com

Jason Pappas said...

I’m keep that in mind, Demosthenes, it sounds fun. When I argue about the backwardness of Islam, leftist try to change the focus to Christianity -- oh, say, 6 centuries ago. Since I’m not religious, it doesn’t help them and we’re back to “Islam is the problem, today.” But I’ll keep that rhetorical question in mind: “how can you support these homophobic, anti-women, theocratic kooks?” It should make them squirm and make non-aligned by-standers wonder about these hypocrites. Sometimes a good rhetorical question does the trick?

Nice blog you have there Dave, I'll have to come back to it and explore it some more.

Demosthenes said...

Jason, I have a two-fold reply to the left's Christianity gambit.
First, I point out that the Crusades was a defensive war after 300 years of Islamic aggression. Syria, Israel, Egypt, Turkey were some of the earliest Christian land and the people become Christian at the sharp end of the sword.
Second, I tell people that as a gay Jew I could visit Jerry Falwell's Liberty University and people there would be polite and nice to me. Most would be quite fine about working with me, and a good many of the Liberty University students will ultimately get over their opposition to gay marriage. In contrast, on any street corner in the Arab--barring a few Christian neighborhoods--I'd just be killed right there. & there is no gay marriage debate in the Muslim world

Jason Pappas said...

Right you are. The differences are worlds apart.

Since I'm of Greek ancestry I often argue that the Jihad against Christianity was being waged against my ancestors for those 300 years before the Latin Church was asked to help. I take personal offense that this is neglected as if my ancestors don't count. That usually takes some aback.