Leftists and Islamists--Allies in an Epic Battle Against Western Civilisation

An unlikely champion of western civilisation, Hirsi Ali is nevertheless "walking point". Leftists and Islamists both hate Hirsi Ali--both have her in their sights--and at least the Islamists would like to see her dead. We understand why Islamists wish to destroy the west--they are shamed by the west's success and Islam's failure. Understanding the left's antagonism toward western freedoms of thought and economy may be harder for some to understand, but it is critical to understand this alliance of hatred and intolerance toward Hirsi Ali and the enlightenment traditions she has embraced.

In television debates she criticized Islamist family patriarchs, genital mutilation of young women and forced marriages...By criticizing Islam for promoting these injustices in the name of Allah, Hirsi Ali launched a war on two fronts.

Her attacks drew criticism from Islamic fundamentalists as well as leftist Western intellectuals, who accused Hirsi Ali of discriminating against, offending and stirring up resentment among Muslims across the board.

...She's discovered, she now says, that even those who claim to be fighting outdated dogmas are quick to impose their restrictions on thought....there was no doubt the Dutch had turned a blind eye to the horrors some of their Muslim neighbors were inflicting on their wives and daughters. "Teachers, the authorities, politicians and even the media looked the other way when girls didn't return to school after the summer vacation, because they had been married off in Morocco in the meantime." All the talk about respect for the identity of immigrants and their culture, Hirsi Ali says, is "nothing but thoughtlessness, laziness and fear of openly addressing human rights violations."

...As an adolescent she had already suffered every humiliation imaginable. Her mother beat her, and her grandmother condemned her to the painful ritual of female circumcision. The more she was oppressed, though, the stronger her will became to escape her environment. When her father planned to send her to Canada for an arranged marriage, she fled. She worked as a cleaning woman in the Netherlands, learned Dutch quickly and was soon attending political lectures.

...She wants to fight for Muslims to free themselves from the psychological stranglehold of a religion that treats all of its doctrines as absolute, says Hirsi Ali -- and its followers as slaves.

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Muslims as slaves? Well, of course. Any religion or ideology that wraps its followers too tightly within itself becomes indistinguishable from mental shackles. That is where too many islamists and leftists find themselves in the modern world. Shackled by dysfunctional ideology.

That is why leftist feminists overlook the honour killings, the genital mutilations, the arranged marriages, the third-rate existence of women within Islam. That is why leftist activists ignore the ubiquitous muslim abuse and murder of homosexuals, the lack of human rights and intellectual freedoms that westerners take for granted.

Leftists find Islamists useful in their own fight against a western civilisation that has largely rejected the failed economics of state socialism and communism. While leftists are currently ascendant in the academy, media, and popular culture of most western countries--and hold onto their ascendancy with an iron intolerance that would make Pol Pot proud--the real power somehow continues to slip through their fingers.

While the left holds dictators such as Kim and Chavez in a pathetic embrace, at least embracing socialists and communists makes a type of sense, comfort in the company of losers. Why should leftists also embrace dictators such as the Iranian leadership? Particularly when the monkey-mullahs and apish Ahmedinejad execute homosexuals (while denying their existence), feminists, even leftist activists. Such a betrayal by the left of those it pretends (in the west) to protect and champion, is disgusting.

Nevertheless, that is where the left finds itself--without any principles or mores. It is what it says and does--at the moment. Tomorrow may be different.

Although Hirsi Ali has left the Netherlands, Geert Wilders continues to confront the abomination that is European Islam. Leftists and Islamists might like to see Wilders dead as well--like Pim Fortuyn and Theo Van Gogh.

The Freedom Party leader describes Islam as a dangerous, intolerant and fascistic religion. He says the Qu’ran should be forbidden and Muslim immigration banned....Geert Wilders...says he should be able to speak his mind in parliament, especially since his ideas have the support of half a million voters.

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Wilders, and other free thinking European politicians, would like to see European culture and civilisation survive the current onslaught of a human wave of religious violence, intolerance, and backwardness. If Islam can be reformed, all well and good. But most evidence points to the contrary.

Time to wake up.

Originally published in Al Fin