Where the Left and Islam Intersect
Curious how the godless left and Islam share a critical aim. They both wish to subjugate infidels, though how infidel is defined differs. But who the infidels are isn't. We are, of course, the infidels. We of western virtues and values. We who hold to Judeo-Christian beliefs. We're obstacles to glorious futures for both. Both want us consigned to dhimmitude. Yes, dhimmitude. That's second class status, with tribute being paid for the privilege.
Marked differences and tensions exist between the left and Islam, to be sure. But is the left using Islam for its ends, and Islam -- for the time being -- willingly being used?
Wrote Stephen Schwartz for First Thingsin February of this year:
For some time, an argument has been made that the liberal left, in refusing to examine the problems of Islam, has betrayed its Enlightenment roots. That is, while secular, feminist, and protective of free speech in dealing with its Western peers, the liberal left has been accused of abandoning its heritage in its quest for political correctness regarding Muslims.
In truth, however, the left has a distinguished background of courting Islam as a weapon against Western capitalism. Its most representative figures from the past did so frankly[….]
Today, though, it isn't just Western capitalism that the left wants Islam to sic. It's the totality of Western Civilization. Leftism has expanded its agenda beyond Marx-focused economics. For the left to get us to dhimmitude, that means "deconstructing" our culture and society; upending our mores and traditions; shattering our institutions; demeaning faith and marginalizing the faithful. Its gains are evident all around us.
From Marx onward, the left has operated by a simple rule vis-à-vis Islam: the enemy of my enemy is my friend. This, as Schwartz suggests, explains why the American left is unwilling to identify Islam as a foe. It might explain -- however darkly -- President Obama's recent push to admit 70,000 more Muslims into the U.S.
This from Jim Kouri at the examiner.com in January:
The Obama administration has already provided refuge for more Muslims than all the other nations in the world combined. In fact, it's been proven repeatedly that Muslims who have been given citizenship have been arrested for terrorist plots, aiding and abetting terrorist acts, providing material support to terrorist groups, and some have even returned overseas to fight American armed forces.
Most Americans have a hard time accepting that fellow citizens might knowingly act in ways injurious to the security and welfare of the nation. The 20th Century had more than a few Americans who worked to advance communism in opposition to vital national interests. In extreme cases, some Americans acted treasonously. Do the names Julius and Ethel Rosenberg ring a bell? How about Alger Hiss?
The relationship between the left and Islam is complicated, however. The same leftist president Barack Obama, who is opening doors to Muslim immigrants, prosecutes a war, however selectively and poorly, against various militant Muslim factions overseas.
The president is also straining to secure a deal with Iran that will finally give the Iranians nuclear weapons capability. His forays in regime change in the Middle East (invariably favoring factions hostile to the West) have helped spur turmoil and danger. Withdrawals from Iraq and Afghanistan have opened those lands to America's enemies. The president's enmity toward Israel (Netanyahu merely personifies) damages U.S. relations with a critical ally. The Saudis and Jordanians are off-put.
What to make of Obama's Middle Eastern and Muslim policies? They make for some contradictions. Yet the thread of Obama's policies runs toward accommodation with militant Muslim factions (or nation, in the case of Iran). Perhaps our leftist president appreciates that while Islam is useful, it's also dangerous. The Muslim lion is valuable when managed (as best able).
Not every American identifying with the left acts from malice. There are followers and fellow travelers. Your Aunt Jane may be a lefty, but she wouldn't want harm to come to her country. There are gullible souls who think it's all about Kumbaya. Spoken of here are leftist intellectuals, chattering classes, politicians, and career activists who either seek or welcome Islam's role in "transforming" America and the West.
What's in it for Muslims if they know they're being used? Infiltration, for one. Western Europeans long ago opened their borders to Muslims. The need originally was labor. Western Europe's elites -- left-dominated -- have, post-World War II, imported millions of Muslims. By 2020, Muslims will account for 6% of Europe's 744 million inhabitants. That's 44.6 million largely unassimilated Mohammedans. But welfare and jobs haven't quieted Europe's Muslims.
The attack on Charlie Hebdo may have dented, but hasn't stopped, Europe's elite from clinging to political correctness. Attempts continue to mollify increasingly restive -- increasingly violent -- Muslim populations. The attack was just a dramatic example of Muslim violenceacross Europe. Concomitant with the rise in violence is an increase in anti-Semitism. More Muslim violence is targeting Jews. Note, too, that anti-Israeli/anti-Jewish sentiment is on the upswing on the left.
In Europe, a backlash has begun to leftist policies that permit the creeping Islamization of the continent. Muslim violence is spurring the growth of rightist parties throughout Western Europe.
It may be a harbinger of things to come in the U.S., though the Muslim population here is estimated at only 2.6 million nationally. That's up from about 1 million souls in 2000.
A January article in Israel's Haaretz refers to Nigel Farrage, the leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP). The report attributes to Farrage that "as a result of multiculturalism, a small number of radicals had set up a 'fifth column' in European countries." Multiculturalism is an invention of the left.
More from the Haartz article. This from Italy, where rightist elements are organizing against Muslim immigration:
"Let's block the clandestine INVASION immediately. Let's check by whom, how and why there is funding of MOSQUES and Islamic centres," Northern League leader Matteo Salvini wrote in a first reaction on Facebook.
A fatal conceit exists on the left in its use of Islam. It's this: leftists are in every way superior to Muslims. Islam, violent and useful, though dangerous, is primitive and no match for the great minds and godless certitudes of "progressivism." Islam can be used and then dispensed with. But the left underestimates the power of an ancient faith -- and its faithful -- at its own peril.
Conceit was the first great sin, and led to a fall. Leftists may want to mull that.
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