AN UNGODLY ALLIANCE

Strange Bedfellows Why is it that the further left Westerners move, the more likely they are to embrace the militant advocates of sharia law? We have seen this played out in the streets of every major European and American city; tens of thousands of Leftists ranging from well-meaning liberal-minded citizens, to indoctrinated students, to rabid rent-a-mob protesters from the Socialist Workers Party, all marching arm-in-arm with militant supporters of Hamas. It’s straightforward: they share a distrust, even loathing, of the West, especially those remnants of Christianity clinging on in an increasingly deranged society.

The ‘Turkeys for Christmas’ ‘Queers For Palestine’ presence on these marches demonstrates how bizarre this alliance is. Hamas is many things, but queer-friendly is most definitely not one of them. Islamist-governed nations have ways of dealing with what they see as the homosexual problem, public hanging being one method popular in the Middle East. And yet the desire to ally with those opposed to the traditional culture within the West is so overwhelming that these queer white Leftist idiots side with the very people who, if they came to power, would murder them all without hesitation.

Doubtless many of those blocking the streets in protest against Israel’s military action in Gaza genuinely care about the plight of the Palestinian civilians being used by Hamas as human shields. However, it is clear that many of the protesters are associating with very dark forces, Islamists and many on the far Left sharing an ideological commitment to anti-Semitism. Some student protesters, particularly in the US, have gone so far as to praise Hamas and to openly  call  for burning Tel Aviv ‘to the ground’. 

A Tactical Alliance Islamists and the British Left have rallied together over issues such as Prevent and the Batley Grammar School affair. There has been a sustained assault by the Labour Party on the Government’s counter-radicalisation Prevent programme. After showing a picture of Muhammad in class, a teacher from Batley Grammar School is still in hiding with his family, living under police protection three years after the incident. A review published in March found he was ‘let down’ by the council, police and the trust running the school.

The alliance between Islamists and the progressive Left is nothing new. At a 2008 rally addressed by Jeremy Corbyn, another speaker, Azzam al-Tamimi, was greeted with enthusiastic acclaim when he told those gathered in Trafalgar Square: ‘If they deny you life, explode in their faces! There will be jihad, jihad, and jihad until Palestine is free. As-asalamu alaykum.’

Just because Islamists seem demented in their passion for sharia and hatred of Jews does not mean that they cannot make shrewd tactical moves. In their desire to gain power they treat the Left as useful idiots; and Leftists, like idiots, believe they can mobilise Islamic votes to gain power for themselves. It never enters the minds of Leftists, particularly the progressive far Left, that the day the Islamists come to power is the day democracy dies.

Islamic supremacy is inimical to democracy: this is demonstrated clearly in Gaza. In 2006, Hamas came to power via a democratic election. That was the last time the people of Gaza were allowed to vote on their rulers, and yet Hamas and its actions find approval in Gaza. Free liberal democracy is a rare creature in the Islamic world.

An Alliance of Thought The relationship between Islamists and the progressive Left is not simply grounded in tactical reasons: they share a way of thinking about the world which challenges the moral and political foundations of the contemporary Christian-based Western state. This way of thinking, most notoriously in the form of what has become known as critical race theory, has come to dominate the social sciences in Western universities and colleges. This epistemological approach has been adopted and adapted by Islamists for their own purposes. The result is a philosophical alliance against the liberal social order which emerged from Christianity. This has led to the closing down of debate and resistance to a wide range of principles and government policies.

Both Islamists and the progressive Left reject reasoned argument and simply assert that certain forms of ‘discourse’ are fuelled by Islamophobia which they claim is a form of racism and therefore of oppressive power. Critics of Islamism are routinely accused of being rightist, reactionary, racist Islamophobes and therefore subject to exclusion from debate.

The danger of this alliance is exemplified by the Swiss-Moroccan writer and Left-leaning secular activist Kacem El Ghazzali, who in 2019  wrote, ‘I criticised political Islam and identity politics. And suddenly I’m a Rightist. Why? The world has simply gone mad. Atheist “progressives” defend the freedom of women to veil. Reactionary Islamists cheer them on. Both agitate against “the white man”. Anyone who doesn’t go along is “radical right”. What’s at stake is enlightenment and free thinking.’ 

Binary Thinking This will come back to bite those who think of themselves as liberals, because not even those progressives who are opposed to Islamophobia are safe from criticism. A report from the Muslim Council of Britain claims that ‘allegedly progressive discourses’ expressing concern over illiberal practices in certain forms of Islam are themselves illiberal. They are examples of ‘neo-racism’ or ‘cultural racism’. Any criticism of Islam, from any source and in any form, is seen as Islamophobic by the Islamic supremacists and their far Left supporters and has to be immediately shut down.

The binary thinking exemplified by the Islamist-Leftist alliance is more than just a tactical ploy: it is a direct and dangerous threat to the existence of Christian-based Western culture and society as we know it. There is much in today’s Western culture which we can and should condemn, but it is by far preferable to what is coming if this ungodly alliance has its way.