Saturday, 25 March 2017
As a Muslim, I am Shocked by Liberals and Leftists
by Majid Rafizadeh, Gatestone Institute
It is the fear of this violence, torture and death, wielded by extremist Muslims, that keeps every person desperate to obey.
As a Muslim, I am Shocked by Liberals and Leftists
by Majid Rafizadeh, Gatestone Institute
It is the fear of this violence, torture and death, wielded by extremist Muslims, that keeps every person desperate to obey.
If liberals are in favour of freedom of
speech, why do they turn a blind eye to Islamist governments such as Iran,
which execute people for expressing their opinion? And why do they not let
people in the West express their opinion without attacking them or even giving
them the respect of hearing what they have to say? They seem, in fact, like the
autocratic people from whom I was fleeing, who also did not want their simplistic,
binary way of thinking to be threatened by logic or fact.
As, in Islam, one is not allowed to attack
except to defend the prophet or Islam, extremist Muslims need to keep finding
or creating supposed attacks to make themselves appear as victims.
Finally, a short message to liberals might
go: Dear Liberal, If you truly stand for values such as peace, social justice,
liberty and freedoms, your apologetic view of radical Islam is in total
contradiction with all of those values. Your view even hinders the efforts of
many Muslims to make a peaceful reformation in Islam precisely to advance the
those values.
If you had grown up, as I did, between two
authoritarian governments — the Islamic Republic of Iran and Syria — under the
leadership of people such as Hafez al Assad, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, you would have seen your youth influenced by two major
denominations of Islam in the Muslim world: the Shia and the Sunni. I studied
both, and at one point was even a devout Muslim. My parents, who still live in
Iran and Syria, come from two different ethnic Muslim groups: Arab and Persian.
You also would have seen how the religion of
Islam intertwines with politics, and how radical Islam rules a society through
its religious laws, sharia. You would have witnessed how radical Islam can
dominate and scrutinize people’s day-to-day choices: in eating, clothing,
socializing, entertainment, everything.
You would have seen the tentacles of its
control close over every aspect of your life. You would have seen the way,
wielded by fundamentalists, radical Islam can be a powerful tool for unbridled
violence. It is the fear of this violence, torture, and death, wielded by
extremist Muslims, that keeps every person desperate to obey.
My father was brutally tortured — justified
by some of the fundamentalist Islamic laws of the ruling governments in both
Iran and Syria. The punishment extended to my mother, my family, and other
relatives, who were tormented on a regular basis.
What was even more painful was, upon coming
to the West, seeing the attitude of many people who label themselves liberals
and leftists, towards radical Islam.
These liberals seem to view themselves as
open-minded, but they have a preconceived way of thinking about Islam: to them,
it seems, there is no radical Islam, Islam is only a force for the good, Islam
can do no evil.
How could they not see the way extremist
Muslims exploit some aspects of the religion of Islam to legitimize its acts?
How could they not even acknowledge that radical Islam, a force that threatens
to destroy the planet, let alone my family, exists?
Instead, many liberals would criticize me or
attempt to turn a blind eye, as if I were accidentally making some embarrassing
mistake. They seemed instead to love being surrounded by Western Muslim
“scholars”, those who are apologetic towards radical Islam and — notably — have
never actually lived in a Muslim country under the strangling grip of the
official fundamentalist laws, sharia.
Why do many liberals, who criticize Christianity
and religious conviction in general, appear to open their arms to radical Islam
so affectionately? Why are so many liberals, who call themselves the robust
defenders of peace, social justice, and freedoms, apologetic for all types of
fundamentalist Islamist laws?
If, as liberals argue, they support women’s
and LGBT rights, why, by their silence, do they condone gays executed and women
subjugated on a daily basis throughout most of the enormous Muslim world? If
liberals are in favor of freedom of speech, why do they turn a blind eye to
Islamist governments such as Iran that, based on the government’s radical,
theocratic laws, execute people for expressing their opinion? And why do they
not let people in the West express their opinion without attacking them before
even giving them the respect of hearing what they have to say?
Liberals argue that they are in favour of
critical thinking, but they do not like anyone challenging their “comfort
zone”. They seem, in fact, to be just like the autocratic people from whom I
was fleeing, who also did not want their simplistic, binary way of thinking to
be threatened by logic or fact.
Even if a person is from a Muslim country,
and has direct experience with extremist Islam, many liberals will strenuously
avoid this information. They seem not to want their apologetic view of radical
Islam to be questioned or contradicted. They apparently have no desire to open
their closed minds on the subject. The thought of a question evidently wounds
them, as if an answer would mean that they were turning their backs on the
ongoing crimes against humanity. How come, then, that so many liberals appear
resistant to seeing that the crimes of radical Islam are those crimes against
humanity? And at present, the largest?
Second, these liberals — indulging in faulty,
sophistic, logic — seem to think that if they criticize Christianity and
Islamists criticize Christianity, then Islamists will like them for hating the
same thing. In the same vein, many liberals hate the U.S. Republican government
and many radical Muslim groups hate the U.S. Republican government, so perhaps
many liberals think that Muslims will like them for hating the same government?
Sadly, as these liberals will soon find out, the enemy of my enemy is not
always my friend.
Third, and more fundamentally, sympathizing
with all kinds of Islamist practices and radical Islam seems to fit a wider
narrative of bashing the West and white people for “imperialism, colonialism,
and any sense of superiority”. Unfortunately that view fails to take into
account that there have been no greater imperialists the Muslim armies; they
conquered Persia, the great Christian Byzantine Empire in Turkey, North Africa
and the Middle East, virtually all of Eastern Europe, most of Spain, and Greece.
As, in Islam, one is not allowed to attack
except to defend the prophet Muhammed or Islam, extremist Muslims need to keep
either finding or creating supposed attacks to make themselves appear as
victims.
Anjem Choudary, a radical British Muslim
cleric, was sentenced late last year by a British judge to five and a half
years in prison for encouraging people to join the Islamic State. (Image
source: Dan H/Flickr)
Many liberals, not knowing the background,
buy into this claim. By siding with the “other”, they probably feel a moral
superiority: they are helping a cause, championing the “other” and rescuing a
“victim”! But this moral superiority is both superficial and misplaced. It is
more like that of the proverbial boy who murders his parents and then asks the
judge for mercy because he is an orphan.
Maybe that is why, when many liberals hear
criticism of radical Islam and the nuances of some aspects it, they refuse to
hear it. For them, as radical Islam is not being depicted as a victim anymore,
this view does not offer them the comfort of being morally superior defending
victims. Ironically, that is the same motive for many radical Islamists:
feeling morally superior defending Islam. The liberals then become confused,
and do not know how to answer because I am a Muslim, have grown up there — not
a Western Muslim who has never lived in a Muslim society. I am not even a
Western conservative, with whom the liberals are also at odds. Many liberals,
like all people happily married to a fantasy, and despite towering evidence,
will stick to the fantasy and to their binary way of thinking. It is like
trying to tell your friend that the stripper he wants to marry might not want
to stay home, make babies and cook. He is so emotionally addicted to his dream
that he will do anything to protect it.
Finally, it goes without saying that, as with
all of us, liberals too attempt to preserve their financial and political
interests. These material and social investments are also threatened by hearing
from Muslims who have endured oppression and torture under radical Islam. Those
liberals seem to suspect, correctly, that this new information might create
some kind of conflict of interest, so possibly decide it might be safer not to
hear it in the first place. Instead, again to protect their investment, many
liberals and leftists ignore or criticize Muslims such as these.
Finally, a short message to liberals might
go: Dear Liberal, If you truly stand for values such as peace, social justice,
liberty and freedoms, your apologetic view of radical Islam is in total
contradiction with all of those values. Your view even hinders the efforts of
many Muslims to make a peaceful reformation in Islam precisely to advance the
those values. In addition, sadly, your view towards radical Islam actually
contributes to the violence and the repression of millions of people — women,
children, slaves, and all those people whom you claim you want to protect.
These are the true victims. They are subjugated, dehumanized, terrorized,
tortured, raped and beaten on a daily basis by the practitioners of radical
Islam and the religious laws of sharia, which are at the core of that
fundamentalism. It is time to open your eyes and your minds and see what is
staring at you.
Dr.
Majid Rafizadeh, political scientist and Harvard University scholar is
president of the International American Council on the Middle East. He can be
reached atDr.rafizadeh@post.harvard.edu.
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