What is it between the Left and Islam?
This was exactly the question posed in a blog post by John Richardson some weeks back in which he said:
I ask because I honestly don’t get it – or at least, my version of ‘getting it’ is so extreme in its interpretation as to verge on the paranoid.
My answer at the time:
Nope. I absolutely don’t get it either and believe me I’ve tried.
Well, it’s my turn to verge on the paranoid.
Sultan Knish has addressed this very aberration and posits the following in answer:
The main weapon that progressives wield against traditionalists is their ability to break down the values that make up their worldview by challenging norms of behavior and thought, with the goal of using cultural friction to slowly replace traditional values and mores with their own.
[.....]
The left, which excels at attacking traditional values, has signed a pact with Islam. Not only does it refuse to undermine its religion and traditional values, the way that it undermines those of everyone else, but it actively promotes Islamic values and traditions as morally superior to those of its own society.
The reason for this is simple strategy. The progressives of the left in each society are at war with their own traditionalists. American liberals are at war with American conservatives. European liberals are at war with European conservatives. Liberal Christians are at war with Conservative Christians and Progressive Jews are at war with Traditional Jews.
[.....]
High-reproducing groups tend to be traditional, so that the only way for the left to outmaneuver the traditionalist reaction it helped create, is by importing other traditionalists.
Islam isn’t the only group on this list, but it is the leading group, especially in Europe. Its asset is that it has a high birth rate and it votes left-of-center. It may be innately traditionalist, but that doesn’t matter to the Eurocrats because they don’t care what Muslims do in their own communities and they don’t think that it will apply to them.
[....]
Progressive parties depend on Muslim votes. Their immigration policies selectively import groups that they have a high confidence rate of voting for them. Higher-reproducing alien traditionalist populations can demographically compete with or even out-reproduce native traditionalists, which helps keep the progressives in power and even seduces them with a vision of a country where they will always be in power for all time.
Sultan’s post is the first I’ve encountered attempting to explain the Left’s mysterious fondness for Islam.
Do let me know if you have better theory.
Tags: Politics, Religion Society
June 19th, 2012 at 7:56 am
I think it’s the race issue rather than the religious one that gets the left interested in Islam. Having said that I ave a meeting with a UK government minister this week and he has insisted on it being interfaith.
The difficulty I have with the anti Islam brigade s that all the Muslims I know are sensible, sane people.
June 19th, 2012 at 11:39 am
Gordon,
I have never met an Imam who will turn down an “interfaith” dialogue – and there are many. (They are even invited into churches to speak.)
Why? They always succeed in their goals in making Islam seem palatable. How? The doctrine of “Taqiyya” which authorizes Muslims to lie to the infidel in order to promote Islam.
For instance, they promote Islam as a “religion of peace” based on Surah 2:256. However, they conveniently fail to tell you that it has been abrogated or replaced by later more violent jihadic verses.
Just visit Muslim nations and take a look at how peaceful they are to their dhimmis (non-Muslims) who are relegated to a second class status.
June 19th, 2012 at 3:51 pm
In hoc signo vinces†
What is it between the Left and Islam?
That question has mostly been answered more intriguingly-
What is it between the Right and Islam?
@Gordon,
Sensible, sane people wielding power collectively are not averse to committing senseless and insane acts.
June 20th, 2012 at 4:43 pm
Thanks Stuart as haven’t taken my weekly dip into ST’s stuff. He’s usually verbose but hits the nail right on the head, so appreciate your good precis.