The left should lead the fight against Islamic radicalism

Ayaan Hirsi Ali (photo: Wikimedia)

[COMMENTARY] On last week’s Declaring Independence I had the privilege of doing a brief interview of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the extraordinarily brave Somali-born woman who works diligently to fight against the barbaric practices of radical Islam. You can listen to that interview here.

Hirsi Ali’s story is a remarkable one. She was born in Mogadishu, Somalia, into a Muslim family. At the age of 5, she was forced to undergo a clitorectomy, sometimes called a female circumcision. She was later pledged in an arranged marriage to a distant cousin, which she objected to and fled to avoid. She eventually made her way to the Netherlands where, unsurprisingly, she became a powerful advocate of women’s rights.

She ran into controversy when it was revealed that she had lied on her application for political asylum in that country, which she fully admits to doing. It was necessary, she says, to make her already bad situation seem even worse at the time in order to ensure that her application for asylum would be granted. After the resulting fallout, she emigrated to the United States, where she now lives and works as a scholar with the American Enterprise Institute.

One of the issues that we discussed in our interview was the need for the left in this country to take the lead in advancing a strong and coherent critique of radical Islam. I have long detected a split on the left over this issue, a split between what I call the rationalist left and the relativist left. The relativist left often downplays the barbarism of radical Islam or fails to speak out against it as strongly as, for example, it does against the actions and beliefs of the religious right in America.

Let us start with a few indisputable facts. First, let us acknowledge that radical Islam is the most anti-liberal ideology in the world today. This ideology demeans women in a thousand different ways, denying them an education and anything like freedom or equality. It demands the public stoning of gays and lesbians. It inflicts the death penalty for apostasy and blasphemy. It is hard to imagine an ideology more contrary to the ideals of freedom and equality.

Second, let us make very clear that this is not an indictment of all Muslims. Like any large religion, there is not one Islam but many Islams. Some forms of Islam have been humanized by the acceptance and integration of liberal democratic ideas into the larger religion, just as the Enlightenment did the same to most forms of Christianity in the West.

Some of the most powerful voices against the barbarism of the radicals come from Muslim scholars like Muqtedar Khan and Louay Safi of the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy. And they speak to and for a larger Muslim community that is really no different from the rest of us in seeking a peaceful and just society. Their work is important, and we must embrace it rather than ignore it.

Third, let us recognize that there are voices on the left making this case and that this is not a criticism of all liberals by any means. Christopher Hitchens, for example, has been outspoken both in his attacks on radical Islam and his embrace of moderate Muslims fighting against that radicalism. And while I did not agree with his support of the war in Iraq, which I think fueled the very radicalism that we both oppose, I think he is correct in recognizing both the philosophical and practical danger of that twisted ideology.

But there are others who downplay that threat in various ways. We saw it, for example, in the reaction of author John Le Carre to the Iranian fatwa against Salman Rushdie for writing “The Satanic Verses.” He declared that “there is no law in life or nature that says great religions may be insulted with impunity” and that “there is no absolute standard of free speech in any society.” He further claimed that Rushdie was being “colonialist” by portraying himself as an innocent victim of the fatwa on his life.

We saw it also in the reaction of some on the left to the publishing of those infamous caricatures in a Danish newspaper. One of the most popular liberal bloggers wrote that the publishing of those cartoons was nothing more than “an insult to inflame a poor minority” and that he didn’t have “any sympathy for a newspaper carrying out an exercise in pointless provocation.”

But this is muddled relativism at its most silly. Those caricatures were pointed criticism of the tendency of radical Islam to respond to such criticism with violence; the fact that the response from radical Islamists was to threaten the lives of the artists and firebomb embassies around the world shows both the importance and the accuracy of such criticism.

Unfortunately, the loudest and most prominent voices in critiquing radical Islam in this country are primarily from the right. Indeed, that is where Ali, who describes herself as a liberal, has found most of her support in this country and why she is employed by a right-wing think tank. This is not a good thing, in my view.

The left must take the lead in making a strong critique of radical Islam and a strong defense of liberal democratic ideals because if we allow the right to do so, that critique will inevitably be intertwined with notions of Christian chauvinism, American exceptionalism, and, in some cases, with imperialism, xenophobia and racism as well. We can and must make those arguments because we can do so in a coherent manner, not bundled up with other noxious views that present their own danger to liberal ideals.

There is no need for any mushy relativism here. The ideology and practice of radical Islam is morally repugnant. The abuse of women and the opposition to freedom and equality are nothing short of barbaric, and we need not mince our words in opposing them. The ideals of a society that respects freedom and equality really are better, they really are worth defending, and progressives should be on the front lines of that battle.