The two available views on Islam in mainstream American politics

Now that FrontPage Magazine is in the full hysterical heat of its build-up toward “Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week,” an event aimed at “raising consciousness” about something that doesn’t exist (since what FP calls “Islamo-Fascism” is really classical Islam), the left’s attacks on “Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week” have been at least as big a subject at FP as “Islamo-Fascism” itself. Let us remember that when it comes to the proper way to think about Islam, mainstream American politics is divided into just two factions. There is the left, which says that everything about Islam is just wonderful and that any tiny little bad parts of Islam have nothing to do with Islam but are symptoms of Western oppression. Then there is the “right,” which says that everything about Islam is just wonderful and that any tiny little bad parts of Islam have nothing to do with Islam but are caused by the modern perversion of Islam by Western totalitarian ideologies. Both left and “right” agree that Islam is just wonderful and must be welcomed en masse into the West and celebrated at the White House. The only thing they disagree about is that tiny little bad part. The left says the tiny little bad part is our fault. The “right” says the tiny little bad part is the fault of false Muslims who have hijacked Islam. But because the “right” blames the tiny little bad part on Muslims (though they are false Muslims) rather than on America, the left hates the “right” and considers it to be bigoted and racist. And because the left considers the “right” to be bigoted and racist, the “right” hates the left.

Now you know everything you need to know about mainstream American politics vis a vis Islam. Obviously, we need something better.

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Sage McLaughlin writes:

You note that the only difference between respectable “left” and “right” opinion on the sources of Islamic violence is that leftists blame Western oppression, while so-called conservatives blame Islamic extremists. But as you also mention, these Islamic extremists are supposedly inspired by Western ideologies. That is, pure Islam has been distorted by contact with Western fascists.

So in either case, it is contact with evil Westerners which has distorted the essential goodness of Islam. [LA replies: That is in fact the explicit thesis of the conservatives’ god, Bernard Lewis.] The only respectable opinion today is that the West corrupted Islam, and must therefore pay danegeld and make reparations in order to free and raise up Islamic peoples everywhere. I find this shocking, and I assert that it promises to be both cause and consequence of the fall of Western civilization.

PS—There are other permutations of this tendency—as when the wealth and prosperity of an undeserving West, which has failed to include the Islamic world fully, is said to “alienate” and “frustrate” otherwise well-meaning Muslims. In any event, the one thing that can never be said is that Islamic jihad and violence has anything to do with Islam. (Of course, if you really believe Westerners could without knowing it make an entire religion go bad, then you’ll also believe you can make it good and pure again—I wonder what “the extremists” would say to that.)

N. writes:

Could it be that these errors about Islam both stem ultimately from the same source, liberal secularism? One of the things that has become clear to me from reading various opinions about the jihad, and interacting with some people about it on email lists, is that people who are active Christians do not find it so difficult to conceive that at least some Moslems are just “reading the manual” and carrying out what it says. But those with no faith, or a nominal faith, are continually looking for some other reason.

The secularists, the atheists, those who go to church a couple of times a year, those who go to temple three times a year; these are the people who point to poverty, to Western cultural influences, to material failures by Moslem governments (usually due to insufficient Western aid, of course), to corruption, and eventually to “hijacking a noble religion” … anything but what the Verse of the Sword says & how it has been interpreted for a thousand years.

It seems obvious, therefore, that those people who regard religion as a lot of hooey or as fairy tales simply are not able to put themselves in the shoes of an orthodox Moslem who reads in the Koran of his duty to engage in jihad by any of several means, and then does so. Because they themselves believe in nothing beyond a government, or a political movement, or “art,” or some other man-made thing, they literally can not understand what it is to believe in a power beyond man, and to wish to follow ancient commands. Therefore the root cause of all these errors about Islam lies in the secularist mindset.

LA replies:

I think you’re on to something here, but what about believing Christians who also say these things, like Busheron? So the theory needs more refinement.

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It’s all Islamo-Fascism, all the time at FrontPage Magazine. Here are the main articles on FP’s main page for October 19. With all that “Fascism, Fascism, Fascism, Fascism,” you’d think you were at a leftist rally. Also note that Robert Spencer’s article, while it has “Islamo-Fascism” in the title, does not contain that term in the article proper, since Spencer doesn’t use it or “Islamism.” Instead of speaks of “jihadists.” The editors of FP imposed their phony concept on his article.

Islamo-Fascist Bigotry: The Persecution of Fellow Believers
By: Robert Spencer
Unbelievers aren’t the only targets of jihadists.

Vocabulary of War
By: David Horowitz
The Left’s hatred of those who raise awareness about Islamo-Fascism.

Oxford Union Is Dead
By: Alan M. Dershowitz
How the distinguished debating society became a propaganda platform for the hard Left.

Fight Fire with Fire
By: Robert Stacy McCain
Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week approaching campuses nationwide.

DAVID’S BLOG
Immigration Official Shills for Islamo-Fascists

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Posted by Lawrence Auster at October 19, 2007 08:49 AM | Send