Islamo-Leftism

Islamo-Leftism (French: islamo-gauchisme), whose adherents are called Islamo-Leftists,[1] is a neologism defined by French philosopher Pascal Bruckner as "the fusion between the atheist Far Left and religious radicalism."[2]

According to Bruckner, Islamo-Leftism was "chiefly" conceived by British Trotskyites of the Socialist Workers Party. Because these dedicated Leftists perceive Islam's potential for fomenting societal unrest, they promote tactical, temporary alliances with reactionary Muslim parties. According to Bruckner, Leftist adherents of Third-Worldism hope to use Islamism as a "battering-ram" to bring about the downfall of free-market capitalism, and they see the sacrifice of individual rights - in particular, of women's rights - as an acceptable trade-off in service of the greater goal of destroying capitalism. Bruckner contends that Islamists, for their part, pretend to join the left in its opposition to racism, neocolonialism, and globalization as a tactical and temporary means to achieve their true goal of imposing the "totalitarian theocracy" of Islamist government.[2][3]

In his 2015 novel, Submission, Michel Houellebecq has Robert Rediger, the fictional character who is a convert to Islam and university professor turned politician, describe Islamo-leftism (unlike Brucker's translator, Houellebecq's translator does not capitalize the "l",) as, "a desperate attempt by moldering, putrefying, brain-dead Marxists to hoist themselves out of the dustbin of history by latching onto the coattails of Islam."[4]

Political scientist Maurice Fraser regards Islamo-Leftism as part of a, "striking and recent abdication of the Enlightenment project of human rights, freedom, secularism, science and progress," on the part of the political left, particularly among the anti-globalization activists of the New Left.[5] Bernard-Henri Lévy describes Islamo-Leftism as a sort of "anti-American religion."[6]

Iranian Revolution

Shireen Hunter credits Ali Shariati's Islamo-Leftist reinterpretation of Islam in the light of Marxist theory in the 1970s with inspiring Iranian Shia Islamists to describe their movement and themselves as socially progressive, egalitarian and defenders of the weak, in a successful ploy to win the support of Iran's educated, leftist youth.[7] Hunter classifies the People's Mujahedin of Iran an Islamo-leftist organization.[8] According to Olivier Roy, Iran's revolutionary Islamo-Leftists "rejected democracy."[9]

History of term

Al Jazeera claims that the term Islamo-Leftism was coined by Marine Le Pen, who uses it "to describe what she considers an unhealthy alliance between "Islamist fanatics" and the French Left."[10] However, according to Alain Badiou and Eric Hazan, Islamo-Leftists was coined by French police for reasons of simple utility.[11]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Guibert, Philippe (7 October 2015). "Il faut inventer la "politique musulmane" de la France". Slate. Retrieved 2 November 2015.
  2. 1 2 Bruckner, Pascal (2010). The Tyranny of Guilt: An Essay on Western Masochism. Princeton University Press. p. 25. ISBN 1400834317.
  3. ↑ Pascal, Julia (22 September 2011). "The Tyranny Of Guilt: An Essay On Western Masochism, By Pascal Bruckner, trans by Steven Rendall". The Independent. Retrieved 2 November 2015.
  4. ↑ Houellebecq, Michel (2015). Submission. Farrar, Straus, Giroux. p. 223.
  5. ↑ Fraser, Maurice (11 November 2010). "Is the Decline of the West Reversible?". European View. 2 (2): 149. Retrieved 2 November 2015.
  6. ↑ Bernard-Henri Lévy (2009). Left in Dark Times: A Stand Against the New Barbarism. Random House. p. 114. ISBN 0812974727.
  7. ↑ Shireen Hunter (1998). The Future of Islam and the West. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 94. ISBN 0275962881.
  8. ↑ Shireen Hunter (2014). Reformist Voices of Islam: Mediating Islam and Modernity. Routledge. p. 42. ISBN 131746124X.
  9. ↑ Olivier Roy, chapter in book edited by Larry Diamond, Marc F. Plattner (2014). Democratization and Authoritarianism in the Arab World. Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 41. ISBN 1421414163.
  10. ↑ Ryan, Yasmine (6 April 2012). "French right focuses on 'radical' Muslims". Al Jazeera. Retrieved 3 November 2015.
  11. ↑ Alain Badiou, Eric Hazan (2013). 'Anti-Semitism is Everywhere" in France Today, Chapter in, Reflections On Anti-Semitism. Verso Books. p. 41.
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