Should We Draw Mohammed?

The Red Writers are a collective of far left bloggers, and I've been enjoying their blog for the past few weeks. I disagree entirely with almost every single sentiment uttered over there, but it's definitely food for thought.

In the posting "Should We Draw Mohammed?", from all the way back in June 2010, I found much objectionable content. It's basically yet more of the kind of logical gymnastics, seemingly willful hypocrisy and wrongheaded apologetics I've come to expect from the anti-war Left:

In short, Muslims in Europe are under attack from the far-right who use "defending free speech" as a tool to spread reactionary propaganda such as Geert Wilders anti-Islamic film Fitna.

The narrative surrounding Geert Wilders as some kind of extremist right-winger is bizarre. This man, and his party, are standing up for gay rights and women's rights. Their stance on immigration is actually fairly mainstream and his rhetoric is not at all hateful. This doesn't seem like the behaviour of a "proto-fascist". It doesn't matter whether Fitna is true or not, the fact the the people who provided funding for the project had to create a front group for 'fear of repraisal' is the truly shameful thing here. The fact that Wilders made a movie criticising Islam in the Netherlands is, in fact, very brave and he should be applauded. Theo van Gogh was shot 8 times on the morning of November 2nd, 2004 in Amsterdam for directing a movie called Submission which is critical of Islam. He was also stabbed in the chest (after his assasin attempted to decapitate him) and attached to the knife was a note threatening the life of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the writer of Submission and a Dutch parliament member, who later had to flee the country for her own safety. Hirsi Ali is an inspirational and courageous woman, she hardly seems like any kind of anti-immigrant fascist (she's an immigrant herself).

The issue is, in fact, black and white. The economy of a small European country was threatenend and its' embassasies attacked because of some cartoons. The governments of Muslim countries (namely Turkey and Iran) reprimanded the Danish Prime Minister for not breaking his own country's laws and censoring the cartoons. The history of conflict between Islam and the West is not an excuse for this kind of hysterical reaction, and the Left's apologetics for it is disgusting. Every bit as disgusting as the deafening silence from these same people when the Iranian head of state offered money in his own name to suborn the murder of Salman Rushdie for the grand crime of writing a work of fiction. It's the same kind of misguided apologetics, and it's just as outrageous this time around.

On the broader point, there is a critical misunderstanding here. Many anti-war types believe the existence of anti-Western sentiment is all to do with American crimes in the Middle East and in other 'Muslim lands'. It's true that many US politicians are guilty of heinous war crimes (Henry Kissinger being Exhibit A), but this does not explain Islamism. The anti-war Left is happy to think that the U.S. invited the attack on 9/11, or at least that it was understandable as some kind of counter-attack. All attacks by Muslims on the West are understandable as some kind of resistance, it would seem. But they're missing the point. Radicalised Muslims regularly kill one another in Iraq with suicide bombings, acid is thrown in the faces of unveiled women in Waziristan and homosexual teenagers are hanged in Iran. Egyptian Coptic Christians are attacked in Cairo, honour killings are routine in places like Syria and Jordan, etc., etc. In what way can the West to be blamed for this behaviour? The fact is that radical Muslims behave in the way they do because of a fanatical belief in a religion.

Iraqi Kurdistan could rightly be called a concentration camp on top and a mass grave underneath during the reign of the Hussein crime family, but the people there have shown themselves to be mature and enthusiastic in working to build a new Iraq. No brutality was spared them, and yet they are not destructive in their behavior. If it were true that people naturally react to 'oppression' with suicide bombings and hysterical riots, why is this not the case with the Kurds?

The logic is all wrong, the apologetics have to stop. What's more, the Left in the US and especially in Europe should be on the side of the socialist movements in the Middle East that are standing up to Islamic fascism and fighting for the rights of women, the right to free speech, etc. Those are the natural allies of the Left, I would have thought. But instead, they've seemingly decided to attach themselves to a clutch of hysterical religious fanatics ... because, hey, at least someone is standing up to Yankee capitalism, right?