I don't often agree with Amir Taheri these days, but on this alliance he is right on the money. From the Jerusalem Post, via FrontPage:
When the US-led coalition invaded Iraq in March 2003, few would have imagined that the move might lead to the formation of an alliance between the radical Left and hard-line Islamists in Western Europe. But this is precisely what happened.In this month's election for a new European Parliament, voters in several European Union countries, notably France and Britain, are offered common lists of Islamist and leftist candidates, often hidden under bland labels.
Europe's moribund extreme Left has found a new lease on life thanks to hundreds of young Muslim militants recruited from the poor suburbs of Paris and the Islamic ghettos of northern England.
The Islamist groups, for their part, are learning many tricks from the Left about how to exploit the inevitable weaknesses of an open society.
In Britain, the new Marxist-Islamist alliance is the offspring of the so-called anti-war coalition set up two years ago to prevent the liberation of Iraq. The coalition has a steering committee of 33 members. Of these, 18 come from various hard Left groups: communists, Trotskyites, Maoists, and Castroists. Three others belong to the radical wing of the Labor party. There are also eight radical Islamists. The remaining four are leftist ecologists known as Watermelons (Green outside, red inside). The chairman of the coalition is one Andrew Murray, a former employee of the Soviet Novosty Agency and leader of the British Communist Party. Co-chair is Muhammad Asalm Ijaz of the London Council of Mosques.
A prominent member is George Galloway, recently excluded from the Labor party, who is under investigation for the illegal receipt of funds from Saddam Hussein. Galloway heads a list of candidates backed by several radical leftist groups, notably The British Socialist Workers Party (SWP), as well as the Muslim Association of Britain, the British branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, and a dozen Palestinian groups financed by Yasser Arafat.
The Palestinian checkered headgear, worn by the leftists as a cache-col, has become the symbol of this left-Islamist alliance.
Read it all.
It seems the left are playing a dangerous game here. By tying themselves so closely to the Islamofascists, the "ex-communists" and "trendy left" are risking a massive popular backlash against them if any serious Jihad acts of terror are carried out in the US or Europe. Maybe not straightaway but the public mood out there is becoming volatile. People are beginning to realise that any political movement that allies itself to a religion that calls for suicide bombers, the execution of homosexuals, the rape of "immodestly dressed" women and a rascist Jihad against all non-Muslims
is against all of us. This alliance is a sad reflection of how desperate the Left has become . to coin a phrase "The Left is the new fascism".
Mr. Taheri clearly does not know much about the North of England. I was born and bred there before moving to Birmingham (UK).
The North was a Christian kingdom when we counted years in three figures ( the mid five hundreds). It is still hard to find anyone darker than white in most of the North.
The "ghettoes" are to be found further south in Leeds and Bradford (still part of the North - from a southerners' viewpoint ) but hardly ghettoes. The headline riots are by no means as bad as they seem. They are bad for those involved, but large parts of the towns and cities remain unaffected.
Here in Birmingham we have a very large Islamic population. This very night my wife and I dined at a restaurant run by three hard working young muslims I taught when they were at school. They may be of Bangladeshi extraction, but they know they are British.
The number of Moslems elected to the council in our recent elections, as members of all four major parties (Labour, Conservative, UK Independence Party and the Liberal Democrats) was less than twenty percent - and that in one of the higher concentrations of muslims.
What happened to the parties Mr. Taheri mentioned? Wipe -out! George Galloway's strange alliance got no-where in the local or European elections. The neo-nazi BNP did better and they lost ground.
Frankly, I am more worried about a backlash and its effects on all asians and blacks regardless of religion than I am about a muslim takeover. A backlash is coming and if they push much harder they'll learn the same lessons as others that have tried British tolerance to far.
Now France is different, but if they decide to have a backlash, Madame La Guillotine will no doubt have her work cut out.
It is important that there be a careful distinction made between those who carry Islam with them in their mental baggage, and others who -- while they may be immigrants, and non-white, are completely inoffensive and perfectly capable of becoming loyal citizens of Great Britain or any other Infidel nation-state. Muslims would like to have other immigrants believe that they are all threatened, and therefore they must stick together, but it is transparent nonsense. The problem is not race, but ideology. It would be good if non-Muslim immigrants, such as Christians from black Africa and the Caribbean, clearly could distance themselves from Muslims. Occasionally one reads about "race riots" in Bradford. They are nothing of the sort. They are riots by Muslims from Pakistan. No Hindus, no Christians take part. If the newspapers would begin to report correctly, it would be helpful in understanding things as they are.
The alliance between the hard Left and radical Islam is indeed an unholy alliance, and no clearer proof of the far Left being intrinsically nihilistic.
Ian has posted interesting comments on the situation in his part of the UK. Hugh is on the money, as usual.
However, keeping a racial angle out of the backlash against Islam may be easier than these two posters think. On 9/11/01, in the small, lower Ohio Valley college town where I was living at the time, a lot of young folks headed for the military recruiters and there was a lot of flag-waving, but nobody attacked the local mosque or targeted swarthy people (of whom there were many--including non-Muslims). Quite frankly, I have never been prouder of American youth as a collective identity, and had I been a young man, I probably would have enlisted, too.
Now, a college town may be more "open-minded" than the rest of the surrounding region, but the surrounding region did have a very ugly history racism--including KKK activity. Yet the fact that it didn't surface at a golden opportunity to do so impressed me.
Ian reports that both the Unholy Alliance and BNP did poorly in a the region of Britain where they both might have been expected to gain ground (among different demographic groups). This is highly encouraging. It suggests (a) there may be a large "nominal" Muslim population that is uneasy about the radicals and (b) the "indigenous" British electorate remains fundamentally sane. The coming "backlash" therefore should make it a point that it is on the side of the assimilable immigrant. Should Islamic theology in the West prove intractably militant, Christians should take the initiative to witness to Muslims who may be disgruntled at the radicalism they hear in the mosques--and make the point that Christianity is a large part of what made the West a better part of the world in which to live.
A Christian "backlash" should be two pronged. On the one hand, it needs a strong emphasis on divine grace rather than human works. Hopefully, this will help it avoid the smug self-righteousness that is all too handy a temptation to believers. On the other hand, the "backlash" should reclaim Western history. The rule of law ideal and limited government ideals have a deep taproot in Christianity (the political scientist Antony Black--a Brit, by the way--has written some things along these lines); and the enlightenment has not always supported the rights of man (viz., the Hard Left component of the Unholy Alliance).
A prophetic Churchillian quote of much relevance from Mark Steyn at the london telegraph.
thank God for the sanity of that publication which i hear has much increased its circulation !
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml;sessionid=XQJP5HYSJ3ZVTQFIQMFSM5OAVCBQ0JVC?xml=/opinion/2004/07/13/do1302.xml&sSheet=/opinion/2004/07/13/ixopinion.html
""How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property - either as a child, a wife, or a concubine - must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.
"Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the Queen: all know how to die. But the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytising faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science - the science against which it had vainly struggled - the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome."
Chevalier de st george
I agree with you about the editorial direction at the Telegraph (once my least favourite newspaper). The problem is that the article by Steyn is really about proposed legislation that would criminalize this Churchillian comment on Mohammedanism ("Islam" is what I do at traffic lights). The Biased Broadcasting Corporation fired a presenter a few months ago for saying much the same thing.
Ian
"The headline riots are by no means as bad as they seem. They are bad for those involved, but large parts of the towns and cities remain unaffected"
Sorry, but you might just have been able to say the same about Beirut in the '80s. From a shorter distance away, I can tell you that the areas of close contact with muslim immigrant communities are seething; and it's getting worse. Something will have to change, and I don't think the native residents are in the mood for compromise.
With reference to the BNP I have to say that for all their faults they are the only political party to have the guts to come out and speak about the dangers of Islam in the UK. As for their support , in the recent elections here they polled 800,000 votes. This despite a mass media campaign against them and numerous instances of gerrymandering by the big three parties, some of which involved election officials "losing" ballot papers in wards with strong BNP support. In some ares they beat the Liberals into fourth place and won more votes than the greens. It also says volumes about the present mindset of the left that Mayor Of London Ken Livingstone refused to speak to BNP members because they were supposedly "rascist" but fawned over a Muslim cleric who calls for the death of Jews and homosexuals.
Sam Rooney
yes , Islam is not a race but a poliical force masquerading as a "mere" religion. In this way it averts the condemnations that would for example be levelled at the BNP if it espoused its doctrines.
I can make racist comment under the umbrella of islam for which i would be arrested under any other secular position.
Criticism of religion as a criminal offence have not been with us for centuries and such a regressive step would never be allowed to become legislation onve again.
All the history Books chronicling the ravages of islam on christian and other communities would have to be burned .
This would complete the sanitisation of Islam.
Islam must be criticised but that is not to say that the criticism are of Muslims themselves.
If i say Islam is evil. It is not the same as saying Muslims are evil. The latter is a Homophopic comment, the former is not.