Transatlantic Intelligencer :: Talking With Islamists: The European Left and its “Dialogue†with the Arab World
Transatlantic Intelligencer :: Talking With Islamists: The European Left and its “Dialogue†with the Arab World
One of the main political themes (but also in social sciences) at this moment is whether or not to include islamists of different types in the democratic process and negotiate with them. In this article the politics of the European Left and the Islamists are connected to eachother and, so the authors argue, this dialogue has led to nothing. The Dutch WRR-report on islamic activism has mainly the same theme and the WRR sees possibilities for this dialogue (on the level of the state). It is an important theme and an important question.
The effect of conferences like that in Beirut is to promote radical Islamists to the status of serious negotiating partners.
Among other things, this has become possible because European Islamists, partly from conviction and partly from opportunism, have now nearly perfectly mastered the use of a vocabulary that dovetails seamlessly with “left-wing†ideas and programs. Just as in the case of Tariq Ramadan, who found an enthusiastic audience at the European Social Forum in Paris, so the success of the British Islamist al-Tamimi derives from his consciously relating his Islamism to the discourses of anti-Americanism and the anti-globalization movement. Thus, in an essay on Arab anti-Semitism, he writes that “In essence, the Zionist project is a Western colonial enterprise whose success depends on two main factors. The first factor is the determination of a powerful West to see this enterprise continue. The second factor is the weakness of the Arabs and the Muslims who have been robbed of the possibilities of defending themselvesâ€. [18] In the same measure as the “Muslim world†is presented as the victim of the “New World Orderâ€, he proposes it as the bearer of a more just one. “Evidently, the Muslim world is witnessing a massive awakening that will transform its weakness into strength. When the Arabs and Muslims again achieve strength and confidence, this will coincide with a retreat of the World Order due to dwindling material and military resources and as a result of the escalation of the current crisis. Then the end of the Zionist project will also have come and the State of Israel will no longer exist.†Packaged in academic language, Tamimi presents the same program of global jihad as that expressed in cruder form by Osama bin Laden and al-Qa’ida. The resistance to a “New World Order†controlled by Israel and the Zionists will succeed if it can exact a rising military price through a multiplication of conflicts and so sap the enemy’s strength. The call to murder could hardly be more soberly stated. And this is in fact essentially the program followed by the Ba’thists and Islamists in Iraq since the fall of Saddam.
What kind of democratic process is that in which people get to decide that their opponents can’t participate? This is dictatorship, not democracy.
Secondly, people like Tariq Ramadan are extremely sincere. They aren’t “borrowing” from the left. They are simply observing the world as is.
It is acknowledged even by Israeli government officials that the State of Israel exists on land, much of it stolen from the Palestinians and that this is the root of the conflict. Hence, the arguing of people like those from Jihad Watch that this is only about countering “Islamism” is nothing more than a deliberate attempt to preempt justice by shifting attention away from the above facts viz. The State of Israel exists on stolen land.
Without justice, there is no peace. That is truth no matter who says it.
Cheers.