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Tarek Fatah's presentation was unique in its
unequivocal support of secular and democratic principles and its clear
opposition to fundamentalism.
The FOTH seminar was meant
to unite disjointed secular forces towards achieving secular goals at home
and abroad but despite the good intentions of the organizers, the seminar
turned out to be polarizing in many ways, with a couple of panelists going
to the unthinkable length of providing justification for supporting
religious extremism —the very antithesis of secular philosophy.
The discourse remained diluted, and quite
deliberately so, for the purpose of deflecting focus from the said
opposition to Islamist radicalism. Two of the panelists spent considerable
time attacking Imperialism rather than religious fanaticism. Regrettably,
Islamism was touted as the only force standing up to Imperialist might. It
had to be defended on that basis alone according to these moral
supremacists of the so-called anti-Imperialist movement.
One of the panelists, in defending his support
of extremist groups, asserted that Islamic radicalism had to be viewed in a
certain political context that justified its continuance and
influence. He regarded Islamic
radicalism and imperialism as two distinct phenomena that perhaps needed to
be pitted against each other in their respective struggles for ascendancy.
Needless to say, Islamism’s imperialist designs
were totally ignored according to this stance. It is well–known for
example, that Imperialism has existed in different phases of history in
different cultures. While western imperialism seeks to establish its
economic dominance across the world under the pretext of
"civilizing" the world, Islamism comes with its own notions of
superiority which it wishes to impose on other peoples. It is just as much
imperialist in this regard.
Also dismissed by the supporters of Islamism
were the atrocities inflicted by Islamists on their own people. Need one
point out that they mercilessly kill Muslims as well as non-Muslims—indeed
anyone they deem a threat to their radical ideology and global agenda?
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