Family of the Heart

Of Muslim leftists and liberalism

November 27, 2008

TAHIR ASLAM GORA
The Hamilton Spectator
(Nov 27, 2008)

Today's world is not only facing a messy and chaotic situation in economic and international relations, it's also observing a huge confusion on ideological fronts.

It came to my mind when I looked at the reports of the conversations of Tariq Ali, a well known Pakistan-born, British author and leftist scholar, in Toronto this month.

Like some other leftists, Tariq Ali seems to praise Taliban and portray them as anti-American and anti-imperialist. But being an anti-American doesn't mean being an anti-imperialist. The Taliban's own agenda is not only one of an imperialistic nature in the medieval style, but is also to impose a fascist and inhuman way of life.

Praise for the Taliban and Hezbollah from some extreme left corners reminds me of those days in Pakistan when terror mongers of Jamaate Islami were supporting the torture of left-wing scholars and their ideological supporters. Now both extremes are looking like each other. It's a sad scenario.

To me, the left has never been just a manifesto of communism. It has been an attitude of liberal values and liberation from religious and social suffocations. Even in communist terms, Vladimir Lenin emphasized "the need to combat Pan-Islamism and similar trends."

That's why millions of progressive-minded Muslims (including Tariq Ali) seeking liberation from the Pan-Islamism found refuge in left-wing ideologies.

Still most could not liberate themselves from the very core elements of Islamic tribalism. This is the reason all Muslim comrades talk about Palestinian independence from Israel, but barely anyone is willing to raise their voice against the persecution of the Kurds, who seek their independence from four surrounding Islamic nations -- Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey.

Tariq Ali does the same. He condemns Israel all the time but never utters a word in favour of Kurds.

Conspicuous by his absence at the Toronto event was author Tarek Fatah, who for years has been hosting Tariq Ali in Toronto. "I preferred to stay away, as Tariq Ali has betrayed the principles of progressive politics by making common cause with Islamists. He considers Hezbollah heroic and the murderous Taliban as a Pushtun movement," Fatah said.

Ironically, writers such as Salman Rushdie, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Taslima Nasreen and Irshad Manji are the targets of these so-called leftists as well. These are the writers who have claimed their liberation from Islamic suffocation by putting their lives at risk. But they never get recognized by the hard-core left, which doesn't behave any differently than fanatic Islamic clerics.

In the same footsteps, Tariq Ali criticized Canadian author Irshad Manji in his talk in Toronto and accused her of furthering the western agenda against Muslims.

In fact, leftists like Tariq Ali are caught up in their so-called Islamic heritage pride and are not liberated enough to support the true values of liberalism and secularism. They have only one agenda: anti-Americanism.

They only see human-rights violations in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Palestinian territories that, according to them, are committed solely by the United States and Israel. They hardly mention the killing of thousands and thousands of leftists by Iranian mullahs. They have never shown much concern about the killing of more than a million people by so-called "Comrade" Saddam Hussein in his own country. Human-rights violations in Russia, China, Africa, Latin America and the Islamic world are not their cup of tea.

They like to call the western media propaganda machines, but are smart enough to use that same media when they can to further their own hate.

Sometimes, I wonder who "owns" the left -- hard-line leftists or those who have liberated themselves from various forms of religious suffocation.