Once again there is something newsworthy in Denmark. On June 15th and 16th Århus University hosted a conference entitled “Islamism and European Security”. Reader jdm has done yeoman’s work in translating material concerning the conference from the Danish media.
First there is an account of the conference (apparently no longer at the Århus site):
A number of Europe’s most knowledgeable experts on Islamism and terrorism are currently meeting at Århus University for a conference dealing with Islamism arranged by professor Mehdi Mozaffari, Århus University.
[…]
Mehdi Mozaffari himself opened the conference with a presentation about The Idea of Islamism.
»Islamisme er en regressiv religiøst inspireret ideologi med en holistisk fortolkning af islam, med det endelige mål at erobre hele verden,« sagde Medhi Mozaffari.
“Islamism is a regressive, religiously inspired ideology with a holistic interpretation of Islam and an ultimate goal of conquering the entire world,” Medhi Mozaffari said.
It’s worth noting that Mehdi Mozaffari apparently is one of those elusive creatures, a “moderate Muslim”. In fact, Denmark seems to have a fair number of them, and some of them go in fear of their lives due to their heretical views.
Here is jdm’s translation of an article about the conference which appeared in last Saturday’s Jyllands-Posten:
A Dangerous Alliance
At the international Islamism conference this week in Århus, the left-wing journalist Caroline Fourest pointed to the dangers of the coalition she thinks that some of the international left has entered into with Islamists.
The 30 year old French journalist who, writes for the left-wing magazine Charlie Hedbo, wonders why it is that the European left has not learned anything from what happened during the Iranian Revolution in 1979.
“Back then, a group of Marxists made a big mistake. They thought it would be possible to form a partnership with Islamists in the fight to topple the Shah,” said Caroline Fourest in her controversial presentation at the recently concluded international Islamism conference at Århus University.
Repeated Mistakes
She thinks that the left of today is about to make the exact same error as those Marxists in Iran who formed a partnership with Khomeini’s Islamist Movement only to be eliminated by their Islamic partner after the fall of the Shah.
“Today, we see coalitions and partnerships between Islamist groups and progressive leftwing movements that we would not have expected five years ago. Among these, the anti-globalization movement, the European Social Forum, at their most recent three meetings have invited Tariq Ramadan along with a number of activists from the Muslim Brotherhood to speak in the name of Islam. This is happening in a very progressive forum,” Caroline Fourest wondered and added that this meant that the forum’s secular Muslims are no longer present.
“They would just be accused of being pro-Bush, pro-Zionist, or Islamophobes”
Also, in France, Caroline Fourest points to alliances between Islamist groups and progressive groups on the left like Human Rights Watch — groups that came together in the fight against the government’s prohibition against religious symbols in French public schools.
“The worst thing about this coalition was that it attempted to accuse the feminists and secular groups of being racist or Islamophobic. In the same way, an anti-racist left-wing group wanted to sue Charlie Hedbo after it re-published the Mohammed cartoons. We still don’t know if the suit was because we were being blasphemous or racist.”
However, she also gives the anti-immigrant right a portion of the blame, albeit indirect, for these new alliances between the Islamic groups and the left.
The Mistake of the Right
“The right wing in Europe has conjoined the issues of immigration, security, and religious fanaticism. The left then, attempts to form an alternative to these policies and in conjunction with to trying to please Muslim voters, the left neglects to criticize the fanaticism in Islam,” says Caroline Fourest.
Ms. Fourest has joined Christopher Hitchens, Norm Geras, and others in an apostasy from Leftist orthodoxy on the topic of Islam. No doubt she will soon be subject to death threats and have to go in fear of her life, due to her betrayal of her erstwhile comrades.
Fjordman has written here in “I’m a Terrorist Groupie, Hear Me Roar!” about the affinity of the Left for violent Islam, and, more recently, about the connection of Islamism with Marxism.
Expect the divide between the Left and the rest of the West to grow more extreme, as its infernal love affair with the Islamic terrorists continues to flower. Anticipate even more deranged rhetoric from the opponents of Bushitler and Global Capitalist Fascism, as the logic of the alliance with Jihad unfolds.
But one has to wonder how the Left thinks it will all end. As Elvis Costello says,
Two little Hitlers will fight it out until
One little Hitler does the other one’s will.
Assume that the Progressives and the Mujahideen, with their united front, prevail in glorious triumph over the evil West. What then? Do the likes of Noam Chomsky and Michael Moore believe they stand a chance against the throat-slitters and the suicide-bombers? Does anyone want to lay odds on the outcome?
Presumably they’ve decided not to think about that for right now…
The journalist that wonders why no one learned anything from the iranian Revolution of 1979 is showing his own ignorance and that of the grerat majority of Westerners that have learned little from Islamic jihad that perpetually move across the earth. Unfortunately they have misnamed, lumped together with other empires and conquests as if there were no differernce among them…
I’ll take bets at 10-1 for the glorious lions of Allah against the marxists. Any takers?
Eleanor, please expand on your comments. Are you saying that current Muslim/left agreements are vastly different from the leftist cooperation with Khomeini? Your short post spoke of ignorance but did nothing to educate or even to direct us to an education.
I don’t think the likes of Michael Moore and Naom Chomsky can think that far ahead.
“I’ll take bets at 10-1 for the glorious lions of Allah against the marxists. Any takers?”
🙂 Nope, but I’d pay good money to see Chomsky and Moore against a couple of jihadists in a tag team deathmatch. Not that Moore is actually a marxist so much as a liberal dupe.
How about revolvers for Chomsky and Moore against knives for the jihadis, just for laughs? That’d make for a fair 10-1 odds bout. Can you imagine Moore desperately trying to remember Columbine and fumbling with the safety while Ali the Knife gives him a cesarean?
Matt said…
“I’ll take bets at 10-1 for the glorious lions of Allah against the marxists. Any takers?”
Well, if we were dealing with ye auld Stalinists or the Kmer Rouge, I’d take the bet in a minute…they’d eat the kittens of Allah for breakfast…but the cultural Marxists? They’ll go skipping to their doom with an idiot’s grin on their collective face. Sorry, no bet.
Shoprat said: I don’t think the likes of Michael Moore and Naom Chomsky can think that far ahead.
I don’t think the likes of Michael Moore and Naom Chomsky can think.
I still don’t get the use of the term “Progressive”.
There is nothing “progressive” about socialism, and leftism; additionally, if they are making the same mistakes as 27 years ago, what the hell is so “progressive” about that?
Qur’an
006.110
Translation by YUSUFALI: We (too) shall turn to (confusion) their hearts and their eyes, even as they refused to believe in this in the first instance: We shall leave them in their trespasses, to wander in distraction.
talnik said: “I still don’t get the use of the term “Progressive”.” — You could say that it’s progressive in a “pathological” sense, unless you cleanse your mind of the doctrines, they will make you progressively more leftist 😉
There is one more example other than Iran. During the Indian independence movement – the Indian Communists supported the Muslims in partitioning India. After the partition all the Communists in West Pakistan (Pakistan) and East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) were exterminated – the rest ran away to India to enjoy freedom of spech and thought and spoil it for us even more.
The Indian commies allied with the nationalist movement were initially against British rule since Russia and Germany were allies – When Hitler attacked Russia the Indian commies suddenly became allies of the British and squealed and informed on all the nationalists to the British.
When the Chinese attacked India in 1962 – the Indian commies supported their commie “brothers” against the evil Hindu capitalist pigs.
The reason this happens is that the commies are elitists and they look down on the Muslims and refuse to face the danger of Jihadism because they have a very low opinion of Muslims – although they pretend to be allies.
Eleanor, please expand on your comments. Are you saying that current Muslim/left agreements are vastly different from the leftist cooperation with Khomeini? Your short post spoke of ignorance but did nothing to educate or even to direct us to an education.
This isn’t rocket science. Islam utilizes useful fools wherever they find them and the Left naÏvely believes that partnering with Islam will allow them to achieve the goals of the Left. Ironically, they are the same as those of Islam: world domination. With Islam there can be no such outcome.
The lessons of history have demonstrated that each and every conquest, the establishment of Islamic governments throughout time, have brought about the total absorption of the population and an extinguishing of the previous culture. For example, conquests of the Romans, the Vikings, the Huns, and even the British can boast no such achievement because Islam is different.
Islam is different because it is more than just a culture, religion, or system of laws; Islam is an all-encompassing system. In this regard, Islam is similar to the Marxist “from cradle to grave.” However, Muslims believe in the transcendence of the soul and every thought, word, deed of the individual is governed from conception to the passing of the soul into Paradise. Every thought, word, deed is preoccupied with “being Islamic” and “doing Islamic” to get the blessings that are promised for the present and those in the next life. Marxism makes no such promises, except to level the playing field in this life.
Using Islam as a partner will temporarily achieve their goals, but they cannot succeed. Islam will swallow them up as they have every other culture or movement that does not show vigorous resistance. The Muslim and Leftist actors may come and go. The faces and names change will change, but the ideology, methodology and all the rest will be the same: partners and weak adversaries will fall to Islam as Islam insinuates itself into the fabric of their cultures and civilizations, using any means necessary until there is nothing left but Muslims, reverted or born, and the law of Allah.
Eleanor: chilling, but I don’t think it will come to that. My guess is that Europe’s future is a civil war, Muslims vs. Everyone Else. Some parts will fall, some will hold; the war will rage and smolder for years or decades. The leftists will, in some places, go Quisling, in the strongest sense of the word; while in others (Denmark comes to mind) they’ll be forcibly removed from the levers of power by an irate citizenry.
The main weapon of Islamism is cultural marxism; the main weapon of cultural marxism is words. Ignore the prattling of the marxists, and the Islamists are largely disarmed … and I doubt the marxists will have much influence when large parts of Europe are burning, and they’re being blamed for letting in the arsonists.
When the chips are down, though, I’m betting that the Muslims lose. They’re a generally excitable lot, and they’ll probably make their move prematurely. In the areas they take, they’ll be faced with the necessity of holding down an angry local population that still outnumbers them (a large fraction of them elderly, but with large numbers of youth, too.) In the places they don’t, the Muslims will probably be expelled en masse. Which means that the Denmarks, for instance, won’t have to worry about internal subversion nearly as much as the Frances will. Long-term advantage: Denmark.
When it’s all over – say fifty years down the road – I see Europe as being a very different place from the present. But I don’t see the Islamists as keeping any power they manage to gain.
The Leftists have forgotten about the Hitler/Stalin Pact, which gave Adolph the confidence to start WW2
The core of socialism is the submergence of the individual into the Group. Islam does the same thing. Hence the mutual attraction.
The attraction is the elimination of personal responsibility for the person’s current condition.
Talnik: “progressive” is a very subjective word. It just means someone who is in favor of “progess”, where “progess” is in turn defined as movement from a less desirable condition to a more desirable condition. Whether something is “progress” is dependent on the individual’s goals.
Matt – Islam will not succeed with those that vigorously defend themselves. The Left are deluded into believing that partnering with Islam will exclude them from other groups that have fallen victim.
As for my cultural group, we will defend our culture and country until the last breath of the last man and woman. Islam will have to pry it from our cold, dead hands…
I guess I should not be surprised anymore at how low the left will go, but today on TV I saw a demonstrator protesting a visit by Bush to some European country, the guy was wearing a T-shirt with the McDonalds logo, the lines of the M were showing the track of the planes hitting the Twin Towers. Under this were the words “Eat this!”
Unsurprising was also the fact that the reporter who supposedly gets paid to ask probing questions did nothing of the sort to the guy wearing the T-shirt.
I believe they said on the report that a majority of Europeans see the US as a bigger threat to world peace than Iran. There is only so much that pedagogy can achieve when, clearly, such views are driven by emotional anti-Americanism making the enemy of
the enemy my friend.
I’ve thought lately that the secular, anti-American hedonists in Europe will be the first one to feel the wrath of Sharia law.
Whit I think it will depend on what part of Europe we are talking about. Certain parts of Europe are already pulling their finger out and waking up to the threat. The Scandinavians and British will never stand for Sharia; if the Islamists think they will they are deluding themselves.
Sorry, no sympathy here. The modern Left can be very accurately compared to the Georg Strasser wing of the NSDAP or those members of the CPSU later murdered by Stalin. They enter into agreement willingly with those they see as vehicles for victory and end up as the blood sacrifice for a victory of a different sort. The idealists who joined for pragmatic purposes with the likes of Hitler and Stalin suffered accordingly. Justice demands no less than a similar fate for the Leftists willing to sell us out to the Jihadists….
These sorts of uneasy alliances make for interesting drama though. One of my favorite books is “Biedermann und die Brandstifter” by Swiss author Max Frisch. (The English title must be Biedermann and the arsonists or something like that…). The play begins as Mr. Biedermann, a well to-do Swiss businessman, has a group of men take up residence in his house. From the beginning, the men’s actions are suspicious since there is a roving gang of arsonists burning buildings down throughout the city. Biedermann ultimately submits to having these men live in his attic and even store barrels of gas there. Towards the end, he advises his wife that they should prepare a fabulous goose dinner for his guests accompanied by the best wine…He is under the mistaken impression that by harbouring the men and feeding them well, he will escape their wrath. During the dinner, the Fire Brigade is heard racing through the city to a fire, and Biedermann utters the most fateful phrase of the play. As he hears them racing to the other side of the city away from his house, he says “Zum Glück, nicht bei uns.” (Fortunately, not at our place.) Then his guests who’ve abused his hospitality explain that the Fire Brigade is responding to a diversionary call that they placed….and then they burn him and his wife alive in their house. And no help comes because they’ve all been dispatched far away from the real scene of the crime. The original meaning of the play was a condemnation of Swiss “neutrality” during WW2, and an attack on the many people who acquiesced to Hitler á la Chamberlain until it was too late.
Maybe the common tie between the left and Islamic extremism is a revolt against the system….It largely seems based on certain idealistic fantasies of creating a new world order from the ashes of this one. I’m just not sure the two sides have fully thought out their bizarre union.
These sorts of uneasy alliances make for interesting drama though. One of my favorite books is “Biedermann und die Brandstifter” by Swiss author Max Frisch. (The English title must be Biedermann and the arsonists or something like that…). The play begins as Mr. Biedermann, a well to-do Swiss businessman, has a group of men take up residence in his house. From the beginning, the men’s actions are suspicious since there is a roving gang of arsonists burning buildings down throughout the city. Biedermann ultimately submits to having these men live in his attic and even store barrels of gas there. Towards the end, he advises his wife that they should prepare a fabulous goose dinner for his guests accompanied by the best wine…He is under the mistaken impression that by harbouring the men and feeding them well, he will escape their wrath. During the dinner, the Fire Brigade is heard racing through the city to a fire, and Biedermann utters the most fateful phrase of the play. As he hears them racing to the other side of the city away from his house, he says “Zum Glück, nicht bei uns.” (Fortunately, not at our place.) Then his guests who’ve abused his hospitality explain that the Fire Brigade is responding to a diversionary call that they placed….and then they burn him and his wife alive in their house. And no help comes because they’ve all been dispatched far away from the real scene of the crime. The original meaning of the play was a condemnation of Swiss “neutrality” during WW2, and an attack on the many people who acquiesced to Hitler á la Chamberlain until it was too late.
Maybe the common tie between the left and Islamic extremism is a revolt against the system….It largely seems based on certain idealistic fantasies of creating a new world order from the ashes of this one. I’m just not sure the two sides have fully thought out their bizarre union.