Strange Bedfellows? Radical Islam and the Radical Left

In his February 21, 2013 article in The Wall Street Journal, “The Assassin at the Door”, Lars Hedegaard describes how he barely escaped assassination for his public criticism of radical Islam, and attempts to impose Sharia Law in Denmark and the West. He goes on to describe how many on the political left, including colleagues in the media, were lukewarm in defending him, and that some have even suggested he is the villain in this attempted assassination.

Why wouldn’t the political left come en masse to the aid of someone who shares much of its social agenda?

At first glance, it does seem odd that many on the political left, who favor gay marriage, abortion, secularism and the marginalization of religion, and a socialist state, are defenders of radical Islam, as represented by organizations like Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Muslim Brotherhood, as these organizations are, at least ostensibly, ideologically opposed to much of the political left’s social agenda. Going deeper, however, it is clear that many on the political left and the Islamists have much in common, that they are, at heart, anarchists in their fervent desire to hasten the dismantling of a Western culture with human rights and responsibilities derived from the Judeo-Christian tradition.

Historically speaking and ironically, most philosophical anarchists and “bomb-throwing” anarchists favor authoritative governance; thus, little difference in practice between the anarchic “right-wing” Brownshirts that fostered the Nazi regime and the anarchic “left-wing” Bolsheviks that fostered the Soviet regime. Rosenberg and Lenin (philosophical anarchists), and Himmler and Beria (“bomb-throwing”/brutal anarchists) may have differed in their approaches, but not in their objectives. At heart, these modern political leftists and Islamists are anarchists for a reason; both desire a system of governance that compels the mass of humanity to succumb to their “enlightened” agenda.

In our modern world, there is not much separating a socialist China that appeals to many on the political left and that tells its people what to believe and how to live, from a theocratic Iran that appeals to Islamists and that tells its people what to believe and how to live. In the end, it is the human person who suffers forced or coerced abortions, disordered families, social isolation and intimidation, stoning and disciplinary amputations, imprisonment, and even execution, so that these enlightened anarchists can achieve their utopian state.

Try to find beauty: art, music, or literature, in these spiritually arid societies. We can only marvel at people like Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Lech Walesa, Vaclav Havel, Cardinal Kung, and Liu Xiaobo, who defied and challenged these anarchists-turned-dictators, and be vigilant ourselves.