One of anti-Islamism manifesto’s signers is a Communist who sees U.S. as terrorist power

Last week I strongly criticized the anti-Islamist manifesto, “Together facing the new totalitarianism,” because it was attacking religion (read Christianity) as much as it was attacking “Islamism.” It seemed to me that the document was a leftist document that sought to deconstruct whatever remains of the traditional West as much as it sought to resist the encroachments of Islamic tyranny. Two people strongly disagreed with my evaluation of the document. The first critic was a (now apparently former) colleague and friend with whom I had been in continual contact over the past year and a half, and who frequently called me on the phone several times a day, and who now suddenly turned on me with shocking virulence, repeatedly insulting me in coarse terms and even attacking my religion. The second critic was VFR’s Swedish conservative reader, who initially took me to task for offending secularist allies, but then changed his mind, partly as a result of my arguments (or so I like to think), and partly as a result of discovering that one of the manifesto’s signers is a Communist. Now he has further information about that person’s positions, further confirming my initial critical reaction to the manifesto.

He writes:

My initial opinion of the manifesto of the twelve was the one of Robert Spencer: “Although I don’t agree with every detail of this statement, my hat is off to them.” But looking more closely at the manifesto I found that one of the signers is a Communist leader: Maryam Namazie, Director of the Worker-Communist Party of Iran’s International Relations.

Critiques of the manifesto have already pointed out how it is tainted with leftist views, and that referring to Stalinism rather than to Communism is just one example of that. A Communist signing such a manifesto is certainly a worm in the apple. If it is supposed to be a manifesto against totalitarianism, why then include a representative of a totalitarian ideology?

Maryam Namazie appeared on Danish TV last Saturday. You can find the video clip here. Suffer through one minute of introduction in Danish, then comes the interview, in English.

In the interview we hear her saying: “We have to recognize the fact that the Islamist movement is a reactionary right-wing movement. It is vying for political power vis-à-vis another pole of terrorism in the world, which is U.S. state terrorism…”

Nice spin, eh? The Bush Administration has abstained from ideologically motivating their fight. Now that void is filled by the left, as always in a way that is promoting their leftist agenda. I wonder if Ibn Warraq is regretting that he signed this particular manifesto?

Suddenly I see the formulations of the manifesto in a new light: “Islamism is a reactionary ideology which kills equality, freedom and secularism wherever it is present.” While I have always thought that Islam should be referred to as orthodox radicalism rather than reactionary (or the oxymoron “ultraconservative”), I considered above sentence a good enough approximation of my views, the first time I read it. But now Maryam Namazie informs us that “reactionary ideology” should be read as “reactionary right-wing movement.” Sheesh!

The sentence, “It is not a clash of civilisations nor an antagonism of West and East that we are witnessing, but a global struggle that confronts democrats and theocrats,” appears in a new light after Maryam Namazie has enlightened us that there are two poles of terrorism: Islamism and U.S. state terrorism. And it makes me wonder if “theocracy” is meant to be the explaining factor behind the “U.S. state terrorism”?

As usually the right-wing haven’t even started eating breakfast when the leftists are already fully mobilized. The leftists never simply defend society from an objectve danger, they always make the issue a leftist cause, a way of promoting their agenda. This is no exception. The manifesto is very well written, and it pushed several of my buttons the first time I read it. It gave relief to all of us who are sick and tired of political correctness, multiculturalism and “Islamophobia” newspeak (including from the Bush people). But they managed to sneak in something more. It’s an apple with worms in it.

Greetings earthlings,
Mr. Particular Swede

A reader writes:

I smelled a rat in this the moment I read it. It just had that familiar
sickening stench about it that I’ve at last come to recognize after a
couple of decades of being conned. Believe it or not, this whole
’theocracy vs. secularism’ idea has been floated by leftists before -
even here in the US—right after 9/11. A traditionalist hat tip to Mr.
Particular Swede for exercising the the kind of critical thinking that
is nearly absent among Republicans here in the USA, as can be seen from
the posts about ‘Portgate’ at Lucianne and FreeRepublic.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at March 08, 2006 09:12 PM | Send