--- Yoshie wrote:
> Isn't that because of your profound Islamophobia,
> common among leftists in the West?
Please define Islamophobia. This is not a rhetorical challenge, I really would appreciate knowing what is meant. Every time I see it used, I perceive it to mean something like "not approving of political Islam" or something along those lines.
People can practice whatever superstition they want, I don't care. Unlike Richard Dawkins, I am not a militant atheist. I think political Islam is nasty and reactionary, no question, but I don't think it is the greatest threat facing humanity, which would be the only reasonable definition of Islamophobia I can think of.
You might argue that Islamophobia is defined as an inability to have a differentiated view of Islam, tellling the difference between Hamas and Al-Qaeda, say. The British SWP and its co-parties tend to argue along these lines, that one must find the anti-capitalist tendencies within certain strains of Islam, etc.
I find that argument rather unimpressive. I must be getting tiresome for continuing to say this ad nauseum, but militant Neo-Nazis also have anti-capitalist tendencies, sometimes rather strong ones. I think the narrow range of political discourse in Anglo-America, which regularly excludes *any* anti-capitalist perspective, leads people to the conclusion that anti-capitalism in and of itself is something special. Well, it isn't. One relative of mine, an ethnic-German Silesian forcibly expelled from Poland, took it 100% for granted that capitalism is something undesirable. But on most other questions, especially her attitude towards Polish people and the question of the Oder-Neisse border, we were at opposite ends of the spectrum.
I can appreciate the "sandbox politics" argument from Carrol only up to a point. No question the sudden concern by Western liberals and feminists over women's rights and queer rights in Islam is highly suspect. We all remember all the crap during the Yugoslav civil war about evil Serbian rapists. Every "rogue state" that comes under the radar of Washington and Brussels (read: Paris and Berlin) effects this sort of thing. But just because I am 100% powerless to do anything concerning Iran doesn't automatically mean I am compelled to "defend" it in any way. That's merely more sandbox politics.
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