Most people in the United States today are worried about terrorism. Between the inflated news media hype and the authentic horrifying attacks that Muslim extremists have carried out on our soil, fear of more violence seems to be at an all-time high. Anti-Islamic sentiment has grown so feverishly that the leading republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump, called for a complete ban on Muslims traveling to the U.S. “until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on.” Fox News spends hours each day reporting on the dangers of Islam, and its right-leaning audience members appear to view Muslims with a mixture of dread and sometimes, outright hatred.
Many on the left, understandably, have gone in the opposite direction. While they are certainly concerned about terrorism, they renounce Donald Trump and Fox News as misinformed and damaging. Members of the left say they espouse liberal, progressive values and therefore could never agree with Trump or right-wing reporters regardless of the topic. But many of them are so against the right wing that they refuse to accept any criticism of Islam, however valid. They will not support ex-radical Islamists who have left the religion in favor of secular values. They refuse to support women who are victims of Islam. They refuse to acknowledge the antiquated and backward philosophies inherent in the religion. They turn a blind eye to the violence in the Koran.
These are members of what is known as the regressive left, and they are tied to terrorism by actively blocking efforts of the Muslim Reform Movement, a movement that could ultimately end the bloodshed. When it comes to inflaming the passions of Muslim extremists, the regressive left is worse than a million Donald Trumps and a billion Fox News stations put together. To understand the regressive left, let us first take a look at how the term was coined.
Maajid Nawaz is an ex-Muslim who published a book nearly four years ago entitled Radical: My Journey out of Islamist Extremism. In it, he discusses the dangers posed by “well meaning liberals” who make excuse after excuse for Islam’s dangerous ideologies. He calls these “liberals” the regressive left because their ideas are the opposite of progressive; they are in direct conflict with the very definition of the word liberal: “believing that government should be active in supporting social and political change.”
Change. As in, equal treatment of women, acceptance of gays and lesbians, civil rights for all people, peace and equality across the board. But it seems none of those changes are ever going to take place under Islam if the regressive left get its way, and that holds true whether we are discussing radical or moderate versions of the religion.
Yahoo News A.U. reports that Nawaz has stated those on the far left, or regressive left, are “helping ISIS” directly by “abusing terms such as ‘racism,’ ‘bigotry’ and ‘Islamophobia’ to shut down debate.” The regressive left has purposely chilled the progressive conversation that could eventually chip away at radical ideals. They have succeeded in creating an environment of online censorship that hides true liberal values and allows extremism to proliferate.
Let us take, for example, one issue that nearly everyone can agree falls squarely into the progressive category: equal rights for women. Under even “moderate” Islamic law, women suffer a Jim Crowe style “separate but equal” set of rules-the type of rules that we collectively decided back in 1965 did not represent true equality. Many Muslim women here in the U.S. are body-shamed into covering their heads with a scarf called a hijab because according to their religion, the sight of their hair might inflame men to rape them. They are not allowed to pray beside men for similar reasons.
In extreme Muslim societies, including some Islamic communities in the U.S., women are forced to wear full burkas, which at first glance may seem much worse than being brainwashed into “wanting” to wear a hijab, but the rationale for head covering, women having to pray in separate quarters than men, and burkas is identical: according to Islam, women’s bodies and sexuality are so shameful and “dangerous” that men may be unable to control their animal instincts if exposed. By this rationale, men bear no responsibility to treat women as equals or to value women for anything more than their bodies. The onus is placed on the women to “protect” themselves from being victimized rather than on the men to behave like human beings. That is not equality and it is not acceptable under true liberal values.
When it comes to women’s rights, those on the regressive left will, with the same breath, say they support female equality and yet condemn anyone who dares to question the horrible treatment of women under Islam. They will not support Muslim women who have had acid thrown in their faces in the name of the religion, nor will they spread the word about female Kurdish ISIS resistance fighters. They will not share stories about Ayaan Hirsi Ali, author of Heretic: Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now and leader in the Muslim reform movement. They will not decry the outrageous and barbaric tradition of child marriage, which is currently practiced widely throughout Muslim countries all around the world. They don’t seem to care that millions of Muslims support “honor” killings of women. The silence, in fact, is deafening.
The regressive left insists that radical Muslims do not represent Islam, an assertion with which Nawaz disagrees. “When they are stoning women to death, it is in scripture,” Nawaz says, “When they are chopping off hands I can read you the Arabic in the Quran which tells them to do that.”
Another example is gay rights. Those on the regressive left will be the first to stand up against Kim Davis, the county clerk who tried to block marriage equality, yet they will label a racist anyone who speaks out against the treatment of gays under Islamic law. No one on the regressive left will share articles about the gay men being thrown off of rooftops in Syria or the fact that the vast majority of Muslims support the religious rules that demand the executions of gays. As Nawaz points out, “When ISIS throws gays off the top of buildings, they are using scripture. In fact there are traditions ascribed to the prophet where it says that is exactly the punishment that should be given to gays.”
How about atheists? Members of the regressive left will say they would champion everyone’s right to free speech, yet they refuse to raise awareness about the atheist bloggers who have been slaughtered on the streets in the name of Islam, or the 13 countries that punish atheists with the death penalty.
Censorship? The regressive left will march in rallies and post quotes about fighting to the death over free speech and the right to artistic expression, but they do not utter a sound when Italy covers up its beautiful historic statues to pander to the Iranian president. The silence continues when the artistic freedom of U.S. citizens is destroyed by Islam, such as when Comedy Central censored South Park over its episode that included Muhammad.
The regressive left clings to the misguided notion that terrorism is carried out by “a few radicals.” Their cognitive dissonance is so strong, and their group-think fear of being labeled “racist” or “un-PC” is so overwhelming, that they ignore the Pew study that shows over a billion Muslims around the world not only support Sharia law, they also want Sharia law to be enforced in every country on Earth. The regressive left will shut down any conversation that illustrates the Koran as being a bloody and violent book, the same book that has inspired millions of radical Muslims to stone women to death for being raped, murder non-believers, and carry out widespread terror attacks.
Yet, those on the regressive left refuse to even read, let alone discuss, the key passages that call for such violence. For example: “fight in the way of Allah with those who fight with you…[2.191] And kill them wherever you find them, and drive them out from whence they drove you out, and persecution is severer than slaughter, and do not fight with them at the Sacred Mosque until they fight with you in it, but if they do fight you, then slay them; such is the recompense of the unbelievers.”
The above passage comes directly from the Koran and is one of a whopping 164 similar verses. However, those on the regressive left buy into the myth that Islam is a “religion of peace” and that all of those 164 passages, and hundreds of other violent directives have simply been “misinterpreted.”
The silence of the regressive left is bad enough, but it is their censorship of those on the actual left that is the real issue. Not only do they refuse to spread awareness about all of the aforementioned massive problems with Islam, they actively block those who attempt to do so. In this way, the Muslim Reform Movement faces a nearly insurmountable uphill climb as they battle Islamic and even secular adversaries.
One of the primary offenders and leaders of the regressive left is Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who has agreed to censor content that dares question Islamic ideology by labeling any criticism of the religion, however valid, as “hate speech.” This has resulted in the removal of some ex-Muslims’ Facebook pages and created a major roadblock to calls for Islamic reform. Besides Zuckerberg, millions are actively working to stop any and all efforts to change the violent and backward religion. Members of the regressive left report the Facebook pages of people like Nawaz and Ali as “hate speech,” and have been successful in blocking out the voices of those in the Muslim Reform Movement.
But what does the Muslim Reform Movement want that, as per the regressive left, is so “hateful”? According to the movement’s official website, their doctrine is as follows:
Peace: We reject interpretations of Islam that call for any violence, social injustice and politicized Islam. We invite our fellow Muslims and neighbors to join us.
Human Rights: We reject bigotry, oppression and violence against all people based on any prejudice, including ethnicity, gender, language, belief, religion, sexual orientation and gender expression.
Secular Governance: We are for secular governance, democracy and liberty. Every individual has the right to publicly express criticism of Islam. Ideas do not have rights. Human beings have rights.
We stand for peace, human rights and secular governance. Please stand with us!
This is what the regressive left is fighting against: peace, democracy and liberty. By stamping out the efforts of the Muslim Reform Movement, an organization that is actively battling extremist ideology, the regressive left is tied directly to terrorism. As Nawaz says, “If you don’t recognise that Islam is being used by megalomaniac, totalitarian theocrats for their own project, what you are doing is depriving Muslim reform voices from the authority they need to reclaim their faith from those who are hijacking it.” Without the ability to spread the philosophies of Islamic reform, and promote progressive ideas, many ex-Muslims are unfortunately fighting a losing battle.