1

Torben Bech Dyrberg

Dept. of Social Science and Business
Roskilde University
Building 24.1
Universitetsvej 1
DK-4000 Roskilde
Denmark
dyrberg@ruc.dk

Left goes Right:

The Multiculturalist Dislocation of the Left

Contents:
PART I: THE LEFT GOES RIGHT 2
THE EPOCHAL BREAKDOWN OF THE LEFT 2
LEFTIST IDENTITY POLITICS AFTER THE FATWA AGAINST RUSHDIE 5

PART II: FREE SPEECH AND HOW LEFTISTS ARGUE AGAINST RACISM 10
FELLOW TRAVELLERS AND SELECTIVE ANTIPATHY 10
FREE SPEECH 1: SPENCER VS. HAMZE 12
FREE SPEECH 2: THE CARTOON CONTROVERSY 14
ROOT CAUSES 1: ANTI-RACISM TRUMPS ANTI-SEXISM 18
ROOT CAUSES 2: BOKO HARAM AND ISIS 20

PART III: WHATS IN IT FOR THE LEFT? 21

REFERENCES 25

10.250 words
 2

Part I: The Left goes Right

The epochal breakdown of the Left

To be radical back in the 1970s meant to support secularism and

rationality, progress and emancipation, socialism and universalism. Those
of, say, Middle Eastern or North African descend who today are labelled
Muslims were no exception to this rule. A radical was someone who
was militantly secular, self-consciously Western and avowedly left-wing. 1
Today, by contrast, it means the opposite: aggressive religious
fundamentalism gets an air of respectability among leftists who align it
with critical trends in social theory and the humanities.2 Hostility to
Western values, notably modernity and democracy, has become a
trademark of Third World authenticity, anti-racism and anti-imperialism.
It is no exaggeration to speak of a dislocation of the Left: leftist values have
for the last quarter of a century metamorphosed into something that in
important respects used to characterise the reactionary Right. 3 We are
dealing with a fundamental inversion of political orientation that can be led
back to the culturalist and religious agendas, which can be seen in the light
of a confluence of three trends: postmodernism from the late 1970s had
the effect of dismantling the tradition of the enlightenment ethos;
multiculturalism from the 1980s had the same effect by essentialising non-
Western cultures as the site of authenticity; and the spread of radical
Islamism, especially from the late 1980s, tapped into the image of Third
World anti-imperialism and anti-racism.
The reactionary bias of the post Left can tentatively be described in these
terms:
1. The critique of capitalism has been supplemented by a critique of
modernity, which is seen as fragmenting communities and eroding
social cohesion thereby producing rootlessness and misery.
2. The critique of imperialism has mutated into a critique of not only
Western hegemony but also of Western values, which includes the
former ideational luggage of the Left.

1
Malik 2009: xii.
2
Buck-Mors 2003: vii, 49, 52
3
Bronner 2004: 17; Furedi 2005: 66.
 3

3. There are deep-seated differences between human beings as they are

framed by their culture. Hence the emphasis on community as opposed
to the individual and even social class.
4. Cultural relativism implies defending hierarchy and domination
inasmuch as they are genuine expressions of culture and tradition,
which implies redefining equality.
5. Conservative sub-cultural elites in the West are praised as the real
representatives of their groups thereby enforcing an image of cultural
homogeneity.
6. Non-Western autocratic regimes and Islamist terror are not
condemned as long as they are against the West in general and the
United States in particular.
Among broad segments of the Left, and particularly radical leftists, non-
Western cultures the Third World and ethnic minorities in the West are
seen as essential frames, which ought to be protected in order to
safeguard them from Western hegemonic globalisation. This is a marked
difference compared to the former critique of and resistance against
capitalism and imperialism, which was conducted in the name of universal
values of Emancipation. For the last quarter of a century these values have
themselves increasingly become the target of condemnation, which has
gone hand in hand with the cultural turn. Culture has largely replaced
social class as an overarching and politicising concept, which can function
as a vehicle of resistance against globalisation and racism. This has gained
political momentum due to the collapse of the communist regimes in
Eastern Europe and the massive immigration to Europe and North America
of people from the Middle East and North Africa.
We witness a drive towards cultural relativism, which finds expression in
critiques of Western ethnocentrism in all kinds of contexts. Postmodern
trends have undermined core leftist beliefs such as universalism, rationality
and truth, and they have excelled in scepticism and risk adverse attitudes
towards economic growth, progress and change in general. 4 Multicultural
trends have legitimised indifference towards massive repression in Third
World regimes and civil societies; they have often refused to condemn
Islamist terrorism by looking for the root causes in the West; they have
turned the blind eye to sexism and racism in minority cultures and they
have appeased and cooperated with radical Islamists whom they prefer to
see as the true interpreters of Islam and as representative of their
communities.
4
Bronner 2004: 19, 23, 28; Lukes 2003: 611; Malik 2008a: 5.
 4

The postmodern buzzwords among academic leftists in the 1980s into the
1990s such as the emphases on difference and that everything is context
have played into the multiculturalist agenda, which is a much broader
trend often populated with people with an agenda leftists used to abhor.
The outcome of these two trends has been a mutation of the twin values of
freedom and equality. I will deal with this below. Here it will suffice to say
that the earlier emancipatory visions ingrained in these values have boiled
down to a conservative defence of freedom from Western influence and
values and an insistence upon the equality of cultures. What goes on
inside cultures is today a restricted area. In arguing for her multipolar
perspective Mouffe speaks in favour of an international system of law
based on the idea of regional poles and cultural identities federated among
themselves in the recognition of their full autonomy. 5
So, the Left has turned to the Right as the roles have been reversed to the
point where it does not make much sense to uphold the distinction. This is
above all because the Left has turned against the enlightenment ethos and
has confirmed the conservative anti-enlightenment axiom that individuals
are bound by their culture and cannot and ought not to attempt to
transcend it. This is a culturalist agenda, which radical leftist like to apply to
non-Western parts of the world. What is left of the Left is its relentless
desire to boost its status of being opposed to the establishment, and if this
means to line up with reactionary and sexist religious zealots, so be it. As
Cohen aptly remarks, [a]ll that the left has opposed since the
Enlightenment become acceptable, as long as the obscurantists, theocrats
and fascists are anti-Americans and as long as their victims aren't Western
liberals. 6

5
Mouffe 2005: 86-7, 117.
6
Cohen 2005.
 5

The enlightenment tradition of the Left vs.

The classical Right and the multicultural Left
The multicultural Left
Cultural relativism:
Multiculturalism has
replaced universalism and
the individual is defined
by its cultural belonging
Freedom is repression:
Freedom of expression is
a means to suppress the
other and it is part of
Western ethnocentrism
and imperialism
Recognition: focus on
difference, equal status
among cultures, critique
of individualism and
Western ethnocentrism,
focus on social cohesion
Critique of progress:
Reactive and risk adverse
attitude towards change,
development, economic
growth, new technologies
Rationality and reason as
domination: power and
knowledge are two sides
of the same thing, which
are determined by
contexts and strategies
Defeatism: Oppression
should only be criticized if
it is conducted by the
establishment in the
West
The enlightenment Left
Universalism: Freedom
and equality as a vision
that individuals are not
bound by their culture or
class but is able to
transcend them
Civil and political liberties:
Freedom and equality for
all regardless of social
status, race, gender, etc.
irrespective of who is the
oppressor
Progress: Common
human condition across
cultures, overcome
subordination and
achieving common
human aspirations
Emancipation: practices
that challenge repressive
social arrangements that
aim at liberation from
subordination
Reason and truth: aiming
for a willed community
trumps tradition and
commonsense, politics as
the factor of cohesion
Opposition: Critique of
natural hierarchies and
their defenders and
unconditional defence for
those who are down and
out
The classical Right
Cultural relativism:
Individuals are bound by
their upbringing and
culture which define their
conditions of existence
and life-forms
Roots: Pre-political
relations as traditions and
customs (culture) make
up social cohesion and
defend status quo
Reactionary: Essential
differences between
classes and cultures,
races and gender,
human beings do not
exist (de Maistre)
The establishment:
Inequality due to natural
distinctions and privileges
related to nationality,
social status, gender,
race, etc.
Experience and tradition:
Culture as the factor of
cohesion trumps
discourses of rationality,
reason, truth and rights
Establishment: Defence
of power elites and status
quo insofar as they do
not undermine the
cultural frame

Leftist identity politics after the fatwa against Rushdie

To get at the Lefts identity politics it will be interesting to look at the

reactions to the fatwa against Salman Rushdie 14. February 1989. One
 6

should have thought the Left would have supported Rushdie. He was
himself a leftist and had on several occasions voiced his anti-racism; the
segment he was part of (the art institution) was by far more liberal and
left-leaning than it was authoritarian and right-wing and leftists could
praise themselves for fighting for free speech against power. In addition,
there had been a number of conservative journalists, writers and
politicians in the UK and the USA who had highly critical of Rushdie.7 Yet,
these arguments were not convincing. There are at least three reasons the
Left did not have much on offer, or rather why it remained and still remains
silent. They concern the consequences of the abstract forms of critique
nurtured in universities in more or less isolation from political reality and
the desire for anything or anybody that could upset the order of things: the
other, the heterogeneous, the multitude, etc. 8 These two reasons are
about detachment and futility, which form the background for how leftist
have dealt with assaults on civil and political liberties. The last one is
probably the most decisive one, namely how to deal with fear.
First, university Marxism and its offspring had over four decenniums
indulged in highly abstract forms of critique, which had very little if any
impact on realpolitik. All kinds of critique associated with the New Left
from the 1960s onwards had focussed on alienation in late capitalist
societies marked by materialism, consumerism and instrumental reason.
They had attempted to explain the survival of capitalism against all odds by
means of endogenously generated false consciousness and the ideological
manipulation generated by the culture industry and major media
corporations, all of which blurred exploitation and kept the masses in a
state of apathy. Moreover, the apocalyptic nature of this type of critique
had led to an Orwellian impasse where many of those distinctions that
matter in the real world imploded. Totalitarianism and manipulation could
be deduced from liberalism and the enlightenment tradition, what was
progressive and modern generated the regressive and barbaric, and
democracy led to fascism. 9 It is hardly surprising that leftists raised in this
tradition were ill-equipped to deal with a situation where the freedom of
expression of artists and others was threatened from the outside, as it
were, that is, by the theocratic regime of Iran, which was manifestly hostile
to the West. In addition, leftists as well as anybody else, were accustomed
to a political culture in Western Europe and North America where free
speech on the whole was taken for granted.

7
Cohen 2012: 33-42; Malik 2009: 32-35.
8
On the desire to cultivate oppositional identities, see Anthony 2007: 116-17; Cohen
2007: 302, 307; Furedi 2005: 156-7; Green 2006: 14, 22-3.
9
Bronner 2004: 109-110; Malik 2008a: 156.
 7

Second, the New Lefts isolation from the working class and its frustration
with its lack of revolutionary will enabled attention and political goodwill to
anti-colonial and anti-imperialist movements and regimes in the Third
World in the attempt to find revolutionary agents fighting imperialism. 10
The fact that these new agencies quickly degenerated into autocratic and
corrupt regimes did not arouse criticism, at least not as long as they were
hostile to the West. With the cultural turn these regimes were further
immunized from critique from the outside as universal standards did no
longer hold sway, but were themselves part of the problem. This trend was
underpinned by the Lefts desire of otherness and insurrection combined
with its anti-Western self-loathing.11 Leftist Third Worldism illustrates that
culture is the prerogative of the others and that it is something that should
be protected against Western encroachment. The implication is that
Western leftists implicitly speak from the privileged universal position they
otherwise speak up against. 12 This position of enunciation is enforced by
the ever-present aversion of speaking about Western culture, which is
readily equated with ethnocentrism, imperialism and racism, and, more
specifically, with right-wing nationalism and populism.
To return to Rushdie and why leftists remained silent and increasingly
condone, implicitly or explicitly, assaults on free speech, three points
should be mentioned. First, the Left has immunized the others culture
from critique insofar as this other is the enemy of the enemy (the West),
and this makes it problematic to draw attention to, say, human rights
violations and political repression, partly because it violates the axiom of
cultural relativism and partly because the Left thereby runs the risk of
siding with the West against the oppressed other. 13 The consequence of
this us/them political logic is a de facto sacralisation of culture and hence
structures of domination, which leftists would otherwise be the first to
attack. Second, Marxists had always been sceptical of liberal democracy
and civil liberties as they were only the first step towards Emancipation,
but were eventually a means for bourgeois class-rule. However, with the
cultural turn democracy and rights were not only insufficient from an
Emancipatory viewpoint; they were a Western invention threatening the
authenticity of Third World cultures. This scepticism was intensified in the
years to come as when free speech more and more came to be seen as
assaults on the weak and the minorities by the strong and the majority.

10
Markovits 2005.
11
Bruckner 2010: Ch. 1-2.
12
Zizek mentions this paradox, or rather performative contradiction. Reference missing.
13
Mouffes arguments of human rights in a multipolar world are rooted in culturalist
relativism. See Mouffe 2008; 2013: Ch. 2. For a critique, see Dyrberg 2016.
 8

The Danish cartoon-crisis in 2005/6 illustrates this new logic of political

action.14 Third, the condescending idea of culture as something belonging
to the other, which ought not to be criticized, went hand in hand with
hate-speech legislation and self-censorship. This implied a no less
patronising attitude of infantilizing those minorities leftists claimed to
speak on behalf of, 15 just as the strong/weak framing of politics partook in
emotionalizing and privatizing public debate. Gone is the logic of right/left,
which thrives on contestation. In its place we get victimization ideology
where the right to criticise is determined by who says what and where one
is located in the hierarchy of power/powerlessness.
Finally the third point dealing with fear. The fatwa against Rushdie
announced a new type of threat against freedom of speech, which should
prove powerful in the years to come. Violence and the fear it fosters is a
classical repressive form of power and it has had the effect of intimidating
a public political culture by facilitating censorship (hate-speech legislation)
and self-censorship. Both form of censorship have had an effect on the
arts, such as literature, theatre, film, art exhibitions, satirical cartoons, and
so on, where people became increasingly aware of the risks of offending
radical Islamists.16 There are numerous examples of threats, harassment,
murder and arson against artists and their families, and in the decades
after Rushdies death sentence it was no longer necessary to issue fatwas,
as the mere suspicion that something could be interpreted as an affront to
Muslims was enough for publishers, art galleries and others to withdraw
books and close down exhibitions.
The fatwa became internalised not only by the art institution but also to a
large extent in the political culture.17 This implied at least three things,
which are relevant in relation to leftist identity politics. First, it gave way
for hypocrisy, because self-censorship and political correctness were
launched in the name of tolerance, respect and recognition of the other in
the attempt to combat Islamophobia, which was the new buzzword
promoted by OIC and adopted by leftist fellow-travellers. What we see
here is self-censorship, which is all the more efficient as it is re-described in
terms of anti-racism, equality and tolerance, which appeal to liberals and

14
There are interesting parallels between leftist ways of arguing against racism, on the
one hand, and the strategies launched by the theocratic regime in Iran and later by the
Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) who appeal to a liberal/leftist audience in the
West, on the other. See Cohen 2012: 29-32.
15
Bruckner 2010: 42-3.
16
See e.g. John Cleeses comments on making politically incorrect jokes about Muslims,
Cleese 2014.
17
Malik 2008b.
 9

leftists. Second, we have witnessed the development of a Stockholm

syndrome on a mass-scale as leftists have re-formulated those who
attacked free speech and who were, according to old-fashioned leftist
standards, reactionary and authoritarian fanatics as representatives of an
authentic Islamic culture. They treated Muslims as a homogeneous bloc,
and allowed the reactionaries to set the cultural agenda. 18 This is in
accord with the cultural turn, which leads to the third point, namely that
leftists have forged alliances with the most reactionary and radical Islamists
and have shown no interest in reaching out for liberal, leftist and
democratic Muslims although these still make up the majority among those
living in Western countries. The logic of this move seems to be to seek
alliances with the most pronounced enemies of everything associated with
the West, which is a means to cultivate a leftist oppositional identity.
Summarizing these three points, we can say that the postmodernist and
multiculturalist trends combined with the threats of radical Islamism have
posed an extraordinary challenge to leftists of how to deal with civil and
political liberties in an increasingly multicultural society. This situation
draws attention to the ideology of the New Left and its epigones today.
Leftist identity politics, which has orbited around racism and sexism, has on
the whole been a peaceful affair. That is, leftists have not been the target
of violence and terror. They have engaged in all kinds of criticism of
governments and ruling classes as well as against reactionary and
fundamentalist Christians without fearing for their lives. There are, of
course, exceptions, but the New Lefts political involvement have on the
whole been a free lunch in the West. But when the struggle concerns
freedom of expression, and the enemies are certified victims of racism
according to leftist ideology, leftists would run the risk of being bullied by
Islamo-fascist hooligans, which would jeopardise their oppositional
identity. 19 Cohens remarks on the Left are to the point here:
a campaign for free speech would involve them running a slight
risk of becoming the target of violence themselves. They soon
found high-minded reasons to avoid it, and redefined their failure
to take on militant religion as a virtuous act. Their preferred tactic
was to extend arguments against racism to cover criticism of
religion. 20

18
Cohen 2012: 51.
19
On the notion of Islamo-fascism, see Berman 2008.
20
Cohen 2012: 45. The last part of the sentence is particularly interesting as it show the
close link between the strategy of OIC, which has defined Islamophobia as a form of
racism, and leftists.
 10

What we have witnessed in the post-cold war era is a cultural turn, which is
especially visible in the rise of both populist right-wing parties in Europe
and the multiculturalist Left, which are two sides of the same coin. 21 In the
wake of this turn we have seen a disinclination on the part of the Left to
embrace the enlightenment tradition, which used to form the backbone of
the ethos of the Left. This is the major chance in leftist orientation, which
has led the Left down the trail of what it until recently would characterize
as a reactionary and authoritarian outlook.

Part II: Free speech and how leftists argue against

racism

Fellow travellers and selective antipathy

There are several ways in which radical leftists de facto defend Islamists
be that regimes, organisations, terror groups, and so forth. The most
widespread defence is probably silence: it is significant that radical leftists
are not filled with anger over terrorist actions, policies, traditions,
statements, etc., which they would not hesitate to condemn in the
strongest possible ways if the perpetrators were not the enemies of the
enemy, and there was no risk of being accused of Islamophobia. So, we are
witness to a widespread reluctance among leftist to condemn terrorist
actions carried out by Islamists, such as 9/11, the major terrorist attacks in
Europe such as Madrid, London and Paris, the terror regime of ISIS or
terrorist organization like Al Qaeda, Boko Haram, Hamas and Hezbollah.
Inasmuch as leftists do criticize these actions and organizations, it is
typically with the proviso that they have to be seen as responses to
Western imperialism and racist oppression of Muslims. There are two
reasons why the Left is hesitant to condemn Islamism and even seeks
alliances with Islamists.22

21
Adamson 2016.
22
As Glazov (2009: 2) argues there does not have to be any formal alliance between
radical Islam and the Left, but simply that the radical Left consistently takes the side of
Islamist terrorists in their jihad against the United States. Tibi (2009: 8) speaks similarly of
 11

The first one has to do with the fascination with the ideology of Third
Worldism as a potent force against Western imperialism and ways of living,
which date back to the tradition of the New Left in the 1960s and 1970s.
Today, Islamism is viewed as being the most radical and comprehensive
force against the West and modernity (or Western modernity), and Islam
is, moreover, seen as an oppressed religion, globally as well as in the West.
This has given way for a confluence between two kinds of struggle against
inequality, which, traditionally, has been the defining feature of the Left:
there is one against global capitalism and imperialism, which is equated
with the hegemony of the West, and another one against the oppression of
minorities in the West, which is mainly conducted under the banner of
antiracism. These types of critique and struggle make up the major reason
for the alliance between leftists and Islamists.
There is also another reason, which has facilitated the development where
leftists in the West line up with radical political Islam and the cultural
heritage of reactionary Muslim clerics. I am thinking of the dislocation, or
collapse rather, of what used to form the outlook of the Left for two
centuries. Prior to the postmodern avalanche the Left had endorsed what
multiculturalist leftists refer to as Western values, 23 notably rationality,
progress, universality, freedom and rights. Within a very short span of time
these values were contested, problematized, deconstructed and exposed
to critique and condemnation, and they were seen as complicit in the
Eurocentric, racist, imperialist and repressive built-up of Western world
hegemony. 24
On this background it is interesting to discuss the nature of freedom of
expression and especially the numerous assaults on this freedom whether
in the form of hate-speech legislation, self-censorship, prohibition or
threats of violence and harassment. One often comes across two types of
arguments, which are closely connected. The first asserts that freedom of
expression is a means to prevent those wielding power defined as the
elites or the establishment in the West from abusing their power to
manipulate, injure or force people in general and disadvantaged segments
of the population in particular. The second emphasises that freedom of
expression ought to be framed by moderatism thereby suggesting that it is
a means to overcome stark differences via dialogue and to enhance
consensus and social cohesion. Whilst the former defines freedom of

[t]he love affair of the contemporary left with Islamism derives from the earlier new left
romanticism about the third world. For a list over the networks and agendas of the
political Left see http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/
23
Mouffe 2005b; 2013: Ch. 2; Buck-Morss: 2.
24
Berman 2010: 176-81; Bruce 2001: 13; Buck-Morss: 44-7.
 12

expression as speaking truth to power, the latter defines the legitimate

range of free speech by opposing it to hate-speech, which, so the argument
goes, aggravates conflicts and leads to extremism on both sides. Free
speech is, when seen in this light, underpinned by hate-speech legislation.
Both assertions might at first glance appear as lenient and democratic
assurances against abuses of power and repression, on the one hand, and
radicalisation, extremism and violence, on the other. Peoples liberties to
express themselves in ways others dislike are legitimate only if these
others obtain positions of power. If they do not, one is not exercising ones
constitutionally guaranteed rights but is, on the contrary, engaging in
defamation of vulnerable groups that stigmatizes them through hate-
speech and weakens the cohesiveness of the community.
Following this normative and functionalist take on freedom free speech
hate-speech it follows that those who speak their mind, and possibly hurt
the feelings of those who are categorized as weak, are perverting free
speech by twisting it for their own purposes, which are typically motivated
by stupidity, egoism, sexism, racism and imperialist aggression. Those who
stubbornly insist on their right to, for instance, draw cartoons that ridicule
religion deliberately offend others and this implies, on the one side, that
their intentions are mean, and on the other, that their enlightenment
fundamentalism 25 is extremist and detrimental for society. Let me give a
few examples to illustrate what I have in mind.
Free speech 1: Spencer vs. Hamze
Free speech 2: The cartoon controversy
Root causes 1: Anti-racism trumps anti-sexism
Root causes 2: Boko Haram and ISIS

Free speech 1: Spencer vs. Hamze

In a debate between Robert Spencer (the director of Jihad Watch) and

Nezar Hamze (regional operations director for Council of American-Islamic
Relations, Florida) in May 2015, a couple of interesting points came up,
which illustrate so-called anti-racist types of arguments. The occasion was
a competition to draw cartoons of the prophet Mohammed, which was

25
In commenting on Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Timothy Garton Ash (2006) condescendingly
described her as a slightly simplistic Enlightenment fundamentalist.
 13

organized by Spencer and his associates, and which was attacked by armed
Muslim extremists.
Hamze advances an argument that is typical for representatives of Muslim
organisations and leftists when he says that those who promote free
speech and go to the excesses of insulting Muslims are likely to provoke
Muslim extremists to resort to violent means. Following this diagnosis the
solution is quite simple: if the most extreme promoters of free speech stop
insulting Muslims, the problem of harassment, violent assaults, murders,
etc. will automatically stop. This goes both ways: Islamists will not feel
provoked just as it will tend to prevent racists and islamophobes from
harassing Muslims. Two points are important here, which are also found
among numerous other defenders hate-speech laws.
First, Hamze implicitly assumes, as does many leftists and advocates of
hate-speech legislation, that expression and violence are equivalent: to
state a provocative and possibly insulting point of view orally or in written
form, to draw cartoons, making films, theatre, art exhibitions and so forth,
are on par with bullying and murdering human beings. There is, in other
words, no moral difference between the cartoonists at, say, Charlie Hebdo
and those who killed them. They are two sides of the same coin, that is,
both are extremists or fundamentalists. From this vantage-point the
defence of freedom of expression cannot avoid being rather half-hearted
to say the least. For Islamists and radical leftists free speech is defended
instrumentally, that is to say, as long as it can be used to support their
political religion and ideology of anti-racism, respectively. The logic of this
type of argument is, as mentioned, that freedom of expression is okay if
and only if it targets those in power. As we will see below, this argument
was also widely used in the Danish cartoon controversy.
Second, Hamze indicates, as does many leftist fellow travellers, that those
Islamists who resort to terror do not, strictly speaking, act, and this means
that they cannot be held accountable for what they do. They react, partly
because the real actors are those who provoke them, and partly because
they live under ghastly conditions marked by stigmatization and repression.
The root-cause of the violence and the killings are, in other words, to be
found among those who are labelled fanatic free-speech fighters such as
Charlie Hebdo, Jyllands-Posten and many others whose racist cartoons tap
into the general sentiments of Western racism. Seen from this perspective,
the murder victims are, at the end of the day, their own assassins. They
had it coming, as it were, which means that the real victims are those who,
apparently, had no other choice than to seek recourse in terror.
 14

There is a supplementary argument at work here, namely that of moral

accountancy, which Hamze does not enlist, but which can be found among
several leftists setting out to explain terrorist actions. In commenting on
9/11 Chomsky starts out by asserting that it was a criminal act, but having
said that he turns to the issue, which concerns him the most. The United
States was itself responsible for the terrorist attack. It was a response for
the evil the USA has inflicted on people all over the world, which has killed
infinitely more people than the 3000 who were killed in the 9/11 attack. 26
Against this incarnation of evil, no reprisal will ever make things even. To
argue on those lines has a double function: it concocts a story about the
authentic rage among the oppressed and it legitimizes whatever they do to
resist this oppression. As a result, leftists are either not outraged or they
actually support terror by re-describing it as resistance, which is impressive
as the Islamic terrorists are willing to die for what they believe in. By
indulging the death cult, radical leftists immunize the perpetrators who
are, ultimately, not responsible for their actions and who are, moreover,
envisioned as the medium which expresses the rage among their people,
which is an implicit characterization of what they do as authentic and
heroic. In addition, leftists can praise themselves for being more insightful
by getting the bigger picture in contrast to ordinary people who are
manipulated by the media. Finally, one should not forget the Lefts soft
spot for revolutionary violence, which is necessary to destruct the old
order.27

Free speech 2: The cartoon controversy

In commenting on the Danish cartoon controversy 2005/6, which was

triggered by the newspaper Jyllands-Postens 12 Muhammad cartoons in
September 2005, Deepa Kumar complained that the Left did not respond
properly to these alleged racist cartoons. She accepts without further ado
that they are racist and that we are dealing with yet another stigmatization
of Muslims.28 She then goes on stating that we are not in a situation of
equal-opportunity humor, because you are talking about oppressed and
26
Brub 2009: 56-8. See also Bruckner 2010: 13-5, 76-7.
27
This has a long history. The glorification or deification of Stalin and Mao by Western
communists is an obvious case. See Glazov 2009: Ch. 3-4. More recently, Zizeks
admiration for revolutionary violence illustrates what Johnson 2015 refers to as
Linksfaschismus, which is also a term Zizek (2008: 159) uses to describe himself.
28
Kumar 2006b.
 15

disempowered people, who do not have equal access to the mass

media. 29 Denmark is, Kumar wants us to believe, increasingly marked by a
racist political culture and anti-immigration laws, which forms the context
of the cartoons. The emphasis on this context also figured prominently in
the Danish debate where it served the function of taking the heat off the
hate-campaign against Denmark conducted by radical imams living in
Denmark. There is no neutral point, Kumar continues, in a world
characterized by racism, wars, and imperialism you are either on the side
of the oppressed or the oppressor. One may have criticisms of how
sections of the oppressed have chosen to resist, but you still have to take a
side. 30 This is a clear statement of a global friend/enemy antagonism,
which depicts the West as the imperialist and racist aggressor and asserts
that if one is against this evil; one has to be in favour of whatever the
wretched of the earth do as they are acquitted of all charges a priori.
To argue on those lines resonates with the argumentative logic advanced
by several Danish writers commenting on the cartoon crisis. The Lefts
critique of free speech and its defence of hate-speech legislation and self-
censorship are governed by ones position in the global hierarchy of power:
powerful/disempowered, majority/minority, strong/weak, abuser/victim,
and so forth. A few examples illustrate this. Five writers all agreed that the
sole function of freedom of expression is to be able to criticize those in
power without retaliations. Freedom of expression was born in a
showdown with those in power with the help of the power of the word and
reason, says Carsten Jensen.31 But today, he continues, we experience
that freedom of expression suddenly has the opposite function. Now it is
the majoritys right to annoy, ridicule and haunt the minority. It is the
freedom of the bullies; it is the freedom of the war mongers and the
majority over the minority. Kirsten Thorup goes on in the same way by
asserting that freedom of expression is meant as a right to criticize those
in power without ending up in prison. Free speech is not a right for
different groups in society to be allowed to mock one another. 32 Mette
Winge is on to the same thing when she claims that freedom of expression
was instituted to protect the citizens against the state the idea was not

29
Kumar 2006a.
30
Kumar 2006a. This type of argument is used frequently, e.g. in relation to Iraqi
resistance against the US led invasion of Iraq in March 2003. One example will suffice
here. In a 2004 interview Arundhati Roy said: The Iraqi resistance is fighting on the
frontlines of the battle against Empire. And therefore that battle is our battle. Quoted in
Brub 2009: 31.
31
Jensen 2006.
32
Thorup 2006.
 16

that citizens should go out and harm each other.33 According to Bent Vinn
Nielsen, if you want to challenge free speech, you should do it in another
way than challenge a minority, which is already harassed. 34 Freedom of
expression is about to become a deity, says Ib Michael, which we shall
worship, but they abuse it by mocking and insulting other human beings.
In this way, the powerful abuse tolerance to their own advantage by
bullying those who are already stigmatized.
These writers treat free speech as a function of the oppressor/oppressed
code. This is the reason they favour censorship self censorship and hate-
speech legislation although they seldom phrase it this way. Ib Michael is
one of the exceptions when he reformulates self-censorship as a way to get
along with others, being respectful, decent, etc. We should, all of us,
every day impose on ourselves the necessary self-censorship so we do not
insult other people and other religions this is what the laws say. 35 For
Thorup the cartoon crisis is not about free speech at all. What is really
going on is that an ethnic minority Muslims should get used to being in
the receiving end of scorn, disdain and ridicule; 36 and Nielsen refuses to
acknowledge that this case has anything to do with freedom of expression.
If it has, it is the perverted freedom called the right to scorn. 37
The question is which criteria should be used when setting up restrictions
on civil liberties in general and free speech in particular. The fundamental
issue is what is off-limits: is it injurious slander and threats or is it the
presumed intentions by those who draw cartoons and the presumed
feelings of those who look at them? The writers quoted above together
with several other leftist pundits and lawyers went unanimously for the
latter. Even when the cartoonists were threatened on their life and when
Jyllands-Posten received bomb threats and its employees were under
severe pressure, freedom of expression remained a non-issue. Instead, the
basic problem and hence the reason for the escalation of the crisis was
seen as lying in the rise of xenophobia and intolerance in Danish society,
which was symbolised by the electoral success of the Danish Peoples
Party. 38 So, leftists bypass and reverse the threats: they do not accept that

33
Winge 2006.
34
Nielsen 2006.
35
Michael 2006.
36
Thorup 2006.
37
Nielsen 2006.
38
This is amongst others Zizeks line of argument (2008: 91) on the cartoon crisis in his
brief and incorrect account of how the crisis developed. For a similar argument, see Kumar
2006a. However, the assumption that intolerance, xenophobia and racism should have
assumed alarming proportions in Denmark is not supported by empirical data. On the
 17

the crisis has anything to do with freedom of expression, and they do not
think radical Islamists pose a threat, as it is instead the establishment that
harasses and provokes a stigmatized minority.
Intellectual leftists like Zizek, Butler, Hardt/Negri and Buck-Morss take a
more general turn when choosing to see Islamism as a way for the
impoverished masses of the Third World to express resentment against
global inequality, racism and imperialism, which the West has imposed on
the rest of the world. It is designed to provide prima facie goodwill: here
we have victims who in reality have carte blanche to do and say what they
want, because they are oppressed by the West, which makes their rage
authentic and hence legitimate. They are beyond responsibility as they
answer to higher powers, which imply that it is not okay to question the
legitimacy of what they are doing. 39 Although leftist do not answer to
divine providence, the ethos of Islamism taps into the sentiment of those
leftists who consider themselves revolutionary. For the latter also answer
to higher powers except that they are not divine but metaphysical be that
the historical necessity of class struggle in Marxism or the imperatives of
the death-cult, the authenticity of rage or the ethics of the event in
postmodern jargon. Leftists also see the individual as enacting a mission
outlined by a vanguard of those who know better; they consider individual
responsibility to be a Western or bourgeois hoax and the West is itself the
cause of what happens to it, which is in any case defendable as the West
has imposed infinitely more evil than the other way around.
We in the West are the Last Men, says Zizek, immersed in stupid daily
pleasures, while the Muslim radicals are ready to risk everything, engaged
in the nihilist struggle up to the point of self-destruction. 40 Here we have
an antagonism between inauthenticity and authenticity: the complacent,
dull and materialist life in the West vs. the death-cult of Islamic radicalism.
Islam is, he goes on, the rage of the victims of capitalist globalization, and
in speaking about the cartoon controversy he indulges in the typical leftist
displacement of the issue by claiming that the protest were not really
about the specific cartoons, but about the humiliations and frustrations
associated with the Wests entire imperialist attitude.41
Judith Butler holds that understanding Hamas [and] Hezbollah as social
movements that are progressive, that are on the left, that are part of a

contrary, Danes are among the least intolerant/xenophobic/racist people in the EU. See
Andersen 2006 and Nielsen 2004.
39
Paul Berman 2010: 195-6.
40
Zizek 2008: 25.
41
Zizek 2008: 159 and 91.
 18

global left, is extremely important. 42 From this it naturally follows that one
should not criticize the comrades in Hamas and Hezbollah as this would
benefit their enemies, that is, the West in general and the Zionist enemy in
particular. Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri make an explicit link between
Islamism and anti-modernity/West. They see Islamism as a postmodern
project as if in this way to appeal to trendy leftists in the West: The
postmodernity of fundamentalism has to be recognized primarily in its
refusal of modernity as a weapon of Euro-American hegemony. 43 Susan
Buck-Morss is on to the same anti-modernity trail by arguing that
Islamism as a political discourse can be considered together with Critical
Theory as critiques of modernity in its Western-developed form. And, she
continues, Islamism is a creative space for political articulations of protest
against present inequalities. 44

Root causes 1: Anti-racism trumps anti-sexism

In 2004 Lindsey German (convenor of the Stop the War Coalition (StWC))
said that to criticise the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB) for condoning
sexism was really an attack on all Muslims in Britain, 45 which implies that
MAB represents British Muslims, but does it? Similar arguments are
launched by Anas al-Tikriti as well as Andrew Murray and Lindsey German:
to criticise fundamentalists such as Yusuf al-Qaradawi for condoning
violence against women and gays are, in fact, a sign of Islamophobia and
part of a rise in racism and anti-Muslim sentiments. 46 Another example
that anti-racism is more important than anti-sexism can be found in
Germans evasion of dealing with sexual inequality. Sexism and
homophobia are not, she says, practiced exclusively by Muslims. So why
pick on them only? Here we move, almost imperceptibly, from a fact to an
allegation of racism. She says: For any socialist, the defence of sexual
equality and freedom must be unconditional. But we cannot, in the

42
Quoted in Walzer 2015.
43
Quoted in Walzer 2015. According to Tibi (2009: 13): The suggestion that cultural
modernity and European humanism ought not be reduced to European political
hegemony is discarded by Islamists as a Jewish idea. It is noteworthy that Mouffe
pursues a similar line of argument (without the anti-Semitism though) when she argues
against the spreading of Western values as does Buck-Morss.
44
Buck-Morss 2003: vii and 52. See also Tibis critique of her argument, Tibi 2009: 7-8.
45
Miller 2013: 16.
46
Miller 2013: 24.
 19

process, join in the attacks on those very Muslims who are at the sharp end
of racist attacks and Islamophobia in Britain. 47 What does that mean: is
sexism okay when done by the victims of racism; is sexism the lesser evil of
the two or should one stick to ones unconditional defence of sexual
equality but keep quiet about it?
Murray and Germans way of arguing that racism is an issue here is to insist
that there are others in the UK who are sexist and they are not excluded.
This differential treatment qualifies as racism. They say, there is sexism
and homophobia in the British trade union movement, and since this does
not disqualify the trade unions from joining the anti-war movement,
criticism of their alliance with the MAB indicates a form of racism. 48 This
way of arguing is similar to those feeling uncomfortable about the massive
sexist assaults against women in Cologne New Years Eve 2015/16
uncomfortable not because women were harassed but because it put
asylum seekers in a bad light. They too held that sexism and rape are by far
restricted to men from the Middle East and North Africa. This is, obviously,
true, but the point is that it was the first time since the end of World War
Two that women had been subdued to systematic sexual harassment on a
mass scale. It is the systematic subordination/oppression of women in
Islamic sharia law that is the issue here as opposed to finding examples of
sexism and homophobia in British trade unions and elsewhere.
We find a parallel way of arguing with regard to the issue of anti-Semitism
voiced by Muslims. But when we go to the root of the problem it turns out
that it is a European Christian reaction. So here again, the root cause and
hence the responsibility for anti-Semitism cannot, by definition, have
anything to do with Muslims, because Islam is, as Buck-Morss claims, a
religion of tolerance.49 As StWC states reassuringly, there can be no scope
for complacency at any revival of this evil, or any concession to anti-Semitic
conspiracy theories which, even if mouthed occasionally by young Muslims,
are rooted in European Christian reaction. 50

47
Miller 2013: 16.
48
Miller 2013: 18. See also Namazie 2013 in Miller 2013: 58-9.
49
Buck-Morss 2003: 50.
50
StWC statement quoted in Miller 2013: 19.
 20

Root causes 2: Boko Haram and ISIS

It is common to defend or at least not to condemn the enemies of ones

enemy, for example ISIS and Islamist terror, by changing the focus from ISIS
and terrorism to what brought them to life. To pursue this strategy gives
two argumentative advantages: it takes the heat off ones de facto friends
and it blames ones enemy for being the real culprit. In addition, it shows
that the one launching this type of critique is deeper, more thorough and
less prejudiced than are the mainstream media, which are superficial,
manipulating and governed by corporate interests. 51
In taking a stance on Boko Harams abduction of 276 school girls in Nigeria
14-15 April 2014, Lindsey German of StWC saw a chance to get at the
bottom of this case and come up with a bold answer as to who is
responsible, who are the real devils, for it cannot, by definition, be those
who are actually doing what they do. So the focus and hence the direction
of indignation is displaced to those who made Boko Haram. Here German
gets at the root-cause of things, which, not surprisingly, means to point out
the West as the real perpetrator. Boko Harams emergence, she says, 52
has much to do with Western oppression, corruption and economic
inequalities which have historically plagued Nigeria. Margaret Kimberley
writing for AlterNet is on to the same thing: the kidnappings of the past
two years are a direct result of the governments mistreatment of its
people and its failed efforts to fight Boko Haram. 53 It is not clear what
direct result means except that the governments mistreatment and
failure is somehow directly responsible for the kidnappings but how? Less
direct perhaps, but definitely getting at the root-cause, Dan Murphy,
writing for Christian Science Monitor, suggests we should go back to the
British colonialists in northern Nigeria. In their aggressive push for modern
secular schooling and the resistance from Muslims lies the spark for
Boko Haram's murderous rampages against "Western" education.
German, Kimberly and Murphys stance on Boko Haram illustrate that the
most significant factors responsible for making the organization have
nothing to do with religion. Religion is off the hook and Boko Haram is
sanctified as victims of poverty, corruption, oppression and, of course, the
hegemonic power of British and American imperialism. Another way to
displace the atrocities of, for example, terror groups and Islamist regimes is
to downplay the role played by religion by focussing instead on socio-

51
Brub 2009: Ch. 2.
52
Kozloff 2014.
53
Kimberly 2014.
 21

economic and political factors. Thus Parvez Ahmed argues, much of the
violence in the name of Islam is less motivated by faith and more so by
poverty and desperation. 54 Similarly, Kathleen Cavanaugh says that the
violent and oppressive actions [of ISIS] have little to do with religion per
se, but rather are underpinned by material interests. 55 Finally, David
Swanson claims in an article on ISIS that the US led invasion in Iraq paved
the way for the rise of ISIS. Start by recognizing where ISIS came from, he
begins his article, and then goes on listing how the U.S. and its junior
partners destroyed Iraq, left a sectarian division, poverty, desperation, and
an illegitimate government in Baghdad that did not represent Sunnis or
other groups. Then the U.S. armed and trained ISIS and allied groups in
Syria 56 The argument has an affinity to how leftists explained the terror
regime of Pol Pots Khmer Rouge, which was responsible for the killings of
around two million people a quarter of the population of Democratic
Kampuchea. The root cause was, needless to say, the United States war in
Indochina.
To make this kind of move has three advantages for present-day leftists.
First, and most important from a political point of view, it dissociates the
Left from allegations of Islamophobia, which is, according to OIC and its
leftist allies in the West, a form of racism. 57 Second, it immunizes religious
values and traditions some of which are, or at least used to be, repulsive
for leftists. But when they are taken off the agenda, alliances with Islamists
might appear less burdensome. Third, to downplay religion taps into the
default leftist position that religion is a superstructural phenomenon and
hence that there are more important causes for why Islamists do what they
do causes which link up with domestic and global poverty and repression.

Part III: Whats in it for the Left?

The reversals and mutations of leftist politics have been a mixed blessing
for the Left. The New Left, which took off in the early 1960s, changed the
political scene by politicizing virtually everything, which had either been
ignored or repressed by the traditional Right and Left (gender, life-style,

54
Parvez 2014.
55
Quoted in Walzer 2015.
56
Swanson 2014.
57
Walzer 2015a.
 22

sexuality, environment, etc.). But the New Left middleclass radicalism did
not have much on offer when it came to ordinary politics, which was the
major concern for the vast majority. On top of that it alienated the
traditional constituency of the Left (the working class) by its identity
politics and its middleclass elitism, which turned out to have the effect of
strengthening right-wing populist trends. 58 So, while the New Left won the
culture war related to the first post-wave it also alienated itself. With the
second post-wave two decenniums later, and mainly with the rise of
multiculturalism, alienation was supplemented by a fundamental
disorientation, which brought an end to the Lefts affiliation with the
enlightenment tradition. This erosion has gone hand in hand with the rise
of Islamic fundamentalism, which radical leftists today see as partners in
their rage against imperialism, capitalism and racism. The Left has adopted
a vicious blend of anti-Americanism, anti-Semitism, anti-modernity and
anti-Islamophobia, which has given it a sense of direction after the collapse
of the socialist utopia, but this new oppositional identity politics has
undermined its historical basis and mission. What really matters for the
radical Left is to nurture its oppositional image vis--vis friend/enemy
antagonisms, and if that means to forge alliances with reactionary political
forces and turn against everything it used to believe in, then, apparently, it
is a price worth paying. 59
Five points are important concerning the Lefts adoption of what used to
be the hallmark of the most reactionary Right:
1. From the post-trends insistence upon difference and that everything
is context, it was just a small step to assert that everything is culture
as this was the political context that cropped up with great intensity
after the cold war and the fatwa against Rushdie. This has pushed in
the direction of cultural relativism, which either praises or silently
accepts the cohesive force of cultures as a framing of everything that
goes on within these cultures, which also implies ignoring relations of
domination/subordination. This in turn implies that equality takes on
a new meaning: it is no longer a struggle against hierarchy but a
matter of recognizing the equality of cultures.

58
Eagleton 1996: 69-70; Lindsey 2007: 147, 192-3, 217-8, 234-5.
59
The Lefts de facto defence of Saddam Husseins fascist-like dictatorship in Iraq as well
as its eager to demonstrate its hatred against The United States can be illustrated by the
Not in My Name slogans of the mass demonstrations leading up to the second Gulf war.
This popular phrase suggests, says West 2004: 39, that anti-war protesting is no longer
about stopping wars but registering ones personal disapproval of it. See also West 2004:
2, 23, 43-4, 47; Cohen 2007: 282-4, 307-8.
 23

2. It would suffice to put the others culture before racist and sexist
oppression to make it invisible for a politically correct Left as it would
then fall under the radar of attention, which is systematically biased.
This has gone hand in hand with a widespread use of double
standards governed by a primitive and prejudiced view of a global
hierarchy of power, which operates according to a single logic and
does not take internal power relations into account such as socio-
economic inequalities, generational and gender conflicts. Hence the
legitimacy of actions and statements do not depend on what is said
and done, but solely where one is positioned in this hierarchy.
3. The fatwa against Rushdie, the cartoon controversy and numerous
other incidents of assaults on artistic freedom and free speech
highlight that if civil liberties are construed to offend the other, it is
our duty to apologize and intensify hate-speech legislation and self-
censorship. This way of governing one self and others have been
facilitated by the academic trend of recognition/misrecognition,
where leftist organizations and academics are ever so keen to spot
abuse, racism, etc. Here there is an affinity with right-wing populism,
which pretends to speak on behalf of the silent majority, which
cannot speak for itself. The same goes for multicultural leftists who
indulge in speaking on behalf of selected minorities whom they
infantilise.
4. Condemning capitalism is still the business of the Left, of course, but
it has lost momentum and has gradually mutated into a sceptical
attitude towards modernity. The same holds for anti-imperialism,
which has turned into criticism of the West, especially The United
States and Israel. Both types of criticism have paved the way for
alliances with radical Islamists and condemnation of all aspects of the
West: civil liberties which license attacks on Muslims, crusades
against Islam and Zionism. This type of critique is not new, but it has
taken on new dimensions and it testifies to the inspiration fascism
has had on the formation of radical Islam from the 1920s to the end
of World War Two.60
5. Just as radical leftists during the cold war took a liking for everything
that smacked of anti-imperialism, regardless of whether those who
were labelled progressive in the Third World degenerated into
corrupt, authoritarian and reactionary police states; radical leftists
today have no problems with appeasing and appraising reactionary
and violent Islamism. The reason is that they see the Islamist revival
60
Bruckner 2010: 74-80: Lvy 2008: 127.
 24

as the most potent anti-American political force today. This is caused,

partly, by the development of the Left itself, and partly by the clever
strategies of the OIC who appeals to leftists in the West by
propagating the equivalence: critique of Muslims Islamophobia
racism. The Left has bought this logic of equivalence without
hesitation.
The radical Left and the reactionary Right have three common themes:
culturalism, anti-modernity and victimization. Culturalism speaks from
within an identity politics discourse, which, in contrast to a nationalist
based culturalism, idolizes otherness, because it highlights opposition to
the establishment, conformity, and so forth. This implies that the other
becomes a figure of resistance. Anti-modernity signals scepticism towards
modernity, progress, individualism, rationality, etc., which is attractive as
an icon of opposition and resistance given that radical leftists no longer
adhere to the old paradigm of universal emancipation as they have taken
over a reactive and sceptical agenda, which used to characterize
conservatives.61 Victimization implies to speak on behalf of those who
cannot themselves speak up, because they are repressed and stigmatized.
Whereas right-wing populists speak for the silent majority, radical leftists
want to represent those who are weak. Hence the stress on the code of
strong/weak in which weakness is equated with exclusion and authenticity.
These themes have tapped into leftist discourses as they facilitate the
friend/enemy matrix, which structures its orientation and frames political
intensity, and which orbits around collectivism, solidarity and exclusion as
necessary means for building strong group identity. This is decisive and it
matters, accordingly, less that the values leftists defend by and large have
been replaced by their opposite. What matters is to be able to condemn
Western values and the rootless, tedious and mediocre lifestyle of ordinary
people, which goes well together with anti-Americanism and political
correctness. What we get is a sectarian and elitist Left discourse, which the
vast majority of the population in general and the working class in
particular, which used to be the constituency of the Left, do not identify
with.

61
Furedi 2005: Ch. 3.
 25

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