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The historical Alliance Between European leftists and Islamists
Published
2 years agoon

A few years ago when Federica Mogherini, the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, travelled to Gaza, an Israeli media outlet called her a “Communist” and an “Islamophile” - writes Erfan Kasraie
The part of the statement about her being a Communist is factually accurate given her past membership in the Italian Communist Youth Federation. What about the claim of her Islamophilia? First, it is not uncommon for a leftist politician to sympathise with the Islamist worldview.
Mogherini would not be the only western politician with a leftist past to harbour Islamist sympathies. Throughout the Western world, left-wing politicians are often accused of appeasement, sympathy and alignment with Islamists even those of a radical nature. This unwritten alliance goes beyond leftist politicians in the democratic nations and includes Cold War communist hold-overs as the governments of Cuba and North Korea and the 21st-century socialist movements such as the one in power in Venezuela. The friendship between such entities and the regime in Iran is a prime example of their ties to the broader Islamist ideology.
Iran’s contemporary history is rife with an alliance between various hues of the ruby red revolutionary left and the pitch black reactionary Islamists. Barely months into the reign of the Islamic Republic, the leaders of the Tudeh Party, one of the oldest communist political parties in Iran, declared Khomeini appointed cleric Sadeq Khalkhali, who was known as the butcher of Tehran for ordering countless executions, their preferred candidate for the presidency. At the same time, the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Tudeh Party of Iran, Nour Al-Din Kianuri, praised Ayatollah Khalkhali for his courage to hand the agents and mercenaries of Imperialism to the firing squad.
The leftist-Islamist alliance is not limited to just one or a few historical accounts but is rather deep-rooted in history with strong ideological and philosophical underpinnings. About half a century ago, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi astutely identified this lurking alliance against his rule and coined the epithet “Red and Black Reactionaries” to refer to its followers. A few years later, the alliance spilt out into the open as leftists and Islamists marched hand-in-hand and fought should-to-shoulder to depose the Shah and bring Ayatollah Khomeini to power.
Cultural Marxism
Although much has been said and written about Marxism and its various historical interpretations, it is hard to find a single definition of this ideological school of many students. Classical Marxism builds upon the class struggle with the bourgeoisie on one side and the proletariat on the other. In the 1960s, more than a century after Marx and Engels published the Manifesto of the Communist Party, a new version of Marxism that came to be known as Cultural Marxism emerged.
Cultural Marxism is historically rooted in the Frankfurt School which refers to a period between World War I and World War II when thinkers such as Theodor Adorno developed the Critical Theory. This view of the sixties has grown popular among the left-wingers in Europe and North America, becoming the dominant discourse of the humanities and social sciences, especially in European universities.
The influence of Critical Theory was so monumental that more than half a century later, it dominates European institutions of higher education. Contrary to classical Marxism, cultural Marxism sees the society as the battleground between the “exploited” and the “exploiter”. In other words, the conflict is no longer class based but between the majority and the socially marginalised groups. Followers of cultural Marxism generally advocate LGBT rights, the foundations of feminism, ethnic minorities, and so on, but they also have a point of attachment to the Islamists.
While Christianity is in their view an exploiting force to be looked down upon, the adherents of Islamism are generally seen as belonging to the ‘exploited” camp and hence deserving of leftist support. Although theoretically, such reconciliation between cultural Marxism and Islamism must be a logical impossibility, in practice, and in spite of their fundamental differences and diametrically opposing views on a vast range of issues from women rights to transsexuals, homosexuals, and so on, the two worldviews have managed to forge a deep connection to each other.
As difficult as it is to understand this strange marriage at first glance, a second look at the origins of Cultural Marxism sheds some light. Cultural Marxism was developed in a period when the blossoming artistic and philosophical movement of postmodernism in France was gaining popularity by the day. Strange works of art without aesthetic elements were introduced. Avant-garde art, surrealism, and postmodern thought based on epistemological relativism all boomed in the same period.
Perhaps one will have as much difficulty (or ease) explaining the friendship between Islam and Cultural Marxism as one would have revealed why Robert Rauschenberg’s completely blank whiteboard, which appears at the Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco, is considered a work of art.
Moreover, it is perhaps the same sum-of-contradictions that takes the founder of the Pink Code Feminist Group, Medea Benjamin to Tehran not to join Iranian women in their fight against oppression and discrimination but to support the anti-woman regime of Iran’s Ayatollahs and receive an award from them as well.
Beyond that, if we put together the pieces of this complex puzzle, we will find out how and under what conditions the link between cultural Marxism, postmodernism and Islamic radicalism was established and understand among others the intellectual basis for Michel Foucault’s support of the Islamic Revolution. It's enough to see that Foucault, a postmodernist theorist, joined the Communist Party of France in 1950 and was influenced by Marxism and the Frankfurt School. During the Islamic Revolution, he strongly supported it and twice travelled to Iran during the same period.
Reverse Orientalism
Three years ago, when French philosopher François Burgat travelled to Qom, he told one of the clerics of the Islamic Republic, “We are all your students, and we know that Shi'a political and religious thought has much richness and, therefore, we are interested in learning more from you.” Burgat, a French left-wing orientalist, is called the “Reverse Orientalist” by Sadiq Jalal al-Azm, the Syrian thinker.
In a paper entitled, “The European Left Who Loves Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and Despises Taha Hussein,” Yemeni lawyer, Hussein Alwadei, writes, “The European Left believes that the true voice of the Middle East is the voice of Ruhollah Khomeini, the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafists. According to him, the European leftist sees concepts such as democracy or human rights as colonial values of the West, and believe that these concepts do not correspond to the reality of the Middle East.”
In Orientalism, there is even a humiliating view of the people of the Middle East. From this perspective, the people of the Middle East are people who want to be superstitious and avoid modernity and despise progress and science. From the viewpoint of Reverse Orientalists; the repression, torture and murder of intellectuals and critics in the Middle East are the dominant and real values of these countries.
Concepts such as secularism, liberalism, and democracy are hodgepodges of inconsistency, void of the cultural context of the Middle East, and that the peoples of the Middle East, the Islamic Republic and the Islamic State want an Islamic Caliphate, not a modern government.
The European left, under the shadow of cultural Marxism, does not consider human rights abuses in these countries as brutal. Instead, they consider these brutal acts as part of those countries’ culture, and existential reality of those nations to be simply ignored and disregarded.
The European Left adheres to the concepts and values of freedom of speech and democracy and secularism, but only endorses and expects them for the European societies, and not the Middle East.
It is for these reasons that the left wing of the European Union's foreign policy condemns the violation of democracy and human rights in Myanmar, but not when visiting Tehran, despite the many requests and demands from human rights activists.
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Scottish government comment on efforts to stay in Erasmus
Published
21 hours agoon
January 22, 2021
Minsters have welcomed the support of around 150 MEPs who have asked the European Commission to explore how Scotland could continue to take part in the popular Erasmus exchange programme. The move comes a week after Further and Higher Education Minister Richard Lochhead held productive talks with Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth Commissioner Mariya Gabriel to explore the idea. Until last year, over 2,000 Scottish students, staff and learners took part in the scheme annually, with Scotland attracting proportionally more Erasmus participants from across Europe - and sending more in the other direction - than any other country in the UK.
Lochhead said: “Losing Erasmus is huge blow for the thousands of Scottish students, community groups and adult learners - from all demographic backgrounds - who can no longer live, study or work in Europe.“It also closes the door for people to come to Scotland on Erasmus to experience our country and culture and it is heartening to see that loss of opportunity recognised by the 145 MEPs from across Europe who want Scotland’s place in Erasmus to continue. I am grateful to Terry Reintke and other MEPs for their efforts and thank them for extending the hand of friendship and solidarity to Scotland’s young people. I sincerely hope we can succeed.
“I have already had a virtual meeting with Commissioner Gabriel. We agreed that withdrawing from Erasmus is highly regrettable and we will continue to explore with the EU how to maximize Scotland’s continued engagement with the programme. I have also spoken with my Welsh Government counterpart and agreed to keep in close contact.”
EU
Leaders agree on new ‘dark red’ zones for high-risk COVID areas
Published
23 hours agoon
January 22, 2021
At a special meeting of European heads of government, to discuss the rise of infection rates across Europe and the emergence of new, more contagious variants, leaders agreed that the situation warranted the utmost caution and agreed on a new category of ‘dark red zone’ for high-risk areas.
The new category would indicate that the virus was circulating at a very high level. People traveling from dark red areas could be required to do a test before departure, as well as to undergo quarantine after arrival. Non-essential travel in or out of these areas would be strongly discouraged.
The EU has underlined that it is anxious to keep the single market functioning especially concerning the movement of essential workers and goods, von der Leyen described this as of the “utmost importance”.
The approval of vaccinations and the start of roll-out is encouraging but it is understood that further vigilance is needed. Some states which are more dependent on tourism called for the use of vaccination certificates as a way to open up travel. The leaders debated the use a common approach and agreed that the vaccination document should be seen as a medical document, rather than a travel document - at this stage. Von der Leyen said: “We will discuss the suitability of a common approach to certification.”
Member states agreed to a Council recommendation setting a common framework for the use of rapid antigen tests and the mutual recognition of COVID-19 test results across the EU. The mutual recognition of test results for SARS-CoV2 infection carried by certified health bodies should help facilitate cross-border movement and cross-border contact tracing.
The common list of appropriate COVID-19 rapid antigen tests should be flexible enough for addition, or removal, of those tests whose efficacy is impacted by COVID-19 mutations.
Economy
Lagarde calls for swift ratification of Next Generation EU
Published
1 day agoon
January 22, 2021
Christine Lagarde, President of the European Central Bank, shared the conclusions of the monthly Euro Governing Council. The Council has decided to reconfirm its “very accommodative” monetary policy stance. Lagarde said that the renewed surge in COVID had disrupted economic activity, particularly for services.
Lagarde underlined the importance of the Next Generation EU package and stressed that it should become operational without delay. She called on member states to ratify it as quickly as possible.
The interest rate on the main refinancing operations and the interest rates on the marginal lending facility and the deposit facility will remain unchanged at 0.00%, 0.25% and -0.50% respectively. The Governing Council expects the key ECB interest rates to remain at their present or lower levels.
The Governing Council will continue the purchases under the pandemic emergency purchase programme (PEPP) with a total envelope of €1,850 billion. The Governing Council will conduct net asset purchases under the PEPP until at least the end of March 2022 and, in any case, until it judges that the coronavirus crisis phase is over. It will also continue to reinvest the principal payments from maturing securities purchased under the PEPP until at least the end of 2023. In any case, the future roll-off of the PEPP portfolio will be managed to avoid interference with the appropriate monetary policy stance.
Third, net purchases under the asset purchase programme (APP) will continue at a monthly pace of €20 billion. The Governing Council continues to expect monthly net asset purchases under the APP to run for as long as necessary to reinforce the accommodative impact of its policy rates, and to end shortly before it starts raising the key ECB interest rates.
The Governing Council also intends to continue reinvesting, in full, the principal payments from maturing securities purchased under the APP for an extended period of time past the date when it starts raising the key ECB interest rates, and in any case for as long as necessary to maintain favourable liquidity conditions and an ample degree of monetary accommodation.
Finally, the Governing Council will continue to provide ample liquidity through its refinancing operations. In particular, the third series of targeted longer-term refinancing operations (TLTRO III) remains an attractive source of funding for banks, supporting bank lending to firms and households.
The Governing Council continues to stand ready to adjust all of its instruments, as appropriate, to ensure that inflation moves towards its aim in a sustained manner, in line with its commitment to symmetry.

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