In Bed With Beelzebub

Once again there is something newsworthy in Denmark. On June 15th and 16th Århus University hosted a conference entitled “Islamism and European Security”. Reader jdm has done yeoman’s work in translating material concerning the conference from the Danish media.

First there is an account of the conference (apparently no longer at the Århus site):

A number of Europe’s most knowledgeable experts on Islamism and terrorism are currently meeting at Århus University for a conference dealing with Islamism arranged by professor Mehdi Mozaffari, Århus University.

[…]

Mehdi Mozaffari himself opened the conference with a presentation about The Idea of Islamism.

»Islamisme er en regressiv religiøst inspireret ideologi med en holistisk fortolkning af islam, med det endelige mål at erobre hele verden,« sagde Medhi Mozaffari.

“Islamism is a regressive, religiously inspired ideology with a holistic interpretation of Islam and an ultimate goal of conquering the entire world,” Medhi Mozaffari said.

It’s worth noting that Mehdi Mozaffari apparently is one of those elusive creatures, a “moderate Muslim”. In fact, Denmark seems to have a fair number of them, and some of them go in fear of their lives due to their heretical views.

Here is jdm’s translation of an article about the conference which appeared in last Saturday’s Jyllands-Posten:

A Dangerous Alliance

At the international Islamism conference this week in Århus, the left-wing journalist Caroline Fourest pointed to the dangers of the coalition she thinks that some of the international left has entered into with Islamists.

The 30 year old French journalist who, writes for the left-wing magazine Charlie Hedbo, wonders why it is that the European left has not learned anything from what happened during the Iranian Revolution in 1979.

“Back then, a group of Marxists made a big mistake. They thought it would be possible to form a partnership with Islamists in the fight to topple the Shah,” said Caroline Fourest in her controversial presentation at the recently concluded international Islamism conference at Århus University.

Repeated Mistakes

She thinks that the left of today is about to make the exact same error as those Marxists in Iran who formed a partnership with Khomeini’s Islamist Movement only to be eliminated by their Islamic partner after the fall of the Shah.

“Today, we see coalitions and partnerships between Islamist groups and progressive leftwing movements that we would not have expected five years ago. Among these, the anti-globalization movement, the European Social Forum, at their most recent three meetings have invited Tariq Ramadan along with a number of activists from the Muslim Brotherhood to speak in the name of Islam. This is happening in a very progressive forum,” Caroline Fourest wondered and added that this meant that the forum’s secular Muslims are no longer present.

“They would just be accused of being pro-Bush, pro-Zionist, or Islamophobes”

Also, in France, Caroline Fourest points to alliances between Islamist groups and progressive groups on the left like Human Rights Watch — groups that came together in the fight against the government’s prohibition against religious symbols in French public schools.

“The worst thing about this coalition was that it attempted to accuse the feminists and secular groups of being racist or Islamophobic. In the same way, an anti-racist left-wing group wanted to sue Charlie Hedbo after it re-published the Mohammed cartoons. We still don’t know if the suit was because we were being blasphemous or racist.”

However, she also gives the anti-immigrant right a portion of the blame, albeit indirect, for these new alliances between the Islamic groups and the left.

The Mistake of the Right

“The right wing in Europe has conjoined the issues of immigration, security, and religious fanaticism. The left then, attempts to form an alternative to these policies and in conjunction with to trying to please Muslim voters, the left neglects to criticize the fanaticism in Islam,” says Caroline Fourest.

Ms. Fourest has joined Christopher Hitchens, Norm Geras, and others in an apostasy from Leftist orthodoxy on the topic of Islam. No doubt she will soon be subject to death threats and have to go in fear of her life, due to her betrayal of her erstwhile comrades.

Fjordman has written here in “I’m a Terrorist Groupie, Hear Me Roar!” about the affinity of the Left for violent Islam, and, more recently, about the connection of Islamism with Marxism.

Expect the divide between the Left and the rest of the West to grow more extreme, as its infernal love affair with the Islamic terrorists continues to flower. Anticipate even more deranged rhetoric from the opponents of Bushitler and Global Capitalist Fascism, as the logic of the alliance with Jihad unfolds.

But one has to wonder how the Left thinks it will all end. As Elvis Costello says,

Two little Hitlers will fight it out until
One little Hitler does the other one’s will.

Assume that the Progressives and the Mujahideen, with their united front, prevail in glorious triumph over the evil West. What then? Do the likes of Noam Chomsky and Michael Moore believe they stand a chance against the throat-slitters and the suicide-bombers? Does anyone want to lay odds on the outcome?

Presumably they’ve decided not to think about that for right now…