Opposing Islamic Totalitarianism

Salman Rushdie, Ayaan Hirsi Ali et al Slam Islamic Totalitarianism:

Together facing the new totalitarianism

After having overcome fascism, Nazism, and Stalinism, the world now faces a new totalitarian global threat: Islamism.

We, writers, journalists, intellectuals, call for resistance to religious totalitarianism and for the promotion of freedom, equal opportunity and secular values for all.

The recent events, which occurred after the publication of drawings of Muhammed in European newspapers, have revealed the necessity of the struggle for these universal values. This struggle will not be won by arms, but in the ideological field. It is not a clash of civilisations nor an antagonism of West and East that we are witnessing, but a global struggle that confronts democrats and theocrats.

Like all totalitarianisms, Islamism is nurtured by fears and frustrations. The hate preachers bet on these feelings in order to form battalions destined to impose a liberticidal and unegalitarian world. But we clearly and firmly state: nothing, not even despair, justifies the choice of obscurantism, totalitarianism and hatred. Islamism is a reactionary ideology which kills equality, freedom and secularism wherever it is present. Its success can only lead to a world of domination: man’s domination of woman, the Islamists’ domination of all the others. To counter this, we must assure universal rights to oppressed or discriminated people.

We reject « cultural relativism », which consists in accepting that men and women of Muslim culture should be deprived of the right to equality, freedom and secular values in the name of respect for cultures and traditions. We refuse to renounce our critical spirit out of fear of being accused of "Islamophobia", an unfortunate concept which confuses criticism of Islam as a religion with stigmatisation of its believers.

We plead for the universality of freedom of expression, so that a critical spirit may be exercised on all continents, against all abuses and all dogmas.

We appeal to democrats and free spirits of all countries that our century should be one of Enlightenment, not of obscurantism.

12 signatures

Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Chahla Chafiq
Caroline Fourest
Bernard-Henri Lévy
Irshad Manji
Mehdi Mozaffari
Maryam Namazie
Taslima Nasreen
Salman Rushdie
Antoine Sfeir
Philippe Val
Ibn Warraq

A fine sentiment that I agree with, but the "ism" hairsplitting is weak. "Nazism" is redundant except as a crutch for citing "Stalinism" rather than "Marxism" or at least "socialism". You're taking a bold public stand here, don't be mealy mouthed about the roots of totalitarianism. Consult Hayek.

The explicit rejection of "cultural relativism" (tee hee another "ism") is sure to drive some of the misguided traitors in our midst even deeper into the arms of their Islamofacist comrades. It's long past time to pick sides. You can recognize that cultural relativism is dangerous piffle, or you may as well get sized for your burka now.

Wretchard as usual has some good analysis:

This represents a substantial -- but not a total -- departure from the strategic idea of treating Islam as a religion of peace and focusing on a narrow group of miscreants within it as the true enemy. The Manifesto shifts the definition of the enemy from a group of people to an ideology.

The enemy has always been the ideology of jihad and Sharia. The rest of Islam is perfectly tolerable. Unfortunately Islam cannot be taken ala carte. The Koran is the infallible word of Allah. His Prophet is the perfect example of a man who waged jihad and imposed Sharia. Reject jihad and you are not a Muslim. Civilized people can fantasize all they want about reforming Islam. The best we can do is stand by our values (like freedom of expression) and help as many people stop drinking the Islamist kool-aid as possible. That will be difficult enough because Muslims are serious, deadly serious, about apostasy.