بِسۡمِ اللّٰہِ الرَّحۡمٰنِ الرَّحِیۡمِ
In the Name of Allah, the Rahman, the Merciful
We, the Muslims of the West, are politically orphaned and homeless. Both the Right and Left are diametrically opposed to our community’s interests.
In the case of the Right, especially the Far Right, this is obvious. It is open season on Muslims for them. They recognize that there is not much of a political fallout for them to viciously attack us Muslims, unlike other minorities (Black, Hispanics, Asians, Jews, Indigenous, Gays, etc.).
Muslims consistently have the least favorability among Westerns according to polls, again, unlike other minorities. One would therefore expect that the Left would prioritize Muslims as the group deserving the most validation and advocacy at this time. Alas, this is simply not the case! On the contrary, it is the LGBTQ which the Left expresses the most fervor for validation, celebration and advocacy.
June being “Pride Month” is a perfect example of this attitude of the Left. Here in Canada especially, the pomp and energy with which Pride flags and other LGBTQ symbolism are displayed, and the mass participation of the public in Pride parades has no parallel. Arguably, this is a greater cultural event in Canada than even Christmas and Canada Day!
The Left declares that such magnitude of outpour of support for the LGBTQ “community” is necessary to validate what they consider to be a target of hate and marginalization. But according to this principle, Muslims and not LGBTQ, Indigenous people, Blacks, Jews or anyone else should be prioritized for validation. Especially considering that those other minorities are not threatened with harm anywhere near the extent Muslims are threatened in the West in this current political atmosphere.
The eminent martyr Malcolm X, may Allah have mercy on his soul, famously and harshly criticized the White liberal for his hypocrisy. I also recognize that the liberal or the leftist is a snake that speaks with a forked tongue.
In Canada, the government recently passed Bill C-9, which removes the “good faith religious expressions” as a defense for charges of hate speech. According to the Canadian Constitution Foundation, “Before Bill C-9, if a person charged with public incitement of hatred, wilful promotion of hatred or wilful promotion of antisemitism could establish that they, ‘in good faith…expressed or attempted to establish by an argument an opinion on a religious subject or an opinion based on a belief in a religious text,’ that would have been a full defence to the charge. This means they would not be convicted. Bill C-9 has removed this defence, putting Canadians at greater risk of charges for religious speech.”
In other words, Muslims and other conservative religious communities could potentially and likely face criminal charges of willfully promoting hatred of an identifiable group by quoting scriptures from the Quran, Hadith and Bible that condemn homosexuals and homosexuality (sodomy), the Jews for having murdered and rejected many Prophets, and Hindus, Pagans and other polytheists for idolatry. Even religious speech condemning the heresies of the Shia, Ahmadis/Qadianis, Bahais and indeed any other religion is now subject to criminal charges of willfully promoting hatred of an identifiable group.
Is it not hypocritical of the Left to enact such horrendous legislation which plainly violates the freedom of religion supposedly guaranteed by international human rights conventions, while simultaneously failing to do practically anything to remedy the discriminatory laicity laws of Bill 21 and Bill 9 in Quebec? The latter openly discriminate against especially Muslim ladies who observe veiling from holding certain government jobs that give them a position of authority.
Muslims must wake up! For too long these Left/liberal political parties have taken the votes of the Community for granted, but rather than serving or defending our interests, once in power their governments actively harm us and pass discriminatory legislation against us.
The token Muslim representatives which the Left/liberals foist upon the Community are often hypocrites themselves that express contempt for our conservative religious values. They certainly have no grassroots legitimacy from the Community itself, but are often parachuted into our constituencies by the powerful political parties to prevent the rise of a truly authentic Muslim voice and political representation.
This also reflects the failure of the Community itself to develop its own independent political representation without being held hostage by the Left/liberal parties.
I realize that for many, perhaps even most Muslims part of our Community here in the West, foreign policy issues such as Palestine take precedence for them, and evoke greater passion in them, than domestic issues such as the evil of laicity or the indoctrination of our children in the public school system. So if they recognize the hypocrisy of the Left of Center or mainstream liberal parties, they nevertheless continue to align themselves with and fully back the Far Left parties, such as the NDP in Canada and the Green Party in the UK.
But I characterize the vipers of the Far Left as sneakier and more cunning than the others on the political spectrum as it relates to us Muslims. Their agenda is to erase our unique identify and particular social, cultural, political, economic and religious interests by persuading us that we are all part of the working class, and the working class identity is the only relevant one to do politics on.
Their politicians frequent our mosques during election season to campaign and appeal to us for votes, but once in office they do practically nothing to further our interests or address our legitimate concerns.
Once again, see their hypocrisy in this regard, because the same is not true for how the Far Left represents other minorities, especially the LGBTQ, Blacks and Indigenous people.
In personal interactions with the Far Left on social media I have come to the inescapable conclusion that these are a people who in their heart of hearts hate Islam, hate the Quran, and hate the Holy Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. They do everything in their power to suppress the conservative Muslim voice here in the West.
Muslim youth are duped by the Far Left because of their sloganeering for Palestine, condemnation of Zionism, and apparent opposition to the Far Right and mainstream conservative parties that are openly hostile to Muslims.
We Muslims underestimate our capability to mobilize and our vast potential to influence politics due to our growing numbers and presence in the West. The Left, however, is quite aware of this potential and dreads it.
Take the Left’s embrace of indigeneity. I propose this is why they are ultimately compelled to support the Palestinians as opposed to Zionism, since the Palestinians are indigenous to Palestine while the Jews are predominantly settlers from eastern Europe and elsewhere.
But Indigenism is a double edged sword for us Muslims. It is being invoked in Europe by the Far Right and European nativists who seek to remove the Muslim presence precisely on account of us being a foreign, alien and invasive presence on that continent. Indigenism led to the recent ethnic cleansing of Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar based on the argument that the Rohingya are Bengalis which the British settled in Burma during the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Here in North America, Indigenism is fully embraced by the Left and I foresee the consequence of this phenomenon being the division of Canadians into tiers of citizenship, with the Amerindian population having greater rights and ownership to Canada than non-Indigenous people. This will especially adversely affect those communities in Canada which are relatively newer, especially Muslims and other immigrant communities which predominantly hail from Asia.
The logical conclusion of Indigenism is also to question and condemn the spread of Islam in the Near East, North Africa and the Indian Subcontinent. It has to be admitted that the early Muslims who settled in the Levant and Mesopotamia were basically Arabian colonists living among the native non-Arabs who were eventually fully Islamized and Arabized centuries later. I acknowledge that early Islam was essentially a project of Arab settler colonialism, and therefore our Religion does not validate Indigenism.
Using the argument of indigeneity against Zionism ultimately backfires on us. This explains why its most ardent proponents tend to be secularist and leftist, and some are outright atheist who say they want nothing to do with Islam.
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