Chia Barsen - The Orlando Terrorist Attack and the Response from the Secular Left
even the lowest
whisper can be heard over armies, when it’s telling the truth - Chia Barsen
In a 911 call made at
the time of the Orlando attack, Omar Mateen, declared his allegiance to the
Islamic State and also mentioned the Boston Marathon Bomber. Soon afterwards,
the Islamic state claimed responsibility for the attack and issued a statement
declaring Omar Mateen an Islamic State fighter. Amidst an election in the
United States, this attack was used by both sides, the Democrats and the
Republicans, to further their own political bourgeois agendas. These agendas
include everything from domestic state repression through heavy policing and
surveillance, and restrictions on migration, to warmongering foreign policies.
The Obama
administration issued a statement on the attack, making no mention of the
connection between this terrorist attack and the Islamic State, and the global
threat of political Islam. Immediately after the attack, Muslim clerics were
called on by the media to make statements in regards to the attack. The
statements made by the Muslim clerics were centred on gun control in the US and
highlighting the importance of limiting the sales of automatic weapons to the
public. The left wing media, including news broadcasts such as “Democracy Now”,
also framed the attack around the need for greater gun control. Meanwhile right
wing news media framed the attack around Muslims in general and the need for
strict boarder control and migration to keep Muslims out.
Blaming guns for the
Islamist murder of 49 people in the Orlando gay club, is like saying that
Zyklon B gas was the cause of the Holocausts and not the Nazis. Gun control is
a clear and present issue in the US and there are countless episodes of
shootings in the US to justify the removal of all guns (not just automatic
weapons), from the streets. However, piggybacking on the gun control debate and
not making any mention of the threat of Political Islam and Islamism, is the
furthering of a political agenda and not simple ignorance or apathy.
The republican
nominee, Donald Trump, is using the Orlando attack to further his racist agenda
to “ban all Muslims” from the United States. This sectarian far-right racist
ideology, mimicked and echoed in the bible belt states as well as by right wing
news media (such as Fox news), is incredibly deleterious for the working class
struggle in the US. There is not a single grain of truth in terms of
“protecting” the working people against Islamist attacks, instead it is an
excuse for the Trump administration to push for greater use of surveillance and
repressive state tools to quell all working class associations, demonstrations
and street protests for higher wages, access to benefits and a lower cost of
living. A small example of this was George W Bush’s Terrorist
Surveillance Program that authorised foreign and domestic wiretapping
of communications that was extended to new heights after the September 11
attacks.
Meanwhile, there is an
ongoing and equally dangerous narrative, which describe those on the left who
are critical of Islam as “racist” and as “Islamophobic”. Critical left wing
anti-theists are being categorized as right-wing racists, the likes of KKK, for
making any mention of Islam, Islamism and Islamists. The narrative here is that
any critical rhetoric against political Islam or Islam itself, parallels with
racist, anti-migrant, right wing ideology and is inherently promoting hate and
violence against Muslims in general. For this reason, many of those who are
critical of religion and religious movements, have simply stepped out of the
debate for the fear of being labelled “racist”. These people are also in a
state of cognitive dissonance (a mismatch between thought and behaviour) by
joining the “Islam is religion of peace” camp.
There are important
distinctions to be made in regards to what is meant by “Islam”, “Political Islam/Islamism”,
“Islamists” and “Muslims”. Side by side with these words, the definitions of
“secularism”, and “atheism” are equally important. Political Islam/Islamism and
Islamists are the likes of the Islamic State, Al-Shabaab, Boko Haram and
Taliban, who want to implement the Sharia (Islamic Law). Countries such as
Iran, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Bahrain, UAE have already implemented the Sharia in
almost every aspect of the lives of people residing in those countries.
A
“Muslim” is a follower of Islam. Meanwhile, “secularism”, which many
atheists (disbelievers in the existence of god) want implemented at a state
level, is the fundamental separation of religion (the church) and the state
(all public institutions including education and law). More than 20 countries
in the EU are secular, at least on paper (at constitutional level), including
five Northern countries (e.g. Cuba and Canada), and many more countries in
different continents around the world. France is a good example of secularism
actually implemented at a social level. Under this definition, religion is
viewed as an institution, and is separated from the believer.
Atheists believe
that human beings have the right to free conscience – human beings have the
freedom to believe in whatever they want privately. However, at a state and
government level, the religion must be kept separate. Also, as part of free
human conscience, human beings have the fundamental right to free speech and to
criticise all beliefs, which includes Islam as a belief system.
These definitions
are important because Islam, as a religious institution, can be separated from
the believer, a Muslim. This is the same for every single religion, and is the
basis of secularism in over 50 countries around the world. This is also the
basis of freedom of speech. Islam and Political Islam can and must be
criticised and this criticism must not be re-defined under the right-wing
rhetoric of “racism” and “bigotry” towards Muslims. The separation of the
belief and the believer, the separation of religion from the state, is the very
reason many Muslims, Christians, and believers of different religions in the
West are enjoying the freedoms that they have. One of the reasons many Muslims
have escaped from the countries in the Middle East, such as the Islamic
Republic of Iran and the Taliban of Afghanistan, is due to the intolerance of
Sharia and Islamism.
Generally speaking,
there is a strong level of homophobia in the West. Islam, along with other
major religions, such as Christianity, generally promote homophobia and do
little to challenge this narrative in society. In countries such as Iran, where
the Sharia is implemented, the LGBT community lives in secret, afraid of
prosecution, which includes death by hanging. The Islamic State has also
executed several individuals (thrown off rooftops) for simply being gay. Many
Muslim clerics, including Farrokh Sekaleshfar, a British born medical doctor
and Shi’a Muslim scholar, spoke at the Husseini Islamic Centre just outside
Orlando Florida on March 29th 2016. When asked about the LGBT
community, he replied “Death is the sentence. There is nothing to be
embarrassed about this. Death is the sentence”.
Does this mean that all Muslims
are homophobic? No, it does not. However, society is already homophobic and
patriarchal, all other Abrahamic religions are homophobic and patriarchal: one
only needs to visit the bible belt states in the US meet some of the NRA rifle
bearing homophobic preachers there. Being Muslim does not automatically make a
person homophobic.
However Islam (as an institution), and Islamism (as a
political movement), are both fundamentally intolerant towards the LGBT
community in society. It is very difficult for a Muslim or even an atheist to
refute this. The only response left is usually the “interpretation of Islam”
argument which hold little water in the face of continuous preaching of many
Muslim Scholars that state otherwise. This is one reason why I can assume many
Muslim gay men and women would find themselves in a state of
cognitive-dissonance in relation to their sexual orientation/identity, and
their belief.
Omar Mateen’s murder
of 49 people in a gay club was a hate crime towards the LGBT community, but
above all this, it was an Islamist attack. As more information is revealed on
the media about this troubled individual, it has come to evidence that Omar
frequented the club himself, suggesting the possibility of him being gay. The
cognitive dissonance that was mentioned above, combined with Islamism is
incredibly dangerous. Political Islam is especially dangerous for the LGBT
community that has diligently carved itself a safe space in Western society (in
other societies it is still needed to be kept secret). Political Islam is also
dangerous for woman’s rights that were fought for, and are continually being
fought for, over decades of class struggle. This is another reason why
the Political Islam must be labelled for what it is, and must be confronted for
what it does to society.
“Sectarianism”, “racism”, and “bigotry” are false
accusations made towards the secularist left as a result of the confusion of
political movements. One does not unite the working class by labelling all
critics of Political Islam and Islam as “racist bigots” and then pretend to
protect the rights and freedom of women and LGBT community at the same time.
There are distinctions to be made between the far-right Trump led movement and
the anti-Islamism secular left. Calling all critics of Islam and Islamism
“racists” is not a revolutionary rhetoric to fight against the likes of Trump,
but rather a confused reactionary one.
In the context of
global class struggle for freedom and equality, the rise of political Islam in
the Middle East, and now in the West, is rooted in the reactionary warmongering
foreign policy of the West and the support of Islamist states such as the
Islamic Republic of Iran. But what do the working people choose? They choose
secularism, they choose to have unquestioned fundamental freedoms (especially
the freedom of conscience and speech), they choose gender equality, and they
choose the freedom of sexual orientation. People choose a society without
Western and Islamist terrorism. Yesterday’s fascism is today’s Islamism, and it
must be confronted, fought and defeated like fascism, not ignored and hidden.
In the political context where the “left” news media hides Islamist terrorism
under “gun control” and the right wing news media calls for the “ban of all
Muslims”, it is here that the left must once again stand firm by its demands
for unquestioned fundamental freedoms and to draw a permanent line under
secularism as the starting point for any future free society.
