With the end of the Second World War and the formation of the UN, one would have expected that the international conflicts would be a thing of the bloody past the humankind had — the wars, genocide, and mass murders. But eighty years since the end of WWII, we are still witnessing that not a great deal has changed; the latest on the list is the Israeli genocide in Gaza actively or tacitly backed by most NATO member states. The old scars that our civilisation bore haven’t healed yet as the memories and prejudices brought about the newer ones. The world is constantly polarised into two extremist factions, and we are silent witnesses of this chain reaction. It started with the crusades and continued throughout the ages until the Cold War, finally leading to 9/11. The conflict of religious superiority between Christianity and Islam has now transpired into two extremist factions – radical Islam and white supremacy. Sadly, both factions sit at the extreme right on the balance, and any appeals/measures for peace are falling on deaf ears. Willingly or unwillingly, we see ourselves dragged into this conflict which will only end catastrophically, with the similar helplessness one watches their house engulfed in flames. Sitting on the other end of the balance, albeit not to the extreme left, what have the socialists been doing to assuage the fire of hatred? What could they do?

It is a moral dilemma that I believe a socialist is facing incessantly in this situation. By definition, the objective of a socialist is to achieve social democracy, with an extent of income redistribution and a welfare state. It wants to reverse the laws of capitalism and eliminate inequalities that are predominant in our society – achieved across the national level at the beginning and gradually allowing the process to percolate across the continent and, finally, throughout the world. At the same time, socialist beliefs resonate with progressiveness, one that adopts scientific thoughts over meaningless customs and prejudices. Through these beliefs, a socialist stands against the persecution of every human being — irrespective of religion, race, class, or location. But in reality, socialists are all human; although some might think they are morally or intellectually superior to others, we all fall prey to our internal bias. It’s important to recognise our intrinsic bias; otherwise, we’ll never be able to eliminate it.

As mentioned before, the largest divide in our society at this moment is the radical Islam and anti-Islam factions. Admittedly there are other divisions, but for this blog, I’ll concentrate on the arguments around this divide only. A socialist or anyone on the left side of the political spectrum is often branded sympathiser of Islamist radicalism, mainly by the anti-Islam camp. The anti-Islams — white supremacists, nationalists of non-Islamic religions, have developed a mistrust of Islam through their warped method of filtering history that fits their narrative. It’s not that the distrust was not there before, but 9/11 changed entirely how they viewed Islam and Muslims. Their prejudice was brushed off to the unbiased part of the population as well, and in general, in a non-Muslim country, we can say that Muslims are met with suspicion and vindictiveness in all wakes of life. In that context, Islamophobia is not just an invented word with no social consequence. No matter what country and society we look at outside the Islamic countries, Islamophobia exists and continues to be a reason that prevents the Muslim population from being integrated into society. This is a societal problem, and a non-inclusiveness harbours a sense of detachment from society in general and possibly a sense of resentment. After an Islamist terrorist attack, we notice the inordinate emphasis on highlighting the Muslim clerics and community leaders denouncing the act of violence as non-Islamic. The broader expectation is that every Muslim person one knows should acknowledge the attacks and condemn them because, being Muslim, they partly share the accountability.

Needless to say, such expectations are overbearing to a simple, devout Muslim and unreasonable to expect an apology for every Islamist violence worldwide. Moreover, the anti-Muslim cabal tactfully removes any other aspects of any terrorism-related incident and rather than blaming the perpetrator; they blame the community. It wouldn’t come as a surprise that such expectations won’t be bestowed on an ordinary Christian when it came to light that the most worrying terrorist threats are from the white supremacists in the USA. From Anders Breivik assassinating college students to the terrorist attacks on the mosque in New Zealand, people are quick to say they are mentally ill or the attacks were sickening. But people are very reserved about using the term ‘terrorist’ if the perpetrators are non-Muslim. The double standard is appalling, which is why a socialist opposes the attempts to paint every person with the same brush. As I understand, it is the same perspective through which a socialist would stand in support of Muslims who are subjected to hypocritical treatments by the non-Muslim members of the society- irrespective of their societal status. In such situations, we stand by the vast majority of the Muslim people continuously tarred due to the heinous acts of a handful of terrorists. I think the equation is relatively simple so far; as socialists, we stood by a large number of populations unnecessarily harassed and wrongly vilified. We don’t know if our support meant anything or achieved anything, but morally, we did what we preached for – treating every human being equally. For this, if we are called terrorist sympathisers, that’s fine. We can live with that. But what we can’t let slide is our integrity towards the socialist cause. We must be vocal about the elephant in the room.

Whilst fighting the corner against the wrongful vilification of the entire Muslim community by the anti-Muslim groups, predominantly in the western world, we often fail to condemn the atrocities carried out by people of Muslim descent in the name of supporting the Islamist cause; and there are more than a handful of such incidents in Muslim and Western world as well as elsewhere around the globe. We fell prey to our own prejudices there; by condemning the actions of an Islamist fundamentalist, we see ourselves as equals to the neo-nazis. Horrified by the thought, we either say nothing or try to divert attention to other factors. Even for crimes that were committed without any religious motive, if the alleged person was of Muslim descent, people kept silent, worried that this would bolster the Muslim-haters’ conviction that the religion and all its followers is to blame, not the criminal. I have witnessed many social media reactions from people belonging to the left-liberal side, which only highlight terrorist activities of other religious communities or whilst criticising the actions of an Islamist, they clarify their position emphatically that they condemn all sorts of fanatism by citing similar offences by different communities. By doing so, they lose credibility in the eyes of an unbiased person, as instances like these are leveraged by the anti-Muslim hate-mongers exposing the weaknesses on the left, as evident from their unwillingness to condemn the Islamist acts of crime unequivocally. However, I have witnessed a shift recently, where hardened left-wing supporters, who hardly spoke of the misdeeds of Islamic states and Muslim criminals before, have become more vocal in social media and in public, to call out such acts of atrocities and criminal behaviour.

The other dilemma arises from our stance on religion itself. As much as we speak for the right of people to practice religion, belonging to the left-wing philosophy, one denies the existence of god and believes the laws of the universe are explained by science rather than religion. Notwithstanding the fact that there are plenty of anomalies to this notion, the general assumption is that followers of socialism are atheists. It is worth mentioning that, at times, we follow that so rigidly that being atheist becomes a blind infatuation, just like a religious fanatic believes in their religious superiority. So when we show solidarity with a religious community, we fight a battle within our own minds because we fundamentally don’t believe in religion. Historically, before politics, religion has been the means to exercise power and therefore had been means of mass oppression. And it is still valid today. Religion is primarily intertwined with politics and, in the end, wealth, and thereby, as socialists, we denounce religion as we do the accumulation of wealth. People may debate, but Islam is one of the religions that hasn’t changed much with time, and it needs reforms to its practices, just as much does any many other religions. There is no question of defending a religion. But in the end, religion is nothing until someone interprets its meanings and nuances, and a group of people follow them. That’s where lies the root of all evils. The fanaticism, suspicion, and distrust in mainstream society arose from the interpretation. And by showing empathy towards a group of the population that are marginalised and disenfranchised from society, we show solidarity to their predicament but by no means extend support to the acts of terrorism, violence, threats towards other religious communities, racism — all the vices present in a Muslim society, to a larger scale, again, due to the level of interpretation of the religion and the lack of criticism of it. Here, we show the tendency to support the Muslims but not highlight the shortcomings of their religion or its malpractices. It’s even more difficult for a socialist of Muslim descent. When they stand by the Muslim community for their socialist beliefs, the gesture is easily misinterpreted as solidarity with their religion. On the other hand, when they criticise Islam and its practices or an act of Islamist attack, their action is misconstrued as being politically correct or crocodile tears from a terrorist sympathiser. Needless to say, in their own community, they become a pariah being a non-believer.

So, for standing by Muslims, as the entire community is often blamed for a handful of terrorists, the socialists and liberals are portrayed as supporters of jihadists, or some even suggest that both are synonymous. But in reality, we attempt to debunk the notion that the entire community is to blame. Most countries have a passable law and order system that brings the offenders to justice. Our attempts are to prevent the mass hysteria that generally follows after an Islamist terrorist attack. With every such mob behaviour, we destroy the few threads of sanity and common sense that hold the communities together.

The other stigma that haunts the people from the left is not showing support and empathy for the victims of a non-Muslim community that experienced repeated acts of violence or a systemic, periodic reign of Islamic oppression. It is a constant source of consternation between the socialist and the anti-Islam right-wing factions, and there is an element of truth in that allegation, even though, the right-wing groups mainly rely on ‘whatsboutism’ most of the time. Indeed, we are not vocal enough about Islamist atrocities against other communities, nor are we vocal enough about their sufferings. It is not understandable why showing the face of a prophet who died thousand years ago can be treated as defiling the religion that can only be avenged by death. Or understand the spread of the Wahhabi version of Islam across many countries of the world when it is destabilising the social texture of the community, including the Muslims. Why do we talk about Srebrenica but not about Armenia, or Kashmir? It’s not that Socialists always do that on purpose. It’s not that we picked Muslims as our favourites and stand by them forever. In some cases, we are just unaware of the issues that feed the fuel of hate to the anti-Muslim lobby. Perhaps again, we fall short in doing so because we succumb to our own prejudices of seemingly repeating acts and statements characteristic of the nationalists and white-supremacists. The question to ask is, are we insensitive to the sufferings of these people, in which case it casts doubt on our own resolve to follow the socialist cause. Or is it that we feel the need to remain silent so as not to bolster the argument for the anti-Muslim camp? In most cases, it’s the latter because, in most fundamentalists’ eyes, you are either one of them or one of the others. That both could be wrong is a possibility — it is hard to fathom by either side.

Is it then all about taking a moral high ground where one thinks they are morally superior to the others? Possibly yes, for some, unfortunately. After all, champagne socialists do exist, and they live in their utopia. But even in a world filled with death, hate and prejudices, standing by somebody being harassed and suspected of bearing an identity also mean that that act counterbalances an amount of hatred, mistrust, and hostility directed towards them. Maybe that is not enough depending on the abuse they get; maybe it gets too tiring seeing the situation not improving at a pace we expected to see — but it’s a relentless job not to lose focus. Giving up only means that the campaign of hate gets one step forward towards their goal, and one more voice against them is silenced. Socialist views can only work as a neutraliser between the two sides who are refusing to see their follies, but on the other hand, the neutral voice is not loud enough, and it often gets suppressed by the salvos of the right wing.

If we come back to the title of this discussion – do the left-wing socialists support Islamist fundamentalism? Quite the contrary, we debunk the idea of god and stand by the freedom of expression. For this reason, the relevance of a religion like Islam that tolerates no criticism and encourages no reform is reprehensible. Yet, all religions are fraught with such vice. So, the solidarity that we show is towards the oppressed, the marginalised Muslims in countries where they are a minority and are persecuted for their religious beliefs. That does not lend support to another despotic Islamic state or a faction that chooses to retaliate against their oppression through terrorism. In principle, socialism should stand for treating everyone as equal, and where it is not, we speak up. In Western Europe, more support is shown to the Muslims because they are vilified the most here, and therefore they need to see that not everyone hates them in unison. If we lived in a Muslim-majority country where other sects or groups of people are oppressed and persecuted, the opposition would have been directed to the regime and in solidarity with the minorities and oppressed there. It is a common narrative from the right-wing that socialists wage their culture war from the haven of their domicile, and they would not be uttering a single word of criticism if they lived in an oppressive state. That can’t be any farther away from the truth. Remember that Arab Spring did happen, and socialist forces were one of the major contributors to making it happen.

We are living in a difficult time, a crucial juncture in human civilisation. On one side, science, technology and innovation are breaking barriers every day, whilst on the other hand, intolerance, hate crime, and injustice are also on the rise, as if they are desperate to slow down the progress being made by the humans. Socialists have a significant role in this saga, as long as they put aside their factious perspectives and be more vocal about calling out the perpetrators against humanity irrespective of location, religion, race, or gender. The smear campaigns from the right-wing only bolster the fact that whatever we stand for must be for good. And as long as the Muslim community is repeatedly singled out and vilified by the fascists in Europe or elsewhere, socialists will stand by them. That doesn’t make them terrorist sympathisers; it only makes them humans.