Ex-Muslim calls for more critique of Islam from the left

[MellowDem]

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2015/05/29/we-need-more-liberals-willing-to-critique-islam-says-ex-muslim-leader/

A bit of a long video, but mirrors a lot of my thoughts on some of the victim blaming and genuflecting on the left when it comes to Islam.

[Yorktown]

1. Amen

The evangelical right panders to ultra orthodox jewish settlements.
The liberal left wants to play decolonizing hero by pandering to islamic supremacism.

It's high time time politics stopped toying with religious prejudices.

[delrem]

7. WHAT!!!???

Where does the "liberal left" "pander to islamic supremacism"

Your post is SO out to lunch.

I'd better get some sleep, the easier to forget this kind of shit.

[Yorktown]

10. There are activists who equate Palestinians and downtrodden masses

And Israel with privileged rich. So they will side Hamas against Israel.

[delrem]

11. So.... what has that to do with the OP?

I mean, wtf?

[demosincebirth]

2. This topic is off limits to them...hush, hush.

[delrem]

8. I'm seeing a surplus of "d...sincebirth" names, recently.

Is there a backstory?

[Binkie The Clown]

3. All those muzzy-headed liberal apologists for Islam need to watch this.

Why would you condemn radical right-wing Christians, and support right-wing Muslims?

It makes no sense at all.

[delrem]

9. Here's the point that you miss.

The folk who post at DU who condemn radical right-wing Christians aren't condemning Christianity.
They aren't wanting with all their hearts to go to war against Christianity.
In these discussions, that difference isn't being made w.r.t. Islam.

Get it yet?

[cbayer]

13. Who supports right wing muslims?

[struggle4progress]

14. Yesterday upon the stair

I met a man who wasn't there!
He wasn't there again today!
I wish! I wish he'd go away!

[cbayer]

15. Exactly. Boogie men are the bread and butter of bigotry.

[bluestateguy]

4. I denounce Islam all the time

As an affront to progressive values.

[delrem]

6. I think you should walk that back.

I believe in freedom of religion, of religious belief.

I laugh when somebody denounces an entire religion, then puffs out their chest in accomplishment.

[delrem]

5. What is meant by "the left"?

Sarah Haider wouldn't get the treatment that she complains about from me.
I consider myself to be to the "left", politically.

I can't think of anyone I'd consider to be to the "left" who would support and promote a religious state, whatever religion, whatever ethnicity the religion might be mostly associated with. In fact I categorically deny the association.

The complaints she makes, that individuals have called her "an Uncle Tom", "a House Arab" and so on, for speaking out against religious fundamentalism, don't strike me as being definitive of any "left" that I know of.

I just don't get it.

I hear her making legitimate arguments that certain individuals crossed lines, in their rhetoric, their apologetics, and there's an implicit demand that those individuals either defend themselves, or accept that she is right and apologize. But those are all individual disputes with individual writers, bloggers, opinion mavens, and I'm not convinced that it's correct to characterize them and their arguments as being somehow decidedly "leftist" according as some global definition.

In fact I don't think a global definition, where some avatar eg Max Blumenthal or whoever can exemplify "the left", could possibly be correct.

Perhaps those individuals are considered to be "left" on certain topics, where an argument can be made.
But there's no attempt to make an argument that these people are "left" with respect these complaints, terms like "left" are just put out there as being somehow fact.

I'm only 1/4 way into her amazingly powerful talk.
She's a powerful speaker and thinker, and I recommend people click the link and listen.

[cbayer]

12. Critique is a good thing. Blanket condemnation is merely bigotry.

[Yorktown]

16. So blanket condemnation of religions involving human sacrifices is wrong

Good we cleared that point.