It is important to get some perspective. One of the great disappointments to me of the anti-war movement and the left in general, is its fear of acknowledging and challenging a specific kind of Islamic radicalism, that can grow in parts of the Middle East where literacy is low and anger at colonial exploits is high. The fear is of aligning with racists and Islamophobes, but, as with the fact that challenging Israel does not make one an anti-Semite, neither does challenging this toxic ideology make one Islamophobic. Here a Bahraini cleric explains why an expanded and varied education is so important for those in the Middle East to protect individuals from ideological exploitation, and why the ideology of religious martyrdom is so toxic and self-defeating. This is why Hamas cannot be considered in any way freedom fighters on behalf of the Palestinian people. It is time to evolve on all sides, and we cannot move forward unless we recognise that oppression occurs even among the oppressed.
Posted on: Fri, 01 Aug 2014 14:41:19 +0000
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