I have long struggled to understand how intelligent, well-educated liberals fail to recognize the unique dangers posed by Islamism. Elsewhere, I\u2019ve argued that such people often don\u2019t grasp what it means to genuinely believe in God or Paradise\u2014and therefore assume that no one else truly does. At best, they believe such convictions couldn\u2019t possibly be the primary motivation behind the kinds of violent actions we\u2019ve seen from Islamist movements in recent decades.<\/p>\n
For instance, I stumbled upon the anthropologist Scott Atran delivering an online lecture from 2013 on the origins of jihadist terrorism. According to Atran, those who decapitate journalists, filmmakers, and aid workers to cries of \u201cAllahu Akbar!\u201d or detonate themselves in crowds of innocents are not driven by deeply held beliefs about jihad or martyrdom. Instead, Atran argued, these behaviors arise from toxic male bonding in soccer clubs and barbershops within the broader Arab-Muslim world. When asked by an attendee, \u201cAre you saying that no Muslim suicide bomber has ever blown himself up expecting to get into Paradise?\u201d Atran replied, \u201cYes, that\u2019s what I\u2019m saying. No one believes in Paradise.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s worth noting that Atran is no fringe figure. He\u2019s a respected cultural anthropologist, the Emeritus Director of Research in Anthropology at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in Paris, and the author of several well-regarded books. Yet his assertion\u2014that no one believes in Paradise\u2014is so detached from what can be reasonably inferred from the statements and actions of jihadists that it borders on the absurd. In fact, the idea that no one believes in Paradise is far more irrational than any belief in Paradise itself.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s an irony here, one that the events of October 7 and the delusional responses from elite thinkers have made all too clear. Rarely have I addressed the following, but whenever I criticize Islamism, I\u2019m accused of lacking empathy for Muslims worldwide\u2014both for the peaceful billions who are blameless and for the radicals whose actions are often excused as responses to legitimate grievances or social pressures. But the truth is, it\u2019s the liberals rushing to defend Islamists who fail to demonstrate real empathy. They ignore the primary victims of Islamism: the millions of Muslim women, freethinkers, homosexuals, and apostates who suffer most under its taboos and delusions.<\/p>\n
Consider Afghanistan. After 20 years of war, trillions of dollars spent, and thousands of lives lost, America abandoned the country\u2014and those who had supported its efforts\u2014to the Taliban. It was one of the most disgraceful retreats in U.S. history, thinly veiled by political expediency. Politicians and so-called empathetic intellectuals looked away as Afghan women and minorities were plunged back into a medieval darkness. Few of the critics calling for empathy have bothered to address this\u2014or the fact that over the past 40 years, there have been nearly 50,000 acts of Islamic terrorism, a figure widely considered an undercount. Ninety percent of these attacks have occurred in Muslim countries, targeting local Muslim populations.<\/p>\n
And yet, secular liberals are more concerned with \u201cIslamophobia\u201d than with the content of Islamist doctrine. It is they who are guilty of a profound failure of empathy. They fail not only to empathize with the millions of less devout Muslims treated as criminals by their own religion\u2019s theocracies and regimes but also to comprehend the mindset of devout fanatics willing to die for their beliefs. Most secular people cannot fathom what it feels like to say, \u201cI will happily die for this.\u201d Unless you\u2019ve experienced religious ecstasy\u2014personally or up close, as living in the Middle East surely allows\u2014you cannot grasp the danger of it being directed toward violence and destruction.<\/p>\n
You see, I live in a country that is over 20% Arab, most of whom are Muslim, and almost none of whom are seeking to wage a holy war on their Jewish neighbors. To notice that this desire exists among other populations\u2014let\u2019s say in Gaza, Lebanon, or Yemen\u2014is neither a lack of empathy nor an expression of a \u201cphobia,\u201d which implies irrational fear. There is nothing irrational about recognizing the unique danger posed by religious militants on the other side of one\u2019s border. Islamism combines religious ecstasy, sectarian hatred, and a triumphalist vision of world conquest in a way that few ideologies ever have.<\/p>\n
And so, for the moment at least, we find ourselves at an impasse. More than 20 years after 9\/11, and a year after October 7, many are still refusing to face the facts. The irony is that not everyone struggles as in the West. Consider Saudi Arabia, Islam\u2019s foundational home and the protector of Mecca and Medina, which has nonetheless banned the Muslim Brotherhood. A host of other Muslim countries have managed something similar: Jordan, the UAE, and Egypt. This has been a startling transformation. Back in the last century, the Saudis welcomed the Brotherhood, put them in charge of schools and mosques, and funded the Islamists to spread their ideology across the region and beyond.<\/p>\n
At first, the Saudis thought they were ideologically aligned with the Brotherhood. But the Brotherhood eventually turned against them, attempting to overthrow their regime. At that point, the Saudi princes\u2014capable of ruthlessness as well as generosity\u2014rounded them up and expelled them from their schools, mosques, newspapers, and their soil.<\/p>\n
What all this reveals is that the brilliant minds of the West have failed to distinguish between Islam and Islamism\u2014between Muslims as individuals and the ideological machinery of groups like the Muslim Brotherhood. This confusion has birthed a series of delusions: a lack of empathy for the true victims of Islamist ideology, and the direct or indirect shielding of fanatics willing to kill in its name.<\/p>\n
The consequence has been a moral inversion within progressive circles. Over the past year, activist movements have plunged the Left into a moral black hole, where the principles of liberalism\u2014once the foundation of progressivism\u2014have been sacrificed at the altar of a grotesque \u201ctolerance.\u201d Those of us unwilling to make that trade are left searching for a way back\u2014or at least a way out of the wreckage.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know how strongly I can state this, but progressivism in its current form is dead. It\u2019s just that most within the movement haven\u2019t realized it yet. Thirty years ago, no one would have predicted Islamist hijabis will one-day head the most massive women\u2019s liberation rights movement. I have no doubt as much as there is a calibration of values, there is also clear Islamist predetaroy pragmatism. Claiming a hijab and a vagina hat are both symbols of female empowerment entails some very clear deception and confusion. What remains is not a coherent ideology, nor a system of ethics and beliefs, but a patchwork of contradictions, held together by fear of criticism, cancellation and a hollow sense of virtue.<\/p>\n