What's Behind The Left-Islamist Contract?

The emergence of leftist ideology as a tool of political Islam is a phenomenon that has been widely observed around the world in recent years
The shooting of two Israeli embassy employees in front of the Jewish Museum in Washington last month was an example of the threat Jews face around the world today. The attacker had shouted the slogan 'Free Gaza" as he opened fire, killing a young couple. Early this month, global media fondly reported how environmental activist Greta Thunberg sailed up on Israeli shores in a boat laden with just a truckload of aid supplies for the Gazans. But the ideological significance of these two events lies beyond the 'liberation" of Gaza.
The Washington incident bore all the hallmarks of an Islamist terrorist attack. But the terrorist in this case was not an Islamist, but an activist from a far-left political party. Similarly, what lies beneath the delicate veneer of Greta Thunberg's activism is a stark portrait of the New Left politics. For the Left, all the problems in the world are caused by colonisation, imperialism, the Western capitalist system and, of course, the 'genocide" they accuse Israel of carrying out. The majority of those on board the 'Freedom Flotilla" boat with Greta Thunberg were either extreme leftists or those who openly support Hamas-Islamist terrorism. Prominent among them was Rima Hassan, a far-left French politician and member of the European Parliament, who praised the Hamas terrorist attack of October 7, 2023, and shamelessly called it legitimate.
The emergence of leftist ideology as a tool of political Islam is a phenomenon that has been widely observed around the world in recent years. French researcher Pierre-André Taguieff coined the term 'Islamo-leftism" in 2002 to describe this. He said that political Islam and the Left are joining hands for some chosen common goals, and that this is a threat to republican values, Western culture, and secular norms. On the surface, this cooperation may seem impractical. The leftists see religion as a bane, but ironically jump into bed with the political Islamists who plan to install theocratic governments. These two ideologies are at opposite ends of the political spectrum, going by their stated missions, but they cooperate to fulfil their ulterior motives.
This paradox might look intractable, but recent developments show that both these groups have no qualms about engaging in this opportunism. There are certain ideas that act as the catalyst for this convergence. Some of them include the hatred for Jews, blind opposition to the United States, hostility to Western culture, and, in India, the demonisation of nationalist politics. In fact, these two groups are birds of the same feather in their stance on democracy as well. The constraints on building a society based on Marxist-Leninist thought are nationalism, market capitalism, and a social system driven by religion and morality. Political parties that stand for strong nationalism are the thorn in the side of the Left all over the world. Similarly, for the Islamists, nationalism is the first hurdle in their attempts to establish religious state enclaves wherever possible in the world. Only nationalist movements and governments can stop them from skillfully using their demographic advantage to create the ultimate theocratic empire.
The primary foe of all nationalist political movements around the world is Islamism. The next is the Left. And these two are the closest allies in fighting nationalist movements in democratic countries. This can be seen in India, France, Britain, the United States and elsewhere. In return for helping their causes, political Islam gives unconditional support to the so-called anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, and anti-colonial policies of the Left. Beyond that, Islamists also implicitly, and perhaps deceptively, support the neo-liberal ideologies espoused by the Left. The contradictions that emerge from this cooperation can be glaring. For example, ultra-left feminists join Islamists in their pro-Gaza marches, turning a blind eye to the fact that the Islamists are the ones who have scaled the pinnacle of misogyny. LGBT people are coming under rainbow flags to fight alongside Islamists, who sentence homosexuals to death in countries where they have established their preferred social order. Such conflicts are no longer news to us.
In Kerala, some years ago, an Islamist extremist movement held marches against the central government's Citizenship Amendment Act. The protesters held banners with the slogan 'Save the Republic" in a vain attempt to give a self-righteous afterglow to their conceited agenda. What an irony! 'Republic" is the cornerstone principle of democratic and secular statehood. Here, the very same forces that aspire to establish a religious state were using the perceived dangers to the republic as a campaign plank! What fate would befall the republic if these forces gained political power or if they achieved demographic superiority? You won't have to look far out into Afghanistan or Syria to know; just look at nearby Bangladesh. More shockingly, it was revealed later that the extremist Islamists who mobilised people under the slogan 'Save the Republic" had prepared a secret blueprint to abolish the Republic and establish a religious state in India within a few decades. Here, parallels can be drawn to how the Left treated Indian democracy soon after the country gained independence. The Marxists continued to harbour revolutionary ambitions, considered the Constitution and the democratic framework as a bourgeois system that needed to be overthrown, and believed limited participation in democracy would be an interim stage before class struggle was amplified to usher in revolution. Democracy is an interim arrangement for communists until they seize total power. For Islamists, democracy is merely a hiding place until complete religious rule is implemented. Both of these groups use the principles that are the cornerstones of democracy as needed and then abandon them by the wayside. The left-wing and progressive parties in Iran helped Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini establish a fundamentalist religious state. Islamists, who accepted the help of the Left as much as they could, persecuted leftists and expelled them from the country after the establishment of the religious state. In India, the Left and the progressives boosted Islamist radicalism by converging with their pseudo-fight for the republican fundamentals of the Constitution. The progressives were too dumb to realise that the CAA was the only remedy to protect the republican rights of the minorities who are persecuted by Islamist radicals in the neighbouring theocratic countries. Yet, they would shamelessly walk under a banner raised by the Islamists.
History is witness to the fact that such contradictions have not caused any kind of psychological conflict for the leftists and Islamists. They are merely united in their struggle against nationalist politics. Some left-wing political organisations in Germany and France decided to cooperate with Hitler's Nazi party for certain specific political goals. Similarly, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem nursed a desire to exterminate the Jews of Israel in the early 1940s with Hitler's help. This cleric went to Germany and directly requested help from Hitler to annihilate the Jews. Germany has, thankfully, parted with its Nazi past, but the Islamist bigots have not. They still seek the annihilation of the Jews. And they have an able and trusted partner in the Left and the so-called progressives, who blindly demonise Israel. And, these two ideologies, which have not hesitated to cooperate with the most evil fascist forces in world history, now say that democratically elected nationalist governments are fascists! Because the concept of nationalism and the system of democracy are the ultimate obstacles to the goals that both these groups chase.
Political Islam and the Left are strategically aligned to disparage, disrupt, and destroy the concept of nationalism. They help each other in this endeavour. Elijah Muhammad, who carved out Islam's identity in America as a religion for blacks and the oppressed, called white Americans 'blue-eyed devils". The Americans, who implemented the 'exploitative" system of market capitalism, are the same devils in the eyes of the Left. Elijah, who created the massive movement called the 'Nation of Islam" to promote his religion, had the stated goal of establishing a separate, ultra-religious Muslim state in the United States. Elijah's follower Louis Farrakhan described Hitler as a great leader. The accusation of racism or racial discrimination is a formula that can be used to oppose whites, Jews, and capitalists all at once. Elijah used the slogan of liberation from racial discrimination to foster the Islamist movement. This is the very foundation of the New Left, which argues that the Western world order and its cultural, economic, and political systems are based on racial and communal discrimination. Social justice is an aspirational goal, but for the far Left and the Islamists, it's only a false, delusional and deceptive vanguard that can be jettisoned at will at a later point. We saw this Left-Islamist collaboration later during the 'Black Lives Matter" movement. The leaders of this movement were those who described themselves as trained Marxists. This movement also used the same style and tactics as Islamist street revolutions seen in various countries in recent times. The BLM, which tried to overthrow the 'racist" American system, was appealing to the Islamists who were eager to destroy the 'Judeo-Christian" Western system. A handful of extreme left-wing members of the US Congress representing the Democratic Party were the most vocal supporters of this neo-Marxist anarchist movement. Not uncharacteristically, they are also the ones who support fundamentalist Islamists in America and fan the flames of anti-Semitism.
In Kerala, radical Islamist parties used sweet left-wing and progressive slogans to recruit non-Muslims who were at the bottom of the socio-economic system. The tactic was to use secular-social justice slogans in the interim to gain momentum for movements that were formed with the ultimate aim of building a religious state. In a bizarre paradox, the Left, which professes to eradicate religion, joins hands, as a temporary measure, with those who seek to build a religious state. The ultimate victims of this alliance are democracy, true secularism, individual freedom, and economic prosperity. Another stark irony of this Left-Islamist alliance is that those who seek to implement religious dictatorships also praise communist dictators. Osama bin Laden and the communist autocrat of Venezuela are equally heroes for them. In India, the Leftists and Islamists lead the campaign to oppose the ruling nationalist party on all fronts. In a recent controversy in Kerala, it was the Leftists who took the lead in mocking the concept of 'Mother India" on social media with astonishing aggression. That campaign started after the governor of Kerala garlanded the Bharat Mata portrait at a function at the Raj Bhavan, and one of Kerala's communist ministers boycotted the event over the niceties relating to the depiction of Mother India as a goddess. The concept and idea of ​​Mother India is something that Islamist fundamentalists find hard to digest. The Left knows that by making fun of that concept and image, they would win the votes and hearts of the Islamists. Their grandstanding on secularism is a smokescreen; there is no idealism that they would not hesitate to surrender at the altar of Islamism for crass political goals.
It is curious to note that the Left and Islamism began to fly the same flag at a time when democracy faced the greatest threat in history. The Communist International (Comintern) was formed in 1919 under the leadership of the Soviet Union to unite the world's communist forces and implement global revolution. At the 1920 Comintern conference in Baku, Azerbaijan, Vladimir Lenin described Islam as the religion of oppressed countries. He said the communists, who were inherently anti-religious, should give privileges and special consideration to Muslim religious sentiment. Going a step further, Comrade Grigory Zinoviev, a prominent Bolshevik and Lenin's confidant, called for a 'jihad" against the Western capitalist powers. That announcement was the first sign of the Left and Islamism joining hands in the name of anti-imperialist sentiment.
This is the jihad that was carried out by a radical leftist activist in Washington last month. A man who once worked for a Marxist-Leninist movement, the Party of Socialism and Liberation, shot and killed two innocent people. He said he did it for the liberation of Gaza. How could someone who worked for a party that sought to overthrow the capitalist economic system and the Western system have the motivation to support Hamas and shoot innocent people dead? History offers more ample clues to solving this seemingly intractable question.
In 1994, the leader of Britain's far-left Socialist Workers' Party wrote an article explaining the connection between the Left and Islamism. In this article, titled 'The Prophet and the Proletariat", he argued that Islamism can fill the void where the Left is powerless or absent. Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, a radical leftist thinker from Latin America, became a terrorist in the 1970s and led the attacks on the French embassy in The Hague and the OPEC headquarters in Vienna. Born in Venezuela, he became a dyed-in-the-wool leftist after his education in Moscow. This staunch Marxist-Leninist later converted to Islam and praised Osama bin Laden as an 'immaculate martyr". Ramirez, who carried out hundreds of terrorist attacks around the world, said during his trial in France that no one else had killed more people than he for the liberation of Palestine. If his claim is taken literally, Hamas would be ashamed of the fact that it was a leftist 'fellow traveller" who killed more Jews than they did.
Michel Foucault, a prominent figure in the 20th-century left-wing intellectual movement, was an ardent admirer of the Iranian religious revolution. Foucault, who visited Tehran twice in 1978, saw the revolution only from a Marxist perspective and said it was a revolt of the underclasses. When Iran, a secular country with civil liberties and women's freedom, was conquered by the Islamists, this leftist thinker gloated that 'politics was regaining spirituality". In Kerala, some mainstream television channels and newspapers described the 2021 takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban as a 'wonderful" moment. The Left offers unbroken ideological brotherhood to the Islamists who flaunt a merely pretentious and deceptive use of democratic, secularist, and civil rights slogans. The Left-progressive alliance doesn't even have any qualms about stitching up electoral partnerships with the extremists. As the Left supports the Islamist hardliners, a large number of people who sympathise with the broader leftist ideology fall into the trap and end up amplifying Islamism. This Left-progressive ecosystem lends pseudosecular-republican cover to the Islamists, and mainstreamises, legitimises, and intellectualises their bid for sabotage.
top videos
View all
In Foucault's philosophy, the Western world lost its revolutionary verve after the French Revolution. Surprisingly, Foucault said he found the heights of revolutionary heroism and 'political spirituality" in the Islamist street revolution in Iran that created a religious state, replacing a secular one. In Indian college campuses, Foucault-esque 'political spirituality" finds its voice only when there is an Islamist cause to be upheld. Let's try to see why the Left's revolution is intertwined with the religious revolution of Islamism. We know what the cornerstones of Marxism-Leninism are: materialism, class struggle, struggle against the powers of capital and imperialism, revolution, and so on. But what happened to these ideologies? Did the Marxists create the beautiful communes they promised? The ideology that imposed bloodshed, poverty, and chaos in several countries for decades, and denied religious and personal freedom, later dumped the lofty goals and chased new ones. When the wheels of revolution stopped turning and those who were in the vanguard established dictatorships and farcically turned the followers into slaves, victims, and fools, fundamental leftist thought disappeared or became irrelevant. Today, the hard Left's main planks are anti-semitism packaged as anti-zionism, the theory of institutional racism, support for gender anarchy in the name of feminism and the like. The New Left throws into this heady cocktail their time-worn platitudes of colonialism, apartheid, imperialism, capitalism, climate activism, and, not to mention, genocide. The Left accuses Israel of all these, dramatically conjuring up the image of a perfect enemy in the Jewish state. The Islamists also do the same thing; in their blinkered view of Palestinian exceptionalism, all other problems in the Muslim world can be simply ignored and all venom directed against Israel. This mutually beneficial narrative is the glue that keeps the Left-Islamist contract in its place.
The author is a senior journalist who has worked in India and abroad, and is currently a financial journalist in Europe. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18's views.
tags :
gaza Islam israel jew Left
Location :
New Delhi, India, India
First Published:
June 21, 2025, 23:02 IST
News opinion Opinion | What's Behind The Left-Islamist Contract?

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Learn with AIFact CheckingText to SpeechAI Summary

Related Articles

News18

24 minutes ago

• News18

'We Will End It': Iran Says All Americans In Region Now A Target After US Strikes Its Nuclear Sites

Last Updated: Iran's threat came after US President Donald Trump announced a "very successful attack" on three Iranian nuclear sites on Saturday, as tensions escalated in West Asia. Iran's state television warned US President Donald Trump that every American citizen or military personnel in West Asia was now a 'target", after the United States launched 'successful" airstrikes on three nuclear sites in Iran – Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan. 'The US has committed a crime against Iran by violating Iran's airspace. It has no place in the West Asian region. Mr. President of the United States, you started it and we will end it," said the Iranian broadcaster, while displaying a graphic of US bases in the region. These remarks came after US President Donald Trump on Saturday said the American military had carried out a 'very successful attack" on three Iranian nuclear sites, including the crucial underground uranium enrichment facility at Fordow. 'We have completed our very successful attack on the three Nuclear sites in Iran, including Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan," Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform. 'A full payload of BOMBS was dropped on the primary site, Fordow." He also described it as a 'historic" moment for the United States, Israel and the world. His shock announcement came just two days after he said he would decide 'within two weeks" whether to join key ally Israel in attacking Iran. Iranian media reports said all three nuclear sites were evacuated shortly before the US strikes. Regional officials in Iran later confirmed the Isfahan, Natanz and Fordow nuclear facilities have been attacked. High Alert In Israel As per Israeli estimates, the US strikes caused significant damage to Iranian nuclear facilities. Israel raised its alert level, permitting only essential activities until further notice, the military announced on Sunday after US strikes on Iran. An increased security presence was reported around the US embassy in Iraq, which had earlier asked Iran not to target US bases as the conflict escalated. Meanwhile, Trump told Reuters in a brief phone call that Iran should 'stop immediately, otherwise they'll get hit again." This came as Israel and Iran traded devastating strikes for more than a week after Israel launched its aerial campaign on June 13, saying Tehran was on the verge of developing a nuclear weapon. Israel said on Saturday it had killed three more Iranian commanders in its unprecedented offensive. Meanwhile, Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian had warned of a 'more devastating" retaliation should Israel's nine-day bombing campaign continue, saying the Islamic republic would not halt its nuclear program 'under any circumstances." Iran's Houthi allies in Yemen on Saturday threatened to resume their attacks on US vessels in the Red Sea if Washington joined the war, despite a recent ceasefire agreement. First Published: June 22, 2025, 07:04 IST

Hindustan Times

25 minutes ago

• Hindustan Times

'Middle East bully's nuke sites completely, totally obliterated': Donald Trump on Iran strikes

Delivering an address to the nation after US military strikes on Iran, President Donald Trump said the attack "completely and totally obliterated" the Iranian nuclear enrichment facilities targeted. L: Iran Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei | R: US President Donald Trump (Reuters photos) US on Saturday struck three Iranian nuclear sites – Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan – with President Donald Trump asking Iran to agree to 'end the war' after the 'historic moment for the United States of America, Israel and the world'. Follow Israel Iran conflict live updates 'Tonight, I can report to the world that the strikes were a spectacular military success. Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated. Iran, the bully of the Middle East must now make peace. If they do not, future attacks will be far greater and a lot easier,' Trump said in the address to nation. Confirming the strikes, US President Trump first posted on Truth Social, 'We have completed our very successful attack on the three Nuclear sites in Iran, including Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan. All planes are now outside of Iran air space. A full payload of BOMBS was dropped on the primary site, Fordow. All planes are safely on their way home. Congratulations to our great American Warriors. There is not another military in the World that could have done this. NOW IS THE TIME FOR PEACE! Thank you for your attention to this matter.' In another post, Donald Trump wrote, 'I will be giving an Address to the Nation at 10:00 P.M., at the White House, regarding our very successful military operation in Iran. This is an HISTORIC MOMENT FOR THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, ISRAEL, AND THE WORLD. IRAN MUST NOW AGREE TO END THIS WAR. THANK YOU!' With the strikes, the US has officially directly joined the Israeli campaign with President US President Donald Trump on June 18 had said 'exactly' where the Iranian Supreme Leader is "hiding" is known, adding that 'at least for now, they are not going to kill him.' Donald Trump warned Ayatollah Ali Khamenei against further attacks, as he appeared to demand Tehran's unconditional surrender. Follow Iran-Israel conflict live updates Trump posted on Truth Social, 'We know exactly where the so-called ' Supreme Leader' is hiding. He is an easy target, but is safe there - We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now. But we don't want missiles shot at civilians, or American soldiers. Our patience is wearing thin. Thank you for your attention to this matter!' In another post, Donald Trump had written, 'UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!' Israel said the strikes were needed to stop Iran from going further with its nuclear plans, claiming that the country is very close to having a weapon.

Time of India

26 minutes ago

• Time of India

Is New Zealand's multiculturalism under threat? Destiny Church's anti-immigration rally poses a challenge to national values

Live Events What is Destiny Church? Is New Zealand losing its multiculturalism? (You can now subscribe to our (You can now subscribe to our Economic Times WhatsApp channel Hundreds of supporters of Destiny Church marched down Queen Street in central Auckland on Saturday, June 21, led by Brian Tamaki , protesting against non-Christian religions and calling for stricter immigration policies. The rally began at Aotea Square, where flags representing Islam , Buddhism, Sikhism, the LGBTQ+ rainbow, and mainstream media were torn, stomped on, and in some cases, set on fire. His followers performed a haka after each ritualistic destruction of a denounced the 'spread of non-Christian religions' and said 'uncontrolled immigration' threatened New Zealand's identity. He led chants of 'no immigration without assimilation' and described the march as a 'bold public stand for Christian values, Kiwi identity and the future of this nation'.Temporary clashes with counter‑protesters occurred. The protesters walked down Queen Street holding a large banner that read, 'NZ's official religion: Christianity.'They chanted 'Faith, flag, family' before announcing, 'No assimilation, no immigration'.Police were present throughout and confirmed no arrests were made. Fire and Emergency crews responded after flags were set alight, but protesters extinguished them before further action was demonstrators are affiliated with Destiny Church, a Christian movement known for its conservative, nationalist, and, critics say, fundamentalist views and linked political groups like the Freedoms & Rights Coalition and Vision Tamaki is its outspoken founder, and his daughter Hannah leads Vision NZ, a small far-right political party that opposes abortion, homosexuality, mosque construction, and promotes Christian nationalism Tamaki and Destiny Church are known for previous confrontations, including protests targeting library Drag Queen Story Hour events and blocking motorways under slogans like 'Make New Zealand Great Again'. They also disrupted children's events in libraries earlier this year, drawing widespread condemnation from weekend's protest has reignited debate over whether New Zealand's multicultural identity is under threat. Tamaki and his followers frame their cause as a defense of 'Christian values' and 'Kiwi identity,' but critics argue these protests chip away at the nation's commitment to inclusivity and Prime Minister David Seymour strongly denounced the rally's anti-immigration themes as 'un‑Kiwi,' saying that New Zealand welcomes diverse backgrounds and affirmed that immigration remains open to those 'committed to building a better society with tolerance of others.'.Immigration restrictions put forward by Tamaki , especially his demand to repeal the country's stance that New Zealand has no official religion, were widely Seymour reiterated the church's right to protest, he defended all New Zealanders' right to practice their faiths has previously sent letters to Prime Minister Christopher Luxon demanding changes to the official religion policy and tougher assimilation rules.