e the nature of human life on earth into the image of the Taliban. If you want the whole earth to look like Taliban Afghanistan, then you’re on the same side as them. If you don’t want that, you’re not. They do not represent the quest for human justice. That, I think, is one of the great mistakes of the left.” […]
He senses soft racism in the refusal to see Islamic fundamentalists for what they are. When looking at the Christian fundamentalists of the United States, most people see an autonomous movement of superstitious madmen. But when they look at their Islamic equivalents, they assume they cannot mean what they say. “One of the things that’s commonly said by Islamists is that it’s acceptable to bomb a disco, because a disco is a place where people are behaving in a disgusting way. Go away and die – that’s all Bin Laden wants you to do. It’s not just about Iraq, it’s about ham sandwiches and kissing in public places and sex with girls you’re not married to.” He pauses. “It’s about life.” […]
It horrifies Salman that so many people in his natural political home – the left – don’t get this. They seem to imagine that when people call for a novelist to be beheaded for blasphemy, they are really calling for a return to the 1967 borders, or an independent Kashmir, or an end to the occupation of Iraq. They are not, he stresses. They mean what they say. “I think the left is misreading the situation for two reasons. The worthy reason is a desire to understand rather than condemn, to go out of your way to see what they’re on about.”
But “so much of the left always seems to fall for fascist bastards pretending to be speaking on behalf of the masses. They’ve done it before with communism in its various forms, and here’s another bunch of fascist bastards claiming to be speaking for the downtrodden masses, and they’re falling for it again.”
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