Critics of Islam are often tagged with the epithet "right wing". Such critics include "right wing" opponent of Fascism, Oriana Fallaci, "right wing" radical film-maker, Theo van Gogh, "right wing" gay rights advocate, Pim Fortuyn, or more recently "right wing" pro-choice campaigner and opponent of Christian fundamentalism, Caroline Fourest. Calling any of these people "right-wing" would be stretching an already elastic definition to snapping point. Hugh Fitzgerald has made mincemeat of this lazy, wilfully stupid thinking on more than one occasion.
Snapping point has now been reached. Islam itself is now "right wing", along with its critics. David Thompson:
Peter Tatchell has some peculiar ideas. In detailing Ken Livingstone’s habitual smear tactics, Tatchell recalls the leftist mayor’s public endorsement of Yusuf al-Qaradawi, and says,
Because I criticised Ken on one issue (Qaradawi), he has slurred me as an Islamophobe. It all began when Ken invited the right-wing Muslim cleric to City Hall in 2004 and saluted him as an “honoured guest”. I found his embrace of Qaradawi very odd and quite appalling, given that the sheikh is indisputably anti-Semitic, homophobic and sexist… The mayor condemned me as anti-Muslim, and even suggested I was a pawn of the Israeli secret service and US NeoCons.
Qaradawi is indeed a monster of no small magnitude [...] But what catches the eye is Tatchell’s description of Qaradawi as “right-wing”. Is this bearded little sadist also in favour of free markets, a small state, low taxation and individual freedom? If so, this is news. It seems to me Qaradawi is in fact a totalitarian collectivist par excellence - a man who, like his stated inspiration, Syed Abul A’ala Mawdudi, dreams of a world in which a person’s most intimate affairs are governed by the state, in this case an Islamic one. Mawdudi’s Islamic Law & Constitution, published in 1960, includes dozens of passages like the following:
An Islamic state is all embracing… [it] cannot restrict the scope of its activities… It seeks to mould every aspect of life… In such a state no-one can regard any field of his affairs as personal and private.
[...] To describe Qaradawi, and Islamists generally, as “right-wing” stretches that favoured pejorative to an absurd and perverse degree. Unless, of course, sacralised bigotry, dreams of world domination and absolute state control are now considered proprietary markers of anyone who isn’t sufficiently leftwing.
If Islam is "right wing", are its critics now "left wing"?
The fact is that "right wing" and to a lesser extent "left wing" have now become meaningless terms of abuse. Isn't it about time, particularly when discussing Islam, that these wings were clipped?
