Surely a reason why some Islamists hate "the West"and "Westerners" is very simple - Islamism.
Surely a reason why ISIS emerged is Islamism.
What caused Islamism? One origin of it is Islam itself - the religion which inspires it.
Islamism needs to be vocally opposed by the Left across the world, regardless of its causes.
Speaking as someone on the Left, I have problems with the whole concept of "the West" as I have discussed elsewhere.
And - as expressed in another blog - I regard the USA and England as recently having perpetrated an anti-Semitic (in its literal meaning) genocide on Iraq since 1991. I am opposed to anti-Semitic racism of every kind.
But being anti-racist and pro-human rights does not mean I have to support religion of any kind.
I am opposed to persecution and hatred of people because of their beliefs or religion, but that does not mean I have to support any belief or religion.
It is possible to be peacefully opposed to a belief without being intolerant of a person or a group. In fact it is very important that we are allowed to be.
I fully support human rights. I regard myself as being on the Left. And I do not regard it as left-wing to unquestioningly support the rights of any religion.
Religion is bullshit. A major part of religious liberty and freedom of belief is the right to peacefully oppose any or all religion. And this freedom should be exercised for it to be maintained. The criticism of religion is vital for human progress.
There are those of us on the Left who do think that Islamism is not entirely caused by U.S. imperialism, and is at least partly caused by Islam itself.
Why is being opposed to Islam - or any religion - regarded as being right-wing?
We need to say that we are left wing and opposed to religion loudly and clearly.
And we need to develop this line of thinking.
The right and the extreme right can too easily contend that the Left is the same thing as Islamism.
They are indeed doing this very vocally.
We need to allow for left-wing criticism of Islamism and also of Islam.
And we should not allow the Left to in any way support the intolerable in the name of tolerance.
I am not a part of the so-called Regressive Left.
Regressive Left
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regressive_left
Why is it OK for progressives and the Left in general to criticize Christianity, but not OK for it to criticize Islam in any way?