We Have to Talk About Racism/Orientalism on the Left

I decided that I needed to write a quick essay about something I’ve noticed unfortunately all too often on social media in left-wing circles, but very few people are willing to discuss it. There is rampant racism and orientalism disguised as woke identity politics and defense of marginalized demographics. It’s to the point that I do not think we can stay quiet on this issue as they pose direct danger to many marginalized groups by holding these racist and orientalist perspectives. I do think some of this may stem from the postmodern and post-colonial turn in left academia, but I also think much of it is more organic logical conclusions of really shallow identity politics driven ideology. In this essay I’m going to discuss a few situations I’ve encountered recently and why they are racist. Identities of all participants will be kept anonymous as I have not gained their permission to use their identities.

This all started from a post from a Lebanese person I follow on twitter that stated that not all cultures are equally as admirable, and that some cannot truly coexist peacefully. I understand some people may not be perfectly ok with this as they want to promote multiculturalism and tolerance, but that is a misunderstanding of the original tweet. The specific tweet was a criticism on the culture that is being enforced by Militant Islamist group, Hezbollah, in Lebanon. The reality is that this culture is not very tolerant of Christians, Jews, Sunni Muslims, or atheists/agnostics. Realistically, it would be unlikely for the culture surrounding Hezbollah to coexist peacefully in a mutlicultural society. This is of course where things get interesting.

I share the post, and someone immediately replies, “This sounds like fascism.” The beginning of the discussion I tried to explain how this was actually a criticism of extremist ideology and how that’s necessary for tolerant society, but they weren’t having it. They had already made up their minds. Criticizing even the most extreme of Militant Islamists culture was fascism and therefore the Lebanese individual must be a fascist. This led to them quote tweeting the original tweet and sicking trolls to harass them for being a fascists. Multiple people left disgusting comments and accusing them of being a fascist, the absolute worst even including a death threat. It was a picture of the Lebanese individual’s avatar upside down next to the image of Mussolini and his fascist thugs hanging upside down after Italian Communists had killed them. This individual, a white leftist that lives in the USA, had likened the Lebanese individual to being equally as evil as Mussolini and deserving of death.

This of course was not the end. This snowballed into even greater absurdity. I shared the tweet of the pictures and condemned it for racism and death threats and it led to many of my followers agreeing with me, but the trolls followed me to my thread. This led to a Pakistani Ex-Muslim individual being attacked and called an Islamaphobe for stating that they think Pakistani Muslim culture is unfortunately quite Patriarchal, anti-LGBTQ+, and bigoted towards atheists. This continued and reached almost comical or extremely depressing climaxes when the individual calling the Pakistani Ex-Muslim suggested he come to Detroit, Michigan to learn about Pakistani Muslim culture and why it is actually tolerant. This is of course extremely absurd and shows an extreme amount of stupidity and ignorance as well as extreme disrespect to the personal experience of someone that actually lives in Pakistan. This would continue and people kept attacking him as if he was a racist.

Not just this, but I got attacked as well which isn’t a big deal to me. I am after all the one actual white American male among the bunch. However, one of the things they attacked me for was particularly mean spirited and outright evil. They somehow managed to look up my Facebook and started posting screenshots of things I posted. They shared one screenshot where I shared my joy for being followed by one of my heroes, a particular Iranian dissident journalist that speaks against the Islamic Theocracy. They called me a fascist for supporting someone they called a “Native Informant” that works with the US State Department and is trying to start a war with Iran. This is of course completely untrue and a disgustingly vile smear. I have kept this journalist’s name hidden as the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Iran are literally looking for them to kill them. They even have kidnapped and imprisoned their family members to prevent them from speaking against the regime.

So, why is this racism and orientalism? Well, the western left has decided that anyone from a majority Muslim country that does not conform to the stereotypical Muslim from these countries must be a native informant or acting white. This is the definition of racism and orientalism as it denies the autonomy and diversity of political and cultural experience within these countries. It also often defends the worst of some of the more conservative aspects of Islam for example, and this is something I personally find very problematic. Whitewashing Islam’s patriarchy and record on LGBTQ+ rights directly puts women and LGBTQ+ people in danger in those countries. This is something I don’t think we should tolerate.

The source of this seems to be a product of cultural relativism and putting an oversimplified analysis of racial oppression in the west and primarily the United States on the rest of the world. In the United States most of the oppressors are white anglo-saxon protestants or WASPs. The oppressed being the various different peoples of color, immigrants, LGBTQ+, and of course religious minorities such as Muslims. The issue here is that this is not a one sized fits all model for the world. What happens when the demographics are completely opposite? What happens when the Muslims are those in the majority and have most of the control over government and politics in a country? Well, the easy answer is they become the oppressors and the groups that are in minority are the oppressed.

This causes problems for everyone and western leftists develop absolutely moronic and outright reactionary politics. Often times they will outright defend the oppressive governments against the people in those countries being oppressed. A particularly high profile recently led to a famous liberal movie maker, Michael Moore, praising the Islamic Republic of Iran’s funeral for Qassem Soleimani whom had recently been assassinated. This of course led to some of the most bizarre apologetics for one of the most brutal regimes in the world. Anyone that would honestly critique the regime would either be labeled an Islamaphobe or an imperialist warmonger. This of course was extended to many actual Iranians and particularly Iranian dissidents. The most disgusting being people arguing that Iranian protesters are just CIA or Mossad psyops to bring down the regime.

Ok, so that was alot of information, and I’m overwhelmed and you the reader may be as well. However, this has to be addressed as it is too much of a problem. We cannot allow this cultural relativist approach to allow blatant racism and bigotry against people from non-western countries that don’t fit the stereotype. If anything, we should help elevate their voices to be heard far more. I also think this requires rethinking how we look at racism. Obviously, the USA racism model is not a one size fits all. It just doesn’t work in the rest of the world. Identity politics in general tend to fall into problems of racial/ethnic essentialism and hierarchy of identity. This is something I think should be avoided at all costs.

My solution would be to take a more Marxist and materialist analysis which looks at the base material conditions in any given society then analyzes the institutions built within these societies and then the ideologies which are created through these means. For very obvious examples, in most of the majority Muslim countries these countries are rather underdeveloped in the political economy and the religious institutions are usually intertwined with the government and economy. This makes the religion one of the primary movers for social control. Then we can analyze the different classes and hierarchies which exist and why this leads to certain demographics being oppressed. In these countries it goes without saying that Christians, Jews, atheists, minority Muslim sects, and several others are actually oppressed while the majority Muslim sect is usually the oppressors.

How can we combat this? Well, that’s easier said than done, but attacking those which are the victims is absolutely not the answer. We also must realize that criticism of western foreign policy is more than valid. There is simply no denying this, and we must address it. Without a change in western foreign policy it will be infinitely more difficult to have progressive change in these countries. Other than that I would suggest we openly and proudly support and show solidarity with these different marginalized minorities. I would also support the dissident groups and organizations that organize against their governments. I would also explain and show that political and cultural diversity is actually the norm in these countries. It is only racists and orientalists that believe majority Muslim countries are not so.