Why Western leftists adore right-wing religious extremists abroad - Opinion - Jerusalem Post:
"When the history of the West is written it will say:
they educated themselves to hate themselves and love what they hate about themselves in the other.On a fairly consistent basis
people in the West embrace values abroad that they shun at home.This is particularly odd and contradictory among those who self-identify as “Left” and “liberal” and then embrace movements, leaders, ideologies and religions that are manifestly illiberal and right- wing extremist abroad.
For instance American philosopher and gender theorist Judith Butler said in 2006 that “understanding Hamas [and] Hezbollah as social movements that are progressive, that are on the left, that are part of the global left, is extremely important.”
That contradictory view is emblematic of a phenomenon spanning everything from Michel Foucault’s embrace of the Islamic Revolution in Iran to those
“anti-war” activists in the UK who support Syrian President Bashar Assad and Russia’s bombing of civilians.
- Why do people who support women’s rights in the US or France excuse the Iranian regime?
- Why do those who dislike militarism view as romantic people in uniform in Pakistan or Moscow?
- Why do those who dislike US presidential candidate Donald Trump find bombastic populists like Venezuala’s Hugo Chavez so endearing?
- Why is Assad’s war on terror so good, but George W. Bush’s so bad?
...To understand this phenomenon we have to unpack what it means to be “left-wing” in the West.
To be on the Left is to be good, to be progressive, to be for women’s rights, gay rights, environmentalism, social justice, worker’s rights, and to be against racism and discrimination, perhaps against nuclear energy, against war.
It didn’t always mean that.
Before the defeat of Nazism, to be left-wing was largely an ideological choice to be part of a “global Left” of various movements.
...Loyalty to these left-wing movements was largely ideological, if not contradictory.
So Stalin was supported simply because some left-wingers in the West accepted the Soviet Communist Party’s line; others liked comrade Trotsky and therefore did not like Stalin.
Not because they were liberals, but because the party told them so.
...This entire phenomenon is what should be known as
“locational liberalism.”Locational liberalism means you support liberalism only in one place, and
support its diametric opposite somewhere else.
The result is that there are basically two right-wing forces at war with each other in the West.
One supports right-wing religious nationalist forces abroad, the other supports them at home.
Instead, Dean said, Iran is “a republic that’s been hijacked by thugs and murderers.” He explained that he does not know Muslims whom he respects and who behave the way the regime does.
