Consummated in Cairo

George Galloway, the maverick British parliamentarian who was expelled for the Labour Party after his outspoken opposition to the war in Iraq led to charges that he incited Iraqis to fight against British troops, was there. Tony Benn, another former Labour MP and prominent defender of Socialism, also made the trip. So did Ramsey Clark, former U.S. Attorney General (for Lyndon Johnson) and a high-profile advocate for the impeachment of George W. Bush, the freeing of Leonard Peltier, and a host of other fashionable Leftist causes. At the 2003 Cairo Conference held in mid-December by The International Campaign Against U.S. & Zionist Occupations, these high-profile antiwar advocates had a chance to rub elbows with their newest ideological bedfellows: radical Muslims who openly advocate the restoration of the caliphate, the politico-religious ruler of a unified Muslim world, and the establishment of an Islamic world order under the rule of Islamic law, the Sharia.

That such an alliance was an actual goal of the Conference was hinted at by Salma Yacoob, an activist with the Muslim Association of Britain as well as chair of the Birmingham chapter of the Stop the War Coalition. In Cairo, she told the assembled dignitaries that “it is because we are potentially so strong together that our enemies try to divide us.” “Us” in this case would be the amalgamation of Islamists (that is, Muslims who see Islamic law as the only rightful way to order society), secular socialists, and Arab nationalists.

The polarities of the Conference were exemplified when Ma’mum Hudaybi, leader of the Egyptian radical Muslim group the Muslim Brotherhood, shared the platform with Revolutionary Socialist Kamal Khalil. The Brotherhood, founded in Egypt in the 1920s, was the first modern radical Muslim organization. It still states that one of its goals is, according to a website operated by a Brotherhood sympathizer, “mastering the world with Islam.” The Brotherhood proclaims: “Allah is our objective. The messenger [i.e., the Muslim Prophet Muhammad] is our leader. Quran is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.”

For his part, Khalil referred in a fiery speech to an antiwar demonstration held in Egypt as the Iraq war began: “I am speaking in the name of thousands of Egyptians who were in Tahrir Square on 20 March. They chanted against the imperialist aggression but they also chanted against the Egyptian state and the Mubarak regime. We want a world without Bush, Blair, Sharon and Mubarak. Let’s link the struggle against imperialism with the struggle against dictatorship and oppression. When the fingers of the Americans burn in Iraq and Palestine, the fingers of the dictator in Egypt will also burn.”

Hudaybi’s presence alongside Khalil heralded the welding of the antiwar movement’s anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist boilerplate to the caliphate and Sharia yearnings of radical Islam. Thus Cairo represented the flowering of the unique political vision of another luminary, who sent a laudatory message to the Conference: the octogenarian former president of Algeria, Ahmed Ben Bella.

Ben Bella embodies this new alliance in his own person. He cites the Egyptian Arab nationalist Gamel Abdel Nasser as his intellectual mentor, but his view of Arab nationalism partakes of none of the secularism that other Arab nationalist leaders have espoused at least publicly. “I am an Islamist,” Ben Bella declared flatly to Egypt’s Al-Ahram Weekly in May 2001, adding that “being a Muslim is an essential, a sacrosanct component of our identity.” He spoke in decidedly Leftist terms of a convergence between ostensibly secular Arab nationalism and radical Islam, praising the terrorist group Hizbullah as the contemporary embodiment of Nasser’s vision: “The essence of Nasserism is to struggle against imperialism and for social justice. I fear that some of those who claim to be Nasserists today might inadvertently mummify Nasserism the way the communists mummified Lenin. We must not speak as if it was still 1956. I believe that the Hizbullah in Lebanon have incorporated many aspects of the Nasserist philosophy. Times have changed.”

Ben Bella waxed sentimental about his old friend and comrade Che Guevara: “Che was a courageous fighter who had to struggle unremittingly with a body wracked by asthma. Once, when I climbed with him to the Chrea Heights overlooking the town of Blida, I saw him suffer an attack that turned him green in the face. I first met him in autumn 1962 on the eve of the Cuban missile crisis and the blockade decreed by the US. I was due to attend the September session of the UN in New York at the first Algerian flag-raising ceremony.”

But since he met Che, Ben Bella has changed. Imprisoned for years after he was deposed in Algeria, he read the only book allowed in prison: the Qur’an. “And if,” says Al-Ahram, “over the years Ben Bella has held tenaciously to his leftist, progressive ideals, in later years an infusion of Islam — what he terms the spiritual element sadly lacking in doctrinaire Marxism — has seeped into his own brand of socialism.”

With Galloway, Benn, and Clark publicly linked to Ben Bella, Hudaybi, and Yacoob, it is difficult not to conclude that the seepage is going both ways. Ben Bella himself asked the Conference to make sure that it would. After denouncing “Bush and the insane clique surrounding him” and castigating the Washington-led “globalization movement,” he recommended that the Conference “actively participate in incorporating the Arab world more and more” into the resistance to that movement. In other words, the aging Islamist called upon the Conference attendees to infuse the global antiwar movement with more of an Islamic character.

The Cairo Conference demonstrated that Socialist antiwar activists don’t mind sharing a podium with radical Muslims who want to establish Sharia states in Iraq and elsewhere. Of course, the peace movement has betrayed a taste for totalitarianism and brutality before. Today’s radical Muslim terrorists are worthy heirs of Lenin, Stalin, Feliks Dzerzhinsky, and all the rest who filled the Gulag for the sake of peace. Evidently nowadays as long as the struggle against “imperialist aggression” is won, a few amputations and stonings along the way will be just fine.

ROBERT SPENCER

ROBERT SPENCER, the director of Jihad Watch, is a writer and researcher who has studied Islam for more than twenty years. He is the author of Onward Muslim Soldiers: How Jihad Still Threatens America and the West (Regnery) and Islam Unveiled: Disturbing Questions About the World's Fastest Growing Faith (Encounter). He is coauthor, with Daniel Ali, of Inside Islam: A Guide for Catholics (Ascension) and coeditor of the forthcoming essay collection The Myth of Islamic Tolerance.

Spencer (MA, Religious Studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) is an Adjunct Fellow with the Free Congress Foundation. He has written seven monographs on Islam that are available from the Foundation: An Introduction to the Qur'an; Women and Islam; An Islamic Primer; Islam and the West; The Islamic Disinformation Lobby; Islam vs. Christianity; and Jihad in Context.

His articles on Islam and other topics have appeared in the Washington Times, FrontPage Magazine.com, WorldNet Daily, Insight in the News, Human Events, National Review Online, and many other journals. He has discussed jihad, Islam, and terrorism on CNN, FoxNews, MSNBC, PBS, and C-Span, as well as on numerous radio programs including The Michael Savage Show, The G. Gordon Liddy Show, the Michael Medved Show, The Michael Reagan Show, The Larry Elder Show, Vatican Radio, and many others.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Q: Why should I believe what you say about Islam?
A: Because I draw no conclusions of myself. Pick up my books Onward Muslim Soldiers and Islam Unveiled, and you will see that both are made up largely of quotations from radical Muslims and the traditional Islamic sources to which they appeal to justify violence and terrorism. I am only shedding light on what these sources say.

Q: Why have you studied Islam for so long?
A: It has been an enduring fascination. Since childhood I have had an interest in the Muslim world, from which my family comes, and when I met Muslim students in college I began studying the Qur'an in earnest. That led to in-depth forays into tafsir (interpretations of the Qur'an), hadith (traditions of the Prophet Muhammad), and much more about Islamic history, theology, and law.

Q: Why do so many people convert to Islam?
A: There are many attractive elements of the religion. I think that its adamantine certainties appeal to many people who are disgusted with the current relativism and amorality of the Western world. Also there are many rich and grand aspects of Islamic history and culture which also make the religion attractive today. The global jihad against the West today also helps Islam gather converts in the West from among groups that feel themselves to be oppressed or marginalized. Conversions have been stimulated by successful, if often fanciful, Muslim efforts to present Islam as a religion free of the sins of the West -- particularly racial discrimination.

Q: Do you hate Muslims?
A: Of course not. Islam is not a monolith, and never have I said or written anything that characterizes all Muslims as terrorist or given to violence. I am only calling attention to the roots and goals of radical Islam. Any Muslim who renounces violent jihad and dhimmitude is welcome to join in our anti-jihadist efforts. Any hate in my books comes from radical Muslims whom I quote, not from me. Cries of "hatred" and "bigotry" are effectively used by American Muslim advocacy groups to try to stifle the debate about the terrorist threat. But there is no substance to them.

Q: Do you think all Muslims are terrorists?
A: See above.

Q: Are you trying to incite anti-Muslim hatred?
A: Certainly not. I am trying to point out the depth and extent of the hatred that is directed against the United States, because I believe that the efforts to downplay its depth and extent leave us less equipped to defend ourselves. As I said above, the focus here is on jihad; any Muslim who renounces the ideologies of jihad and dhimmitude is most welcome to join forces with us. Anyone who targets innocent Muslims in the USA is not only evil, but is playing into the hands of the radical Muslims who are trying to fan the flames of anti-American hatred. Also, one of the reasons why the war on terror is so important is that those who would destroy Western civilization do not believe in the principles of due process and justice that are central elements of the American system.

Q: What can we do about this threat?
A: Many things, but what we must do above all is remain true to our principles of freedom and equality of rights and dignity for all. These ideas and related ones are what set us apart from global jihadists. If we discard them in order to fight the jihadists, we risk erasing the distinction between the two camps.

Q: Why are you doing this?
A: Jihad ideology is a threat to the peace and human rights of non-Muslims as well as Muslims worldwide. If it is not confronted and resisted, it will prevail.

But since he met Che, Ben Bella has changed. Imprisoned for years after he was deposed in Algeria, he read the only book allowed in prison: the Qur'an. "And if," says Al-Ahram, "over the years Ben Bella has held tenaciously to his leftist, progressive ideals, in later years an infusion of Islam - what he terms the spiritual element sadly lacking in doctrinaire Marxism - has seeped into his own brand of socialism."

This is turning into an twisted and evil blend of commie-terrorism theology.

The Dangers of Liberation Theology***It is difficult to give a general picture that is really fair to the system's proponents. It is a new movement, and its advocates are still formulating their positions. One must look at each liberationist individually to understand his role. Three of the most important are Gustovo Gutierrez, Emilio Castro, and Jose Miguez Bonino. Gutierrez is probably the most famous. His book, A Theology of Liberation, published in Spanish in 1971, remains the classic expression available in English. A Catholic priest and theology professor in the Catholic University of Lima, Peru, Gutierrez was influenced by Camilo Torres, the Colombian priest who left the Church to join Communist guerrillas warring against the Colombian government. The Colombian army killed Torres in a mountain shoot-out, but his belief lives on in the writings of men like Gutierrez. He taught that the only path for concrete expression of Christian love for Latin America's oppressed lies in joining the Marxist revolution.

In his books Gutierrez argues for Marxism's superiority over all other philosophies and systems, universal salvation (the belief that everyone will be saved), God's presence in the modern revolutionary movement, and the need for the church to work toward securing justice and social well-being for the oppressed.

Uruguayan Emilio Castro directs the Commission of World Mission and Evangelization of the World Council of Churches. More strategist than theologian, Dr. Castro stresses the need for participation in what he regards as the inevitable revolution in Latin America. As a universalist, he sees recruitment of people for involvement in bettering social conditions to be the primary task of the church, not evangelism as traditional evangelists teach. God works through Marxist revolution to bring all men together in Jesus Christ, he claims.

Jose Miguez Bonino is one of the most widely published liberation theologians in the world today, especially in English. He has written more than twelve books and sixty articles on the subject. From Argentina, he began his ministry as a Methodist pastor and was elected to the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches in 1975. Miguez believes that Marxism is the only scientific method to understand poverty and oppression. He also believes that Marxism offers the best way to express Christian love in modern society. He advocates violence for toppling repressive Latin American governments.***

And when taken as a phrase on its own, the term "liberation theology" sounds so good when you think of it outside the context writing by priests like Gustovo Gutierrez.

Combining these concepts with Islam will prove devastating to an exponentially larger number of lives.

How much better it would have been to bring respect for the rule of law, value for self-made accomplishments, and respect for private property. The American revolution offers solutions to most of the problems in the third world with poverty and repression, but it requires a certain committment to mutual respect and lawfulness.

Islamic theocratic "liberation" poses as a law-respecting system of sociological organization while disrespecting individual liberty and religious freedom. Socialism undermines individual excellence and competition while bringing down the lowest common denominator's standard of living by destroying economies. And these anti-western, anarchist pols who are cooperating with the "winning" ideologies are simply throwing fuel on the fire of civilizational conflict.

This is a recipe for disaster.

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