Regressive left

Maajid Nawaz's use of the phrase regressive left has been a part of his opposition to Islamism, the literalist pole of Islam that emphasises Sharia (Islamic law), Pan-Islamic political unity and an Islamic state

Regressive left (also formulated as regressive liberals and regressive leftists) is a pejorative term for a branch of left-wing politics that is accused of being accepting of or sympathetic to views that conflict with liberal principles, especially tolerating Islamism.^[1]

British political activist Maajid Nawaz,^{[note 1][3]} American political talk-show hosts such as Bill Maher^[4] and Dave Rubin,^{[note 2]} and New Atheist writers like Sam Harris^{[note 3]} and Richard Dawkins^[4] are among those who have used the term.

Concept[]

In 2007, Maajid Nawaz, a former Islamist who had renounced his association with the radical Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir in favour of secular Islam,^[7] used the phrase regressive left to describe left-leaning people who—in his opinion—pander to Islamism, which he defines as a "global totalitarian theo-political project" with a "desire to impose any given interpretation of Islam over society as law".^[8] He opposes this on the grounds that "any desire to impose any version of Islam over anyone anywhere, ever, is a fundamental violation of our basic civil liberties".^[9]

In Nawaz's opinion, it is possible to denounce both neoconservative foreign policies such as the Iraq War (which he had opposed) and theocratic extremism, but those that he labels "regressive leftists" fail to do so.^[10]

Use of the term[]

In September 2015, Sam Harris and Maajid Nawaz participated in a public forum hosted by Harvard University's Institute of Politics,^[11] which was later published in a short book, titled Islam and the Future of Tolerance (2015). In a review of the book in the magazine National Review Online, political writer Brian Stewart noted that according to both Nawaz and Harris, "regressive leftists" in the West are "willfully blind" to the fact that jihadists and Islamists make up a significant portion (20% in Harris's estimate) of the global Muslim community and the minority Muslim communities within the West, even though these factions are opposed to liberal values such as individual autonomy, freedom of expression, democracy, women's rights, gay rights, etc. Nawaz and Harris have denounced what they describe as the paradoxically illiberal, isolationist, and censuring attitude towards any criticism of this phenomenon, which they contend betrays universal liberal values and also abandons supporting and defending the most vulnerable liberal members living within the Muslim community such as women, homosexuals, and apostates.^[12]

In October 2015, The Washington Times reported that American comedian and show host Bill Maher and British biologist and New Atheist author Richard Dawkins "lamented regressive leftists who fail to understand they are anything but liberal when it comes to Islam".^[13] Maher noted a willingness to criticise anything except Islam, excusing it as "their culture", to which Dawkins responded: "Well, to hell with their culture".^[14] Referring to student initiatives to disinvite ex-Muslim speakers on campus, Dawkins saw this as "a betrayal of the Free Speech Movement of the 1960s".^[15]

In October and November 2015, Sam Harris frequently used the term in his exchanges with the media, saying the greatest danger is that the "regressive left" is willing to give up freedom of speech "out of fear of offending minorities", which will lead to censorship imposed by those minorities, citing American journalist Glenn Greenwald's comments on the Charlie Hebdo shooting as an example.^[16][17] Harris considers Reza Aslan^[16][17] and Noam Chomsky to be of the regressive left.^[18] During a 2015 interview on The Rubin Report Maajid Nawaz cited then British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn as an example of someone he considers to be part of the regressive left, citing that Corbyn has been anti-war but also "has been historically very close" to supporters of violent Islamist organisations such as Hamas and Hezbollah.^[19]

In November 2015, in an appearance on the talk radio show The Humanist Hour, philosopher Peter Boghossian defined the term as a pejorative used to describe those on the left that have made the "strangest bedfellows" with Islamists. According to him, the word regressive is used to contrast with the word progressive – the former being a group that "[looks] for the worst in people... and [does] not extend hermeneutics of charity, or a charitable interpretation of anything anyone says, but uses it as a hammer to beat people down".^[20]

In late 2015, talk show host Dave Rubin hosted discussions about the "regressive left" in several The Rubin Report segments.^[21] Rubin describes the regressive left as "the left's version of the Tea Party", saying that the regressive left will damage the Democratic Party similarly to how the Tea Party damages the Republican Party.^[22]

Criticism[]

In November 2015, psychiatrist , writing for The Huffington Post, classified the term as an unsubstantiated ad hominem attack, stating that the harshest critics of Islam are courted by both liberal and conservative media in the United States. Khusro also noted that the term had been directed towards Glenn Greenwald and Noam Chomsky, both of whom he said have never condoned violence or opined on the doctrine of Islam. He argued that there was no genuine inhibition on speaking against the religion.^[23]

In March 2016, BuzzFeed News reporter Joseph Bernstein wrote that, according to Google Trends, interest in the term "shot up" in late 2015. According to Bernstein, instead of criticizing "cultural tolerance gone too far", the phrase has "become a catch-all for any element of the dominant new media culture that the anti-social justice warrior internet doesn't like". He also suggests that even though the term can be sourced back to self-described liberal commentators like Nawaz, Maher and Dawkins, it is frequently used by the alt-right and other anti-social justice warrior groups on Internet forums and social media as part of their rhetorical warfare.^[24]

See also[]

Notes[]

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