Hitler Bad. Islamism Complicated.
The cowardice and confusion of our progressive elites endanger us all.
If a fundamentalist Christian or a radical Hindu massacred a group of innocent civilians, would the first instinct of politicians be to protect churches or temples? Of course not. The ideology would be named and condemned. Apologists for religiously inspired terror would be sidelined and treated as morally adjacent.
So why, when the violence is inspired by political Islam, is the reflex always to protect mosques, draft laws on “Islamophobia”, and resurrect the looming threat of the “far right”?
It’s because Western liberalism has been captured and deformed by a progressive ideology that treats plain speaking about political Islam as the cardinal sin. To judge is to imply hierarchy; to imply hierarchy is to admit that liberal values might be superior – something now utterly taboo and status-destroying among those with institutional and cultural power. This doctrine is so internalised among the progressive class that it functions like a substitute religion. Naturally, it’s ruthlessly exploited by our enemies.
In theory, liberalism is perfectly capable of moral discrimination. It emerged from the Enlightenment precisely to allow members of society to assess competing beliefs, criticise some, adopt others and, through arguments and persuasion, reject those beliefs that seek to undermine these same rights. It assumes that ideas matter, that some are better than others, and that individuals have the right – indeed the duty – to defend the conditions that make liberty possible.
Progressivism has gradually and almost imperceptibly rewritten that agreement. In its current form, it treats all cultures as morally equivalent, while moral judgement is almost exclusively reserved for the West. The result is a ruling class that no longer understands what liberal principles are for and has lost the language to say that certain belief systems are not merely inferior but incompatible with a liberal society.
Islamism isn’t morally complicated, any more than fascism is. What’s complicated is the West’s refusal to judge it.
