Sam Harris hat auf seiner Website einen Essay zum Thema „Der Islam und die Zukunft der Linken“ veröffentlicht, den ich bemerkenswert finde. Harris ist ein prominenter Vertreter des kämpferischen Säkularismus, ein Religionskritiker, der keinen Glauben auslässt.
Dass unter allen Religionen der Islam heute das größte Problem für die Menschenrechte und die Freiheit darstellt, sagt er dennoch in aller Deutlichkeit. Er sagt es ohne Islamophobie und ohne sich von dem möglichen Vorwurf, der Islamophobie Vorschub zu leisten, beeindrucken zu lassen.
Er wendet sich gegen diejenigen, die jede Kritik am Islam unter diesem Label einordnen – ebenso wie gegen diejenigen, die unter dem Deckmatel der Islamkritik „Rassismus, christlichen Faschismus oder beides“ verstecken. Und er nimmt die Linke („liberals“), der er sich selbst zugehörig fühlt, hart ran für ihre Weigerung, den religiös motivierten, genozidalen Faschismus der Hamas-Charta ernst zu nehmen.
Of course, millions of Muslims are more secular and are eager to help create a global civil society. But they are virtually silent because they have nothing to say that makes any sense within the framework of their faith. (They are also afraid of getting killed.) That is the problem we must keep in view. And it represents an undeniable difference between Islam and Christianity at this point in history. There are also many nefarious people, in both Europe and the U.S., who are eager to keep well-intentioned liberals confused on this point, equating any criticism of Islam with racism or “Islamophobia.” The fact that many critics of Islam are also racists, Christian fascists, or both does not make these apologists any less cynical or sinister.
The only way to know which way is up, ethically speaking, is to honestly assess what people want and what they believe. We must confront the stubborn reality of differing intentions: In every case it is essential to ask, “What would these people do if they had the power to do anything they wanted?”
Consider the position of Israel, which is so regularly vilified by the Left. As a secularist and a nonbeliever—and as a Jew—I find the idea of a Jewish state obnoxious. But if ever a state organized around a religion was justified, it is the Jewish state of Israel, given the world’s propensity for genocidal anti-Semitism. And if ever criticism of a religious state was unjustified, it is the criticism of Israel that ceaselessly flows from every corner of the Muslim world, given the genocidal aspirations so many Muslims freely confess regarding the Jews. Those who see moral parity between the two sides of Israeli-Palestinian conflict are ignoring rather obvious differences in intent.
My fellow liberals generally refuse to concede that the religious beliefs of groups like Hamas merit any special concern. And yet the slogan of Hamas, as set forth in Article 8 of its charter, reads: “Allah is its target, the Prophet is its model, the Koran its constitution: Jihad is its path and death for the sake of Allah is the loftiest of its wishes.” If this is insufficient to establish this group as a death cult of aspiring martyrs, consider the following excerpts from the charter:
- [T]he Islamic Resistance Movement aspires to the realisation of Allah’s promise, no matter how long that should take. The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, has said:
- “The Day of Judgement will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Muslims, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews.” (related by al-Bukhari and Muslim). (…)
- There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors. (…)
- It is necessary to instill in the minds of the Muslim generations that the Palestinian problem is a religious problem, and should be dealt with on this basis. (…)“
Whether or not every Palestinian believes these things is not the point. The point is that many do, and their democratically elected government claims to. It is only rational, therefore, for Israel to behave as though it is confronted by a cult of religious sociopaths. The fact that much of the world, and most Western liberals, cannot see the moral imbalance here only makes the position of Israel more precarious, leaving it increasingly vulnerable to overreacting to Palestinian provocations. If the rest of the world were united in condemnation of Hamas, and of Islamism generally, Israel could afford to be slower to reach for its guns.