A Meeting of Minds

My collegue Billy Rojas has expanded on the immigration/Islamism piece I wrote here. His view helps to clarify the shift in thinking between left and right, and expands the narrative regarding how the problem might be addressed in the future.

Read it all.


What is especially interesting in this development is that, I think for the
first time, at least some elements of the Left are co-operating with the Right in 
opposition to Islam in Europe. Of course, to be expected, other elements of the  Left
are strongly opposed, all of which has meaning.

In an unexpected way, the anti-Islam movement has  --at least for  now--
something of a Radical Centrist character. You are free to speculate  about
whether this Left / Right rapproachement will last. Personally,  it  seems
unstable.  After all, the contemporary Left is more than a little anti-Semitic and 
clearly is anti-Zionist in many cases. The Right is increasingly, as in the United 
States, pro-Israel even when disagreeing with particular Israeli policies. 
Moreover, there are a good number of other issues where Left and Right are at  loggerheads.  Especially economic policy and social matters such as the status of 
homosexuals.  Nonetheless, it says something important that some Leftists are now in 
alliance with a major part of the European Right.

The question seems to be this :  Will part of the  Left re-invent itself ?
Probably the  dominant  Left will not do any such thing, it  is viscerally
neo-Communist or Marxist enough not to consider changing its stripes. But there is more to the story.  There also are non-Marxist traditions on the Left, like Saint-Simonianism and Christian-inspired variants, so a minority of the Left could sheer  off.

 It does not appear that the Right needs to remake its philosophy as  much
as does the Left, and in cases, only minimally. Yet, it could turn out  that
elements of the Right will seize on this "coming together" to modify a 
number of its "other" policies in a more Leftward direction. The Right might be 
more willing to make environmental issues their own, for instance, and maybe other 
things as well.

There clearly is a long way to go before anything like a European version 
of Radical Centrism comes into existence; and this may never happen. Yet, here
is an example of what could develop.  Who would have thought that  opposition
to Islam could serve as a catalyst for Left / Right dialogue and movement away from 
strict partisanship ? And it is crucial to recognize the obvious  --this 
opposition , in all likelihood, will only increase in the years ahead.

The reason is simple : Immigration into Europe by Muslim  multitudes show
no signs of slowing down. France already is about 10 % Muslim, with Germany and 
Britain at about half that figure. While the Scandinavian countries remain 
predominantly Nordic, this is not true any longer in the major cities, with Malmo and 
Oslo andHelsinki each with large Muslim minorities. The same is true in the Low 
Countries, with Spain having a unique set of problems with the rise of Muslim 
populations there seeking to restore Islamic rule. And so forth in virtually all other 
nations on the continent.

The only possibilities for diffusing the problem would seem to be mass 
return migration on the part of Muslims, which isn't going to happen, or massive 
deconversion from orthodox forms of Islam to something else, anything from Sufism to Atheism, and this also appears to be highly improbable, at least if this is to discuss 
significant numbers of people. Which is to say, there will continue to be motivation to oppose Islam on the part of more and more Europeans.

It is worth pointing out that, while there certainly are differences, 
especially the commitment of Radical Centrists to democracy, original Fascism was a hybrid  political philosophy of Left and Right. Things did not stay that way, of course, but  throughout the 1920s the Italians retained their original Fascist character, to the 
extent that the movement had its champions in the United States including no less than 
Marcus Garvey, the "Negro" advocate of Civil Rights and of decolonialism. The 
anti-Semitism and racism of the Nazis, who joined with Italy in alliance, changed the 
character of Fascism by the later 1930s, needless to say, but let us not forget its  beginnings.

In other words, the same thing could happen again, this time without 
Hitler.

Think of what that might mean.