Recent quotes:

Islamism and the Left | Dissent Magazine

The Arab world today,” Said wrote, “is an intellectual, political, and cultural satellite of the United States.” Islamic revivalism is nowhere anticipated in Said’s book. Indeed, he takes Bernard Lewis’ insistence on the “importance of religion in the current affairs of the Muslim world” to be an example of Orientalism. And a year later, in The Question of Palestine, Said calls “the return to ‘Islam’” a “chimera.”7
#Left #islamophobia #islamism #orientalism - dissentmagazine.org

Islamism and the Left | Dissent Magazine

So the Islamic revival is a kind of testing moment for the left: can we recognize and resist “the possibility of tyranny?” Some of us are trying to meet the test; many of us are actively failing it. One reason for this failure is the terrible fear of being called “Islamophobic.” Anti-Americanism and a radical version of cultural relativism also play an important part, but these are older pathologies. Here is something new: many leftists are so irrationally afraid of an irrational fear of Islam that they haven’t been able to consider the very good reasons for fearing Islamist zealots—and so they have difficulty explaining what’s going on in the world.
#islamophobia #islamism #terrorism - dissentmagazine.org

The Paris attackers hijacked Islam but there is no war between Islam and the west | Tariq Ramadan | Comment is free | The Guardian

the attackers said things that cannot be allowed to go unchallenged. They said they were avenging the prophet. That was wrong. In fact, it is the message of Islam, our principles and values, that have been betrayed and tainted. They refer to Islam to justify what they did. From a religious viewpoint, I feel it is my responsibility to say that this has nothing to do with the message of our religion. I would expect anyone, if something was happening in the name of their country or in the name of their religion, to take a stand. As a Muslim scholar I have to take that stand.
#islamism #ramadan - theguardian.com