Clash of Ideologies:
Communism, Islam, and the West
by John Walker
5th December 2015
For much of the 20th century, and especially after the end of World
War II and the emergence of the Cold War, an ideological struggle
existed between communism in its various forms (Soviet, Maoist, etc.)
and the Western ideals of consensual government, economic freedom, and
individual liberty. This conflict was waged in many ways and on many
levels: in explicit military confrontation in conflicts such as Korea
and Vietnam, in proxy wars in Africa and Latin America, in quests for
prestige such as the space race, and in propaganda and efforts to
influence popular opinion.
Throughout this period, both parties to the conflict were explicit in
identifying the adversary: “godless communism” on the one
side and “capitalist, imperialist aggressors” on the other.
Political leaders on both sides were confident their approach was
best, and intellectuals supported them. Both sides produced and
distributed abundant propaganda tailored to adversary audiences to
advance their side's philosophy. Nobody thought there was
anything remarkable about this. Anybody with a short wave set in the
West could listen to Radio Moscow and follow a multi-part course in
Marxism-Leninism, and many people in the communist bloc who managed to
dodge Soviet jammers could follow the other side from the Voice of
America or Radio Free Europe.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union, this ideological conflict came
to an end, and now most people have access to a wide variety of
opinion on the topics contested during the Cold War. (To be sure,
restrictions on information flow such as the Great Firewall of China
exist, but people are clever, and I'm sure anybody with a modicum
of technical knowledge [or who knows somebody with it] will have no
difficulty downloading the entire
free library
of the
Mises Institute
if its content intrigues them.)
Now, decades after the supposed conclusion of the Cold War (although
one can argue it persists within the institutions of the West), the
West finds itself in another protracted conflict with an ideology
opposed to its fundamental beliefs: an ideology few are willing to
name. Is it “Islamic extremism”, “militant Islam”,
“Islamofascism”, “Islamism”, or just
“Islam”? Does it matter? I don't recall during the Cold
War that people tied themselves into knots distinguishing the fine
points of various communist factions: all of them were incompatible
with Western values, and all had to be opposed although, for tactical
reasons, one might temporarily ally with one against another.
What was clear, however, is that in order to eliminate the threat to
the West, whether from aggression without or subversion within, what
needed to be defeated was the ideology of communism. By whatever
means, individual liberty, self-determination, and economic freedom
must triumph in every way over collectivism, tyranny, and enslavement
to the state.
To this end, a wide variety of strategies were employed, all with the
goal of demonstrating to those in the unaligned world that the Western
model was superior and, by all means available, discrediting the
communist model within the nations it enslaved. The goal was
destroying the communist ideology, as it was fundamentally
incompatible with the enlightenment values of the West.
This brings us to the present day, and to Islam. “We aren't
at war with Islam”, Western politicians say. Fine, but that
isn't the question, is it? For most of the Cold War, the West
wasn't at war with communism, either. But the West recognised
communism as an ideology which, if it triumphed in its stated goal to
spread around the world, would forever extinguish Western values. Many
argued that the best that could be hoped for was a stalemate where the
West and communism could co-exist, but others feared a ratchet effect
where territory which fell to communism was forever forfeit and the
light of freedom would slowly gutter and die as darkness encroached.
Others saw the internal contradictions in communism: that it
impoverished its people, stifled their creativity and spirit of
enterprise, and was inherently uncompetitive. They believed that, with
a sufficient push, the entire corrupt structure would collapse and, in
the end, they were right.
Which brings us to Islam. Islam, if taken literally as defined in the
Koran, the Hadiths, and in interpretations such as
Reliance of the
Traveller, is grossly incompatible, even more than the doctrines of
communism, with Western values. Let me quote two items from Reliance
of the Traveller
- o8.1 When a person who has reached puberty and is sane
voluntarily apostatizes from Islam, he deserves to be killed.
- o8.4 There is no indemnity for killing an apostate (O: or any
expiation, since it is killing someone who deserves to die.)
I could quote hundreds of others which violate freedom of conscience,
equality of the sexes, due process of law, endorsement of slavery, and
the obligation to jihad (o9.0 et seq.).
If we take the Islamic scriptures seriously, then anybody who believes
them cannot also accept the tenets of Western civilisation.
Conversely, somebody who is fully integrated into Western civilisation
must necessarily be an apostate from this pure interpretation of
Islam, just as an émigré from a communist country must
have renounced fundamental precepts of its society to fully join the
West.
During the Cold War, the West explicitly worked to subvert the
ideology of the communist bloc, overtly in contested arenas (USIA
libraries, etc.) and covertly by funding anti-communist publications
and political parties, and in communist countries by broadcasts and
other means. The goal was to bring down the opposing ideology, and
while some of the initiatives to do so were secret, nobody hesitated
to name the enemy creed nor deny the goal of discrediting it.
Does the fact that Islam calls itself a religion make any difference?
To the extent that Islam embraces values diametrically opposed to
those of the West, should it not be a target just as communism was? If
it sheds those destructive beliefs (just as many communists in Western
Europe have been effectively neutered into social democrats), then
we'll know the effort has succeeded. But until then, it makes
absolutely no sense to deal on an equal basis with those who do not
embrace Western values nor welcome them into Western societies, any
more than it would have made sense to treat Iron Curtain countries as
peers or welcome masses of unreformed communists into the West.
In particular, why should the West accept that Islam can evangelise
within its societies, while Islamic societies forbid not only
missionaries from other faiths but, in many cases, even the practice
of other religions within their territories? If the West allows Muslim
recruitment within its prisons, for example, why should it tolerate
the exclusion of evangelical Christian, Mormon, Jehovah's
Witnesses, Roman Catholic, Scientology, Rastafarian, and other
missionaries from Saudi Arabia and other Islamic countries?
