Danish Cartoons:Racism Has No Place on the Left
by Deepa Kumar
I’ve just about had it. I cannot watch one more episode of the Daily Show which makes racist jokes about Arabs and Muslims. I am sick and tired of people who see themselves as part of the left writing articles that put a liberal gloss over what is, in essence, a right-wing “clash of civilizations” argument. And I am fed up with an anti-war movement in the United States that will do nothing to defend Muslims against all the attacks they have faced both domestically and internationally. So, I feel compelled to speak out against the steady rightward drift among sections of the left since 9/11 on the question of anti-Arab and anti-Muslim racism. The Danish cartoon controversy, and the anemic response by the left in this country, is only the latest example of this drift.
Unlike in Britain and elsewhere, where the anti-war movement has called demonstrations in solidarity with Muslims outraged over the cartoons, US national organizations like United for Peace and Justice have done little. This should come as no surprise given the extent to which liberals have accepted and internalized right-wing arguments like Samuel Huntington’s “clash of civilizations” thesis which sees the West as a force for enlightenment and the East as barbaric.
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