"An Afghan woman having her nose cut off by the Taliban becomes a platform for saying that there is violence against women everywhere. I think when we talk about Muslim fundamentalism, we have to actually talk about it. It exists. It gravely menaces the human rights of people of Muslim heritage. It is just as deserving of critical discussion as U.S. foreign policy or the Israeli government or anti-Muslim bias. To quote one of the last articles published by left-wing Algerian educator Salah Chouaki before his assassination by the same forces he warned against, “The most dangerous and deadly illusion. . . is to underestimate fundamentalism, the mortal enemy of our people.”
The Algerian journalist Mohamed Sifaoui once told me that he often has to explain to European leftists and human rights advocates that “the Muslim fundamentalists are our extreme right.” All too often, because they are (sometimes mistakenly) assumed to be the enemies of the same Western governments criticized by the Western Left, parts of that Left confuse the Muslim fundamentalists with allies....
The people I met while writing this book deserve for us all to rethink our positions, to neither advocate violations of human rights and discrimination against Muslims in response to the actions of Muslim fundamentalists, as some on the right do, nor tolerate the fundamentalists in response, as some on the left do. Instead, these progressive opponents of Muslim fundamentalism on the ground need our principled support."
(Karima Bennoune. Your Fatwa Does Not Apply Here)
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