The Silent Left, the Fearful Right and Friends Like These

Peter Tatchell, a famous campaigner for LGBT rights attends a counter-demonstration against the EDL in East London, intending to "defend the Muslim community against EDL thuggery". 

What happened next was fairly predictable, for everyone it seems except Tatchell:

We got dirty looks from a small number of left-wing and LGBT anti-EDL protesters, some of whom said explicitly that our placards were “insensitive...provocative...inappropriate...divisive” and that I am “racist...fascist...anti-Muslim.”

 

There was also hostility from a minority of Muslims who were part of the anti-EDL demonstration, including attempts to snatch and rip my placard. These fanatics mostly objected to the slogan: "Gays & Muslims UNITE! Stop the EDL". I was surrounded several times throughout the day by angry Muslim youths who ordered me: “You must remove this placard...You can’t walk here with these words...We don’t allow gays in this area...Gays are not permitted here...We don’t have gays in Tower Hamlets.”

When I suggested that LGBT Muslims must also be defended against the EDL, I was told: “Gays can’t be Muslims...We will never accept them (LGBT Muslims)...They can’t come around here...We won’t allow it.”

He went on to say how his next move was to argue with them... which seems like an entirely inappropriate strategy. 

When someone has been brainwashed to hate you because of your gender, religion or political affiliation, rational arguments will not convince them that your soul is not, in fact, destined for hellfire. Cool logic will not persuade those who belive you are a bacillus fit only to be exterminated lest you infect society (though perhaps the liquidation can come later, after you have first been used as a token minority showing off the facade of respectability of their disreputable movement). 

You don't argue with haters. You walk away from them. You tell them to fuck off. To go to hell. To take a long walk off a short pier. And so on.

Tatchell clearly can't tell his friends from his enemies. Indeed, it would appear that his truest friends in the LGBT rights movement are actually of the fair-weather variety:

Interestingly, there were lots of LGBT protesters against the EDL. But I never saw a single one with a gay badge, placard, t-shirt or rainbow flag. It was as if they’d all gone back in the closet. Why? Normally, on other demos, they always proclaim their LGBT identity. How strange. Ashley McAlister and I were the only visibly gay protesters in the entire anti-EDL demonstration.

How strange, indeed.

If the EDL is today an intolerant movement counting racist hooligans in its ranks, it must be said that the tolerance of the leftist opposition towards religious fanatics in their midst is just as bad. Indeed, Tatchell seems to believe it is worse:

What too many anti-fascists refuse to acknowledge is that Islamist fundamentalism mirrors the right-wing ideology of the EDL (and the BNP). In fact, the Islamist goals are much more dangerous. They want to establish a theocratic tyranny, ban trade unions and political parties and deny women equal human rights. They endorse hatred and violence against Jewish, Hindu and LGBT people. Muslims who don’t follow their particular brand of Islam would face severe persecution in their Islamist state. These fanatical sects condone terrorism and the suicide bombing of innocent civilians. Not even the BNP and EDL are this extreme.

Islamist jihadism is a slippery political ideology. Right-wing groups that point out the threat of radicalism resulting in rising levels of hate, abuse, killings and terrorism are either silenced by accusations of racism or can quickly become magnets for neo-nazis. Leftist groups meanwhile are hobbled by their own victim pathology which sees all minorities as persecuted (and therefore, natural allies) without verifying the bona fides of their new friends. The Islamists slip up the middle.

It is a tricky path forward for Tatchell. Can he truly stand by his "friends" after being threatened by them? Can he stand in solidarity with these "allies", knowing that a "fringe group" - possibly no more than five to 10 percent - though perhaps considerably more - would like to see his head on a pike? How could he stand it and maintain his own credibility?

The alternatives are not much better. He might choose to burn his bridges and keep his closest friends and allies - the ones who don't want him hung from a construction crane - apart from the main mass of protesters at any future demonstration. He'll then be accused of provoking disunity in the ranks and may perversely be accused of intolerance. Or Tatchell may simply decide to drop out from his public work altogether, bitter at his betrayal by those he once fought for. A powerful and eloquent voice would tragically disappear from the left.

This should not be a time for Shadenfreude and snickering "I told you so" sniping from among critics of the left. If this incident diminishes Tatchell, those remaining on the left will have descended even further down the rabbit hole. Conservatives can argue with progressives and perhaps come to some agreement on the problem and solutions. They can't argue with irrational ideologues who refuse to look at the elephant in their midst out of misguided political correctness.

The only real option is to walk away. Or tell them to go to hell. And we have too much of that already.

Jonathon Narvey is the Editor of The Propagandist