Much of the West rightly recognizes Islamofascism as one of the great totalitarian threats of our time. Yet many who grasp that danger mistakenly equate Islamism with Islam itself, erasing the immense diversity of Muslim thought and culture. The tragedy is that this conflation is not only made by the Right, but is actively reinforced by the Left.
For decades, the mainstream media—steeped in postcolonial guilt and Cold War reflexes that paint the West as the global villain—has treated Islamists as the authentic representatives of Muslims. Because Islamists position themselves as victims of Western imperialism, they fit perfectly into the Left’s favored “oppressed vs. oppressor” narrative. Reformist or ex-Muslim voices, however—those who criticize Islamist tyranny—shatter that moral storyline. They expose that oppression in Muslim societies often comes from within, not from without.
So, the media labels them “Islamophobic.”
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Asra Nomani, Maajid Nawaz, Maryam Namazie—all Muslims or former Muslims who have risked their lives to challenge theocratic authoritarianism—are smeared and de-platformed by Western institutions that claim to champion diversity and women’s rights. Meanwhile, Islamist-linked organizations are presented as “moderate” simply because they parrot progressive slogans about discrimination and colonialism.
The result is perverse: the press defends “inclusion” by excluding the very Muslims who embody the Enlightenment values it pretends to uphold. The alliance between the Western Left and Islamists—united only by a shared hostility toward the West—has produced a grotesque inversion of moral order. It strengthens fascists abroad, fuels anti-Muslim bigotry at home, and silences the people most deserving of our solidarity.
To oppose Islamofascism is not Islamophobia. It is an act of loyalty to universal human liberty—and to the countless Muslims who have suffered under the regimes and movements the West still dares not name.