There has been some confusion over who I am or what my intentions are on this website. I have been a proud left-winger since I was 16 years old, when I was first introduced to the works of Noam Chomsky. I believe in multiculturalism and racial/ethnic/religious/non-religious equality. I am not an Islamophobe, as some people have misunderstood me to be. Not wanting to reveal my religious faith (or lack thereof), I actually have a lot of admiration and respect for the faith of Islam and its founder; and have studied it for many years.
And by study, I don't mean that I have read Robert Spencer or Daniel Pipes's books; but books written by real scholars of the religion; scholars such as Khaled Abou El Fadl, Tariq Ramadan, Amina Wadud, etc: people who obviously have a sympathetic bias toward Islam, but who nonetheless try to be fair and accurate in their research.
I chose the name "Leftist Dhimmi" for satirical purposes. This seems to have been misunderstood by most people who I have commented on my first article, as an insult toward liberals and Muslims. Let me explain. One of the most popular beliefs of Islamophobes is that there is a "Leftist-Islamic Alliance" to "destroy America"; i.e. their right-wing Utopian vision of what America "should" be. Mind you, this is exactly what Judeophobes said about Jews and Communists; i.e. Judaism and Marxism were two wings of the same diabolical force attempting to destroy "true" Germany, "true" Russia, "true" America, etc. This shouldn't come as a surprise, considering that most Islamophobes are also Antisemitic toward Jews.
For Islamophobes, this conspiracy-theory has a double-meaning. In their beer and pork rind cluttered minds, they have conjured up the idea that "the Left" has willingly made themselves subservient to the "future Muslim Overlords", and are thus "dhimmis." A "dhimmi" in classical Islamic jurisprudence, was a non-Muslim with a "protected" status in an "Islamic State."
This meant that they were a citizen of the State, and had certain rights that the State could not infringe upon. But since "power corrupts absolutely", many of the Muslim scholars came to believe that since their countries were "Islamic States", then the non-Muslim minorities should be second-class citizens. Thus, if this old system were translated into a modern secular America, it would be really oppressive.
But in its time and place, this wasn't any worse than how non-Christian minorities fared in European Christian Empires, and in fact the "dhimmi" had more rights in many Muslim States than non-Christian minorities had in most European Christian States. But the Islamophobes ignore this nuance, and translate the "dhimmi" status to modern times and say, "this is what the Muslims want to do to us! We must fight!"
So when they say that "the Left" has willingly allowed themselves to become "dhimmis", they mean that liberals have made some backroom deal with "the Muslims" to be given rights as second-class citizens whenever this supposed "Muslim takeover" is supposed to take place.
To demonstrate how the two hateful ideologies are linked, one can look at how the Talmud is discussed in Antisemitic polemics. Since many Judeophobes are "Christians", they can't condemn the Bible, even the "Jewish" portion of the book, because that would be tantamount to "denying God's revelations." So in order to bash Judaism, they chose the Talmud, or the "Oral Law", the ancient Rabbinical commentary of the Torah and the rest of the Hebrew Bible.
Sometimes these bigots even refer to the "evil Jews" as "Talmudists" or "Talmudist Jews" to somehow make a "distinction" between their boogeyman conjuration of the "Evil Jew", and the "good Jews" (the ones who agree with them, of course.)
This same tactic is applied by Islamophobes to Muslims. So you will hear some people who pretend that they're not bigots, say things like; "I don't hate all Muslims. I'm just against the ones who believe in Sharia." "Sharia", being the replacement word for "Talmud." Of course, what they don't know, or do know and practice willful deceit, is that any Muslim who does so much as pray, read the Qur'an, or go to the Mosque (even if only once) is practicing some form of "Shariah." So, they are effectively saying that all Muslims, even "nominal" ones, are the "enemy within"; but they cloak it under this deceitful "distinction."
So when you have someone like David Yerushlami, who is the author of various anti-Shariah bills, say that any Muslim who "advocates Shariah" (and remember, simply praying in a mosque or even in the privacy of your own home can be an act of 'following Shariah') be imprisoned, convicted of treason, etc; he is referring to all Muslims, but is using deceitful language to make it seem like it's "not so bad."
SANE also proposed legislation that furthering or supporting adherence to Shari’a “shall be a felony punishable by 20 years in prison.” It called on Congress to declare war on the “Muslim nation,” which it defined as “Shari’a-adherent Muslims,” and further asked Congress to define Muslim illegal immigrants as alien enemies “subject to immediate deportation.
Another similarity between Judeophobia and Islamophobia, is the belief that "the Jew/Muslim" has a
religious obligation to "lie" to the "Goy/Infidel" about his/her faith. So if a Jew or Muslim says, "Judaism/Islam is a peaceful faith", the faithful Judeophobe/Islamophobe is supposed to believe the inverse of that phrase; "Judaism/Islam is a
violent faith."
But this purported "religious deception" curiously only works one way; whenever Jews/Muslims say something good. For example, if a Jew/Muslim said, "Judaism/Islam commands that we kill all of you infidels", the faithful Judeophobe/Islamophobe does not think the opposite, but accepts what the "evil Jew/Muslim" says on face value; which is quite "curious" considering that "the Jew/Muslim means the opposite of what they say."
It was for this reason why I decided on the name, Leftist Dhimmi; to throw the name back in their faces.
When I posted by article about Eric Allen Bell, I did not know the extent of how much he abused this website. I knew little of him other than that he was a film-maker who made a mediocre documentary about the bigoted backlash of many citizens of Mufreesboro, Tennessee toward their Muslim neighbors wanting to expand their mosque; and that he suddenly made a hard right turn into radical Islamophobia, for which he was voted off as a diarist because this is a left-leaning website.
I did not know that he and/or his disciples were creating sock-puppet accounts pretending to be critics of his work, all the while stealthily promoting his ideology.
The only reason why I posted links to his website and blog, was because as a researcher, I got into the habit of always sourcing my material; even if I vehemently disagreed with said material. If I write something, and it has no sources, it feels wrong. I don't want a reader to think that I am just making stuff up, so I feel the need to post a direct link or reference to the source itself, so that they can see it for themselves.
I hope that has cleared some things up.
Best Regards,
LD