An anti-islamist intelligentsia?

It seems like you can wait ages to spend an evening with a Conservative MP and then two chances come along at once.

We'd been invited to hear the Shadow Minister for the Environment, Peter Ainsworth MP speak on things environmental at a Wandsworth Tory event - and we'd fully intended to go. I knew I was going to spend the evening spitting and fuming about how the Conservative party has adopeted the pseud-scientific mantras of environmentalism. (Don't get me wrong, I like nature - I just think there are greater threats to human health and the environment in Britian than global warming.) But we would have been in the company of people we know and like, so it wouldn't have been awful.

But then the Vol-in-Law was invited to hear Michael Gove, MP speak at a New Culture Forum event “Are we seeing the emergence of a new anti-Islamist intelligentsia?”at Portcullis House (the parliamentary office building). And it's not that we're ruthless social climbers or the kind of people who'll stand you up for a better offer, but well it just sounded like a swankier and possibly more interesting event.

Unalloyed gushing
And it was. First, let me gush a little bit about the venue - as a girl who went to Lawrence County High School is allowed to do (so do bear with me or, if you must, skip down a few paragraphs). Portcullis House is a fabulous building - one of those places that firmly demonstrates that you can have wonderful modernist architecture so long as you a) follow the laws of physics and b) use predominantly traditional building materials (e.g. oak and stone).

And the building was filled with celebrities. Celebrities of the political sort of course, but none of whom I recognised. (The Vol-in-Law mocks my statement If London's so full of celebrities, how come I never see any? It's true, I recognise no one. The only celeb I've ever spotted on my own was because I recognised his voice first.)

But we saw, for example, Helena Kennedy QC ( the ViL says she's done more to destroy life in Britain than almost anyone else) and David Trimble, former leader of the Ulster Unionist Party who looks remarkably healthier and younger in real life now that the burdens of Northern Irish political leadership have been forcibly removed.

And finally, the wine. I know this is cheesy, but I was impressed. The wine served at Portcullis House - was House Wine - House of Commons wine - with its own specialty label including the seal of the House of Commons. I'm a sucker for a visual pun. The wine itself - well, I didn't indulge as I'm pregnant, but I definitely had to sample it - and it tasted much as you might expect Government wine to taste.

Anti-islamism on the Left?
But on to the topic itself, Michael Gove is the author of Celsius 7/7 an analysis of Islamism and how this came to manifest itself so violently in Britain just over a year ago. A sample of Amazon UK review comments:

It is a well reasoned attempt to show the historical roots of Islamic totalitarianism from Maulana Maududi, Sayyid Qutb and Hassan al Banna, all the way through to their modern incarnation of Al Qaeda and other Jihadist groups.

Gove's is a clarion call to all of us to defend liberty and rationality. Unless we do this, we may well find ourselves heading rapidly towards a time of repression by religiously motivated totalitarian ideologues.

Although a Conservative politician, Michael Gove concentrated on the emergence of a "new" anti-Islamist intelligentsia on the left. Partly, this is because there is little intelligentsia on the right (in the UK) and partly because the non-Islamic ideological support for Islamism and Islamic politcal aims has come recently most strongly from the Left. Gove says, yes - there is an emergence of anti-Islamist thought and voice on the Left - and he feels that it will be as powerful and important the condemnation of Soviet socialism in Europe by Left-liberals was during the cold war and in the collapse of communism. And Gove highlights a few key thinkers to support his argument. Daniel Johnson, also at the event, writes:

...the most prominent voices now being heard in protest against the scandalous alliance of the Left with Islamo-fascism are themselves for the most part intellectuals withimpeccable Left-liberal credentials. Gove singled out the journalists Nick Cohen(whose book What’s Left? How the Liberals Lost Their Way chronicles the Left’s great self-betrayal), David Aaronovich (who defected from the Guardian to the Times of London), and Christopher Hitchens, who needs no introduction for American readers. Nick Cohen is also a leading light among the group of liberal academics and writers who last year signed the Euston Manifesto, distancing themselves from the Leftist consensus.

For me, an unapologetic Liberal (more classical liberal) and still romantically attached to the Left, it's always seemed more shocking to me that the Left has aligned itself to a clearly backwards ideology. Yusuf Al Qaradawi - Islamist imam - was described by London Mayor Ken Livingstone as a force for progressivism. Yes, if by progressive you mean stoning gays and beating and covering women. I'm less interested in why a few voices on the Left are speaking up but in why so many have submitted to Islamism and so many more remain quiet.

Michael Gove almost seems to clutch at straws in a way. Who cares about a few Guardianista journalists (who like Nick Cohen might easily be dismissed as being Joo-ish Zionists anyway - so rife is anti-semitism these days)? So what that a few novelists like Ian McEwan or Martin Amis or even Salman Rushdie (who might be accused of still being peevish over the whole fatwa thing) are speaking out? Though I've got to admit they do it cleverly (again via Daniel Johnson).

Amis even describes himself as an “Islamismophobe,” but the real objects of his hatred are the “middle-class white demonstrators last August waddling around under placards saying ‘We Are All Hizbollah Now.’” As he observes, “People of liberal sympathies, stupefied by relativism, have become the apologists for a creedal wave that is racist, misogynist, homophobic, imperialist, and genocidal. To put it another way, they are up the arse of those that want them dead.”

So now I'm also interested in the question - what can those on the Right do? The American Right has funded intellectual pursuits through think-tanks, Chairs and fellowships and has managed to fundamentally shift the debate. There is plenty of intellectual fodder there. Unfortunately, I cannot subscribe to the position of the American Right - for me it's often too closely aligned theocracy and the very anti-progressive views that I despise in Islamism. And while I find the optimism of neo-conservatism appealing - everyone wants democracy - everyone wants to be "free" - I don't find this view supported in reality. Not everyone wants democracy - Islamists for example believe that it's absolutely antithetical to Islam.

So I guess my question is - what can those on the British Right do? - particularly those who follow the Thatcher view that as Conservative you'll be alright so long as you follow the principles of "Liberty under Law". How can they develop cogent and powerful arguments to support the maintenance of a liberal society in the face of those who seek to impose Sharia - not just abroad - but here in Europe - and in contravention to those who would support them through ignorance or mischief.