The Berlin Pride attack should be a wake-up call for the left on Islam

During the vibrant and colourful celebration of Berlin’s Christopher Street Day on 25 July, one of Europe’s largest LGBTQ Pride events, darkness descended when a 21-year-old Muslim extremist wielding a van and a blade unleashed terror upon people celebrating love, diversity, and equality. As he careened through the festivities, unabated chaos erupted, leaving one person dead and 29 others injured. All this was done in the name of asserting an Islamic morality that rejects homosexuality in plain but horrific terms.

In the wake of this tragedy, it was both inspiring and heartwarming to witness the overwhelming support for the LGBTQ community, along with strong condemnations of the attacks. It didn’t take long for Berlin police to have the suspect in custody; it was a clean, open and shut case. However, and as usual, this major investigative success was followed by excuses from some on the liberal left, desperate to show that the attack had nothing to do with Islam.

The perpetrator of this horrific incident was named Abdul Ballout. Born in Germany to Lebanese parents, his journey took a dark turn when, last year, he attempted to travel to Lebanon with the intent of reaching Syria and joining the ranks of ISIS. His aspirations were thwarted when he was arrested in Lebanon, where he was imprisoned for three months for ‘incitement to religious and sectarian conflict’.

Nevertheless, legitimate concerns about the ideology that inspired Ballout were hastily deemed by some as ‘Islamophobic’, ‘racist’, etc. Some were quick to point out that while this may indeed have been an Islamist terror attack, it had no relation to Islam in itself, as a faith practised by a vast number of people around the globe. Thus, the discussion about what drove Abdul Ballout to carry out his vicious attack on the LGBTQ community has been narrowed, and his true inspiration obfuscated.

This horrific incident is reminiscent of the gay nightclub shooting in Orlando in 2016, which claimed 49 innocent people. It was carried out by Omer Mateen, who reportedly phoned emergency services during the attack and pledged allegiance to ISIS. The Islamic State, which claims to have resurrected the 7th-century Islamic caliphate, later accepted responsibility for the heinous attack. Evidently, Islamic homophobia was the motive behind this brutal and senseless slaughter of innocent people. However, the knee-jerk reaction of much of the Western left was exactly the same then as now: denial, what-aboutery, and the brushing of uncomfortable realities under the carpet. This has long, and sadly, been the predictable reaction of much of the Western left to Islamic terrorism.

As a matter of principle, one should not be labelled a bigot for seeking to understand the most pernicious current form of homophobia, which stems from Islam itself.

Eleven Muslim-majority countries have some form of the death penalty for homosexuality, and even where it is not actively carried out (and in many other countries lacking a death penalty), torture, harassment, and imprisonment for LGBTQ individuals is the norm. These severe and inhumane penalties are derived from mainstream interpretations of Sharia, where homosexuality is viewed as a grave sin. Medieval methods, including public hanging and stoning, are standard procedures in some countries to punish those who are deemed to exceed the limits determined by the merciful Allah. In pretty much all Islamic-majority countries, overt dehumanisation of LGBTQ people, based on Sharia, incites prejudice and, in the worst cases, mob aggression against them.

Is it too much to ask for a consistent and rigorous scrutiny of Islamic homophobia just as we mete out to all other nefarious ideologies in free democratic Western societies?

The inhumane beliefs about LGBTQ people in Muslim countries have taken root in the West within many Muslim communities. This is not to say that non-Islamic homophobia does not exist in the West. However, it is disingenuous for the Western left to consistently expose and condemn Christian and other forms of homophobia while conflating any mention of Islamic homophobia with anti-Muslim bigotry (or distancing such homophobia from Islam itself by blaming it on ‘Islamism’). Too many on the Western left see criticism of Islamic homophobia as ipso facto ‘racism’/‘Islamophobia’.

While any form of bigotry against people is unacceptable, we must distinguish between discriminatory beliefs and Muslims as people. Criticising appalling homophobic religious beliefs and the actions inspired by them is not bigotry; rather, it sheds light on the rampant discrimination faced by sexual and gender minorities within the broader Muslim/immigrant minority community (and, of course, the rest of society) who are in dire need of support and unconditional solidarity.

A Muslim extremist intentionally drives a van into a vibrant Berlin Pride parade, leading to horrific injuries and a tragic loss of life. This was an Islamic attack on a minority—and on Western liberal values. Yet, much of the Western media chose to embrace tepid interpretations of the attack. Even after investigators had revealed Ballout’s links to Islamic extremism, much of the media was reluctant to state the motive explicitly—something they don’t tend to do when the attacker is clearly a neo-Nazi. Meanwhile, much of the Western left decided that the problem wasn’t Islamic homophobia but, rather, that the attack might shore up support for the far-right Alternative für Deutschland party and warned that ‘LGBTI people must not be instrumentalized to spread hatred against others’ (that quote comes from someone who is, as it happens, a self-identified member of the LGBTQ community themselves!).

From the Satanic Verses fatwa to 11 September 2001, Jyllands-Posten, Theo van Gogh, Charlie Hebdo, Lee Rigby, the Manchester Arena, Samuel Paty, and now Berlin, Western society seems not to have made any progress in addressing the ideology behind all these crimes. Instead, obfuscation and (self)censorship prevail. Extremist Muslims decapitate heads; spineless liberals bury them.

The threat posed by radical Islam can never be dealt with if the existence of the danger is blatantly and persistently denied. Islam, like Christianity and Judaism, encompasses a diverse range of beliefs and perspectives on social issues, including LGBTQ rights. But unlike Christianity and Judaism, Islamic homophobia is often excused away. Until all this changes, horrific events like Berlin will be the norm.

Equally, blaming Muslims for the actions of a few is not the solution. In any modern Western democracy, individuals should not bear the burden of crime by mere affiliation or shared religious identity. But sensible discourse around the deleterious consequences of Islam has never been about Muslims as people being responsible for terrorism committed by some individuals.

Legitimate criticism of Islam centres on the aspects of the religion that can lead some individuals to commit terrible acts in the name of upholding certain problematic Islamic beliefs. It is imperative that we honestly engage with the realities of Islamic ideology rather than oversimplifying or whitewashing it.

I agree that we must never allow nefarious elements to use this tragedy as a pretext for fostering hatred against migrants, foreigners, or Muslim communities. However, we also need to realise that for far too long, a rational dialogue about the sinister impact of radical Islamic ideology has been absent from mainstream public discourse. Too many Western liberals have long infantilised Muslims as fragile, in need of protection from critical analysis. This is condescending, especially when Christians, for example, are seen as resilient enough to withstand all kinds of critique, even outright mockery and contempt, of their beliefs.

Islam is a set of ideas and should be treated like any other religion. While Islam is diverse, it contains certain aspects that are inherently discriminatory, unjust, and misogynistic—even if, thankfully, the majority of Muslims do not adhere to these aspects (at least not in a fundamentalist manner). They are law-abiding people who go about their lives like everybody else. This distinction is crucial and should be firmly maintained. It is, in fact, a form of anti-Muslim bigotry to equate the legitimate criticism of harmful, discriminatory, homophobic, and anti-Semitic beliefs ingrained in certain interpretations of Islam with Muslims as individuals.

I hope that this latest evil attack on innocents in Berlin will be a wake-up call for the left, and Western society more broadly, on Islam. And I hope that this is the last time an article like this will have to be written. Sadly, I doubt it will be.

The preacherman-o-sphere: the religious misogynists exploiting our charity sector, by Megan Manson

The problem with ‘Islamophobia’, by Mark Lilly

Charlie Hebdo: An open letter to the free world from a freethinker, by Khadija Khan

The radicalisation of young Muslims in the UK: an ongoing problem? by Khadija Khan

Islamic identity politics is a threat to British democracy, by Khadija Khan

Salwan Momika and the right to burn books, by Noel Yaxley

Storm over a tea-cup? The ‘Mug-Gate’ teacher speaks out, by Matt Lovell

Three years on, the lessons of Batley are yet to be learned, by Jack Rivington

10 years since the Charlie Hebdo attack: a message from the Freethinker, by Daniel James Sharp

Rushdie’s victory, by Daniel James Sharp

The Satanic Verses; free speech in the Freethinker, by Emma Park

Confronting identity politics, a breeding ground for division and dehumanisation, by Maryam Namazie

Islam and free speech, 20 years on from Jyllands-Posten: interview with Jacob Mchangama, by Daniel James Sharp

The need to rekindle irreverence for Islam in Muslim thought, by Kunwar Khuldune Shahid