What would a genuinely leftist movement against oppression and poverty look like? First of all, it would be a movement of the oppressed, a mobilization of men and women, previously passive, inarticulate, and frightened, now able to speak for themselves and defend their human rights. Second, its aim would be the liberation or, better, the self-emancipation of those same people. And its driving force would be a vision, no doubt partially shaped by the local culture, of a new society whose members, men and women alike, would be more free and more equal and whose government would be responsive and accountable. That’s not an unusual description of left aspiration. So it’s a mystery that anyone anywhere can seriously believe that any Islamist group belongs to the global, or any other, left.
How should the left respond to those Islamist groups—assuming, as I believe, that a critical response is necessary? I am not going to consider military responses here. There is an international brigade of Islamist zealots fighting in Iraq and Syria, but there is no chance of recruiting an international brigade of leftist fighters, so there is no point thinking about where we might send them. Leftists will have to support (though many won’t) military efforts specifically aimed at stopping the massacre of infidels and heretics. After that, I am more inclined to consider a policy focused on the containment of Islamism rather than a war (or a series of wars) to destroy it. This is a fever that will have to burn itself out. But there is a deep difficulty with this view: many people will suffer in the burning, and leftists ignore that suffering at our moral peril. How to help those who are targeted by Islamist forces is a question that we will have to address again and again.
(Michael Walzer, "Islamism and the Left," Dissent 62 [winter 2015]: 107-17, at 115 [italics in original])
