The most profound, fundamental ideological paradox I have come across is no doubt Michel Foucault supporting the Islamic revolution in Iran. I cannot emphasise enough my amazement. Foucault is God in Swedish academia, not a prophet but God the Father Himself. In the social sciences, he is the one who paved the way for critical thinking about how language shapes our social practices, how power oppresses those who deviate with its norms of normality and mechanisms of exclusion. Foucault is the father of postmodern thought and discourse analysis. Every student who aspires to higher education must grasp his importance and take his ideas into account. It is inconceivable to criticise him in the academic world.

Yet he supported the Islamic Revolution and Khomeini, who practiced exactly what Foucault criticised so brilliantly: the violent exercise of power against those who deviate from the norm. I do not understand it but live daily with his legacy: the leftist-radical students who are alert to gender and discrimination, who feel a great need to register protests against me and my teaching in every instructional setting I teach critically about Islam. They take “the Other” in their defence, this unknown Other, the non-Westerner who is irreproachable in the academic world.

I call the legacy of Foucault the halal hippie paradox. In his eagerness to critically question the modern Western project, the history of colonialism and the oppression of “the Other”, the halal hippie is keen to embrace the Other wholeheartedly, without understanding that this cherished Other can exercise exactly the same mechanisms of oppression, albeit only within its own group. Halal hippie tendencies are overrepresented in the political left.

Now there are of course more nuances and problems associated with Foucault’s choice than presenting it as simplistically as I just did. There are elements of revolutionary romanticism and delight in challenging the West’s claims to the truth, and perhaps an awareness that the biggest brains behind the revolution were influenced by leftist ideologies. But at heart I believe that Foucault’s – and therefore the halal hippie’s – view of Muslims and Islam as a political ideology encompasses, along with naïveté, a disdain for what these Muslims themselves say Islam really is. That is because people have seldom taken the pains to find out what this is.

If Islam is considered an ideological battlefield, the most prominent players in this arena completely ignore how Muslims themselves define Islam. If we start with the left, they seem to be driven by the idea that Muslims are “the oppressed Other”, for whom the battle should be fought. This kind of thinking has inspired a number of anti-fascist action groups, for instance, to support the fight by the most reactionary Islamic groups in Rosengård, a neighbourhood in Malmö with a high concentration of immigrants, when the premises for an Islamist meeting place were not renewed in December 2008 – quite in keeping with the law, incidentally. This left did not realise that perhaps the most anti-fascist thing that happened in Rosengård was the closing of this very basement mosque. (See Fredrik Ekelund’s astute article “Våldspakt satte Rosengård i brand” [‘Violence pact set Rosengård alight’], Axess no. 2, 2010.)

These AFA groups do not understand that Muslims neither belong to nor even sympathise with the working class, but are either unemployed or self-employed. Don’t they know that Muslims long ago replaced Das Kapital with the Koran on their bookshelves? One piece of evidence indicating that Muslims themselves do not welcome the West is that residents of Rosengård went from house to house and drove off the group “Reclaim the Street” when it started up actions in the neighbourhood on the first day of Ramadan, the month of fasting – a month that is supposed to be characterised by peace and tranquillity according to the Muslim faith. Talk about showing ignorance of the oppressed Other and their reality.

I would argue that this characteristic is particularly evident in the most vocal spokesperson on the issue of Islam today: Andreas Malm. I have called Malm’s attitude to Muslims neo-colonialist, and of course realise I could hardly have chosen a crueller term of abuse for him. I interpret his description of Muslims as being superior and paternalistic, which is manifested when he casts aspersions on Ayaan Hirsi Ali and her devastating criticism of Islam and declares her incompetent. In his book Hatet mot muslimer [‘Hatred against Muslims’] (2009), he complains about Muslim women who choose to criticise the Islamic oppression of women from Western, right-wing liberal positions. He wonders why they do not express their criticism within the framework of “Muslim feminism”, the feminism that critics call “the art of the possible”.

In a debate on Islamophobia in Malmö on 1 June, 2009, he clarified his position in view of my criticism: he would prefer that these women had chosen a socialist feminism instead of a Muslim feminism. But then why don’t they do that? The answer is that these Muslim freethinking women do not want to, because this is not in agreement with their ideological conviction. Socialism has long been dead as a political idea in the Muslim world. Is it so difficult to grasp what Muslims actually think and believe?

But the left, of course, is not united on this issue. In Britain, the group behind the Euston manifesto questioned how this “multiculti left”, without thinking critically, can back every group as long as it is against the US and Israel. During the Malmö Islamophobia debate, a question was asked in the audience. The man introduced himself as Mikael Wiehe and modestly asked whether it was not a fundamental problem that certain groups (read Muslims) think power comes from God, and not the people, which is the basic view of the left. Malm arrogantly dismissed the question as irrelevant, because it was not about this ideological difference at all but about discrimination against Muslims, he argued. Malm had claimed previously that he supports Hezbollah, since a victory for them “produces the most desirable result”. (Malm in Expressen: “Därför ska vi stödja Hizbollah” [‘That’s why I’ll support Hezbollah’], 1 August, 2006). At the same time, Malm wore a shirt that supported the Marxist-Leninist group the People’s Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) during the debate, a view the same Hezbollah supporters could have killed him for.

I cannot help but think that this is an unholy alliance, where one party – the left – comfortably chooses to ignore the other party’s genuine views. Perhaps they should themselves say that they are only doing so out of sheer pragmatism, but I see this as an expression of superiority manifested in an unwillingness to consider the other party as an equal in discussions, where they iron out their political and ideological differences.

But if we are to continue on the subject of Malm, it is interesting to note that those he most angrily accuses of spreading Islamophobia are not xenophobic groups, but rather liberals in general and especially those who express their views in Expressen’s cultural review section. These liberals are “weather makers in a Europe where the skies always look darker for Muslims” (Malm in Aftonbladet, “Liberal hetsjakt på svenska muslimer” [‘Liberal witch-hunt against Swedish Muslims’], 17 December, 2009). So what do the liberals say?

Liberals place individual freedom at the centre. Liberal critics argue that if the Islamists’ interpretation of Islam is given more and more space in a multicultural society, there will be a problem if the consequence is that the human rights of the Muslim minority are disregarded. The politician who has advanced this sort of argument most succinctly is Nyamko Sabuni, and I would choose her as a better example of this policy than the writers in Expressen’s cultural review section. To criticise the homophobia and patriarchal values of Islamists, for instance, is to stand up for other Muslims against internal oppression – that is the liberal approach.

In her book Flickorna vi sviker [‘The Girls We Disappoint’], Sabuni presents ten “proposals for freedom for girls from honour cultures”. The book is a telling example of Swedish liberal policy vis-à-vis Islam today. Sabuni insists that the term “honour violence” be included in the Penal Code, that the State stop financing religious private schools, that an age limit be introduced for wearing a veil, that gynaecological examinations of girls be compulsory to ensure that they have not been subjected to genital mutilation, and that forced and child marriages be criminalised. These are not explicitly directed at Muslims, but a picture is indirectly painted of a specific problem that can only be found in “the Other”. Critics argue that such proposals create Islamophobia and reinforce the myth of Swedes as splendidly egalitarian.

I do not share Malm’s view that liberals are the ones spreading Islamophobia. However, their descriptions of Muslims may lead to one not seeing what a heterogeneous group they are. There is potential for change, and there are progressive interpretations of the religion – they are not common but they do exist – that defend homosexuality and women’s right to equality. Ijtihad, or new interpretation, is a call for reform that has been part of the history of Islam for centuries and is nothing the lesbian Muslim journalist Irshad Manji came up with in her own book Det muslimska problemet [‘The Muslim Problem’] (2008) when she launched “Operation Ijtihad”. If my objection to the left is that they do not see how conservative and reactionary Muslims are, then my objection to liberals is the opposite: many fail to see that there are progressive Muslims who favour reform. At the same time, the problem must be addressed of liberals not being able to discuss the culture or religion of certain groups without routinely being accused of having an “us and them mentality”.

In their fight to save Muslims from their own oppression, liberals have wound up with Islamists on an ideological collision course with their basic ideological foundations. Liberalism has a problem with faiths that include the violation of individual rights. The clearest example involves the full facial veil, sometimes called a burka, sometimes a niqab in the debate. Women’s human rights clash with the idea of them covering their face, according to liberalism. Should they be forbidden in that case and thus have their personal freedom violated? Sabuni’s proposals mentioned above are imbued with bans and “tougher measures”. How do such prohibitions square with liberal values?

But interestingly, it is female Islamists who maintain their right to cover their face in a similar ideological paradox. In their eagerness to vindicate their choice, they must invoke liberalism and claim that they have made a free, independent choice. They must refer to the ideal of freedom, tolerance, equal treatment and non-discrimination, while it is easy to show how their interpretation of Islam is exactly the opposite: unfree, intolerant and a basis for unequal treatment and discrimination between the sexes. The fact that they have based their argument on liberal values in order to demand the right to wear a full facial veil does not tally well with their “real” ideal.

We find the same paradox in the debate on human rights. Defenders of Islam seem to get more and more sympathy for the view that Islam, the prophet Muhammed and God Himself should have human rights. These three thus become more holy and inviolable than the freedom of expression and people’s lives; they become superordinate principles. The strangest thing is that it has been possible to express these demands at the highest level at the UN and in Geneva. Giving human rights to Islam clears the way for legitimising violation of actual people’s rights in the event they choose to criticise or “violate” Islam.

Anyone who is unsure whether human rights and liberalism are compatible with Islam can simply study what Islamists say themselves about this. Islamists have formulated “human rights in Islam” in the Cairo Declaration of 1990. Article 2(a) in this declaration states that “Life is a God-given gift and the right to life is guaranteed to every human being. It is the duty of individuals, societies and states to protect this right from any violation, and it is prohibited to take away life except for a Shari’ah-prescribed reason.” So human lives are inviolable unless Islamic law demands otherwise, and most people know that this law includes the death penalty for infidelity and for “apostatising” or abandoning one’s belief in Islam.

Article 22(a) on the freedom of expression and opinions states that “Everyone shall have the right to express his opinion freely in such manner as would not be contrary to the principles of the Shari’ah.” The ultimate restriction on people’s freedom is thus Islamic law. This does not tally well with what is actually intended by human rights. Anyone who still doubts this can read Article 24: “All the rights and freedoms stipulated in this Declaration are subject to the Islamic Shari’ah.”

But there are additional paradoxes on the ideological battlefield that could be called Islam. The most interesting one is that the nationalist Sweden Democrats, which are the only party to position itself as being critical of Islam, does not seem to know either how Muslims interpret their religion. If they did, they would discover a major overlapping of interests and values, for instance in their views of the family, gender relations and deviating sexual dispositions; it is the same traditional conservatism in both camps.

On the Sweden Democrats’ website, people can study their platform of principles. Under the heading “The Family”, one can read:

Since the beginning of humanity, and in essentially every society, the family has been the fundamental unit on which society is based. The relationship between man and woman, and their children, is the necessary condition for harmonious social relations. The family is the heart of society and the very condition for human reproduction, which everywhere constitutes the basis for each nation’s continued existence. The function of the family as the basis for society is a requirement for a functioning society. The family conveys culture and provides upbringing. Men and women were not created the same so they can take different stances in different contexts and do different things in different ways. Men and women complement one another, so every child’s right to a mother and father is of paramount importance.

This formulation is strikingly similar to what is stated under the heading “Family life under Islam” on the Swedish website providing information about Islam, www.islamiska.org:

There are many rules concerning the family and its function, and they are all aimed at creating a functioning, calm, harmonious and loving environment for the new generation of Muslims. Islam sees the husband and his wife as each other’s complement. Neither shall dominate the other. Each has individual rights and obligations – together they build a peaceful, happy family, which constitutes the basis of a healthy, flourishing society. […] In Islam, all people are equal. Men and women are equal, but not identical. In statistical terms, the average man is stronger, heavier more muscular and taller than the average woman. Women can become pregnant and bear children, which men cannot. Men are relatively more rational and less emotional than women, who often think with their heart first.

The family is seen in both camps as a unit in society, where “harmony” is created based on traditional gender roles for the parents. They have a shared view of men and women “complementing” one another in their differences, despite the fact that they are in theory equal. Underlying this is a heteronormative criticism of individuals who choose another lifestyle than the traditional formation of a family. Is it not then ironic that these birds of a feather are each other’s antagonists? One figure who has settled the matter of overlapping values in Islamism and fascism is the anti-Semite and Holocaust denier Mohamed Omar. He recently formed an “anti-Zionist” party in which, according to his own information, he welcomes right-wing extremists, radical Muslims and people from the radical left. His initiative is distasteful but completely logical from an ideological perspective.

An interesting consequence of the xenophobic right rarely realising its solidarity with conservative Islamists is that they are forced to take up ideologically new views in their aim to defend what is “Swedish”. Freedom of expression, sexual rights and other liberal stances are something that must be defended in a debate against the alleged invasion of Islam. In their opposition to Islam, they defend views that are really diametrically opposed to their own ideological skin colour, just as Islamists dressed in burkas defend individual freedom in a paradoxical way.

The election campaign has just begun in Sweden and, to my surprise, the issue of the right of Muslim women to wear a full facial veil emerged as a hot election issue. I do not know whether to laugh or cry over this non-issue garnering so much space. Muslims have much more serious problems, which politicians should devote their time and energy to. Most Muslims, like most Swedes, do not think that the issue of the right to cover one’s face is the most critical from a discrimination perspective. Most Muslims, like anybody else for that matter, seem to think that it is reasonable to ban the veil in certain situations where it can be considered inappropriate. It is not a serious threat to religious freedom in that case. There are many who believe that the possibilities of integration are reduced for purely practical purposes with a face veil. Is this really society’s problem or is it something that the individual who wears a veil must take responsibility for? And is this a hot election issue for ordinary Muslims?

The left is obviously right in arguing that discrimination against Muslims should be given more attention, while liberals are right in highlighting intra-religion oppression. The Sweden Democrats should realise that they have potential voters in other groups besides xenophobic ones. But what all those taking part in the debate on Islam have in common is that they do not pay any attention to the Muslims’ own views.