ISIS Progressive Credentials In Doubt Amid Silence On Castro Death

Longtime alliances among governments promoting progressive values such as Iran, Libya, Venezuela, and Russia had led the progressive community to expect that at least some expression of solidarity might be forthcoming.

Raqqa, November 28 – Liberal thinkers and politicians voiced unease this week over the fact that several days after the death of Cuban leader Fidel Castro, the Islamic State has not issued any official statement of mourning or condolences for that icon of progressive policies and ideology.

Castro died at the age of 90 on Friday, eight years after relinquishing the presidency of Communist Cuba to his brother Raul and nearly six decades after leading a revolution and takeover of the island nation that then saw him and his allies implement progressive reforms perfectly congruent with many of the Islamic State’s own agenda: public executions, destruction of ideologically problematic institutions, and imposition of ideologically pure principles on the population. The longtime alliances among governments promoting such progressive values, such as Iran, Libya, Venezuela, and Russia, had led the progressive community to expect that at least some expression of solidarity might be forthcoming from the Islamic State on the occasion of Castro’s passing, but that has not occurred, leading some in the progressive community to wonder whether Daesh should still be considered a member in good standing of that community.

The lack of such a statement, say analysts, has begun to expose rifts among progressives. “We all rail against Western imperialist ‘intervention’ against the Islamic State, because the people of that nation have the right to live out their Islamic values without answering to Washington,” explained Judith Butler, a professor at New York University who has focused on progressive organizations such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and Daesh itself. “But the solidarity has to go both ways. Some of us find it disturbing that we mourn the misfortunes suffered by our friends on the Global Left who are struggling to shake the yoke of Western oppression, but we hear not a peep from some progressive quarters when the movement loses such a giant as Comrade Fidel.”

Others rushed to defend Daesh. “It would be improper and culturally insensitive to demand that our Islamic brethren in the progressive cause adopt our notions of what is proper protocol,” insisted UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. “I would never presume to tell my friends in Hamas and Hezbollah how to acknowledge the passing of one of the greatest men of the twentieth century – of all time, one might argue. Fidel and Daesh are brothers in arms against American-led, Jew Zionist-funded efforts to subjugate the world and rape it, and it constitutes the heights of hypocrisy to imply that Daesh does anything wrong by not putting out some condolence message when they are extremely busy trying to subjugate the world and rape it in the name of a progressive cause.”

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