The Ideological Convergence
The Hamas attack of October 7 and the war that followed stripped away the last comforting illusions about the West’s political landscape. For years, observers cautiously noted growing sympathies between segments of the Western Left and Islamist movements, often hesitant to articulate the depth of the phenomenon. October 7 changed that.
What unfolded in streets, universities, and cultural institutions revealed an unmistakable alignment - a convergence rooted in shared antagonism toward the political, cultural, and civilizational foundations of the West. The reactions were swift, coordinated, and ideologically consistent. Movements that once claimed to champion secularism, gender equality, and individual rights began echoing the slogans of actors committed to opposing principles. Some rationalizations for the massacre were openly celebratory; others were cloaked in pseudo-academic language about “resistance.” This was not accidental. It was structural.
The convergence stems from each side’s view of the West. For the postmodern radical Left, Western civilization is a system of oppression: capitalism drives inequality, borders exclude, and history records unpunished crimes. Islamist movements, operating from a very different ideological tradition, see the West as a rival civilization whose structures must be dismantled. On nearly every substantive matter, they diverge but their shared desire to weaken the Western order unites them. Strategy, not philosophy, drives this alliance.
Practical Consequences
The effects of this alliance are tangible. Mass immigration illustrates the dynamic in practice. The Left promotes migration as a humanitarian imperative, but its political impact, noted in left-wing strategic literature, is the erosion of cohesive national identities. Islamist actors, in turn, see demographic and cultural shifts as opportunities to extend influence into societies they view as spiritually weakened. What appears altruistic is, in reality, a mechanism of structural change with long-term consequences.
The Left’s attack on national sovereignty follows a similar pattern. Borders are recast as oppressive, and the state’s role in maintaining civic order is framed as moral failure. Islamist movements, conversely, enforce strict borders and moral homogeneity at home. Their support for border dissolution in the West is strategic: weakening state authority opens space for alternative communal structures - religious, political, or cultural - to take root. The Left applauds the weakening; Islamists exploit the opportunity.
Academia, too, has become a battleground. Under the banner of decolonization, entire intellectual traditions are dismissed based on origin rather than merit. Empirical evaluation is sidelined. Islamist thinkers have long argued that Western achievements mask cultural decay. The Left’s critique of the canon erodes intellectual confidence from within. A civilization that doubts its own principles becomes incapable of defending them, and they know it.
Historical Lessons and the Path Forward
Nowhere is this synthesis more visible than in Bosnia and Herzegovina, my birthplace. Bosnia demonstrates how ideologically incompatible elements can function symbiotically. Persistent Yugoslav leftist nostalgia coexists with Islamist-leaning elites, creating a hybrid system neither fully secular nor genuinely religious. Institutions are hollowed out. Civic neutrality is undermined. Political culture thrives on invoking either socialist nostalgia or religious grievance. Western societies witnessed a similar convergence after October 7; Bosnia has experienced it for decades.
History offers stark warnings. Iran in 1979 shows how leftist revolutionaries, believing themselves midwives of liberation, were swiftly sidelined once Islamists consolidated power. Their utility ended, and so did their influence. The Gaza war did not create this partnership; it forced recognition. The West now faces a coalition united by the desire to delegitimize the present. They share methods - destabilize, fracture, demoralize - even if their visions for the future diverge.
Those on the Left who value social justice, material dignity, and democratic accountability, and who do not harbor reflexive hostility toward Western civilization, must confront what their movement has become. Reclaiming leftism requires a decisive break from the nihilistic impulse that treats Western institutions as inherently illegitimate. It demands ending alliances that subordinate democratic principles to anti-Western resentment.
A politically relevant, morally coherent Left must embrace universal civic equality, secular governance, national responsibility, and institutional reform, not demolition. Failure to do so betrays its intellectual lineage and risks empowering forces with no intention of sharing power once the existing order collapses.
Damir Omerbegović
Writer | Commentator
