Simplicities on religion and politics

To point to simplifications in a piece by Seumas Milne is like pointing to pickles in a pickle jar, but from some of them - the simplifications, not the pickles - instruction may still be had. In his latest column, Milne has fixed on a grand way of putting into alignment two separate contemporary debates: one about religion, militant atheism, that sort of thing; one about Iraq, the war on terror, that sort of thing. The militantly atheistic today, according to him, are the same ones as, loosely speaking, the political hawks:

[T]he anti-religious evangelists are increasingly using atheism as a banner for the defence of the global liberal capitalist order and the wars fought since 2001 to assert its dominance.

Grand but too simple; and, consequently, false. Even amongst the 'anti-religious evangelists' whom Milne himself identifies by name you will be able to spot without difficulty that the positions of Christopher Hitchens on hawk-related issues have not been the same as those of Richard Dawkins. Equally, there are plenty of atheists - and I'm one of them - who have found themselves on the same side as Hitch over Iraq and Islamist terrorism, but who are not of the 'religion poisons everything' school of thought. We know it to be historically untrue and to be an insult to untold numbers of good people of faith.

What is the instruction that is to be had from this? It's something indirect. Milne here sets himself up as a spokesman for putatively progressive strands within religion. Liberals and leftists who spend their time badmouthing religion and the religious in general should take note. His 'progressivism' is of the spurious Guardianista type that finds itself able to 'understand' the most reactionary movements and the most murderous methods as being merely symptoms of justified grievance and legitimate aspiration. Atheists and humanists of the liberal-left who try to defend its more authentic values should not concede this terrain - the terrain of working and talking together with people of all faiths who share similar values - to the Seumas Milnes of this world. It is a mistake that has been made too often before, conceding to the representatives of political reaction concepts, values and practical initiatives which are important.