Katha Pollitt: Ayatollah D'Souza

[from the February 5, 2007 issue]

In his new book, The Enemy at Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11, far-right provocateur Dinesh D'Souza argues that Al Qaeda really does hate our freedoms--and so does he. Forget geopolitics--Israel/Palestine, US military bases in Saudi Arabia, our support for assorted corrupt regimes, Arab socioeconomic stagnation. No, 9/11 was provoked by feminism, birth control, abortion, pornography, feminism, Hollywood, divorce, the First Amendment, gay marriage, and did I mention feminism? Muslims fear the West is out to foist its depraved, licentious, secular "decadence" on their pious patriarchal societies. And, D'Souza argues, they're right. Working mothers! Will & Grace! Child pornography! Our vulgar, hedonistic, gender-egalitarian, virally expanding NGO-promoted values so offend "traditional Muslims" that they have thrown in their lot with Osama and other America-haters. At times D'Souza sounds like he can barely keep from enlisting himself: "American conservatives should join Muslims and others in condemning the global moral degeneracy that is produced by liberal values."