Left behind
When faced with decline, movements must choose between adaptation and dogma. A century ago, Muslim intellectuals wrestled with how to reconcile faith with modernity. Today, the Western left faces a similar reckoning: as artificial intelligence reshapes labour and power, will progressives seize the technological future or surrender it to the right?
A hundred years ago, Muslim scholars wondered why the Muslim world had failed. Trying to explain its subjugation to Western colonial powers, they asked a crucial question: Are we misinterpreting Islam—failing to modernise our beliefs and culture, adapting our mores to the advent of new technologies to facilitate science and industrialisation, like the West and Japan? Or are we simply not applying Islam enough?
Hassan Al-Banna, who in 1928 founded the Muslim Brotherhood, championed a modernising vision for Islam. He believed mastering science and technology was essential to resisting colonial domination and strengthening the Muslim world through modern institutions like technical schools, hospitals, and factories. Far from a secularist, Al-Banna’s Islamism sought to harmonise modern progress with Islamic principles.
Secular rulers, like Egypt’s Nasser, brutally suppressed Al-Banna’s successors. Forced out of public life, the Muslim Brotherhood found refuge in the mosque, where political dissent intertwined with religious practice. Over time, the pragmatic vision of Al-Banna gave way to Sayyid Qutb’s radical argument that modernity must be built solely on Islamic principles, rejecting the West’s moral and cultural frameworks entirely. This ideological shift laid the foundations for the Islamic fundamentalism we recognise today. Ironically, armed fundamentalist groups remain a convenient tool for internal and external forces to sustain a toxic status quo.
Let’s apply this historical analogy to another movement heading for irrelevance: the left—though perhaps more aptly named ‘what’s left’. With Donald Trump back in the White House, the UK and Germany’s Labour parties on the ropes, and the German Greens backing a gruesome colonial war of annihilation, political liberalism seems decisively defeated. (By “liberalism,” I largely mean the West’s beleaguered progressives, leftists, and centre-right humanists. To some extent, the dichotomy extends to the EU versus the US.) With the right’s colonisation of the political landscape complete, we must ask, as Hassan al-Banna did a century ago: have ‘we’ failed to modernise and adapt to new technologies and a de-industrialising society? Or are we simply failing to apply our tested precepts with conviction–if at all?
Arguably, it’s both. Firstly, social-democrat parties—and let’s include the US Democrats for simplicity—have largely capitulated to raw capitalism. When free enterprise declared victory over the Soviet Union, hailed by some as “The End of History,” social democrats threw in the towel, allowing the steady dismantling of safety nets, and privatising public services. Worse still, in their attempts to counter authoritarian and racist parties, liberals are also abandoning their humanist fundamentals. Instead of affirming the core principle that all humans deserve dignity and freedom, they mimic the right’s rhetoric—a self-defeating and morally bankrupt strategy.
What about adapting to technological change? Global energy systems are undergoing a transformation as revolutionary as the advent of agriculture or the shift from burning wood to coal. Today, electrification powered by cheap renewables and batteries, is rapidly eclipsing fossil fuels. The economic losers of this transition are not taking things lying down. Industries and sectors tied directly or indirectly to the production, sale, and consumption of energy, account for up to half of the world’s $105.4 trillion GDP. Some of that money trickles into political systems, distorting debates and policymaking. Is it any wonder that far-right parties consistently vilify wind and solar energy?
But the financial muscle of fossil fuel interests tells only part of the story. Liberals, who should be leading the charge for a clean energy future, are too often misled—or outright compromised—by these same forces. Billions have been wasted on subsidizing so-called “hydrogen-ready” infrastructure; i.e. gas infrastructure. It’s not just corruption; it reveals a deeper lack of vision, and basic know how among progressive leaders, and their voters.
As transformative as the energy revolution may be, an even more profound upheaval is upon us: the rise of artificial intelligence. AI stands poised to reshape labour—once the redoubt of leftism—and disrupt the very fabric of society. While progressives are preoccupied with surface-level cultural critiques, Donald Trump just unveiled the Stargate initiative: a half-trillion-dollar partnership with OpenAI and others to revolutionise U.S. AI infrastructure. Not unlike the Apollo programme, this ambitious project aims to secure technological dominance and catalyse breakthroughs across all fields of human endeavour. Europe and the left have largely framed AI’s advent as a threat rather than an opportunity.
Perhaps it’s one of many nothing burgers… time will tell, but artificial thinking machines are poised to redefine not just what we do, but who we are. While the U.S., driven by an oligarchy of libertarians, crypto-fascists, and trans-humanists, surge ahead, Europe’s progressives lag in even attempting to come to grips with these transformative technologies. The right, despite its aversion to social engineering, is reshaping humanity in its own image, using science to mould the future—their future. Is it because us lefty humanities types, pardon my French, like to fetishise our ignorance of maths? We bemoan climate change—revealed by satellites—while decrying funds spent on space exploration. We lament famine, yet hope the rain gods monitor Sub-Saharan crops. Conservatives may not much like conservation, but shouldn’t we progressives start embracing progress?
In the twentieth century, the Muslim world wrestled with reformists and fundamentalists, while the West saw the left and right clash over who controlled the means of production. The twenty-first century, with AI servers replacing factories, is shaping into a battle over who controls the means of thought. And the thoughts aren’t pretty. Formerly, both sides scapegoated minorities: Jews were painted as either rapacious capitalists or scheming Judeo-Bolsheviks. Today’s far-right ideologues coined Islamo-gauchism to smear Muslims and leftists as conspirators against Western civilisation. Rather than push back, more and more leftist politicians retreat—or worse, join in—blaming Muslims for society’s failures.
Excusing a lack of technical expertise is one thing, but progressives and liberals, of all people, should know better than to parrot divisive rhetoric—or worse, tacitly condone genocide, as Biden, Starmer, and Trudeau have done. As the world enters the AI era, with a conflict brewing over the very soul of humanity, the left must wake up. It’s time to seize the technical means to fight this battle, not surrender before it even begins. As Trump himself might say: “Fight! Fight! Fight!”