This op-ed over at Al Jazeera reminds me of an awful lot of communist and fascist writings as published in Europe in the first (and communist / socialist; also second half) of the 20th century; radical idealism hiding behind a mask of intellectualism.

The author, Khaled Elsayed, seems to argue that the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights guarantees Islamists the right overthrow the secular government of their country as to establish a theocracy. Obviously, the article is an exercise in twisting and turning, but it is amusing to read how Islamists and their sympathizers try to use the freedom and rights of the West for their own purposes.

What Islamists like Elsayed do not understand - or better; willfully ignore - is that human rights protect citizens against the government. They are meant to prevent the government from telling people how to live and what to believe in their privative life. However, Islamists wish to accomplish the exact opposite; a theocratic regime does not merely want to control how people live publicly, or in public places. Instead, it wants to determine how people live privately as well; how they dress, how they choose as their partner(s), what they believe, and so on.

Human rights guarantee Islamists the right to believe what they believe. They have the right to believe that women are inferior to men. They have the right to teach this belief to their children. They are also allowed to teach their daughters that they should cover themselves in private, and when they step outside of the house.

But they do not have the right to force others to live like how they want them to live privately. Going to a court to force your daughter to cover up, or else, infringes on her right to dress and believe like she wants to.

It’s something Islamists do not get, or purposefully ignore. Seeing this purposefully being ignored in an article is fascinating.