Strange Bedfellows

Summary

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Podcast Summary: “Strange Bedfellows”

Podcast: Quillette Narrated
Host/Narrator: John Aziz
Date: April 13, 2026
Original Essay Author & Reader: John Aziz

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Overview

This episode features a narrated essay titled “Strange Bedfellows” by John Aziz, exploring the paradoxical alliances within the contemporary Western left, as evidenced during a massive anti-right-wing march in London. Aziz analyzes how a diverse coalition—spanning LGBT+ activists, communists, Palestinian supporters, and Iranian regime sympathizers—joins forces against a common enemy ("the West"), overlooking their fundamental and often irreconcilable contradictions. The essay contends that such coalitions, organized around a simplistic anti-Western moral axis, risk moral blindness and self-sabotage, repeating tragic historical patterns.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The London Protest and Its Composition

• Description of the March:
  • On March 28, about 50,000 marched through London against “the rise of the right,” mainly targeting Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party, the new force in right-wing populism.
  • Marchers included those holding Iranian regime flags, communist banners, LGBT+ and pride flags, and a sea of Palestinian flags. This underscored a coalition of disparate groups unified by opposition to Western/“right-wing” power.
  • The event ended with a staged rave-like scene at Trafalgar Square, featuring Green MP Hannah Spencer and Zach Polanski dancing with people in BDSM fetish gear—a surreal display for political purposes, not spontaneous hedonism.
    • Quote: “It was a simulation of hedonism designed for social media consumption, complete with some of the most embarrassing dad dancing I’ve ever seen.” (01:00, Aziz)

2. Paradoxes and Contradictions in the Coalition

• The protest displayed “the moral alignment of the contemporary left,” merging causes and symbols that are mutually contradictory:
• LGBT+ inclusion rhetoric alongside the flag of the Iranian regime, which persecutes homosexuals.
• Communist emblems next to those of an Islamist state responsible for mass slaughter of communists and ongoing suppression of trade unions and dissent.
• Palestinian flags as a “universalized emblem of grievance and rage.”
• Quote: “The symbols on display…were the result of a real world, albeit awkward, coalition between constituencies with some very divergent values.” (02:54, Narrator)

3. The Anti-Western Moral Axis

• Aziz argues that what unites these disparate groups is “a shared sense that the West, and particularly America and Israel, is to blame” for global ills (03:17, Aziz)—from war in Iran and Gaza, to poverty, climate change, and housing.
  • This ideological framing makes it easy to excuse or ignore the crimes and oppressions of groups/states that declare themselves anti-Western.
  • Quote: “Once you make that premise the center of your moral universe, you will be ready to be drawn into the same camp as pretty much anyone as long as they agree with your project to destroy the West.” (03:23, Aziz)

4. Iran as a Case Study of Contradictions

• Iran’s regime is not progressive: it’s a theocracy relying on state violence, without interest in environmentalism or civil rights.
• The Green Party’s environmental manifesto starkly contrasts with Iran’s own environmental failures and repression but this contradiction is ignored at the protest.
• Memorable Analogy: “Had Polanski and Spencer been dancing in the center of Tehran next to a group in fetish gear, they would have most likely been shot at or at least imprisoned.” (04:39, Aziz)

5. The Dangers of Binary Thinking

• Organizing politics solely around an opposition between “the West” and “its enemies” obscures all other forms of domination and conquest.
• Leftists are adept at calling out Western imperial crimes, but often “become strangely evasive or even downright apologetic” when similar abuses come from those positioned as anti-colonial or bearing “historical trauma.”
  • Quote: “Empire is no longer treated as a recurring political temptation to every society…it is treated as a distillation of Westernness.” (06:51, Aziz)
  • Referenced theorists such as Walter Mignolo and Anibal Quijano are cited as influential in framing coloniality as intrinsic to Western civilization.

6. The Universality of Oppression and the Irony of Anti-Western Protest

• Conquest, empire-building, theocracy, and repression are not unique to the West; they are universal possibilities:
  • “Conquest is what happens when one people, state or movement seeks to subdue another. Empire is what happens when such domination becomes organized, justified and made durable.” (07:49, Aziz)
• The very rights and freedoms protestors enjoy—freedom of assembly, conscience, equality, open dissent—are products of Western civilization.
  • Quote: “Even the very idea that a civilization should answer for its crimes. These are not universal human defaults.” (09:08, Aziz)

7. Historical Lesson: The Iranian Revolution’s “Strange Bedfellows”

• Aziz draws a parallel to the Iranian Revolution’s coalition of the religious right and secular left. When the Islamists gained power, they ruthlessly rejected and persecuted their former leftist allies.
  • Quote: “The regime had no intention of sharing power with the secular left for long…thousands of communist activists and sympathizers had already been imprisoned or executed.” (11:36, Guest Expert)
• The lesson: alliances based solely on anti-Western sentiment can have tragic consequences for those who ignore fundamental value conflicts.

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Notable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• “It was a simulation of hedonism designed for social media consumption, complete with some of the most embarrassing dad dancing I’ve ever seen.”
  — John Aziz, (01:00)

• “The symbols on display…were the result of a real world, albeit awkward, coalition between constituencies with some very divergent values.”
  — Narrator, (02:54)

• “Once you make that premise the center of your moral universe, you will be ready to be drawn into the same camp as pretty much anyone as long as they agree with your project to destroy the West.”
  — John Aziz, (03:23)

• “Had Polanski and Spencer been dancing in the center of Tehran next to a group in fetish gear, they would have most likely been shot at or at least imprisoned.”
  — John Aziz, (04:39)

• “Empire is no longer treated as a recurring political temptation to every society…it is treated as a distillation of Westernness.”
  — John Aziz, (06:51)

• “Even the very idea that a civilization should answer for its crimes. These are not universal human defaults.”
  — John Aziz, (09:08)

• “The regime had no intention of sharing power with the secular left for long…thousands of communist activists and sympathizers had already been imprisoned or executed.”
  — Guest Expert, (11:36)

• “Once again, people are naive enough to believe that a shared hostility to the West can overcome profound differences in ultimate aims.”
  — John Aziz, (12:27)

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Important Segments & Timestamps

• Description of London protest’s diverse coalition: 00:06–02:00
• Moral contradictions of protest symbols/groups: 02:10–04:00
• Iran’s regime as an example of protest inconsistency: 04:00–05:30
• Dangers of anti-West binary and historical amnesia: 05:38–09:00
• Defense of Western values and why protesters depend on them: 09:08–10:30
• Cautionary tale—the Iranian revolution’s fate for leftist allies: 10:54–12:44

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Conclusion

John Aziz’s “Strange Bedfellows” warns Western leftists about the perils of coalitions built solely on shared anti-Western grievance, highlighting both historical and contemporary dangers of such alliances. The paradoxes on display at the London protest—where moral opposition to Western power unites fundamentally antagonistic values—serve as a reminder: history demonstrates that temporary alliances between incompatible factions, justified by abstract opposition, often end in betrayal and tragedy. Aziz calls for a more nuanced moral evaluation rooted in universal principles, not reactionary alignment.

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Transcript

[Narrator]

Welcome to Quillette. Narrated this article is Strange Bedfellows, written

[John Aziz]

by John Aziz and read by John Aziz On 28 March, around 50,000 people, according to figures provided by the police, marched through central London against what they called the rise of the right. The immediate target was Nigel Farage's party Reform uk, which now leads in national parliamentary polling and has become the largest vehicle for right wing populism in Britain. Alongside the anti reform placards were a sea of Iranian regime flags, communist banners, transgender and other pride flags, as well as the now ubiquitous Palestinian flags.

[Narrator]

The march ended in Whitehall in a carnivalesque mood after passing through Trafalgar Square where Zach Polanski and the newly elected Green MP Hannah Spencer danced on stage in front of the crowd alongside an array of people in BDSM fetish gear

[John Aziz]

with While mediocre house music played, the

[Narrator]

square had taken on the atmosphere of a rave, though not a real rave, but a stage managed and pseudo transgressive fake rave for political purposes. It was a simulation of hedonism designed for social media consumption, complete with some of the most embarrassing dad dancing I've ever seen.

[John Aziz]

It was also a demonstration of the moral alignment of the contemporary left in that world. Opposition to the right wing policies of Farage sits astride a wider set of causes and loyalties organized around anti Western sentiment and the politics of an amorphous so called resistance.

[Narrator]

Two weeks earlier, the Metropolitan Police had taken the unusual step of obtaining Home Secretary approval to ban the 2026 Al Quds March and any associated countermarches. Assistant Commissioner Adi Adelikan said the march was uniquely contentious, noting that in London it was organized by the Islamic Human Rights Commission, an organization supportive of the Iranian regime. He added that the force judged the risks this year to be exceptional given the likelihood of large numbers of protesters and counter protesters, extreme tensions between different factions, the volatile regional situation and recent Iranian attacks on British allies and military bases overseas. The Met stressed that the threshold for banning a protest is high and that this was the first time it has used the power since 2012. The symbols on display in central London last Saturday were the result of a real world, albeit awkward, coalition between constituencies with some very divergent values. The language of LGBT inclusion was heard while people waved the flag of a regime that jails, flogs and kills men for homosexual acts. Communist symbolism was displayed cheek by jowl with the insignia of an Islamist state that began its reign by slaughtering communists en masse and still crushes trade unions, suppresses dissent, including from the left and rules through paramilitary terror. Meanwhile, Palestinian flags, which for many marches signify solidarity with civilian suffering, were reappropriated as a universalized emblem of grievance and rage. What unites this coalition is a shared sense that the west, and particularly America and Israel, is to blame for both the war against Iran and against Hamas in Gaza, as well as for poverty,

[John Aziz]

climate change, and unaffordable housing. The west is seen as the primary source of domination, subjugation, and violence in the modern world. Once you make that premise the center of your moral universe, you will be ready to be drawn into the same camp as pretty much anyone as long as they agree with your project to destroy the West. That is probably why the movement's internal contradictions scarcely register with its adherents.

[Narrator]

The Islamic Republic of Iran is not a progressive regime. It is a militarized theocratic apparatus of

[John Aziz]

oppression, operating through censorship, political imprisonment, and state violence. And of course, the Iranian regime has

[Narrator]

no interest in environmentalism or protecting local ecology.

[John Aziz]

In fact, Iran has been grappling with

[Narrator]

one of the worst water crises in its recent history, thanks to years of

[John Aziz]

government mismanagement, dam overbuilding, illegal wells, and

[Narrator]

wildly inefficient water use, especially in agriculture. According to a 2022 report from the World Bank, Iran's annual water consumption, estimated at 96 billion cubic meters, is about 8% higher than the country's total annual renewable water resources. The environmental consequences have been disastrous. By late 2025, 10% of Iran's major dams had effectively run dry. Iran's president warned that the capital city of Tehran faced evacuation unless the situation improved. The Green Party's 2024 manifesto says it would take the water companies back into public ownership and end the scandal of sewage pouring into our rivers and seas, as well as making major investments in water and sewage infrastructure. Such concerns seem incongruous with support for Iran's environmentally irresponsible regime. Had Polanski and Spencer been dancing in the center of Tehran next to a group in fetish gear, they would have most likely been shot at or at least imprisoned. Lets not forget that the Iranian regime killed tens of thousands of protesters earlier this year. Yet all the contradictory symbols now appear together in protests like this one, because people are no longer judging governments, groups, or movements on the basis of their substantive views, actions, or stances. For the Western protesters, they are all simply parts of a wider symbolic struggle that points to a deeper problem. Once politics is organized around a simple

[John Aziz]

opposition between the west and its enemies,

[Narrator]

it becomes harder to recognize other forms

[John Aziz]

of domination for what they are movements, states and causes that define themselves as against the west are no longer assessed chiefly by their own ambitions, methods and behavior. Thus, a supposedly anti imperial politics can lose sight of the realities of modern day imperialism and conquest when a non Western actor is responsible.

[Narrator]

The contemporary postcolonial left is highly adept at identifying the crimes of Western empire and their sequelae. Colonialism, occupation, extraction, racial hierarchy and cultural domination by Westerners or Western aligned groups are denounced with fluency and force. But such leftists often become strangely evasive or even downright apologetic when the conquest, oppression and domination appear under anti Western colors. When the aggressor presents himself as anti colonial, indigenous or carrying historical trauma, domination is excused. This is a serious blind spot. Empire is no longer treated as a recurring political temptation to every society with the means to instigate it, from the Akkadians to Vladimir Putin's Russia, it is

[John Aziz]

treated as a distillation of Westernness. The influential critical theorist Walter Mignolo, for

[Narrator]

example, argues that coloniality is the very

[John Aziz]

foundation of Western civilization.

[Narrator]

Anibal Quijano's influential theory of the coloniality of power treats European conquest as the foundation of the modern world order, while Enrique du Sel describes modernity itself as inseparable from Europe's domination of the other. Once you buy into that ideology, non

[John Aziz]

Western projects of domination begin to look conceptually impossible or at least morally excusable. The governing forces may be brutal, expansionist, openly theocratic, but if they stand against

[Narrator]

the right enemies, their crimes are either

[John Aziz]

exonerated or quietly ignored.

[Narrator]

But conquest is not a uniquely Western phenomenon.

[John Aziz]

Nor do Europeans have a monopoly on empire building.

[Narrator]

It is not something that white people

[John Aziz]

inherit with their DNA.

[Narrator]

Conquest is what happens when one people, state or movement seeks to subdue another. Empire is what happens when such domination

[John Aziz]

becomes organized, justified and made durable.

[Narrator]

Colonialism, occupation, forced assimilation, theocratic subjugation, these

[John Aziz]

things belong to no one civilization.

[Narrator]

They are recurring possibilities of politics itself. A state does not cease to be

[John Aziz]

an aggressor because its spokespeople speak in the language of historical grievance.

[Narrator]

A militia does not cease to be imperial because it calls itself the resistance. A regime does not cease to be oppressive because it opposes America. And a project of conquest does not become emancipatory because it is carried out by people who claim sincerely or otherwise to have once been wronged. What makes the contemporary anti Western posture even stranger is that much of what its adherents plainly value is itself a

[John Aziz]

product of the civilization they have been taught to despise.

[Narrator]

Freedom of assembly, Freedom of conscience, the equality of the sexes, the dignity of the individual, legal restraints on power, freedom to express open political dissent, scientific inquiry and societal self criticism. Even the very idea that a civilization

[John Aziz]

should answer for its crimes. These are not universal human defaults. The same civilization that built empires also produced abolitionism, constitutionalism, feminism, religious toleration, democratic accountability and the language of universal human rights.

[Narrator]

It is not for nothing that the

[John Aziz]

loudest enemies of the west usually make their case using Western moral vocabulary while enjoying Western freedoms. In Western cities under Western legal protection, the people dancing under Iranian regime flags and Palestinian banners were not doing so in Tehran or in Hamas's Gaza, or in any clerical state where female autonomy, open blasphemy and public irreverence would be immediately crushed. They were doing so in London. In Britain, winning these rights was an uphill battle. Over many centuries, the Magna Carta bound the Crown to obey the law. The Petition of Right and habeas corpus helped secure the subject against arbitrary imprisonment. And the Bill of rights of 1689 entrenched regular parliaments, free elections and parliamentary free speech, while curbing monarchical power. To treat the west as uniquely illegitimate and wicked is to warp one's moral judgment.

[Narrator]

The freedom to criticize becomes detached from any gratitude for, or even awareness of the institutions that make criticism possible. The language of rights becomes detached from

[John Aziz]

the civilizational conditions that give rights their force. And the enemies of the west are allowed to inherit a prestige they have done nothing to earn.

[Narrator]

The postcolonial Left presents itself as the

[John Aziz]

great opponent of domination. But in practice it often reserves its deepest suspicion for the one civilization that has systematically learned how to limit power,

[Narrator]

criticize itself and widen the space within

[John Aziz]

which ordinary people are free to live as they choose. There is indeed a historical precedent for the coalition we saw gathered last Saturday, and it should give today's Western radicals pause. The Iranian revolution was driven by a broad anti shah alliance that included the religious right and the secular left, from clerical loyalists to Marxists and other Communists. For a while, that alliance seemed plausible. It was held together by a shared enemy and a shared anti imperial language. But once Khomeini's camp had consolidated power, the anti Western posture that had helped unite the revolutionaries was used as a pretext for destroying the non Islamist partners.

[Guest Expert]

The pro Soviet Tudor Party in particular tried to accommodate itself to the new order.

[Narrator]

But the regime had no intention of

[Guest Expert]

sharing power with the secular left for long. By early 1981, thousands of communist activists and sympathizers had already been imprisoned or executed. Then in 1983 the regime moved decisively against the Tudeh Party, arresting its leaders, smashing its organization, and extracting televised confessions. Many leading Tudeh figures were forced to recant under torture. Nor was today the only target. Marxist Leninist organizations, Fedayeen factions, Maoists, and other secular revolutionary groups were all driven underground and their followers imprisoned, exiled or killed.

[Narrator]

That is worth remembering when one sees

[John Aziz]

Communist banners and Iranian regime flags waving in the same London crowd. There is nothing new or sophisticated about such an alliance.

[Narrator]

It has happened before.

[John Aziz]

Once again, people are naive enough to believe that a shared hostility to the west can overcome profound differences in ultimate aims. They have once again forgotten that the Islamists mean what they say, and that once they gain power, they they will

[Guest Expert]

not reward their secular fellow travelers.

[John Aziz]

Instead, they will mercilessly crush them. Thank you so much for listening.