Larry Womack - The Left Must Stand With Apostates, Too
When it comes to this absurd debate about Islam, I believe
many things. I believe that it is utter madness to judge 23% of the world's
population by the actions of oppressive, opportunistic governments or a few
violent sociopaths -- particularly when other faiths show no shortage of
either. I believe that the Muslim population of the United States in particular
is made up of educated, patriotic, secular people who in the
12 years after 9/11
identified more potential Islamic terrorists in our midst
than a massive domestic spying program. That any faith can be put toward good
or evil. That the idea of turning away refugees or anyone else based on a broad
religious test is un-American, unconstitutional and beneath contempt.
In short, I believe that people of all faiths are entitled
to be accepted as individuals, without prejudice. But, I also believe that people who are born into Islam are
entitled to the same human rights as the rest of us, including the
rights to leave that faith and speak of their own experience without being
branded some sort of racist native informant.
Unfortunately for those people, that makes a small but
increasingly powerful segment of the left decidedly uncomfortable. They have
reduced multiculturalism to "different = good," and anything that doesn't
fit that narrative is, at the very least, racist. The Goldsmiths Islamic Society has previously hosted speaker
Hamza Tzortzis, a man with fairly strong ties to terrorists, who has expressed pro-caliphate leanings, believes that Islam directs apostates to
be painlessly
beheaded, likens homosexuality tocannibalism, and once famously said, "we as Muslims reject the idea of freedom of
speech, and even the idea of freedom." It has also hosted a speaker from CAGE, which once described ISIS beheading spokesmodel Jihadi John as a
"beautiful, kind man."
But when the university's Atheist, Secularist and Humanist
Society scheduled human rights activist Maryam Namazie to speak, students had
to draw the line. The very same organization that hosted Tzortzis tried to get
her banned as a "violation of [their] space."
During her appearance,
Namazie mentioned the brutal hacking deaths of Bangladesh bloggers named on a
circulated hit list -- a very real and horrific situation. A man in
the front row began to laugh out loud. "Is it really funny that people get hacked to
death?" she asked. "It's really funny," he replied.
Members of or people sympathetic to the group turned off her
projector, tried to shout her down and literally threw themselves on the floor
in fits. Another speaker claims that death threats were made. The Goldsmith Islamic Society has since insisted that
protesters did nothing wrong, in spite of ample video evidence to
the contrary.
The Goldsmiths Feminist and LGBTQ+
Societies both released statements of solidarity with the Islamic
Society over the incident. The student union even asked that videos of the incident be taken offline to
protect the identities of the protesters. As things currently stand, the
Atheist, Secularist and Humanist Society is under investigation and might face disciplinary action over the incident.
From a state of delirium so intense that it must be
absolutely blissful, the LGBTQ+Society explained:
"If [the speakers felt] intimidated, we urge them to look
at the underpinnings of their ideology. We find that personal and social harm
enacted in the name of 'free speech' is foul, and detrimental to the well-being
of students and staff on campus. "In our experiences, members of ISOC have been nothing
but charming, patient, kind, and peaceful as individuals and as an
organization. "We hope this series of events prompts reflection in
all parties involved, but also onlookers. Allyship consists of apologies,
bearing with and deconstructing discomfort, respecting the necessary privacy of
safer spaces, and opening our hearts to humans unlike ourselves."
Then, the president of the Islamic Society was forced to
resign after it was discovered that he had tweeted such charming and kind statements of solidarity and allyship as,
"Homosexuality is a disease of the heart and mind," "How can you
be trying to justify why it's OK to be Muslim and gay," and, "Can you
fag lovers get out of my mentions pls, thanks."
At the risk of coming off as a Monday morning quarterback,
it seems to me that it would have been wise for the LGBTQ+ Society to have
differentiated between the group as a whole, its leadership and certain
participants in the protest, before picking sides. Or, you know, reviewing the
easily available video evidence. Or doing any independent research, really.
Maryam Namazie, on the other hand, seems to have spent much
of the time since the incident refuting, mocking and insulting Donald Trump's
actual Islamophobia on Facebook and Twitter, expressing disgust at the deportation of freakin' terror
suspects and lobbying to get Muslim women equal protection in UK family
courts. As notorious Islamophobes do.
I'm sure that by now you are dying to know what Ms. Namazie
did to be called "foul" and "detrimental to the well-being of
students and staff" by groups that tolerate the presence of Hamza
Tzortzis. In their initial complaint, the Islamist Society offered just two examples of her "Islamophobic"
behavior: "She labelled the niqab - a religious symbol for Muslim women, 'a
flag for far-right Islamism'. Also, she went onto tweet, they are 'body bags'
for women."
So you could see how, compared to that, the hacking deaths
of actual humans seem a laughably small offense. I'm not joking or even cherry
picking here. Those were the group's actual allegations.
Don't misread me. I understand that the niqab means
different things to different women, and I can very easily see how a woman who
chooses to wear one might feel personally attacked by those statements. But I
have a very difficult time seeing them as any more radical
than, say, The Beauty Myth, and the last time I checked, people
were not calling that a work of racist propaganda. Moreover, a woman born into any culture has a right to
criticize the expectations that culture places on women. Period. And people
know that. At least, people who consider themselves liberals or progressives should know
that.
If those allegations feel like a stretch, that's probably
because Namazie is branded an Islamophobe simply because she's a vocal
ex-Muslim. Vocal ex-Mormons, ex-Scientologists, ex-Christians and others who speak out against belief
systems they left are hailed as heroes. But even the BBC is pretty sure that
being a vocal Ex-Muslim is itself a racist act, in spite of Namazie's pained and
frequent efforts to combat
the"erroneous conflation between Islam, Islamism and Muslims."
And this isn't the first time that people have labeled
Namazie a tear-inducing violation of their safe space. An appearance at Warwick
was threatened with cancellation as recently as September. The
Guardian even ran a column cheering that proposed ban. She's hardly the only ex-, secular or lay Muslim to get this
kind of treatment from a certain segment of the western left. Take Riad Sattouf, as another example. When he recounted his
own childhood in Libya and Syria, French scholars Laurent Bonnefoy and Yves
Gonzalez-Quijanoaccused
him of being an "atrociously racist" "token Arab",
even as Syrian, Algerian and Palestinian writers and intellectuals lauded its
honesty.
In fact, it seems that any time a Muslim wants to speak of
his or her own experience, ten people who did not share that experience will
stand up to correct them. After all, they are the New McCarthyites. When actual Syrians showed up at a protest of the Syrian war
to share their experience at the hands of Assad, they weren't given a shouting
match with Maryam Namazie -- they were prevented from speaking, then arrested.
The bar is almost as low if you weren't born into Islam. In the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo massacre,
PEN, an international association of writers dedicated to the cause of free
expression, decided to honor the publication. A group of 145 writers signed a letter protesting the move. Hebdo was,
you see, an anti-Muslim publication.
Meanwhile, in the real world, 523 issues of the publication were released in the ten
years preceding the attack. Religion was the subject of just 38 covers.
Christianity was the target of 21; Islam of seven. Riad Sattouf was a cartoonist at Hebdo for
nine of those ten years. When we are discussing whether or not racism was a
mitigating factor in a massacre, people, we have gone very far off the rails.
Just how far off? Well, we live in a world in which atheism
is punishable by death in 13 countries, all of which are majority Muslim. Saudi Arabia classifies
atheism itself as terrorism. Even in secular nations, many ex-Muslims face horrific violence at the hands of their own families.
(And, it perhaps needs to be said, many do not.) And the regressive wing of the
left looks at the world and... writes books with names like--I kid you not-- The New Atheist Threat: The Dangerous Rise of Secular Extremists.
It's easy to see why people are so eager to stamp out
dissent, even when the voices are entirely rational. People genuinely worry
about the treatment of their Muslim friends and neighbors by those who view
cultural differences as superficially as they themselves do. And that is a
legitimate concern. But the way to address it is through open, honest dialogue.
Denial serves nothing but your own comfort. And to actually level baseless
accusations of racism against some of the bravest, most vulnerable people in
the world for the protection of your own psychological comfort is, in a word,
revolting.
Imagine being a mother terrified, as many are, that if you
question religious dogma, radicals will turn your children against you and
toward murder. Imagine that it's happening in a country where much of the right
makes it worse by persecuting and ostracizing your family and much of the left
makes it worse by treating apostates and the irreligious as if their very
existence is intended to justify bigotry. In a heartbreaking Facebook post, one
mother recently explained:
"...It is scary. Especially when you've believed your
whole life in the concept of blasphemy. Especially when you know that to openly
come out and reject these beliefs would be to risk alienation, to be ostracized
and maligned, rejected and alone. And in many cases, dangerous to your own
person... "We have to make it ok to walk away. We have to come
out of this closet and into the light."
It seems so simple, doesn't it? Embrace her if she's
religious. Embrace her if she isn't.
I'm not even asking for much, people. I don't expect for ex-
and secular Muslims to be cheered like a size eleven on the cover of Vogue, or
for religious radicals who murder people to be vilified as harshly as
manspreaders or catcallers. I'm just asking for a modicum of human decency.
see also
Thousands of Dalits protest over attacks and discrimination in Pakistan
Tazeen Javed - Pakistan: Aao Blasphemy Blasphemy Khelain
Tazeen Javed - Pakistan: Aao Blasphemy Blasphemy Khelain
Khaled Ahmed - Pakistan: Sleepwalking to surrender (when fanaticism is entrenched as state ideology)
Khaled Ahmed - Rollback nations: The modern Islamic state continues to be a besieged idea. After the Taliban killed a major-general and blew up 80 Christians in Peshawar
Khaled Ahmed, veteran journalist, noted in his book that “In 2005, I was asked by the Lahore Chapter of doctors' association to address them on current national issues…
The decision to introduce sharia and reintroduce the death penalty has been condemned by NGOs and legal rights campaigners, who say the new rules will breach international laws.
IHEU Freedom of Thought Report 2013: Death penalty for atheism in 13 countries.
Woman filmmaker in Iran sentenced to 18 months in prison
The religious persecution of Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd (1945-2010)/ Interview: My life fighting intolerance/ Mahmoud Mohammed Taha & the Second Message of Islam
Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd's Legacy (Library of writings)
The religious persecution of Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd (1945-2010)/ Interview: My life fighting intolerance/ Mahmoud Mohammed Taha & the Second Message of Islam
Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd's Legacy (Library of writings)
Mahmoud Mohammed Taha (Author of Second Message of Islam); also known as Ustaz Mahmoud Mohammed Taha, was a Sudanese religious thinker, leader, and trained engineer. He was executed for apostasy at the age of 76 by the regime of Gaafar Nimeiry. (See his Court statement)
THE MODERATE MARTYR - A radically peaceful vision of Islam
Najam Sethi - Pakistan: Pluralism and tolerance
THE MODERATE MARTYR - A radically peaceful vision of Islam
Najam Sethi - Pakistan: Pluralism and tolerance
The religious persecution of Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd (1945-2010)/ Interview: My life fighting intolerance/ Mahmoud Mohammed Taha & the Second Message of Islam
Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd's Legacy (Library of writings)
Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd's Legacy (Library of writings)
Mahmoud Mohammed Taha was a Sudanese religious thinker and leader executed for apostasy at the age of 76 by the regime of Gaafar Nimeiry. (See his Court statement)
