Free Speech and Islam — The Left Betrays the Most Vulnerable

[cronus]

https://richarddawkins.net/2016/05/free ... ulnerable/

Free Speech and Islam — The Left Betrays the Most Vulnerable

When surveying the ill-informed, shoddy work that at times passes as in-depth journalism regarding Islam these days, a rationalist may well be tempted to slip into a secular simulacrum of John Bunyan’s Slough of Despond. In reputable press outlets, articles regularly appear in which the author proceeds from an erroneous premise through a fallacious argument to a fatuous conclusion. Compound all this — especially in the main case I’m about to discuss, that of the British former Islamist turned reformer, Maajid Nawaz — with the apparent intent to defame or cast aspersions, and you get worthless artifacts of journalistic malfeasance that should be dismissed out of hand, but that, given the seriousness of the subject, nevertheless merit attention.

For starters, a few words about premises and some necessary background. Those who deploy the “stupid term” (see Christopher Hitchens) “Islamophobia” to silence critics of the faith hold, in essence, that Muslims deserve to be approached as a race apart, and not as equals, not as individual adults capable of rational choice, but as lifelong members of an immutable, sacrosanct community, whose (often highly illiberal) views must not be questioned, whose traditions (including the veiling of women) must not be challenged, whosescripturally inspired violencemust be explained away as the inevitable outcome of Western interventionism in the Middle East or racism and “marginalization” in Western countries.

Fail to exhibit due respect for Islam — not Muslims as people,Islam — and you risk being excoriated, by certain progressives, as an “Islamophobe,” as a fomenter of hatred for an underprivileged minority, as an abettor of Donald Trump and his bigoted policy proposals, and, most illogically, as a racist.

Islam, however, is not a race, but a religion — that is, a man-made ideological construct of assertions (deriving authority not from evidence, but from “revelation,” just as Christianity and Judaism do) about the origins and future of the cosmos and mankind, accompanied by instructions to mankind about how to behave. Those who believe in Islam today may — and some do — reject ittomorrow. (Atheism has, in fact, been spreading in the Muslim world.)

Calling the noun Islamophobia “sinister,” Ali A. Rizvi, a Canadian Pakistani-born physician and prominent figure among former Muslims in North America, told me via Skype recently that the word “actually takes the pain of genuine victims of anti-Muslim bigotry and uses that pain, it exploits it for the political purpose of stifling criticism of Islam.” In fact, denying Islam’s role in, for instance, misogynist violence in the Muslim world, said Rizvi, is itself racist and “incredibly bigoted, because you’re saying that it’s not these ideas and beliefs and this indoctrination [in Islam] that cause” the “disproportionately high numbers of violent, misogynistic people in Muslim majority countries, it’s just in their DNA.”

Also, remember that Islam claims jurisdiction not just over its followers, but over us all, with a message directed to humanity as a whole. Which means Islam should be susceptible to critique by all. People, whatever their faith (or lack thereof) deserve respect; their ideologies? Not necessarily. In fact, the cornerstone of any free society is freedom of expression – a freedom impeded by labeling as “phobic” those who would object to an ideology.

The misguided progressives who denounce “Islamophobia” and turn a blind eye to the mistreatment of, say, women, gays, and adherents of other religions in Muslim communities or in Islamic countries constitute what Maajid Nawaz has dubbed the “regressive left.” Regressive leftists are not genuine progressives at all, of course, but deeply confused de facto apologists for the most illiberal notion conceivable: namely, that one group of humans has, on account of its religion, an inalienable right to dominate and abuse other humans — and to do so unmolested by criticism.

(continued)

[pErvinalia]

Tl;dr. It's become another version of the noble savage. Culture must not be criticised, no matter how batshit insane it is.

[cronus]

Tl;dr. It's become another version of the noble savage. Culture must not be criticised, no matter how batshit insane it is.

We've found some common ground at last.

[Tyrannical]

Geepers, Dawkins would get banned by his old moderators for posting that on the forums

[cronus]

Geepers, Dawkins would get banned by his old moderators for posting that on the forums

That's probably why he disbanded the mob of utopian dreamers. It is better to be feared than loved.

[JimC]

Perfectly reasonable article. It is useful, however, to mention the other side of the coin, where red-neck racists use a critique of Islam as cover for their genuine racism.

[cronus]

Perfectly reasonable article. It is useful, however, to mention the other side of the coin, where red-neck racists use a critique of Islam as cover for their genuine racism.

Islam has suicide bombers and the West has rednecks. But the truth is not always in the middle of a piece of string. Depends on what you want to accomplish whether you deploy useful idiots, social scum and so forth. Consider Trump? The last gasp of a dying party? or if it works and the election is won by the Republicans a worthwhile gamble for his puppet masters?

[Exi5tentialist]

Fail to exhibit due respect for Islam — not Muslims as people,Islam — and you risk being excoriated, by certain progressives, as an “Islamophobe,”

Doesn't that depend on what "due respect" means? Islam is a religion with 1.8 bn people in it, after all. In human rights, people have the freedom to follow a religion - so in as much as Islam is a religion that people have the right to hold and follow, "due respect" means recognising it as such. Attacking it by saying that people shouldn't be allowed to follow it would not be showing "due respect". Nobody here is attacking it in this way, I'm just saying, if they did, that would show a complete lack of respect and I would come down on them like a tonne of bricks for it.

The false Islam-Muslim dichotomy is just more of the "attack the idea, not the person" shit which is the real totalitarianism that has taken root in the atheist community. People who espouse it want the absolute freedom to attack this so-called "idea" called islam without recognising it that they are attacking vast numbers of people at the same time.

Of course, this point can't be argued without talking about specifics or it just becomes part of the islamophobic circle-jerk that the atheist community has been engaging in frantically for about ten years now. I'm delighted that Sadiq Khan has been elected as Mayor of London, with any luck we can start rolling back these stupid ideas that so many atheists dogmatically pursue to their last breath.

[cronus]

Fail to exhibit due respect for Islam — not Muslims as people,Islam — and you risk being excoriated, by certain progressives, as an “Islamophobe,”

Doesn't that depend on what "due respect" means? Islam is a religion with 1.8 bn people in it, after all. In human rights, people have the freedom to follow a religion - so in as much as Islam is a religion that people have the right to hold and follow, "due respect" means recognising it as such. Attacking it by saying that people shouldn't be allowed to follow it would not be showing "due respect". Nobody here is attacking it in this way, I'm just saying, if they did, that would show a complete lack of respect and I would come down on them like a tonne of bricks for it.

The false Islam-Muslim dichotomy is just more of the "attack the idea, not the person" shit which is the real totalitarianism that has taken root in the atheist community. People who espouse it want the absolute freedom to attack this so-called "idea" called islam without recognising it that they are attacking vast numbers of people at the same time.

Of course, this point can't be argued without talking about specifics or it just becomes part of the islamophobic circle-jerk that the atheist community has been engaging in frantically for about ten years now. I'm delighted that Sadiq Khan has been elected as Mayor of London, with any luck we can start rolling back these stupid ideas that so many atheists dogmatically pursue to their last breath.

I'd like to walk a middle ground. Being one of the 3.8 billion who don't follow Islam I'd like to take the piss out of it with cartoons. Is that OK?

[Exi5tentialist]

Depends on the cartoon. Have you got any examples? It's the same problem as before - vagueness means nobody knows what you are actually proposing.

[piscator]

Depends on the cartoon.

...The fuck it does.

[Tyrannical]

Actuality, muslim immigration is a good thing. Muslims primarily attack the far left (lgbt, hookers, drug dealers, atheists) and causes the far right to increase.

[Svartalf]

Actuality, muslim immigration is a good thing. Muslims primarily attack the far left (lgbt, hookers, drug dealers, atheists) and causes the far right to increase.

Fuckit, we need a strong far right like we need metastatic cancer

[JimC]

Exi5tentialist wrote:

...The false Islam-Muslim dichotomy is just more of the "attack the idea, not the person" shit which is the real totalitarianism that has taken root in the atheist community. People who espouse it want the absolute freedom to attack this so-called "idea" called islam without recognising it that they are attacking vast numbers of people at the same time. ...

More utter bullshit. You are implying that an idea can never be attacked if it is held by someone. Well, all ideas are held by someone! This nonsense is in effect saying that ideas, particularly those held by a defined group are sacrosanct, and forever immune from criticism. In fact the ethical thing to do, when attacking a set of ideas, is to make it absolutely clear that you are not attacking the people who hold those ideas, aside from the inevitable implication that they are mistaken in the ideas they hold. So, "attack the idea, not the person" is not shit, but a way to make discourse somewhat more civilised.

[laklak]

I guess I'll just have to attack lots of people then, because fuck Islam with a pickled pig's dick.

That's a real thing, right? I've got some pickled pig's feet in the fridge, wonder what they do with the dicks. Hotdogs? Pork pate?