Guest post by Kaveh Mousavi, the pseudonym of an Iranian atheist. First published at The Proud Atheist.
When it comes to Islam, there is a controversy among the atheists regarding how they should deal with it. There are those like Sam Harris and Bill Maher who say not all religions are the same, and some are worse than the others, and then there are those who say that it is wrong to single out Islam as all religions are equally bad. There are those who even accuse people like Maher and Harris of racism. Now, in this controversy former Muslims rarely speak up. The dialogue is usually between Muslims – or their defenders – and people who have been born and raised in a different culture. That is understandable to some degree, because being a former Muslim somehow doesn’t improve your resume when you live under a theocracy. But I believe someone with a more intimate knowledge of the religion should weigh in.
I believe I have the right to do so. I am familiar with the faith more than other people, because once I planned to be a “perfect Muslim”, and I studied the religion in depth. I was not pleased with the result and ended up an atheist instead. I am an Iranian living inside Iran. I have been the victim of a theoretical totalitarian regime which bases its laws on Shiite sharia law. I have seen Islam from every angle – from the inside as the firm believer, and from the outside as the non-believer. So this is the question: is Islam more radical than other religions? Is it particularly violent?
Let me spell it out at the beginning. I am on the side of Harris and Maher. I do believe Islam is inherently worse than other religions. But before touching on this subject, let me begin by addressing some complexities. There are many things that complicate a question such as “is Islam more radical.” It largely depends on how you define Islam, and also how you define “radical.”
First of all, “radical” is a very murky concept. It is entirely arbitrary, and it depends on how you define “moderate.” Someone is a radical only in comparison with other people and also in contrast to their historical and geographical context. It is a spectrum, and it depends on where on the spectrum you draw the line. It is a matter of degrees, and it depends on how you define your zero. Within the Al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden was told to be the “moderate” one, in comparison to his second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri who is now the boss. So even if you limit your pool to Al-Qaeda members, you still have moderates and radicals within that context. But no human in their right mind would consider Osama bin Laden remotely moderate. The republicans call Obama a “radical socialist,” while the majority of socialists don’t even consider him a socialist. Many analysts say that the Republican Party has moved to the right and people who were once radical are now the moderate wing of the party. At the time of Lincoln and before him the idea of abolition of slavery was considered radical but now we consider it obvious, so obvious that if someone opposes it, we consider them deranged.
I believe here the first cognitive dissonance between the defenders and the critics of Islam arise. How do you define radical, when it comes to an Islamic context? Do you define a radical Muslim the same way you define a radical Jew or a radical Christian?
If you define moderate as “not-Taliban” or “not-Al-Qaeda,” then yes, most Muslims are moderate. If you have a broader definition which is “not-terrorist,” then yeah, most Muslims are not terrorists. If you consider moderate “not-actively-violent,” then OK. But let me tell you, your standard bar is pretty low.
The geographical context is also important here. I don’t know anything about Western Muslims. They might be as moderate as the majority of Western Jews and Christians. I don’t know. I’m talking about people I know and have lived with.
The point is, if you define moderate the same way you define it in your own culture, then the vast majority of (Eastern) Muslims are extremists. You normally define moderate based on tolerance, acceptance, their view towards freedom of speech and religion, their commitment to the separation of church (mosque) and state, and their dosage of sexism and homophobia. We would sorely fail at every criterion on this list. That stinks, but it’s true.
In order to make this concrete for you, imagine a radical Christian. Would you consider Rick Santorum radical enough? OK. Now, what if he had the exact same beliefs but he was a Muslim? Then, he would be a moderate. Radically moderate (if that makes sense), he would be called an atheist even.
Do you think he was a homophobe because he compared homosexuality to bestiality? Well, at least he doesn’t believe that gays deserve to be hanged. In Iran, the vast majority simply ignore the fact that gays exist. You were shocked when Ahmadinejad said “there are no gays in Iran” in the Columbia University but that’s a fairly uncontroversial thing to say in Iran, even among the pro-democracy activists. Although gays face the danger of death and physical violence everyday, many members of opposition have reproached me and a few others for bringing up the subject, calling it a “non-issue.” When they are not ignoring the existence of the gays, the ruling regime calls them abominations that need to be wiped out. Mohsen Armin is one of the most moderate and liberal-minded Iranian politicians. He argued that gays are sick and need to be treated. He wrote those articles on one of the main opposition websites dedicated to democracy. When it comes to gay rights, Santorum is moderate in an Islamic context.
Also when it comes to sexism. Now I know, the Iranians who live outside Iran, and maybe some Tehran-based Iranians, are rushing to the comment section, screaming “bullshit!” because we have made considerable strides in recent years when it comes to women rights – but they have a warped view. Yes, I feel proud that there are more women in our universities than men, I feel proud about the women population and how they have advanced their cause, but the fact remains that Iran is still one of the most sexist countries in the world, right after Saudi Arabia and Sudan, also Muslim countries. Walk outside the capital or big cities and your image of progress will be shattered. Things like honor killings and forced marriages are still normal here. Also, when you live with people you will see how deeply-rooted sexism is. Yes, we have formidable and admirable feminists here, but the word “feminist” is used as a curse in most contexts, even now. Still, you don’t have to look hard to see husbands who force their wives to stop working. It’s still easy to see wives who could not study in a university because their husbands forbade them to do so. Look at every boyfriend and girlfriend, and you will see how they reconstruct the roles of patriarchy.
And don’t even get me started on sexual harassment and objectification of women. I have always felt like an outsider because I don’t make lewd comments on every single girl who passes before my eyes. People have called me gay (back to homophobia) and impotent for refusing to take part in sexual harassments. Once I was waiting to catch a taxi, and a beautiful girl was standing some ten meters away from me, also looking for a taxi. In the span of two minutes, at least twenty cars stopped to harass her. I’m not exaggerating. I wouldn’t believe it if I had not seen it myself. If I had seen it in a fictional movie, I would call it an exaggeration. But every two or three seconds she was harassed by a new abuser. She approached me, and asked me if it was alright to stand next to me. I said it was OK. She stood in a way to imply that she was my sister or girlfriend, and the harassments stopped. Because she now appeared to be “owned” by a “man”. And that’s the bro code of honor among the Iranian men. A single girl is yours to abuse and harass as you please – but once she is with her “owner” (I’m using the English equivalent of a real Persian expression here), she’s off the limits. It’s the man who deserves your consideration, not the woman. If you rape a girl, it’s the family who is wronged, her father in particular, with having their “property” soiled.
And our government does not really try to stop this. They try their hardest to punish the girls and women for not abiding the sharia dressing code. And their propaganda blames the problem solely on women not dressing Islamic enough.
We are a sexist culture. Despite all of our progresses and victories, the sexism remains deep and strong, and in its most ruthless form. Rick Santorum might be more radical than some enlightened Iranian opposition leaders and activists, but he is still more moderate than the strong majority.
And just to move outside Iran a bit – just the day this article was being written the Afghan parliament struck down a bill on violence against women. This bill is not the Afghan equivalent of the same bill in many Western countries. This bill consisted of these clauses: an underage girl cannot be forced to marry a man (she still can be convinced to, apparently), a man should make sure to uphold justice among his many wives and pay them equal money (justice here means he should equally have sex with all of them and not favor one over the others – even most Muslims don’t know this but that’s how sharia defines it), and women who escape from their house because of their husband’s abuse should have safe houses to home them. These laws were considered “too radical” and they were struck down.
What about tolerance and freedom of speech? Can I make fun of Muhammad in Iran the same way you make fun of Jesus there? Can I direct a play called The Book of Islam and play it on Lalehzar (what was once the Iranian equivalent of Broadway)? I’m afraid I can’t. When a religious leader issued a death fatwa on a singer, who had dared to mock a stupid and insignificant imam, the most moderate Muslims wrote a joint letter and said this – “it’s not right to issue a death fatwa on someone who insults a religious figure” – so far so good – “but he should be tried in the court of law.” Oh, so they’re not disagreeing on whether or not it is a crime to insult a foreigner who died 1400 years ago, they’re just worried about the due process. And believe me when I saw these are the most moderate ones out there. There has been only one – one – Muslim figure who says insulting these figures should be legal and it is simply immoral. Rick Santorum has never asked for censorship or the punishment of the atheists. He would be moderate here.
“Of course the Holocaust never happened! The Jews have always been in charge. They empowered Hitler.” How would you feel if someone told this to you? What if someone whom you loved told this? What if someone whom you respected said this? Now, this brings out the subject of anti-semitism. This particular stance is not a popular or a moderate stance – but it is extremely prevalent among people who support the regime. It is not a view confined to crazy hateful people. People who are decent, normal folks believe that. This is not a dominant view, but it’s still more dominant than it should be.
One of those mindless clichés that Islamophiles repeat is this: “There are more than one billion and half Muslims in the world, how do you compare them with small groups like Taliban and Al-Qaeda?” First of all, that’s no logical argument, because the numbers don’t prove anything. There has been no proven correlation between population and tolerance. Just because there’s a lot of Muslims it doesn’t mean they are all good. But, actually, forgive me for saying this, but actually those “one billion and a half” Muslims are a worse problem in the long run than those “few extremists.” That is because those few extremists are evil and violent people who will be dealt with one way or another, but the vast majority is composed of good people who are intolerant and sexist because they have considered these abhorrent views normal and natural in the culture they were born in.
Our main problem is not our regimes. It is not the extremists, terrorist groups. The regimes and the extremists are not the disease, they are the symptom. We are the disease. I am the disease. The culture is the disease.
This is not a hateful thing to say. Truth is never hateful. No matter how bitter it is, it is ultimately what we should accept. We should acknowledge the problem before solving it. I am not an Islamophobe who hates Muslims. I am still a member of the community. Muslims are still “my people.” They will never consider an atheist a part of their family, their “religious brotherhood.” But you don’t stop loving your family once they disown you.
I am a brother. This is not an indictment, it’s an intervention. Ultimately, we former Muslims should show our “religious brothers” that they have a problem. There should be an AA of sort for people like my fellow Iranians. “I’m Jamshid, and I am a sexist. I am also intolerant. I am also an anti-semite.”
It’s not like my criticism is void of sympathy and understanding. People – my people – are born in a repressive culture which violently silences any dissent and closes all windows and prematurely strangles any question. Men and women are raised to accept sexism, intolerance, and homophobia not only as natural, obvious, and good, but also as the only option. I have worked as a teacher. I have seen young children viciously attacking and bullying gays. I was myself a young child viciously attacking and bullying gays. I have seen young children calling Arabs and Jews dogs. I was myself a young child calling Arabs and Jews dogs. I have seen young children objectifying women and consider them cattle. I was myself a young child objectifying women and consider them cattle. The children are not born to be intolerant. Only a dominant culture can turn them into one.
Remember that hateful Holocaust remark above? The man who told me this was deeply religious, but he was tolerant, and extremely kind. He was extremely honest and hardworking. I’m sure if he could ever see a documentary on the Holocaust, he would never say that. Ask yourself. Would you not be an ant-semite if the only – only – version of history presented to you was The Elders of Zion? His fault was that he was a poor man, cut off from the stream of civilization, watching only Iranian state TV, and never being taught to question what was passed down to him. He was a good man with evil opinions. He was not an oppressor. He never was in a position to oppress. He was a victim. He was thought-deprived as he was food-deprived.
You, my dear western reader, have no idea how overbearing and suffocating religion is here. You simply don’t. You cannot begin to imagine it even if I commissioned you to write a post-apocalyptical novel. You don’t know what it means to have something taught to you everyday at school and university. You don’t know what it means when the entire media advertises a religion 24/7. You don’t know what it means to have religion everywhere, to have it define every aspect of life from entertainment to profession to politics. And to have absolutely zero access to a dissenting voice.
Case in point, my parents were atheists, but hid that from me. They were afraid of me talking at school and making trouble. I was indoctrinated to the religion at school. I was not even a normal Muslim – I was a strong one. So how do you expect people even whose families are equally radical to be different?
This is the fault in the fake dichotomy Islamophiles suffer from. In their black and white world, if you are not praising someone you hate them. If you point out the faults of a culture, you hate that culture. They cannot separate the human from the ideology. They cannot comprehend good people who have evil opinions and support evil causes.
I am not better than people whom I criticize. I come to you as a sinner seeking secular atonement. I was lucky to learn English as a child. I was lucky to be born at the age of internet. That is the only thing separating me and a radical Muslim – luck. I was privileged. So I am only their fellow AA and I’m intervening.
My name is Kaveh. And I am intolerant, sexist, racist, homophobe, and an anti-semite. But I’m recovering. Hopefully. If I ever have a daughter, she will be better me. She will look at me in the eyes and she will tell me “dad, you’re a bigot, and I am not like you.” And I will be proud of her that day. No matter how hard I try, I have no hope of ever cleaning the ugliness of intolerance from my “soul.” But I will try to make a better world for my children. And the first step in recovery is acceptance, and humility.
That is why ultimately people like Harris and Maher are our friends, not foes. A true friend will criticize you to make you a better person. A false friend will give you empty compliments. I don’t know if people like Glen Greenwald are genuinely uniformed or they lie in order to sound cultivated and hip. But I know nothing useful for my “religious brothers” will come out of them. I know it must be infuriating to listen to Harris and Maher. But something will come out of them. The truth.
Therefore, I want to thank people like Richard Dawkins, the late Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, and Bill Maher. I want to thank them for the catharsis they gave me when I listened to them, knowing there are people like me in the free world arguing for my cause. And I want to thank them for not pretending that my troubles are less bad than those of the others. Even if there is one Muslim listening and if he or she is convinced – hell, even if he or she only thinks – the world, my world, is a better place.
I have not exhausted this topic. I plan to write future articles dealing with the subject more – talking about the historical and cultural roots of this, and my remedies for a better future.
I’m still inclined to argue that it’s a difference in the degree of extant secularism in government rather than a difference in the negative qualities of the religions in question. For instance, the claim that
is one that is entirely unevidenced; while he hasn’t publicly said as much, he politically allies himself with those who do, and vociferously supports their organizations, which implies that he’s in favor of it. It’s just that the U.S. is somewhat more secular in its governance than, say, Iran, so it’s not as politically tolerable to say that sort of thing outright when you’re running for national office.
I don’t know about Maher, but the accusations of racism against Harris that I’m aware of come from the fact that he wrote airport security should pay increased attention to people who “look Muslim” and decreased attention to people who don’t “look Muslim”, clearly unaware that Indonesians, Chechens, Tatars, Tunisians, Bosnians etc. etc. don’t look middle-eastern at all.
The actual argument made in this article is that today’s Muslims are on average much more extreme than today’s Christians. But that’s not the same as the claim it tries to address, which is that there’s something inherent to Islam that makes its followers more extreme than Christians. I, for one, dispute this latter claim, not the former.
Europe before the 30-Years War (1618–1648) was worse than Iran is now, 16th-century Spain was about like modern Saudi Arabia, and look at what’s happening right now in Uganda – heavily supported (in words and money) by American fundamentalists.
(Sorry, some Tunisians do look Middle-Eastern. Others look European, though, and not even Mediterranean.)
Fascinating! I look forward to Kaveh’s additional writing on the subject. Will you be reprinting them?
Wow. What a powerful piece of writing. But I agree with David Marjanović that it doesn’t address the actual question — a question that can only be answered by comparisons of all religions.
I worked for a while with a Muslim woman who dressed in a completely Western business style. Not even a scarf. For sure there are many imams around the world who would condemn her for this, but in her Muslim community it was not considered immoral to go out in public with one’s face and hair uncovered. Mousavi suffers from living in one of the worst theocratic regimes on the planet and has no way of knowing what life is like for Muslims around the globe — and the experience is completely different for Saudi Muslims compared to Indonesian Muslims compared to Chechnyan Muslims compared to Australian Muslims. This isn’t Mousavi’s fault. He’s written a fantastic piece about the toxic aspects of the culture he lives in, but he can’t know what it’s like outside it. Islam covers a spectrum of values and beliefs and he is only really aware of the Iranian experience. And it’s no more accurate to blame all the cultural problems in Iran on Islam than it is for North African cultures that practice FGM to claim it’s an Islamic necessity.
Then we need to compare Islam to other religions. And if the Iranian theocracy is bad, so is Hindu traditionalism, Christian fundamentalism, Scientology, ultra-orthodox Judaism, and so on. Even atheism has its nasty anti-semitic streak (Voltaire was a vicious anti-Semite and Stalin was about to unleash the Jewish Doctors Plot until his death intervened). And then there’s the developing North Korean state religion of Juche as it slowly moves away from official atheism. You can’t say Islam is the worst of all religions by taking one tranche of it and ignoring the rest of Islam and all the other religions’ worst subcultures.
Still a great piece of writing, but I admired its honesty and self-examination rather than its central thesis.
Addendum: this link shows how nasty Juche can get:
http://www.northkoreanchristians.com/religion-north-korea.html
Nan, I hope to, yes.
What a marvelous, insightful, excellent article. I hope I can find everything else you write!
You mention this: “have no idea …. You simply don’t…. You don’t know what it means to have something taught to you everyday at school and university.” It’s true that outside of a few small communities that kind of religious indoctrination doesn’t exist. But anyone who wants to get an inkling of another world view does have options.
For instance, imagine a female-dominated world. Not one where women simply behave like men do now, but a real women’s world with men the exploited class. (Since women are quite capable of exploitation, there’s nothing unrealistic there.) I once tried to write a story like that, but even with everything laid out, most of the guys in my writers’ group just kept saying it was unrealistic. Even though there are plenty of men intimidated, silenced, or co-opted by social superiors — so they’re quite capable of being an underclass — the guys simply could not fathom women as those social superiors.
If they’d wanted to understand what it’s like to be convinced of a world view (they didn’t), they could have seen the depth of the inconceivability, which is the same problem others have in other world views.
Anyway, back to the main point. Thanks for this excellent piece. Thanks for freeing yourself!
@David Marjanović
Here is where the actual racism lies, in the shameless paternalism of some leftists.
The constant need to highlight a handful of Americans visiting Uganda, over the moral agency of the Ugandans themselves is white/Western infantilization of non-whites at its most unabashed.
In turn, holding modern Iran merely to the standard of morality in Europe almost four hundred years ago pretty much exemplifies the racism of low expectations.
I would add, ironically, that 16th-century Spain should be cut some slack if we apply the paternalistic postcolonial standard of morality that many on the left champion. After all was Spain not recovering from seven hundred years of Islamic aggression and colonization?
Also I just looked up what Sam Harris said. Whether i agree with him or not, he never at any point implied profiling should be myopically limited to those who “look middle-eastern.” That is just something you made up to make him look bad, rather than dissecting the flaws in what eh actually wrote.
@Dalillama, Schmott Guy
Except of course for the fact that homosexuality has never been subject to a death penalty under civilian law in the entire history of the United States. I mean I recognize there are outlier Christians that would like to see homosexuality punished by death, but the history of Christianity in this country does not bear out that fear as even remotely credible.
Also I looked up just now (it took all of one minute) and it seems Santorum has mixed feelings about the death penalty in general, so I am not sure he is secretly a ‘hang em high’ sort when it comes to LGBT people unless you have some real evidence to support your position.
I think this example is indicative of why some non-theists have such a hard time seeing the difference between Islam and Christianity: they are blinded by their own hyperbole about Christian conservatives.
One thing that always amazed me at Huffington Post was the inevitable comparison, made in total seriousness, between Christian conservatives in this country and the Taliban. Sure if you ignore murdering girls simply for going to school, the burqa, destroying non-Islamic archaeological sites, amputations and stoning as lawful punishments, and so forth I am sure you can eventually shoehorn some sort of vague comparison. But as much as I dislike conservative Christians, I can call out a farce like that for what it is.
But none of this surprises me when you write things like:
Right, right, we are just “somewhat more secular” than Iran, where unelected Shia theocrats vet who can stand for public office and women are detained by the religious police for showing too much hair. We are just “somewhat more secular” than that.
Thanks for the anti-American LOLs.
thank you for your brave words
As an ex christian atheist I have met many wonderful kind tolerant Muslims in my life.
I am of the opinion that some people are just awful human beings regardless of their race colour or beliefs
Katherine W.’s characterization of what David M. said about what Sam H. said:
What David M. actually said about what Sam H. said:
What Sam H. actually said:
Sam H. posted an update to that article to clarify that:
Sam’s disclaimer might be true, but nonetheless, he does in fact seem “narrowly focused” on recommending profiling for people who look “Muslim” in the Middle Eastern terms of being “dressed like Osama bin Laden” and wearing “burqas”. Those are the only characteristics he uses in the entire article to define what he means by “Muslims, or anyone who looks like he or she could conceivably be Muslim”; when he says that TSA screeners can know at a glance when other people “do not stand a chance of being jihadists”, what criteria is he implying that such screeners should use to determine whether someone might be a “jihadist” other than “if they don’t resemble bin Laden or wear a burqa, they’re probably OK”?? Katherine, I think calling David’s paraphrase “just something you made up” is way off base.
This was a really fantastic article. You had me nodding in agreement throughout. I liked how you ridiculed that annoying ‘over a billion people’ rhetoric. God I hate that one too.
One thing is I would press relentlessly is your point that “moderate” is a relative term. What apologists in the West are consistently ignoring is where the norm of Islamic belief lies relative to the average beliefs of Christianity. As you say they transform not-the-Taliban into some perverse accomplishment. The fact that the media refers to Malaysia as a ‘moderate’ country is one that always makes me shudder.
Katherine W. on Dalillama on Kaveh:
What are you going on about here? Dalillama isn’t talking about laws Santorum might be trying to get passed, he’s sharing his doubts about Kaveh’s assumption about what Santorum believes. Dalillama goes on to say:
Exhibit A: Rick Santorum appearing at a Mass Tea Party Coalition rally in April 2012 with Scott Lively, possibly the American Christian more responsible than any other non-Ugandan for getting the “death penalty for gays” law passed in Uganda. Your talk about “outlier Christians” rings hollow. Dalillama concludes with a sarcastic speculation about why Rick the Frothy One might not want to talk about what his true feelings about gays might be:
But you demonstrate that sarcasm is lost on you by interpreting this comment as though he’s actually implying that the governance of the U.S. is only very slightly more secular than that of Iran. “Thanks for the anti-American LOLs”? Get a clue, please.
Friendly, your quote from Harris in no way backs your assertions. He makes clear his support for a wide scope repeatedly and explicitly. You even quote a very telling word, “conceivably”. Why you ignore all that and just repeat the “narrow focus” charge is beyond me, The example you cite is clearly meant as a comical extreme of what ‘looks Muslim’ when Harris clearly notes that his definition could actually conceivably include himself.
The fact the burqa is a Central Asian garment not found in the Middle East does not do much for the validity of your argument either.
I think Harris is foolish because radical islam can come in so many guises. Profiling is simply not practical, even if philosophically sound. But at least be accurate about what he says. I note you conspicuously did not try to defend David’s use of the term “racism” to describe Harris’ views.
There is sadly nothing implausible about him meaning that earnestly rather than sarcastically. The ‘we are just as bad’ meme is extraordinarily and disturbingly popular among certain people on the left. Mousavi is writing this post in part in response to attitudes like that.
After all the message of Dalillama’s post is that Rick Santorum simply has to be as bad as the murderous theocrats in Iran. He can’t simply be a homophobic douchebag of a lesser degree.
Further the Guardian and Huffington Post are full of such denunciations of the United States in the comments, as well as intense denial/defensiveness about anti-American regimes. Again there is nothing implausible about certain leftwingers minimizing the difference they recognize between Iran and the the U.S. in terms of secularism.
Maybe Dalillama meant what you say he meant, but when your sarcasm could be plausibly said in a general public forum by people with vaguely similar politics or agenda, it is time to use the /sarcasm tag.
By the way I love how your “Exhibit A” is not anything Santorum said, but a guilt-by-association smear.
People across the political spectrum appear with extremists, either by oversight or laziness. It happens. I love Jon Stewart, do I denounce him as wanting to murder Salman Rushdie because he organized an event with Yusuf Islam? I voted for Obama twice despite clowns like the Rev. Wright or a former terrorist like Bill Ayers in his circle of activity.
Rick Santorum is a bigot, unfit for public office. His actual record should be en ought for you to come to that conclusion and use it against any supporters.
For an actual look at Rick Santorum in his own words on the death penalty try here and here.
Frankly his views sound like that of many conservative Catholics struggling with a balanced position. And the Catholic Church for all its ills, does not advocate for a death penalty for gays.
Your “evidence” is nothing but an emotional need to show that radical Islam and conservative Christianity are (false) equivalents, the very attitude to reiterate that this article is arguing against.
“Repeatedly and explicitly”?? Where, in the essay we’ve been discussing, does he Harris say *anything* that suggests a wide scope of screening except possibly for these three lines?:
(“Not ‘exempt from scrutiny,’ no, not as such…”)
Here he’s talking about luggage, not people.
(“Not ‘entirely outside,’ no, not as such…”) These statements do not make “clear his support for a wide scope repeatedly and explicitly.” They’re “weasel passages,” half-hearted qualifiers that serve only as argumentational deflector shields.
I’m curious: How did you reach your conclusion that “Needless to say, a devout Muslim should be free to show up at the airport dressed like Osama bin Laden, and his wives should be free to wear burqas” is a “comical extreme” while “I wouldn’t put someone who looks like me entirely outside the bull’s-eye (after all, what would Adam Gadahn look like if he cleaned himself up?)” is instead a “clear note”?
Why, it is indeed true that the burqa is encountered more often in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India than it is in, say, Egypt or Lebanon. It’s so very sad that David’s and my choice to use the term “Middle Eastern” in a more expansive sense than Katherine the Geographer just completely falsifies our entire argument!
What David actually said:
David was identifying a quote by Harris that David feels might have *given rise to* accusations of racism against Harris. He isn’t, himself, accusing Harris of racism. You seem to be really good at reading things into what people write that just aren’t there.
@9. Katherine, with respect to Uganda, that handful of Americans is also dumping a significant amount of money on to the Ugandan religious and political scene.
The money dumped into American politics by various bad actors is also criticized by the left, often accompanied by softer criticism of the people misled by it.
Look at the recent UAW organizing in Tennessee story for how American liberals have the same harsh criticisms of just a handful of Americans with outsize influence on fellow Americans.
Rick Santorum has continually been saying hateful things about gays and gay sex for over a decade, but you’re right, that in itself doesn’t make him more than a bigot. The message of Dalillama’s post is that *we can’t know know for sure* that Rick Santorum doesn’t believe that gay people should die; the fact that he chooses to associate with people who do — *not* just lazily at the occasional appearance, but by for instance becoming a WorldNetDaily contributor, alongside death-penalty-for-gays advocates Scott Lively and Molotov Mitchell — and that, unlike Obama with Wright, he *has never publicly repudiated or distanced himself from their positions*, does not simply give rise to inferences of “guilt by association,” but to legitimate questions such as “If you consider what these men who publish alongside you are writing to be disturbing, offensive, or morally wrong, why don’t you *say so*?” Silence, in this instance, is not golden.
No, the straightforward interpretations I’m arguing for aren’t driven by any “emotional need,” but your dogged insistence on “showing” that conservative Christianity is better than Islam sure looks like it is.
OK, folks! Anyone else read Dalillama’s comment and immediately assume he was being anti-American? Show of hands! … Anybody?
I see what you did there. My actual statement “radical Islam” is twisted into simply “Islam” by you. It is that sort of subtle, but pervasive dishonesty that underlies virtually everything you have written here and makes responding to you further a waste of time.
@Latverian Diplomat
You can only be bought if you are for sale. Scott Lively could spend then times the amount of money in the Netherlands or Argentina or even mildly homophobic South Korea and there is not a snow ball’s chance in hell that one of them seriously considers implementing a death penalty for homosexuality. None. It is just not a salable idea based on the native cultural and religious values, even if hundreds of years ago the two European nations actually had such a penalty.
The Americans deserve condemnation for their role, no doubt, but it is unjustifiable how much it dominates people’s thoughts on the subject. At some point it just becomes an obvious case of people, predominatly white people, being too scared to condemn non-whites for inhumane and unjust conduct. This hardly the first time such a thing has happened.
Um, pretty everyone on political spectrum complains about money from someone they consider a “bad actor”. That is hardly some noble trait exclusively found on the left.
It is utterly depressing and discouraging to see so many on this thread resort to a bunch of whataboutery instead of actually addressing the contents of the posting.
I take Kavah Mousavi’s message to heart, and I do so because he’s giving us the straight dope.
When western liberals are told by ex-muslims or reformist Muslims just how awful the islamic portrait really is, they often attempt to deflect from the bad news by citing some trumped up equivalencies or by invoking instances of intolerance in Christianity that happened centuries ago.
Europe before the 30-Years War (1618–1648) was worse than Iran is now, 16th-century Spain was about like modern Saudi Arabia, and look at what’s happening right now in Uganda – heavily supported (in words and money) by American fundamentalists.
How can anyone assert with any degree of certainty that 16th century Eruope was as bad as today’s Iran?
You’d have to have lived in both 16th century Eruope and 21st century Iran to make such claims.
And 16th century Spain had Isabella ( far better remembered than her useless beta-male husband) and 16th century England Elizabeth the 1st
21st Saudi Arabia won’t even let a women become a taxi-driver ( or even drive!), let alone become head of state.
Excellent comments by Katherine Woo.
I don’t really have anything impersonal or thoughtful to add to the conversation, only that I agree with Decker that it’s difficult to argue with someone who inherently understands the subject better than we ever will. (I recognize that’s ad hominem, but Kaveh can have a level of certitude in his arguments that no historical argument can possibly have.)
What I really want to say, Kaveh, is that your daughter will be as lucky as an Iranian girl can possibly be. I hope you and an equally lucky young woman bring her into the world together, and make your country a better place simply by living and being.
Part 2 has been posted.
What “constant need”? Are you using me as a nametag for someone else? (Perhaps for the “certain leftwingers” of your comment 16?)
Where do I hide the agency of Ugandans? As you quote, I wrote “heavily supported […] by American fundamentalists”, not “made by them alone, while the Ugandans just watch”. It’s even separated by a dash to make clear it’s an afterthought, an addition meaning “even here and now in the West, Christianity can be that extreme when people let it; it’s not something that ‘cannot happen here'”.
It’s very simple: I mean what I say, and I don’t mean what I don’t say.
My comparison to Europe before the 30-years war isn’t supposed to make Islam look good. It’s supposed to make Christianity look as bad as Islam: when it’s in uncontested power, people die.
Already addressed by Friendly in comment 12.
It’s also really remarkable how you skip Hanlon’s Razor and jump straight to the assumption that I must be consciously and deliberately lying. I honestly don’t understand what makes people go there.
That’s not comical. Harris has stressed several times that he’s serious about this.
That’s a very wide definition of “Central Asia” and a very narrow one of “Middle East”. When I read “Central Asia”, I think “Mongolia”, not “Afghanistan” and definitely not “Pakistan”.
What next? The history of life is impossible to reconstruct, because – as Ken Ham keeps reminding us – we weren’t there?
Well, she died in 1504… after having decreed, in 1492, that the Jews had three months to emigrate or convert, and done the same to the Muslims in Castile in 1502 (extended to Aragón by Charles I in 1526). She also unleashed the Inquisition on the converts, which terrorized them for the rest of the century and beyond – the last trial of a supposed crypto-Jew was in 1818. The descendants of Muslims were ordered to leave the country in 1609 on pain of death, though a few people were tried on charges of being crypto-Muslims well into the 17th century.
And look up limpieza de sangre.
Point taken, though in 1570 the pope declared her illegitimate and any oath to her for invalid; several attempts on her life followed, as well as that Spanish invasion attempt in 1588.
What has Greenwald been uninformed or lied about? I don’t know what you’re referring to.
Also, who do you mean when you refer to ‘Islamophiles’? I certainly haven’t come across any in these parts (by any reasonable definition of the term). Could you give an example of a high-profile Western Islamophile?