The ExMuslims Forum (i.e. someone from the forum, writing under that name) has an excellent comment on a wrong-headed piece by Andrew Brown at Comment is Free. Brown’s claim in his piece is that people who criticize Islam in fact hate Muslims. I saw progressive liberal Muslim friends venting huge irritation with Brown and his article. It’s a myth that liberal Muslims also hold the view that people who criticize Islam in fact hate Muslims; they don’t.
As Exmuslims, we critique Islam because there are many aspects of Islam that need to be critiqued. In particular, we seek to oppose Islam’s apostasy codes, which are oppressive and lead to persecution.
We have found it is quite difficult to get some people to listen to our stories because they fear that acknowledging these issues will contribute to a critical view towards Islam.
The idea is that particularly reactionary teachings and aspects of belief that lead to critical judgements of Islam are in and of themselves prejudiced. The resulting logic of this is that Islam should have special privileges, in as much as basic human conscience and ethical critical judgement of people living in a secular culture should not apply, or be expressed, towards Islam.
The fact that criticism exists, is the offence.
Effectively, this is to propose a kind of proxy blasphemy code and apostasy code, wherein the liberal secular space defers to Islamic taboos. Dissenting Muslims and Exmuslims have to conform to these proxy codes too. Everyone else is free to critique their own religion, and other faiths and ideas too. But Islam must be protected.
However, Muslims are free to critique all religions, belief systems and moralities, because evangelising Islam, and proffering critique and judgement is not only a divine prerogative, but the closing down of ethical, critical judgement towards Islam is also a divine right.
As we can see, this is an ethical and moral mess.
This is an aspect of liberal relativism that is morally flawed and unsustainable without damaging basic principles of liberal secularism. It also means that aspects of Islam that need to be criticised, like Islam’s apostasy codes, remain unexamined, and with that authority unquestioned, their capacity to hurt people and cause harm increases.
Another fear is that being critical of aspects of Islam manifests in prejudice towards Muslims, and this is an understandable response given how parts of the far-right do project generalising narratives of communal responsibility on Muslims. As Exmuslims, we understand this, because being from ethnic minorities ourselves (apart from growing numbers of former white converts) we are also prone to be in the targets of bigots who project their hostility onto anyone who ‘looks’ Muslim, whatever that is supposed to be.
The key to dealing with this is for the Left to take ownership of the issues that need to be critiqued, and do so through the prism of liberal secular values, so that they cannot be co-opted by the nationalist right, who have agendas that are not tolerant.
Yes yes yes. Support people like Irshad Manji and Tehmina Kazi and Maajid Nawaz, as well as ex-Muslims. Amplify their voices, link to their writing, spread the word.
Sadly the instinct of relativism too often prevents this reckoning from occurring. The silencing of Exmuslims voices is the norm, although we are trying to change this.
There are three main layers of silencing of apostates voices. The first layer is the hardcore religious silencing, which includes notions that we deserve to be killed and harmed. Under that is a second layer of some Muslims who may not agree we should be persecuted, but don’t want to have these problematic aspects or religion talked about, because of feelings of embarassment, fear of the consequences, or cognitive dissonance regarding apostasy / blasphemy codes. The third layer underneath this is the relativism of white liberals who are often in concordance with silencing instincts over these issues, including silencing of Exmuslims, for the reasons we outlined earlier. Often, relativist liberals simply pretend we don’t exist.
But silencing never works, and it only increases the problems.
It is important to understand that anti-Muslim bigotry is real. At the same time, the reality of the need for Islam to be critiqued has to be acknowledged by the Left, and by Muslims who live in liberal secular democracies too.
epilogue: Some of these issues were touched on by a Pakistani-Canadian Exmuslim called Eiynah, in a response to the recent heated debate over Ben Affleck’s appearance on Bill Maher’s show. You can read it here. Please do check it out.
Give Andrew Brown some food for thought for a change.
“Brown’s claim in his piece is that people who criticize Islam in fact hate Muslims.” Some do, others are alarmed by the religion’s totalitarian ideology. Even if all the critics of Islam hated Muslims what difference would that make to the repugnant nature of the religion itself? I wonder if Brown would be sanguine in regard to the prospect of living in an Islamic UK, he also didn’t present a defence of Islam itself, but resorted to ad hominem attacks. One of the commenters on the Guardian site described Brown’s article as ‘fatuous’, a very accurate description indeed.
In other words, “Be silent, or we will play the race card, Islam is special”.
I checked a dictionary for the definition of “bigot”, and it said “a person who strongly and unfairly dislikes other people, ideas, etc” (my emphasis). I strongly dislike people who identify with a creed that teaches that gays and apostates should be killed. But I’d argue that it’s anything but unfair to strongly dislike people like that. “Anti-Muslim bigotry” is therefore a meaningless concept. QED.
I have no time for people who dislike people who “look Muslim”, since that’s (almost) invariably code (in the UK at least) for racist prejudice against Asians.
Ironically, there’s only one group of people who do actually “look Muslim”, and it’s impossible to be racially prejudiced against them because they rudely walk around wearing masks which entirely conceal their identity.
Not true, for a couple of reasons. First of all, just try criticising Judaism or the behaviour of Jews (no matter how egregious) without almost immediately being shouted down with the ultimate discussion-chilling label, “anti-Semite”. So Islam is not unique in this by any means.
Second, everyone else is free to critique their own religion because it’s safe. Offended Christians write strongly worded letters to the BBC and the Daily Mail. The number of people in the UK actually murdered by offended Christians in the name of their religion in the last ten years is… zero. Jerry Springer: The Opera caused a lot of offence, but so far as I know nobody has been as much as punched in the face over it, much less killed.
UK experience of offended Muslims includes an off-duty soldier beheaded on a London street in front of passersby in broad daylight with a meat-cleaver, rush hour buses and trains blown up, and airports attacked with vehicles and explosives.
“Islam must be protected”? I’d say rather that Islam must be treated like a maddened dog.
Not true, for a couple of reasons. First of all, just try criticising Judaism or the behaviour of Jews (no matter how egregious) without almost immediately being shouted down with the ultimate discussion-chilling label, “anti-Semite”. So Islam is not unique in this by any means.
You’re missing something important. The Jews are a people, whereas Muslims are from all peoples and races.
Also, what passes as criticism of Judaism is sometimes just a thinly veiled attack on Jews, the people…not the religion
“Islam must be protected”? I’d say rather that Islam must be treated like a maddened dog.
Fair enough. Islam is somewhat akin to a giant protection racket.
RJW @1
Fatuous was the word that I kept thinking when reading the article. For instance Brown bleated:
There’s an important difference between race and religion. Someone can’t chose their skin color or the shape of their eyes. People can chose which religion, if any, they follow. It is irrational to hate someone for what they are, i.e., black, gay, trans*, etc. However it is rational to dislike someone for their political, social, economic or religious beliefs when these beliefs are anti-humanist. For Brown to say otherwise is fatuous.
You can’t convert to Judaism? And “Jew” exclusively describes one single homogenous ethnic group?
You can’t convert to Judaism? And “Jew” exclusively describes one single homogenous ethnic group?
Yes, of course you can convert. However, Judaism isn’t much for proselytizing. Also, unlike either Islam or Christianity, there is definitely an ethnic dimension to the religion.
And many orthodox Jews reject the notion of conversion. If your mum was Jewish, you are…
Hatred is not a ‘wrong’ emotion. I hate Nazis, Klansmen, Westboro Baptist, Boko Haram etc. etc. That people bigoted towards Germans, southerners, Nigerians etc. might presume alliance with me is NO justification for stilling my objections.
Ibn Warraq has written about his surprise finding right-wing Xtians eager to discuss or share ‘Why I am Not a Muslim. Oblivious to the centrality of atheism in Warraq’s view. He chose the title because he remembered seeing a Muslim chuckling over Russell’s ‘Why I am Not a Christian’ apparently oblivious to the fact the Russell’s criticisms were equally applicable to ALL the Abrahamic creeds.
@3 Decker,
Accusations of ‘anti-Semitism’ are often used to silence critics of the nation-state of Israel, the formula is simple but effective, Jews form the majority of Israel’s population, therefore, criticism of Israel=criticism of Zionism=anti-Semitism. It’s really irrelevant whether or not Jews are ” a people”. Given the success of that technique, it’s hardly surprising that Islamic apologists have adopted “Islamophobia” as a propaganda tool.
@4 Al Dente,
Yes, Brown’s article is just a bad example of ‘begging the question’.
Ophelia, thank you for documenting that comment here before the Guardian dropped it down their memory hole. I looked through all 14 pages of comments to confirm the comment you linked now reads:
I read The Guardian’s 10 community standards, and the comment complied with all 10 as I read them. Evidently the comment was correct:
The Guardian deleting the comment convinced me, there is a mainstream liberal proxy blasphemy code.