Sure enough: Massimo knows how to do it. Compare his first paragraph:
Much has been written about the terrorist attack on the satirical paper Charlie Hebdo, which took place on 7 January 2015. Some of the commentary has been insightful, some full of pious platitudes about defense of free speech by sources with not exactly a stellar record in that department, and some of it has ranged from the woefully uninformed to the downright awful. It is, therefore, with some recalcitrance that I write these lines, particularly because I’m coming to the issue from what I feel is an increasingly rare point of view: that of a moderate liberal atheist.
No puffing out, no pointless baroque ornamentation, no pretending to be saying something more technical than you are, no vanity, no display. God how I hate that other kind – its whole purpose seems to be vanity.
While it is undeniably the case that — at this particular historical juncture — it is Muslim countries that tend to lag behind much of the rest of the world both politically and in terms of freedom of thought, freedom of expression, and women’s rights, history easily teaches us that this has nothing to do with Islam per se, and logic demands that we therefore stop looking for solutions by demonizing that particular faith.
What should we, instead, talk about? I suggest a division of (critical) labor of sorts. Roughly speaking, we in the secular West need to back off a bit from dismissive verbal assaults on Islam, and instead engage in a more nuanced indirect push toward facilitating internal discussion and cultural change within the Muslim world. It is a basic principle of psychology that people rarely respond to outside threats and denunciation by changing their minds; on the contrary, they usually retrench in their behavioral patterns. But if their minds are exposed to “friendly” (intellectual) fire from within, the chances for long lasting change improve significantly. This is a minor version of the same principle according to which one cannot force nations to become democracies by bombing the hell out of them, but one can, and ought, to do a lot of cultural and economic work to make that change happen organically. Arguably the most positive thing the West can do is to consistently help moderate Muslim voices to be heard by giving them a platform at every opportunity.
In the past I probably would have disagreed with much of that. I no longer do, and I have been doing what I can to help moderate liberal Muslim voices to be heard by giving them a platform at every opportunity. I do the same for ex-Muslims and atheists, of course, which Massimo might not agree with, but we cross paths more than we used to.
The second thing that the secular West ought to do is to stop being so darn hypocritical about its own credentials. While European countries, the US, and several places in the non-Western world (e.g., Japan) indeed arguably are the best examples of democratic societies that the world has seen to date, they are still rife with inequality, discrimination, violence, political and religious opportunism, and a number of other maladies that require constant soul searching, not to mention a significant downgrade of the “we are the best” mantra so mindlessly repeated especially by American media and politicians. Holier than thou attitudes do not help constructive dialogue.
That too. It’s horribly easy for an American to do that, what with our massive prison population, our death penalty, our gun culture, our religion of football – I could go on and on.
I do the same for ex-Muslims and atheists, of course, which Massimo might not agree with
Im curious why you think this of Massimo – Nothing I have read from him gives me that impression.
Thanks for posting this.
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I love the tone of the article, and also the strategy outlined in it makes sense. But I disagree with the following (partial) sentence:
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“… history easily teaches us that this has nothing to do with Islam per se …”
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I object because I do not think this statement, though meant to promote civil and compassionate discourse, is true at all. We have to be able to have a conversation that is more nuanced than one which admits only two extreme positions:
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“religion doesn’t make people do anything at all, ever” vs. “a particular religion is sufficient to explain every kind of behaviour, both in general and in particular cases” (I am exaggerating slightly, here).
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Depictions of M* are considered blasphemous according to mainstream interpretations of Islam. The same cannot be said about (current) mainstream interpretations Hinduism or Catholicism. I would argue that the recent attacks in France and before that in Denmark, are indeed *partially* motivated by *a current strain* of Islam.
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Having said that, I think it is equally important to point out that these particular strains are not sufficient to explain the particular events I have mentioned. Exclusion, rejection, loss of identity, exposure to extreme forms of violence, and many other factors are surely necessary to come to a reasonable explanation of what has happened.
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TLDR; It is not all-or-nothing in the blame game.
I think that’s well-said, Massimo.
“The west” needs to acknowledge that one of the big reasons that the muslim world backward is because it has been held back by “the west” and its “divide and conquer” strategy of snuffing out democracy in favor of promoting repressive thugs to political power. Lest we forget, it was US-supplied Saudi troops that crushed the “arab spring” in Bahrain … And it is not inappropriate to point to the US’ installation of Shah Pahlevi in Iran as having had something to do with how that country got turned into a backwater, not to mention economic sanctions intended to further backwater it. Afghanistan: same story. Let me offer you a hypothesis: if you look at the islamic world, you’ll find that the most stable parts of it are run by strongmen who get military assistance from the US, and the unstable parts are dealing with insurgencies against previous US-sponsored strongmen. It’s not islam that’s holding them back. It’s US.
This ‘novel’ approach is really just the same combination of wishful-thinking and Western self-loathing disguised as “soul-searching” that has been peddling for decades on the left in response to human rights abuses perpetrated by non-whites. I have a hard time viewing Pigliucci as the “moderate liberal” he claims to be, in light of the positions he lays out.
Phrases like “dismissive verbal assaults” do nothing but point a bloody finger at non-Muslim Islam critics, and is typical of opinions from the Guardian or the Nation. I also wonder at a scholar misusing “verbal” so egregiously, since the most violent Muslim outburst against free speech to date have been driven by a novel, a number of cartoons, and a book burning, none “verbal” in their nature. You can further tell Pigliucci’s insincerity in that Western speech criminalization, i.e. public order, blasphemy, and ‘hate speech’ laws, do not make his list of Western “maladies” and “hypocrisy”.
His vision of “facilitating internal discussion” is just a paternalistic notion typical again of non-Muslim leftists. The only thing non-Muslims can really do to ‘facilitate’ critical discourse within islam is to stop indulging their almost limitless victimhood complex and hold Islam to the same scrutiny as other ideologies.
And of course Pigliucci, older, white, Western, hetersoexual(?), male, can speak so glibly of engagement because he is not the focal point of Islam’s discriminatory norms against women and LGBT people. His status detaches him from any risks as an atheist, moreover. If he were a conservative, the ‘social justice’ crowd would tear him to pieces in the face of such a disconnect, but he gets a pass.
The left just wants an out on Islam in the wake of Charlie Hebdo, just like it has wanted since 9/11. It cannot handle any villain that aren’t comfortably white, Christian, and Western or emotionally disconnect criticism of Islam from foreign policy. And most of us not being at risk from islamic norms, can comfortably rationalize such a sell out of liberal values if we work hard enough.
And Ophelia, the only reason i ever respected you is because you stood firm on gender equality despite your otherwise rote ‘social justice’ politics. Now you’ve got both feet on the road to accommodation, which is just saying that gender equality is not an absolute value.
Deepak @ 1 – only because it’s what he’s saying in the article. Because, for instance, of what I quoted about “friendly fire from within.” That leads me to think that he might disagree. Not a very bold claim!
Katherine – no I don’t. The liberal Muslims I’m talking about are not at all accommodationists – they ally with people like me, not with people like Karen Armstrong. They too stand firm on gender equality. If they don’t, I’m not interested.
Isn’t that what we already hear all the time ? That we must understand that terrorists shot leftist anti-militarist anti-racist anti-nationalist cartoonists because they (the terrorists) were fed up with military racist imperialism, not that they shot atheist cartoonist while screaming God is great because they (the terrorists) were religious fanatics ?
@Ophelia
That leads me to think that he might disagree. Not a very bold claim!
Ah I understand what you meant now.
@2 hhk – if you look at the history of Islam, it spread farther in 100 years than Christianity managed in 1,000 years. This early Islam (whatever it was) also spawned the Islamic Renaissance, aka the Islamic Golden Age – there’s a good article on Wikipedia about that.
If Islam THEN had been the same as Islam NOW, none of that could have ever happened. The first “conquerors” would have been spread too thin to hold so much territory at the point of a sword, and the fundamentalist mindset has never created anything of beauty or value or any scientific innovation, all of which are well-represented in the Islamic Golden Age. Things changed within Islam and the short answer is that the fundamentalists won.
Katherine and Vincent, you’re exaggerating wildly. Here’s what he wrote, again:
Back off a bit, he said, in favor of promoting liberal (well I said liberal; he said moderate – I definitely mean liberal, not “moderate”) Muslims criticizing from within.
One reason I agree with that is just that I know there really are liberal Muslims, and that they don’t get called by the media very much. The more liberal Muslims can reach theocratic Muslims and persuade them to liberalize, the better. I have more in common with (genuinely) liberal secular feminist Muslims than I do with anti-feminist atheists.
@Katherine Woo
His vision of “facilitating internal discussion” is just a paternalistic notion typical again of non-Muslim leftists.
Well actually us non-Muslim leftists usually believe that change has to come from within – and this holds true whether Islam is involved or not – for e.g. can America impose democracy on Iraq/Aghanistan? Can atheists reform religion? Can we get the Catholic church to have women ministers? – We can support / We can report – but can we change?
Yes, he does have a point about this in that there’s always room for improvement, but speaking as an atheist, a woman and the mother of a daughter, I can promise you all that I’m so far from being willing to do a swap that I’ll swim to the moon first.
Massimo’s point is rather condescending, saying we have to coddle muslims so as to encourage the moderates to come out to play. But coddling isn’t what makes people engage in self-reflection – it’s being confronted head-on with problems. A big part of the reason for experiments in secularism and democracy in the 19th century in parts of the Arab (before imperialism) was because they had the very visible relative success of the Europeans in their face.
Ophelia: “Back off a bit, he said,…”
Back off from what? Islam has hardly faced any sustained criticism in the West from moderates and people further to the left. You have a handful of ex-Muslims and a handful of secular ad hoc critics like Bill Maher (a comedian), Sam Harris (a neuroscientist), and yourself (feminist thinker). Many hard atheists are virulently hostile to criticism of Islam because they see it ipso facto as some ‘racist and imperialist’ enterprise.
Academics who are experts on the topic are pretty spineless when it comes to public critiques of Islam and Muslim norms, and have even helped undermine even non-critical works that might ‘offend’ Muslims (see the white, non-Muslim, female professor who helped keep the Jewel of Medina from publication).
And the mainstream political and media reaction is appeasing and flattering Islam. Just listen to the pablum John Kerry and Obama say (although fortunately they both turn around and do what needs to be done security-wise).
The only people who call out Islam without political niceties screening their words are rightwing hypocrites like Robert Spencer, whose Christian conservative partisanship make their message unpalatable to most others.
Islam has not faced one scintilla the barrage of ridicule and critique that Christianity endures, and that is partly relative population numbers, but also capitulation to Islamic violence.
I enthusiastically agree with your support for liberal or moderate or even progressive, and especially ex muslims, though I fear they will have little impact in Saudi Arabia or Islamic State. I also substantially agree with the greater part of Massimo’s article, but…(I know, this means I disagree with it), there are some quibbles.
It may well be that “Islam per se” is not the problem, but a particular interpretation or sect of Islam is the ideological justification and empowering trigger for what may be a raft of grievances, real or imagined. Nor is education the sole solution. The Kouachi brothers, were I believe, born and brought up in France and no doubt enjoyed or suffered, depending on your point of view, the french education system, both highly intellectual and relentlessly secular. The vast majority of their peers are well integrated and care little for religion.
“history easily teaches..” writes Massimo. The problem is, history has many lessons, many of them contradictory and most of them lessons in the contingency of historical events. History is not always progressive as the Islamic State eloquently testifies. The Ottoman empire may have been “one of the most tolerant places to live” according to some views. Armenians, Greeks and Kurds may have other opinions and even if it were in some way objectively true; that was then, this is now. Moreover, the interaction between the “Western” and “Islamic” worlds has been roughly equal over the centuries. The “West” has not always, or even mostly, superior in strength or civilization.
The Ottoman empire, for better or worse, is gone. The consequences, somewhat similar to the fall of the Roman empire, are for us (and by us I mean western and eastern) to deal with and the solutions must address the realities of today, though certainly with an eye to the past, and will be played out, most likely, over many years to come.
Massimo’s view is a little too one sided I maintain.
@dshetty Can atheists reform religion? Can we get the Catholic church to have women ministers?
Well, I think people should be allowed to believe whatever they want, and have whatever observances and restrictions they want in the privacy of their own homes and religious institutions. But whenever they are in public spaces, they need to abide by society’s principles of equality regardless of gender (or skin colour or sexual orientation, etc) with no special exemptions or sanctions on the basis of “strongly held beliefs”. That’s my definition of true public secularism, and I think that if we had that as a general principle, religion would either liberalize or become irrelevant. Personally, I think I would prefer the latter.
As for “moderate” or “liberal” Muslims, here’s a quote from an Ottawa Imam from the Ahmadiyya sect (which is supposed to be liberal): “Of course we defend freedom of speech, but it has to be balanced. There has to be a limit. There has to be a code of conduct. We believe that any kind of vulgar expression about any sacred person of any religion does not constitute the freedom of speech in any way at all.”
Thank @ enkidu, No. 15, for pointing out the disconnect between his words about the West versus Islam. Massimo praises the Ottomans while naturally slamming America for our history of “slavery and genocide”. It would be funny almost, if it were not such a gratingly common double-standard.
And of course Massino goes out of his way to make sure we all know he found the cartoons very offensive. Honestly it is the exact same mentality in the aftermath of a violent crime as probing the sexual history of a rape victim. It is disgusting.
Well, I don’t think anyone comes out of history smelling entirely of roses. I suppose my point really is that the historical situation, however fascinating, is not the present. Whatever comes next we can only judge by the standards and mores of our own time.
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Katherine Woo @17:
You state your opinion as if it were factual. You find it disgusting.
(I would find it useful to have that information, were I to read that piece and consider its merit)
[meta]
enkidu @18:
I hope that by that you meant of our shared milieu; the extant Islamism is of our own time.
Well, I dunno. Worked pretty well for Germany and Japan. Not so well for Afghanistan. Nor Vietnam.
Iraq — even with the fighting that is currently going on — seems to have evolved into a democracy of sorts. Libya — which was bombed by the Brits during the latest civil war — seems to be evolving into a parliamentary government of sorts (though the verdict is still out). Egypt, which changed governments with no bombing at all, has reverted back to the “strongman” form of pseudo-democratic dictatorship it had under Mubarak.
So, all-in-all, I’d say the state of being bombed or not bombed has precious little to do with the near-term governmental outcomes.
@theobromine
whatever they want, and have whatever observances and restrictions they want in the privacy of their own homes and religious institutions.
But the boundaries are not so well defined (for e.g. what do you teach your kids or what do you do with insular communities like the fundamentalist latter day saints)
and I think that if we had that as a general principle, religion would either liberalize or become irrelevant.
I think I disagree. If the RCC kept out of the public sphere but still continued the same policies would it become irrelevant?
which is supposed to be liberal
I think classifying people who dont support violence as “moderates” or “liberals” is a really low bar so I doubt this person is really liberal.
John Morales @ 20. Yes, of course.
@dshetty
re teaching kids:
Much as I might prefer otherwise, I think that parents generally should be free to teach kids whatever sense or nonsense they choose, and the best we can do is counter that with good public education.
re relevance of the RCC:
I *do* think that it is good for secularism if the RCC maintains its restrictive policies in private – people will see the benefits of a secular approach, and without the public credibility, there will be less and less reason to follow the teachings of the RCC. (For example or creeping irrelevance: the majority of sexually active RCs use artificial birth control.)
re “liberal” Muslims:
Imam Imtiaz Ahmed (who asserted that it should be illegal to criticize religion) has significant credibility has significant credibility as a voice of liberalism.
He founded a group called “Stop the CrISIS”, an initiative to counter the radicalization of Canada’s Muslim youth.
He explains about his congregation of Ahmadiyya Muslims as follows:
He goes on to say