Richard Dawkins recently spoke at the Jaipur Literary Festival, which was marred by outrage against Salman Rushdie. Does this sound familiar?
The organizers of the festival were placed in an impossibly difficult position. Let down as they were by the spineless Rajasthan government, who had eyes only for the Muslim vote in the current elections, they did their best. They were personally threatened by a baying mob of bearded youths who invaded the festival compound promising murder and mayhem if Rushdie was allowed so much as a video link (as Germaine Greer said at the time of the Danish cartoons row, “What these people really love and do best is pandemonium”).
I’ve got nothing against beards, obviously, but it’s become almost comical how identical these mobs all look: it’s not the facial hair, it’s the attitude, the screaming, ranting hatred, the threatening air, the unthinking uniformity of their anger.
The contrast is also bizarre. Behold the New Atheists, calmly pointing out the absurdity of faith, making no threats, stating that there are better ways to make decisions and progress in our understanding than by wallowing in tradition and treating ancient tracts as holy…and they are accused of being shrill, militant, uncivilized rowdies, driving gentle Christians to the fainting couch.
Meanwhile, Muslim mobs riot, and they get a split reaction: Right-inclining reactionaries call for their execution and/or deportation, which is just as wrong-headed as the Lefty apologists who make excuses for them, demanding that we respect their religious traditions and avoid provoking them by calling their gods into question (and by the way, please don’t question ours, either, say the Christians, because that fainting couch is getting crowded).
But you don’t respect their humanity or their rights as citizens by pandering to the lies in which they’ve been steeped. They have every right to argue their case, but demanding that their critics by silenced or executed is not an argument, and we must reject that approach, on all sides.
Dawkins has more to say:
In my speech I compared the Muslim fatwa-mongers to the Papal Nuncio who, in 1580, encouraged Englishmen to murder Queen Elizabeth because she was “the cause of so much injury to the Catholic faith . . .” I went on to say:
Our whole society is soft on religion. The assumption is remarkably widespread that religious sensitivities are somehow especially deserving of consideration – a consideration not accorded to ordinary prejudice. . . I admit to being offended by Father Christmas, ‘Baby Jesus’, and Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer, but if I tried to act on these prejudices I’d quite rightly be held accountable. I’d be challenged to justify myself. But let somebody’s *religion* be offended and it’s another matter entirely. Not only do the affronted themselves kick up an almighty fuss; they are abetted and encouraged by influential figures from other religions and the liberal establishment. Far from being challenged to justify their beliefs like anybody else, the religious are granted sanctuary in a sort of intellectual no go area.
It should be part of our intellectual, Enlightenment culture that every idea — atheist or religious — should be open to argument and criticism, with no exceptions. And if your culture demands obedience to dogma, violent reprisals to criticism, and murder of any opponent of your views, then I’m going to recognize the fundamental conflict between your views and the goals of a civilized, forward-thinking society, and dismiss your culture as an enemy of reason, and oppose you by committing our version of your hateful acts: by promoting the health, welfare, and education of your children, and mocking the stupidity of your beliefs.
Very nice, PZ.
(I may be a NA, but I don’t know that anyone would call me ‘calm’.)
How cruel, to compare a caribou with a cold to the inventor of Hellfire and Damnation …
Let’s mock away.
One particularly heinous and bigoted factoid about the Rushdie incident: the local law enforcement at the festival fabricated a threat of violence to keep him away. They didn’t actually receive any express threat, they just lied and told Rushdie they did.
I agree with most of this, but:
as far as it is simple cultural relativism, agree as well (and may I point out that all too many western countries still have blasphemy laws on their books too).
However, we shouldn’t forget the question of western privilege. I’m not justifying violent acts, but partially these acts are also fueled by a sense of being a victim of cultural imperialism from the West, worsened by people like George Bush spouting about waging crusades for the famous western values. In many cases, ridiculing criticism can end up having the opposite effect.
I still believe due to this problem, change has to come from within. If you, as a westerner, criticise and condemn an entire culture, you have to understand how this comes off from the perspective of the culture concerned. It will make it harder for those working for change within their own culture to adopt your position or ally themselves with you.
Of course in an increasingly globalised and interconnected world, this is becoming more and more difficult. Caricatures in a Danish newspaper nobody paid any attention to became an issue years later when some religious demagogue needed an issue to rally their troops against.
My personal approach at this point, is to unequivocally condemn violence of any kind for religious reasons (this could justifiably be a universal value), but to take a more restrained approach towards hurting the religious feelings of foreign cultures (let’s call it “gratuitous blasphemy”). I have a feeling that you can reach moderate elements by this approach, as they too are very concerned about violent acts, but would be put off by blasphemy. And it is these moderate elements that have to bring about change from within their own societies.
What I have always found inexplicable is the assumption that God can’t take care of himself. If his feelings are so easily hurt that we have to protect him from hearing any blasphemy, while he is unable to smite the blasphemers on his own, he’s a pretty lame ass supreme being, in my view.
(Huh! Only people from Alberta up at this hour?)
I liked this post because of the contrasts. The ranting and raving like lunatics, shouting everyone in opposition down and making threats are extremist enough for me. That any violence actually occur is loathsome to me, and should be for anyone considering themselves a part of modern civilization and society.
In addition to what PZ suggested as a rational response, I would also add that perhaps we should suggest to the religious leaders and family members who recognize the people in the videos and photos of these shout/threat-fests (such as the one PZ posted a couple days back) that they take them aside and inform them that THEY are the reason their religion is under attack, garnering zero respect and having people leave for more ‘spiritually’ sane pastures.
Young, ignorant hotheads abound in every culture. Every culture has or had a holy book telling them to commit violence in the name of that religion. However, every culture doesn’t act on that instruction as recognition they are a part of something more important than what was an instruction for and by people n-centuries ago when it was a barbaric time and one was much more likely to die by violent means. To be considered a part of the human race, you should act like you deserve to be in it by recognizing a sentient human life is more important than any dogma. Anyone failing to recognize this definitely deserves extra scorn and derision and zero respect.
(I did a FIFY for myself by including ‘sentient’ in that sentiment to guard against those who think that life begins at erection)
Different strokes and all that.
Some people are uncomfortable with the fact that defending freedom of speech sometimes means defending things they don’t support but ultimately those ‘moderate elements’ have to understand that speech or expression or religious belief is NOT free when only the bits they are comfortable with are free.
I have to laugh. My blog is being swamped by Serbian christofascists atm who are trying to explain to me how my pointing out that Djokovic masturbating towards the heavens everytime Nadal hit one into the net constitutes religious intolerance and persecution of their beliefs. This is the new tactic of religious believers anywhere, cry persecution and claim to be offended, and some political do-gooder will want to defend your right to not feel offended by people exerting their freedom of speech. Because the racists do it too.
Maryam Namazie reports that her book launch in India was cancelled because some Muslims “felt uncomfortable”, Sikhs are suing Jay Leno because they felt offended by a joke some intern wrote for the Tonight Show, it’s all becoming ridiculous fast.
Blondin,
did you miss the entire “western privilege” bit?
Many westerners can’t understand how they are perceived, EVEN IF they are right (because you’re right in what you’re saying, ultimately the moderates have to understand that). People have not forgotten the days of western imperialism, and sometimes westerners lecturing them about how inferior they are (intended or not) just evokes the memories of the past (and the world right now is still run in an international system designed by and mostly dominated by the West). I’m not saying cease all criticism, just be careful about western privilege.
rorschach,
not in most western countries, where most blasphemy statutes are much reduced compared to the past (but YMMV!). I’m talking about non-western countries, where I’d think one should evaluate one’s strategy country-by-country. I’m arguing against a one-size-fits-all approach, is all.
@Cervantes,
What do you expect from a god who can’t even provide unequivocal evidence of its existence? You’d think that an omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, omnisexual being would at least have its own cable show.
Doesn’t this assume, no doubt wrongly, that there are no atheists in these societies? No atheist or freethinking groups or people who want to organize them, who could use our support? It seems to me that the restrained approach towards blasphemy would work against them….
SC,
no, I do assume that there are atheists, and that they need support. But instead one-size-fits-all approach, western atheists should collaborate with local groups to find out what kind of support they need.
Like what I was saying when the incident happened in Indonesia. The Indonesian atheist who posted on the thread said that the guy was thrown into jail because he posted some stuff critical of the prophet, which can fall under the Indonesian blasphemy statute (and all local groups are usually aware of this and operating accordingly). He said that he was trying to set up some kind of defence fund for the guy so people could send donations to support him. This would be very useful to send him money, for instance.
ROTFLMAO! You win 1 (one) Internets.
… sorry to complete my earlier thought: if all major western atheist sites now were to publish all kinds of anti-Qur’an texts in Indonesian in an apparent show of solidarity, that would probably not be helpful, as such a response would create the perception that Indonesian atheists are agents of the west trying to undermine Indonesian society.
The guy is alive because the police got to him before the lynch mob could, from what I read. There is a petition and a FB page, I’ve blogged those links, but essentially it’s out of anyone’s hands now, and he’s facing up to 5 years jail as far as I can tell. There was some mention of additional charges today, but I can’t remember where I read that.
No, he dared to write “god does not exist” on a FB page. In Indonesia, you may hold 6 superstitions, but you may not say out loud that you lack one.
I agree with this last sentence, but what you seemed to be advocating above was itself a one-size-fits-all approach that didn’t mention local atheist or freethinking groups (or people, for that matter) at all. You said “And it is these moderate elements [who would be offended by blasphemy] that have to bring about change from within their own societies,” and you talked about “hurting the religious feelings of foreign cultures” as though cultures were monolithic and had feelings.
I completely agree with what you’re saying about being aware of privilege and perception, and of course imperialism. But I take issue with this aspect of your recommended approach, especially because, as I said, it seems to me to ignore the possible effects of catering to moderate religious people’s sensibilities about blasphemy on actual or would-be blasphemers within these societies.
rorschach,
yes, as I wrote on the Indonesian thread, it goes like this:
you do something blasphemous – angry mob lynches you – if you’re lucky the police arrest you – you get sentenced to 4-6 years (or there will be riots again).
As I said, I think in Indonesia it would have been better to say “I don’t believe in god” instead of “god does not exist”. However, be that as it may, he did publish anti-Qur’anic posts on his facebook page. This was the main charge. Many Indonesian news sources have reported on this, the main charge is defamation of Islam (hina Islam), not being an atheist. The question whether “there is no god” is defamation of Islam is open to debate (maybe there’d be a case if he was born a Muslim), but this won’t matter at his trial, because he also posted anti-Islamic writings.
SC,
sorry if I created this impression. My experience in certain countries has been that atheists that are “out” are a rarity, and it is the religiously moderate (who often are culturally religious) that have to pave the way within society.
But it’s probably true that atheist organisations should look for local atheist groups to collaborate with, not the religiously moderate, as otherwise you then run into the accommodationist problem.
Not only do I agree with this, I’ve been arguing it here in specific cases for years, including advocating for more attention to the possible negative effects of well-meaning support campaigns (including in those instances in which people might think that the positive potential outweighs the negative). I think we agree on that, which seems to me different from your earlier suggestion. It would be a little strange to get into an agrument about some hypothetical atheist campaign that I haven’t seen anyone propose, especially since your opinion of it doesn’t seem to be based on what local groups have said one way or the other.
Ah – crossposted.
I’m not at all comfortable with this kind of thinking.
SC,
I’m not either. But they have the law, and courts are happily sending offenders to prison, I’ve seen it happen with a cracker offender (a Protestant who merely didn’t know what the host was). Would be wise to err on the side of caution instead of risking a prison sentence.
I’m not at all comfortable with this kind of thinking.
Especially because this report says that:
The suggestion that what he did was wrong or not ideal in any way can have effects on other atheists and opponents of blasphemy laws who want to speak out publicly. More generally, we should not be in the business of telling people, especially people in other countries, how to express their atheism to be less offensive to believers.
But we hold the law to be wrong, and must speak out against it, surely ?
It’s his decision to make. In the history of the world, risking a prison sentence has done a hell of a lot for human freedom. You could say the same thing about any people or groups who’ve spoken truth to power for centuries.
But the last thing atheists in countries with these oppressive laws need is atheists in safer circumstances questioning their open, strong expression of their atheism and suggesting that they should be muting it.
Indonesian atheists.
But…it’s part of their culture.
Glen Davidson
SC,
Sorry this was mostly my own opinion based on my own experiences when I was there. I was even less courageous in that I masqueraded myself as a fake Lutheran in order not to jeopardise my status with the community, which, as it turned out, did not like atheists.
i wasn’t denigrating his courage, sorry if It came off like that.
rorschach,
yes, it’s wrong.
but the UN is split about the blasphemy issue, this could be perceived as a case of imposing western values. Western campaigns can often backfire (like the whaling issue in Japan). Maybe it would be better to focus on getting rid of what’s left of blasphemy laws in the West (recently the Pius brotherhood tried to get a play banned in Hamburg because they claimed it was blasphemous).
SC,
yes this is the guy who posted on the Indnesian thread, he’s studying in Germany right now. the timing was ironic, because the next day the incident happened. i’ve read artciles before about an atheist student organisation in Jakarta, though how much they’d be featured in the Indonesian language media, I couldn’t say.. it’s not an issue portrayed overly positively
Yeah, it’s hard – especially if you’ve been in similar fearful circumstances – to get past the protective impulse. My concern, though, is that “it would have been better if…” can easily be read as not only that it would have been better in terms of his personal safety and continued employment but that there was something wrong with what he did.
But this is the same thing again. It’s true that foreign campaigns can often backfire and that they’re more likely to to the extent that they’re not rooted in active collaboration and solidarity with local groups, but this doesn’t mean that all of them necessarily do or will. I’m not clear on what or with whom you’re actually arguing. Are you suggesting that we not speak out (or not speak out in an organized way) at all about religious oppression in non-Western countries, or in international contexts?
Amusing how, appended to this post in Google reader, there was an advert for scientology.
pelamun wrote
Nothing I read in PZ’s post condemned an entire culture. What it condemned was the manner in which some representatives of a specific culture express their disagreement with members of another culture, with threats, riots, violence, killing, and general mayhem. That is what is unacceptable in a community of whatever composition that has aspirations to be civilized.
SC,
You’re right, this needs to be clarified more. It could also be that I have an erroneous impression of what rorschach meant by “speaking out”.
I absolutely support reporting on this, calling attention to this, making people more aware that this is happening. Westerners absolutely should not silence themselves on this.
However, we need to make clear that this doesn’t necessarily mean that we are condemning the entire culture as backward, primitive or inferior.
And when a UN conference is going on, then the NGOs of course have their role to play, that’s their job. I’m more concerned about when a western NGOs send people to developing countries, though I’ve had many good experiences with volunteer aid workers, not so much with professionals (but YMMV).
There are people in the west who routinely use such incidents to do just that, and we have some posters here as well who like to do this every time something happens that involves Muslims.
Now I don’t think anyone who has posted here so far falls under this, but sometimes a wrong perception can occur at the other end. This is why I thought focusing on blasphemy issues in the West would give you a justification for saying “we are doing something here, you might consider doing something in your country as well”.
Or you explicitly express your respect for the culture in question. Because if your criticism leads to dismissing the entire culture, then your support won’t be of much help to those trying to change the society from within.
rbh3, have you read to the end of the post? The last sentence can be understood as a blanket dismissal of an entire culture.
So they got the video link cancelled as well. What the fuck has my country come to? We’re being sandwiched by braindead hindu fundamentalists on one side and idiotic islamic bigots on the other.
These people need to be dragged into the 21st century.