Within a few days I’ve seen the shocking failure of Western education systems even in the basics. From religious nuts to Woke evangelicals there seems to be an inability to grasp the basic containment principle of proper subsets, and of their defining properties.
Define two sets, A and B. If B is a proper subset of A then ALL members of B are also members of A, but not all memebrs of A are members of B.
If A is defined as having property X, then all memebrs of A (and therefore of B) have property X.
If B has a distinguishing property Y that distinguishes its members from other memebrs of A, then all memebrs of A that are not in B do not have property Y.
Islamists are Muslims and are Islamic
This diagram illustrates the principle of containment and defining properties of proper subsets.
Here is an exchange on Twitter that shows that Sara might not know what a proper subset is – or that she really thinks being Islamic and being an Islamist are mutually exclusive:
She either doesn’t know that Islamists are a proper subset of Muslims and are therefore by definition Islamic, or she doesn’t understand the meaning of the terms Islamic and Islamist. It may well be the latter – as a matter of wishful thinking. She wasn’t alone. Between them, Sara and Chris are simply not getting it.
The only way to interpret these responses is:
They are just dishonest. They know full well that Islamists are Muslims.
They really think there are two mutually exclusive sets of Muslims – Islamic Muslims and non-Islamic Muslims (Islamists) – but they would still have to understand they are both Muslims. You know they know this by rejecting my suggestion they are playing “Nothing to do with Islam”
They actually think Islamists are not Muslims at all. But “Islamists are comparable to Christian terrorism … or the violence perpetrated by Christian fundamentalists” indicates that they really do know that Islamists are Muslims. So, what do they think Islamic means? Just ‘Nice Muslims’? That judgement would require them to know something of Islam, which if they did they’d know it’s a nonsensical judgement.
Other respondants show similar misunderstandings.
Ash Sarkar: Tall Men are not Men
Ash seems very confused about the application of descriptions to the various sets. By definition there are biological males and biological women. Not shown on the diagram are some of the nuances of how to classify people that are biologically male or female at the edges – but this is not what Trans identity is about.
If you doubt this last claim search Twitter for #trans and you’ll be inundated with tweets of people who are very clearly biological males engaged in sex acts, and most are obviously male, with male penises and fake boobs – these are not the the people born with ambiguous genitalia.
If you want further evidence of the male nature of many transwomen, look up #sissy on Twitter and you’ll see more men. This time they are projecting – it’s simply a more committed version of men imagining themselves as ‘slutty’ women, which these guys are acting out.
Good luck to them. Each to their own. Back to Ash’s points.
The diagram below illustrates Jenkinson’s point, and includes Ash’s addition of the characteristic of being tall.
Of course Ash does understand the point that Tall Men ARE a subset of Men. That’s why she’s using it, sarcastically.
In fact Tall Transwomen are also a subset of Men, the intersection of Transwomen and Tall Men – we love a bit of intersectionality. Ash’s intention is to try to illustrate what she thinks is Jenkinson’s error. She thinks that saying “Transwomen are not women” is the same kind of error as “Tall men are not men” because she thinks that Transwomen are actually women, as if there is no significant difference.
Ash’s use of “Tall men are not men they are tall men” is specifically trying to point out what she thinks a reduculous claim by Jenkinson, “Transwomen are not women they are transwomen”. But that relies on Ash’s false presupposition that Transwomen are women. Jekinson is right, transwomen are not women (they are not a subset of women), they are transwomen (a subset of men).
So, of course, Ash’s “Tall men are not men they are tall men” is false, as she knows, but “Transwomen are not women they are transwomen” is true, because transwomen are a subset of all men.
To think transwomen are women is to confuse innate characteristics with adaptable identities, which becomes a problem every time Ash thinks she’s spotted a White Supremacists – she may well have dead-skinned a Transblack Black Supremacists, to use an adaptation of a favourite notion of Trans ideology.
After so many advances against bigotry the TRA ideologues are not only blurring that issue, but they are engaging in their own bigotry – as you can see by the many abusive TRA messages that appear in the social media of women. This also illustrates the fact that transwomen are not women but men, the misogyny of transwomen TRAs against women is far greater than is the bigotry against men, and is also greater than the abuse from transmen (women) against men or women. The most abuse you see is from TRA transwomen and their ‘allies’, against actual women.
There are innate characteristics, and then there are changeable identities and behaviours:
1 – Man/Woman* – Innate – You don’t get a choice. You can act out as if you can change, but that does not make it innate or real.
2 – Black/White – Innate – You don’t get a choice. You can act out as if you can change, but that does not make it innate or real. The difference here though is that skin colour, and race, are ALL mixes, from pareant to child, within and outside human ‘races’, because all decent from a small number of original humans. Therefore it is far easier for ‘mixed race’ (mixed in the recent past when previously disparate groups began to mix more often) to identify as black or white or neither or both. The problem with race is not the variety of races, but the fact that some people use morphological differences to discriminate against people that don’t “look like us” – i.e. actual racism.
3 – Christian/Muslim – Chanegable identities – You get a choice. Note how committed many Chrisians and Muslims are. They see it as a core aspect of their identity. But many atheists that were believers look back and acknowledge that no matter how committed they felt in their religion they were at the time, it was not the actual biological nature that identified them but their mental attitude to their chosen (or indoctrinated) identity.
4 – Transman/Transwoman – Chanegable identities – You get a choice, whether to be a man, or a trans woman; or to be a woman, or a trans man. Note how committed many Transmen and Transwomen are. They see it as a core aspect of their identity. But many de-transitioners look back and acknowledge that no matter how committed they felt they were at the time, it was not the actual biological nature that identified them but their mental attitude to their chosen (or indoctrinated) identity. So, as in 1, you can act out as if you can change from a man into a woman, but that does not make it innate or real. The innate characteristics are being a man or a woman, the ‘feeling’, the adapted identity, trans woman, trans man, is not innate.
*Don’t let the arguments from ‘intersex’ confuse the issue. Most trans people are not intersex, they are straight forward biological male or female.
Labour’s Stella Creasy gave a very good speech on the crisis in Afghanistan in Parliament today (18th August 2021), where she emphasised that the duty of this nation (UK) now was to help those that helped us, and the women and girls, and that we should play our part in an international effort to monitor the actions of the Taliban that have now become the rulers of Afghanistan.
This is good stuff from a Labour MP – poles apart from the previous leader, Jeremy Corbyn, who can only manage to take the opportunity to chide the foreign policies of the USA and the UK (not that he’s wrong) but never seems to manage to point out how much worse are Islamic extremists that are in the habit of killing women for the slightest ‘immodest’ behaviour. None of that evasion from Stella.
Stella Creasy, 18th August, 2021, speaking in the House of Commons
However, she couldn’t resist making a “Nothing to do with Islam” claim. Her actual words were:
We must also say, this is not Islam. Islam is not the reason why people are clinging to planes to save their lives. That is brutalism and terrorism., and we must not let people divide us here or overseas in that fight for those values.
Stella Creasy, 18th August, 2021 – UK House of Commons speech on Afghanistan.
This is utter nonsense. And, this is divisive, the opposite of what she wants, because while this will appease the Muslim Council of Britain and 5 Pillars and similar organisations, it is flying in the face of reality and insulting the many ex-Muslims, Muslims and non-Muslims that can see very clearly it all has a lot to do with Islam.
Here, I have to inject the necessary “NOT ALL MUSLIMS“. It seems stupid having to do so, but of course that is exactly what is necessary to attempt to avoid the cursed Islamophobia charge, along with “Why do you hate all Muslims?“, though it will come anyway. It’s an odd charge, since most victims of Islam are Muslims, and if I really hated Muslims I’d be all for these murderous examples of it.
The Taliban have been very clear throughout their existence that their justification for their brutality is Islamic. They will cite the texts that demand the punishments they mete out.
The same has been true of those other “nothing to do with Islam” Islamists and extremists: ISIS, al Qaeda, Boko Haram.
Pakistan
We also have Islamic states like Pakistan, where the famous cricketer and now Prime Minister of Pakistan supports blasphemy laws, laws that saw Christian Asia Bibi flee Pakistan for her life, after a ten year sentence in prison, chased by the baying mobs led by Islamic preachers demanding she be hanged.
Pakistan is also the location from which Saira Khan tried to present a piece for the BBC, on the celebration of the birthday of the prophet Mohamed. She convinced here minders and producer that she would be safe down on the ground among the many men (only men) enjoying the celebrations. But, she was groped and mobbed to the point where she feared that had she remained or been there alone, she would have been raped.
See The Enlightenment of the Brave Saira Khan. Of course, Saira too, at that time, along with her co-presenters, insisted it was “Nothing to do with Islam“, but rather “Pakistani culture“. The latter is actually a racist claim because it implicates all the women in Pakistan too, and the Pakistani Christians, non-Muslims, … Jews (are there any left in Pakistan?). It’s culture, sure enough: Islamic culture – just not for all Muslims.
Saira Khan, on Loose Women, reporting on the sexual abuse she received in Pakistan
That post covers many other examples presented by Saira on several Loose Women shows. You’d have to be thoroughly insane to miss the point that all her examples are from Muslims, in many cases justifying their actions from Islam.
Poor brave Saira stuck with Islam as long as she could, but because of all the abuse she received from her ‘Muslim community’, she eventually declared she was no longer a ‘practicingMuslim‘. This was a wise choice of words, and I suspect intended. She did not declare she was no longer a Muslim, for then she would be an apostate, punishable by death in much of Islam. Death for apostasy exists as a sentence in some Islamic states.
Iran
In Iran we have seen the perpetual persecution of women that refuse to wear the hijab, required for ‘modesty’ purposes, as prescribed by the Islamic regime: #WhiteWednesdays, #FreeFromHijab, #NoHijabday.
While Stella laments the suffering of men too under the Taliban, how on earth can she declare “Nothing to do with Islam” when ISIS (Sunni Islam) have been throwing gay men of buildings (“from a high place” in the Islamic texts) and the Iranian regime (Shia) has been hanging gay men.
Afghanistan
In Afghanistan it’s not just the Taliban that have been persecuting and killing women. Farkhunda Malikzada was killed by a mob (beaten, run over by a car, stoned, then set on fire – when she actually died nobody knows). Why? Because she was believed (mistakenly) to have damage a copy of the Quran. You can’t get a more Islamic example of Islamic brutality.
Islam IS the reason so many Muslims are fleeing the Taliban (and maybe ex-Muslims – it’s not always wise to reveal your real metaphysical position in Islamic dominated states and communities). Of course, for the feeing Muslims it may not be THEIR Islam – we are often reminded by the very same people that declare “Nothing to do with Islam“, that “Islam is not a monolith“. Surely they wouldn’t have to keep making the latter statement if the former were true. They make the latter because they too know that all this Islamic extremism really does have much to do with Islam, and that thankfully, not being a monolith, not all Muslims follow all aspects of Islam to the letter.
The fleeing Muslims are fleeing from the type of Islam they don’t want. That’s a far more honest claim than Stella’s “this is not Islam“.
The Wider Islamic World
Throughout the Islamic world there are countless examples of the brutality of the punishments prescribed in Islam. The chopping of limbs and heads in Saudi. One hundred lashes (Quran 24:2) for sex outside marriage in the in Indonesia, and for a Filipino maid in the UAE.
And, the UAE has had several cases where rape victims have been prosecuted for having sex outside marriage. This is particularly egregious. Islamic apologists insist that such cases are rare because several witnesses to sex outside marriage are required, and who would bear witness to their own ‘sin’? Well, rape victims, apparently.
The UK
Muslims in Western states aren’t free from Islam. The UK has more than its share of Islamic extremists. No wonder Asia Bibi didn’t come to the UK – wise move. Unfortunately, for those living here, Islam can be very unforgiving.
Asad Shah, a British Ahmadi Muslim (Ahmadis are denied their rights in Pakistan) was killed by a British Sunni Muslim for ‘disrespecting Islam’. How very Islamic.
Nissar Hussain was a Bradford Muslim who converted to Christianity – apostasy. He was lucky not to be killed, but was beaten brutally be local Muslims and driven out of Bradford. How very Islamic.
British Labour Apologists
Besides Stella Creasy we have many more British MPs that want to declare “Nothing to do with Islam”. Following the Manchester Area bombing by an Islamic terrorist, Manchester Mayor “Shaykh” Andy Burnham had something to say, though he was put in his place by Muslim Haras Rafiq.
Then we have Owen Jones and Jeremy Corbyn, never shy of ‘sticking up for Muslim’, which, ‘coincidentally’ includes them going missing in action when Islamic states do wrong. Not much from either of them on the hanging of gay men in Iran, or the horrors of ISIS or the Taliban. And, eager to tell us how close we were to WWIII when Trump took out terrorism promoter Soleimani, they both coincidentally went very quiet when Iran shot down a passenger jet killing all on board.
Whenever I hear “Nothing to do with Islam” it’s mostly coming from people that don’t seem to be aware of the many ex-Muslims and ex-Muslim organisations that have been trying to tell Western progressives how little they know about Islam.
Ex-Muslims are are often dismissed with, “Oh, well, they would say that wouldn’t they,” as if they are criticising Islam BECAUSE they are ex-Muslims, rather than the reality: many very pious Muslims, indoctrinated into Islam, eventually wake up to the fact that not only are many atrocities committed in the name of their religion, they too learn the texts that prescribe these atrocities. No! Many ex-Muslims are ex-Muslims and criticise Islam BECAUSE they are familiar with Islam.
The irony in all this is that Labour think they are protecting a minority, Muslims, when they declare, “Nothing to do with Islam.” But of course Islam isn’t a minority. It’s the second largest religion in the world, with several states dedicated to upholding Islamic values, just as are the Taliban.
Who are the actual persecuted minorities throughout the Islamic world, and in Islamic communities in the West? Jews, ex-Muslims, Christians, atheists … and the “wrong type of Muslim”. Where are Labour for those minorities. (Yes, OK, we have learned what a large part of Labour thinks of Jews).
Perhaps Stella could start engaging with more ex-Muslims.
And, perhaps Labour would have a greater opportunity to return to power if they didn’t make such stupid claims.
Questions about Israel always seem to be one sided. Though critics might reply, “Of course, Hamas shouldn’t fire rockets … but …”, it’s always the ‘but’ and ensuing excuses that are so revealing.
There’s a tendency to look back, to the history of the region … but only as far back as suits the anti-Israel narrative.
“Why is Israel bombing Palestinian buildings?”
Maybe if Palestinian terrorist didn’t fire rockets into Israel.
“Apartheid* Israel started it, persecuting Palestinians?”
Maybe if Palestinian terrorists didn’t kill Jews in Israel, coming through terror tunnels, sending incendiary kites over.
“They wouldn’t** if they didn’t have to live in Gaza prison.”
Gaza was walled because Palestinian terrorists attacked Jews so often, Israel refused to put up with it and created a security barrier.
“The West Bank!”
The West Bank was taken by Jordan in one of the several attempts by Muslim neighbours to defeat Israel. Israel took it back in the six day war of 1967. Tough.
“The British and Zionists are to blame! 1948!”
Well, maybe, if Germany, Russia and practically every other country hadn’t persecuted Jews in the diaspora.
The Jews have ONE homeland.
Where was the international condemnation of Pakistan, created as a Muslim state, which persecutes Jews (are there any Jews left there?) There are many Islamic states. Why was there a need for another, if Jews can’t have ONE?
Israel is surrounded immediately by antagonistic Muslim states, that have attacked Israel, some of which indoctrinate their children with a hatred for Jews, in Muslim homes, in Muslim religious schools, on state TV children’s programmes in some cases. There are many liberal Muslims, and man, many ex-Muslims that attest to this teaching.
No wonder, Apartheid* Islam always persecuted Jews, as well as Christians, Atheists. Muslims even persecute the wrong type of Muslim, but critics of Israel don’t seem to mind, so accustomed are they to Islamofascism.
Perhaps many critics of Israel mean well, in defending Muslims, as they see it when they wave Palestinian flags. But there’s a gross ignorance about Islam that these dupes seem blind to. Islam is the second largest religion in the world, has plenty of ‘Muslim lands’ – an Apartheid term used by Muslims, because when Islamic law is implemented as intended, non-Muslims are second class citizens, having to pay differential taxes, and unable to hold various positions in the Islamic state.
It’s sometimes convenient to step back in history to pick a time when the land of Israel wasn’t in the hands of the Jews or their forebears, or when Jews or someone else can be blamed for the driving out of the Jews, other than Muslims.
The British are often to blame. Conveniently. But they ended up controlling the region only after the last Caliphate of the Ottoman Empire, but we’re not supposed to talk about the Islamic conquests, just as it’s reasonable to mention the Atlantic slave trade but not the Islamic, which pre/post dated and supplied the Atlantic.
Though there have been many conquerors of the region of Israel up to the middle of the 20th century, since 1948, when Israel was established as the ONE Jewish homeland, Jews have suffered persecutions in and expulsions from ‘Muslim lands’, so that Israel is the ONLY place for Jews to go.
And yet, after several wars on Israel, still the Muslim nations around them want to drive Israel, and Jews off the map. And their allies, usually left wing fools that mysteriously seem to favour the ultra-conservative, misogynistic, homophobic (i.e. far-right) political religious ideology of Islam.
“No, it’s not Jews, it’s Israel”
Really? The world persecutes Jews wherever they are, drives them into their ONE and legitimate homeland, … and then tries once more to drive them out again.
There’s no end to this, especially from Islamic anti-Jewish hate.
“They wouldn’t** if they didn’t have to live in Gaza prison.”
Of course they would. It’s the stated aim of terrorist Hamas, and of the rogue state of Iran, and it’s only recently that some of the more pragmatic Arab Islamic neighbours have finally figured harassing Israel isn’t working and have acknowledged Israel’s right to exist.
There will remain disputed borders, as there are around the world that don’t attract an irate antisemitic crowd. But Israel stands as a state and has a right to defend itself. If it’s over zealous sometimes, by all means criticise it. But if you keep calling for sanctions, or want Israel prosecuted for human rights violations, or whatever else you can think of, then at least be balanced.
If you want to criticise Israel for ‘killing children’, at least have the decency to thoroughly condemn Hamas for deliberately putting children in harms way. And do the same for all the other examples of Muslims elsewhere that devalue the lives of children: grooming gangs, honour killings, FGM, brutal religious schools, forced marriages, under age marriages. Stop being such hypocrites. …
Israel, then and now
You might think I’m exaggerating about the antisemitic motivated focus on Israel. So, let me give you a couple of examples from the UK. I pick on these two because they are similar in their biases, not that they are the only ones. They are the ones I notice most.:
Jeremy Corbyn – A long time ‘friend’ of terrorists, seen at the graveside of IRA and Islamic terrorists, recently Labour Party leader, at a time that saw increasing antisemitism in the party, and Corbyn sharing platforms with known antisemites.
Owen Jones – Not an MP, but a Labour Party member, and long time choir boy for the party, and for a time, a strong supporter of Corbyn.
It’s difficult to pin either down as explicit antisemites, but according to the current progressive popular measures of ‘unconscious bias’ and ‘unconscious racism’ this two fit the bill of at least ‘unconscious’ antisemitism.
They tout themselves as champions of the oppressed and persecuted, when Israel is supposedly doing the persecuting, then they go missing in action for other causes. Some examples from their twitter feeds might help make the point, as both of them are not shy when it comes to tweeting about Palestinian rights and Israel’s ‘crimes’.
Who are the subjects of these empty feeds?
Nassir Hussain was a Muslim, in the UK. He converted to Christianity. Leaving Islam is a capital crime in Islam – supposedly not in the UK. As it is, he got away lightly with a beating, using baseball bats, by local Muslims, all being caught on security cameras he had to have installed because he was being persecuted by Muslims.
Corbyn and Jones are not interested.
Asad Shah was an Ahmadi Muslim. Ahmadi Muslims are persecuted in Pakistan, and are prohibited in law from calling themselves Muslims. Their mosques are often attacked in Pakistan. Their HQ is now in the UK. But, since we have a large Pakistani community in the UK they are not entirely free here. The Muslim Council of Britain has a page dedicated to denouncing them – though, of course, in the nicest possible way so as not to infringe British draconian hate speech laws. Well, it was too much for one Muslim, who drove from Bradford, up to Glasgow where Asad Shah lived, in order to kill him. In the aftermath the Ahmadi community attempted to hold an inter-faith peace event, to which Jewish and Christian leaders turned up … but not Sunni or Shia Muslim leaders.
Corbyn and Jones are not interested.
Asia Bibi is a Christian woman who served ten years in prison in Pakistan on some trumped up charge that was entirely about religious sectarianism. When Pakistan’s courts freed here, there were massive religious demonstrations encouraged in Pakistan to have her hanged. To Britain’s shame, we did not offer her sanctuary. To be honest, given the zealotry of some of our Muslims, many of whom were only too keen to join ISIS, it might have been a wise move from our government, “We’d like to offer you a home here, Asia, but you wouldn’t be safe from too many our own Pakistani Muslim community. Don’t tell anyone I said that.”
Corbyn and Jones are not interested.
These are not the only examples of Corbyn and Jones going missing in action in revealing ways.
Here are two very similar posts, about how, outraged at the killing of Iranian tyrant Qasem Soleimani, they both went missing in action when the Iranians shot down an airliner, killing all on board, so reluctant are they to criticise Iran.
To repeat, these are not the only culprits that focus more than a little suspiciously on Israel, the home of the Jews, but because they are OUR British far left progressive champions of the oppressed, particularly when Jews appear to be doing the oppressing, and hardly ever when Muslims actually and very overtly are, when there are far more examples of the latter.
The problem for women like me, who have a Muslim name and are of Asian heritage, is that others make assumptions about us before we even open our mouths
It’s common to see this complaint about assumptions being aimed at critics of Islam, as if we are making generalisations about what all Muslims think – which isn’t true, though it can be for those that have never taken the trouble to pay attention to Islam outside terrorist attacks.
However, it’s also true of many Muslims who want to impose their expectations of what a (‘good’) Muslim should be.
This week I received a disgusting message from a troll, which made me think it’s high time I came out of the closet to proclaim that I am not a practising Muslim.
It has taken me till the age of 50 to find the courage to say it.
I’m doing it now for my own wellbeing.
I want to be honest and feel free to live my life by my own rules.
I feel that by saying this as a public figure, I will no longer inadvertently confuse or unintentionally hurt others of the Muslim faith.
I must be clear that I do not represent any Muslim communities – especially Muslim women.
It’s worth emphasising some of the points made here.
If it has taken 50 years to have the courage to say it, and it was true during those 50 years, then it is not merely a matter hiding one’s own identity, but also raises the question of why Saira went to so much trouble to make sure she protected Islam from criticism. From outbursts on TV accusing others of racism towards Muslims, when they are criticising the religion, Saira went on to absolve the religion of criticism and instead put all the ills of, as she calls it, “my community” on being of Pakistani origin, and made much of Pakistan itself and its culture being the source of the problems. That this was as racist as labelling grooming gangs as Asian seems to have slipped Saira’s notice – it was not Pakistani Christians, Jews (are there any left) or even Ahmadi Muslims causing the many problems Saira has described numerous times on her Loose Women appearances.
So, in wanting to be honest it’s not just a matter of being honest about one’s own identity that needs to be established, but a little more honesty about Islam. But no, it seems not hurting ‘others of the Muslim faith’ seems the greater concern, and not the harm done by SOME (too large a number) of the Muslim faith, by action or omission.
And, it’s a pity Saira feels she does not want to represent any Muslim community, or Muslim women, because there are many Muslim women, in places like Iran, Saudi, and, yes, Pakistan, that might appreciate a little more vocal support from Western liberal women, especially those that have suffered the experiences Saira has from some Muslims. But, if Saira needs a break from Islam, as a spokesperson, or a critics, that’s her choice.
People assume that because we have Muslim parents we are practising Muslims, that we have read the Quran, that we fast every Ramadan, that we don’t drink, that we don’t have sex before marriage.
Surely Saira knows that the punishment for sex outside marriage in Islam, as stated clearly in the Quran and implemented in some Islamic countries, is 100 lashes? Perhaps not, if she hasn’t read the Quran. But this raises a genuine problem for many Muslims:
They assert that the Quran is the literal perfect word of Allah, valid for all time, a complete guide to life.
They ignore the parts of the Quran that are plain for everyone to see, that it prescribes horrendous punishments for acts that should not be considered criminal.
They assert only the ‘few’ extremists or fundamentalists take the bad stuff literally (i.e. the ‘nice’ Muslims cherry pick and leave those behind, or wave their hands and magic them away with ‘nuance’.)
They then scream ‘Islamophobia’ at those that choose the take the extremist’s and fundamentalist’s word for it.
Imagine the following:
Many Nazis declare that to be true to some of the ideas addressed in Mein Kamp it is necessary to exterminate all Jews.
Opponents of Nazism point out that this crazy ideology is endorsing genocide.
Some ‘nice’ Nazis scream, “Naziphobe! Not all Nazis! Only the extremists. Nazism is an ideology of peace.”
Would you be convinced?
At last, Saira has found the courage to choose for herself how she wants to live, irrespective of what others want for her.
I’ve not dared to share these feelings before because the very few Muslim women who have already made the admission are called sinful and some have even been targeted with death threats.
Saira is a mature adult, not some teenage girl uncertain of what the changes she is undergoing mean and how they fit in to the strict demands of Islam. If it has taken this long for Saira to have dared, how tough is it for so many others, of all ages, to speak out, female or male, in Islamic or any other ‘community’?
Saira’s public persona is both a privilege and a curse. A young unknown girl that wants to break free of strict religious traditions would have little support within the family or community – the dangers would be very local. A celebrity has wider public support, but also attracts the attention of religious lunatics from further afield.
What I am is someone brought up in the Muslim faith, with parents who practised it. So I have an insight into Islam. Most of my values are based on the spiritual aspects of the Muslim faith. But I’m also influenced by other spiritual teachings. I have found a huge relief in being honest. I feel this was the last taboo to overcome before I could live my best, most happy and fulfilled life.
Perhaps this feature comment says it better than most could:
I have to say I admire you Saira. I’m a 42 year old man from an African background, I entirely understand the cultural and family demands. Girl, you have more balls than most men I know. Bravo!!!
I am now waiting for a statement from her UK Muslim extended family supporting her personal life choices and can we please have input from a UK Muslim elder on mixed faith (on non-faith) marriages.
I am puzzled by how seemingly liberal people will make excuses for what, at best, is a conservative religion, and at worst is an ultra-conservative, misogynistic, homophobic political religious ideology – i.e. as far right as you can get.
This is especially puzzling, up to a point, when most victims of Islam are Muslims and ex-Muslims. The ‘point’ at which it ceases to be puzzling is when you hear the stories, some as bad as Saira’s, many far worse – Muslims and ex-Muslims are terrorised into conforming, or at least looking the other way while those that don’t conform are terrorised. Too often this happens within a family, and more so to women whose brothers, male cousins, uncles, even fathers, would kill a girl for dishonouring Islam.
There seems to be as much identity and protectionism in Islam as in any ‘replacement’ conspiracy theorising white racist group. Islam isn’t a race, but it has clearly been hyped as one, simply because the majority of Muslims in western countries are of a non-white heritage. Good luck pulling of ‘Islamophobia = racism’ when ex-Muslims of the same ethnicities as Muslims criticise Islam. And, did nobody notice the white Muslims (‘converts’ or ‘reverts’) joining ISIS? Saira has spoken out against this identity expectation, “I shopped my own cousin”, “it’s not racist to point out these problems”, but has also been the victim of it … for 50 years?
The ‘Muslim community’ is actually anything but, unless Islam is challenged by non-Muslims, and then the ‘unity’ card is played and even liberal Muslims are either coerced or feel obliged to play along, as Saira herself has done in the past. And when Muslims try to break the pattern, as a number of ‘reform’ Muslim groups do around the world, they are treated as apostates.
Sunni Muslims kill Ahmadis in Pakistan, … and the UK. The Muslim Council or Britain denounces Ahmadis on its web site, with the obligatory text to provide plausible deniability of stirring hate. Sunnis and Shias have flash points in the Middle East. The Oscars, of all places, saw this hatred for Ahmadis when it so many Muslims came out to celebrate a film by Muslim producers … until the Muslim Mafia realised they were Ahmadis. Smaller sects are denounced as not being proper Muslims.
Many Muslims denounce ISIS as non-Muslim, despite so many Muslims, and only Muslims, joining ISIS. But, ISIS denounce Muslims that won’t join or affiliate with them.
Islam is a mess. Not unlike Christianity used to be, and still is to a much lesser extent, with even Northern Ireland sectarian violence having cooled.
Christians are to blame too, for the mess of Islam in the west. It’s a bit risky criticising Islam without bringing down their own house of cards.
Woke anti-racism also plays a significant part. There are racists of all skin colours. #Woke#AntiRacism is #EquityRacism: It doesn’t reduce the amount of white racism in a majority white nation, it gives power to racists of all colours, increasing net racism, validating segregation, even dividing ethnicities internally. And Muslims are a very convenient tool for anti-racists.
Western Feminism can take some blame too. Despite the cries for support from ex-Muslims around the world, or from Muslim women in Iran, too many western feminists look the other way. In my previous post on Saira, where I posted the videos from ITV’s Loose Women, Saira’s co-panelists went out of their way to agree with Saira that this was all about culture and “Nothing to do with Islam”.
Oddly, and to the benefit of nobody, many on the non-Muslim far right, when not blaming all Muslims (and Sikhs) for every Islamic terror attack, will not shy from stating more honest facts about some case involving Islam. The problem is we know it’s not just the facts they want but some wider identity agenda of their own.
My agenda?
I’m anti-religion. It does way more harm than good, when the good could be achieved through any number or religions or none. The good that people claim to get from religion isn’t down to what the religion claims, and could be had without all the dreadful baggage that religion brings with it.
Islam currently brings with it the worst baggage because it is the second largest, and probably soon the largest religion in the world, given Christianity’s slow death. And then you only have to read the Quran, the supposed ‘perfect literal word of God, valid for all time’, a book that is easy for all to read, on the one hand, and yet requires great scholarship to understand – though that scholarship only ever seems to apply to excuse the nasty bits.
Decent Muslims have to ignore much of the Quran. We are told the fundamentalists are a minority of Muslims. OK, then how many decent Muslims will come straight out and say people should not be lashed 100 times for having sex outside marriage? Where is this renounced? Dare it be renounced as a bad part of the Quran, even 1400 years ago. Nobody thinks the Atlantic slave trade can be passed off as “Well, for the times …” – though the Islamic slave trade seems to get a pass, when it wasn’t given up in Saudi until 1962, and Mauritania, a key part of the slave trade, until 1981. The Quran, perfect for all time, still endorses slavery today.
While I still think Ahmadis are wrong in their beliefs, they must be given credit for at least attempting to disarm Islam by conveniently having another prophet (one of explanation not revelation, since Mohammed is supposed to the the final revelatory prophet). But they have no chance of catching on.
The same for reformers. What chance do they have when so many ‘decent’ and ‘liberal’ Muslims denounce them?
More specifically, Mohammed endorsed slavery? While there are verses where Mohammed suggests slaves may be freed, it is in some cases for the benefit of the Muslim slave owner, not the slave – to earn bonus points for good behaviour, so to speak.
In other cases it’s clear Mohammed presumes Muslims do have slaves, and therefore endorses the practice of slavery. There can’t be so many occasions when being nice to slaves, or even freeing them, or marrying them, is possible if you don’t have slaves in the first place, and if you don’t expect them to be owned, over many verses, and so over the many occasions when the verses were supposedly revealed.
Nowhere does Mohammed say, “Muslims, slavery is bad. Free all your slaves now, and take no others! Oh, and you shouldn’t have been using them for your own sexual gratification.”
You’d think an almighty deity could have given Mohammed a very clear message in that regard. But, no,or course not, because Mohammed was a man of his time; and so (if you can believe Mohammed was the source of any of the Quran) the best he can do is be a bit nicer to slaves and maybe free some now and again. It’s not like Romans didn’t occasionally dole out freedom – this wasn’t Mohammed coming up with some unique for the times socially woke policy, as many Muslims would have you believe.
Nevertheless, many modern Muslims will try to convince you that Mohammed was basically an Abraham Lincoln, or a Martin Luther King Jnr., so keen was he to set slaves free. This is the sort of verse they use to try to convince you:
Righteousness is not that you turn your faces toward the east or the west, but [true] righteousness is [in] one who believes in Allah, the Last Day, the angels, the Book, and the prophets and gives wealth, in spite of love for it, to relatives, orphans, the needy, the traveler, those who ask [for help], and for freeing slaves; [and who] establishes prayer and gives zakah; [those who] fulfill their promise when they promise; and [those who] are patient in poverty and hardship and during battle. Those are the ones who have been true, and it is those who are the righteous.
Quran 2:177
They neglect to point out all the other verses where Mohammed clearly has in mind that Muslims do actually own slaves.
Here’s an analogy of the duplicitous move Muslims make in declaring Mohammed opposed slavery …
Believer in a fictitious holy book (not the Quran in this case): Hey guys, my holy book opposes slavery. It says you should not take slaves! Look at verse X “You must not take slaves at the weekend.”
Non-believer reads the holy book: Hold on, verse Y says you can take slaves on weekdays. You’re a fraud.
Quran Examples
In 4:24 we see the phrase “those your right hands possess“, which usually means slaves, and is understood to mean slaves by many scholars. Clearly, this verse would be meaningless if Allah had banned slavery. You are not prohibited from marrying slaves, even if they are already married. You are only prohibited from marrying believing women married already (could also meaning chaste women, but that’s thought to mean married women anyway).
And [also prohibited to you are all] married women except those your right hands possess. [This is] the decree of Allah upon you. And lawful to you are [all others] beyond these, [provided] that you seek them [in marriage] with [gifts from] your property, desiring chastity, not unlawful sexual intercourse. So for whatever you enjoy [of marriage] from them, give them their due compensation as an obligation. And there is no blame upon you for what you mutually agree to beyond the obligation. Indeed, Allah is ever Knowing and Wise.
Quran 2:24
In 4:25 there’s a clear link between being a slave girls and the phrase “whom your right hand possesses” – this is clear that the phrase does mean slaves. And here, again, slavery is clearly presumed, because if you can’t afford to marry a free believing woman, you can marry a believing slave.
And whoever among you cannot [find] the means to marry free, believing women, then [he may marry] from those whom your right hands possess of believing slave girls. And Allah is most knowing about your faith. You [believers] are of one another. So marry them with the permission of their people and give them their due compensation according to what is acceptable. [They should be] chaste, neither [of] those who commit unlawful intercourse randomly nor those who take [secret] lovers. But once they are sheltered in marriage, if they should commit adultery, then for them is half the punishment for free [unmarried] women. This [allowance] is for him among you who fears sin, but to be patient is better for you. And Allah is Forgiving and Merciful.
Quran 2:25
In 4:92 it’s again specifically believing slaves – not non-believing slaves? So, implicit here is that you can own non-believing slaves, and believing slaves.
And never is it for a believer to kill a believer except by mistake. And whoever kills a believer by mistake – then the freeing of a BELIEVING slave and a compensation payment presented to the deceased’s family [is required] unless they give [up their right as] charity. But if the deceased was from a people at war with you and he was a believer – then [only] the freeing of a believing slave; and if he was from a people with whom you have a treaty – then a compensation payment presented to his family and the freeing of a believing slave. And whoever does not find [one or cannot afford to buy one] – then [instead], a fast for two months consecutively, [seeking] acceptance of repentance from Allah . And Allah is ever Knowing and Wise.
Quran 4:92
Moving on, in 24:33 Mohammed talks about “your slave girls” again. I guess while it’s okay for you to have sex with them, prostituting them out is a bit much, even for a slavery endorsing warlord. So thoughtful.
But let them who find not [the means for] marriage abstain [from sexual relations] until Allah enriches them from His bounty. And those who seek a contract [for eventual emancipation] from among whom your right hands possess – then make a contract with them if you know there is within them goodness and give them from the wealth of Allah which He has given you. And do not compel your slave girls to prostitution, if they desire chastity, to seek [thereby] the temporary interests of worldly life. And if someone should compel them, then indeed, Allah is [to them], after their compulsion, Forgiving and Merciful.
Quran 24:33
Again, in 58:3, you can’t free slaves you don’t have. Mohammed clearly expects slaves to be owned.
And those who pronounce thihar from their wives and then [wish to] go back on what they said – then [there must be] the freeing of a slave before they touch one another. That is what you are admonished thereby; and Allah is Acquainted with what you do.
Quran 58:3
These are just a few examples that show that Mohammed didn’t have a problem with slavery as such. Perhaps he recited verse 2:177 on a weekend.
The Last and Missing Revelation?
Even in the last verses revealed there’d have been the opportunity to to make adjustments, for an almighty deity that’s keen on revealing inerrant and final truths for all time.
Gabriel:
Oh, yeah, Mohammed, slipped my mind, but I notice you guys still have slaves. Let me make it clear, when Allah said free them, he didn’t mean just now and then. He meant free them all, and take no more.
Mohammed:
But, you said he said we could marry slaves, and use them as currency to pay debts of honour, or for piety bonus points. How can we do that if we don’t have any slaves? What’s the point of those revelations?
Gabriel:
Oh, yeah. Let me get back to you on that. I’m sure there’s a perfectly good explanation.
A number of ‘lefties’ have gone missing in action. The precise point they went missing is telling.
Owen Jones writes articles on a number of issues, but mainly Labour support, and, being gay himself he writes and campaigns on LBGT+ issues.
You’d think Owen would be all over the Iranian regime, given they are well known for hanging gay men. He has occasionally tweeted that Iran’s regime is “vile”, though under the search term ‘Iran’ there’s no explicit tweet about the hanging of gay men, or the protests by Iranian women about the forced hijab.
His comments on Iran focus almost exclusively one of his obsessions: the US potential for starting a war with Iran – not in itself an unrealistic concern, but when he has zero tweets about gay men being hanged by the regime, it makes one a little suspicious of his motivations and his agenda. I’m not suggesting he’s not interested in these issues or in the suffering of people in Iran, but what I am suggesting is that his political biases prevent him being explicit about it … after all, it wouldn’t do to be thought an Islamophobe. And, what would Mehdi Hasan think about it?
This post is about how Owen is quite interested in some events in Iran, such as the killing of Soleimani, and the prospect of US troops going into Iran. Until, that is, flight PS752 is shot down. Then it all goes very quiet. Not unlike other left wing accounts.
We’ll pick up Owen’s tweets and retweets here, on the 3rd, when news broke of the killing of Soleimani. I won’t include all tweets, but I will point out the gaps, and give examples of other tweets he was posting or retweeting.
11:09 AM · Jan 3, 2020 – Donald Trump killing Iran’s second most powerful leader risks a horrific wider war in which many innocent people will die, in a region already long consumed in death. But it could also bolster Trump’s re-election chances by making him a wartime President. Which he knows.
Owen Jones
What? “second most powerful leader” – so no mention of Soleimani’s role in Iran’s support for terrorism?
11:15 AM · Jan 3, 2020 – Britain must not back another US-instigated catastrophic war: discussing that on @LBC at 11.20am.
Owen Jones
I’d suggest not being shy on calling out the Iranian regime or its “second most powerful leader” for their support for terrorism.
11:21 AM · Jan 3, 2020 – You don’t need to try hard to work out what’s going on in Trump’s head. You just need to read his old tweets.
Owen Jones
Mind reading, the uncanny skill that all left wingers seem to be blessed with.
11:37 AM · Jan 3, 2020 – Qassem Soleimani does indeed have blood on his hands. As do many current and former US leaders and senior officials – indeed, from Henry Kissinger to George W Bush, far more. What precedent does Trump think has been established?
Owen Jones
I would agree there are dubious US politicians that are too easily persuaded that war is an answer to some problem, but surely not in the same terrorist league as Soleimani?
6:06 PM · Jan 3, 2020 – The orchestrated right wing pile on against this good tweet underlines that any Labour leader who doesn’t cheerlead for the foreign policy of Donald Trump will be deemed unacceptable and beyond the pale[Quote Tweet of Lisa Nandy on Iraq war as a warning]
Owen Jones
Retweets Mehdi Hasan, fan of Iran, who else:
4:25 PM · Jan 3, 2020 – If the argument is simply that Suleimani was a bad man who has American blood on his hand and therefore deserved to die/be killed/assassinated, then who’s next? Kim Jong-Un? Oh wait, Trump gets “love letters” from Kim. So the Iranians need to brush up on their writing skills.
Mehdi Hasan
Owen continues with retweets of others that posted on the 3rd. He might retweet on the 4th (I’ve not checked time of retweets, only tweets).
He retweets less frequently, and posts none of his own tweets on Iran – though his tweets continue on a number of other issues.
He manages to retweet the glorification of the support for Soleimani, on Soleimani’s funeral:
2:25 PM · Jan 5, 2020 – A video of the Soleimani funeral. This is the largest crowd I’ve ever witnessed in my life. I’ve never seen Iranians so unified, ever. This is Suleimani’s funeral in Ahvaz, Iran. Trump has no idea what he has done.
Amir Amini
This is outrageous glorification of a despotic terrorist funding warlord, and we soon find out that the funeral was, as expected, staged by busing in people, whether they wanted to be there or not. This is the type of misrepresentation we’d expect from supporters of authoritarian regimes. How is Owen letting the gay hanging regime off so easily?
This is the last retweet on Iran as far as I can see:
11:31 PM · Jan 7, 2020 – TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran state TV says Tehran launches “tens” of surface-to-surface missiles at Iraq’s Ain Assad air base housing US troops
Jon Lemire
On the 8th, the plane was shot down. Of course plenty of reports echo the Iranian state position of engine failure, but I would find it difficult to think anyone but the most naive would not at least suspect the plane had been downed by an Iranian missile.
There are no other tweets from Owen on the subject. None. Not while we awaited the outcome of the initial investigations. Eventually, the regime admitted that the plane had been downed by a missile. Nothing from Owen.
Not ‘nothing’ as in no tweeting, no. The thankful relief of anti-Meghan racism (of which there’s no actual evidence) fills a few tweets from Owen, along with other subjects that would make you think the Iran situation had never happened. I mean, seriously, Owen doesn’t even have anything to say about Trump’s war mongering, nor that the Iranians have shot down a passenger plane.
Surely Owen would eventually come out with a tweet or two in support of the people of Iran as they find their brave voices of opposition to the “vile” regime. After all, in several of his older tweets, while lambasting the Great Satan, he made sure he had virtue signalled the fact that he supports a ‘democratic Iran’ … we’re just not sure which democratic Iran – a really democratic Iran, or the pseudo-democratic Iran of the oppressive regime. This would be a big opportunity for him to speak out and let us know.
But no. … Well, not quite. He does retweet this …
4:58 PM · Jan 11, 2020 – Solidarity to the 100,000s taking to the streets in India led by women marchers to protest the plans of the far right Govt of Modi to strip Muslims of citizenship. Smash fascism
Asad Rehman
Hold on! This isn’t about the Islamofascism of the Iranian theocracy, It’s about the Modi government.
That’s right. From the downing of the plane, through the street protests of the Iranian people, his only tweet of street protests is of events in India – and that’s because in this case the victims are Muslims and the perpetrators are not, which is such a consistent bias seen all over the far left it would be comical if not so tragic a betrayal of liberal principles to the fascism of Islam.
Oh, and he tweets this … on the police labelling XR an extremist group.
5:08 PM · Jan 11, 2020 – Where this is heading is very clear: towards an authoritarian state in which dissent – in this case, trying to stop the destruction of human civilisation – is equated with dangerous extremism.
Owen Jones
A particularly ironic tweet, given his MIA on Iran. Let’s absorb his words:
“Where this is heading is very clear: towards an authoritarian state in which dissent – in this case, trying to stop the destruction of human civilisation – is equated with dangerous extremism.”
Owen Jones
An authoritarian state? The UK? Well, I too am concerned about the restrictions on free speech … restrictions that Owen Jones seems to have either overlooked or supported. And yet he has nothing to say on Iran and the #FreeIran2020 protests going on there, where an actual authoritarian state is now taking pot shots at protesters, with live rounds, … in the aftermath of having shot down a passenger plane.
This is our freedom loving socialist people of the left: Fuck freedom, if it means we have to criticise Islamic regimes, or heaven forbid, actual Muslims no matter how despotic they are.
Jeremy Corbyn got rid of Sarah Champion from the Labour front bench because she spoke out about the Muslim grooming gangs in Rotherham.
Sammy Woodhouse and other victims tried to raise cross party support for their case for compensation, for the years of neglect by politicians and police, mostly in Labour held councils, where the grooming gangs were not only allowed to operate in the open, but were protected from prosecution for so long (that’s why we now see cases historic abuse in such large numbers).
And yet, Corbynistas are still blind to Corbyn’s part in the cover-up.
It’s January 2020 as I write this, and Corbyn has had more to say about the killing of butcher Soleimani over the last few days than he ever has about the victims of Muslim grooming gangs in the UK.
And then let this sink in …
The 2017 article quoting Saraha Champion …
For too long we have ignored he race of these abusers and, worse, tried to cover it up.
No more. These people are predators and the common denominator is their ethnic heritage.
We have to have grown-up conversations, however unpalatable, or in six months’ time we will be having this same scenario all over again.
Sarah Champion
This was in relation to sex crimes only between 1999 and 2001 in Champion’s constituency of Rotherham. At least 1,400 children had been sexually exploited in the town.
In Telford, MP Lucy Allen continues her long campaign to uncover the truth, despite being blocked by those that don’t want to see it exposed.
I will also be here to ensure Telford’s Child Sexual Exploitation Inquiry goes ahead and is not kicked into the long grass because those in authority would rather it did not happen. It seems extraordinary that even though we have a Chairman in place road blocks still exist preventing him from moving forward with the work of the inquiry. I have already joined the Department of Justice support group to ensure that the legislation preventing the early release of serious sexual offenders passes through Parliament at an early stage in the Parliament.
Lucy Allan, A New Parliament – My Priorities, December 2019
But still, nothing from Corbyn and his Labour chumps.
But, surely he has more to say about grooming gangs in Telford … you’d think an opportunity to have a dig at the Tories on this issue might be of interest. I mean, he has plenty to say about other social issues in Telford (but not Rotherham, Rochdale, where infamous grooming gangs have also operated).
Of course not. That would only expose his covering up the issue in Labour areas.
This is not the only failing of Corbyn and Labour. Ever wondered why they are considered to be antisemites? They will have plenty to say about the killing of Palestinians by Israeli troops, but nothing about Hamas attacks on Israel. FFS, they can’t even defend Ahmadi Muslims in Pakistan and the UK, because that would upset their Islamic support.
Surely they will show support for Uyghur Muslims in China …
Sorry, that would mean criticising a socialist state … even Muslims aren’t worth that much to Corbyn. So, you grooming gang victims don’t stand a chance.
Moderate Muslims, there are only so many ways you can twist this, only so many hoops you can jump through …
Perhaps there really is only one true Islam …
“There’s only one Islam, and all self proclaimed Muslims are Muslims, including ISIS, and Ahmadis, … and we all agree on the punishments prescribed in the Quran and Hadith, for apostasy, theft, sex outside marriage, adultery, …. I just don’t like to admit it to non-Musims.”
Except, of course, you don’t all agree. So, maybe there isn’t one true Islam …
“There’s diversity in Islam. ISIS are Muslims, but not practicing my kind of Islam. I don’t agree with … and I don’t agree on the punishments prescribed in the Quran and Hadith, for apostasy, theft, sex outside marriage, adultery, …. I know better than Mohammed, and I think that Allah has changed the rules.”
But usually, it’s something like this …
“ISIS aren’t Muslims, Ahmadis aren’t Muslims, … all those other self-proclaimed Muslims that happen to be an inconvenience to my claim that there is only one true Islam, while trying to distance myself from those other ‘Muslims’ that follow aspects of Islam in ways I don’t like (or don’t like to admit to) … well, they are not Muslims.”
Who gave you the right to say they are not Muslims or that they are doing Islam wrong?
Because I AM a Muslim. I should know. Whereas you, non-Muslim, are ignorant about Islam.
Who gets to decide who are true Muslims? What qualifies YOU to decide?
The scholars tell me!
How do I know which scholars are the right scholars to listen to?
Because they are the ones that I happen to think fit the kind of Muslim I want to be … err, though there is only one kind of Muslim, the kind that fits into the narrow band that I think won’t embarrass my religion.
Pity. This is all so embarrassing.
A Muslim Embarrassing Himself
This morning, as I started to write this, I thought I’d better go an dig up some examples, knowing there are plenty. I opened Twitter, and bingo! A gift from Allah?
First, Dawkins, one of the people I follow, had a tweet at the top of my feed, and the very first reply …
This seems like a reasonable response …
And, in turn, we have the usual nonsense …
Let that sink in …
“Not minimising anything. Just pointing out that any sane, moral, rightminded, peaceful individual can recognise …”
So, why do sane, moral, rightminded, peaceful individuals need Islam?
“The punishment for blasphemy in Islam is not death.”
Maybe not in YOUR version of Islam. But you know it is in some versions … which sort of makes a mockery of ‘one true Islam’, or any claims by ANY Muslim to understand Islam, when clearly, different Muslims have different understandings of Islam.
The One True Islam Embarrassment
K T Shamim’s bio reveals he’s an Ahmaddi Muslim … not allowed to call themselves Muslims in Pakistan, opposed by many other Muslims. But still, he thinks he knows the one true Islam.
“The true religion [Ahmadis claim there’s is the one true Islam] …. Don’t know which Islam these Muslims follow …”
So, there are multiple Islams? But how does K T know that his is the true one, and not the Islam of ISIS?
Hold on! It’s all very nice that K T likes the love and peace Islam, but how does he know that’s the right one? How come punishment and intolerance aren’t the one true Islam? Or why not both?
Really, why not both the peach and love AND the punishment and intolerance? Why are the nice verses taken literally and the nasty verses require excuses?
It’s not like I’m advocating this all inclusive Islam as system to follow. My point is, why can’t you just do peace and love WITHOUT Islam? Why stick with and try to a system in which so many declare the Quran inerrant and have to go to all this trouble to defend it … and let’s be honest … to LIE for Islam, to escape its violent nasty clutches.
Update: Since I wrote this post, Saira has given up on Islam. More at the end.
When it dawns on the enlightened Saira Khan that the truth must come out, she really goes for it, and reveals some tragic long held secrets of abuse. She surprises herself at the behaviour of Pakistani men (not all, we must inevitably add), and rallies around our shared values for peace and freedom.
I’ve become an admirer of Saira, because it takes some doing for a Muslim women to speak the way she does on Loose Women (UK daytime TV show). I’m sure she’s been influenced and helped by being part of that show, and the result is that she is providing a significant contribution, for the benefit of young girls and women suffering abuse.
This important of voice of hers cannot be under-estimated.
I don’t agree with Saira on all points. It’s nothing to do with religion? Yes it is…
We start with Saira’s input on an episode on Islamic terrorism.
Let’s dig into this a little …
Whether you are white or you are Muslim …
There are no white Muslims? There are no non-white non-Muslims opposed to Islam?
ISLAM. IS. NOT. A. RACE.
Islam is a political judicial ideology, as well as a religion – it says so itself. Read the texts.
It’s not only legitimate to oppose Islam, as it is Communism, Fascism, Christianity, or any ideology, … more than that, for any liberal, it’s a duty: read the texts of Islam, especially the Quran, which is presented as the ‘inerrant’ word of Allah. What honest liberal would not oppose such an ideology?
Religions are let off the hook far too easily.
We have to feel what we can say without being deemed a racist.
Let that sink in. I ask you to do this, not to pick on Saira, but to point out that to declare criticism of Islam to be racism is a very common defensive stance we see regularly.
Every time there is an issue about Muslims, I’M brought out to talk about it.
Saira! You go on Loose Women and CHOOSE to talk about it. And, now that you are being more open about it, I’m very glad that you do.
I want Jane to come out, I want you to come out. Because we are united by our values, not by religion. If we live in this country we have to put our hands up and say we are British, and we are all aligned by the same things.
Who would Saira not want to talk about it? White working class men?
Nevertheless, it’s warming to hear Saira say this.
(But, note later, that she also effectively says she IS the sort of person that CAN talk about some issues, because she is ‘part of the community’. Mixed messages like this are common.)
Saira moves on to integration, and how Britain is a well integrated society, an yet so many Muslim children don’t feel integrated …
But we are not integrated. If you go to a school … and your best mate goes on six weeks school holiday and doesn’t come back and nobody asks you, why didn’t your friend come back, you’d feel angry. Who do you talk to? You can’t talk to your family, you can’t even talk to your school.
In 2012 I visited 75 primary schools, and I have to say, some of those schools would have been quite happy as if they were in Afghanistan. How can you have that in Britain? How can you have schools, with white teachers, and fully Muslim kids, and the parents are dictating the agenda?
These are strong words. So, don’t be surprised if Saira gets some flack for this.
And those teachers say to me, we don’t have the powers, we don’t have the resources. We are too scared to say something in case we are deemed racist.
And, that applies to authorities outside the ‘communities’ that Saira refers to, such as schools, social services, police, politicians, there has been this reluctance. And that’s because of the recent history of conflating Islam, culture and ethnicity to the point where it is all too easily labelled as a racist Islamophobe.
Jane asks about Jihadi John …
He came over here from Kuwait. As far as I know he went to a multicultural westernised school. He got our free education, free healthcare. We were nothing but kind to him and his family. Where did that hatred for Britain and all that we represent, come from?
Saira …
It comes from home. It comes from ordinary Muslim families that don’t speak up, who actually hear what’s being said, and don’t make a big deal about it. And that’s why I say today, it is not good enough for the majority of peaceful Muslims living in this country not to come out and speak up and say, not in our name. And these people are using Islam, and Muslims, and it’s branded all over the place. I’m a Muslim. Not in my name
A great sentiment, Saira. Thank you. I agree. It’s not in your name. But … it’s NOT nothing to do with Islam.
This is quite the opposite of what we have been told for years, not only by peaceful Muslims, but by Islamic apologist non-Muslims. Here’s why:
By adopting the narrative of “Nothing to do with Islam”, how can you then come out and say, “Not in our name?”
Islamic terrorism clearly does have something to do with Islam.
And it’s not in ‘your’ name that they do it, but in the name of Islam.
And, Islam isn’t just ‘your’ Islam – remember how diverse Islam is? So we are told.
This is where it becomes a bit tricky for a critic of Islam.
You can hardly use unifying calls to Islam, as many Muslims do, and then deny that unity. We hear about the Caliphate, the Ummah, Brothers and Sisters, ‘Nation of Islam’, ‘Muslim lands’ – there is no doubt that if one claims to follow Allah, Mohammed, and the Quran, and declare you are a Muslim (the shahadah), then you are a Muslim (except Ahmadis, apparently).
Despite that, Muslims around the world are endlessly declaring other Muslims to be non-Muslims, not proper Muslims, not Islamic enough, not authentic, …
If any particular Muslim thinks they are an authentic Muslim, then without some ‘Pope’ to determine otherwise, who are they to then to say which Muslims is not a Muslim?
But, Muslims denounce other Muslims regularly. And “Nothing to do with Islam” has been a huge confidence trick in this process: Assert that those specific Muslim perpetrators are non-Muslims – QED: nothing to do with Islam.
And what’s more, the fools on the left are all too eager to join in with this duplicity.
Saira …
I want to see a million people marching in this country, led by Muslims, led by moderate Muslims, to say, this is not in our name. Because I think indigenous people of this country, now, deserve people, somebody looking like me, saying, we are with you.
Wow! But she has a point.
However, here’s a contradictory point. You’ll note that indigenous peoples around the world are a common cause for supportive activism, among the left – with the exception of white people.
Of course, the term ‘indigenous’ doesn’t carry the same meaning in a genuinely mixed race multicultural society like ours, and quite rightly. We have many generations of British born people, of various ethnicities, and many children or other descendants of mixed raced relationships. A person with any skin colour could be as ‘indigenous’ as any particular white person. At least in part, my heritage on both sides is Irish from about three or four generations. There will be descendants of other ethnicities with a longer heritage than mine.
But, I hope you see the problem. When Saira thinks there’s a point in mentioning ‘indigenous peoples’ she might feel as though she’s referring to white people, as a majority, but already Saira has declared, and goes on to declare, the issue is about cultural values. It’s not about race – or at least it wouldn’t be, if only the left and much of the press weren’t so keen to make it about race. There’s a lot of race baiting going on, and far less actual racism.
Race baiting … such as that engaged in by Saira a few years ago, while screaming at Tommy Robinson on TV … for saying pretty much what Saira says in these programmes … for marching in the street … It doesn’t add up, does it.
Saira …
Just to let you know, when I say things, I get abused, I’m called a coconut*, .., I’m called a racist.
(*coconut: brown on the outside, white on the inside)
It’s tragic how many non-white racists are prepared to call other people racist, including other non-white people like Saira, if they step out of line and deviate from the approved narrative.
I’m attacked by white British liberals, as well as members of my own community. I don’t care.
Nuff said.
The discussion moves on to parental responsibility, and being aware of the radicalisation of children,
You can’t watch them all the time, but you do have a sense of who their friends are, what they are doing, and how they’re acting.
Fair point.
But I do have some concern for some Muslim mothers. Some of the more pious and misogynistic parts of the Muslim community actually give young sons greater authority over the female family members, both sisters and mothers.
In some places, like Saudi, there are widowed women who are under control of their young sons, their ‘guardians’, that prevent the women going out alone. They may even require the son’s permission to take up employment. This Islamic male domination reaches out to other Muslim communities too.
With regard to the Pakistani Muslim community, when Pakistani model Qandeel Baloch was killed by her brother, many British Muslim young men were on social media declaring they’d have done the same had their sister dishonoured the family.
This is how messy it is, and though I agree with Saira that parents should take more note, there are cultural and religious influences that prevent that happening.
Saira is also asked whether parents should ‘shop’ (expose, report to authorities) radicalised children.
I’ve shopped my own cousin who came to this country on a sponsorship form and disappeared within fifteen days. It was all pre-planned, I had not idea about it. Am I not going to shop him in just because he’s my cousin? No. I’m going to shop him in because he went against my British values of honesty, decency and respect.
Honest? Decency? Respect? Respect for the law? Well, yes, I agree.
This is worth noting, because there are so many people on the left that actually condone illegal immigration. It doesn’t matter that honest legal immigrants are prevented from coming here, or that illegal immigration cannot vet those arriving for their intentions.
Even ex-Muslim and fanatic for ‘open doors’, Maryam Namazie doesn’t want to avoid proper vetting:
Open borders doesn't mean no vetting. EU has open borders within itself; is there no vetting. Absurd misinformation. https://t.co/LQgWIezoFV
But, back to a final remark in the video above, from Saira ..
I say to people in my own community, if you don’t like it here, go and live somewhere else. I want you to own it. I want you to stop cowering behind “Oh, I’m too scared to be racist.” If you want to have a conversation, and you want to put people on the spot, then you own it and you say it, you are not a racist.
That’s quite a statement. Well done Saira.
Abuse in Pakistani Muslim Families
Bear with me on this aside, you’ll get the point. …
Some time ago, atheist Richard Dawkins collected and published on his site some of the many examples of abuse and death threats he receives through various channels, from lovely religious people that didn’t appreciate his atheism. He made light of it. The messages were hilariously stupid.
But Mayor of London, sad Sadiq Khan didn’t quite take the same tack. He made a racist meal of it, and wallowed in his Muslim victimhood as he read out the abuse he received. … Except …
One of the examples he read out was a mere question, from the daughter of Muslim father and non-Muslim white mother. It was from none other than Shazia Hobbes, author of The Gori’s Daughter.
This was the ‘hate speech’ that Sadiq Khan read out:
If you use a knife to mutilate your daughter’s vagina will the full force of the law be brought down on you? Asking for a Muslim. Thanks.
Given that at the time this was written there were thousands of recorded incidents of FGM, and zero prosecutions, it seems like a reasonable question, especially from a daughter of a Muslim. For more context, here’s Shazia’s letter in response.
This is the context of ‘hate speech’ and the fear of being called a racist, that Saira has been talking about above, with the other context of Islamic terrorism, when Sadiq Khan, Mayor of London, can use a message from someone aware of the problem of FGM as part of his own race baiting agenda.
And so, it was with some surprise, and great admiration, that I heard Saira broaching this subject, again on Loose Women. …
Saira begins by telling this story …
In June 2002, Mukhtār Mā’ī was the survivor of a gang rape as a form of honour revenge, on the orders of a tribal council of the local Mastoi Baloch clan that was richer and more powerful than her Tatla clan. See here.
Saira …
She [Mukhtār Mā’ī ] then went on to set up a charity in Pakistan to help women like that. … She was put on a fashion show in Pakistan, which shows that progress is being made, slowly. The designer said that she wanted her to be a symbol of hope and for women’s rights.
Picking up Saira’s earlier point, “I’m attacked by white British liberals“, we find this sort of attack on one’s intentions happens so often if non-Muslims try to support Muslim women at all.
Yes, as a Humanist I oppose all religions, and yes, I find Islam to be particularly bad. But that doesn’t negate my support for women, even Muslim women, especially Muslim women, that are oppressed by cultural norms that are perpetuated by Islam.
Now, specific cultures may result in different specific brutal and misogynistic practices, but you will still find that much of the justification comes from the religious modesty and honour system. I’d like to see anyone justify these acts of abuse using the Humanist Manifesto. Old religious texts perpetuate old misogynistic values into the present.
And it’s here I’m guessing we’d still see Saira reacting negatively to comments on Islam, despite her earlier statement, “Because we are united by our values, not by religion.” Yes, we should be, and religion should not be let off the hook so easily.
But, to continue, at 2:10, we come to Saira’s brave revelation …
… at thirteen years old, sitting in my bedroom, a male member of my family – he’s died now – came in, and did things …
Please, listen to Saira’s story directly, in her own words. She struggles to hold it together, but does manage to do so.
I’ll pick up points salient to the wider message. …
It is wrong. It is not culturally acceptable. It is not religiously acceptable.
Correct. It is not acceptable. But note that Saira points out that it is unacceptable both culturally, and religiously.
For those that want to protect the religion and say, “It’s not the religion, it’s the culture,” well, it is both, and is unacceptable as both.
The culture in Pakistan is a mixture of older traditional culture and religion. The religion and the culture ARE used to justify these behaviours, because in both, women are second class citizens.
How on earth can a religion be excused, when it endorses: taking a woman’s testimony to be worth half that of a man; beating of wives; … Of course such a religion will perpetuate the misogyny and ‘toxic masculinity’ that was present when it arose – in Islam’s case, 1400 year old misogyny.
Culturally we can’t talk about it [abuse], because we [women] are seen as the ones that inspired it, there’s no help.
Quite. And this aspect of the culture is right there in the religious texts, and encouraged by the modesty rules that see women as the provokers of men’s uncontrollable lust.
It is not JUST the culture. Because this attitude remains prevalent across many cultures that are intertwined with Islam. And with other religions (e.g. conservative Christianity in the USA).
On the Fusion of Culture AND Religion
Let’s hear more from Saira, on another Loose Women episode, about a visit to Pakistan, because that will reveal more about the cultural, AND the religious acceptance of the abuse of women.
I was sent to Pakistan by the BBC to do a documentary … There was one day where the prophet Mohammed’s birthday was to be celebrated. I had an all-male British team with me. We went to this square, and there were just thousands of men, and there wasn’t a woman in sight. And my director was quite nervous, and I said, look, we need to get into the heart of this, we need to find out what the atmosphere’s like.
And my Pakistani fixer was, like, there’s no way you can do that. And I just looked at him, why not, I want to do it. A was wearing traditional chemise, I had my head covered, because it was a spiritual day, they were celebrating the prophet’s birthday, and I thought, what’s going to happen to me. And I didn’t want to believe ….
“And I didn’t want to believe ….” – and that, I’m afraid, is what drives a lot of opposition to the criticism of Islam. It’s what drives many interactions with Muslims.
They will close their eyes and flat out tell you it’s night, when they’d see it’s clearly day, if only they’d open their eyes and look.
“I’m attacked by white British liberals” – Well, yes. because they too don’t want to believe there’s a problem with Islam.
… with everything my parents told me about men from those cultures, I thought, no, it’s not true, I’m going to prove to them them that it’s not true..
Denialism is a powerful psychological force, and it controls many a religious mind. Saira eventually had the courage to face the reality of the moment.
They’re going to respect me as a woman. … I went down, into the crowd, and only on the sidelines, and within moments I’d been bustled into the middle of a group of men … it was horrific
… my boobs were touched, my bottom was touched, my legs were touched .. I was just shaking “Get me out, get me out, get me out.”
… My fixer came in, and grabbed me.
… I dread to think what would have happened. I believe I would have been raped.
… I was so angry. … No one would have helped me [had the British camera crew not been there]
That’s an astonishingly brutal awakening. Bear in mind that Saira isn’t some wet lefty that has a couple of Muslim acquaintances that wear the hijab and claims, “But my Muslim friends are lovely,” as if to explain why these stories couldn’t possibly be true.
Saira is, as she says, part of the Pakistani Muslim community (or one of the variety of those). And her parents warned her. And she knows of the honour culture, the treatment of women …
Denialism is a powerful psychological force, sustained only by cognitive dissonance. You WANT to believe, and when faced with stories, the stories must be racist lies … or so the conversations often go.
There’s more …
We have to accept, that when we are bringing in migrants, asylum seekers, people from different cultures, they have a very different upbringings. Their societies, their political systems, …
Islam is the bedrock of the social and political features of these cultures, and often contributes to the judicial system too, and the misogyny in Islam informs it, as does the behaviour of many of the men. Young boys are taught to both respect women, but also devalue them, to the point where if a woman is a victim, it must be her fault for bringing it upon herself, for shaming her family, … for shaming Islam.
… what they think is normal in their country is not normal in our country …
Sadly, many of those ‘liberals’ that attack you, Saira, are post-modern relativists, who ask “Who we are to judge their culture, their religion” – racism of low expectations. And many Muslims pick up on this and ask, who are YOU to tell me about MY religion.
And, also sadly, many think that imported behaviour should also be normal behaviour in this country, and some act as if it is, … and it may seem as if it is, in a closed community.
… and we have to do that to protect ourselves, and to also protect them …
You can see why racist Muslims talk of Saira in terms of ‘coconut’ … I’m surprised she hasn’t been called a white supremacist, for daring to suggest these behaviours aren’t up to our British value standards.
But, of course, Saira is dead right. Spot on.
Our standards of equality, across race, religion, gender, are significantly better than any that privileges one race, one religion, one gender over another other.
We may not succeed in achieving this equality (and no thanks in small part to religions that perpetuate the inequality – looking at you CofE, not just Islam), but in law, and mostly in practice, we are all equal.
It’s quite common to see these faults as the domain of the white racist misogynist male xenophobic bigot – aka Nazi – but that is engaging in precisely the false accusative rhetoric that Saira has been opposing in these programmes.
Religions get off far too lightly. Some of the highest privileges we have go to religion. The Church of England is the state church, and we have unelected bishops … and child abuse. The Roman Catholic Church is even further behind … and child abuse. And Islam is virtually untouchable, despite Islamic terrorism … and child abuse by grooming gangs now appearing in our newspapers regularly.
As Andrew Norfolk said, after publishing his Times report on grooming gangs, his political correctness and fear of being thought of, of thinking himself, as a racist, made him sit on the story, while who knows how much child abuse continued.
Ruth Langsford chips in …
We all have this fear of being labelled a racist, or you can’t talk about somebody’s religion … this is not a religious thing, this is a cultural thing …
What???
Have you ANY idea what that sounds like? Let me spell it out. It sounds like this:
You can’t talk about somebody’s religion, so let’s not talk about religion, even though I just did, because I don’t want to blame religion, so let’s blame their culture …
Let that sink in for a while. You’d rather throw rich and potentially adaptable cultures under the bus, rather than even contemplate that it’s related to the temporally closed and persistent impact of the religion has on those cultures?
And this, remember, is in a context where Saira is talking about sexual abuse occurring right in the middle of a festival dedicated to the celebration of prophet Mohammed’s birthday, where there was absolutely ZERO conflict in the minds of those that abused Saira?
The abuse by Muslim men, in the middle of a religious celebration, see no conflict with their religious devotion … and abusing a woman, right there and then? Nothing to do with Islam??? What???
Jane Moore has a stab at excusing religion … but then, after Saira’s, interruption goes on to say …
Explain to me, surely there is not a culture, your experiences aside, where a couple of these assaults we’re talking about do extend to rape, I mean, obviously, white men commit rape as well, but surely there is no culture in the world where it is acceptable to rape a woman who is a stranger to you.
Wow! The mind bending needs some unpacking.
They have just decided that it’s the culture, not the religion.
Now Jane wants to make sure there is no culture in which it is acceptable to rape a women who is a stranger to you.
The point here, regarding culture, AND religion, is that some cultures, or even sub-cultures, DO condone rape, of any women, because they see women as a lower value than men. AND, that perspective is all over the Islamic texts.
Jane is confusing two points that Saira has already managed to be pretty clear about, … but I’ll help out with the third one:
It’s not acceptable TO US that ANY culture should condone this.
But it IS accepted in some cultures
And it IS accepted in some religions.
And very clearly so, if THEY find it acceptable to molest Saira in the middle of a religious festival dedicated to the birthday of the prophet Mohammed. It really is accepted in the religion.
You can keep on playing around with words all you like, but it’s right there in front of you.
Saira responds …
You’re right , it is unacceptable, but rape, in many cultures, goes unreported, because men can get away with it, because it’s not seen as a serious crime.
Jane, how is that not clear enough to you. SOME cultures DO see rape as acceptable behaviour by men towards women?
So, again, I have to disagree with Saira, and the panel. It very clearly IS acceptable in the Islamic texts. As is slavery, as is sex slavery. The Quran has passages that excuse various behaviours, regarding one’s wives, and ‘those that your right hand possesses’, which is usually referring to slaves, and female slaves. Mohammed married one of his female slaves, to which the excuse it usually, “Oh, she became a Muslim first.” Was that an ‘Offer you can’t refuse‘, from the Islamic godfather.
Saira …
I was taught that as a woman, if I ever got raped, or if anything happened to me, it was going to be my fault. What were you doing in that situation? Why were you on your own? What were you wearing. I was brought up with that mentality.
And the Quran has plenty to say about modesty and women covering themselves, and about the intellectual deficiency of women.
Blame culture?
No. Cultures adapt. Cultures don’t both persist ancient codes of conduct, and resist modern improvements, without some strong underlying encoded system that traverses generations, even skips generations and re-emerges. Religion fits he bill.
We have seen 1970s westernised Afghanistan, and Iran, with women in the mini skirts that were fashionable at the time. Cultures adapt to the times. In both cases it was the oppressive religion that re-asserted itself so that women became oppressed again.
Blame religion? A BIG YES. It’s no coincidence that the Taliban in Afghanistan and the Ayatollah in Iran swept away the modern cultural adaptation to more liberal values, and dragged both those countries back 1400 years.
Come on, Saira, you can’t keep excusing the religion.
Jane again …
Is the issue here then, mass uncontrolled immigration, where everyone arrives at once and there’s no expectation of integration? Because surely, you growing up in Britain, you must know lots of law abiding men from your culture who would never behave like that.
Saira …
Yeah, we’re not talking about Britain, because they’ve been brought up in Britain, with Western values, with British values, who know that you cannot do that, that women have equal rights, … [End of clip]
Notice here that Pakistani heritage men, who have been brought up in a British culture, … so, well, not them, obviously. Except, British Pakistani heritage men, and British white men, and others, get religion, get Islam, become more religious … before going off to join ISIS? NOT ALL, of course … but those radicalised by ISIS messages are not receiving instruction in Christianity or Hinduism.
And yet we are often told how most sexual abuse in Britain is committed by white men. Terrorism is a far right problem.
There are some confused messages that emerge when you’re focus is to explain something and yet not blame a religion. You are bound to tangle yourself in knots.
I’m sure there are many decent people in Pakistan and in other cultures that know that the cultures they’re in, on the whole, don’t treat women well … and, yes, Britain has been more like that too in the past.
As I said, cultures can adapt. Britain’s culture has, and continues to do so.
But hold on there Saira, some of those British Pakistani men do do it in Britain. That was the point of your brave exposition on your misfortune.
Let’s look at this next clip to clear this up …
Christine Lampard …
They’ve also told us of a noticeable rise in calls [about abuse] from Asian women
Another aside …
You have to be careful when the media use the term ‘Asian’ regarding abuse and grooming gangs. It is used so often to mask a more specific identification, such as in the case of Pakistani Muslim grooming gangs, or grooming gangs generally. This is a really weird and dishonest narrative.
First, after years of insisting that if anyone starts a critical view with the word “Muslims, …” they are immediately tarred as racist Islamophobes by the left, because, well, “Not all Muslims”…
But, when the left are talking about Pakistani Muslims, they prefer to use ‘Asians’. Surely “Not all Asians” should apply here. Are they Asianphobic racists?
Well, I’d certainly say using ‘Asian’ is more racist than being specific. If “Muslims …” unfairly implicates all Muslims, then surely “Asians …” implicates all Asians, and is racist towards even more people.
I think these confused people are struggling for an angle: if you implicate an ever wider range of people, then you are not being a specific racist. Maybe that’s better, I don’t know entirely how this PC mind-set works, but it seems to be something like that.
In truth, this is a total fraud, because this never happens to other ‘Asians’ – Chinese, or Koreans – they would be identified by their original ethnicity.
We know this is only used to protect Islam, and to avoid criticising Muslims.
You will spot this ploy most when referring to grooming gangs, because though most are Pakistani Muslim, some are Muslims from other cultures, including African.
Back to Christine’s main point …
They’ve also told us of a noticeable rise in calls from Asian women who suffered abuse in childhood, and the main perpetrator is usually someone from their own family …
I remind you again of Shazia Hobbes’ story.
It just sounds shocking, but this is not even surprising to you, Saira, from the stories you’ve heard.
Saira …
We had the fight for the girls in Rochdale, and I think we now need to put a real fight up for the girls that can’t be seen or heard, because they don’t have representation in society.
That’s another devastating statement. Let that one sink in too. Nobody in their community will represent them? Are social services able to operate in these communities? What are the police doing?
I’m afraid that what we’ve learned from Rochdale, Rotherham, Telford, Oxford and other places, is that if the police won’t act for child victims from outside the community, they sure as hell won’t act for children inside those communities – and one suspects, given some of Saira’s comments above about schools she visited, they wouldn’t find much cooperation from within those communities if they tried.
Look, I can talk about it because I come from culture, I come from a community, and I’m talking about the Pakistani community.
Bear in mind that Pakistan is substantially occupied by Muslims, and that most British Pakistanis are Muslims. Pakistan was, after all, created as a nation for Muslims. It is a Muslim nation. What does that tell you about the ‘community’? It’s not merely a Pakistani community. It’s a Pakistani Muslim community. Currently, I know of no Pakistani Humanists that would or could use Humanists texts to excuse their abuse of women.
Well, as I said, the problem is that some of these closed communities will not allow outsiders, non-Muslims, to investigate. This is the non-integrative isolated community that reeks of bad Multiculturalism.
Multiculturalism will fail, if we are not more discriminating about which cultural/religious practices we will tolerate – some, as Saira has said, are not acceptable. And though we mouth off about FGM … there have been no successful prosecutions. It’s very un-PC to investigate the inner women’s business in such a community, and your average non-Muslim PC plod isn’t up to it, and I doubt many Muslim PC plods would dare expose problems in their communities.
Note that my objection to Islam does not mean banning or not tolerating Islam. Part of our ‘British values’ that Saira subscribes to is freedom of belief. You can believe what you want.
But if you turn your beliefs to actions, and those actions contravene basic human decency, and/or the law, then those beliefs need dealing with and must not be left to fester, the way the Muslim grooming gang problem has, and, according to this episode of Loose Women, the way abuse has within those communities.
I have to say that this isn’t based on religion, this is culture, and the culture I was brought up in is, keep your mouth shut, and make sure you do not bring dishonour on our family, you must not bring shame.
Except it is religion. Various religions. Bringing shame through the behaviour of children, especially girls, is pretty standard across many religions, including Christian conservatism of the USA, and has been in Roman Catholicism, such that it resulted in the Magdalene laundries of Ireland.
So, again, we have Saira desperately trying to avoid blaming Islam. Why is that?
Because that would bring down even more wrath upon her head, if she dared blame the religion of Islam. It’s that simple.
Saira’s perspective might be induced by her own indoctrination, so that she really believes that what is blindingly obvious, is not so.
Or, …
It might be self preservation. Because to blame Islam would be blasphemous. A very dangerous game, in Islam.
… you must not bring shame. And what that means, as a young girl, .. or a young boy, growing up, you’re too scared to talk. If terrible things happen to you, you are too scared to talk.
There is no representation, because it’s such a tight knit community. There are other things that go on in the culture that basically mean you’re isolated.
I have sat amongst a group of people, and I have heard stories of a young girls being raped in the family, of a young girl being abused, or a young boy being abused.
And I’m sat there thinking, why doesn’t anybody do something, please.
Again, let these devastating statements sink in.
And when asked, why don’t the victims speak out, …
Because, there is no one to talk to. Most of the elected community members are men …
Religious men. Muslim men. Do they elect atheists, or Christians? Are Pakistani Christians allowed to exist in the ‘community’?
No, I’m sorry, Saira, but your fantasy has to be shattered. These leaders are religious men. Good Muslims.
.. and they know that you can’t just go and snitch on your family …
Bear in mind how Saira had no trouble with HER British values, with regard to snitching on her cousin’s ‘bunking off’. But this is child abuse we’re talking about. Or not talking about, depending on your ‘culture’. So, you’d think that a British Pakistani community that isn’t suffering the misogynistic throwbacks of Pakistan would be more forthcoming in solving this problem. Apparently not. More like Pakistan than is good for us … or rather than is good for the children.
When asked whether a young girl could speak to her mother …
You are so brainwashed into what shame means and what dishonour means.
In these communities, rape in a marriage is not recognised …
Again, I refer you to Shazia Hobbes who has been resoundingly castigated, as an Islamophobe, for saying these very same things. Do read her book.
Culturally, you can marry somebody that’s thirteen years old. You can do it back in Afghanistan, in Pakistan, you can do it in India.
Except, of course, it is endorsed by the example of the prophet Mohammed, and his marriage to his six year old wife, and in some places they take that specific age even more seriously. And, even if the state doesn’t allow it, oddly enough the religious do it.
See here: Marriageable Age. Note that most state determined ages are 15 – 21, but some allow younger than the self-consent age, with parental/judicial approval. Given that many marriages are forced anyway, parental approval will often apply. It’s self-determination that suffers.
Note also, from that linked page, the table lower down on religion, and the various sects of Islam. Hanafi and Jafari Islam: age 9 for girls. These are the sects of Islam of Pakistan and Iran, where child marriages occur.
Still nothing to do with Islam, Saira?
When that’s acceptable, you think that’s normal.
They are taboo subjects anyway, but in this culture they are even more taboo.
Once you bring shame to your family, that’s it.
The consequences are, you could be killed, you could be ostracised.
Killed??? In the UK, you might be killed, for honour. We know of several cases that have made the news.
I wonder how the rest of the Loose Women panel are taking this. They are the ‘liberals’ that would shoot down as a racist any non-Muslim that said the things Saira has said (despite Saira’s insistence they should not be called racist) .
But, this is general knowledge.
NOT ALL MUSLIMS – Yes, we know. But enough. Too many.
Literally, the whole family splits up. When I came on here to talk about me, it was a family member. It took me years to come out and say it. I think I just did it spontaneously on Loose Women. The repercussions on my family have been horrendous. They didn’t believe me. They had a go at my mum. …
But wait … this is important …
It went all the way back to Pakistan and the family there.
This is what a lot of liberal lefties don’t get.
They see our lovely British Muslims like Saira, or their hijabi friend at school, and they are totally clueless about the extent to which these ‘unacceptable’ cultural practices are so easily imported to the UK, whether it’s this topic now, of abuse, or the earlier one, of Islamic terrorism. They have no idea what their nice Muslim friends are NOT telling them.
The left just don’t get it. Labour just don’t get it. Jermey Corbyn just doesn’t get it. That’s why he’d rather nudge Sarah Champion, MP, off the front bench, for daring to say, “Pakistani Muslim grooming gangs“, … and then leave the gangs to continue grooming.
The Conservative government hasn’t been much better. But, just this week, we had …
About time!! I called for research in 2012 when I gave evidence to Home Affairs Select Committee but people have been slow to take up the offer https://t.co/YO17ETj6aZ
They did a study at Hull university, and the research in 2015 found out that “Official police data suggest that incidences of sexual violence among South Asian women are low, however, this new research suggests it is happening, but not reported.
As you would expect from a close knit community.
I want to say that, if there is anybody, in the South Asian community, or any community for that matter, please note that there are help lines, and you can talk in confidence. Even if you don’t want to take it any further, or get something off your chest, please do so. I’ll tell you something, that happened to me at thirteen, and that affected the rest of my life.
Now, here comes Jane Moore, working her way up to the patently obvious, …
They are saying that the increase [in reporting] from the Asian community has increased since the broadcast of the Three Girls**, because that was largely, but not all Asian men.
(** Rochdale’s infamous an dramatised case of the prosecution of a Muslim grooming gang abusing young white girls)
I think what Jane should have said was, they were largely but not all Pakistani Muslim men, because some were Muslim men from other Muslim backgrounds. I’m not aware any were non-Muslim. To be specific:
Nine men were convicted, of whom eight were of British Pakistani origin and one was an Afghan asylum-seeker. – from Rochdale child sex abuse ring.
They were all Muslim.
And here comes the obvious …
The majority of perpetrators of organised abuse are white. And the second largest group are Asian. Now that may be because a lot of it goes unreported. We should also point out that it happens in white families.
The conflation of issues here is astounding.
It’s not white v Asian that’s significant. The significant figures are Pakistani Muslim v everyone else.
Of the ‘family’ child abuse, those numbers differ so much you’d expect an absolute figure to be greatest among the numerically largest group you’re identifying, whether that’s white, non-white (including black, for example), specifically Asian (including Sikhs and Hindus, for example), even more specifically Pakistani Muslim, or Muslim. This matters.
Muslims are only a small percentage of the UK population, and Pakistani Muslims even smaller.
Again, you’d expect a largest absolute figure in other groups.
You’d expect a similar rate (%) among all groups, except, with lower reporting in Pakistani Muslim communities, the numbers should be expected to be lower.
Jane is also conflating in-family abuse, with the grooming gang abuse.
Of this particular type of grooming, it is public, under the noses of the community, local police and social workers
A think tank has claimed that 84 per cent of people convicted of child grooming-gang offences since 2005 were Asian.
Type 1 offenders work in groups such as grooming gangs to target victims based on vulnerability, while Type 2 offenders form paedophile rings to carry out abuse because of a specific sexual interest in children.
However you massage the figure, Pakistani Muslim grooming gangs far outway any other categorisation of perpetrators, as a proportion of the population. This is what police, politicians, press and gullible celebs really don’t want to talk about.
Jane …
The whole thing that props this up is the conspiracy of silence …
And you, Jane, and you Saira, continue to be silent on the religion. But, on the specific problem of abuse, no matter what the cause, I’ll leave the final word with Saira …
The only thing that I would say, is that whereas those girls [Three Girls case] did go to the sexual health worker to get condoms, and the social worker was involved, there was a pattern, so it could be traced. In an Asian household, these girls aren’t seen.
They can never be detected, unless somebody from the community or a member of the family puts their hands up bravely and says we’ve got a problem here.
Best of luck with that.
A Problem for Islam
Muslims generally don’t want Islam to be criticised at all – I mean really don’t want it to be criticised. This is all to do with the depth of conviction they are indoctrinated into.
Many will even throw other aspects of their own identity and the identities of others under the bus, in order to save face for Islam, to save the honour of Islam. Characters like Miqaad Versi, of the Muslim Council of Britain, seem to devote much effort to writing to editors of newspapers to point out how racist and Islamophobic they are for any headline or piece that tarnishes the name of Islam.
The BBC have been so cajoled into submission that all ‘Asians’ are now smeared, by a refusal to make a more specific identification of the culprits in some case or other. They refuse to identify culprits as Pakistani Muslim, when in so many cases they clearly are, and instead identify them as Asian, as if spreading the blame around a bit is somehow less racist.
We’ve seen this instinctive protection of Islam many times following Islamic terror attacks. This is how it often goes:
Islamic terrorist commits some heinous act, and declares it to be in the name of Islam.
The press report it as an Islamic terror attack (if ever more reluctant to do so).
Islamic organisations cry out, “Nothing to do with Islam! … Islamophobia!” Because the good name of Islam is the most important thing in such a situate.
Eventually the same organisations get around to expressing sorrow for the loss of life … but they don’t really see why they should need to, since it’s nothing to do with Islam or the many peaceful Muslims who wouldn’t dream of doing such a thing.
Watch how quickly these organisations take the opportunity to point out the white far right when a far more rare non-Islamic terror attack occurs.
Basically, Muslims have talked themselves into a corner, in order to defend Islam.
They could have been straight from the beginning:
Yes, there are some uncomfortable aspects of the religion which are too easy to take literally.
Yes, the Quran is inerrant and that makes it difficult to move on and away from the value systems that were prevalent at the time the religion emerged.
Yes, we need a reformed Islam … WHAO! NO!!!!
Of course, this is basically what the Ahmadi Muslims did. They invented another prophet. They even went to the trouble of getting round the thorny issue of Mohammed being the supposed last prophet, by declaring Mohammed was indeed the last prophet of revelation. Their later prophet came along to help interpret Islam so that it was truly a religion of peace.
And look how they are persecuted for it. In Pakistan they are unable to call themselves Muslims. Their mosques are attacked.
The problem with all Islam, even the Ahmadi version, is that it’s a massive fudge.
And as much as I admire Saira Khan’s efforts to deal with some of these problems, I can see the conflicted position she is in.
Islam has influenced cultures for so long that those cultures are Islamic ones – the people of those cultures say so themselves … ‘Muslim lands’. Pakistan was created as an Islamic nation. And yet, there are other aspects of those varied ‘Islamic’ cultures that remain unique and visible. And it is this variety that the apologists for Islam latch on to. They will throw many of these diverse cultures under the bus, in order to save the honour of the one common factor: Islam.
I say all this is a problem for Islam. But of course it’s actually a problem for Muslims. And more recently has become a problem for non-Muslims.
Saira Gives up on Islam
See the follow up to this post, The Further Enlightenment of Saira Khan, which looks first at the Mirror report on Saira no longer being a practicing Muslim, and then links to the BBC report of death threats against her.
There’s always some point in a discussion, having had a dig at Islam, there comes a necessary aside. So here it is, for future reference.
“Why do you pick on Islam? What about Sikhs, Hindus? What about Christianity?”
This question inevitably follows. I don’t only pick on Islam, but it does attract greater attention now.
Because, after a lifetime of opposing Christianity and seeing secular success in taming it, Islam has burst on the scene in the UK and undone much of the work of secular liberal progress. To the point that in support of ‘minorities’ (but not minorities within minorities – FGM victims, persecuted and killed for honour, apostates) the second largest religion in the world gets a free pass on way too much of its own bigotry.
The rhetoric of ‘Victim Islam’ (fake Islamophobia) has even contributed to many young people rejecting secular liberal values like free speech, in favour of the dangerous ‘hate speech’ laws.
It started with Blair, funding self-appointed Islamic organisations, several later shut down for their links to extremists. It has continued after 9/11, with excessive and poor attempts to ‘protect’ Muslims in the UK, with ridiculous statements like “Nothing to do with Islam”. Lies like that have only increased anti-Muslim sentiment as well as opposition to Islam.
So, yes. I oppose Christianity and Islam, explicitly. I find them both antithetical to Humanist liberal values. I won’t support their legal outlaw, or any violence against their followers. But I do oppose them and argue against their support.
As for Hindu and Sikh religions … I do criticise them, when the need arises. In the UK we occasionally have reason to criticise. But, anecdotally, personally, I find they accept the secular nature of the UK more readily. So, while I’d probably disagree with them on some grounds, I don’t know enough or find I’ve needed to know enough to make an issue of it.
Islam and Christianity are in my face constantly. Fair enough – proselytise by all means. But expect a response. And don’t think I’ll look the other way, as many police, politicians and press have done, actively, in the face of evil done in the name of or under the cover of religion.
You can tell I’m not one of the passive aggressive atheists that complain more about atheists like me, in some daft deference to religion. Religions deserve ZERO deference. They are ideologies, like any other. To be criticised and ridiculed, like any other. There is a ‘spiritual’ aspect, but religions are NOT about spirituality, but about propagating THEIR particular dogmas, politically.
There are many very nice Christians, Muslims and other religious people that follow their religion and don’t ram it down my throat, and don’t try to impose their personal ideas of sexual propriety on others (it’s always about sex). Many in my own family are like that. I’ll argue the toss over religion, if they like, but otherwise, their beliefs are their business.
I’ll even agree that some, a few, religious people are far nicer than most non-religious people. There’s a reason. Nice people are attracted to the sales pitch of religion, and naturally cherry pick just the Goldilocks parts of the doctrine. The bad people in religion I’d say were already religious, and somehow manage to convince themselves there’s no incongruity: Roman Catholic Mafia gangsters, paedophile priests. So, anyone that is seriously lacking in empathy isn’t going to be attracted to the nice religious sales pitch, and if they have no need for religion, they will boost the number of evil non-religious people: the non-religious killing regimes of Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot.
But on the whole, and very specifically too in some cases, religion is a divisive force that I oppose.
That’s how it is. I value Global Liberal Secular Democratic Humanism. Not religion. Certainly not Islam.
This event happened a few years back. “Public reactions to LGBT-Muslim Solidarity initiative – East London, 21 October 2015”:
The reason I’m posting now is that Peter Tatchell is still selling this narrative.
It was a brave attempt by the great Peter Tatchell, the long term campaigner for LBGT cause against persecution, particularly by the law and the police.
I support Peter’s support of gay Muslims. An since I support freedom of belief, I support their right to be gay and Muslim. No problem.
Unfortunately, Peter suffers from the common blindness that has a tendency to think a critic of Islam is an anti-Muslim bigot. He has joined in the smears of people outspoken about Islam. And it’s this aspect of the narrative being sold here that I object to.
Here’s the problem in a nutshell, 2 minutes in:
“I feel that LGBT communities and Muslim communities are ideally placed to show solidarity with one another because of the long history of homophobia and anti-Muslim sentiment that they both face.”
Let’s go through some of the problems with this statement, that sweeps across time and geography selectively picking out the narrative that Peter Tatchell has been pushing for some time.
LGBT communities, and Muslim communities are not monoliths (we are told so often) that have some uniting common ground.
The long history of homophobia in Britain is there to be examined. But now? Not so much … at least not in law, and not in the general population. Some remnant homophobia among the ignorant remains, but generally homosexuality is socially accepted.
The most homophobic messages in Britain today come from religious people, and, accounting for population proportions, proportionately more from Muslim ‘communities’. That is, after all, why this event was put on. Look up the statistics on the percentage of Muslims that think homosexuality should be illegal.
And, you will find that the most horrendous stories where gay people are rejected wholesale by family and community are from gay Muslims and ex-Muslims. The video above starts with one such story, and others are recounted. And, since the religion is often specifically cited as the reason for the rejection and persecution, the idea that LGBT communities, and Muslim communities have something in common is laughable – unless you see the common ground as actually having polar opposite views on homosexuality.
Of course, not all Muslims are homophobic. And not all LBGT are not anti-Muslim. And plenty of LGBT people are anti-Islam. And not all non-Muslims are not homophobic.
It’s a messy world, and the above poor attempt to persuade Muslims that they have a lot in common with LBGT because they are both persecuted is a lie. LBGT is well accepted now in the wider British society, and it’s Muslims doing most of the persecuting of LBGT now, proportionate to population. It’s an insane narrative to suggest the LGBT community and the Muslim community are allies.
Then, add to that the fact that Muslims are not a minority.
We are told there are 1.8 billion Muslims. That isn’t a minority. It’s the 2nd largest and fastest growing religion. And in ‘Muslim lands’ (that monolithic term beloved by many Muslims) LBGT Muslims and ex-Muslims are at risk of losing their lives. You will have seen the images of gay men hanged on cranes in public squares in Iran.
Nevertheless, you can bet your life that without having to endorse LBGT one iota, the Islamic homophobes will be rubbing their hands, because their victim status has been turned up a notch and validated by the LBGT community in this video. This is madness.
Oh, wait. I’ll tell you where there’s common ground between LBGT and homophobic misogynistic Muslim groups. When Maryam Namazie tried to present her views on the misogynistic nature of Islam at a university, the ISOC shut her down. And then the LBGTSOC backed up the ISOC, not Maryam. This is madness.
By all means get as much support from the Muslim communities as you can. Try to persuaded them that freedom of belief and freedom of sexual orientation are valuable freedoms. It was obviously nice to see that some Muslims agreed (we don’t know to what extent the video was edited to give that impression).
But the problem with trying to set a false narrative is it has the habit of backfiring.
[2019-04-08: As Peter found out with events playing out in Birmingham and Manchester schools where the ‘No Outsider’ programme has been rejected on religious grounds by Muslim parents.]
The emperor’s nakedness is obvious. And speaking of nakedness, at 2:13
Muslim: If I don’t approve this, doesn’t mean they are my enemy. It doesn’t mean I haven’t got tolerance against (for) them. I am tolerant. …
That sounds like freedom of belief and tolerance to me.
Off screen interviewer: Don’t you believe that the fact you are saying that you don’t approve of something is lessening people who are gay and Muslim. You’re not saying that they deserve to be gay.
This is typical Leftie BS. You’re worth is not set by whether someone believes that being gay is OK. It is set by yourself. If this Muslim man, as a parent of a gay son or daughter, were to persecute them, that would be infringing on their freedom. But if he disapproves, but is tolerant of them, then what’s the problem? After all, Peter Tatchell is here preaching tolerance and he’s not a Muslim. And I doubt all ex-Muslims present approve of Islam.
Muslim: Do you approve of somebody walking barefoot without clothes?
To which one could answer yes or no, depending on one’s approval or disapproval. That’s freedom of belief. I think he expected her to disapprove, but she may have been about to approve. But she lost the plot when she tried to deny the comparison to the right to express your feelings in nakedness to the rights of LBGT. He wasn’t denying rights, he was speaking of personal approval, which is free to give or not.
They do get a bit confused.
Of course, the interviewer is merely arguing here that the Muslim’s view is devaluing. It’s a handy rhetorical tool – it can be useful to throw back at someone that accuses you of devaluing them, while they happily devalue you. Where have we seen that before? Oh, yes, when Peter Tatchell complains about how Muslims are devalued by critics of Islam, and then goes on to devalue those critics of Islam, calling them anti-Muslim bigots.
So, to be clear, freedom of belief is important. Thought policing, the persecution of people for their beliefs, is bad. But, trying to persuade someone to change their beliefs, through dialogue, and through protest (Peter Tatchell’s fame is built on it) is legitimate.
Sadly, Peter doesn’t seem to think this is the case when it comes to criticising or protesting against Islam, because, as this narrative goes, Muslims are a minority ally of the LBGT community.
Who knew? Someone best tell the gays and their hangmen in Iran that they are allies.
Another Muslim interviewed, asked if they should unite is against a common oppression, having just been told that his community is doing the oppressing:
The hot trend at the time of writing is the call for the Conservative Party to investigate itself for the amount of ‘Islamophobia’ engaged in, by members or MPs.
Obviously, this is kick-back for the accusations of antisemitism in the Labour party, and it looks like Corbyn is now benefiting from his alliances in the Islamic world, as race baiting CMB and their puppet master Miqdaad Versi push this for all they’re worth.
To Conservatives in particular. You have lost the narrative to Islamic fundamentalists. You bought into the ‘multiculturalism’ narrative of Blair’s Labour, and you have lost. But, as you’ll see, you can start to save your party.
Politicians generally. You are being conned on ‘Islamophobia’.
The people know this.
The people know that YOU know this.
Do you realise the contempt with which you are currently held for this cowardice?
Islamophobia:
a) a tool used by Islamists (those politically motivated to further Islam and Sharia)
to shut down discussion of the worst practices in Islam,
by conflating criticism of Islam, anti-Muslim bigotry, and racism.
b) a fear instilled in Muslims, based on indoctrination into a cultish reverence
for Mohammed and the Quran,
such they submit themselves to Islam,
often above family members,
so that some would kill their own children or siblings if they left Islam.
c) a fear instilled in Muslims by Islamic fundamentalists,
that to speak out about the bad practices in Islam is
un-Islamic, treason, blasphemous, heretical,
even default apostasy by fiat … and threateningly, a death sentence
d) the fear of Islam instilled into UK politicians, police and press that shuts them up,
and even persuades them to collude in the silencing of those that speak out about the worst aspects of Islam.
e) the fear of Islam instilled in politicians across Europe,
that Muslim unrest is more difficult to deal with than any popularist reactionary unrest,
so that they would rather kow tow to Muslim community demands.
This is the reason authorities and cowards would rather deal with general working class public disorder than Islami… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
Islamist have succeeded. We realise you just want it all to go away. Your opponents know how to play this game. It’s a rhetorical method that works very well throughout the wider Islamic world. But, you are too scared to do anything about it.
Andrew Norfolk knew of this fear of Islam, when he accepted he’d sat on a report on paedophile Muslim grooming gangs, and let the rapes continue unexposed.
Maggie Oliver knew this, when her GMP seniors deflected her from investigating a case. Only with #threegirls in Rochdale, did she get anywhere.
Maggie Oliver realises you have no stomach to do the right thing. So she now calls for people power.
But we know what you politicians and police have done when people have raised this. We have seen you smear those that speak out, or at best, you have looked the other way.
Labour sacked MP Sarah Champion. They even deselected a Labour councillor.
Decent head teacher, Ray Honeyford, was hounded out, three decades ago, for trying to protect and improve the lot of children, and YOU or your fellow MPs let this happen.
Here’s what you can do.
You can start by rejecting the term ‘Islamophobia’.
Islam is the set of ideas.
Muslims are the people.
Oppose actual anti-Muslim bigotry, where individual decent Muslims are persecuted.
Oppose racism.
On that last point, I’m sure you’ve been told, but, Islam is not a race. There are many ‘white’ Muslims, and many ‘non-white’ non-Muslims. Make sure you are prosecuting actual racism, and not opinions on what is just another set of ideas.
If you play this ‘Islamophobia’ game, of seeing Muslims as victims while a minority, then you’ll find that you are becoming the minority.
Decent secular Muslims will tell you all this too. Perhaps you don’t want to listen. Perhaps you’ve already submitted to Islam.
So, an atheist kills a bunch of religious people, and the religious can now cite an example that shows that their religion isn’t that bad after all.
Not so fast.
Atheism vs Theism
Both Atheism and Theism are simply opposing philosophical positions. Any other system’s metaphysical philosophy is ‘atheistic’ if it rejects theism.
A particular theism might be vary vague – “I believe there is one, and possibly more gods, but I don’t know whether any of the religions are true …”.
Or it might be specific yet still ‘other worldly’ – “I believe that there must have been a creator god, but I have no idea what he intends for us, and I offer no moral guidance based on my belief that there is a god.”
Or it might be committed to the variable claims about the god or gods of a particular religion, which may have many sects.
Atheism is pretty much opposition to these sorts of theism, usually on the grounds that there is no evidence or reason to believe specific claims, or support the level of hopefulness that the ‘spiritual’ seem to be clinging onto. In this respect Atheism is a negative position: it simply rejects the claim that there are gods.
Note that Atheism does not assert that there are definitely no gods.
Some atheists might assert that there are absolutely no gods, but that isn’t much better than asserting absolutely that there are gods. You might call such an atheism a ‘faith’ based atheism. But if you take the trouble to pin atheists down they generally agree that they do not hold such a strong opinion, but merely act as if they do because that’s often easier to express.
But this acting as if there are no gods is a fair position to take. Christians act as if there are no Norse gods. They act as if there are no fairies or Santa. (Note that playing along with such fantasies for the fun they provide for children isn’t acting with true belief.)
Religions
Religions are a subset of Theism …
[Agnostics may not deny the existence of god, but they don’t positively assert there are gods either.]
Religions take the basic philosophical position of theism, thinking there are some teleological entities that created our universe, and add many more specific claims:
Our god is the only god.
Our god cares about us.
Our god dictates our moral codes.
Our god wants us to punish people that don’t follow his codes.
Our god wants us to punish people that don’t believe in him.
Our god doesn’t want us to eat pig meat and thinks it a moral obligation that we don’t.
Our god wants us to punish people that have sex outside the specific type of union sanctioned by our god (monogamy for Christians, up to four wives, but one husband for Muslims)
Our god will not remarry divorcees – old school Catholic; god changes his mind sometimes; he’s fickle; or humans decide he changed his mind.
Most religious people are born into, indoctrinated into, their religion. And the religion may provide many social benefits if it’s a large religious community.
But there can also be great costs for those that simply cannot continue to believe. In some more fundamentalist communities, ex-believers can be ostracised, might suffer social and economic hardship if rejected by the community, and might even risk death. If the religion prescribes death for apostates, as is the case for Islam, then even if the religion isn’t the state authority, believers are easily persuaded to take it upon themselves.
The list of additional beliefs on top of basic theism, including the many moral prescriptions and proscriptions, is long. It depends on the religion, the sect within the religion, and the personal willingness of individuals to follow the rules of the religion.
This becomes a little tricky for the religious that try to divert criticism away from their religion, when opinions differ so widely within:
God changes his mind often, it seems, judging by how religious opinions change.
Individuals make up their own minds what they take from their religion … you’d think the religious would therefore appreciate how atheists make up their own minds about morality.
The greatest opponents to a particular religious believer’s views are … other religious people. Islamic terrorism? Many victims are other Muslims, for being the wrong type of Muslim.
The variety of religious belief is often greater than the difference between Atheism and a particular Religion. Modern Anglicans that accept secular liberal democracy, have no problem with homosexuality, even in the church, are for full gender equality, and gender identity. They have much more in common with the social and political leanings of many atheists, than with even their fundamentalist Christian brethren, let alone than with people of other faiths.
And yet, the religious stick together. It only takes the whiff of an atheist with a strong opinion for the ‘interfaith’ community to band together in offended outrage. And let anyone speak out about the Islam of the Islamic extremists and even moderate Muslims will come to Islam’s defence as much as agree with an atheist that there might be a problem with the religion.
[Update 5/12/2017] There was greater outrage that Trump retweeted a lead figure one of Britain First’s outspoken anti-Islam activists than at the content of the videos the activist posted. One was ‘fake news’, but the other two were of Muslims persecuting others. Despite the acts of the Muslims, this was actually seen as anti-Muslim bigotry. Take a moment. Here’s the upshot: every tweet condemning German neo-Nazis is anti-German bigotry; every tweet showing and condemning videos of Britain First are anti-British bigotry, and by extension, anti-Muslim bigotry, since, as is belaboured painfully, British Muslims are British. This is the state of play in 2017, where any criticism of Islam is interpreted as ‘Islamophobia’, ‘anti-Muslim bigotry’ … and yes, ‘racism’.
Political Ideologies of Hitler, Stalin, Mao, …
Whenever an atheist argues with Christians or Muslims, it’s not long before we get the Hitler, Stalin, Fascism, Nazism, Communism line thrown at us. And no matter how often it’s pointed out that this isn’t a valid argument, it still keeps on coming up. Often from the same people that have had this pointed out before.
Political ideologies can of course cross boundaries of Atheism-Theism. Christians can be socialists. In the 70s it was quite common for Islamists to lean towards socialism … maybe they hadn’t realised how far right Islam really is … or maybe they had.
And, Hitler was not an atheist. He might not have favoured the established churches that opposed his thugs, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t religious. Many Nazi ideas were based on the old Teutonic ideals of religiously motivated knights.
Communism? Don’t think that political ideology stops you believing in a personal god … it just becomes less convenient and maybe a little dangerous to admit to one, but Communism does not preclude theism.
These political ideologies tell us little about the wide variety of atheists. The Atheism that some political ideologies might embrace informs the ideology with nothing other than the fact that there is no evidence for any god.
Religious Political Ideologies
Some political ideologies are religious ones.
And most religious ideologies are political – they are inherently so because they dictate the behaviours of people, and that’s a very political thing to do. And they usually have a lot to say on social issues … not all good. Homophobia, sex outside marriage, modesty, … religions can be obsessed with sex, particularly with regard to women, and if feminism isn’t a political matter I’m not sure what is.
It is possible to believe in a religion and treat it as an entirely personal belief system that determines how you live your own life, without you making any claims about what it implies for anyone else.
But this is rare. Most religions, and especially religious organisations, are very keen on telling: religious believers how they should act; non-believers that they are anything from misguided to evil; the religious what they should do to the non-believers: killing apostates, bombing abortion clinics, punishing people for blasphemy (the modern version is imprisoning people for ‘hate speech’).
Christianity, as supposedly expressed by Jesus, is a “render unto Caesar” kind of religion – a reasonable basis of separation of church and state. However, the Catholic church in Rome put a swift stop to that. Christianity, especially through many bishops and popes, made state business very much church business. The US continues this tradition by distorting the intentions of the founding fathers and making it the godly nation the founding fathers tried to avoid – they’d seen enough of that in Europe.
Islam is very specifically, inherently, by design, a political ideology. Only Muslims can hold certain offices of state. Muslims and non-Muslims are taxed differently.
Many Muslims will try to pull a fast one by telling you that Islam insists that Muslims follow the laws of the the land in which they find themselves … where Muslims are a minority that does not hold power. But Islam also requires Muslims to spread Islam … which means it would eventually become a majority. This is why many opponents of Islam also oppose too much immigration from Muslim countries.
Of course many Muslims don’t want a dominant Islam any more than non-Muslims do. Many escape the domination of Islam of their homelands, and are quite happy to live in secular democracies where they can practice their religion in peace.
But then we also see a lot of duplicitous language from supposedly ‘moderate’ Muslims that think homosexuality should be illegal, and make excuses for their more extreme brothers and sisters (“Nothing to do with Islam”).
In Europe the atheists and secularists have been opposing the power of the church for centuries, letting the humanistic principles take precedence. There’s still plenty of religious protectionism that goes on – a refusal to give up the reigns of power, as diminished as they are. Why the heck do Bishops get seats in the UK House of Lords – and why is there even such an unelected house still?
But I’ve seen and heard much more of the stranglehold religion has in some parts of the US, where the mark of a good plumber is whether he’s a good Christian or not. “In God We Trust” – indeed they do.
So, religions are political, and as such are as fair game for criticism and ridicule as any non-religious political ideology.
And being offended when religions are criticised is just one more political tool the religious try to pull. It may be a genuine feeling, and so they try to give it moral weight. Hence, critics of Islam are labelled haters of Muslims.
But, realising that atheists tend not to be impressed by the special pleading for the religion, that atheists aren’t taken in by the piety, the hurt feelings, what are the religious to do? Compare their religion to atheism? They can’t. They are not comparable.
Humanism
So, religious friends, you can’t really compare Atheism with your religion.
You can compare Atheism with Theism, if you’re talking only about the philosophy, reason, evidence, to support either case.
But you can’t compare Atheism as such with Christianity or Islam. Yes, I know that atheists argue against Christianity and Islam, but they do so on two quite separate grounds:
1 – A disagreement with the underlying theistic claims of your religion. If your religion relies on a claim that there is one or more gods, and there isn’t, then 2 is irrelevant. But, we humour you anyway and so …
2 – A disagreement with the moral assertions that you think your imaginary god has prescribed. It’s not like we disagree with all your moral positions, we just hold those we agree on for different reasons, for which we don’t need an imaginary god. But those Humanist atheists also find many of the moral guides of religion to be immoral, barbaric at times, and remnants of ancient codes of conduct prescribed at the time of the religion’s inception.
The thing is, Atheism prescribes no moral position whatsoever. It really is merely the rejection of your unsubstantiated claims about your god.
And this, of course, leads to another failure to understand atheism: “Atheists have no morals. They are nihilists.” Not so.
We have morals. We just don’t think some imaginary friend dictates them; and we very specifically reject many of the immoral codes that gods supposedly do dictate.
But you’re nearly right. it’s not our atheism that determines our morals, it’s something else.
Many atheists find other reasons for their morality – many simply acknowledging that harming others isn’t nice. People and animals don’t like to suffer harm, so we prefer to minimise that. It seems a very simple idea, but it’s amazing how far you can go with just that basic starting point. And it also avoids the need to punish people for daft reasons – such as for having sex outside marriage, for not being heterosexual, for drinking, for working on the Sabbath.
[In the UK the Shops Bill 1986 was defeated; the Sunday Trading Act 1994 eventually introduced limited Sunday trading … so strong was Christianity’s hold over British life. Now we’re finding we have to start again, with Islam.]
Many atheists want to live by their own moral ideals, and many collect these ideas about living a moral life into a set of codes. It’s not that these codes are necessary, but they are helpful in declaring some minimal set of behaviours we agree to abide by.
And one example of such a guide is the Humanist Manifesto. Take a look at it. You’ll find no diktats about women being lesser than men, or how to deal with the evil of homosexuality, or what the best way is to kill apostates. Humanists don’t have to look for ‘nuance’ and ‘scholarship’ to explain away inconvenient passages ‘revealed’ through some desert warlord or hippy.
So, if you want to carry out any comparisons I’d suggest you try these:
– Atheism vs Theism
– Humansim vs Christianity, Islam, …
You might find that many atheists tell you they don’t belong to any Humanist organisation, because they would rather not belong to any group that sets their ethical standards for them, as they can figure it out for themselves. They have a point. We are free to decide our own moral codes, and put them to the test in our societies.
My personal subscription to Humanism is one of convenience, and support for many of the programs of Humanists UK (formerly British Humanist Association).
Other atheists might join other groups of common interest, such as the many secular and skeptical societies around the world. Ex-Muslims have a shared experience that brings them together in various groups – often with the added benefit of providing a safe community to those ex-Muslims that are still at risk from their families.
Let that sink in, and imagine a child of Humanists being ostracised, forced into marriage, threatened with death, killed. I don’t know of any such incident. Has one ever made the news?
The next time you’re arguing with atheists on Twitter, they are unlikely to be Nazis. So when you pull the “What about Hitler, Stalin ..” it’s a Straw Man. If you want to argue for your religion, why don’t you try coming up with good reasons for it, not excusing the bad stuff by dragging in some irrelevant comparison.
And for pities sake, give up on trying to defend the indefensible. Your religious texts are full of ancient stuff that really doesn’t stand up to our moral standards today. Some religious passages are outright contraventions of the human rights that most people would want to sign up to. Stop defending that crap with ‘nuance’ and ‘scholarship’ – it makes you look like damned fools that are fooling no one but themselves.
Atheist Terrorists
And that atheist killer you want to call a terrorist because you’re sick of hearing about Islamic terrorists? Could be they are genuinely crazy, or have some motive other than their hate for religion.
And even if they carried out the heinous act because they hate religion and religious believers, there’s no Atheist Bible, and nothing in the Humanist Manifesto to suggest they should … unlike your religious books. Not even The God Delusion, Letter to a Christian Nation, or any of the New Atheist books.
If some killers that are atheists really are killing for atheism, there’s nothing in atheism, or Humanism, that can be removed that would stop them. There are no doctrines we can reject. There’s no “Believers are children of Satan” sermons going on. Pointing out the problems with religion doesn’t automatically create Atheist Killers. Sadly it does all too often create killers of atheists.
But, hey, if someone has a terrorist agenda, against believers, for atheism, then pretty much all humanist atheists will oppose them. I’ll happily denounce any such terrorists. But I won’t be able to point to any atheist texts that has incited them. I can only point to Humanist texts that are very short and very explicit in their opposition to doing harm. There is no Humanist Prophet whose example I should follow that includes his beheading of enemies.
The Humanist Manifesto is so clear in rejecting doing harm to others there’s no way you can mistakenly or otherwise derive some crazy idea that it’s a good idea to kill believers.
This cannot be said of the books of Christianity and Islam. Alongside all the lovely stuff is some seriously dark and immoral doctrine.
Look, if you want to call some atheist killer an atheist terrorist, knock yourself out. Any disagreement from atheists will be on a technicality, not for some fear of having to explain away our inconvenient texts. Let me help you out with A Guide To Terrorists For Idiots.
I’m often told, “You Should Read The Quran.” – Really? Why? Islamic specialism seems to presume I’d be enlightened by one particular holy text, but not by others.
I’m an atheist that doesn’t see any merit in holy books that claim to be inspired by or revealed by imaginary friends. I don’t swallow the presuppositional existence of a deity that such inspiration or revelation demands. There are just too many religions, and sects within religions, to make ANY of the claims credible – and there is NEVER any evidence to back up the claims. Continue reading “You Should Read The Quran – Really? Why?”→
This time the images are of London victims fleeing ISIS, and Theresa May, head under her arm.
CH is not mocking the victims but those that contribute to the creation of victims. CH asks you to think. The image is the shock that makes you question. But if you just look at the image and jump to your own simple conclusions based on that alone, it is YOU that is failing to think. Continue reading “Headless May, Yet Still, Je Suis Charlie”→
I have been asked by a ‘liberal’ friend, “What’s your problem with Islam?”
I now have to put ‘liberal’ in scare quotes because the word no longer means what one might expect it to mean. I consider myself to be a liberal: a secular liberal democratic atheist Humanist sums up my political persuasion.
That I have to spell this out today is pretty much entirely down to the matter of Islam.
White supremacism! Eurocentrism! Murticulturalism! Western Values! …
Endorse, deplore, assert, denounce, support any of these, vociferously, emotionally? Want to promote freedom and equality without stumbling over these dilemmas? Read on.
Richard Spencer is an ‘Identitarian’, in his own terms – though not all ‘Identitarians’ are quite like Richard Spencer. He’s a white separatist; white nationalist; whatever he wants to call it; but, it’s about being white. He values ‘White European’ values.
His ideas are based on a fallacy, because what we really value, what Spencer pretends to value, is not whiteness, or anything associated with the rather poor attribution of being white. His is really an ancient tribalism, something that we acknowledge the human race went through naturally, but not something that’s worth hanging on to.
The origins of the ‘Identitarian movement‘ suggest something more specific than just being white, but rather the desire, one which many ethnic groups aspire to, to have an ethnicity and culture remain intact. Other ethnicities cling to their ‘ethnic identity’ without receiving any push back. White Identitarians (and Jews) do seem to take a lot of flack for expressing what other ethnicities do.
I’m not a ‘white Identitarian’. As you’ll see when I get to the thought experiment later. I can understand some of the concerns – they are mostly related to opposition to the political ideology of Islam. Now, that I do oppose.
The problem I have with the ‘White Identitarian’ movement is the specificity of the ‘white’ aspect. I know, it arose arose in opposition to the perceived non-white Islamification of France. However, it erroneously conflates a difference that matters, culture, with one that does not, ethnicity. I doubt very much the ‘White Identitarian’ movement would be much of a thing (outside Richard Spencer’s tiny mind) had it not been for Merkel’s open door policy. But, let’s put that aside, and focus on the fallacy of the ‘whiteness’.
When Spencer uses the qualifier ‘White European’, when referring to culture, he’s doing so to pretend to loftier things, but he’s really about nothing more than base tribalism.
What’s worth valuing is something else other than racist ‘whiteness’; or even anything specifically ‘European’, despite Europe being historically the most localised origin of what we do value … and here I presume ‘we’ value freedom and equality, though I recongnise some do not.
My previous post had a dig at an article by Julia Ebner of Quilliam. I still support Quilliam’s efforts, even though they went hyperbolic over Tommy Robinson’s (typo alert) crass stunt, which in turn was a response to the hit job by Julia.
This post might be damning them with feint praise too, but I do agree with Adam Deen’s HuffPo piece:
It sounds like (look at the url) it’s about getting the social media companies to tackle hate speech. But that begins to look like a thin disguise for a hit job … or perhaps the person being made example of is an unlucky target. That will depend on your perspective.
Carl Miller (@carljackmiller) of Demos, a ‘Cross Party Think Tank’ has produced some research that claims to show spikes in ‘Islamophobic’ tweets around incidents of Islamic terrorism.
There are problems with this research, as pointed out very well in this piece, by Benjamin Jones: Conflating abuse with criticism of Islam risks a return to a UK blasphemy law [1], from the National Secular Society (NSS). One big problem is the word ‘Islamophobia’ and how it is used; which in turn leads to a subsequent problem, the selection and analysis of the tweets used to produce the results.
Ramblings 