Sarah Haider: Islam and the Necessity of Liberal Critique (AHA Conference 2015)

[Sarah Haider: Islam and
the Necessity of Liberal Critique]

(Moderator) Hi everybody and welcome
to this next presentation entitled

"Islam and the Necessity of Liberal Critique".

I'd like to welcome Sarah Haider,
who is one of the co-founders

of the Ex Muslims of North America group.

So, please join me in welcoming Sarah.

(Applause)

(Sarah Haider) Hi Everyone,

I'm Sarah, and for the last two years
I have worked to build an organization

for non-theist ex-Muslims,

those who once
identified themselves with Islam.

and now call themselves atheists,
agnostics or deists;

and the organization is called
Ex-Muslims of North America.

We are a relatively new organization,
but we are growing quickly

and we now have communities
of ex-Muslims

in over fifteen cities.

As you can imagine, it is notoriously
difficult for ex-Muslims

to find others like ourselves.
Trying to build friendships among people

who are often under siege and deep
in the closet is incredibly difficult.

In the first place, how do you even find
people who are often deliberately

doing their best to stay undercover?

As an organization we work to provide
ex-Muslims with much needed support,

support to free themselves
from the shackles of religion

and to be themselves, to learn about
each other's suffering,

and above all else, endure.

We are in a peculiar situation,
my colleagues and I,

we are intimately connected with more
godless ex-Muslims

than likely anyone else in the world.

I have heard thousands of stories
from hundreds of people,

about their experiences with Islam.

Some lucky few were able to leave
the faith with little consequence,

the relationships with their families
and friends and communities

remained intact.

But for most, this was not the case.

Our journeys have seen
tremendous struggles.

For some the cost was only social,
loss of friends and families.

For others, they risked their health and
mental well-being

from being locked into psychiatric wards
to enduring physical violence

from all family members.

Ex-Muslims, arguably
more than any other group,

are deeply familiar with the problems
entrenched within Muslim communities

and inherent within Islamic scriptures.

As most of us happen to be both
people of color

and first- or second- generation
immigrants,

we are doubly affected,

both by hatred and violence
from Muslims,

but also bigotry and xenophobia
from the broader American public.

Despite all this, my experience
over the last two years

has made me wary of speaking up,
even to an audience such as this.

I always expected feeling unwelcome
from Muslim audiences,

but I did not anticipate
an equal amount of hostility

from my allies on the Left.

For example,
when I first published a piece,

fact-checking Reza Aslan,
who is a prominent Muslim scholar,

on his dismissal of
female genital mutilation

as only an African problem,
not a Muslim one,

I got many responses from people
unhappy with what I wrote,

almost all of whom
questioned my motives

rather than addressing my claims.

To my surprise, most of my critics
were not Muslims.

Rather they identified as liberals
and sometimes even atheists.

Some darkly alluded to my "agenda" and
others claimed that as a former Muslim,

there was no way I could be trusted
with fair criticism.

Now remember, I published a fact-check.

It seems to me that it would be easy
to verify my claims,

fact-check the fact-check, so to speak.

But instead, Muslims and some people
on the Left preferred instead

to throw around suspicions
about my character and my intentions.

Those who oppose
Christian authoritarianism

will find that the broad majority
of liberals, religious or non-religious,

side with them
and will ofter their support

in the fight to push religious morals
out of our politics and public life.

Even religious liberals
sometimes look upon

the politically-charged religious right
with distaste

and some work with secularists
to keep them out of our politics.

The executive director for

the Americans United for {Separation of}
Church and State, for example,

is an ordained minister.

Atheists and secularists
can feel secure in the knowledge

that their allies on the liberal Left
will stand with them

when their target is
the far-right Christians.

It makes sense: liberals don't share
much, many common values

with the religious right.

But when the same scrutiny
is applied to Islam,

you find that inexplicably some people
on the Left begin to align instead

with the Islamic religious right.

The consistent exception has been
the secular and atheist communities.

When luminaries of disbelief movement
like Harris and Dawkins speak about

the horrors of Christianity and write
books condemning it, they are cheered,

their works lionized, their presence
sought at events and conferences.

But when they turn
the same critical gaze

towards the religion of my family,

they are told to cease
such offensive talk,

to refrain from criticizing
the same oppressive forces

that they criticized in the past.

There is an instinct to pigeon-hole
anyone

who says something negative about
Islam, to broadly label them

in such a way that nearly guarantees

that most on the Left will ignore
what they have to say.

The first method, I found, of people dismissing my claims, has been that

since as a brown person I can't easily
be painted as a bigot,

is that I must be pro-war

or broadly support the far-right agenda
in some way.

This is not true.

Sometimes I am called an Uncle Tom
or a house Arab.

Another term thrown around
at ex-Muslims

and other brown critics of Islam

is "native informants".

This was my first time hearing this.

I won't go into the many reasons why
this is an impressively disgusting thing

to call someone,
with the vague implication

that we are brainwashed in some way,
or are betraying our own kind.

While it is somewhat understandable,
why someone like Myriam Francois,

who is a white convert to Islam, why she
would refer to us as native informants,

it is beyond my comprehension how
such a transparently racist term

was used by the journalist
Max Blumenthal

in his article condemning Ayaan Hirsi Ali

to cast a shadow over
her role in this debate.

I wonder if Blumenthal
would feel comfortable

using similarly racist terms
against anti-clerical dissidents

from African-American
or other minority communities.

Bill Maher is someone
who has been painted

by the Left and the Right as a bigot.

Once on his show though, Maher
mentioned the high rates of support

for the death penalty for the crime of
atheism in Muslim communities.

In response, Dean Obeidallah,

who is a comedian and author
and liberal Muslim,

attempted to defend the Muslim
countries by pointing out errors

in the statistics Maher used.

Let me quote his piece on CNN.

He says - "a 2013 Pew poll
actually found

that only 64% of Egyptians supported this"

- by this he means the death penalty -
"still alarmingly high, but not 90%"

and only thirteen Muslim nations have
penalties for apostasy, while 34 do not".

Can we realistically imagine something
like that being published

if it was about any other minority, in
an honest effort to downplay the horror?

What if it was "only 64% of Americans

support the death penalty
for converts to Islam"

- Muslims don't have it that bad -

"only 64% of French citizens support the
death penalty for Algerian immigrants"

or "only 64% of Americans support
the death penalty for homosexuality"?

How bad is the situation,
how terrible the human rights abuses

and how little the worth
of the life of a human being,

when 64% is viewed
as a defensive statistic?

It is a situation as if fully
one-third of western nations

had legalized the murder of Muslims,
how appalled would we be?

What would the Left's reaction be?

As an ex-Muslim I am horrified that
something like this would be published

on the web-site
of a major news organization

and not a single voice
was raised in outrage.

Why is my life worth less?

Does my simply being raised
in an Islamic tradition

grant the Islamic religious right
overt ownership over me and my body,

grant them license to murder me
and my fellow atheists?

The claim actually being made
by citing this statistic was that Maher

was supposedly making too much of
a fuss of atheist persecution by Muslims.

Now I do not wish to denigrate
the author, Dean Obeidallah,

but to illustrate
the depth of the problem,

that in trying to defend what he
perceived to be an injustice to Muslims,

he did not even notice
the depravity of what he wrote.

As a consequence an audience
on the Left now frightens me

nearly as much as
an audience of Islamists does.

I have had to think long and hard about
whether I want to give this talk today,

to what extent I should mince my words,

and what consequence
it would have on my work.

It's not my intention to cause offense
but I firmly believe

that there are things that need to be
said, elephants in the room

that no one but some bigots on the
far right are willing to acknowledge.

We are all, I hope, familiar with what happened

on January 7th at the offices
of Charlie Hebdo.

Masked gunmen killed twelve people,
shouting Allahu Akbar!,

later revealed to be two brothers,
French nationals of Algerian origin.

There was global outrage and a large
show of solidarity for the cartoonists,

which appeared to be the obviously
righteous things to do.

Until of course the religious
began to speak up

with claims of "provocation"
and hurt feelings.

But that was to be expected, Islamists
have been saying that for years,

and indeed, no religion really accepts
any form of ridicule

- if they have a choice in the matter, that is say.

However, what was more distressing to me,

was the response from many
of my allies on the Left.

Over and over I heard the claim that
Charlie Hebdo was somehow

a racist publication, and while,
of course, of course,

murder is always wrong
and should be condemned,

it is nonetheless "understandable"

that the gunmen would feel
provoked by the cartoons.

Now, I don't know about you, but I don't
want to meet the man

who "understands" why someone would
feel compelled to murder another man

because he didn't like a cartoon
that he drew. (applause).

It's important to realize that mocking
and critique are not that different

in the eyes of the most religious people.

There is no fair amount
of fair and friendly criticism

that the very religious will accept if
they have the power to shut it down,

as evidenced by the prohibition
on heretical speech

in theocratic states throughout history.

There is a curious
double-standard at play.

When Muslim clerics and activists
that are known to be

anti-Semites and homophobes
are welcomed on campuses,

touring nationally, invited to give
lectures by Muslim student associations,

while feminists like Asra Nomani,
who has been fighting

for the equality of the sexes,
for the right of female entry

to the priestly class,
is branded as a bigot

by the same Muslim student organizations

and the authorities
at universities like Duke

succumb to this brazen attempt
to silence her.

Similar patterns are repeated
across the Western world.

Maryam Namazie,
who is an ex-Muslim activist,

was dis-invited to speak at Trinity,
Ayaan Hirsi Ali at Brandeis.

The British Students Union
now allies itself broadly

with Islamist organizations such as CAGE.

To quote Nick Cohen from his article
from the Guardian,

"University managers are no better than
their teenage heresy hunters.

They say they want to oppose
radical Islam in argument.

The Lawyers' Secular Society
took them at their word.

It tried to present an investigation
at the University of West London

into Islamist groups that were
all over campuses,

despite their record of advocating
Jew hatred, homophobia and misogyny.

The university authorities
banned the secularists."

Let me be clear. I don't think anyone,

even bigots emerging from Muslim
communities or anywhere else,

should be silenced.

What I ask is that we stand up
for the right to speak of all,

including those both
those who stand with us

and those who call for the death
of our fellow dis-believers.

Our society functions because
we believe that hurt feelings

mean essentially nothing
in the eyes of our justice system.

But of course it is claimed that
this is a special case,

because these aren't just
personal hurt feelings,

these are religious hurt feelings,
and not just any religion,

but the religion of the underdog,
of the brown man.

And the Left decided long ago
that the hurt feelings

of the Christian religion mattered little,
and it was imperative

that we disabuse the notion
that Christianity

would ever feel safe from criticism
or even outright mockery.

Indeed many of our greatest thinkers
have delighted in exercising this right.

I want to quote Thomas Paine, from his
book, The Age of Reason:

"Whenever we read the obscene stories,
the voluptuous debaucheries,

the cruel and torturous executions,
the unrelenting vindictiveness,

with which more than half
the Bible is filled,

it would be more consistent that
we called it the word of a demon,

than the word of God.

It is a history of wickedness, that has
served to corrupt and brutalize mankind;

and, for my part, I sincerely detest it,
as I detest everything that is cruel"

I wonder if Paine had been murdered
for his outright contempt of Christianity,

how different would the West look today?

what message such a gruesome deed
would have sent?

how many people would it have silenced

with its promise of
more bloodshed to come

if they had the audacity
to repeat his crime?

Would that fear have silenced those who
insisted on the freedom of speech?

How would that have affected
the face of our nation?

Now I hope that you will reflect with me,
on the fact that

not only was he not murdered,

neither were his contemporaries
who mocked religion,

also even then three centuries ago,
I don't believe he contemplated the idea

that writing would actually
lead to his death.

And yet, in the twenty-first century,

this is the reality of those who speak out
against Islam in Muslim countries

and increasingly in Western ones.

It is not uncommon to hear from
commentators in various media outlets

that the victims of Charlie Hebdo had
somehow provoked others

with their offensive cartoons
into taking their lives.

The sentiment seems to be that
the cartoonists must to some degree

be held accountable for their own murders,

even as dozens of cartoonists
from the East drew panels

in support of their counterparts
in the West,

risking their own lives
for freedom of speech.

Two months ago, PEN, an organization
that has stood for free speech

for nearly a century, announced their
decision to honor

the magazine Charlie Hebdo

with the PEN
Freedom of Expression Courage Award.

Yet amongst those that were
members of PEN,

there were some that refused to stand
with Charlie Hebdo,

initially six table heads
and as of now, 204 writers.

I would like to remind everyone
that we've been here before.

When Salman Rushdie had a fatwa
calling for his death,

PEN America under Susan Sontag's
stewardship stood for him,

even while a significant percentage
of the intelligentsia cast him aside.

Figures as diverse as
the Archbishop of Canterbury

to multiple members
of the British Parliament,

one of whom condemned Rushdie as,
quote, an outstanding villain,

whose, quote, public life has been
a record of despicable acts of betrayal

of his upbringing, religion,
adopted home and nationality.

As there were eastern cartoonists
standing with Charlie Hebdo,

there were Irani writers from the Muslim
world that stood in defiance

and defended Rushdie, some of whom
were subsequently attacked.

In light of the recent attack
in Garland, Texas,

I'd like to share the prophetic words
of Norman Mailer,

from over two decades ago:

"In this week of turmoil we can now
envision a fearful time in the future

when fundamentalist groups in America,

stealing their page
from this international episode

will know how to apply the same methods

to American writers and bookstores.

If they succeed it will be due to the fact
that we never found

an honest resistance to the terrorization
of Salman Rushdie."

Where in 1989 and 2005 authors
and cartoonists considered

a vague possibility of retaliation,

it has now metastatized
to an ever present threat;

like clockwork the violence
intensifies and repeats.

The cowardly response
in the intervening decade

has also been repeated time and time
again, everytime emboldening the voices

calling for the curtailment of free speech.

The Rushdie fatwa was the first battle,
a battle in which we surrendered,

and continue to pay the price
for that appeasement today.

So why is it so difficult for many
on the Left to criticize Islam?

Why do they shy away from it?

I believe that the primary reason is that
many are simply incapable of separating

the criticism of an idea with the hate
directed towards a people,

and immediately call the first "racism".

That idea should not
be entertained for very long,

as if there can be no valid reasons
to critique an ideology

rooted in seventh-century
patriarchal norms

except for hatred toward the very people
imprisoned by those ideologies.

There are people who use the phrase "Islamophobia"

both to mean criticism of the people
and of the religion.

I know that many Muslims do this,

it is an easy way of stopping others
from criticizing their religion,

but I believe that many in the West
use this word

because they haven't quite thought
of why it might be harmful.

Islamophobia is a meaningless term.

It serves to confuse and to muddle two
very different forms of intolerance,

based on two very different reasons,

towards which there should be
two very different reactions.

Sometimes it is claimed
that the critique of religion

is critique of the identity
of the believer,

and is therefore bigotry.

This person's identity happens
to be based on ideology,

so if you criticize their ideology,

you are necessarily generating
hate towards that person.

But I wonder what would happen

if we applied this type of thinking
to everything?

What if New Agers decided that criticism
of New Age spiritual healing

was a form of hate against people
who chose to identify that way?

What if Hindus decided
criticism of the caste system

was a deeply offensive form of racism
against Hindu people?

How much of that would that retard reform?

There is another version
of this argument

which claims that criticism
or ridicule of Islam

feeds into the bigotry
by the far-right

and therefore causes harm,

and I want everyone to know that
the argument is almost never

that Islam doesn't deserve the critique
or ridicule as a religion,

but that it is harmful to voice this
for the damage it would do.

Now one of the writers that opposed the
award for Charlie Hebdo claimed that,

quote, the narrative
of the Charlie Hebdo murders

-- the narrative of the
Charlie Hebdo murders --

white Europeans killed in their offices
by Muslim extremists

is one that feeds neatly
into the cultural prejudices

that have allowed our governments

to make so many disastrous
mistakes in the Middle East

-- the narrative of the Charlie Hebdo murders!

I read that statement and I realized that
for some writers

the problem wasn't just
that the cartoons were offensive,

it was that the reaction of Muslims
to the cartoons fed into

a stereotypical Muslim trope,

a reaction that was very
inconvenient for a group

trying their best to paint
a picture of a peaceful Islam,

despite mounting evidence to the contrary.

It is quite clear that allegiances here
aren't to the truth,

instead the aim is to selectively hide
inconvenient truths,

truths that are deemed to be harmful,
should they ever be acknowledged.

I assume the fear is that we do not want
to give support to actual bigoted people.

Anyone who watches Fox knows
how they use fear-mongering tactics

to promote xenophobia.

But the liberation of a billion and a half
Muslims in the world,

Muslims who are suffering
under the yoke

of an ever-present theological authority,

should be at the forefront of our minds.

As has been repeated hundreds of times
by critics like myself,

the primary victims of Islamism
are Muslims,

be it in terms of terrorism, violence,
misogyny, freedom of expression,

religion, and economic decline.

Yet bizarrely, to some, these concerns
are secondary still

to not presenting offense.

Still there are others who believe that
those in the West,

that people in the West have
no right to speak about

problems of "brown cultures"

due to the legacy of colonialism
and other forms of violence

the West has cast upon the East.

This is a strange argument because
it ignores the history of the world,

a history in which various nations, Muslims and non-Muslims,

have succumbed to the ebb-and-flow
of conquest, repeatedly,

for all of recorded history.

Many Islamic countries in fact had
horrific laws before colonialism.

Two of the epicenters of Islamic thought,
Iran for Shia Islam,

and Saudi Arabia for Sunni Islam,
resisted colonialism.

-- Excuse me --

In fact, Saudi Arabia
was founded in 1744

as an extremist state,

the first iteration of which was
destroyed by the Ottomans,

due to their religious fanaticism.

The first Saudis in fact attacked
and desecrated

some of the most holy Muslim sites
and were stopped

not by intervention of the West
but by other Muslims

that viewed them as dangerous fanatics.

There was then no
American imperialism,

no frame of wars against other Muslims,

and yet, fundamentalist Wahabbis
existed,

and were attacking other Muslims,

very much the same way
that ISIS attacks them today.

Reform is impossible

when you constantly shift
the conversation away

from Islamic fundamentalism, and back
to western violence and imperialism.

But don't get me wrong.
It is important to discuss this,

it is important to discuss imperialism
and the harm that it caused.

But violence in the name of Islam
has terrorized the Middle East

ever since its inception,
and it is important

that we don't derail this conversation.

The moral paralysis out of fear of the
right, out of fear of furthering bigotry,

out of shame of prior crimes committed
by other white people

should not trump all considerations.

When I read articles of why Muslims
should not be ridiculed

I get a sense of condescension, a sense
that there are those who believe

that the most essential trait of
brown people is their religion,

a defining feature in fact,
and due to this

they presume that we won't reform
or we can't,

that religion is something
inherent to who we are

and that it won't respond
to pressure, to change

the way Christianity responded
to pressure by secularists.

While they believe themselves
to be supporting tolerance,

what they are really supporting is
the religious right of the East,

and not just any religious right, not the
religious right that we have here,

it's a religious right the West
hasn't seen for centuries.

To me, someone who opposes the most
foundational liberal principle,

the freedom of expression,

in order to protect the sensibilities
of this Islamist religious right

is a liberal only in name.

In fact, what kind of person holds two
different groups of people accountable

to two different standards of
acceptable behavior but a bigot?

Islam, like all patriarchal religions,

is a tool used to justify abuse
of women and minorities.

Does our concept of tolerance extend
towards tolerance

of systematic subjugation
of women and minorities?

What else can excusing abuse made
in the name of tolerance be called

other than a benevolent,
self-serving form of bigotry?

No matter how seemingly
compassionate the motivations,

we must not hesitate in being honest

in calling out our allies for their
hypocrisy and their illiberal mores.

Sometimes I feel as if people
view secularism and free-thinking

to be concepts owned by the West,
something inherently Western.

To push secularism and free thought
to Muslims then

is to push a Western identity onto them.

It is no more than ignorance of history

to feel that Enlightenment ideals can
only be shared by this civilization,

rather than a progression
of all of humanity.

Indeed throughout history

there have been champions
of these very same ideals,

there have been free-thinkers
in every culture in the world

that have bled for these ideals.

There have been countless free-thinkers
that challenged faith,

that tried but sadly failed to interpret
scripture in a less misogynist way,

even in patriarchal Islamic societies.

For example,
the seventeenth century had

a crown prince of the Mughal dynasty,
Dara Shikoh,

who was committed to rights of all
religions, Hindu, Sikh, Muslim alike,

working to bridge the gaps between
the leading lights of all faiths.

As you may anticipate,
this was not to last,

Dara was murdered by his own brother,

claiming that Dara's tolerance
was a sign of his apostasy,

a brother that is now revered in Muslim
circles as being a guardian of the faith.

Similarly, there have been women

that have led the charge
for their own rights.

Exactly two hundred years ago,
Fatima Baraghani was born in Iran,

an extremely intelligent woman, who as
per custom was married young,

and wasn't allowed to further
pursue her education.

She was attracted to a radical movement
brewing in the country,

which espoused equality of the genders.

She joined and rose to be one
of the leading lights of that movement.

To symbolize a break from Shariah,
at one gathering,

she took off her traditional veil
in front of an assemblage of men

and brandished instead a sword.

Now this sight caused such a shock
among the crowd,

that many grown men screamed aloud.

One man cut his own throat in horror,

fleeing the scene as blood poured
from his neck. {Laughter}

But she did not enjoy freedom or live
long after this incident.

The tragedy of the Eastern past isn't
that we haven't given birth to reformers

but that the violence of our oppressors
has eliminated us, time and again.

Even in modern times,
one Somali author,

Abdisaid Abdi Ismail, wrote a book
where he audaciously argued

that Islam doesn't actually call
for a death penalty for apostasy.

He was rewarded for his efforts by
having his life threatened,

and calls for his book to be burned.

A British reformist, Maajid Nawaz,

has had fatwas issued
calling for his death

for simply saying on a tweet

that a cartoon of Muhammad
doesn't personally offend him.

The religious right has been murdering
reformers for centuries,

but we are still here,
fighting for our future,

the same fight that the West has had
much greater success in.

It is strange that the very same people,
who wish to tamp down on the power

of the Christian right and use
the advances that the West has had,

to insist that we must be defined
by our religious right.

Let us assume, for the sake of argument,

that we can all concede the idea that
Islam, as a religion, needs reform,

or at the very least, Muslim communities
do, both in the West and abroad,

and in the way that they choose
to practice their faith.

I happen to believe this.
All the data we have corroborates this.

There's a large amount of evidence

which clearly demonstrates
rampant misogyny,

bad attitudes towards homosexuals
and apostasy within the Muslim world,

supported by the law and widely
accepted by the people.

In an effort to draw attention away
from the role of religion in all this,

some have chosen to instead use
excuses by a variety of reasons,

none of which make sense,

because Muslim countries share
almost nothing between them all,

except the predominant religion:

not socio-economic status,
not education or literacy levels, not GDP,

not cultural background or history,
not race or ethnicity, not language,

not political system,
not the history of Western colonization.

What they do share is theology.

Obviously Islam isn't the root of
all evil, but it is an important factor.

What we have here is a right wing
in the West who believes

that Islam personifies evil

and a Left which refuses to even
look into it as a source of harm.

The question then becomes,
how do we achieve reform

without actually mentioning
any problems in Islam?

How do we achieve progress
while shying away

from one of the foundational aspects
of how harmful practices are justified?

Most cultures are responsive
to selective pressure,

and by insisting that no pressure
be applied,

we are acting as a brake on any progress.

We have plenty of evidence
that a push for secularism

or a presence within secular cultures
can change behavior,

and even the beliefs of Muslims.

For example, if you compare
Muslims living in the US

with Muslims in the Middle East,
you will find across all metrics,

that their opinions are less extreme
and more in line with liberal values,

than those of the population
of their origin countries.

Many Muslims believe that
their religion is immutable,

that every word of which is true,
and reformers insult them

when they demand change.

Yet profound changes in the way
Muslims practice their religion

have occurred in the past.

Many Muslim countries practiced
slavery up until the twentieth century,

with some countries abolishing slavery
as recently as 1981,

citing religious sanction of the practice
as a justification.

Saudi Arabia's slave population
was estimated at 300,000

a scant 50 years ago,

and it was international pressure
that forced abolition.

Under pressure from the
British Empire to abolish slavery

a little over a century ago,

the Sultan of Morocco cited
the inerrancy of the Quran

to make the case for the divine
sanction of slavery.

Later the chief minister of Morocco,
Muhammad Idris,

wrote in response to anti-slavery
efforts, that

"we do not interfere in religious
principles which you profess,

likewise you should not interfere
in our religion".

In the face of Ottoman unwillingness
to condemn the status of slaves

as enshrined in Shariah,
a British statesman sarcastically stated,

that one might well ask the Sultan
to become a Christian.

Yet today, most if not all Muslims
are repulsed by the idea of slaves.

Did they abandon the Quran which
seemed to clearly condone slavery

a mere century ago?

Or were we able to shift
mainstream consensus

by standing up for our moral principles?

I wonder what would have happened

if the benevolent bigots of the West,
of the Left today,

who feel that it is more important
to respect a culture

for the sake of respecting a culture
had existed back then.

How many millions would be
living in chains today?

There is another common narrative,
of the West as oppressors,

how racism here feeds
into the oppression of a minority.

Champions of Islam have gone
on record using it as a cudgel

to beat against the back of progress.

We need to be aware that
the victim versus the oppressor dynamic

isn't set in stone the way some people
would have you believe.

One can be a victim in one context
and an oppressor in another.

A Muslim man may deal with racism
at work, real racism,

may see career setbacks,
and goes home and beats his hijabi wife

because he was raised
in a misogynistic tradition,

using Quran's verse as justification.

Should we not criticize his behavior

because of his victimization
in one aspect?

An imam may be an anti-Semite,
a homophobe, he may be indoctrinating

a generation of impressionable minds
into his harmful ideas.

Yet the same imam might also
be a victim of bigotry

when he aims to launch a new mosque.

He may be the target of
local xenophobic attitudes.

In lieu of his sufferings,
should we pretend

his other despicable behaviors
do not exist, or do not matter?

Are we to sacrifice one for the other?

Instead, can we not stand
against all oppressions,

stand for the equal rights of others,
while simultaneously working

against bigoted narratives
within religion?

One of my ex-Muslim colleagues

beautifully summed up
the same sentiments,

when she was talking about
the misogynistic nature of the hijab,

quote, feminism is defending
women, Muslim women,

who wear the hijab for whatever reason,
against shaming or attack.

Feminism is not categorically
denying that the hijab can be coercive,

body-shaming, slut-shaming, restrictive
or psychologically crippling.

We cannot avoid reality
because we are afraid

of the consequences
of acknowledging facts.

Is it ethical to avoid educating our
children about Darwinian evolution

simply because it has fed
into Social Darwinism in the past?

Our silence about uncomfortable truths
simply underscores

the cost of our inaction as
the consequences loom ever larger.

We are paralyzed by our own
insecurities, by our fear

that the truth will empower
the worst of us, rather than set us free.

We have those on the Islamic far right

who say that there is no room
for reform in Islam,

because Islam is,
and always has been perfect.

We have their counterparts
from the far right in the West,

who coincidentally also view Islam
as beyond reform,

but for different reasons,

as something that is irredeemably
and permanently evil.

Between those two extremes,
we have the average Muslim,

who is forced to choose
between the devil he knows,

Islamic dominance and supremacy, over
the devil he doesn't, Western bigotry.

The liberal Left needs to present
a different path,

not acquiesce to either form
of religious dominance.

We must remember that there is
no inevitable march of progress,

no guarantee that tomorrow's world
will be more just, more equal,

more rational, more tolerant
or reasonable.

Liberal rights without liberals
to champion them

are values without influence,
with no defense.

Let's not let our empathy
for oppression of one group

excuse their oppression of another.

Thank you!

{Standing applause}