Year: 2015

Law against Islamaphobia? OK here goes:

• Phobia? – Literally “fear of”, but generally understood as “hatred of” or “prejudice against”.
• Religious Freedom? – We have UN Dec Art 18 (Freedom of thought, belief, expression and conscience – inc religious and non-religious belief and practice.)
• Prejudice & Hate? – We also have legal protection against hatred & prejudice, speech and acts, against race, colour, gender, sexuality, etc.

[These are protections of freedoms for humans to be who they are, but clearly none of these license or grant rights to these same humans to act in ways that are either illegal or infringe other rights and freedoms of others (illegal religious practices like “burning witches” or establishment of theocracies). Irrelevant to this particular decision.]

Now, we need to be careful not to conflate religion with these topics, nor these topics with each other, BUT they share a key feature which is being protected. Something which humans are, claim or hold, which is not an individual choice in the present, but biologically or culturally inherited difference (*). Something self-identifying and self-expressed, physically or verbally.

My view is that prejudice and hate laws should simply cover creed, as well as race, colour, gender, etc … Creed here is simply belief, and external expression of that belief.

End of.

=====

(*) And before anyone throws the “multi-culturalism” pebble into the pond, here we’re just talking about non-prejudicial recognition of difference – different culture, different religious culture – this says nothing about national cultural norms and values, which evolve naturally from the actual present and its actual history – conserved but open to inputs. How to “manage” this with policy is another story, a recent minefield. The current issue above is simply freedom from prejudice in the meantime.

=====

Post Notes:

Realised a flaw in my argument – grey scales from biology (genes, etc) to culture (memes, etc) to religion (more memes) – but there is a key point of distinction – hard to clarify, but bound up in choice in the present moment. We are our memes.

Real distinction is between reasonable criticism and prejudiced hatred or phobia – but reasonableness of criticism depends on ability to change. At one end – can I reasonably criticise an individual’s genes? At the other how personally directed can my criticisms be of mere “views” someone holds. Important point linked by Love (what’s so funny ’bout .. ) and Ad-Hominem (no no). It’s the difference between valid criticism and gratuitous, prejudiced bigotry or hatred.

Collecting other contributions:

James Lawrence via Adrian Dewey http://www.atheistrepublic.com/blog/james-lawrence/islamophobia-can-it-be-considered-type-racism

Sarah Brown http://hurryupharry.org/2015/05/03/ed-miliband-and-islamophobia/

Alex Wood / Richard Dawkins http://religiousreader.org/outlawing-islamophobia-misses-point-hate-crimes/

Ali Sina http://examine-islam.org/2015/04/will-you-pimp-your-wife-to-get-promoted-ali-sina-on-ed-miliband/

And right on cue the next “bunch of fucking idiots” http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-32586699
http://www.vox.com/2015/5/4/8545831/texas-attack-pamela-geller
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/05/04/opinions/moghul-texas-shooting-gellar/index.html
Just because the content is art & cartoons and the headline is free expression doesn’t make it do. Bigotry is bigotry.

Here, fig leaf of free-speech in Glasgow Herald.

And here Michael Gove before his new appointment as minister for justice.

And to be clear this example – @AMDWaters – is not Islamaphobic.

[Key point is non-explicit legal (negative) constraint on free-expression, but (positive) incentive of explicit values. See Ayaan Hirsi Ali.]

[Latest from Kenan Malik on banning of hate speech.]

Sarah Brown, @SarahAB_UK writing at Harry’s Place (hurryupharry.org) also responds to Charlie Klendjian’s Islam vs Islamism post. Also generated was a fair amount of twitter traffic about what he and I had posted. If I had time this Saturday evening, I might give Sarah’s post the fuller consideration it probably deserves, but for now the points of constructive agreement. Sarah said, verbatim:

Clearly it’s possible to argue (as Klendjian does) that for whatever combination of reasons Islam is either inherently or contingently more problematic than other religions. (This point is made by Psybertron here.) But if liberal Muslims are in a minority compared to liberal Jews and Christians, all the more reason to offer them some support by reinforcing the fact that Islamism, although it’s certainly a subset of Islam, is not identical with it.

Repeating two of Sarah’s points for emphasis:

although [Islamism is] certainly a subset of Islam, [it] is not identical with it.

Agreed. The original core disagreement with CK’s thesis. Whatever terms we choose there is an important distinction to make between the two ideas, and understand when and where that distinction matters.

all the more reason to offer [Muslims] some support by reinforcing [their distance from Islamism]

Agreed. Pretty much where I’m coming from more broadly.
Support = constructive.
(What’s so funny ’bout … etc.)
I think @SarahAB_UK gets it / me.

Sadly, the full posts and the twitter threads arising degenerate into what I called “whataboutness” in my original criticism of the original talk. If in any one conversation we bring the entire history of every religious influence on every cultural, demographic, walk-of-life – like why I eat fish on a Friday –  where “we agree, already” – we create a fog-screen that means we never make progress on the original point. Very much my meta-point on constructive styles of dialogue. If we simply want noise to promote the existence of issues, publish satirical cartoons, increase your twitter following, fine, but I’m well beyond that. I’m seeking progressive solutions to those issues, in achievable chunks. Understanding of and sensitivity to historicity is very important, but that’s no excuse to cram every dialogue with everything we know.

I’ll always condemn criminal acts, but I’ll not be letting the terrorists win by distracting our valuable time from progress where it can be made.

 

Thanks to Charlie Klendjian for clarifying his Islam vs Islamism agenda. I witnessed the first delivery of the talk he mentions [and blogged about it here with follow-up here] but couldn’t be at the second talk. The first for me was “all over the place” too unfocussed, and too many topics – freedoms, extremisms, crimes, legal arrangements, sharia, holy texts on the table all at once for any coherent argument. Feedback from the second already suggested it was more focussed on this specific Islam vs Islamism terminology topic, and this written article helps enormously.

Below I’m responding to specific text in the article direct to you Charlie in the 2nd person.

I recognize the term Islamism has this aim [to be distinct from the term Islam],
I just don’t think we need a separate word to achieve that aim.

Well yes we do, or if not, we’ll constantly need to add a qualifier – private or theocratic – Islam (say). To recognise two distinct concepts for which you don’t see the need for distinct words is plain wrong, logically, linguistically, rationally. It’s wishful thinking. It’s PC nonsense. I think your valid concerns are those you voice next – about problems with their use / mis-use and the fascistic thought police you mention earlier that might be motivated to derail dialogue by crying foul if you / we step the wrong side of some definitional line.

I’m particularly relaxed about definitions, so we agree a reality of definitions “something like” (more later) and neither of us wishes to impose “homogeneity” across the range of concepts – and people, human individuals – captured by the two terms.

Your concern is really with problems arising:

I think it can even lead to some serious problems, which I outline below.

Too right. But addressing the problems is better than the denial of significant difference.

Islamists call themselves Muslims

Obviously, because (they claim) they are. But simple logic says therefore not all Muslims are (or call themselves) Islamists. In fact many go out of their way to self-identify otherwise. Hell, you even use two distinct terms yourself to make your point.

Many Muslims and ex-Muslims reject the term “Islamism”

I’d like to see your evidence for that in context. They will certainly reject being labelled with that term (as I mentioned above) and may share our concerns with use of the term, but I doubt many would reject the conceptual distinction which you and I agree at root.

What other religions do we do this for? When other religions become “political” do we issue them a new name by adding the letters ism to the end?

Generally not no, agreed, but sometimes in context we do need to make the distinction. Aron Ra uses the term “dominionism” to qualify those religious groups that assert their religion over secular, temporal, legal and governance arrangements. The fact that we don’t often use such a clarification for religions other than Islam is because we have a particular problem with Islam.

After a couple of your case studies …

… the words Islam, Islamist, Islamism and Muslim do not appear once.
But there are 5 x “extremism”, 1 x “extremist” and 5 x “radicalisation”.

Absolutely. These are extreme violent cases. The word extreme is enough to distinguish from the non-extreme.

[T]here’s no point creating definitions unless you use them, and you use them consistently.

Agreed, but as we’ve both also agreed in “everyday language”, such distinctions have to be “something like” good enough for the job. As I said in the original response, I don’t actually care which terms we use, and their watertight definitions, so long as we choose labels that distinguish the significance of concepts we’re talking about. What we do care about is not people misusing terms in any fascistic “correct” definitional sense, but abuse of terms for obfuscating political reasons, hiding issues for PC reasons.

In closing … the term Islamism is unhelpful and even dangerous.

Problematic, yes for reasons we’ve agreed above but, let’s be honest, not as dangerous as the extremism it denotes.

Atheists and secularists have arguments with many aspects all religions and the religious. But we have different arguments with different extreme and non-extreme cases, even different arguments between the extreme “dominionst” and extreme “muderously, violently terrorist” kind. For the latter the key argument being unconditional condemnation and the full force of law and the forces of establishment authority.

Maajid Nawaz …  someone the LSS stood shoulder to shoulder with when he was in the eye of a particularly unpleasant blasphemy storm — has said that Islamism suffers from the “Voldemort effect”: it is the ideology which shall not be named. Well on that basis, Islam suffers from an extreme Voldemort effect.

Well yes, Islam has that problem too, a particular problem as I’ve also said, but precisely because of the political correctness that fails to name the ideology.

So back to your opening question in your title:

Is there really any difference between Islam and “Islamism”?

Clearly we both actually agree there is. I think the real point is that Islamism is maybe not always (not often) be the most helpful word to make the distinction. Can’t argue with that and there are plenty of alternatives depending on the context.

[The] set of ideas is called Islam.
The followers of Islam — the good ones and the bad ones — are called Muslims.
If those two statements of mine are in any way controversial, then [we have a problem].

Sure – absolutely not contentious, though as you highlight neither is monolithic nor “homogeneous”. They’re good and bad (like you and I) on many different human aspects. The issue unrecognised in your simple statements – the ideology we must name – is the dominionism, the theocracy; The non-secular establishment aims, the sharia alternative to establishment legal process, the extremist actions to achieve those aims beyond honest political processes.

[Choose your words to make these distinctions] for the right reason. What I mean by that is do it because you honestly think there’s a significant difference. Don’t do it to shield yourself from (baseless) accusations of racism and bigotry. Don’t do it out of fear. Don’t do it because everyone around you is doing it. Don’t do it because you’re scared of falling out with the In Crowd. Don’t do it because you’re worried about losing Twitter followers.

It’s a pity the second half of that is an accusatory straw-man, because the sentiment is so clearly right. What really matters, as you say is constructive dialogue based on trust and honesty, with inherently less motivation to abuse any perceived linguistic mis-steps to obfuscate and derail progress for negative political reasons. But that’s Political Correctness, politics without trust. There’s a lot of it about.

What’s so funny ’bout peace, love and understanding?

====

Post Note : I feel vindicated post Paris November 2015. The majority of commentators agreeing on the need to avoid conflating Muslims in general with Islamists in particular, extreme or otherwise. For example Maryam Namazie here:

There will be many Muslims who oppose Islamism; profiling doesn’t help @macduffintosh @aliamjadrizvi @SamHarrisOrg

— Maryam Namazie (@MaryamNamazie) November 25, 2015

If you're generalise about people then you won't see the allies amongst many Muslims @truth9876 @ro_iain @aliamjadrizvi @SamHarrisOrg

— Maryam Namazie (@MaryamNamazie) November 25, 2015

Heard Aron Ra (aka The Texas Tank) state director of American Atheists speak at a LAAG event 30th April. Sell-out capacity crowd (70+?) filling the room at The Prince of Wales, Drury Lane.

As befits the rock’n’roll / goth / heavy-metal image plenty of T-shirts with messages on display – not all of them black(!) – Eisenberg’s Tree of Life, Muse, We Are All Africans, The Null Set, … oh and I spied a copy of this:

Anyhoo … after an introduction highlighting LAAG’s campaigning credentials, Ra gave what turned out to be a fairly low-key laid-back summary of weird conclusions arising from various “logical” combinations of so-called-religious so-called-beliefs – anecdotal and delivered for the laughs. He majored on his recurring theme of “cladistic taxonomies” (though he didn’t use those terms for this audience) of what defines gods & religions (& philosophies, & social identities) – not a hard and fast ontology, obviously, how could there be – clades are not the only classes, strict taxonomies are not the only ontologies? But I digress. Some stats on relative sizes of various self-identified religious and non-religious populations. No strong point, given he was preaching to converted “Active Atheists”, on specific American Atheists campaigns to compare and contrast the US with UK contexts. Entertaining however.

A couple of points I picked up – one on the US / UK contrast – was a reminder of the idiotic situation in the US of having  “dominionists” other than Islamists, from Christian denominations, that believe in their own one world theocracy being higher than all potential competing institutions. [In my agenda this leads – once you accept secularism – to the national / shared-community / human values question – that atheists and humanists often duck.]

Most striking theme was his constant reference to his own Mormon (family / cultural) background – not exactly ex-Mormon, since he never was one, but a source of many anecdotes. A little history of Mormonism, it’s ’tis / tisn’t relationship with Christianity generally, and the Mormon Wars.

Novel fact for me, was the history of the Mormon dominated area at the corners of Arizona, Utah & Nevada – where in fact “Mormon Peak” lies – rather than the ubiquitous Salt Lake City campus. Particularly interesting to me since, having lived and worked in the US – based in the deep-south – for several years myself, we also experienced that part of the world. We steered clear of SLC, but travelled the roads between the national parks of southern Utah and northern Arizona, including one memorable run “down” I15 through Mesquite. We tried to stop for beer / food / sleep in Hurricane and in St. George, doubling back on ourselves a few times in our search. It must have been a Sunday – either way traditional religious observance meant there was little comfort on offer.

No room at the inn; now I know why.

Seems a bit lame after the growing noise around the “beach body” poster, but I need to record my original thoughts. The twitterstorm – the feminists vs the PC-rejectors – has grown this week, but when I first saw the poster over 2 maybe 3 weeks ago, I assumed the so-non-PC shock value was deliberate irony – click-bait. I recall a chuckle. It clearly worked.

Interesting what New Zealand Christians believe  – that Taoist tai chi involves an alternative god?

As one of those previously dismissive of Brand’s naive revolutionary call to reject democracy and throw it’s babies out with the bathwater, without any apparent “plan” to fill the vacuum with anything other than anarchic revolution, I need to point out that his latest Trews interview with Ed Milliband is excellent.

Ironically, Brand’s closing piece credits Milliband with learning something about the reality of the workings of the press and the banks and such like, whereas the person that’s clearly learned something about what it takes to make change happen is Brand.

Some very honest exchanges about shared frustrations, recognition of the difficulties and (real) limits to power and influence, yet a (seemingly) positive coming together on genuine commitment to common aims. Inter-personal good will – respect and trust – is a much bigger part of this than is often given credit. The Love in Revolution.

What’s so funny ’bout peace, love and understanding?

As well as several recent posts – [Secular Politics] [The Art of Freedom] [Freedom Regained] – there are a number of other items and events on the topic of freedom. [Still to publish a complete review of Baggini’s Freedom Regained, referenced in the above – but a recommended read.]

Prompted to post this after seeing the headline “Atheism is Freedom” and thinking that’s really a matter of context – the context for that particular atheist being Iran. Freedom really is a matter of degree.

Last night I listened to @BobChurchill and @BenedictRogers in a “Young Professionals in Foreign Policy” event at the Royal United Services Institute in Whitehall. It was a light-touch facilitated conversation driven almost entirely by audience interaction, around the UN Human Rights Declaration Article 18 on “Freedom of thought, conscience, belief, etc. … ” often annoyingly abbreviated simply to “Religious Freedom”. Both speakers are more sophisticated than that. Practical experiences of the political complexities of violations and of “getting things done” abounded, and the level of agreement from their Atheist vs Christian perspectives was pretty well summed-up in Ben’s closing remarks:

 Art.18 is there to defend freedom for every human being.
Too often Christians speak up for Christians,
Muslims for Muslims, atheists for atheists.
Freedom should be defended [by all] for all.

Political complexities considered – that’s maybe too good to be true, but of course it’s not just realpolitik and hypocrisy that compromises such freedom. The fact is any enlightened freedom worth fighting for still has its constraints and restraints – values against which its quality is judged.

Atheism is freedom, freedom from believing in a god. It’s not freedom to believe [in] nothing. That’s chaos and anarchy. Many of us atheists have had to qualify what atheism means for us – at root it’s a negative belief defined by what it doesn’t believe or believes not to exist – somewhere between anti-theism and agnosticism; I’ve personally gone for non-theism in these days of new-atheism. But on the positive side, as a basis for actual beliefs, I’ve in the past gone for naturalism (many old links in the side-bar) and more often than not humanism or simply a secular rationalism. But too often rationalism tends to be hijacked by those that consider science – scientism – to be the only measure of rationality. But what’s in a name? The question is, what values come with the label.

I see the upcoming A C Grayling talk at Central London Humanists is on “Humanist Values” with a blurb that suggests humanist supporter Grayling chooses, for preference, the label naturalist. [Post note – my write-up on the Grayling talk.] Much has been made in recent debates about the value of humanism being the absence of “imposed” codes – which does indeed look like freedom if your context is of a more totalitarian persuasion. In a generally freer “western” context humanism (or naturalism) does still require a set of values to which we can subscribe, which we are still free to question and can adopt / adapt / improve over time. Successful evolution comes with a degree of conservatism, a generation-to-generation fidelity and fecundity of the established species. Species of value. A valuable freedom worth defending.

Unfettered freedom is not only an illusion; it makes no sense. It would not be desirable even if we could have it. Choices are not meaningful unless they reflect values, and values cannot be meaningfully chosen unless we already have some.
Julian Baggini – Freedom Regained

====

[Post Note: More on Humanist Values (for later)]

[Post Note : Paul Mason’s Grauniad piece on “bogus” identity politics – I beg to differ, it’s ultimately about identity.]

[Post Note : Kenan Malik on inherited Western / European / Christian / Islamic / Greek values etc. My recurring point is that naming a set of values as “ours” is about subscribing to them, not a proprietorial claim of ownership or originality, nor to contrast or distinguish them from the values of others. The more we share the better. The claim is simply an affirmation.]

[Post Note : And – on 13 May 2015, post #GE2015 – values topical in politics and media as measures to limit protections on free expression – of hate & prejudice – are proposed & debated. Links to be collected. This is the basic news story. Cuts both ways – on extremists and “critics”. And the Grauniad take. Samira Ahmed’s documentary piece. Graundiad on “Universal Values“.]

[Post Note : “Stay Quiet and You’ll Be OK” and “Seven Reasons not to Hold Back Your Opinion“.]

[Post Note : Baroness Warsi – on emphasising and promoting positive values, rather than negative legislation.]

[Post Note : More from Sarah Brown on Racism a cross-post of this. My initial response on identity and parallels between racism and religious hate speech was what about “Ethnicity”. See also Framing Islamaphobia law, and UK reworking Human Rights Act story. UK Muslim Myths. Time for a consolidated post from these holding snips.]

[Post Note : Even the Conservatives call time on Pamela Geller.]