Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Enlightened intolerance

http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2014/04/ayaan-hirsi-ali

by bmmayer1 • 12 years ago

10 20 12 years ago

Islam - the religion - is strongly anti-Jewish, denies equal rights to women and non Muslims, and denies any rights whatsoever to those who are not members of an Abrahamic religion. Apostasy is punishable by death, and theft by amputation. There is no separation of Church and State in Islam; rather, the State is to be Islamic.

These are not 'radical' positions; they have been upheld by numerous schools of Islamic jurisprudence and are law in many Islamic states.

Gay? Lesbian? Atheist? Christian? Baha'i? You'd better hope that there is never a Muslim majority in your country, or you will watch your rights evaporate and, in some cases, your life threatened or ended. If you doubt this, track down some local Lebanese Christians or Iranian Baha'is, and ask them why they left.

Tolerance of evil - for how else would you describe a religion that prescribes the execution of those who leave it? - is no virtue. I'm saddened, but not terribly suprised, to see the pitchfork mobs skewer Eich, and refuse to support Ali. Here's the thing: anti-gay hatred is equally wrong, regardless of who expresses it, and why.

waps6• 12 years ago

Don't forget -we are in America- that islam seeks to re-introduce slavery. Another one of those non radical positions (America forced most islamic states to give up slavery in 1950 or so, and they haven't really done so [1], only legally abolished it).

Oh and islam denies equal rights to muslims as well. Members of the state apparatus are also elevated, and one of the rights they have is to kill anyone they please. Also islam prescribes death for freedom of expression, for singing (yes, really), ... [2]

[1] http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/johann-hari... [2] a search for 'asma bint marwan' will quickly yield the rules for this

The problem is that the moral values the world currently has are distinctly Christian values. Yes people like to pretend they are atheist values, "humanist" (you'd think scientific education would prevent people from thinking moral values are associated with a natural object like that, but I guess not) ... yet they defend equal rights for all people, equal rights for the sexes, protecting the weak, they go very far in the rights of children, pro-adoption, anti-war (in the sense that they are against war unless in defence), they defend freedom of trade, ... All very much Christian moral positions (well, especially that specific combination is distinctly Christian. E.g. islam does have freedom of trade, as it is mostly based on Roman law), distinct from other religions. If you judge any other religion by this modern standard it will fail badly. Especially equality is rare.

The problem is that islam is just a very bad example of a religion, but it is not special. It is not the worst (certainly natural religions are far worse), but none of it's rules are exceptional at all.

The norm in human history, and likely the majority position of all humans worldwide is what one would consider bad religions' positions. Death for gay people, or generally any sex outside marriage. Death for freedom of expression. Death for sex outside marriage. Religious or physical leaders get to execute people. No separation between church and state. Neutral or pro position to slavery. War as the default position due to religious or ethnic "eternal" conflicts or "holy" wars. These things are the norm, not the exception.

So what does one do ?

saleemshafi2• 12 years ago

since you cited sources, i went and checked.

Your first article is an expose on the wealthy class in Dubai, not a religious position. Granted, they speak Arabic, but almost no one believes what the ruling class in Dubai (or Saudi for that matter) does has anything to do with Islam.

Your second reference is to a story from the 7th century that historians believe is a fabrication. And, even if it was true, she was condemned to death for inciting violence, not for singing.

i understand that there is a lot of hostility toward what some Muslims do, and justifiably so, but that doesn't necessarily represent Islam any more than Warren Jeffs or Fred Phelps represent Christianity. And, there's no doubt that some won't agree with Islam's sense of morality, but at least disagree with the actual tenets of the faith, not corrupt foreign rulers and centuries-old gossip.

duncan_bayne6• 12 years ago

I'm sorry, you can't argue that enlightenment values are by nature Christian. Various Churches fought for centuries in opposition to them.

They burned people to death for owning Bibles in English, that is, Bibles they could actually read. Homosexuals were executed during the 19th Century and persecuted during the 20th. Slavery was A-OK for quite a while, too. Female priests? Not until recently, and far from universally even now. Contraception? Right now in Africa a humanitarian tragedy is unfolding due in no small part to the Catholic Church's opposition to contraception.

tinco2• 12 years ago

So, American tolerance seems to be tolerance by religious towards other religions, where Dutch tolerance is tolerance by non-religious towards religions.

I don't respect religion, but I do respect your right to have one and exercise it. Just not to the point where you form a hazard to your surroundings.

I don't know if every Dutch person shares that attitude, and if that attitude is the reason that our tensions with immigrants are worse than the U.S.'s (or even if that is true.) But I do know that attitude reflects the kind of free thinking society I want to be a part of.

brokenparser• 12 years ago

I cite:

Of course, Mr Wilders leads the farthest-right party in the Dutch political landscape, one with which most Dutch parties have refused to cooperate.

False. The labour party announced a cordon sanitaire with them, but went on to propose legislation that this right wing party had described in their electoral programme, almost 4 weeks after the announcement.

The article concludes with:

The fact that such statements are not welcomed in American public discourse is one reason why the American model of integration and tolerance works better than the Dutch model, and why the Netherlands continues to be wracked by tensions over Islam and integration—years after those tensions forced Ms Hirsi Ali herself to leave.

This is entirely nonsensical.

mrng• 12 years ago

"Universities are no longer institutions of inquiry but ‘safe spaces’ where delicate flowers of diversity of race, sex, orientation, ‘gender fluidity’ and everything else except diversity of thought have to be protected from exposure to any unsafe ideas.

As it happens, the biggest ‘safe space’ on the planet is the Muslim world. For a millennium, Islamic scholars have insisted, as firmly as a climate scientist or an American sophomore, that there’s nothing to debate. And what happened? As the United Nations Human Development Programme’s famous 2002 report blandly noted, more books are translated in Spain in a single year than have been translated into Arabic in the last 1,000 years. Free speech and a dynamic, innovative society are intimately connected: a culture that can’t bear a dissenting word on race or religion or gender fluidity or carbon offsets is a society that will cease to innovate, and then stagnate, and then decline, very fast.

As American universities, British playwrights and Australian judges once understood, the ‘safe space’ is where cultures go to die."

Excerpt from: http://www.spectator.co.uk/australia/australia-features/9187... (Hirsi and Brandeis are discussed in a larger context)

Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Enlightened intolerance

Related Stories