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By
Azam Kamguian
I am delighted to be among my likeminded atheist
and secularist colleagues, great thinkers, activists and scholars,
in this wonderful occasion. Here, I am talking as an atheist, a
critic of Islam and as an activist of women’s rights who has
survived an Islamic holocaust in Iran.
Sadly and unfortunately, in the 21st
century we are witnessing that religion and religious movements have
gained too much power and influence in the past few decades and in
fact religion is now all over the place. In the Middle East and
central Asia and some other parts of the world, political Islam has
gained the upper hand and has succeeded to take power in Iran,
Pakistan, the Sudan and Afghanistan and has become a strong
opposition force in some other countries such as Algeria, Nigeria,
Palestine and Egypt. Political Islam is a contemporary political
movement which seeks a share of power not only in the Middle East
but also in the west. The main means of this movement to achieve its
goal is terror and making bloodshed. This reactionary movement has
made its way everywhere by terror, intimidation, killing, stoning to
death and genocide of people. Political Islam created an Islamic
holocaust by slathering and genocide of several hundred thousand of
innocent people in the Middle East with the start from Iran. In
those states where Political Islam holds sway, writers, thinkers,
philosophers, activists, and artists are denied freedom of
expression. Islamic regimes are notorious for the violent
suppression of free thought. The more closely a government
identifies itself with Islam the more likely are critics of the
government will be accused of heresy, blasphemy or apostasy. Under
the Sharia i.e. the powerful instrument of political Islam, people
are deprived of many pleasures such as drinking alcohol, playing
music, even of reading literature or philosophy, and are denied the
opportunity of fully expressing their sexuality or of enjoying the
arts.
While political Islam strives for the
continuation of its terrorist activities in the west, it pushes to
set up a legal system based on the Islamic Sharia law. The latest
attempts are in Ontario – Canada and in the UK. In Marseille in
France a 23 year old woman was stoned to death in October 2004. It
is horrifying. Political Islamic groups actively lobby to get
western governments’ approval and financial support to build more
and more Islamic schools, mosques and Islamic centres. Any voice to
criticise Islam and its inhumane and backward laws and practices is
silenced as Islamophobia and racism, not only by Islamists
themselves but also by western intellectual apologists for Islam,
and western governments.
Western governments encourage and support
political Islam as long as it would leave its weapons outside their
borders, washes the blood from its hands and does not carry on its
terrorist activities in the west. Of course western governments
don’t mind at all about what Islamic terrorism and this barbarism
does to Iraq, to Iran, to Palestine and to elsewhere in the Middle
East. In fact, they brought this movement from the margins to the
mainstream in the Middle East, supported and nurtured it. They
warmly welcome misogynist, homophobe and anti Semitist mullahs such
as Qardawi and generously call them leaders of the immigrants and
Muslim community. This is really disgusting.
So neither in the east nor in the west are people
immune from the threat, cruelty and barbarity of Islam and the
political Islamic movement.
In their attempt to encourage this movement,
western governments are ready to pass laws to silence critics either
western or eastern who dare to critique Islam. If I criticise
various religions which I see as monstrous, misogynist and
ridiculous, as all of them are, I could be threatened by the law. In
some of the supporting arguments posed by the Home Office when it
proposed the law against incitement to religious hatred, the new law
was said to be about the promotion of tolerance and religious
harmony. What is very arguable is the definition of a tolerant
society. A tolerant society is an open and vigorous one, not a
closed and stifled society; not one in which you tolerate
absurdities, violence and injustices because they are being
perpetrated by a religion. In a tolerant society criticism and
opposing views are allowed. Is a society tolerant in which in the
name of respecting religion and culture, it is not allowed to say or
write things which, followers of this or that religion, do not want
to hear or to read? And when it is vital to question and to
criticise any kind of religion and religious ideas and practices,
there are attempts to silence you? In its respect and support for
Islam and Islamists, the U.K. government tries to silence critics of
Islam and political Islamic movement, provided that, as mentioned
earlier, they leave their bloody arms outside the country’s borders.
So what atheists, women and human rights
activists who are stifled by Islam and Islamists, should do? They
are subject to threat and intimidations by Islamists, and soon by
the legal system. The UK government wants to make incitement to
religious hatred a crime, promoting a nasty Islamic campaign. If the
government really wants to create religious harmony and a tolerant
society, it should abolish all religious schools, and de-religionise
the legal and educational system and the public life. But what they
are striving for is to place religion in a realm beyond ordinary
argument, and give it an upper hand, and it is happening now.
Western governments recognise Islamic rules and practices that have
been lobbied for by mullahs and Islamists to oppress people in the
west.
Fear of offending the religious feelings is
gaining ground everywhere. It is getting harder to argue against
Hijab and the Koran's rule of women's subordination. As a teacher,
advisor, health or social worker you are seen as racist if you
question and object to the oppression of women and girls within many
Islamic communities. How could we ignore the many ferocious Koranic
verses calling for the blood of non-believers, verses that justify
terror and oppression of women? Both the Koran and the Bible ought
to be banned under the proposed law, since both are full of God's
incitements to barbaric violence.
In the wonderful world of Islam we’re not allowed
of looking critically at Islam in the way that we have looked at
Christianity and other religion; in the way that we have criticised
the Bible. Higher Biblical criticism has existed since at least the
17th century with Spinoza, going on to the 19th century in Germany.
And yet nobody dares to look at the Koran in the same way. Even in
the academic community it is a taboo to discuss the Koran
scientifically. While there exist a growing critical movement to
criticise religion, particularly Islam, Islamists, apologists for
Islam, and western governments have come up with the idea of
Islamophobia. They try to silence critics. Islam must be subject to
critical examination. By silencing critics and calling them racists,
Islamists and apologists intend to keep religious domination intact.
In Iran the price for criticising Islam is death in its most
horrendous way. How many more fates of Theo Van Gogh’s are we
expecting in the west?
Under the guise of respecting “other’s culture
and the policy of multiculturalism, religion is promoted and dissent
is stifled. By promoting multi –culturalism, western governments,
the mainstream media and the majority of liberal intellectuals turn
a blind eye to the oppression of women under Islam in immigrant
communities controlled by sheiks and mullahs. The truth is that all
cultures are not equal and humane. Human beings must be respected
but not all cultures are very of respect. We cannot hope to have a
civil society if we do not value the same rights, if we do not
pursue the same goals, and we cannot do this if we keep emphasising
the differences. We must have a shared core of values, and it seems
essential that we get beyond this divisive multiculturalism, which
means nothing but bashing western civilised values, we will not get
anywhere until we emphasise the things that we value, like
separation of religion and state, freedom, equality, and the value
of freedom of expression and so on. Yet western governments pour
even more money into keeping people apart.
Needless to say what the Islamic movement is
doing to Iraq and how Islamists are moving fast to set up their
Sharia based arbitration system in Canada. Needless to say how women
and girls from immigrant and Muslim origin are oppressed both in the
east and in the west. Religion is in rise everywhere and people
across the world are suffering under the rule of religious tyranny.
The Pope and the Christianity are relentlessly campaigning to bring
religion back into the states, laws, education, and to all aspects
of public life in Europe.
In the West, and despite the religious
inspiration of much of its governments, the separation of religion
and state is still widely recognised as the sine qua non of a
modern, free and open society. In the East, however, religion and
state have never been separate; though, there is a strong need,
demand and movement for materialising it in Iran.
In the face of this grim situation, we witness a
third force, a vast majority who is sadly, silent and not willing to
come to the fore, to question and to protest these human rights
violation, and to stop the revival of religion.
We the secularists, atheist and freedom –loving
people need to do more, much more. We need to push religion back to
where it rightfully belongs. We should fight for unconditional
freedom of speech including freedom to criticise religion in general
and Islam in particular. We should raise our voice for secularism
and separation of religion and state loud and clear in the east and
in the west. We need Enlightenment. Secularism must be recreated and
regenerated by us secularists, freethinkers and atheists.
About three years ago when I spoke at the 15th
international congress of IHEU, I called upon all secularists,
atheists and freethinkers to build a secularist force to combat
political Islam and to eradicate this fascistic movement. Since
then, we have made some progress, but we must build an international
force to fight political Islam, to secularise our society and to
stand firmly for universal human rights and human dignity.
I call upon all of you and many others, the
secularist, freethinkers, atheists and freedom loving people to
recognise the urgency of an international force to fight political
Islam, to demand equality and liberty for women, and universal human
rights for everyone.
Adapted from the speech
delivered at the 5th World Atheist Conference in
Vijayawada – India, 7-9 January 2005, held by The Atheist Centre.
This speech was warmly welcomed and got standing ovation from the
600 participants of the event.
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