Sometimes I can hardly believe what I’m reading. Student Rights reports:
Last week both Yusuf Chambers of the Islamic Education and Research Academy (IERA) and Uthman Lateef appeared at the University of Nottingham as part of ‘Discover Islam Week’.
Given that both these speakers have a record of expressing homophobic sentiment, student journalists both approached LGBT Network members and questioned the two men on their beliefs.
Calls for intolerant speakers to be allowed to speak in order for their bigotry to be exposed are common from students, so you would think that this would have been acceptable behaviour.
Instead a statement has been released by the LGBT Network and the Islamic Society at the university which targets those journalists for trying “to provoke an antagonistic atmosphere” on campus.
What?
What is this, India? Is the University of Nottingham operating under Section 295A of the Indian Penal Code?
Deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings or any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs.— Whoever, with deliberate and malicious intention of outraging the religious feelings of any class of citizens of India, by words, either spoken or written, or by signs or by visible representations or otherwise, insults or attempts to insult the religion or the religious beliefs of that class, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to three years, or with fine, or with both.
Religions have tenets, beliefs, claims. Chambers and Lateef weren’t there to do a fashion show or a dance recital; they were there to share their ideas. People get to challenge those ideas. They get to do that without being accused of “trying to provoke an antagonistic atmosphere.”
In addition to this, the Islamic Society President states that “such attacks were problematic and contributed to a sense of marginalisation and discomfort towards many Muslim students on campus”.
That challenging someone with a history of homophobia over their bigoted views can be described as an ‘attack’ and as marginalising Muslim students is incredible, and demonstrates a deep intolerance of legitimate criticism.
Legitimate criticism is legitimate.
What? Whatwhat??
If it were members of the KKK coming to speak, wouldn’t it make sense to do some pre-presentation vetting to make sure what they planned to talk about would be appropriate for that forum??
BTW, it helps to read Section 295A with an Indian accent.
Getting the LGBT Network and the Islamic Society to produce a joint statement should count as some sort of progress, I s’poze…
Burying your head in the sand or screaming ‘lalalalalala’ while putting your fingers firmly in your ears makes all problems go away, dontchaknow.
Because making nice-nice always works so well for everyone concerned, especially ones whose rights are trampled upon.
Scary to think that these students of today are going to become the leaders of tomorrow. God save the Queen.
Accommodation of Muslim fundamentalists is how you show how ‘tolerant’ you are.
Speaking of which….
If people can get past a kneejerk “Pam Gellar!!!” reaction, note she is at least ostensibly standing up against both gender apartheid and government endorsement of religion, whereas the lesbian police chief in Minneapolis is donning a symbol of patriarchy and murderous oppression of LGBT people.
And with Somali women, let us never forget that behind the hijab lies the nightmare of female genital mutilation, which if I were police chief would kind of be a top priority.
How come the ‘social justice’ crowd lets these incidents pass, allowing hypocritical Christian and Jewish supremacists pick them up? I mean I should be reading this story at Feministe, not Atlas Shrugged. Leftwing cowardice just hands the non-Muslim right a passive broken-clock-is-right-twice-a-day moral victory.
Part of building a broader atheist coalition is actually being consistent about secularism and humanism.
Well not all of the social justice crowd does, since you’re reading this post here. Or maybe you don’t count me as in the crowd, since I don’t really use that label much if at all. (Nothing substantive against it, just it sounds self-flattering, and formulaic.) There are people who are both on the left and attentive to this kind of pseudo-leftism.
In addition to this, the Islamic Society President states that “such attacks were problematic and contributed to a sense of marginalisation and discomfort towards many Muslim students on campus”.
It’s so unfair when you can’t hate someone so much you’d kill them in an ideal society, without being subjected to the indignity of having your bigotry challenged.
My support for free speech is based on the fact it’s better to challenge unacceptable views than to let them fester.
If people aren’t prepared to defend their opinions in public maybe they should rethink them.
Ugh. That Pamela Gellar story… it’s actually that sort of thing that makes folks on the Left so skittish about talking about this stuff, I think. Read the story all the way through, and you will actually get a nice, solid depiction of authentic Islamophobia (rather than the sort that gets complained about by folks like those in the OP).
The hijab is a symbol of patriarchy, yes, and the police chief and other city hall staffers were twits for donning it. But that can be addressed without calling a group four-man fight a ‘terror’ attack.
@Ophelia
I obviously respect your views overall, even if I disagree with some, or I would not be here.
But the question, regardless of how you self-identify, is: are you representative of the actual normative discourse of feminism and ‘social justice’ at present. I would say resoundingly and tragically, “no,” if for no other reason than your firm stance on Islamic human rights abuses.
We live an era where ‘diversity’ not values are celebrated. People that resist that, like yourself, or Kenan Malik, whom I discovered via Jesus & Mo, whom I discovered thanks to you, are sadly voices in your own right as individuals rather than as emblematic of any political grouping.
I am very glad someone is out there challenging the norm. I would never be able to stomach being a public figure and getting the obsessive abuse you endure. Never mistake by criticism for lack of respect for your overall effort.
@freemage
I agree that Gellar and her ilk represent a bona fide Islamophobia, but frankly no action of the non-Muslim rightwing should make a sincere advocate of gender equality “skittish” about pushing back against sexism and/or misogyny, however one chooses to define the hijab.
My entire point is that by abdicating their moral responsibility the secularists (where is the ACLU?) and especially feminists who should be pouncing on this story open the door for Pam Gellar to portray herself as some noble truth-teller and the ‘real’ champion of women. If people on the left want it “addressed” in X manner, then it needs to be addressed in the first place.
Katherine – well thank you. [kicks a little dust awkwardly]
There are quite a few of us though. I mean…people read me, people read Kenan, people read Jesus & Mo, people read Nick Cohen and Joan Smith and Maryam Namazie and Tarek Fatah. I think it’s not quite such an isolated minority as you think. There is a sizable secular left, and most of them are unlikely to be deferential to Islam.
I think Ophelia is pretty much at the core of feminist and social justice discourse – its really only a bizarre fringe that thinks defending Islamism in the name of ‘diversity’ is progressive.
They’re loud because they need the sound of their own voices to drown out the contradictions in their own heads.
Shatterface, the way “Islam” changes to “Islamism” in your response is actually a perfect example of the denialism that pervades discourse on the left. If you think some radical subset of Islam is the only problem with regard to gender equality, LGBT rights, and secularism, you are being an outright apologist.
And further the major problem is not active defense, but passively ignoring the issues.
Go I google Islam + Huffington Post, The Guarddian, feministing, alternet, Mother Jones, Shakesville, The Nation, Salon, Feministe, etc.
Come back and report how many articles on islam you find with the critical, rancorous tone of say an Amanda Marcotte takedown of Christianity.
I have noted people – non-Muslims as well as Muslims – who seem to want to soften what has happened here – for example by asking whether it is fair to say that someone like Chambers is actually inciting violence directly.
This seems an astonishing quibble (although relevant if discussing whether he has broken any law) and one which those raising it would not be applying if some EDL type speaker had said that ideally, even though he wasn’t advocating lynching right now, the death penalty should be applied to all Muslims unless they renounced their faith.
There’s a whole spectrum of tough positions between thinking Muslims should be killed and what seem to be the moderate views of many B and W readers – those tough stances (most of which I’m guessing are opposed by many if not all readers here) include proposing deportation, proposing restrictions on immigration, on the building of mosques, thinking Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller are sound, etc. But those of us who hold none of these opinions, let alone think people deserve death for their religious views, are still seen as bigots and Islamophobes by – people who either believe apostates and homosexuals deserve to die, or people who concede that’s not quite on, but think it’s better not to make a fuss about it.
You’ve certainly got a point there. Here in Canada the left has little to say about Islam. The feminists are silent and our leftwing NDP party still maintains the line that Islam is a religion of peace whose troubles, on the rare occasions the faith has any, all stem from the legacy of western colonialism.
Well, to be honest, if Americans and Canadians don’t give the same volume of shit to Islam as to Christianity, that’s probably mostly because they’re responding to the problems they see around them. You could argue that they ought to deal more with stuff further from their own backyards, and that’s fair, although I’d counter that they are correspondingly more likely to be wrong on those topics. But Islam just doesn’t loom as large in a North American secular feminist’s consciousness as Christianity, and so the response is largely “ehh, leave ’em alone, we’ve got bigger fish to fry”. Just a question of priority and availability.