Fanatics in all the wrong places

On 26 January, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) announced that it had received allegations from Israel that twelve of its employees were directly involved in Hamas’ attack on Israel last October. These employees, some of whom are alleged to have participated in massacres of Israelis, have now been sacked, are dead, or are under investigation by UNRWA. Israel has also accused 190 of the UNRWA’s Gaza employees of being operatives of Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

This is not the first time that the UNRWA, founded in 1949 to aid the 700,000 Palestinian refugees created by the first Arab-Israeli War, has been accused of lax hiring practices. Last November, one of the released Israeli hostages claimed he had been held in an attic by a UNRWA teacher.

Now, a slew of countries, including the UK and the US, have stopped their funding for the UNRWA. Combined, these countries contributed over 60 per cent of the UNRWA’s budget in 2022. Whether this is a fair response or not (after all, the UNRWA is now more than ever a lifeline for besieged Palestinians), the allegations are worrying. What hope can there be of a just and stable settlement to this interminable conflict if even the aid agencies of the UN are harbouring violent extremists?

Speaking of fanatics popping up in unwelcome places, Dr Wahid Shaida was suspended by NHS England last month for being the head of Hizb ut-Tahrir in the UK. Hizb ut-Tahrir was itself proscribed as a terrorist organisation shortly before Shaida’s suspension. But just why the head of a woman-hating, homophobic, Islamist outfit, who had openly celebrated the stabbing of Salman Rushdie and the 7 October Hamas attack on Israel, was allowed to practise medicine in the first place is puzzling. One ought not to persecute others for their private beliefs, however distasteful, but it strikes me that such bigotry and fanaticism might have an adverse effect on a doctor’s ability to treat his or her patients fairly – particularly the female, gay, and Jewish ones. In any case, with the proscription of Hizb ut-Tahrir, Shaida’s suspension is certainly justified; though he is still, for some reason, registered with the General Medical Council.  

And then there is Mike Johnson, Speaker of the US House of Representatives and second in line to the presidency since last October. Johnson seems to be an avowed Christian nationalist and his pre-Speaker career highlights include advocating for the criminalisation of gay sex and helping Donald Trump’s demented and spurious legal attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 US presidential election. Read about all this and more in a white paper released by the Congressional Freethought Caucus on 11 January.

It is a sad, sad irony that the very nation founded upon Enlightenment ideals by a group of secularists and freethinkers, including the two great Toms (Paine and Jefferson), is home to some of the world’s most backward and most powerful Christian fundamentalists.

Modi’s triumph and the decay of subcontinental secularism

Meanwhile, India’s great secularist tradition continues to decay under Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist rule. On 22 January, Modi officially opened a new temple to the Hindu god Ram in Ayodhya, proclaiming that ‘After years of struggle and countless sacrifices, Lord Ram has arrived [home]. I want to congratulate every citizen of the country on this historic occasion.’

With elections on the horizon, Modi’s fulfilment of a long-standing Hindu nationalist dream was obviously a vote-getting ploy. Little, of course, was made of the fact that the temple’s site was once home to a centuries-old mosque destroyed by a Hindu mob in 1992. The mob were convinced that the mosque had originally been erected by Muslim invaders over an earlier temple where Ram had been born. (Leave it to the religious to desecrate the sacred sites of their rivals.) Riots provoked by the destruction of the mosque killed thousands.

So: communal strife, destruction of ancient buildings, the death of thousands—and all thanks to religious fantasy. And now the vandalism and horror of 1992 are being erased because Narendra Modi wishes to stir up his supporters. In doing so, his assault on India’s rich secularist history reaches new heights. Here is the triumph of Modi.

And this prompts a further reflection: from Israel and Gaza to the US and India—not to mention the bloodstained steppes of Ukraine, where Orthodox-inspired and supported Russian troops are trying to destroy a young democracy—religion, in various forms, remains one of the world’s greatest threats to democratic and secular ideals, and to the ideals of peace and freedom. How far we secularists still have to go! And perhaps it really is not too much to say that ‘religion poisons everything.’

The Navajo Nation vs NASA

On 6 January, one of the great crises of our time arose. The White House hastily convoked a meeting, attended by officials from NASA and the Federal Aviation Administration among others, to meet the crisis head-on. For a commercial lunar mission, Peregrine Mission One, was due to launch in a couple of days—and its payload contained human remains which were to be buried on the Moon.

What, you might ask, was the problem with that? It has been done before, and the Moon is quite a beautiful final resting place. Many people, myself included, would feel honoured to be fired out into space to rest forever on the Earth’s closest fellow orb. Allow the Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren to explain:

‘The moon holds a sacred place in Navajo cosmology… The suggestion of transforming it into a resting place for human remains is deeply disturbing and unacceptable to our people and many other tribal nations.’

Yes, really! This is no different from Catholics or Muslims imposing their religious beliefs on others. The only surprising thing is that it was paid such heed. The only proper response to this sort of thing is: Who cares? Or, perhaps, Too bad!

Of course, the reason no such firmly secularist response was given in this case is because the Navajo are a minority and they have faced terrible oppression. Guilt-ridden liberals who would happily scoff at, say, Catholic calls to ban homosexuality, are unable to do the same when it comes to indigenous people staking their own arrogant claims to religious privilege. This is an act of unintentional bigotry. It suggests that indigenous people cannot be held to the same standards as others and that their superstitions, which they are clearly incapable of throwing off, must be indulged.

But as citizens of democratic nations, nobody has the right to make special claims for themselves based on religion, let alone impose their beliefs on others. That is the essence of secularism. It does not matter whether the demand for privilege comes from a powerful bishop or an oppressed minority.

The Navajo case is representative of a more general trend: the indulgence of indigenous superstition in the name of inclusivity. Other instances include the adoption of such superstitions in American museums and the credence given to ‘indigenous science’ or ‘indigenous ways of knowing’ even in such august journals as Science. In New Zealand, meanwhile, where the embrace of ‘indigenous ways of knowing’ (in this case, Māori ways of knowing) has gone the furthest, a Māori local district councillor defied the secularist mayor during a meeting and recited a prayer.

If Narendra Modi and Mike Johnson are examples of the religious right flaunting its power, are the claims of the Navajo and the Māori examples of the religious ‘woke’ left in action? At least, the ‘woke’ left tends to support these claims. As ever, the only solution is the secularist one of fairness: nobody, however powerful or oppressed, gets a special pass for their beliefs, nor do they have the right to impose those beliefs on others.

Muslims v Michaela

The legal case currently being pursued against Katharine Birbalsingh’s Michaela Community School by fundamentalist Muslims angry at the school’s restriction of Muslim prayer has stirred up something quite unusual, but also very heartening: an outpouring from across the political spectrum of sympathy for secularism. But, as Megan Manson of the National Secular Society notes, this sympathy is somewhat shallow, given its ignorance (or ignoring) of the UK’s deeply anti-secular education system – never mind its overtly religious political system. Still, who knows? Perhaps the intimidation meted out to Michaela by aggrieved fundamentalists and the wave of public sympathy for the school will inspire the country to finally cast off all the vestiges of theocracy.

Postscript: the Conservative MP Mike Freer has just announced that he will stand down at the next election. Why? He is scared of the Islamists who have been intimidating him for years. He is, in fact, lucky to be alive given that he was in the line of sight of the Islamist who murdered Sir David Amess in 2021. As Rakib Ehsan writes in The Telegraph, ‘Freer’s decision to walk away from British politics for fear of his personal safety is yet another example of the Islamist-inspired erosion of British parliamentary democracy.’

An irreligious king?

On a related note, talk of Prince William’s irreligiousness compared to his father and grandmother caused some speculation that he might cut ties with the Church of England upon becoming King. Alas, such rumours were quickly dispelled, but not before they provoked some amusing grumbling from Peter Hitchens in The Mail on Sunday.

Alongside some thin guff in place of any serious reasoning about the truth of Christianity (never Hitchens’ strong point, and something he usually and wisely avoids), there was one point with which I found myself agreeing: ‘If this stuff is not true, or is marginal, or if we do not really believe it, then there is no purpose in having a King, or a Prince of Wales. We might as well have a President in a nice suit.’ Indeed—and huzzah!

The resurrected exorcist

The Daily Star, citing ‘a recently unearthed interview with [an] obscure Spanish magazine’, says that the Pope’s former exorcist Gabriele Amorth (who left this vale of tears in 2016) believed that the Devil is responsible for political evil and corruption. Even Hitler and Stalin, according to Father Amorth, are to be explained by old Nick’s seductive whisperings. Spooky!

But come now. Aside from its obvious foolishness, this is an abdication of moral and intellectual responsibility. Never mind the hard and necessary work of bothering to explain the evil of a Hitler or a Stalin in rational terms, so that we might understand and stop such men from gaining power ever again. No, no: it was the Devil! Just pray and obey our ancient and constipated moral teachings and all manner of thing shall be well.

Remember: this was the Pope’s exorcist. So, quite apart from the fact that the Pope still believes in exorcism like some medieval peasant, until quite recently his exorcist was a plain idiot. But what do you expect from the Catholic Church? And millions, if not billions, take the Pope’s pronouncements very seriously. The human species is still, clearly, very immature.

Some more wisdom from Father Amorth:

‘I tell those who come to see me to first go to a doctor or a psychologist… Most of the time there is a physical or psychological basis for explaining their suffering… The psychiatrists send me the incurable cases. There is no rivalry. The psychiatrist determines if it is an illness, the exorcist if it is a curse.’

‘I work seven days a week, from morning until night, including Christmas Eve and Holy Week. Everyone is vulnerable. The Devil is very intelligent. He retains the intelligence of the angel that he was.

‘Suppose, for example, that someone you work with is envious of you and casts a spell on you. You would get sick. Ninety per cent of the cases that I deal with are precisely spells. The rest are due to membership in satanic sects or participation in séances or magic.

‘If you live in harmony with God, it is much more difficult for the devil to possess you.’

Well, there you go: harmonise your aura with the Lord above, then that rascal Lucifer won’t be able to get you, and there’ll be no evil in the world! Because, of course, no evil has ever been committed by godly men…

Enter Russell Crowe

Apparently, Father Amorth was the subject of a (highly dramatised) movie starring Russell Crowe last year. According to the summary on Wikipedia, ‘[Amorth] learns that a founder of the Spanish Inquisition, an exorcist, was possessed, which let him infiltrate the Church and do many evils. Amorth also finds the Church covered this up…’ This does not, so far as I know, represent anything done or claimed by the real Amorth, but it does chime with his comments given above—and what an easy escape for the Church! All its many crimes throughout history were just a satanic aberration. It was the Devil all along! Thank the Lord for that. Let us never trouble ourselves again about the Inquisition, or Galileo, or Giordano Bruno, or the Crusades, or child sex abuse, or…

So much for mea culpa, never mind mea maxima culpa, then.

Enjoy this article? Subscribe to our free fortnightly newsletter for the latest updates on free thought. If you can, please donate to support our work into the future.

Further reading:

The Israel-Palestine conflict

Bloodshed in Gaza: Islamists, leftist ideologues, and the prospects of a two-state solution, by Kunwar Khuldune Shahid

Religion and the Arab-Israeli conflict, by Kunwar Khuldune Shahid

Is the Israel-Palestine conflict fundamentally a nationalist, not a religious, war? by Ralph Leonard

Christian nationalism in the US

Reproductive freedom is religious freedom, by Andrew Seidel and Rachel Laser

Secular conservatives? If only… by Jacques Berlinerblau

Indian secularism and Hindu nationalism

Religion and the decline of freethought in South Asia, by Kunwar Khuldune Shahid

‘We need to move from identity politics to a politics of solidarity’ – interview with Pragna Patel

Campaign ‘to unite India and save its secular soul’, by Puja Bhattacharjee

British Islam, secularism, and free speech

Free speech in Britain: a losing battle? by Porcus Sapiens

Secularism and the struggle for free speech, by Stephen Evans

British Islam and the crisis of ‘wokeism’ in universities – interview with Steven Greer

Monarchy, religion, and republicanism

Bring on the British republic – Graham Smith’s ‘Abolish the Monarchy’, reviewed, by Daniel James Sharp

‘I do not think you are going to get a secular state without getting rid of the monarchy’ –interview with Graham Smith

The post Faith Watch, February 2024 appeared first on The Freethinker.

The blood-soaked holy land

The Israel-Palestine conflict today involves a tangled and tragic web of disputes, but it is ultimately rooted in competing religious ideologies. So long as fanatical Jews, Muslims, and Christians see Palestine as their personal holy land, it is hard to see how the conflict will ever be resolved.

In such a politically complex dispute, with so many historic grievances and so much suffering on both sides, it is hard to understand what is really happening on the ground, let alone get any sense of how the conflict could or should be ended. Some form of the old two-state solution, moribund as it seems now, is probably still the only viable path to peace. So long as bigotry and fanaticism reign on all sides, however, that outcome is unlikely to be realised.

Even if a compromise is reached, as Kunwar Khuldune Shahid argues in his essay on Hamas and Islamist-leftist extremism, ‘the solution is still set to be as arbitrarily imposed as the problem was.’ We hope to offer further reflections on the conflict from different perspectives in the coming weeks.

A heroine honoured

In other, somewhat brighter, news, the Iranian feminist Narges Mohammadi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on 6 October. Unfortunately, Mohammadi is currently languishing in a Tehran prison for her anti-regime activism, particularly her opposition to the hijab. The Iranian mullahs are the paymasters of Hamas and are almost certainly responsible for the attack in Israel – which was, coincidentally, launched the day after the Nobel was announced. But Mohammadi represents something very troubling for the mullahs: the growth in Iran of a mass movement for secular democracy and equality between the sexes. Let us hope this movement succeeds sooner rather than later.

An Islamic party pooped

An application to form a Party of Islam in the UK was rejected by the Electoral Commission last month. The application, sent just days after Hamas’s attack on Israel, seems to have been put together rather shoddily. As EU Today reported:

‘In its official application, the Party of Islam states “We are a party who has been created to help all of the minority in the land of Great Britain have a voice.”

The Party of Islam has also stated its intention to “help all of the minority in the land of Great Britain have a voice,” further stating: “We will make sure that all problems which lingure (sic) in the great country of Great Britain is defeated.”’

Everyone should be free to set up political organisations of whatever stripe they want, of course, but one does wonder what exactly the Party of Islam would stand for.

Would a PoI prime minister disestablish the Church of England? Would there be a Mosque of England in its place? Would blasphemy laws be reenacted? What stance would the party take on, say, the Batley Grammar School teacher who is still in hiding after displaying an image of Muhammad in his classroom in 2021? What would their social policies look like?

Given that another, now defunct, Islamic political party wanted to bring back the death penalty for homosexuality, is it too far-fetched to wonder whether such parties are really just Islamist outfits exploiting the language of inclusivity to further their theocratic agenda? Surely not! But who knows? Perhaps, just in case, it is time for Britain to adopt something like the First Amendment and become a properly secular country…

Christians against…sponges?

On 4 November, Freethinker contributor and National Secular Society historian Bob Forder gave a lecture at Conway Hall entitled ‘Condoms, Sponges and Syringes: The 19th century pioneers of family planning’. Curiously for a lecture unrelated to abortion, it drew the ire of an evangelical ‘pro-life’ group, who turned up to protest, parading some gruesome images.

A strange turn of events, to be sure, but the anti-spongers are entitled to their freedom of speech, and they caused no serious disruption. As Bob Forder told The Freethinker, ‘there were no interruptions apart from some raucous hymn singing when they left.’

Yet another gay orgy scandal for the Catholic Church

Finally, it is always amusing to have new additions to the ancient canon of stories about debauched and perfidious priests. Grzegorz Kaszak’s resignation from his post as bishop of the diocese of Sosnowiec, Poland, was accepted by Pope Francis late in October. No reason was given for the good bishop’s resignation, but it is curious to note that, under his reign, Sosnowiec has seen more gay sex scandals than the sweetly innocent might expect from a diocese of the Roman Catholic Church.

In 2010, the acting rector of a Sosnowiec seminary got into a fight in a gay club. This August, one of Kaszak’s priests was arrested for trying to prevent paramedics from entering his apartment after a man, having overdosed on erectile dysfunction pills during a gay orgy, collapsed. The priest later said, ‘I perceive this as an obvious attack on the church, including the clergy and the faithful, in order to humiliate its position, tasks and mission.’ Well, of course!

Sexual scandal is hardly new for the Catholic Church. Gay orgy scandals, in particular, seem to be as popular among priests as poppers are at…well, gay orgies. Or take another example, just for fun. In 2017, Luigi Capozzi, private secretary to Cardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio, was arrested by the Vatican police for snorting cocaine during another such orgy in the cardinal’s apartment (the cardinal, it should be noted, was not present).

The church continues to claim divine authority to pronounce on morality and condemn gay people while running an organised system of child sexual abuse—another thing that would be funny if it were not true.

As for the hypocrisy of its priests, who uphold anti-gay doctrine while bedding half the men in their dioceses—well, let them have their fun. They could, after all, be doing much worse things—like preaching. Though if you need a supply of erectile dysfunction pills for your orgy, you probably have no future in the business.

Enjoy this article? Subscribe to our free fortnightly newsletter for the latest updates on free thought. Or make a donation to support our work into the future.

Further reading:

The Israel-Palestine conflict

Bloodshed in Gaza: Islamists, leftist ideologues, and the prospects of a two-state solution, by Kunwar Khuldune Shahid

Religion and the Arab-Israeli conflict, by Kunwar Khuldune Shahid

Islamist ideology and anti-Semitism

The radicalisation of young Muslims in the UK: an ongoing problem?, by Khadija Khan

Iranian resistance to theocracy

The ‘Women’s Revolution’: from two activists in Iran, by Rastine Mortad and Sadaf Sepiddasht

Batley Grammar School case

Blasphemy in the classroom, by Emma Park (New Humanist)

Free speech in Britain: a losing battle? – Freethinker

Abuse in the Catholic Church

The Pope’s Apology, by Ray Argyle

The post Faith Watch, November 2023 appeared first on The Freethinker.

These events have involved the suppression or attempted suppression of freedom of speech in the interests of protecting its supposed victims against harm. They represent worrying steps along the path of appeasement by the authorities of vocal special interest groups, who use the language of offence to prevent their ideas being challenged.

The Scottish Hate Crime Act

On 11th March 2021, the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Bill was passed by the Scottish Parliament; it received Royal Assent on 23rd April. On the positive side, the Act abolished the common law offence of blasphemy. However, in Part 3, it also created a number of offences of ‘stirring up hatred’ against ‘a group of persons’ on the grounds of a list of protected characteristics, including age, disability, religion or perceived religious affiliation, sexual orientation, transgender identity, and variations in sex characteristics.

After a campaign from the National Secular Society and other organisations, a clause was included (9(b)) that gave greater leeway to ‘discussion or criticism relating to, or expressions of antipathy, dislike, ridicule or insult towards’ religion. However, in regard to the other characteristics, while ‘discussion or criticism’ were included, ‘antipathy’ and the rest were not.

Several objections were made to the ‘stirring up’ offences at the time. Liam Kerr MSP, who was on the Justice Committee that scrutinised the Bill during its passage through Parliament, criticised it for the ‘chilling effect’ it was likely to bring to freedom of expression, to the point where the country would ‘end up in a situation where people are almost self-policing.’ The Act also omits the defence, found in English law, that the person making the speech was inside a private dwelling.

In February 2021 in England, the Merseyside police had driven around with a sign saying ‘Being Offensive is an Offence’ as ‘part of a campaign to encourage people to report hate crime’ (according to the BBC), before they were forced to apologise, because being offensive is not actually an offence under English law – not yet. However, the slogan seems to epitomise the spirit of the Scottish Hate Crime Act, if not its wording, only too well: that the range of what counts as criminal speech is to be wider than ever before.

It is due precisely to this ambitious scope that the Act appears to have been difficult to implement. At the end of March 2022, it has still not been brought into force. As reported in February by Scotland’s Daily Record, the Shadow Justice Secretary, Jamie Greene MSP, claimed that ‘preparing for this bill has put overwhelming strain on our police’. A report by Police Scotland said that the Act would require ‘training, guidance and communications planning’.

When Liam Kerr was contacted by the Freethinker for this article, he replied that he maintained ‘the same view’ of the Act as before. Asked why he thought the Scottish Government had not yet implemented it, he said that although he could not speak for them, it might merely be a question of their ‘getting round to process’ rather than because they had had second thoughts about it. (Humza Yousaf, the Justice Secretary when the Bill was passed, and Keith Brown, the current Justice Secretary, did not respond to requests for comment.)

It can only be hoped that the Act contains the seeds of its own undoing, and that the sweeping scope of its ‘stirring up’ offences continues to make it impossible to implement.

Blasphemy in Batley

On 25th March 2021, the BBC reported that an angry mob of protesters had gathered at the gates of Batley Grammar School, Yorkshire, to protest the use of cartoons depicting Mohammed by an RS teacher in the course of a lesson. The headmaster, Gary Kibble, issued a grovelling apology and suspended the teacher pending an independent investigation. The teacher was later exonerated of deliberate wrongdoing. However, the executive summary of the investigation suggests that the cartoons or similarly ‘offensive’ material will never be taught in Batley again.

The precise details of the teacher’s ‘offence of being offensive’, as it were, only started to emerge gradually; a full account of the story has never been published.

The characteristic reponse to the situation by politicians on both sides was to condemn the threats to the teacher but to make some sort of vague generalisations about what he actually did. The Department for Education, for instance, talked about balancing open debate of challenging issues against ‘the need to promote respect and tolerance between people of different faiths and beliefs’. The local Labour MP, Tracy Brabin, claimed to ‘welcome the school’s apology and recognition of the offence this has caused’, but emphasised both that ‘no teacher should be facing intimidation or threats’ and that there was a need for ‘conversations’ between all parties that could ‘proceed in a respectful and dignified matter (sic)’. In other words, neither side came out and explicitly defended the use of the cartoons.

The Batley case was widely written about in the media at the time. However, looking back on it now, the most striking feature is just how completely the voice of its protagonist, the RS teacher himself, was silenced. The media and political establishment suppressed his identity, purportedly in order to protect him and his family against the many threats that they received. Even if it was for his safety, though, there is something uncomfortable about the completeness with which he has disappeared from the record.

In a better functioning democracy, the teacher would have been given the opportunity to defend himself, and would not have risked his life in doing so. In an education system where open enquiry was valued above the fear of offending special interest groups, however aggressive or vocal, he would have had the support of his school and would not have lost his job.

Cartoons in Colchester

On 29-30 March 2022, the Gazette & Essex County Standard and Daily Mail reported that a teacher at Colchester Royal Grammar School had been suspended for, as the Gazette put it, ‘holding a coffee mug depicting Jesus Christ and the Prophet Muhammad’. The Mail reported that the image was taken from the ‘Jesus and Mo’ cartoon series by the pseudonymous cartoonist, Mohammed Jones.

The details have yet to be ascertained. Both papers have implied that the incident of the Jesus and Mo mug might be linked to allegations of sexual harassment previously made at the school, and a negative Ofsted report last year. According to the Gazette, it is understood that ‘the teacher is subject to an ongoing investigation’ – but what this refers to is mysterious. Earlier today (31 March), the Mail reported in an update that ‘witnesses have since claimed it [the mug] was regularly ‘shown off’ during lessons too.’

It may be that there are details of this case which would make the teacher’s use of the mug unattractive. However, unless and until these are substantiated, Porcus would like to know what basis there is for connecting other allegations against the teacher or the school to a cartoon on a mug. Or who decided to take a photo of it, and why, and how it reached the attention of the media.

Another question is why both the Mail and the Gazette have pixellated the cartoon out in their photos. According to the Mail, ‘In speech bubbles, the Jesus figure appears to say “Hey”, with the Prophet Muhammad figure responding: “How ya doin?”’ If this is accurate, then the cartoon would seem to be the one visible at the top of the Jesus and Mo homepage – which is literally as the Mail describes it. An image of an apparently similar mug has been shared here.

The Jesus and Mo series uses conversations between the title characters and others to satirise religion in general, and Christianity and Islam in particular, in a wry, caustic way. “There is no blasphemy law here in the UK, and depictions of long-dead prophets are not forbidden,” said the cartoonist, who spoke to Porcus on condition of anonymity. “In fact, it is impossible to create an image of the original Mohammed because nobody knows what he looked like. The Mo in Jesus & Mo is not anyone’s prophet. He’s mine, and I assert my right to depict him however I wish. I actually think that my Mo is far more likeable than the one depicted in Islamic scripture.”

Porcus is of the view that readers should be allowed to judge for themselves how ‘offensive’ the cartoon is. And whether it is so outrageous, so obscene, so grossly indecent that it should be censored by the media, and lead – apparently, at least – to the suspension of a teacher.

Readers might also think the response of the Mail strange; it is not a publication usually known for handling controversial topics with kid gloves. But perhaps there is another reason for the dramatic reactions of both papers and school: fear. The Batley teacher received death threats, and his home was visited by ‘gangs of young men’ not long after the story came out. In 2020, Samuel Paty was murdered in France for showing Mohammed cartoons in class; in 2015, a similar fate befell eight Charlie Hebdo journalists and four others with them.

[Ed. – Under the previous editor, the Freethinker regularly published Jesus and Mo cartoons. In the current climate, however, being a small operation, we have no faith in the ability or willingness of the UK authorities to ensure that our right to freedom of speech is defended against extremists. If other, better funded papers take the lead in publishing the cartoon involved, as they ought, we will follow.]

Satire and Islam

Doubtless religious conservatives, as well as those on the authoritarian Left, would say that publishing cartoons of Mohammed is ‘really’ nothing but a provocation, or, ‘prima facie’, an attempt to ‘incit[e] hatred and Islamophobia whilst pushing forward extremist white supremacist ideology.’ The latter was how the Batley teacher’s use of the cartoons was described in an open letter that was organised by the Muslim Action Forum.

But that response would miss the point. The aim of cartoons like those of Jesus and Mo, or the ones published in Charlie Hebdo, is satire: to question, criticise, laugh at religion and other things. Satire is the tool of the dissenter against the conformist, the democrat against the dictator, the individual against the group. It mocks the reigning prejudices of the day, revealing their absurdity in the eyes of the writer or cartoonist; its effectiveness depends upon the extent to which it wins the reader over to its point of view. Satire is about persuasion – the opposite of force.

If cartoons featuring Mohammed cannot be displayed publicly in Britain without fear of institutional condemnation or violent reprisals, then we may not be so far off from becoming, like northern Nigeria, a place where Islam is beyond criticism and beyond laughter. Which raises another question: if it is Islam now, what will be next?

The post Free speech in Britain: a losing battle? appeared first on The Freethinker.

Moreover, with the widespread use of the internet as a propaganda tool, the number of channels through which young people can be radicalised and recruited to commit crimes has multiplied. Extremists today use social media to perpetuate myths about their religious and political supremacy.

It is no coincidence that ISIS managed to recruit thousands of young men and women beyond the borders of Syria and Iraq. They brainwashed people through online speeches and videos based on distorted realities. Extremist propaganda material remains available online and offline, and extremists use it to radicalise people.

In 2020, the national coordinator for the Prevent counterextremism programme, Chief Superintendent Nik Adams, warned that young and vulnerable people, including those with mental health issues, were being exploited. In his view, as reported in the Independent, ‘terrorists who “self-radicalise” using online material are a now a greater threat to the UK than those directed by Isis.’

Such a situation requires frontline efforts to counter both online and offline threats of radicalisation. The UK Government’s 2011 counter terrorism strategy, ’Prevent‘, was designed to stop people from being drawn into radical Islamic and far-right extremism alike through dialogue and rehabilitation efforts.

The objectives of Prevent included the need to ‘respond to the ideological challenge of terrorism’ and its promoters; to ‘prevent people being drawn into terrorism’ and give those who were affected ‘advice and support’; and to ‘work with sectors and institutions where there are risks of radicalisation’ (3.21).

However, Prevent faced strong resistance in certain quarters, including from some British Muslim individuals and organisations. For instance, in 2015, the former chief superintenant with the Metropolitan police, Dal Babu, said that that ‘most Muslims are suspicious of the scheme and see it as a tool to spy on them,’ according to a report in the Guardian. For Babu, Prevent had become a ‘toxic brand’.

In a joint letter to the Guardian in 2016, a group of around 380 academics, lawyers, students and others argued that Prevent ‘damages the fabric of trust in our society, silences Muslims and dissent, and institutionalises Islamophobia at a time when the far-right is gaining influence in many parts of Europe.’ But this analysis was arguably wrong, because it does not represent the ground realities.

The former chief crown prosecutor Nazir Afzal, a British Muslim who lives in Birmingham, has been a strong supporter of Prevent. He argued in an interview with The Times in 2017 that ‘Prevent is simply safeguarding… It’s not about criminalising. It has done phenomenally good work. It’s stopped at least 150 people from going to Syria, 50 of them children.’

As reported in another Times article from 2017, Afzal warned that there was an ‘”industry” of Muslim groups’, such as Cage and Prevent Watch, which were ‘spreading misinformation about the Prevent strategy.’ According to the same article, ‘Critics have called the organisation [Cage] apologists for terror.’ [The article is currently the subject of a legal complaint from MEND, which has itself been accused of promoting Islamism – Ed.]

Altogether, it seems next to impossible to reach a consensus on how to use Prevent so as to effectively deal with the radicalisation of young and vulnerable Muslims. For now, they remain at risk.

Clearly Prevent is no silver bullet. It needs to be constructively revisited, scrutinised and reformed from time to time like any other policy. However, scrapping a policy based on mere assumptions and unfounded fears is arguably short-sighted, especially when the threat posed by Islamist ideology remains alarming in the UK. In 2021, MI5 Director General Ken McCallum said in his annual threat update that ‘alongside all the focus rightly being given to State Threats, Islamist Extremist Terrorism remains a potent, shape-shifting threat.’

The extremist ideology does not need a territory to establish its dominion. The Islamic state might have fallen in Syria, but there are still individuals in the UK and abroad who are deeply influenced by their radical religious ideology and who remain loyal to the cause of establishing a Caliphate. This increases the threat of individual radicalisation.

According to Matt Jukes, Assistant Commissioner at the Metropolitan Police and Head of their Counter-Terrorism Policing Unit, ‘while some recent attacks have been carried out by asylum seekers, the majority of the terrorist threat to the UK is home-grown, and posed by British-born extremists.’ This demonstrates the urgent need to address religious radicalisation within the country.

Narratives such as the idea of ‘western imperialism’, the claim that ‘Islam is under siege’ and that ‘Western society is hostile to Islam and Muslims,’ are relentlessly peddled by radical preachers. Their aim is to alienate vulnerable young Muslims and push them down the path of violence and revenge. Such preachers also advance conspiracy theories, including the influence of the Jews over international media, and advocate wife-beating and the ideology of the ‘jihad against the infidel West.’

One Muslim cleric, Abubaker Deghayes, while addressing the congregation of a mosque in Brighton, is reported as saying, ‘Jihad by fighting by sword, this jihad is compulsory upon you.’ Following a trial at the Old Bailey, he was recently convicted of encouraging terrorism.

In January 2022, Malik Faisal Akram, a British national, reportedly took four Jewish people hostage at a synagogue in Colleyville, Texas, in a bid to secure the release of Aafia Siddiqui, a convicted terrorist. The incident was described by US President Joe Biden as ‘an act of terror,’ and by UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss as ‘an act of terrorism and anti-Semitism.’ However, mere condemnations are not enough. What is needed is for society to address the crucial question of what drew Akram to commit this crime in the first place.

Akram was not an isolated fan of Siddiqui, or merely an anti-Semite who travelled to the United States from the UK to witness Siddiqui’s glorious release. Rather, his actions were motivated by religious devotion: his last conversation with his brother in the UK, in which he ‘promised’ that he would ‘go down a martyr,’ demonstrates that he was a product of the same toxic rhetoric that manipulates religious discourse to gain leverage and influence. His case illustrates the way in which Islamist radicalisation is not only divorced from reason, but also lacks compassion and empathy towards fellow human beings who happen not to be Muslims.

Impressionable young people who listen to radical preachers may grow up to distrust their fellow citizens and governments. Some disturbing examples of this phenomenon have been uncovered by Ed Husain, a former radicalised Muslim. Husain, who is now an author, political advisor, and Professor at the Walsh School of Foreign Service in Georgetown University, presented these findings in Among the Mosques: A Journey Across Muslim Britain, published by Bloomsbury in June 2021.

Husain shows how mosques in the UK are exerting control over Muslim-dominated areas such Bolton, Dewsbury, Bradford, Birmingham, and Blackburn. In these areas, a Taliban-like lifestyle is widely followed by orthodox Muslims. According to Husain, nearly 50 per cent of the mosques in the UK are controlled by the Deobandis – the radical Islamist sect which has inspired and created terror organisations such as the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Concerns about the radicalisation taking place in certain British mosques and madrassas have been raised in the past. But because there is such sensitivity around multiculturalism and relations between Muslims and the rest of British society, these concerns have often been overlooked or dismissed. More moderate or pluralist Muslims, such as Qanta Ahmed, have found themselves being criticised for ‘speak[ing] up against political Islam’ by organisations such as the Muslim Council of Britain, which Ahmed describes as ‘highly politicised’.

Back in 2015, David Cameron, then Prime Minister, announced a crackdown on madrassas attached to mosques in a speech to the annual Conservative party conference. According to a report in the Guardian, Cameron claimed that ‘pupils in some madrasas were taught not to mix with children from other religions, were beaten, and fed conspiracy theories about Jewish people.’

Cameron’s announcement prompted outrage among so-called representatives of the Muslim communities. Sheikh Ibrahim Mogra of the Crown Hills madrassa in Leicester, for example, said that the proposal to register madrassas and require them to be inspected by Ofsted would be ‘seen as once again picking on the Muslim community because of the actions of the few,’ according to the Guardian.

Extremist ideologies have not gone away. In 2021, the Manchester Arena Inquiry held an evidence session into the conduct of Didsbury Mosque, which had been attended by Salman Abedi, the Manchester Arena bomber responsible for the deaths of twenty-two and the injury of many more on 22 May 2017. The chairman of Didsbury Mosque, Fawzi Haffar, ‘denied that the mosque…had issues with extremism’, according to a National Secular Society report.

However, in a statement issued by their solicitors, the families of the victims reproached Haffar for his ‘complacency’, responding that, ‘Whilst there is no evidence that Manchester Islamic Centre and Didsbury Mosque played a direct role in radicalising Salman Abedi, it is clear that they failed in the years before the bombing to take adequate steps to challenge extremist ideology.’

As reported on the BBC, the same inquiry was also informed that a ‘significant’ amount of extremist material supporting the Islamic State was found in the possession of Salman Abedi’s elder brother, Ismail, when he was a teacher at Didsbury Mosque, ‘including music encouraging suicide missions.’ A former imam, Mohammed El-Saeiti, had given a ‘sermon speaking out against terrorism and Islamic extremism at the mosque’ while Salman Abedi was there, according to the Manchester Evening News. He subsequently ‘received death threats on social media over his address.’ His evidence was disputed by the mosque.

The glorification of jihad through religious sermons as a way of inciting gullible young people to violence remains a matter of concern not just in the UK but across Europe. In France, for instance, three mosques were recently shut for varying periods because of charges including the spreading of Islamist propaganda and anti-Semitic remarks. In late 2021 the interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, also announced a crackdown on 76 mosques suspected of being ‘breeding grounds of terrorism.’

In Austria, after an Islamist killed four people in a deadly attack in Vienna in 2020, the authorities have been taking steps to fight ‘political Islam’. Some have criticised these as likely to marginalise Muslim civil society: as with Prevent, finding an approach that will gain general acceptance is fiendishly difficult.  

Religious beliefs can be a force for good or bad. On the bad side, they can be used to brainwash vulnerable people and drag them down to the path of violence in the name of defending their faith.

What is urgently needed in Britain in 2022 is an honest and transparent debate among public authorities, the media and other relevant parties about Islamist radicalism and how best to counter it. Adopting a strategy of appeasement to avoid seemingly unpleasant situations only encourages extremists to continue spreading their invidious ideology. It also increases the possibility of more situations like the Batley Grammar case, in which an RS teacher was suspended by his school, in response to pressure from an angry mob of protesters, for showing ‘blasphemous’ cartoons in the classroom.

In the long term, appeasing religious extremists will not lead to greater harmony and integration between people of different cultures and beliefs, who have to learn to live together somehow. This is because Islamist extremism, just like far right nationalism, seeks to drive a wedge between different ‘identities’ and exploit people’s fear of reprisal.

The problem is that failing to intervene in minority communities, including Britain’s Muslim communities, out of a mistaken notion of tolerance, will harm those who most need protecting – the young and the vulnerable.

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The post The radicalisation of young Muslims in the UK: an ongoing problem? appeared first on The Freethinker.

Maryam’s uncompromising stance, such as in her topless protests, and her refusal to censor her views, have caused controversy in some quarters. For instance, in 2020, she spoke at Warwick University for a TedX event. Her title was ‘Creativity in Protesting Religious Fundamentalism’. TedX waited a year before publishing a video of her talk, but refused to publish her slides and accompanied the video with a trigger warning.

I met Maryam in the office of the CEMB, King’s Cross, on 23rd February 2022. She spoke to me about the CEMB and its work, the experience of not ‘belonging’ in the UK, and why the radical Left seems to have allied itself with the Islamist movement. Other topics included the Iranian tradition of political protest, the relationship between religious freedom and freedom of speech, and more. Below are extracts from our interview, edited for clarity and concision, with occasional glosses inserted in square brackets.
~ Emma Park

Let’s start with the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain. How large an operation is it?
It started quite small in the sense that very few people were willing to call themselves ex-Muslims or to come out publicly and do that. The idea behind the organisation was that having people come out publicly normalises it and breaks the taboo, and makes it accessible to all. When there’s all this discrimination and pressure and intimidation, coming out publicly is a way of resisting the status quo and trying to change things.
When we started it [in 2007], people were saying that we were being absurd, there are no ex-Muslims around, and we were trying to get attention. It was hard initially. For example, at our first conference at Conway Hall, there were very few ex-Muslims there, and those that were there were hiding on the balcony, up where they couldn’t be photographed or filmed. People were like, “You’re talking about ex-Muslims – where are they?” Now, fifteen years on, things have changed incredibly in favour of this visibility and presence, and there are many ex-Muslims.
So I would say, yes, we are a small, a relatively new movement. We are not as established as other freethought, atheist, humanist, secularist movements in Europe and Britain, partly because a lot of us are refugees, new migrants, and we don’t have access to the same resources. CEMB is largely a volunteer-run organisation. All our funding comes from individual donors primarily, but people have been hit hard by Covid, so it’s really gone down, to the point where we are not sure we’ll be able to carry on next year. But somehow people are helping every time we’re about to close down. Our costs are quite minimal. It’s the rent, the website, publicity, stipend, and volunteer support and assistance. I’m the only paid person, on £10,000 a year.

Where would you put yourself on the political spectrum?
I’m a communist – so basically as far left as it goes. But not a communist that supports the Soviet Union or China or all of these so-called communist groups out there. I’m on the left spectrum of pro-refugees, pro-open borders, pro freedom of expression. And also anti-racist and against bigotry against Muslims, or placing collective blame on all Muslims because of the religious right amongst them.

In your view, is bigotry against Muslims a form of racism, or is it analogous to racism?
I think it’s a form of racism. Of course there are all different races of Muslims. We all hear, whenever there is any criticism of ‘bigotry against Muslims’, they all say, well, Muslims are not a race, therefore we can’t be bigoted against Muslims, because there are also white Muslims, and so on. That’s the argument you often hear. But the reality is that it is seen as a brown religion, a black religion, a minority religion, and one that’s alien to Western societies.

What are the CEMB’s biggest achievements over the last fifteen years?
I think the greatest achievement has been to highlight the fact that there are non-believers in the so-called Muslim community. I think that’s an important thing to do, because very often, the Left that supports Islam and sees Islamism as a revolutionary or anti-imperialist force, also sees Muslims as homogenous, and therefore, if you criticise Islam, you’re seen to be attacking an entire community of people. And for the far Right, anyone who is a Muslim is bringing in a foreign ideology into the country, and they’re destroying Western civilisation and that sort of thing. So both Left and Right look at the Muslim community or Muslim society, so-called, as homogenous.

So they’re just generalising?
Yes, but what happens when you generalise about something is that you recognise those in power as its authentic representatives. Given the fact that we are living in a period of the rise of the [Islamist] religious Right, it’s they who are seen to be representatives and authentic Muslims, and therefore women who don’t wear the veil are viewed as westernised, or self-hating, and the veil is viewed as the authentic dress of those who come from a Muslim background. What the Left does is that it maintains the demands of the religious Right on the population. So the Left says you shouldn’t blaspheme, because it hurts sentiments, even if it’s people from Muslim backgrounds doing it.
So I think that achievement is something that’s quite valuable, and over the long run I think we will recognise it as such: the fact that we have shown that Muslim communities and societies are not homogenous. I think this is key in humanising people and in making them see that any given community or society is not reactionary, or progressive, all at the same time. There are differences of politics and opinions. People can see that in Britain, they can’t see it when it comes to the Muslim community.

How far have the radical Left got into bed with the Islamist religious Right?
This is something that I’ve had to deal with a lot: progressive student unions barring me from speaking, and saying I’m inflammatory and inciting hatred against Muslims. I think it comes from a good place, in general, because it’s the attitude that you want to not tolerate racism where you see it. I think that’s a good thing. But conflating criticism of the Islamic Right with an attack on Muslims in general is very problematic.
And not everything comes from a good place. There is also political self-interest for some of these groups: they are anti-imperialist, and they see Islamism as an anti-imperialist force, and therefore they side with it versus US or UK imperialism.

Is Islamism anti-imperialist?
It is an imperialist force in and of itself. It has eradicated cultures and art, music, dress – it’s destroyed so much in all of the countries that it has gained access to and power over. The Left that supports it doesn’t see that it’s a counter-revolutionary force. It has eradicated Left and working-class movements in those societies.

How did the Iranian revolution of 1979 affect you?
I was born in 1966. When the Islamic regime was established in 1980 after the revolution, we left the country. We didn’t all leave together, because we couldn’t. My mum brought me to India to go to school, because they shut the schools down in Iran, and then my dad told her not to come back, so we stayed, and then my dad joined us later. We came to the UK in 1982, but we weren’t allowed to stay here, so we went to the US in 1983. I came back to the UK in 2000. My family is still in the US.

What made you move to the UK?
To be closer to Iran and my political party, which used to be the Worker-Communist Party. I left it a few years ago. Basically, I just got fed up.

Are you affiliated to any political party now?
No.

What was it like growing up in Iran before the revolution?
The Shah’s regime was a dictatorship, and the revolution was against this. There was a period when there was a lot of freedom, before the Islamic regime took complete power, which it did by massacring lots of people. I went to a mixed school, I wasn’t veiled, my family’s quite secular. Religion wasn’t really an issue for me. We didn’t fast during Ramadan. Some people in our family did, some didn’t. My grandmother sometimes wore the veil, sometimes didn’t. The first time I came across in-your-face religion was when the Islamic regime took over.

Did you grow up as a believing Muslim?
I was born a Muslim, the way people are out of no choice of their own, because of where you’re born. My father had a very strict Muslim upbringing. He still doesn’t eat pork, drink or gamble, and my grandfather was a cleric. My last name, Namazie, means ‘prayer’. But my father never required us to pray, to wear the veil, so I never felt that I was less because I was a girl. It’s also my family’s background. My mum is from Nepal. She was Christian, and she converted to Islam to marry my dad. All of my aunts and uncles from Iran, they’ve married Indians, Iranians, different types of people, so we’ve got quite a mixed family. Some prayed, some didn’t. I think it was like that in quite a lot of countries in the Middle East at that time. It was much more relaxed, and now it’s much more forced. Before, you could eat in front of someone who was fasting. Now, out of respect, you’re not supposed to. What happens with the religious Right is that it changes the demarcation line, makes it stricter and more difficult for people to pick and choose as they want.

Would you be able to go back to Iran now?
No. I’ve had threats from the Iranian government, and also – it’s a long story. There is the possibility of being kidnapped. [Compare the alleged plot against the Iranian-born journalist Masih Alinejad.]

In terms of your identity, how do you see yourself?
I always believe that you are from where you live and that home is where you work and struggle. But the older I get, the more I miss Iran. It’s very strange, I can’t explain it – it’s very nostalgic and emotional.

How did you become an ex-Muslim?
I became an atheist many years ago, I don’t remember exactly when. It was gradual, for sure. By university I was an atheist. I never called myself ex-Muslim, I don’t even like the term. It’s just an idea that came up about being able to promote the idea that there is freethought and freethinkers amongst Muslims.

How many people would you estimate are ex-Muslims around the world?
We don’t really know the scale of it, but I do think that every family has an ex-Muslim. I think it’s much stronger where Islam is in power. You don’t see it as much because of the lack of freedom to express yourself. But if people said in the UK what they say in Iran about Islam, it would be considered very Islamophobic. One of the trending hashtags in Iran is #IShitOnIslam. Imagine having that here – it would be considered so inappropriate. That rage… You can see even from the response of government officials. The Egyptian government set up a partnership with the Ministry of Youth and Sports to combat atheism. Saudi Arabia considers atheism a form of terrorism. When Deeyah Khan did her documentary about us [Exposure: Islam’s Non-Believers, 2016], there were texts being sent to Muslims in Britain, warning them not to let their children see the film. Atheism is a real threat to these states.

How connected are the different Islamist movements in different countries around the world, including the UK?
They have their rivalries. There are some who are more supportive of Assad and the Islamic regime, or pro-Saudi, or the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. There are divisions, in the same way that you have far Right groups in the West that have differences of opinion and divisions. But they are one movement, because despite the differences, they fundamentally want very much the same thing.

What do they want?
They are nostalgic for some golden age of Islam. They want a Caliphate and sharia law, they want the ideal Islamic state as was the case when Mohammed was alive. What that means to them is the idea that doubt and freethought cannot be allowed. Women need to know their place in society. In Britain, they will say, we’re not for the execution of apostates, but they are for it in an ideal Islamic state. There’s a lot of doublespeak and propaganda to dupe people into thinking that they’re the nice version in Britain.

How strong is the Islamist movement in Britain today?
Britain is one of its strongholds. In a country where they’re not in state power, Britain is one of those countries where they are well-established. If we look at Islamists who have got access to positions of power in the UK, and if you look at the whole idea of sharia law, how we have so many sharia courts in this country, and despite various Parliamentary groups looking into this issue, there has never been a decision made on it. The government is always justifying it as people’s choice of religion, whereas it’s something very different and very sinister – it’s part of the political wing of the Islamist movement.

Roughly how many sharia courts are there in the UK at present?
There’s no set number, because they’re not registered. Not that I think they should be registered – it would be like registering FGM clinics. In some reports there have been up to a hundred. A lot of them are ad hoc, in mosques. It’s not like a registered court, where you would know the exact number. Sharia courts were only established in this country in the mid-80s. It goes back to our argument that it’s part of the religious Right movement. There were Muslims before in this country, none of them needed to go to sharia courts, they did not have to go.

Not being a Muslim in terms of your religious beliefs, how do you see your Iranian side?
For me, it’s the protest and the resistance. That makes me proudest to be Iranian. I think it’s a continuation of the original Iranian revolution, that was never allowed to achieve its goals. Look at the French revolution. It happened so long ago, but we still feel the effects of it today, when we talk about laïcité, or secularism in the proper sense, not in the wishy-washy British sense. So I think the revolution and its politicisation of society in Iran, to the extent that a majority of people were born under an Islamic regime, and are fighting it tooth and nail. I see that as a really proud history, and one that I am a part of.

Do you have any favourite Iranian authors?
I’m going to sound like a party hack, I’m not in the Worker Communist Party any more, but – the leader of that, Mansoor Hekmat, I became a communist because of him. I find his writing so human, and seeing the world in such a fundamental way. But there are also many great poets in Iran. There’s Ahmad Shamlou, who was very critical of the state, or a woman poet, Forough Farrokhzad, who was such a taboo-breaker.

Is there a long history in Iran of criticising the state?
Yes, definitely. And also a history of freethought. There is Sadegh Hedayat, he’s a well-known writer who is an atheist, very critical of religion. Also there’s a very funny character, it’s called Molla Nasreddin, which is famous in Iran, but also in Azerbaijan and other countries, and it’s a bumbling clergyman – all the cartoons are making fun of religion and religious rule. For example, he’s following a group of donkeys and they’re going to Mecca, that sort of anti-clericalism, like in Charlie Hebdo.

Talking of Charlie Hebdo and laïcité, you mentioned that British secularism seems ‘wishy-washy’ by comparison to the French version. Would you be in favour of a more French approach over here?
I think that’s the only approach. Not to say that I am completely supportive of the French government, I don’t think it is completely promoting laïcité, I think there’s a lot of politics as well involved. But the idea of the state being incompetent, where it has no position on religion, it’s separate completely, is hugely important. It’s not enough to be neutral.

The idea that the state should not have any influence on politics?
Any influence, but also on the educational system, in public policy. Faith schools, for example, are not good for children.

Why should religion not have any influence on education or public policy?
Faith and education seem to be antithetical to each other. Education should promote freethought, doubt, questioning. Faith is the opposite of that. Is it the role of an educational system, to teach people to be submissive, or to learn about dogma? I think not. Also religion shouldn’t have a place, for example, in a court of law or when making public policy. Why should there be faith-based health services? We all bleed the same. It’s just a way of helping to bring the religious right more into the public space, whereas it shouldn’t really have any space. That’s different from being neutral. A state should be playing an active role in combating religion. Yes, you have the right to your religion, but that’s very different from having a right to a religious school, or a right to faith-based services. Those are separate things.

So, in your view, religious freedom should have certain limits?
Yes, because religion is a private matter. That’s where there’s a problem, that for some reason, it’s as if religious freedom means you can shove your religion down everybody’s throat. You may have the freedom to believe in what you want, but when it comes to the public space, it’s not about a personal right any more, it’s about a right that imposes on society. If we recognise it as a private belief, it becomes a lot easier to manage it.

Talking about Charlie Hebdo: how important are laughter and satire in promoting free speech?
Charlie Hebdo is really important not just for French society but for all of us. I spoke at the third anniversary of the attacks on Charlie Hebdo. I was the only English speaker there, because you know how it’s been over here in supporting them: if there have been any media reports on the attacks, they don’t show the cartoons, they don’t show any of the images – that’s the whole point, isn’t it? They [Charlie Hebdo] have been left alone to a large extent, because it is that same idea that criticising Islam is detrimental to Muslims. The argument I made was that what Charlie Hebdo does is important for freethinkers from Muslim backgrounds, because it’s opening the space up for us as well. It means a lot to Islam’s non-believers, as well as its benefits for free speech in European countries.

What is the best way in Britain of countering Islamist fundamentalism, while at the same time not promoting anti-Muslim bigotry?
Islamism is part of UK foreign and domestic policy. How can you have relations with the Saudi government, or with the Pakistani or Iranian government, and then address Islamism in your own country? It’s impossible, because in order to justify your relationship with those countries, you’ve justified Islamism, so it makes it easier for it to grow roots here as well.
At the same time, the idea that we foreigners are never British citizens… The jihadi bride, Shamima Begum – the fact that her citizenship can be taken away says a lot about how this government views the ‘other’ and minorities. Even if you are born here, because your parents happen to be from Bangladesh you’re never part of this country. This idea is that you belong to the Muslim umma [the worldwide Muslim community] – the Muslim community, a Muslim country, you’re never really British. It gives people the feeling that they don’t belong, and also, the government itself is saying ‘You don’t belong’ with this policy.

Since being in the UK, have you experienced racism yourself?
Yes. The first time I experienced it was when we left India in 1982. We went to Bournemouth, because my dad knew someone there. We were walking down the street, and some lady was saying something, and my mum was waving to her, she thought she was just saying hello, and she was like, “You fucking foreigners, get out of this country!” So that was the first time. Since 2000, it’s, you know, the looks you get if you’re talking in another language – on the train, for example. It’s constantly being told, if you disagree with anything the UK government says, “Why don’t you just go home?” You never belong.
Since I’ve got a son now, my idea was always, “You’re British, you were born here, you’re not Iranian.” This was always my propaganda to him. Then he’s grown up, and he’s faced so much racism at school [in London]. I feel very sorry for him, because it affects him quite a lot. I guess you then feel like, who are you? You don’t belong anywhere. I can see why people feel so disillusioned, that they’re not part of British society.

Have you had women in stricter Muslim communities telling you of some of the problems they have had, or what it’s like being in that very repressive sort of environment in the UK?
In the work I do with One Law for All, we have been talking to lots of women, gathering testimonies. We did quite a bit of that for the Parliamentary Committee that was going to be looking into sharia courts, that never did. [See Parliamentary discussion in May 2019.] It was before lockdown. We gathered testimonies, and I provided evidence to the Committee, and we did written submissions. In those situations, there are women who talk about the awful things that have happened to them in the sharia courts. People say, “The sharia courts are not stoning anyone to death, they’re not amputating them, they’re just dealing with marriage and divorce and child custody.” But those are pillars of women’s oppression in the family. So it trivialises what happens to women.

Is it difficult for these women to integrate with other British people, non-Muslims, or into wider society?
It is difficult, partly because some of the problems include the fact that men may have only married women in a nikah (an Islamic marriage), and so when there’s violence or divorce, the women don’t have any rights, because it was never a proper marriage – they were led to believe that it was. Plus if you’re looking at relationships where there’s coercion and violence, women are also kept very isolated. They may not even be able to speak the language, or have many friends outside, who the husband has given them permission to have relationships with. We’re talking about some of the most vulnerable people in society. They’re not protected and they’ve been left at the mercy of these sort of kangaroo courts.

What’s the attitude of the Left?
I think they think it’s people’s right to religion. But again, the counter-argument is, religion is a private matter.

We’ve talked of the way that racism and criticism of religion may be associated in some people’s minds. Is one of the problems with the approach of the Left that they’re so worried about racism that they are not able to tackle these issues of abuse within Muslim communities?
It’s not all the Left. Practically everyone I work with is on the Left. A lot of ex-Muslim groups are also Left-leaning, though there are other groups too – and a lot of the women’s groups I work with are Left-leaning. A lot of the protest movements that we’re seeing in Iran or Afghanistan, they are Left-leaning as well. There is a very vibrant Left that is opposed to both fundamentalism and racism.
But there is that section of the Left that hides behind the idea of racism and bigotry, as a way of saying, we’re so concerned about racism, we’re going to support sharia courts and so on. But they’re not very concerned with the racism that ex-Muslims face, for example. If freethinkers are killed, suddenly they’re not so vocal about human rights. They see Islamism as a revolutionary and anti-imperialist force. It’s an uncomfortable ally, but one that they want.

Where does the CEMB fit in with other freethought movements in the UK?
With the National Secular Society we have very good relations. They are also seen to be a bit more upfront with this criticism of religion. Most of our relationships in the UK are with minority and women’s groups, such as Southall Black Sisters, or Centre for Secular Space, or Iranian and Kurdish women’s rights organisations. I can’t think of any freethought groups we work with. I think we are seen to be a bit much, in the sense of going too far. But I think you need to go too far, especially with what they’re doing [in Islamism] – for goodness’ sake, they’re decapitating people.

Topless protests: why?
Topless protest is the most difficult thing I have ever done. The first time I did it, I didn’t get my period for six months, that’s how stressed I felt. I still feel really embarrassed when my parents come and see pictures of it. The reason I did it is because Aliaa Magda Elmahdy in Egypt did it in 2012. She was under a lot of attacks and pressure, and I said, “Let’s do something in support of her, let’s do a topless calendar.” And of course, suggesting it, I had to do it myself. The idea is that a woman’s body is considered to be the source of chaos and fitna [‘Islam. Unrest or rebellion, esp. against a rightful ruler,’ S.O.E.D.], that’s why we have to be veiled. Therefore owning your body and using it as a tool for protest and liberation is really a great way of challenging this view that a woman’s body is obscene and shouldn’t be seen and heard.

Final question: what limits should be set to free speech in the law?
I don’t think there should be any limits. Hate speech is really subjective. A lot of what I say is considered hate speech. Even saying that the Holocaust didn’t happen, let people say that ridiculous, absurd thing, and let others be able to challenge it. The best way to combat bad speech is with good speech. You have to have the freedom to be able to listen to various views and to be able to challenge them. We’re living in an age where speech is considered akin to causing physical harm. We need to push for a period where you could say anything, you could have very challenging conversations with one another, and manage to still be friends, families, and move on with your life without getting your head chopped off.
Of course there’s a difference between hate speech and inciting violence. That’s where we should be drawing the line. But otherwise, I think we should let people talk. And it would be good for people to learn to listen as well. You don’t have to agree with everything you hear – that’s fine. This whole thing of safe spaces, of things being so harmful that you can’t say it anywhere, is problematic for society. It feeds into this idea that that’s why they have to cut your head off, because you’ve upset them so much. I’m upset by a lot of things I hear, but nobody would say I have a right to go and attack someone physically.

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