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.

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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.

Introduction

Lawrence Krauss is a Canadian-American physicist and writer who has published prolifically, both for an academic audience and for the general public. His books include The Physics of Star Trek (1995), A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing (2012), The Greatest Story Ever Told—So Far: Why Are We Here? (2017), The Physics of Climate Change (2021), and, most recently, The Known Unknowns: The Unsolved Mysteries of the Cosmos (2023). He is currently president of The Origins Project Foundation and host of The Origins Podcast. For more information about these and other books by Krauss, see the relevant section of his website.

He is also known for championing science and rational thinking in public life and for a while was (in)famous as one of the so-called ‘New Atheists’ (on which more below). I recently spoke to him over Zoom to discuss his life, career, and opinions on religion and Critical Social Justice—or, more colloquially, ‘wokeism’.

Interview

Freethinker:  How did your interest in science start?

Lawrence Krauss: I got interested in science as a young person, for a variety of reasons. At least, I can tell you what I think they were. First, I think it is important that my mother wanted me to be a doctor and my brother to be a lawyer. She had convinced me doctors were scientists, so I got interested in science. Plus, a neighbour who was an engineer and his son helped me build a model of the atom, which impressed me.

But it was reading books by and about scientists that really got me interested. I remember reading Galileo and the Magic Numbers (1958) by Sidney Rosen. I think I still have the book somewhere. It impressed on me the idea of Galileo as a heroic figure fighting the forces of ignorance and discovering strange new worlds.

And then I continued to keep reading books by scientists—Richard Feynman, George Gamow, and others—and I had science teachers who encouraged me, which I think is important.

I still was not certain if I wanted to be a scientist per se, because I liked a lot of other areas. Probably the most significant course that I took in high school was a Canadian history course, by far the most intellectually demanding of any of the courses I took. Later on, I took a year out of university to work on a history book about the Communist Party of Canada during the Depression, using my access to the archives of Toronto. I still have that box of files and I will write that book at some point.

I originally thought I wanted to be a doctor, specifically a neurosurgeon. I did not know what a neuroscientist was. Neither of my parents finished high school and my mother in particular just wanted us to be professionals. So I thought of becoming a neurosurgeon. I did not even know what a neurologist was, but the brain interested me. I remember getting a subscription when I was a kid to Psychology Today. I also remember getting a subscription to the Time Life Books on science, so every month for two years I got a book on different parts of science.

Why did physics in particular end up attracting your interest?

For some reason, like, I think, for many young people, physics seemed sexier in the sense of dealing with fundamental questions, the big, deep questions of existence. And although I was interested in biology, that interest evaporated when I took a biology course in high school and dropped it within two weeks because it was just memorising parts of a frog and dissecting things. I just found it totally boring and not what I thought of as science. That was in the 1960s, before the great DNA discoveries of the 1950s had filtered through to the high school level, and so I did not get to experience the explosion of biology as a scientific discipline at the time. I have tried to make up and learn since then, and I think if I had been more aware at the time, I might have been seduced by it.

But by that time I was already in love with physics. I felt the allure of physics and physicists like Feynman and Einstein. A book that had a lot of influence on me was Sir James Jeans’s Physics and Philosophy (1942), which I read in high school. That got me interested in philosophy for a while, too, and it took me a while to grow out of that! Later on, I nearly took a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford in physics and philosophy. I am happy that I went to the United States to do my PhD in pure physics.

That is also one of the reasons why I write books. I am returning the favour to those scientists who got me turned on to science and I am always happy when I see young kids (and not-so-young kids) who tell me that my books inspired them to do science.

How did you get the gist of writing for the wider public rather than just for fellow professionals?

I also worked at a science museum when I was a kid. I did demonstrations at the Ontario Science Center, ten shows a day, and I think that was profoundly influential both in developing my ability to talk to the public about science and in figuring out what people were interested in. It also taught me how to improvise and it was useful for my lecturing in my later career.

Did you have a life goal in mind from early on, then?

No, I never had a plan that I was single-mindedly committed to. I know people like that, but I prefer to plant seeds and see which ones grow. Doing history was also influential in teaching me how to write. I have always been fairly political as well. I get angry at things and write about them. And I used to write op-eds when I was in graduate school, but they never got published. I think I sometimes write when I get angry or I need to get something off my chest.

But no, I never planned my career. Maybe because neither of my parents were academics, academia alone never seemed satisfying enough for me. I always wanted to reach out to the wider world in one way or another.

What was your first big break in writing?

At Harvard, I spoke at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science about dark matter, and then I wrote an article for Scientific American about it. That was my first bit of public writing.

How did you end up becoming a public figure rather than just an academic?

When I was at Harvard, a role model and former professor of mine, the Nobel Laureate Steve Weinberg (whose 1977 book The First Three Minutes had, incidentally been a big influence on me and shown me that a first-rate scientist could write for a wider audience) put me in touch with his publisher. I signed on to write a book. And that led to me writing for newspapers and speaking in public.

I later got involved in the fight against creationists trying to push their ideas in public schools, and I think that is where I got a national reputation for speaking out in defence of science. As an aside, that also revived my interest in biology, which I have always somewhat regretted not knowing more about. It is a fascinating area, in some ways probably more fascinating than physics now.

What are you most proud of contributing to science?

I always think that that is for others to judge. But I am proud of many of my contributions, maybe more proud than other people are. Looking back at my work, I am surprised at the breadth of topics I have worked on and the energy that I seem to have expended. It tires me out to look at it now!

But in terms of impact, I think I was one of the earliest people to appreciate the importance of astronomy, astrophysics, and cosmology for understanding fundamental physics. An emerging area called particle astrophysics did not really exist when I was a graduate student and I got involved in that as one of the very earliest people working on that area and promoting the intersection of these two areas. By the way, it is always dangerous to work at the intersection of two fields, because people in each field might feel that you are part of neither, and it is hard sometimes. I remember when I worked at Yale the department never fully appreciated what was happening because they were not aware of particle astrophysics when I was doing it.

I think I made a bunch of significant contributions relating to the nature of dark matter and ways to detect dark matter. I think if one thing stands out, though, it is the paper I wrote with Michael S. Turner in 1995 that first argued that there was dark energy in the universe, making up about 70 per cent of the universe, the discovery of which won a Nobel Prize for Saul Perlmutter, Brian Schmidt, and Adam Riess in 2011. That was one of the times that I realised something about the universe before anybody else did, and that was very satisfying. It was hard to convince myself that I was right at the time because I was unsure if the data were correct. I remember getting a lot of resistance until dark energy was discovered, and then everyone jumped on it immediately.

In your book ‘A Universe from Nothing’, you provide a model of how the universe came about without any divine input. What do you make of that book, which caused quite a stir, when you look back now? And how do you respond to criticisms from people who say that what you meant by ‘nothing’ was not truly ‘nothing’?

Obviously, I stand by what I wrote. In retrospect, there are some things I might try to explain more clearly. But I am pretty clear that the people who say I did not show how a universe can come from nothing have not really read the book. They might say I was just talking about empty space, which is not nothing, but I talk about far more than that. What one means by ‘nothing’ is a very subtle concept and we have changed our opinion of what nothing is, as I point out in the book.

And so what I am describing is ‘no universe’. The space and time in which we now exist did not exist. Now, was there a greater whole? Was it part of a multiverse at the time? Maybe. But that is not the important issue. The important issue is whether a universe like ours did not exist and then came into existence. And that is what I mean by ‘nothing’. It was not there, and then it was there. The space and the time that we inhabit and the particles that we are made of were not there. None of that existed. That is a pretty good definition of ‘nothing’, as far as I am concerned.

Now, there is a more subtle question. Did the laws of physics exist beforehand? Maybe, maybe not. But the point of my book was to show the amazing discoveries made by scientists demonstrating that empty space was not what we thought. And another point was to ask the question, ‘What would a universe that spontaneously emerged from nothing due to the laws of quantum gravity and survived for 13.8 billion years look like?’ It would look just like the universe in which we live! That is not a proof, but it is highly suggestive and fascinating to me.

It also, among other things, gets rid of the need for a creator, at least of our universe. That is not the reason I wrote the book, I wrote it to explain the science, but it does address that last nail in the coffin, if you like, that refuge of the scoundrels of religion. Darwin had done away with the design argument for life on Earth, and I think the arguments I gave in the book go a long way toward refuting the design argument for the universe. That is what Richard Dawkins talked about in his afterword to the book. I addressed the ‘god of the gaps’ argument, which had moved from biology to physics, and the question of why there is something rather than nothing, which seems to be a big question among religious people.

You were, of course, thought of as one of the figures of the so-called ‘New Atheism’. But you were critical of Richard Dawkins for the way he approached science and religion, and that is how you first met him. Is that correct?

I was one of the leading scientific ‘atheists’, but I never referred to myself that way, because it seems silly to describe oneself by what one does not believe. But yes, I was critical of Richard for his method. I thought that you could not convince people by telling them that they are stupid. I argued that one had to be a little more seductive and our dialogue continued. The first significant time Richard and I spent together was at a symposium called ‘Beyond Belief’ in California, and it was so productive and illuminating. We decided to write a dialogue on science communication and religion for Scientific American in 2007.

At that time I was a little more apologetic about religion. I became more combative for a while after seeing what religion was doing in the United States. I had a conversation with Sam Harris in which I argued that science cannot disprove the existence of God, but that you can show, for example, that the scriptures are inconsistent, and by not being forthright about that you are simply being fearful of offending people with the truth. It is quite simple: you can either accept science or believe that the Bible contains the truth about the natural world, but not both. Those perspectives are just fundamentally irreconcilable. Of course, plenty of religious people do not take the scriptures literally, and that is fine. Indeed, if you want to mesh your scientific and religious views, you have to take the holy texts allegorically.

For a moment there, I thought you were about to say something like Christopher Hitchens radicalised you.

Well, he did! Almost more than Richard did. His book God Is Not Great (2007) informed me of a lot of things about the sociology of religion that I was not aware of. I also learned a lot about the scriptures from Christopher. I had not realised how absolutely violent and vicious they were. They were just evil. I had read the Bible and the Quran when I was younger but I had not internalised them. I skipped over a lot of the crap. I probably learned more about the Bible from Christopher and Richard than anyone else. So, yes, Christopher radicalised me. Inspired by him, I called myself an anti-theist for a while, though now I call myself an apatheist.

So the New Atheist moment has passed?

I never liked that label. What was new about it? People have been not believing in God for thousands of years! Define ‘New Atheist’ for me.

I suppose I am referring more to the historical moment, of the mid 2000s until the early 2010s, when there was this very popular group of anti-religion people speaking up in public. That cultural moment has passed.

Yes, that cultural moment has gone, and for much the same reason as all movements disappear—though I do not like to consider myself as part of any movement—which is that they fragment, just like in Monty Python’s Life of Brian (1979), where you have the Judean People’s Front and the People’s Front of Judea. Incidentally, I think Life of Brian probably represents exactly what it was like at the time of Jesus, with all these messiahs going about.

The New Atheist movement, if you like, began to eat itself from within. It is a natural tendency for humans to become religious and dogmatic about things, and secular religion has taken over.

You are referring to Critical Social Justice, the term used by Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay to refer to what is more colloquially known as ‘wokeism’. If ‘wokeism’ is a dogmatic religion, how has it become so powerful and has it corrupted science?

That is a big question. I have written about it in various places, such as my Substack, so it would be better for readers to delve into those pieces. But essentially, wokeism or wokeness has made certain ideas sacred and therefore beyond criticism. Wokeism is a secular religion that makes assumptions without evidence and when those assumptions are questioned, you are subject to expulsion and considered a heretic. It has stifled and stymied the free and open enquiry and discussion that is central to academia in general and science in particular. I gave loads of examples of how wokeness has corrupted science in a seminar for the Stanford University Classical Liberalism Initiative.

Do you think this problem is getting better or worse?

I think it is getting worse. But we are at a threshold right now. With elements of the woke left cheering on actual violence against Israel, while otherwise absurdly insisting that words are violence, perhaps a new light will be thrown on them, and things might change. But it has certainly been getting worse up until this point.

To finish off, do you have any future projects in the works?

I am very excited about my Origins Project Foundation and my Origins Podcast. We have lots of great new things going on there. And I will keep writing about the issues that concern me. I am also turning now, I think, to writing a scientific memoir, which is a whole new experience for me. I am excited about that, but I also feel some trepidation. It will describe the many amazing people I have interacted with both within and outside of science as well as my own experiences within academia and outside of it, some good, some bad, that I think will be of public interest.

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On Krauss’s most recent book, see the review and interview of Krauss by assistant editor Daniel James Sharp in ‘Merion West‘.

On biology, see further:

‘An animal is a description of ancient worlds’ – interview with Richard Dawkins

On ‘New Atheism’, see further:

‘How three media revolutions transformed the history of atheism’, by Nathan G. Alexander

‘Christopher Hitchens and the long afterlife of Thomas Paine’, by Daniel James Sharp

On science versus religion, see further:

‘Can science threaten religious belief?’, by Stephen Law

On satire of religion, see further:

‘On trial for blasphemy: the Freethinker’s first editor and offensive cartoons’, by Bob Forder

‘Religious Privilege 2 : 0 Pastafarians’, by Niko Alm

‘The need to rekindle irreverence for Islam in Muslim thought’, by Kunwar Khuldune Shahid

On ‘wokeism’, see further:

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

‘When the chips are down, the philosophers turn out to have been bluffing’ – interview with Alex Byrne

On the left, Islamists, and Gaza, see further:

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

The post ‘We are at a threshold right now’: Lawrence Krauss on science, atheism, religion, and the crisis of ‘wokeism’ in science appeared first on The Freethinker.

Introduction

On 25 November, 2023, at the historic Conway Hall in London, I met Graham Smith, the CEO of the anti-monarchy campaigning group Republic—an organisation whose origin can be traced back through the pages of The Freethinker. Read more about that connection in ‘The Freethinker and early republicanism’. See also ‘Bring on the British republic’ for my review of Smith’s book Abolish the Monarchy: Why We Should and How We Will.

Smith was the guest speaker at the National Secular Society’s Members’ Day at Conway Hall, and I managed to talk to him in the foyer café before he went off to give his very well-received talk on the connections between monarchy and religion, and between secularism and republicanism. Below is an edited transcript of our short but illuminating conversation.

Interview

Freethinker: At the coronation of Charles III, you and several other anti-monarchy protesters were arrested [see links above for more]. Could you give us an update on how the case is going?

Graham Smith: There are no major updates. It has gone off to a judge for an application for judicial review. The assumption is that we will be granted the judicial review and then we will see what happens after that.

What are the historical links between secularism and republicanism?

If you look historically, you will very often see intellectual links between those arguing against the domination of established churches and those who opposed monarchy. There is an old quote, whose origin I cannot remember right now: ‘Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.’ [These are, in fact, the words of the 18^th-century Enlightenment philosopher Denis Diderot.]

This is not something that I would condone! But the sentiment is that these things are very much linked and so the opposition to them is linked and always has been. And certainly, the National Secular Society and Republic have quite a lot of overlap in terms of our interests and members and so on, even though we have not really worked together. I think it is difficult to argue for a secular state without arguing for the abolition of the monarchy and vice versa.

Could you have a secular monarchy? 

No, I do not think you can. You can have a non-secular republic—in Ireland, God gets a mention in the constitution, and for many years the Irish constitution gave a privileged position to the Catholic Church. But I do not think that makes intellectual sense. You also have disestablishment in monarchies like Sweden and Norway, but that is a bit of a halfway house because the monarch is still a member of one church and is very much a churchgoer, and thus that church is privileged through that relationship even if it is technically, by law, not established. I do not think you are going to get a secular state without getting rid of the monarchy. [For an alternative view, see Emma Park’s interview with Paul Scriven, a Liberal Democrat peer who introduced a disestablishment bill in the House of Lords on 6 December.]

Does one or the other—republicanism or secularism—have to come first?

It is hard to say. I think it may well be that the monarchy goes first because it is the bigger, more potent symbol of everything that has to change in Britain. I do not think there is the same appetite for disestablishment in the way that there is an appetite for abolishing the monarchy. It is interesting that over the last 25 years, we have seen a lot of pressure to get rid of the House of Lords, the monarchy, and the established church. Hopefully, the Lords will go in the next one or two years. And these three things are all connected.  I think we will see them all unravelling—one will go, then another, then another. Though in which order it will happen, who knows?

How was your anti-monarchy book received?

On the whole, it has gone down well. I got a couple of annoying reviews from monarchists, which is a good sign. One of the reasons I wrote it is because there is not enough literature about the monarchy and why it should be abolished. Most books about the royals are just inane nonsense.

Even though the history books talk about many of the monarchs being thugs and murderers, there is always this undertone—‘Oh, isn’t the monarchy so great and interesting? And don’t worry, they’re not like this anymore!’. But that history is one of the reasons we should get rid of them—not because they are still doing things like that, but because it is a celebration of that history, which is not a reason to celebrate.

Have you had any thoughtful reviews from monarchists?

Yes. Surprisingly, The Telegraph’s review was the most interesting. The reviewer described herself as a ‘soft monarchist’, which is a term I use in the book, and she really engaged with my arguments. She thought monarchists should be worried because there are lots of cracks in their armour and lots of weaknesses in their position, and they should be alert to that.

What is the strongest argument for the monarchy in your view? I have always thought it was the superficially convincing one made by, among others, George Orwell: that it is a check on political extremism because it diverts extreme emotion away from politicians. In other words, it prevents tyranny.

Yes. The fact that Orwell, a respected writer, made it, means that it is an argument that is taken seriously. Churchill said something similar—that if they had kept the Kaiser, Germany would not have had Hitler. But these claims are completely ahistorical. Two of the Axis powers were monarchies. The Italian king Victor Emmanuel III put Mussolini in power and sat there for 20 years and let him get on with it. And the Kaiser was keen to put his family back on the throne under or with Hitler. So, if anything, the Orwellian argument shows the weakness of monarchy.

And, of course, Emperor Hirohito was not just a monarch, but apparently a divine being.

Indeed! The problem is that that stifles critical thinking and it stifles opposition, and those things are very important if you want to avoid things like imperial conflicts.

How do you think Charles III is doing as king?

That is like asking how a chair is doing as a chair. It just sits there and is a chair, and he just sits there and is a king. He does not have to do anything. He just is. And people judge them [monarchs and royals] by their own standards, so if they go around waving and allowing their acolytes to say good things on their behalf, then that is judged to be fine, so long as there is not some huge scandal. The bar is set incredibly low.

But Charles is a man who is accused of exchanging honours for cash. He is accused of handling millions of pounds of cash from Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber al-Thani, a Qatari businessman and former Prime Minister of Qatar accused of having links with al-Qaeda. He is accused of lobbying behind the scenes for all sorts of things. He is not a good head of state. Anybody could be a good king because being a monarch is about biological descent alone, but to be a good head of state is to be someone who is principled, eloquent, accountable and accessible, and on all these scores Charles is dreadful.

In terms of religion, Charles was never going to be genuinely ecumenical or for all faiths, and certainly not for those who do not have a faith. The royals pay lip service to ecumenicism, and I think some people were really surprised by how much Charles doubled down on all the feudal religious nonsense during the coronation—but it was because he believed all that nonsense!

One of the problems is that you do not get to ask Charles questions directly and challenge him about these issues. So it is all about reading the tea leaves and believing people like Jonathan Dimbleby when it comes to the true beliefs of the royals.

Have you ever met Charles? Or been in the same room as him and tried to ask him a question?

I have been within shouting distance! I have been almost as close to him as I am to you now, calling out questions, but obviously, he just blanks me. That is the one thing the royals are good at, blanking people. They just blank people they do not want to acknowledge, including their own staff.

What would a British republic with a written constitution look like?

It would look like a modern, grown-up democracy where we would have a fully elected parliament. We would still have a prime minister but they would not have the same power, derived from the Crown, that they have now. We would have clearly defined limits to that power and these limits would be policed and monitored by an elected head of state. The head of state would be there to be our ambassador but also to guard our constitution. So a republic would just take all the nonsense out of it. And if we want pageantry and ceremony, we can do that. Other republics, like France and Greece, do it quite well.

Having a republic would ultimately mean that our constitution and our politics would be done in a serious, intelligent, accountable way.

What is the single, essential thing that makes the monarchy and our political or constitutional system rotten, in your view?

The fact that we still have the same system we had after the ‘Glorious Revolution’ of 1688-1689. All that has happened since then is that there have been compromises between those in Parliament and those in the Palace. There has never been a serious democratic evolution that shifts power to the people in this country. Instead, we have had the centralisation of power propped up and disguised by all the trappings of the monarchy—that is the big problem.

Is it anti-British to be anti-monarchy?

I would say it is very pro-British to be anti-monarchy. Being against anything bad is being in favour of where you live. One of the things that annoys me the most about monarchists is when they say that we would not be anything without the monarchy. I think that is the least patriotic thing you could say. To rubbish this amazing country of 65 million people by saying that it would not be much without this very, very tedious and ordinary family—that is a weird and unpatriotic thing to say.

And, of course, there is also the great British tradition of republicanism and radicalism, which is just as much a part of our patriotic heritage as the monarchy.

Yes. History is written by the victors, by those in power, and we do not get to hear about the radicals. And when we do hear about them, they are dismissed as fringe people, while everyone else is just getting on with their lives as serfs and plebs.

Yet the anti-slavery movement was one of the largest, if not the largest, working-class movements in British history. You do not hear about that. You only hear about William Wilberforce and the anti-slavery MPs.

We have a long history in this country of fighting against the things that monarchy represents, and we just have to continue until it is gone.

What is the future of British republicanism?

We will win. I think that the monarchy will come to an end. I think that people have realised in the last twelve months that that is quite likely. There is no longer this sense of an immovable object. I think that republicans will continue to see the polling shift in our favour. Support for the monarchy has dropped significantly over the years. Once support for the monarchy drops below 50 per cent, we will see things unravel in quite good order.

Would you care to venture a prediction as to when exactly the monarchy will go?

No. I suppose I would say that there is a reasonable chance that Prince William will become king, but I think the chance of his son George becoming king is quite small.

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Further reading on secularism and republicanism:

Image of the week: Charles Bradlaugh’s study after his death, by Walter Sickert, by Bob Forder

Introducing ‘Paine: A Fantastical Visual Biography’, by Polyp, by Paul Fitzgerald

Is all publicity good publicity? How the first editor of the Freethinker attracted the public’s attention, by Clare Stainthorp

Charles Bradlaugh and George Jacob Holyoake: their contrasting reputations as Secularists and Radicals, by Edward Royle

Freethought in the 21st century – interview of The Freethinker editor Emma Park by Christoph De Spiegeleer

Christopher Hitchens and the long afterlife of Thomas Paine, by Daniel James Sharp

The post ‘I do not think you are going to get a secular state without getting rid of the monarchy’: interview with Graham Smith appeared first on The Freethinker.

Introduction

Dr Taj Hargey is one of the most dynamic, outspoken and controversial figures in Islam today. He is a citizen both of the UK and South Africa, and divides his time between the two. In South Africa, he is president of the Cape Town Open Mosque, which he founded despite virulent opposition from local clergy. In the UK, he is imam of the liberal Oxford Islamic Congregation and provost of the Oxford Institute for British Islam. OIBI was founded in 2021; according to its website, its aim is the ‘full integration of the British Muslim community into the UK mainstream’. Its board includes liberal Muslims and non-Muslims, among them Steven Greer, the law academic accused of Islamophobia, and Hargey’s wife, Professor Jacqueline Woodman, an NHS consultant and Unitarian Christian.

Hargey was born in Cape Town during South African apartheid. His family are Muslims of slave descent (as he himself puts it) from Malaysia, Indonesia and Sri Lanka. He read History and Comparative Religion at the University of Durban. He then studied in Cairo and Leiden, before coming to Oxford, where he completed a DPhil on slavery in Islam at St Antony’s College. He then taught at universities in South Africa and the US before settling permanently in the UK in 2001.

I met Hargey at the White Horse pub in Headington, east Oxford, over lunch and a glass of water. In this interview, we discuss his interpretation of Islam, why he looks only to the Quran and not to later Islamic texts, and how he believes his interpretation is relevant to life in modern Britain. We also consider the tradition of free thought within Islam, the unholy alliance between the political left and Muslim fundamentalists in Britain, and Hargey’s plans for OIBI.

This interview was conducted before the outbreak of the present conflict in Israel and Palestine. Since then, Hargey asked to speak to me again, this time via Zoom, to outline his view of the conflict, and argue that the British mainstream media are unfairly biased in favour of Israel. This second interview is appended as the last section of the edited transcript below.

As always, writers and interviewees featured in the Freethinker are responsible for their own views. Our aim in publishing them is to open up the discussion, and thereby to foster, among people with different opinions, a culture of free, rational thought and shared humanity.

~ Emma Park, Editor

Interview

What is your view about the status of the Quran?

The Quran says that it is a revelation from the divine. The Quran that we have today, 1445 years after the Prophet’s death, is exactly the same as it was then. The evidence of early manuscripts dating from the early seventh century supports the claim that the Quran existed during the lifetime of Muhammad. Muslims are taught that he was a conduit, the channel for divine revelation. He was not the author or the architect of Islam’s sacred scripture. One proof that Muhammad was only a conduit is that he is only mentioned by name four times, and is often castigated. Now if you are the author of a document, and not just a vehicle for someone else, do you go about rebuking yourself?

I suppose the Christian fathers did.

Yes, but the Christian fathers did not claim to be Jesus, so that is different. In fact, in one set of Qur’anic verses, God confirms that the Quran is a revelation from the Lord of the world – and if you, Muhammad, tamper and distort these messages, I, God, will seize you by the right hand and sever your throat.

Does viewing the Quran as the word of God ultimately rely on an act of faith – on believing in God in the first place?

Yes. But for myself as a historian, the fact that there are no fundamental discrepancies between the manuscripts of the Quran over 1500 years is an indication that it has a celestial origin, because the basic message has remained untampered with. This message is that there is one God, one humanity, one destiny. We will all be held accountable for the mad, the bad and the sad things that all humans do. The Quran says explicitly that it is a guide for humanity and that it is both timely and timeless.

I firmly believe there is an afterlife because I do not think that my existence here could have enough purpose otherwise. If you have met, say, a deeply devout monk or nun, they have attained certain harmony in their lives that the rest of us do not have. Rather than capitalism and consumerism, this enslavement to which we are addicted, this enlightened nun or monk has achieved something better. They are no longer prisoners of the material world. That for me is indicative of genuine spirituality.

I suppose the humanist response to that would be that spirituality, or a sort of philosophical equivalent, can be found in contemplating the universe as it is.

I do not have any issue with humanists and secularists. What I am against is belligerent atheists and belligerent Muslims, intolerant Jews and intolerant humanists who believe that theirs is the only way. The Quran says that there is no compulsion in matters of religion. People should not be forced to believe something against their will. The Quran says that God alone is sovereign on the Day of Judgement.

You have spoken about the importance of the afterlife. How do you think non-believers will be treated there?

It is presumptuous of me to think that they will be burnt in fire. The atheist may not believe in God, but, like the believer, he also does not think he can go through life without accountability. God will be, I think, just and equitable with the atheist. Because if he is not, I do not want to believe in a Creator like that.

The Quran says that Muslims have a double duty: first, to promote unqualified monotheism; second, to relentlessly pursue universal justice and virtue. If people do unjust, wicked things, then in terms of Qur’anic Islam, I have to resist and oppose them.

That strikes me as a very individualistic approach.

Yes, but Islam is both individualistic and collective. For example, we pray daily alone. Once a week we go to the collective of the mosque. The individual soul matters. The Quran states repeatedly that no soul will bear the burden of another. In contrast, the Christian view of vicarious atonement – of inherited sin, because of Adam and Eve’s indiscretions – is illogical. But we individuals are also part of a collective. John Donne said it beautifully, that no man is an island.

What is the function of the collective?

It should help the have-nots. The Quran tells me and every observant Muslim, that every day you are tested to see if you will do good. Take, for example, the Ukrainian refugees, the starving Yemenis, the displaced Rohingya and what has happened in the civil war in Sudan – we cannot sit on the fence. We need to take a position and to help.

If there were in fact no God, would that matter to you?

Yes, it matters to me in the sense that I do not believe creation could have happened without the Creator.

Does that not raise the question, who created the Creator?

No, there is no need for that because the Creator is the ultimate source.

At the Freethinker, we have previously considered traditions of dissent and free thought in the Islamic world. From your perspective as a scholar of Islam, to what extent has there been room in the history of this religion for adopting different perspectives?

The Quran says repeatedly, Do you not understand? Can’t you see? Why don’t you use your reason? The Quran declares that people who do not want to think are worse than cattle. In early Islamic history, free thinking was not a Christian invention – it was a Muslim invention. A group called Mu’tazilah were the original free thinkers in Islam. They ruled for about 200 years until they were crushed by the orthodox. They believed that the Quran was for free thinking and the right to dissent and to be nonconformist. What I am doing is a new Mu’tazilism – it is not something that I have invented.

Scientific inquiry is a requirement. That is why, for example, I am so proud to be part of the assisted dying movement. I am the only imam involved – the only Muslim scholar and theologian. But I believe that, if I have incurable stage five cancer and I am suffering horrendous pain and causing distress to my loved ones, I should not subject them to six months, a year of more of the same.

You advocate an interpretation of the Quran which considers it both within its historical context and as timeless. Would you say that its ban on eating pork still needs be followed by Muslims today?

It has been proved that in hot climates, if you do not husband pork properly, there is a great deal of illness and disease associated with it. You could argue that, with modern animal husbandry, there is probably less. But the Quran says very clearly that the flesh of the pig is prohibited, nothing about its skin for example. I think that today this prohibition just has a historical legacy – and I am happy to admit that. But because of that heritage, it would be difficult to overturn it. Jews do not eat pork, Muslims do not eat it.

What about alcohol?

God is not against red wine. God is against drunkenness. For example, if the Muslim out there wants a glass of red wine or spirits and he is not inebriated, I do not think it is really wrong. But I do not drink alcohol myself.

And polygamy?

Polygamy is also misunderstood. In seventh-century Arabia, when Muhammad was alive, a woman was the possession, the chattel of the men in her life. First her father, then her brother, then her husband and son. After a major battle in which many men were killed, a temporary permission was given to Muslim men to marry up to four widows (not virgins). And the Quran also says you can only marry up to four provided you treat them equally. That was and remains a key caveat. Now, I do not know about you, but I do not think I can love two people equally and on the same level.

As for Muhammad, he married his first wife, who was 15 years older than him, at the age of 25, and remained monogamous with her until her death. After that, his later wives were result of tribal allegiances and political links – the Quran gave him a special dispensation. Altogether, the Islamic permission for men to marry more than one wife was a limited licence for specific circumstances. It was later hijacked and misinterpreted by the orthodox clergy to apply to all men, especially in countries like Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait. But the thrust of Islam is monogamy.

What about women’s hair and face coverings?

My intention is to bring Muslims back to the Quran, because the Quran repeatedly asserts that it is enough by itself. Regrettably, most Muslims have been conditioned to believe in supplementary sources: the Hadith, the Sharia and the fatwas. This toxic trio has undermined the purity and originality of the Quran. Take the word ‘hijab’. It is mentioned eight times in the Quran, but not once does it refer to a hair covering. The terms burka and niqab are nowhere to be found in Islam’s transcendent text. If a woman wants to cover her hair, I have no issue. However, if she says this is an Islamic requirement, then I will tackle that, because it is a blatant lie, a preposterous untruth.

Does food need to be halal?

Halal is the biggest racket in this country and other parts of the Islamic world. Muslim entrepreneurs claim that Muslims can only eat meat which is slaughtered in a certain manner in the name of God. But this orthodox interpretation is from the old country – it makes little sense in Britain today. I say, with all due respect, that God made this food and I thank the Lord for giving it to us. That is how I make it halal. All of these dietary ideas have to be revisited and restored to their pristine Quranic ethos.

Your interpretation of the Quran is much more liberal than many people’s, including that of many Muslims in Britain.

Yes, but my liberalism is derived purely from the Quran itself. I come from a fairly orthodox, Sunni traditionalist background and I was a committed young Muslim teenager. But as a student, I spent eleven years as a free thinker and spiritual wayfarer. I tried transcendental meditation, I attended Jewish Kabbalah, Sufi, Christian, Hindu, Sikh, Baha’i – all types of religious manifestations.

When I embarked on my research at Oxford, I discovered that the programmed version of Islam that I had been spoonfed as a child was codswallop: they had brought me up on populist Islam and not Quranic Islam. When I discovered that, it was like a light bulb going on in my head: I realised that I had been misled. In the Quran there is an emphasis on reflection, rationality and logic.

If Muslims in Britain would just go back to the Quran, jettison the Hadith, discard the Sharia and ignore the fatwas, we would have no extremism or fanaticism. We would just have mutual coexistence and peaceful harmony.

In Britain, how widespread is your interpretation of Islam?

It is a minority view at the moment. If we have to use rough percentages, I would say about 75 per cent are traditionalists, orthodox, fundamentalists, and intolerant of others. Then we have about 5 per cent who have left Islam, the ex-Muslims. Then we have about 15 to 20 per cent of people like me who are searching for the truth and want to see an Islam that is rooted in and relevant to this society: an allegiance to the Islamic faith stripped of cultural accretions and dogmatic traditions that themselves have no foundations in the Quran. An Islam that is not linked by an umbilical cord to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Egypt or Morocco, etc.

How do your British and Muslim identities relate to each other?

I have multiple identities. I am Muslim, British, South African, and there is no incompatibility or confusion. I choose to live in Britain because it allows me freedom. The type of forward-looking rational Islam that I am promoting – I cannot do it in Saudi Arabia, Iran or Pakistan. I can do it here freely. For that reason, I am very attached to Britain, and also for historical reasons. Britain was the colonial power in South Africa, the mother country. We looked up to the UK, to Shakespeare, the British Parliament, cricket, football, all these cultural, political and historical connections. I lived for 15 years in the United States, but I never felt at home there. Here in Britain, I feel at home.

You left America to settle in the UK not long before the 9/11 attacks. What impact did the attacks have on your life and your way of thinking?

Of course, I was shocked and stunned like everyone else. Nearly 3,000 people were killed. We did not know for sure at the time, but it was most likely that Muslims were responsible. And so, I went to the main mosque in Oxford. Two of my colleagues went to the other two smaller mosques. Guess what the imam said that Friday? Nothing. It was as though this catastrophe had never happened.

That was the trigger for me: I decided this had to change. That is when my colleagues and I started the Muslim Educational Centre of Oxford, a small religious organisation that would provide Friday prayers, offer an alternative narrative to other clergy, empower women, engage in interfaith dialogue and so forth. I had all those ideas before, but 9/11 was the trigger to do something concrete.

How big is the Muslim Educational Centre now?

We fluctuate. When there are communal events, there are around 50 or 70 people. They are free-thinkers like myself as well as a good number of non-Muslims. People of other and no faiths come because they want to hear a palatable, logical interpretation of Islam.

You are also the imam of the Oxford Islamic Congregation. How does one become an imam?

This is both the strength and the weakness of Islam. To become a Christian minister, you have to go through formal schooling. That can be a weakness, because the appointments are top-down. In Islam, any man – only a man, sadly – who is knowledgeable, virtuous and pious can become an imam. The weakness is that any Tom, Dick or Harry can also become one. The strength of Islam is that it allows a grassroots leadership to emerge. The weakness is that this grassroots leadership, if it is not properly self-regulated by the congregation, can lead to fanaticism and intolerance.

At the Open Mosque that I established in Cape Town, there are five foundational principles. First, we follow the Quran alone. Second, we believe in gender equality. In the mosque, there is only one door, through which both men and women enter; inside, men and women pray together, just separated by an invisible metre, so that worshippers can focus. Third, the Open Mosque is non-sectarian – we admit all denominations. Number four, we are intercultural, not multicultural – all different cultures can come together. The last feature that the Muslim clergy do not like in South Africa, is that we are independent. All are welcome, Muslim and non-Muslim.

We have been going for nine years now, and during that time, the clergy have sent their Muslim thugs four times to fire-bomb us. Once they sent a bunch of killers with AK-47 machine guns to shoot me – luckily, I was not there that evening. The community is quite small, about fifty people, mainly because the clergy has scared all the local Muslims and told them that if they attend the Open Mosque, they will not be given a formal Islamic burial ceremony.

In conservative Muslim families, how much pressure is there on individual members not to become more liberal?

The pressure is very great. For example, the women are told, if you do not cover your hair, you are no longer a Muslim, you are defying the prophet. Most Muslim men wear beards, because Muhammad did. But that was the fashion of his day, not mine. I will never wear a beard. Superficial symbols, external emblems like that do not make me a Muslim. I am a Muslim from within.

As you mentioned earlier, in Britain, about 75 per cent of the Muslim population are conservative. Do you think they are less integrated into British society than they were, say, twenty years ago, and if so, how can they become better integrated again?

Yes, I do think they are less integrated now. This situation has come about because most of the imams in British mosques are, on the whole, imported from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, India and the Middle East. Because they do not know about British society, the culture, the history of this country, they cannot provide adequate guidance and effective supervision to people living here. They give the solutions of the old country, but those will not work here. That is the biggest problem. The solution is to have a new generation of British-educated imams who have been taught to think liberally and to look to the Quran alone.

Is that something you are trying to do with the Oxford Institute of British Islam?

The aim of the Oxford Institute of British Islam is to promote and champion an Islam that is integrated, inclusive and indigenous to this society. Through publications, conferences, seminars, workshops, we are providing a valid alternative to fundamentalist Islam. We show that from the Quran, that their views regarding, for example, female genital mutilation, are nowhere mentioned in the Quran (they are mentioned in the Hadith), and should not be tolerated.

This idea of ‘us’ versus everyone else, perceived as ‘Kaffirs’ or non-believers: the Quran does not talk like that. The Quran says we should come to a common understanding and fight for common causes. Common causes for us now include climate change, homelessness, economic disparity, food banks – how we can provide and help those who are really at the bottom of the barrel.

Who is funding OIBI?

At the moment it is funded by our members, but none of them are wealthy. We are looking for rich Muslim donors. We do not want to take any money from abroad. We only want British money, preferably Muslim money, without strings attached.

How many members have you got at OIBI at the moment?

Right now, about 60. I think the first five years will be a hard slog. But we have a valid message for modern Muslims. The indoctrinated message that they have from fundamentalism is the message of yesterday. Our message is for today and tomorrow.

Would you agree that in recent years, fundamentalist Muslims often seem to have fallen in with hard left-wing progressives? If so, how has this come about?

The reason why we have this unholy alliance between the British Left and the Muslim fundamentalists is that the British Left have a guilt complex of colonialism, imperialism and white racism. They think they can make amends by kowtowing to identity politics. But they are actually shooting themselves in the foot, because when they support these fanatical Muslims, that does not advance the cause of the Left in this country, it only exposes them as useful idiots who are being exploited by the fundamentalists to advance their own reactionary agenda.

An argument sometimes made by the same left-wing progressives is that criticising cultural practices like wearing the veil should be avoided because it plays into the hands of Islamophobic right-wing bigots. What is your response to that argument?

First, people who say we should not be criticising the burka (facial masking) or the hijab (hair covering) might as well say that we should not criticise female genital mutilation. If they are happy to reject FGM, why are they so keen to avoid criticising another cultural practice – wearing the burka or hijab – when it can also cause harm? The British Left has been seduced and brainwashed by the fundamentalists into thinking that the hijab, the niqab, the burka are all intrinsic to Islam. No, they are essentially cultural practices and have nothing to do with Qur’anic Islam.

On the topic of Islamophobia, the Muslim Council of Britain and the All Party Parliamentary group on British Muslims have defined this concept as follows: ‘Islamophobia is rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness.’ What is your view of this definition?

I do not think that Islamophobia is based in racism. Muslims come from all races. There are white Muslims too. Hostility against Muslims is not based on race. It is based on a feeling of bigotry, hostility and antagonism that is related to religion rather than race. These bigots are against the Islamic faith. But Muslim stupidity can increase anti-Islamic sentiment – for instance, if organisations like the Muslim Council of Britain fail to acknowledge that some Muslims have been complicit in terrorism, promoting sharia law and other egregious things. Even if, individually, we have not been complicit in these crimes, we as a collective need to acknowledge that they have originated among Muslims.

The issue of free speech regularly crops up in instances of alleged Islamophobia – for example, in Steven Greer’s case. Would you say that there is a valid distinction to be drawn between criticising ideas like Islam or any religion, and criticising the people who practise it?

Everyone should have the right to criticise everyone and everything. That includes religion. I, as a Muslim, criticise Islam all the time. I am a Voltairist: I will defend to the death your right to say something, even when I do not agree with you. There is no contradiction in my being a Voltairist and being a Muslim. Islam talks about the fact of free speech: if there is no free speech, free will and free choice, how can there be a God that you can believe in? Because then you are being forced into believing – and Islam does not talk about coercion. In fact, the word ‘Islam’ has a double meaning. First it means ‘peace’ and second, ‘submission and surrender’ to the Creator. The word ‘Muslim’ simply means ‘he or she who has submitted to the divine’. Free expression is integral to Quranic Islam, but not to Hadith-Sharia Islam.

Is there such a thing as the sin of blasphemy?

The Quran says, People will blaspheme, but leave them alone, I (the Almighty) will deal with them. As to apostasy, the Quran says people of course will leave their faith. In the morning they will believe one thing and next day they will believe something else. The Quran declares time and again, leave the apostates, I, the Creator, will deal with them.

Do you think that the way that Muslims are presented in the media and in advertising is doing Islam a disservice?

Absolutely. For example, if you see any BBC publication involving a Muslim woman, she is wearing the hijab. Why is that the defining norm, when it is not a requirement of the Quran? It is a sort of unspoken propaganda. They are telling the audience that Muslims have a uniform – I have a beard, you have a hijab – and that makes us Muslim. How absurd!

Presumably you want everyone in Britain to understand these types of issues better.

Yes, that is why this is part of the remit of the Oxford Institute of British Islam. I believe that, if we start from the grassroots, no one will take any notice of us. For this reason, OIBI is more of a scholarly think tank, driving a rational and intellectual analysis of Qur’anic Islam.

And you are not yet affiliated to Oxford University?

No, we want to take our time but remain autonomous. We are currently negotiating with one or two colleges. We then hope to make institutional connections with the university. We want to be an alternative to the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies (OCIS), which cost around £100 million to build, and we want to provide something of real everyday practical use for Muslims in Britain.

[The 13 trustees listed on the OCIS website include HRH Prince Turki Al Faisal, HRH Sultan Nazrin Shah and other leading figures from Malaysia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Nigeria, Indonesia and Qatar, as well as four non-Muslims. Saudi Arabia is among its major funders. It is an independent institution, although its governance structure includes several Oxford academics, and it has close associations with various colleges and faculties – Ed.]

Are there any other projects you are working on at the moment?

I am now sort of retired, although I still supervise some graduate students. I want the Open Mosque in Cape Town and OIBI to provide a legacy of a pluralistic, pertinent and progressive Islam. If we succeed in getting this message across to some Muslims, it will be a great achievement. We want to appeal not only to the taxi drivers and supermarket workers, but also to the movers and shakers: the academics, scholars, lawyers, dentists, doctors, engineers, architects, teachers and technocrats.

• • • • • • • • • 

Addendum: Taj Hargey’s position on the Israel-Palestine conflict, and response to a few additional questions from the Freethinker

I want to make it crystal clear that this is not a fight between Islam and Judaism. It is not a fight between Muslims and Jews. It is a fight between European settler colonialism and legitimate Palestinian resistance. People in the UK, Muslims and others, need to understand this. This has nothing to do with Jews and Muslims or Islam and Judaism. It is to do with a colonial settler project that was funded and supported and initiated by Europeans, mainly out of collective guilt, especially after the Holocaust. Half a million people were recently out on the streets of London protesting this barbaric onslaught against Palestine, and the total disproportionate vengeance by a right wing, fascist Israeli government – that is what it is: Netanyahu and others are right wing, ultra-fascist zealots. They are in control of Israel and they are inflicting disproportionate vengeance.

I condemn unequivocally what Hamas did on 7th October. There are no ifs and buts about that. But the question is, how many people will be the right exchange rate? At the moment, twelve or thirteen thousand Palestinians from Gaza are dead. 1300 Jews are dead. So, the current ratio is one to ten. What will be the exchange rate in another week’s time, another month’s time? One to 20? When is this madness going to stop? And why is it all Western European countries in particular, who have got a real stain on their collective history of being anti-Semitic for 2000 years, culminating in the Holocaust, supporting the Zionists in Israel. In 1917, Arthur Balfour, the Foreign Secretary at the time, declared that Britain would favour the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. If you look at Belfour’s legacy in history and his background, he was a rabid anti-Semite. He felt that the way to deal with anti-Semitism in Britain was to get rid of the Jews altogether and send them to Palestine. That is an uncomfortable part of British colonial history. We do not want to know – we want to whitewash it.

These are the points that people really should understand. When you have the world’s largest open-air prison, which Gaza is and still remains, what are the occupied and oppressed supposed to do? I am not for one minute applauding or justifying or condoning what Hamas did. They did something totally brutal, inhuman, unconscionable. But the veneer has now been stripped from what Israel is doing. It presented itself all this time as a democratic, civilised society, but now we have these right wing, ultra-fascist Zionists ruling the roost. People in Britain, especially the right-wing press, fall over themselves to accommodate Zionism. We must never tolerate a colonial project that ignores the indigenous inhabitants. We should accommodate Jews, yes. Accommodate Judaism, yes. But to say that Zionism and Judaism are inextricably linked and they are the same, or they are synonymous, is totally nonsensical.

Any scholar worthy of his or her salt should read two books on this issue, one by the Israeli historian Ilan Pappe, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, and the other by the Palestinian American historian, Rashid Khalidi, The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonial Conquest and Resistance.

Of course, Israel should exist. But it must not exist on the basis of confiscated, stolen, expropriated and annexed lands.

In your view, what is the best way of resolving the present conflict?

I think initially there should be a two-state solution. But the ultimate goal should be a one-state solution, a democratic state where everyone has equal rights.

Should that be a state of Palestine or Israel?

No, it should be a bi-national state – both of them. I think we will have to go through a preliminary phase first, which is to have this two-state solution as an interim for 20-30 years, to build confidence and see what can be done in bringing these two peoples together.

What are the barriers to an ultimate one-state solution? Do you think it is realistic that Muslims and Jews in such a fraught area will ever be able to live together in harmony?

Historically, Muslims and Jews lived together very amicably for the most part, until the introduction of this political ideology called ‘Zionism’ in the late nineteenth century. Zionism is an invention of secular atheist Jews that started in Europe. Its forefather was Theodor Herzl, an Austrian Jewish journalist.

On the other side, to what extent would you say that some Islamic regimes are responsible for stirring up anti-Semitic feeling in the Israel-Palestine area?

Arab nationalism will take any excuse to foment friction and tension. But the root cause of this conflict is not between Islam and Judaism, between Muslims and Jews, but between Zionist colonial settlers and the legitimate Palestinian resistance. That is the fight. And so, yes, there are going to be some regimes in the Arab world and elsewhere that will want to stoke it, but you cannot get away from the fact that this is a colonial enterprise. Israel would never have been able to exist without the unwavering support from European and Western powers.

Isn’t religious hatred also part of this conflict?

Islam is not anti-Jewish. It is against injustice and oppression regardless of background and belief.

Presumably you would want to distinguish between Hamas, the regime, and the Palestinians, just as you would want to distinguish between Netanyahu’s regime and the Israelis?

Yes. We have to be consistent here. My beef with the British establishment is that they are not consistent. If they were consistent, they would not be blindly supporting the Zionist Israelis. Consistency will lead to fairness and impartiality. But there is no fairness or impartiality from the British establishment or from the rulers and movers and shakers in this country. It is a reflex action to support the Zionists, because they cannot make the distinction between a Zionist and a Jew. And Israel had deliberately obfuscated this distinction.

The BBC has been criticised for not calling Hamas a terrorist organisation. In your view, is it a terrorist organisation?

One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. Margaret Thatcher called Nelson Mandela a terrorist. Why can’t we use neutral terms – why are we using one-sided terminology? In this context, Israel benefits from using that terminology, because you demonise the other. Hamas are all Sunni fascists, as far as I am concerned. But they think that all’s fair in love and war, because they are fighting what they perceive as oppression. Who are you or who am I to tell them how to fight?

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Further reading

A different view of the Israel-Palestine conflict

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

On the hijab

The hijab is the wrong symbol to represent women, by Khadija Khan

On Islam and the West

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

‘The best way to combat bad speech is with good speech’ – interview with Maryam Namazie

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

The post Britain’s liberal imam: Interview with Taj Hargey appeared first on The Freethinker.

From the Jesus and Mo series. First published 14th January 2015.

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The purpose of this article is to briefly discuss the absence of the concept of a deity in the Shona traditional religion or spiritual system. It will consider the Shona grammar, and argue that, to combat misinformation and religious dishonesty, religious scholars ought to focus less on the concept of a deity, and to stop assuming that belief in the existence of a deity is the essential characteristic of a religion or spiritual system.

This article adopts a humanist and secularist approach. It relies on evidence and critical discussion. It also supports the co-existence of people of different religious points of view and defends the rights of religious adherents to express themselves in relation to their supernatural beliefs, as long they do not cross certain lines, such as subjecting everyone to their beliefs in public spaces.

In the developing world, much remains for humanists to do to correct misconceptions by using facts and evidence to criticise longstanding error and myth. One such myth is the claim that there is a concept of a deity among Zimbabwe’s traditional religion or spiritual system, known as Shona.

According to the research I have been doing for the past three years, there is no deity in traditional Shona. I therefore prefer to call Shona a ‘spirituality system’, not a ‘religion’, because it is not organised like other religions. Instead, it is somehow based on heredity – people of the same totem practise spirituality together – and organised around an extended family as a binding force. The family is symbolised by totems at times, but the spiritual practice is not about worship like other religions. (A totem is any animal that is considered sacred by a particular family, and which serves as an emblem of that family.)

Some linguistic scholars have argued that Shona is a broad term that was used to connect a number of dialects during the Zimbabwean colonial era (1897-1980). The Shona people are a Bantu ethnic group native to Southern Africa, and primarily live in what is now Zimbabwe, as well as in Mozambique. They can be divided into five major clans. In this article I shall focus specifically on the spiritual systems of the Karanga group within the wider Shona people, among whom I am privileged to have been born and bred.

Someone might ask how it can be established that there was historically no concept of a deity among the Shona people who use the Karanga dialect. Fortunately or unfortunately, a term now has been invented which is a case of syncretism, or, put simply, a mixture of two religious/spirituality systems. The Karanga people had their own form of writing, which probably was not advanced and so died a natural death. It is therefore unknown to the general public and little-known even among linguists of present generation. 

It is, however, an established phenomenon that in many languages, when a means of writing is not available or disappears, the collective knowledge, wisdom, doctrines and teachings are often preserved in proverbs, idioms, riddles, and names of rivers, people, trees, mountains, chiefs and chiefdoms. So if a concept is important, it is likely to be easy to spot in a people’s language.

In Shona proverbs, idioms and so forth, however, the concept of a deity is clearly absent. In Shona today, a deity is referred to as Mwari, a concept and word which is absent in traditional Shona culture, and which was probably imported by missionaries in an effort to convert local people to Christianity.

A critical analysis of the Shona cosmology reveals that the highest being is mudzimu, which can be loosely translated into English as an ‘ancestral spirit’. There are a number of proverbs, idioms, riddles and grammatical components in the Karanga dialect which involve the concept of an ancestral spirit or spirits. Why the concept of ancestral spirit is so clear while the concept of a deity (Mwari) is absent is a million-dollar question. Religious advocates would, however, be wrong to claim that the concept of a deity existed in Karanga before the advent of foreign religions.

I discussed the absence of the word and concept of a deity in Shona grammar at a World Philosophy Day conference in November 2021 at Arrupe Jesuit University. Some people in response to my presentation argued that the concept of a deity is so essential that it would not have been used in constructing proverbs and idioms. Therefore, it could not be expected to be mentioned there. In response to this, I would argue that this might be true for the Jewish attitude to God in the Old Testament, whose name was too sacred to be written down, and was instead referred to by the declaration “I am who I am”, but was not necessarily true for Shona.

Moreover, the fact that language is evolutionary and flexible means that it is easy for it to absorb new concepts such as that of the (Christian) deity. Finally, since my research is relatively new, I challenge religious and linguistic scholars from different religions in Zimbabwe, who have done research on Shona traditional religion/spirituality, to have a discussion and engage with my findings.

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Suppose it were reported that three baby girls had bled to death following Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) in the UK.

Or that a whistleblower had reported that FGM was being carried out by British doctors, leaving girls ‘maimed for life’.

Or that a pharmacist had masqueraded as a girl’s mother in order to subject her to genital cutting but the judge had spared her prison, noting in mitigation that FGM ‘has great cultural and religious significance’ to her.

Readers would rightly be outraged by these incidents. Clearly, girls must be protected from parents who seek to surgically impose their religious or cultural views upon their daughters’ genitals. We naturally abhor these practices which violate bodily autonomy, provide no medical benefit, are rooted in misogyny and explicitly seek to constrain female sexuality.

But here’s the catch: horrors like those described above have actually happened, not to girls who have undergone FGM, but to boys, from circumcision.

Celian Noumbiwe, Angelo Ofori-Mintah, and Goodluck Caubergs were the baby boys who bled to death at the hands of their circumcisers between 2007 and 2012. Circumcision legally performed by British doctors is leaving boys ‘maimed for life’ according to the paediatric surgeon and whistleblower, Shiban Ahmed. Martina Obi-Uzom was the pharmacist entrusted with the care of an 11 month-old boy, only to have him circumcised against his parents’ wishes.

I do not write this article in the spirit of one-upmanship: I am not trying to instigate an ethical arms race between FGM and circumcision. Rather, I would like to persuade you that both practices are morally beyond the pale, and equally worthy of our disapprobation and contempt. In Finland last month, anti-FGM legislation that would have effectively treated FGM and circumcision as comparable practices stalled because a majority of lawmakers refused to accept them as comparable. This kind of failure is what happens when the two practices are treated as morally and legally distinct.

But perhaps there are important distinctions between FGM and circumcision that render them incomparable. After all, circumcision has much-vaunted health benefits. It is, surely, a safe and simple procedure that cannot in good conscience be compared to the barbarism of FGM. And FGM is steeped in patriarchal attitudes; the diminution of the female sexual experience is fundamental to its practice. Can the same be said for circumcision?

The first point can be dealt with quickly: there is not a single medical organisation worldwide that recommends the universal circumcision of newborn boys on health grounds. The much-cited 60% relative risk reduction in female-to-male HIV transmission for circumcised men sounds rather less impressive when converted to an absolute risk reduction of 1.3%. To explain: 1.18% of circumcised men across three trials became infected with HIV compared to 2.49% of controls. This can be reported either as an absolute risk reduction of 1.3% or a relative risk reduction of 60%. The fact is that, even when men are circumcised, condom use remains essential. In the US, where cultural circumcision is routine, HIV rates are higher than in the UK, where the practice remains relatively rare. And as for the so-called ‘hygiene’ argument that a circumcised penis is supposedly cleaner than one that is not, there really is a very simple solution: keep the penis clean by rinsing with water.

Let us turn now to a qualitative comparison of circumcision and FGM. Type 3 FGM, also known as infibulation, is the suturing shut of the vagina. It may also involve the removal of the clitoris. It is typically performed by medically untrained practitioners with non-sterilised equipment. Picture, by contrast, a male circumcision carried out by a doctor, in a hospital, under sterile conditions. Between the brutality of the former and the medicalisation of the latter there is, for the most part, no comparison.  

A second comparison, then: the Australian aboriginal practice of subincision, carried out under crude conditions, involves ‘slicing open the urethral passage on the underside of the penis from the scrotum to the glans, often affecting urination as well as sexual function’.  By contrast, picture a doctor, in a hospital, under sterile conditions, carrying out a form of FGM called clitoral nicking, which requires only the extraction of a single drop of blood. Again, for the most part, one of these procedures is incomparably more brutal than the other.

Clitoral nicking, however, is commonplace in Malaysia, where up to 99% of Muslim girls undergo FGM and a 2009 fatwa issued by the National Council of Islamic Religious Affairs deemed it obligatory. Ayan Hirsi Ali, an anti-FGM campaigner and herself a victim of FGM, said of the comparison: ‘I think male circumcision is worse than an incision [clitoral nicking] of the girl.’ In case you still have any doubts about the dangers of circumcision, consider the fact that four hundred South African boys died as a result of it between 2008 and 2014 and over half a million were hospitalised.

The point is this: there is a spectrum of invasiveness, harm and medicalisation in both FGM and male genital mutilation. The UK, however, rightly bans all forms of FGM under the Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003, which holds that ‘it is immaterial whether she [the girl in question] or any other person believes that the operation is required as a matter of custom or ritual.’ This includes those forms of FGM which, in the case of Re B and G [2015] , a British judge held were ‘less invasive’ than male circumcision. The judge also ruled that male circumcision constitutes ‘significant harm’ under the Children Act 1989.

Consider, then, the following proposition:

1. All forms of FGM are illegal in the UK
2. FGM is illegal because it is harmful
3. Some forms of FGM are less harmful than male circumcision
4. Therefore, male circumcision should be illegal

This is the irresistible legal and moral conclusion to which one is drawn. Unless, that is, you are willing to advocate for the legalisation of those forms of FGM which are less harmful than male circumcision.

In fact, that is exactly what the American Academy of Paediatrics briefly did in 2010: ‘the ritual nick [Type IV FGM] suggested by some paediatricians is not physically harmful and is much less extensive than routine newborn male genital cutting … It might be more effective if federal and state laws enabled pediatricians to reach out to families by offering a ritual nick as a possible compromise to avoid greater harm.’ While it is to the AAP’s eternal shame that they ever proposed legalising ‘less harmful’ forms of FGM, one must, at least, credit the internal consistency of their argument.

* * *

It is uncontroversial that FGM is practised, at least in part, to curb female sexuality. But what of male circumcision? The Sephardic Jewish philosopher Maimonides, considered one of the foremost Torah scholars of the Middle Ages, wrote of circumcision: ‘one of its objects is to limit sexual intercourse … for there is no doubt that circumcision weakens the power of sexual excitement.’ It was, he said, ‘a means for perfecting man’s moral shortcomings. The bodily injury caused to that organ is exactly that which is desired.’

Philo of Alexandria, the Hellenistic Jewish philosopher, concurred: ‘of all the delights which pleasure can afford, the association of man with woman is the most exquisite, it seemed good to the lawgivers to mutilate the organ which ministers to such connections.’ For the avoidance of doubt, both of these men were in favour of circumcision.

Perhaps less well known is that circumcision was also legitimised by the medical establishment of Victorian Britain. According to historian Ronald Hyam:[1] ‘Widely believed to dampen sexual desire, circumcision was seen positively as a means of both promoting chastity and physical health.’ ‘Spermatorrhea’ – an imagined pathology supposedly caused by loss of semen through any means other than marital sex – enjoyed widespread credence. Hence why circumcision, seen as a prophylaxis against masturbation, was an important treatment.

Naturally, these ideas also migrated across the pond. John Harvey Kellogg – of Cornflakes fame –  advocated a plain diet and universal neonatal circumcision as a ‘remedy’ to masturbation. In 1894, the Maryland Medical Journal even suggested circumcision as a ‘solution’ to the racist moral panic in America surrounding the possibility of black men attacking white women: ‘the legal enforcement of the circumcision among the negro race would effectually remedy the predisposition to raping inherent in this race.’

It is only since the sexual revolution of the 1960s and ’70s that proponents of circumcision have sought to downplay, rather than emphasise, its effects on male sexuality. But the evidence base for its harms is only growing. The NHS website includes ‘permanent reduction in sensation in the head of the penis, particularly during sex’ as a complication of circumcision. This should come as no surprise given that the foreskin is the most sensitive part of the penis to light touch and warmth. The adult male foreskin contains up to 20,000 erotogenic nerve endings and makes up to 50% of the motile skin of the penis. Circumcision leads to the keratinisation of the head of the penis, keratin being the tough structural protein which fingernails are made of, which in turn leads to desensitisation and diminished sexual pleasure.

Slowly but surely, however, the human rights community is waking up to the inconsistency of its treatment of male circumcision when compared with FGM. After all, Article 24(3) of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child explicitly enshrines the right to protection from harmful traditional practices. The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe has said that circumcision constitutes a ‘violation of the physical integrity of children.’ It is also opposed by the Royal Dutch Medical Association and the Danish Medical Association. In 2018,  Icelandic parliamentarian Silja Dögg Gunnarsdóttir proposed a ban on circumcision, arguing that ‘[e]very individual, it doesn’t matter what sex or how old… should be able to give informed consent for a procedure that is unnecessary, irreversible and can be harmful. His body, his choice.’ Despite Icelanders supporting the bill by a 13% margin, it was abandoned after lobbyists mischaracterised it as religious discrimination.

In its 2016 concluding observations on the UK, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child recommended that the government should ‘ensure that no one is subjected to unnecessary medical or surgical treatment during infancy or childhood, guarantee bodily integrity, autonomy and self-determination to children concerned.’ The Committee were referring to FGM and intersex surgery. If only they had the courage to take their recommendation to its logical conclusion, by applying it to circumcision as well.

[1] Quoted by Robert Darby in A Surgical Temptation: the demonization of the foreskin and the rise of circumcision in Britain, 2005: University of Chicago Press.

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Update, 26/3/23: Talk now available online here, courtesy of Central London Humanists.

Is Pastafarianism a parody or a religion? What is a ‘religion’ anyway? Can an internet movement originally intended as a joke be used to challenge the status quo of religious privilege in law and society around the world? And what happens when followers of the Flying Spaghetti Monster start taking their ‘faith’ seriously?

We have returned to these questions several times in the pages of the Freethinker. Editor Emma Park has also written on similar themes for the New Humanist and podcasted about them for the National Secular society.

On 16 March, Emma will be giving a talk organised by the Central London Humanists to explore these issues further.

Meeting details

Registration: Register on Meetup here.

Date: Thursday 16 March 2023

Time: 6.30pm – 8.30pm, followed by drinks at a nearby bar

Venue: Old Diorama Arts Centre, Regent’s Place, 201 Drummond St, London, NW1 3FE

Cost: £3.00

All profits to the National Literacy Trust.

More about the talk

Emma will look at the origins of the Pastafarian movement, the evolution and distinguishing characteristics of its ‘churches’ around the world, and some of the legal cases to reach the European Court of Human Rights and courts in the US, Australia and Canada.

She will also consider the ways in which the symbols of the movement – colander, pasta crown, pirate hat – have been used in protest in a variety of contexts and in countries from Russia to Austria, from Canada to Australia.

Bibliography of Pastafarianism

What is ‘religion’? Strasbourg and the Pastafarians again, by Frank Cranmer

Religious Privilege 2 : 0 Pastafarians, by Niko Alm

Flying spaghetti monsters, by Emma Park (New Humanist)

The secular religion of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, by Mienke de Wilde and Paul Cliteur

Judging the Flying Spaghetti Monster, by Derk Venema and Niko Alm

Pastafarianism and the meaning of religion, National Secular Society podcast with Derk Venema, Tony Meacham, and Tanya Watkins, Captain of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, Australia

Pastafarian Month at the Freethinker

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The post Pastafarianism: Parody or religion? Freethinker talk, now available online appeared first on The Freethinker.

One morning I found myself at a bus stop in the suburbs of East Belfast, feeling rather disconcerted. Next to me on the bench was a small leaflet which announced the love of Jesus, secured by an irregularly shaped pebble. It had been left there by an elderly man, now quietly trudging away down the street. After leaving, I had spent over a decade living in Scotland, statistically the least religious part of the British Isles. I had recently arrived back to work on an LGBT history project and found myself having to readjust to life in Northern Ireland.

It is hard to ignore the presence of Christianity here. It ranges from small signals of everyday piety and confessional identities to the frequent presence of religious signs in political discourse. A browse through a recent edition of a local newspaper in County Down brought me to the ‘religious matters’ page. One of its features was a redemption narrative of female transgression which had been contributed by a local reader. The story told of the ‘sin’ of an unmarried woman in the city and her subsequent conversion and joyful reunion with her family in the countryside; the article would not have been out of place in the 1950s. Some of the most egregious voices in Christianity shout the loudest. It would be hard, for instance, to avoid the homophobic ravings of fundamentalist preachers in Belfast city centre on a Saturday afternoon. A plethora of churches dot their way across town and country; those belonging to fringe Protestant churches are amongst the most conspicuous.

Yet the results of the 2021 census show that secularisation is gathering pace. Most commentary thus far has focused upon a key demographic shift. Catholics now outnumber Protestants for the first time, a development with profound political implications for a statelet which was designed to deliver a permanent Protestant electoral majority. The increasing Catholic population does not translate in a surge of enthusiasm for the Catholic Church. As in the Republic of Ireland, it is indicative of an ethnic identity which is ever further divorced from religious adherence.

Commentators have given less attention to another feature of the census: the increasing number of people in Northern Ireland who state that they do not have a religion. When they were asked what ‘religion, denomination or body’ they belonged to, 330,983 people ticked ‘none’ in response, compared with 183,164 in 2011. This represents an 80 per cent increase in the number of the non-religious in the space of a decade. Furthermore, there has been an increase in the number of people who report that they were not raised in a religion. According to the census, the total number of those who stated their upbringing was not religious rose from 6,600 in 2001 to 28,500 in 2022. The non-religious now comprise 17.4 per cent of the total population.

Protestant decline

Commentary on the census by David Marshall, Director of Census and Population Statistics at the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency, has emphasised that the changing religious demography of Northern Ireland has in part been driven by age structures. Analysis of the 2011 census demonstrated that the Catholic population was on average younger and that there was a higher number of births than deaths. The pattern was reversed for Protestants, with the overall Protestant population decreasing more rapidly than it was being renewed. The declining membership of the mainstream Protestant churches is therefore underpinned by an overall decrease in population for them to recruit from.

However, the census data for the decline of the major Protestant churches indicates a more complex story of secularisation and shifting political identities. Strikingly, the non-religious are now more numerous than adherents of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland. In the mid-twentieth century, membership of the Presbyterians surpassed that of any other Protestant church in Northern Ireland. In the early 2000s, the non-religious overtook the number of those who identified themselves with the Church of Ireland, an Anglican body which shares heritage and doctrine with the Church of England due to the legacy of English colonialism. The two major churches in Northern Ireland have experienced long-term decline since the 1960s. Back then, as the 2021 census again shows, the Presbyterian Church garnered the affections of around 30 per cent of the population and the Church of Ireland, 25 per cent. Only 11.5 per cent of the population now identify themselves with the Church of Ireland and 16.6 per cent with the Presbyterian Church in Ireland.

While it seems unlikely that all of those who say that they have ‘no religion’ were formerly associated with these two churches, it seems probable that the vast majority were. The decline of ‘national’ churches is a typical symptom of secularisation. These organisations once claimed the default adherence of large numbers of people, but as the social power of religion has diminished, the imperative has dwindled for individuals who are less religious to claim that they identify with a church.

Writing nearly twenty years ago, the sociologist John Brewer observed that the mainstream Protestant churches were suffering from declining participation and reductions in membership. Brewer concluded that patterns of personal religiosity were being affected by broader social changes, declining religious practice, liberalisation in beliefs and other attitudes and behaviour. Religion was retreating into the private sphere; yet nominal identification with Protestantism had remained high. To misquote Grace Davie, a sociologist of religion, this was ‘belonging without believing.’ Yet Brewer highlighted the defection and disenchantment of the youth, noting how the most popular affiliation amongst the young (aged 18-34) was ‘no religion.’ Since then, this trend has continued swiftly, and nominal identification is now eroding away. There has been some growth in the membership of minor Protestant churches and sects – often evangelical and fundamentalist – as well as a small increase in adherents of non-Christian religions. However, this is dwarfed by the decline of the major Protestant churches.

Secularisation and political change

The regional breakdown of the 2021 census results shows that some of the areas of Northern Ireland with the highest percentage of Protestants are also those with the highest percentage of the non-religious. The most irreligious area of the region is currently Ards and North Down, at 32.1 per cent, followed by Lisburn and Castlereagh at 25.3, Mid and East Antrim at 23.9 and Belfast at 23.8.

The secularisation of an ever-increasing proportion of the Protestant population has wrought changes to political as well as religious identities. As discussed in an article by Mary C. Murphy, the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland was formed in 1970. It aims to be a non-sectarian political grouping able to appeal to members of all communities. After failing to make a significant breakthrough for many years, it has grown apace in the last twenty. Alliance is a close relative of the Liberal Democrat Party. It combines economic centrism with an advocacy of socially liberal and reformist policies. Recent analysis by Christopher Raymond at Queen’s University Belfast shows a direct correlation between the growth of non-religion and electoral support for Alliance, with both increasing in tandem.

The rise of Alliance has been fuelled by younger and more middle-class ex-Protestant voters who are infuriated with the religiosity and social conservatism of the unionist parties – in particular, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP). The 2022 Northern Ireland Assembly election saw Alliance making gains, notably in Upper Bann, a predominantly rural area previously considered unpromising territory. Here, a twenty-four-year-old councillor, Eóin Tennyson, became the first openly gay Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) to be elected.

The marked increase in the number of the non-religious, recorded in the 2021 Northern Ireland census, reveals the emergence of a more secular society. The growth of non-religion has largely been at the expense of the main Protestant churches; the ranks of the non-religious have now surpassed those of the Presbyterian church, formerly the largest such grouping. Many of the non-religious can be surmised to be younger and likely to adhere to a more socially liberal worldview. Consequently, the statistical rise of non-religion has been accompanied by the increasing electoral fortunes of the Alliance Party, who have successfully capitalised on a growing demographic of people who are alienated by the traditionalism and social conservatism of the two main unionist parties. It seems likely that, as secularisation continues to progress in years to come, support for a more secular and socially liberal politics will increase in tandem.  

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