Asma Uddin2013-05-23T09:53:12-04:00Asma Uddinhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/author/index.php?author=asma-uddinCopyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Asma UddinGood old fashioned elbow grease.Murfreesboro Mosque: On Ramadan Eve, Muslims Fight For The Right To Celebratetag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.16881062012-07-19T18:50:28-04:002012-09-18T05:12:17-04:00Asma Uddinhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/asma-uddin/
Yesterday, The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty filed a request for a temporary restraining order on behalf of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro. Becket's brief requested that the Islamic Center be permitted to use its newly built mosque in time for Ramadan, the holiest month of the Islamic calendar, during which Muslims fast each day from dawn till sunset. Within a few hours of filing the brief, the judge granted the restraining order -- good news for Murfreesboro Muslims, who commence their Ramadan observations on Thursday.
The Islamic Center of Murfreesboro has been part of the Murfreesboro community for over 30 years. In 2010, the Islamic Center began building a new mosque to accommodate its growing congregation. Its efforts were met with a hostile reception by a small group of local residents, who filed suit in Rutherford County Chancery Court seeking a temporary restraining order to halt construction of the new mosque. Among other things, the suit made the baseless claim that the county's zoning law denied plaintiffs due process by failing "to provide a hearing to examine the multiple uses of the ICM site and the risk of actions promoting Jihad and terrorism."
But in a novel twist, the plaintiffs also made the claim that Islam, the world's second largest religion, is in fact, not a religion, and thus undeserving of First Amendment religious freedom protections.
The argument went like this: because Islam is not a religion but a political ideology and the mosque would be used for political not religious assembly, the mosque is not subject to the same zoning treatment as churches.
The move against the mosque is part of the larger anti-sharia movement in the state and across the nation, with a prominent leader of the movement, Frank Gaffney, introduced as an "Islam expert" at trial. The anti-sharia and anti-mosque protests culminated in numerous acts of anti-Muslim animus during the course of the mosque construction. For example, a large construction vehicle at the construction site was intentionally set on fire. There was even a bomb threat, which resulted in a federal indictment.
So the Muslim community found itself, on the eve of its most holy religious period, a collection of so-called political jihadis facing a violent and politically-oriented attack.
As a Muslim and Catholic, we stand together in denouncing the hostility towards this Muslim community and the effort to turn our court system into an accomplice. And while there is well-grounded concern in this nation about national security threats posed by terrorism, decades-old faithful communities seeking to celebrate their religious holidays in peace are the wrong target.
But most importantly, seeking to undermine the religious rights of a group through dirty hat tricks is something that should be cause for concern for all people of faith. Because when any group, be it private citizens or our own government, succeeds in redrawing the lines as to what constitutes a religion or religious activity for political motives, religious freedom in this nation regresses for all.
This was at root in the landmark Supreme Court case of Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC in which a small Lutheran Church in Michigan clung to its right to hire and fire employees based on core religious tenets, despite the governments' argument that a religious group should be treated no differently in employment matters than any other group. This would be a dramatic change to the posture of church state relations, essentially placing the government in the role of appointing and terminating ministers, and the argument was swiftly labeled as "amazing" and "shocking" by both wings of the highest Court.
It is also the issue at stake in the national struggle over the HHS mandate which in less than two weeks will begin requiring certain religious employers to violate their consciences and provide services in their healthcare plans which they find gravely immoral, simply because they are, by the government's standards, not religious enough.
The Murfreesboro mosque case exemplifies how the winds can blow when one group who cares little for the religious freedom of another takes action.
As a Muslim and a Catholic, we stood together behind Hosanna-Tabor and the essential role the ministerial exception plays in our legal system. We stood together against the HHS mandate, despite the narrative that opposition to the mandate constituted a "war on women." And we stand together now. Because no religion is an island. When the rights of one faith are abridged, the rights of all faiths are threatened. All faiths have the right to worship God in freedom and in peace, and with dignity.]]>The Complexity Of Muslim Identity, 10 Years After 9/11tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.9504602011-09-08T18:47:11-04:002011-11-08T05:12:02-05:00Asma Uddinhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/asma-uddin/
At the community level, there is a growing understanding of the sophistication and resolve of our enemy. A recent report released by the Center for American Progress, "Fear, Inc.: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America," highlights the source of over $42 million dollars of funding for Islamophobic initiatives since 9/11/01, as well as the multiple media enablers and political players involved in growing and amplifying such messages of hate against the Muslim community. And it's not just hateful messages without any on-the-ground ramifications -- as the report mentions, the Norwegian terrorist, Anders Breivik, who in July shot and killed 68 people at a youth camp in Oslo, was motivated by the need to protect his country from "Muslimization." Meanwhile, here in America, the fear-mongering has led to many states considering anti-Sharia bills and ballot measures. The citizens of some of these states have taken matters into their own hands, protesting the building of mosques and vandalizing Muslim religious property.
Given this well-oiled and highly active Islamophobia hate machine, many Muslim Americans feel a sense of urgency to take control of their narrative -- to fight back against caricatures of Sharia as a "legal-political-military" doctrine that threatens the fundamental rights of Americans, and explain its true meaning both academically and through personal action.
My personal attempt at translating this urgency into action is reflected through my work at altmuslimah.com, a web magazine I founded over two years ago to explore the inherent complexity of gender-and-Islam. The question of gender and, more particularly, Muslim women's rights, is a predominant one in the non-Muslim understanding -- or misunderstanding -- of Muslims. Well-known anti-Muslim activists, such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali, use it to portray Islam as backward and dangerous. "Women's rights" is used to limit the religious freedom of precisely the women such rhetoric purports to protect -- whether in the form of burqa bans across Europe or the push against sharia arbitration in the U.S. While there are some Muslim women who are subject to coercion, the general thrust of such measures is to tell Muslim women what is good for them; to rob them of their right to make that choice for themselves -- to speak for them, and not let them speak for themselves.
In my work at altmuslimah.com, I have fought against precisely this tendency to speak about Muslim women as passive objects needing external advocates. I have sought to create a forum that allows these women -- and the men who support them -- to speak up and tell their own stories. Whether they're about interracial and interfaith marriages, personal decisions to wear, not wear, or stop wearing the headscarf, or political commentaries on gender rights in America and abroad, each of these stories stems from a unique thought process and spiritual experience. The variety of views reflects the tremendous diversity and intellectual nuance of not just our writers but of all American Muslims.
These stories also reflect the very organic process of spiritual evolution. The individual spiritual experiences of American Muslims since 9/11/01 have, in many ways, been rich. In defending our community from external allegations, we've been forced to think through hard questions instead of sweeping them under the rug. We're beginning to come to terms with ugly truths about some members of our community, such as those who have fallen prey to radicalization or are vulnerable to it because of the failings of their family and the community as a whole.
The media frenzy has kept us on our toes, even while we sometimes feel that our spiritual connection to Islam is being replaced by socio-political soundbytes. And yet, there is an understanding that it is precisely that spiritual connection that will keep us moving forward, plugging away for change in the years ahead.
The tenth anniversary of 9/11 comes at the heels of Ramadan, a month when Muslims strive to reflect on their individual and collective weaknesses and turn to God in sincerity for guidance. It has given us renewed strength to continue to face our challenges -- and to rise above them.
Muslim 9/11 Reflections: Islam In America 10 Years Later]]>Bachmann and Muslim Women Have Something in Commontag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.9287052011-08-17T12:00:08-04:002011-10-17T05:12:01-04:00Asma Uddinhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/asma-uddin/
When asked, in the Iowa GOP debate last week, about her previous comments regarding her marriage and her desire to be submissive to her husband, she seemed to backtrack, explaining: "[w]hat submission means to us ... it means respect. I respect my husband ... and he respects me as his wife."
This glib response deflects the question and is contradictory to her previous statements. The Ephesians verse actually states:
Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.
How does submission translate into mutual respect? This is a question that many Christian women have sought to answer, and Bachmann's understanding that submission ultimately is manifested as mutual respect in modern marital relationships may be widely shared.
While Bachmann may not have any quick or easy way to explain her beliefs, she gets sympathies from one unexpected segment of American society: Muslim American women.
Like Christian women who have to contend with the passage in Ephesians instructing women to submit themselves to their husbands in everything, Muslim women have to grapple with a certain passage in the Quran delineating the hierarchy in marital relationships. The chapter of the Quran entitled "The Women" has one verse stating:
Men are the maintainers of women because God has made some of them to excel others and because they spend out of their property; the good women are therefore obedient, guarding the unseen as God has guarded... (4:33)
This verse is subject to numerous interpretations. Some scholars contend that the language stating that men are the maintainers of women is related in part to the Islamic laws of inheritance. Because men are responsible for financially supporting their families, they are entitled to twice the share of property as their sister, which in turn further enables them to support their families.
The Quranic language also refers to the physical differences between the genders, such that men in general have more physical strength and related ability to work to support their wives. As such, the reference to men "excelling" above women does not mean that men are ontologically superior to women, but merely that they are more physically and financially able to serve as providers than women.
This interpretation makes sense in the overall context of the Quran, which repeatedly provides that men and women are equal in the eyes of God. In the chapter entitled "The Parties," the Quran states:
Surely the men who submit and the women who submit, and the believing men and the believing women, and the obeying men and the obeying women, and the truthful men and the truthful women, and the patient men and the patient women and the humble men and the humble women, and the almsgiving men and the almsgiving women, and the fasting men and the fasting women, and the men who guard their private parts and the women who guard, and the men who remember God much and the women who remember -- God has prepared for them forgiveness and a mighty reward... (33:35)
Through this verse and many others like it, the Quran provides that the worship and value of men and women is equal in the eyes of God, and neither is inherently superior to the other.
Muslim female politicians have tried, like Bachmann, to explain what these religious intonations mean to them. One of the strongest rebuttals against those who seek to capitalize on such verses to sideline women has been given by Benazir Bhutto, the former Prime Minister of Pakistan and the first woman ever elected to head an Islamic country. She stated in a speech to the World Conference of Women in Beijing:
To those who claim to speak for Islam but who would deny to women our place in society, I say: The ethos of Islam is equality, equality between the sexes. ... My presence here, as the elected woman prime minister of a great Muslim country, is testament to the commitment of Islam to the role of women in society.
Bhutto's view that Islam guarantees fundamental equality between the sexes, and is not a hindrance to a woman seeking a position of power, is shared by hundreds of millions of Muslims. That is why Pakistan, Indonesia and Bangladesh, among other Muslim nations, have elected women as their heads of state.
Many Muslim American women, in their negotiations between their religion and their lived reality, rely on this same understanding that they are fundamentally equal to their male counterparts. A recent Gallup poll found that Muslim American women are one of the most highly educated female religious groups in America, second only to Jewish American women. The poll also found that, "as a group, Muslim Americans have the highest degree of economic gender parity at the high and low ends of the income spectrum." And in achieving this gender parity, Muslim American women did not have to desert their faith. The same poll found that the vast majority of Muslim Americans say that Islam is important to their lives, and Muslim American women are equally as likely as Muslim American men to attend mosque regularly.
These statistics reveal the underlying truth of Muslim American gender relations: Muslim American women and men agree with Bachmann's interpretation of "submission" as having primarily to do with respect. ]]>The Role of Men in Religious Terrorismtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.9120412011-07-28T11:55:46-04:002011-09-27T05:12:01-04:00Asma Uddinhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/asma-uddin/
But as important as these issues may be for determining his status as a terrorist, there is another important point to consider about the ruthlessness of his intents and actions. Breivik, like the vast majority of terrorists in the world, was a male.
On the surface of things, this may be a rather obvious and seemingly trite point to make given the horrific nature of his actions. For most analysts, what matters is that he's a fundamentalist Christian, a terrorist, a racist, a murderer and possibly insane.
But in his own mind, Breivik is also a patriot. He is a man committed to the defense of his nation from the external threat of the "Other" -- in this case, the Muslim other. According to Breivik, Norway, and the West more generally, are locked in a struggle with two possible outcomes: a West dominated by Islam or free of its presence.
Sound familiar? It is. Much like bin Laden and his associates, the ideas and visions circulating in Breivik's mind closely resemble the cosmic battle imagined in the minds of al Qaeda fighters: the fear, the external threat, the internal traitors, the violent resistance, the utopian future. Breivik, like bin Laden, is nothing short of the archetypal extremist whose ghastly deeds reveal the malevolence of passion when mixed with fear and hate.
But Breivik, like bin Laden and a long list of others, is a man. And like the many men before him guilty of pitiless crimes against humanity, he acted in a way that begs us to consider the relationship between such violence and his notions of manhood.
Why, in other words, do some men seem to find violence as a reasonable course of action when dealing with a perceived threat?
Part of the answer, we believe, has to do with something much larger than Breivik's sound or unsound mind -- gender. Men like Breivik all imagine their communities as uniquely feminine. This idea is effectively communicated through the language of their struggle. Breivik, for example, claimed to be defending the "honor" of the West and, in his manifesto, regularly refers to the "penetration" of Muslim armies throughout history and the "rape" of Europe.
These men also believe that, in defending some imagined "sacred community," they are also defending manhood. Most of us think of communities as something like the family. We think of the people at the local and national levels as our brothers and sisters of sorts -- people with whom we share duties and obligations. Beyond our borders, however, are the outsiders -- the other families. In this sense Breivik is much like the rest of us: a modern-day tribalist.
Where Breivik and others stop being like us is how they think about the tribe. Breivik believes the west exists as an essentially pure and vulnerable tribe. An important aspect of Breivik's actions lies in the fact that he believes the pure feminine family of the West needs protection by the warrior men of which he is a part.
A quick glance at Breivik's 1,500 page manifesto reveals explicit antipathy for "feminism" and its role in the Islamization of Europe. He refers to the "Knights," who will lead the revolution fighting "bravely" as men defending their civilization. The manifesto is all about a macho world waging war on "feminism" and "Muslims" at one and the same time.
Of course, this is not to say that women have refrained from the glory of human cruelty. But there is something peculiar about the fact that it is mostly men who commit the extreme violence of terrorism. For reasons rarely considered by analysts, men like Breivik seem to feel a great sense of urgency to act violently in the name of their people -- imagined or real -- and defend its honor and purity.
Thinking about Breivik and others like him, we might do well to think more about their manhood as much as their ideologies since, more often than not, the two seem to go hand-in-hand in the play of their madness.]]>The Obstacle to Religious Tolerance in Egypttag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.8242342011-02-17T22:37:20-05:002011-05-25T18:30:24-04:00Asma Uddinhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/asma-uddin/
One of many tyrannical elements of the regime was its duplicitous approach to religious conflict. Though former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak attempted to paint himself as a paradigm of stable leadership, his regime, far from encouraging stability, was actually the source of much of the strife it claimed to put down -- all for the purpose of deflecting attention from the regime's obvious failures.
Recent news reports have suggested that Mubarak's regime had orchestrated some of the religious conflict that caused the recent uprisings in Egypt. Al Arabiya News Channel reported that, last Monday, Egypt's general prosecutor began an investigation of the former Interior Minister, Habib El-Adly, for his alleged involvement in the Alexandria New Year's Day church bombing.
El-Adly is being accused by Coptic lawyer Ramzi Mamdouh of organizing "militias of security personnel, former inmates and members of extremists organizations" that bombed the Church of Two Saints in Alexandria on New Year's Day, leaving at least 21 people dead. Mamdouh's complaint was based on press reports about leaked British intelligence documents. These documents purportedly mentioned "El-Adly militias" that would "wreak havoc in the country if the regime is threatened." Now that the regime has lost its power, we can only hope that such "militias," if they exist, will face a similar fate.
Orchestrating chaos seems to be the modus operandi of this past regime. During the demonstrations, the police plotted, or at least intentionally permitted, arson and looting in order to frighten protestors into staying home.
Thus, news of tactics such as El-Adly's "militias" would hardly come as a surprise to those in Egypt dealing with these attacks. In fact, when I visited Cairo in December, I was told time and time again by government and religious officials that religious strife is at least partly a result of governmental machinations. Copts and Baha'is in Egypt firmly hold that the violence and persecution they have faced is as much a result of government action as it is from extremist religious sentiment.
Certainly this is not to say that all of the conflict is a result of government contrivance. Sectarian tension has deep roots in Egypt. But, on the other side of the coin, there has been a real effort between Christians and Muslims to join hands and curtail the conflict that has arisen -- even if it means putting their lives at stake.
Such courage was displayed in the now-famous act of camaraderie on Coptic Christmas Eve when Muslims formed a human shield around Christians celebrating Mass all throughout Egypt. Christians returned the favor during the demonstrations in Tahrir Square in Cairo, protecting Muslims from police while they prayed. Posters with a crescent moon and a cross were also seen, presenting a clear declaration of peace and unity between the religious groups.
Despite the sentiment among citizens that they are equal regardless of religion, oppression of minority religions is enshrined in Egyptian law. While Egypt's Constitution states that the "State shall guarantee the freedom of belief and the freedom of practicing religious rights," its view of such rights is decidedly narrow. Government restriction makes it difficult for Christians to build and even to maintain churches. Indeed, government authorization is required for any church to be built, renovated, or repaired.
Yet attaining government permission is only the first of many roadblocks to starting or maintaining a Christian church in Egypt. Violent attacks, intimidation, and police citing "security concerns" often halt the Christians' attempt to build a place of worship.
On top of making it difficult to start churches, Egyptian law stifles the free speech of religious minorities by criminalizing those who insult "heavenly religions," and silences Muslim public intellectuals who challenge the "official" interpretation of Islam.
While legal reform is certainly in order, and even as religious groups have shown themselves capable of respecting one another, the problem of religious intolerance will never be defeated if the government is secretly planting seeds of strife by contriving attacks in order to fulfill its ulterior motives. The root of the problem lies with those who hold power, and with the end of the old regime there is a chance to begin anew. As a new regime begins to take shape securing religious freedom for all citizens should be a first priority.]]>Caliphate on the Range? The Shariah Precedent in American Courtstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.7782072010-11-06T09:00:13-04:002011-05-25T18:10:25-04:00Asma Uddinhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/asma-uddin/
In the discussion and debate surrounding Question 755, supporters in search of an example where the bogeyman shariah was permitted inside American courtrooms kept pointing to a New Jersey case where the court denied a restraining order to a woman who was sexually assaulted by her then-husband. The judge ruled that the husband did not have a "criminal desire to or intent to sexually assault" her as the husband was merely under the impression that he was exercising his prerogative as a husband under Islamic law. What's rarely reported, however, is that the decision was promptly overturned on appeal because the application of shariah, or the "cultural defense," conflicted with civil law.
This example is noteworthy not just because the decision was overturned because it got the law wrong, or that it is the only one of its kind, but because it is an atypical example of how shariah has made an appearance in American courtrooms. The typical cases are far from frightening. For example, arbitration under shariah law is permitted in the U.S., just like arbitration according to Christian principles or Jewish religious tradition is permitted, or according to any other set of rules two contracting parties may agree to. Indeed, prominent Christian groups like PromiseKeepers have long required Christian arbitration clauses in their contracts with vendors.
The crucial feature of any kind of arbitration is that an arbitrator, whether religious or not, has no ability to enforce the arbitral decision; only state or federal courts have that power. In deciding whether to enforce arbitral awards, civil courts first review whether the parties agreed to take part in the arbitration of their own free will. Courts also review the arbitral decision to ensure that arbitrators are neutral, and that the resulting arbitral decisions are neither grossly unfair nor undermine public policy. There are thus already an array of carefully crafted safeguards in place to protect individuals.
Despite the long-standing opportunity to enforce religious arbitral awards in American courts, Sharia arbitration is still very rare in comparison to other sorts of arbitration. And oddly enough for those who believe Sharia discriminates against women, in the case of divorce proceedings, some women turn to shariah arbitration to enforce rights that are not granted by civil law but are provided under shariah. Muslim women are guaranteed a mahr (dowry given to the wife as part of the Islamic marriage contract), which becomes due and payable in the event of a divorce if it has not been paid during or at the time of the marriage. Women getting a divorce sometimes choose to arbitrate under shariah law in order to enforce the payment of the mahr. The outcome of these cases has varied depending on state law. For example, a California court would not enforce a mahr because it violated state law regarding "profiteering from divorce." However, a court in New York enforced a mahr because it conformed to state statutory requirements. As these cases show, for decades state courts have been policing shariah arbitral awards for compliance with public policy.
A civil court's involvement with religious matters is, however, limited to cases where it can enforce civil law without deciding questions of religious doctrine or requiring individuals to conform to religious law. For example, in a New Jersey case that involved the regulation of kosher foods in keeping with principles of Orthodox Judaism, local government officials had implemented regulations to monitor merchants and ensure that they would keep kosher according to a particular school of Judaism. The state court held the system to be unconstitutional because government would take on an impermissible role of setting standards that were based on religious, not civil, law.
Although the court declined to use the civil law to enforce religious standards, it did suggest a constitutionally appropriate way to prevent kosher fraud by requiring "those who advertise food products as 'kosher' to disclose the basis on which use of that characterization rests." Such regulations would be permissible because the courts could enforce a civil contract between two parties without deciding on any questions of religious doctrine or requiring an individual to conform to a religious law. The rule in the kosher case applies equally to shariah: civil courts cannot decide religious questions.
The role of civil courts in determining matters that individuals choose to regulate according to religious law is an intricate one that the courts have already clearly answered. But are these finer issues of the religion-state relationship of any significance to the backers of anti-shariah measures like State Question 755? Or is the effort a combination of both political advantage-seeking and fear of Muslims -- not to mention just pure silliness? Sadly, the notion of shariah, or Islam, "taking over" America in a manner somewhat akin to the Seed Pods from The Return of the Body Snatchers seems to be infecting segments of the national political discourse, despite its inherent absurdity.]]>What's Behind the Negative Characterization of Muslims?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.7108612010-09-10T19:14:34-04:002011-05-25T17:35:19-04:00Asma Uddinhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/asma-uddin/
Perhaps one of the most telling chapters of that story came during an episode of comedian Jon Stewart's Daily Show. Stewart revealed the astonishing truth behind a Fox News commentator's accusation that partial funding for the project was coming from an anonymous "man" who supposedly funds radical Islam around the world. Stewart pointed out that this "man" also happens to be the largest investor in Fox News after Rupert Murdoch. This in turn led to heated accusations by many of baseless fear-mongering, and the emotional pitch of the conversation inched even higher.
This is by no means to deny that some Muslim projects are connected with problematic individuals and groups. Some clearly have been. But there are serious ramifications to the intentional fabrication of such connections with the intention of creating fear of an entire undifferentiated religious group. This dehumanized "other" is no longer merely different, but in fact dangerous and worthy of being hated.
This "otherizing" process obfuscates the inherent diversity and world religion status of Islam. It also hides the fact that Muslims disagree among themselves over a good many issues, religious and non-religious. For a long time, Muslims have been bemoaning the false characterization of Islam as monolithic. Now this characterization is being amplified by the increasingly common denial that Islam is a religion at all.
A prominent Tennessee politician recently stated at a campaign event that the First Amendment right to religious freedom may not apply to Islam because it could be considered "a cult." A recent New York Times article on protests against mosques across the nation cited a member of ACT! for America, a group created to "defend Western civilization against Islam," describing Islam as a "political government" that is "100 percent against our Constitution." Still others take a common Muslim description of Islam as a "way of life" and misuse it to imply nefarious things about Muslims -- overlooking the multitude of faiths that also consider their religion a "way of life," with the belief in God and the Afterlife informing their every action. Many defenders of Muslims unwittingly reinforce this narrative by acting as if Islamic beliefs are essentially impervious to reason and debate. By treating Muslim religious beliefs as inherently "private" and thus off-limits to public discourse, they shut down true dialogue. As I have argued elsewhere, this unwarranted discomfort with publicly-articulated religious beliefs can be downright dangerous.
The mischaracterizations do not stop with denial of Free Exercise rights to Islam as a non-religion. Some anti-Islam pundits are just as eager to use the First Amendment's other provision on religion, the Establishment Clause, against what can only be called a caricature of Islam. For example, some of these pundits hailed a 2008 lawsuit brought against the U.S. government for the government's bailout of American International Group (AIG). The claim in that case is that government ownership of shares of AIG, which offers Sharia-compliant homeowner insurance, constitutes an establishment of religion. The religion in question? "Sharia-based Islam." This is reminiscent of the spurious claim that the Pledge of Allegiance establishes the hitherto-unknown religion of "Monotheism."
The phrase reveals another common fear-mongering tactic: using the term "Sharia" as a bogeyman. Conjuring images of Taliban human rights abuses, those who wield the term against Muslims reduce an entire corpus of religio-spiritual legal principles to the misguided actions of a few. Similarly foreign-sounding systems of religious law, such as the Catholic "corpus juris canonici" or Jewish "halacha" are no longer portrayed as despotic monsters, or even exoticized, the way "Sharia" is today.
The rhetoric of demonization is not without consequences; indeed, there are reports of harassment, vandalism, arson, even murder. In recent weeks, a New York taxi driver was stabbed by a passenger for simply answering "yes" to the question "are you Muslim?" A black construction worker was attacked in New York during anti-mosque protests because he "looked" Muslim. Signs posted by vandals at a California mosque read, "No temple for the God of terrorism at ground zero," and, "Wake up America, the enemy is here." And a fire at the future site of the mosque in Murfreesboro, Tennessee was likely the result of hate-motivated arson.
Much of the hatred is apparently premised on the false notion of the "Islamization" of America, an idea that somehow Muslims are trying to take over the country and co-opt its essential character. The reality, from my vantage point as a participant in the debates within the community, is quite different. For starters, American Muslims constitute a tiny percentage of the American population and are hardly in a position to "Islamize" America. More importantly, instead of seeing an Islamization of America, I am witnessing, and indeed consider myself a part of, the Americanization of Islam.
This is not to imply that the religion is somehow becoming watered down. Rather, Islam is, as it always has been, thriving and melding with its surroundings, acquiring their flavor. Taking very seriously what one American Muslim scholar, Dr. Umar F. Abd-Allah of the Nawawi Foundation, calls the "cultural imperative," young Muslims are in the process of finding an expression of Islam that is both authentically Muslim and authentically American. This includes, among other things, creating uniquely American-Muslim film, comedy, literature, and theatre; training Muslim religious leaders specially attuned to American society by opening an American-Muslim seminary; and developing American Muslim civic leaders through initiatives like the American Muslim Civil Leadership Institute.
Additionally, an essential element of the "cultural imperative" is foundationally American: actively giving back to the broader community. The M100 Foundation is taking steps in this direction with its 30 Nights, 30 Grants call to service drive. Through the drive, 30 grants are given to 30 charities in 30 categories. The grants have benefited not just Muslim organizations but non-Muslim ones as well, such as Lutheran Social Services and the secular non-profit Children Incorporated.
In creating an American Islam, American Muslims must continue to find a way to reconcile their beliefs with American society as other faith groups, such as the Mormons and Catholics, have done in the past. Once feared and reviled by the broader community, each group was able to find its place in the American fabric, all while remaining true to their faith. Genuine integration requires that Muslims refrain from identity politics and engage in public debate from a religiously honest perspective. By the same token, those who speak out against anti-Muslim bias should make sure to treat Muslims as equal and reasonable participants in dialogue, open to argument and persuasion, rather than treating Muslim motives and beliefs as inscrutable.
American Muslims are making authentic efforts to interweave their religious beliefs with American culture, but these efforts are undermined by broad-brush portrayals of all Muslims as either incapable of rational discourse or, worse, nothing more than the enemy. We cannot take our equal station alongside our fellow Americans in this country that we too cherish as long as the "otherizing" process holds sway.
Disclaimer: Asma Uddin is an international law attorney at The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty and Editor-in-Chief of Altmuslimah.com. The opinions expressed in this piece are hers alone and do not necessarily represent the views of The Becket Fund.]]>Islam and Human Rights: Why It's Up to the Muslim Community to Prove Itselftag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.6919762010-08-27T20:18:17-04:002011-05-25T17:25:21-04:00Asma Uddinhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/asma-uddin/
Much of my legal and advocacy work while at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a non-profit, non-partisan law firm that protects the free expression of all faiths, has been in Muslim communities in the Muslim world, particularly in Egypt and Pakistan, where the central short and long-term challenge is a government that is authoritarian and/or corrupt. State control of religion, whether through monitoring of mosque sermons or prosecution of "deviant" interpretations -- Shia, Koranist, Ahmadi, or even Sunni -- under national security pretexts, politicizes religion so that "Islam" ultimately becomes a tool to be manipulated by the state to best serve its interests. The realization of religious freedom, free speech, and other fundamental human rights is dependent on adequate checks on government power. With activists routinely imprisoned and harassed, the countercurrent to government restrictions is always struggling to gather momentum.
There is also a deeper misunderstanding among those in power about the nature of human rights. Human rights as articulated in international instruments are all too often dismissed as "Western" and therefore not only irrelevant to Muslims, but also dangerous because they carry with them an imperialistic agenda. Moreover, religious freedom is interpreted as part of not just Westernization but also the Christianization of the Muslim world. Recently in Morocco, Christian expatriates have been deported out of fear that their religious expression is disruptive to the stability of the country and represents the agenda of foreign governments. Similar deportations have occurred with Shias, underscoring again the intra-Muslim element to religious freedom restrictions.
Even among individual Muslims, the vast majority of whom are freedom-loving, there are several ingrained misconceptions about human rights. Religious freedom is conflated with anarchy, particularly of the sexual sort -- the misconception being that religious freedom is ultimately about freedom from religion, which for many Muslims is freedom from moral constraints and thus total freedom to succumb to hedonism.
Liberty is, as such, confused with libertinism, whereas in fact these two sorts of freedom are entirely distinct. The freedom to be a human being with rights, duties, and consequences for one's actions is different from freedom from constraints. Like authoritarian approaches to freedom -- the over-application of rules so that individuals are unable to make their own decisions -- libertine approaches infantilize people. Rules are needed to help shape and develop society, but if everything is regulated by the state, people can never learn to regulate themselves.
Religious freedom, rooted in human dignity, not only does not create anarchy but also in fact leads to more public order; societies thrive when people are allowed to freely and peacefully express their deepest held beliefs. External oppression of religious expression does not eliminate it but forces it underground, often causing it to mutate into violent, extremist forms.
In the realm of free speech and free religious expression, I have heard all too often that "rights are limited" -- that is, that we cannot conceive of rights without also articulating correspondent responsibilities and limitations. While this is no doubt true, and fully accounted for in every international human rights instrument, there seems to be a tendency among the Muslims I meet with abroad to think that the limits are somehow more important than the right itself. The limit -- whether in the form of blasphemy laws, apostasy laws, or anti-conversion and anti-proselytization laws -- is vaguely and broadly defined, thus leaving it to the whims of the individual, or worse, the government to interpret it as best suits its own interests. While theoretically, limitations make sense, as applied, the limit swallows the right. The push for anti-defamation measures at the United Nations is a good example of an attempt to "protect" the integrity of Islam by placing a restriction on freedom of speech.
To some extent, these biases can be found among American Muslims as well, particularly those who insist on self-ghettoization, which in turn positions them against or in contrast to the American majority rather than comfortably integrated within it. Even among the relatively better integrated members of the community, the biggest challenge when it comes to religious freedom is the articulation of proper strategies to overcome Islamophobia. Too often, Muslims resort to advocating legal sanctions on, for example, hate speech, rather than trying to understand approaches that are in the community's strategic interests. The result is that Muslims continue to be leveled with accusations of being anti-free-speech and anti-religious -freedom.
As a religious freedom attorney, especially one regularly involved in media, I am very aware of the need to address the issues facing the international and domestic Muslim community by helping Muslims understand both the international human rights framework and the American constitutional framework. There is a need to translate these frameworks into terms that make sense culturally and theologically for Muslims.
While barriers to understanding and implementing human rights are the biggest challenge facing the community from within, particularly in the international context, from without, Islamophobia is a huge problem. The Danish cartoon controversy is a prominent case in which there was a marked failure of communication. An undoubtedly offensive portrayal of the Prophet led to an international fiasco as the Muslim community struggled to express the hurt and offense the cartoons had caused. However, language failed, and a segment of the international Muslim community turned to violence to express its anger.
The Muslim community often fails to successfully articulate to a non-Muslim audience its understanding of common norms. For example, it remains alienated largely on questions related to gender, whether it be veiling, women's rights, gender roles, and so on. At the same time, the community struggles within when it comes to realizing true gender equality. With forums such as my web magazine, Altmuslimah.com, it is possible to strive to fill that communication gap by fostering meaningful, compelling dialogue that is illuminating not just for Muslims, but also non-Muslims seeking to learn more about gender issues in Islam.
Altmuslimah's contributors argue passionately for what they believe, and the comments section is always alive with constructive feedback and sincere attempts at dealing with tough issues and finding workable solutions. Altmuslimah is, in this sense, uniquely probing. Its readers and contributors rarely engage in identity politics, instead focusing on a clear articulation of Muslim beliefs and socio-spiritual experiences. By taking control of their own narratives, Altmuslimah's writers make it less likely that others may attribute motives to them. They are sincere, but not apologetic, and are ultimately comfortable with disagreement.
In the coming century, the Muslim community in the U.S. and abroad will be faced with challenges that require a concerted and critical response. There is a great burden on community leaders to meet these challenges with an eye to the future, rather than simply predicating current behavior on past examples. A burden of proof has been placed on the Muslim community to prove that its religious tenets stand up to the scrutiny of international human rights standards. In addition to a general mistrust of the perceived heritage of such standards, variant interpretations of Islam and conflicting cultural identities complicate such a task. To adequately meet the challenges ahead, the Muslim community must be willing to actively and openly engage both its members as well as outside communities. The Muslim community must not be afraid to ask the question, "What does it mean to be a Muslim today?"
Article originally published in Patheos and featured in their "Future of Islam" Series.]]>Internet Censorship and Machiavellian Restrictions on Religiontag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.6419992010-07-10T20:35:18-04:002011-05-25T17:00:24-04:00Asma Uddinhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/asma-uddin/caving to China's internet censorship policy, this time by allowing the government to filter information it deems problematic. While internet censorship has vast implications for democracy and press freedoms, it is also becoming the favorite tool of government "theologians" -- administrators who have been tasked with the defense of a nation's civil religion for the purposes of consolidating state power. China may have perfected this Machiavellian art, but other countries and even international bodies are now trying their hand.
Not only are Chinese citizens not allowed to search for "Tiananmen Square Massacre," but they are also denied access to searches for "Dalai Lama" (the charismatic leader of Tibetan Buddhists) and "Falun Gong" (a Confucian religion banned in China). Since Mao's Communist Revolution in China, the government has kept a tight grip on religion. Today, China recognizes only five religious groups, and regulates both these and dissident religious movements very strictly.
Within the past month, the Sunni Muslim majority nation of Pakistan has followed China's example as it has taken measures to censor at least 22 websites, including Facebook, Yahoo, and YouTube, in order to protect its citizens from potentially blasphemous material. Pakistan is also going to begin monitoring Google for content Pakistan considers offensive to Muslims.
And Shi'a-majority Iran gained notoriety last summer when it began to restrict access to Twitter and other social media websites in order to silence political opposition from the Green Movement. Less well known is that Iran also restricts access to websites explaining the tenets of the Baha'i faith, which is outlawed in Iran, as well as other sites the country's Shi'a religious leaders deem blasphemous to Islam.
At the international level, the revival of government-controlled religion is happening under the guise of public order and secularism. This restrictive model has met a favorable audience at the United Nations, the preeminent international body that was intended to facilitate dialogue rather than restrict it. Efforts to combat the "defamation of religions" have been successful for over a decade in a campaign led by the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), a group of 57 Muslim-majority countries around the world. The "defamation of religions" concept empowers the state to decide what is and is not permissible religious speech.
The OIC is not alone in this battle. There is an ideological congruency between these defenders of civil religious canons and advocates of political correctness. Thanks to this partnership, a U.N. committee in Geneva will consider in November an international treaty proposal from Pakistan that would "prohibit insults to religion."
Advocates of political correctness at the U.N. claim to protect minorities via greater speech restrictions. Yet by advocating for government suppression of speech, they are actually facilitating the persecution of the same people they seek to protect. Take for example the egregious attack on two Ahmadiyya mosques last month in Pakistan. On May 28th, Islamist militants armed with guns, grenades, and suicide bombs attacked these mosques in central Pakistan, leaving over a hundred wounded with 94 dead. The attack was not an isolated event. The Ahmadiyya community has been subject to discrimination in Pakistan for decades, owing in part to the country's blasphemy laws, which forbids Ahmadis from calling themselves Muslim, proselytizing their faith, "or in any manner whatsoever outrag[ing] the religious feelings of Muslims." Section 298C of the Penal Code punishes such offenses with a fine and up to three years imprisonment.
While in some cases blasphemy laws were originally enacted to control public disorder, as applied, they not only lead to such disorder, but also help justify and exacerbate it. Such laws affect customary law -- the so-called "law of the streets" -- and create a culture of impunity where private citizens are often left without state protection against extremists or other criminals manipulating broad blasphemy provisions.
Like Machiavelli, the countries applying his approach to religion rely on the end goal of absolute state power. What they fail to realize, however, is that restrictions on conscientious expression, like the internet censorship that is proliferating around the world, deny men and women their inalienable right to conscience and belief -- a problem in itself, but also contrary to the state's interests because it exacerbates public disorder and legitimizes violence.]]>Seeing the 'Other' as American: Moving Past Islamophobiatag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.6066572010-06-13T20:32:00-04:002011-05-25T16:45:26-04:00Asma Uddinhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/asma-uddin/
America's unofficial "open-door" attitude during the colonies' infancy worked to bring the new nation out of economic obscurity. Yet the American legacy, built on the backs of immigrants, has not been historically favorable to its creators. Quakers in colonial Massachusetts were subjected to auto-de-fé ("act of faith"), a ritual associated with the Spanish Inquisition that involved public penance of condemned heretics and apostates. The Blaine Amendments, whose adoption in many states was made an explicit condition for entering the Union, were motivated by anti-Catholic animus and remain on the books in several states today. Anti-Irish sentiment permeated the U.S. during the Industrial Revolution; the Catholic Irish who immigrated to America in the late 1850s faced "No Irish Need Apply" (NINA) notices in New York City shop windows, factory gates, and workshop doors for years.
Mormons, too, faced discrimination. The Missouri Executive Order 44, or "extermination order," was issued by Missouri governor Lilburn Boggs to ensure that "the Mormons ... be treated as enemies, and ... be exterminated or driven from the State if necessary for the public peace. The Chinese immigrants in the late 19th century faced anti-Chinese riots, lynching, murders, and the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882 -- even after helping the nation complete the Transcontinental Railroad. Jewish Americans also faced bigotry and discrimination. And perhaps the most devastating case of racism: the Japanese internment camps starting in 1941, which targeted all Japanese, regardless of citizenship. In each case, the anti-immigrant backlash was fueled by paranoia -- a deep-seated fear of those who are different.
The latest outbreak of this paranoia is the anti-Muslim sentiment that is becoming increasingly common and increasingly pernicious. While by no means at the level of interment camps or extermination orders, the anti-Muslim rhetoric nonetheless raises serious concerns. A Houston radio host feels comfortable advocating that a mosque be bombed if built near the site of Ground Zero. A few weeks ago, a mosque in Jacksonville, Florida actually was bombed -- the most recent of several mosque bombings that have occurred over the past few year.
Richard Bernstein's recent New York Times piece, "The Danger of Demonizing Adherents of Islam," focuses on another egregious incident of anti-Muslim paranoia. He describes a bus ad campaign created by Pamela Geller, the executive director of Stop the Islamization of America and the editor and publisher of AtlasShrugs.com. The Geller bus ads ask questions like "Leaving Islam?" "Fatwa on your head?" and "Is your family or community threatening you?" Geller started her campaign in response to a bus ad campaign in San Francisco intended to inform and educate the general public about the Islamic faith. According to Geller, these informational ads put out by Muslim groups were mere bait to first convert people to Islam and then to violently punish anyone who decided to thereafter leave the religion.
How Geller came up with this bizarre interpretation of the ads is a mystery. As Bernstein rightly notes in his article, there is scant evidence that Muslim Americans hold such a belief, much less actively go out and ensnare innocent Americans into a deathtrap. While in some Muslim countries apostasy is a crime punishable by death, such absurdities do not make the faith.
Geller and others are welcome to pose sincere theological or ideological questions to Muslims, as theological debate about any religion, including Islam, helps keep it vibrant and relevant to changing times. But generalized stereotypes rooted in hate and suspicion simply perpetuate what Bernstein calls a "vicious cycle." Well-meaning initiatives like the San Francisco bus campaign, a vehicle of a counter-narrative to radicalism, are denounced by Geller-ites as symbols of precisely that radicalism. In turn, "if there are more terrorist attempts by Muslims on American soil, there will be more Americans paying for bus ads and other things to express their rage at Islam itself as well as at Muslims in America, and to encourage the idea that America is, or ought to be, its and their enemy." Creating that dichotomy then just serves to create more enemy Muslims. Endlessly spiraling downward, such a cycle may lead to the death of "the live-and-let-live civility of American life."
Undoubtedly correct in his analysis, Bernstein overlooks one point: Americans, generally living in peace with one another, nonetheless created that peaceful coexistence after years of strife suffered by minority groups at the hands of the majority. Geller and her supporters are, in that sense, traditional Americans. What complicates their position, though, is the fact that while roughly half of the Muslim American community consists of first-, second-, or third-generation immigrants, the other half are African-American Muslims who have been here since this country's inception. The Islam of the Black American had, however, constituted "Black Religion" -- what Dr. Sherman Jackson describes in Islam and the Blackamerican as a "holy protest against anti-black racism." Only with the influx of immigrant Muslims has Islam become a religion to be contended with by the broader culture.
Geller's relegation of Islam to enemy status creates an Islam to be feared and abhorred. It is a conception that is not grounded in reality, but it is nonetheless propelling American society down the same road it has traveled many times before, to its own detriment. Reflecting upon this historical trajectory should help us see past the present environment, fraught with fear, and move to the next stage of coexistence, where we learn to look past two-dimensional stereotypes and generalizations and see the newcomer not as "other" but as "American." ]]>Even Controversial Views Should Be Protected by Freedom of Speechtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.5637292010-05-07T02:17:00-04:002011-05-25T16:20:27-04:00Asma Uddinhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/asma-uddin/I wrote about Geert Wilders' trial in Holland, where he has been charged for violating Articles 137(c) and (d) of the Dutch criminal code for group insult of Muslims, inciting hatred of and discrimination against Muslims due to their religion, and fomenting hatred of non-Western immigrants. Wilders is by any measure completely biased against immigrants and Muslims, and saying anything remotely in his defense was painful. However, just as Voltaire is supposed to have said, "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it," I recognized that defending Wilders' right to speak without legal limitations is necessary to protect everyone else's right to speak freely as well.
Anyone committed to freedom of speech should use a similar lens when viewing incidents like this past Sunday's arrest of 42-year-old Baptist preacher Dale McAlpine, who was charged in Workington, Cumbria, UK with violating the Public Order Act. The Act, introduced in 1986 to regulate violent rioters and football hooligans, outlaws "the unreasonable use of abusive language likely to cause distress." McAlpine's crime? While giving a public sermon on Biblical sins from atop a stepladder, he mentioned to a passerby his religious belief that homosexuality is sinful.
He was handing out leaflets about the Ten Commandments when a woman approached him and engaged him in a theological debate. During their conversation, McAlpine claims that he quietly mentioned that homosexual behavior is listed in the Bible among several other acts that are sinful. According to the arresting police officer, himself a homosexual man as well as the Cumbria police's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender liaison officer, McAlpine expressed his views loudly enough for others to hear. For this, McAlpine was arrested and charged with using "abusive language" unreasonably to cause "harassment, alarm, or distress."
This is not the first time the Public Order Act has been used against individuals expressing religious views on sexuality. One man was convicted under Section 5 of the Act for holding a sign reading, "Stop Immorality. Stop Homosexuality. Stop Lesbianism. Jesus is Lord" while he was preaching publicly. Another man was arrested for handing out religious literature during a Gay Pride festival.
Similar cases are seen in other countries, too. In Sweden, for instance, the government jailed Pastor Ake Green for preaching to his congregation that homosexuality is sinful. The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty filed an amicus brief on behalf of the Pastor, arguing that while his views on homosexuality are controversial and at odds with the beliefs, including religious beliefs, of many of Sweden's citizens, that fact alone does not remove his speech from the protection of international religious freedom and free speech law.
The right to religious liberty protects the expression of religious beliefs, as long as the speech is peacefully expressed. Valid limitations on such expression include threats to public order, safety, health, morals, or the fundamental rights and freedoms of other people. In the United States, the Supreme Court has held that the government can punish speech if it constitutes incitement to imminent violence, including, for example, terrorism or the speech of extremists who conspire to attack abortion doctors or destroy abortion clinics. The line in each case is drawn between violent and non-violent speech.
The Public Order Act enforced in McAlpine's case was presumably intended to regulate precisely these sorts of violations, but it is being used to limit non-violent, religious speech interpreted as "abusive" because it contravenes the prevailing opinion on homosexuality. This is a blatant misuse of the Act. Because human rights are universal and inalienable, they are not limited by relevance to a specific culture, time, or place.
What is "controversial" varies according to circumstances, and just because it is controversial does not make it "bad" -- sometimes a controversial statement is precisely what's needed to push conversations in productive directions. Consider, for example, statements by activists like Arianna Huffington or Desmond Tutu that the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are immoral. If the right to free expression was limited by time and culture-bound circumstances, such statements could never be made, and in time the right itself would be completely obliterated.
Moreover, just because legal sanctions on non-violent speech are a bad idea doesn't mean the issue can't be addressed. Social solutions could and should be utilized to address intolerant, divisive speech. Social solutions are in fact more effective in combating such speech because they require society to moderate itself and reform its biases instead of the letting the state impose top-down restrictions on hate speech.
In McAlpine's case and the cases of others like him who have been punished for their peaceful, public expression of their religious viewpoints, there is the added element of religious liberty. These speakers are expressing what they sincerely believe their religion teaches. In the case of Ake Green, he was doing what his profession required of him, interpreting Christian Biblical texts for his congregants, who expected him to help them learn and apply Christian doctrine to their lives. Restricting his right to do so would contravene both his and his congregants' religious freedom. Individuals have the right to disagree on matters of sexuality and should be able to freely express varying moral opinions on issues such as pornography, adultery, extramarital sex, and homosexuality.
While such religious views may not always be acceptable to the majority, they must nevertheless be vigorously defended, not just because of the moral imperative to protect free speech -- a fundamental human right -- but also because to do otherwise would open the doors for further restrictions, not just on "bad" speech but on "good" speech as well. ]]>Indonesian Blasphemy Act Restricts Free Religious Expressiontag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.5544632010-04-27T20:12:22-04:002011-05-25T16:20:27-04:00Asma Uddinhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/asma-uddin/Becket Fund for Religious Liberty had submitted an amicus brief in the case, urging the Court to repeal the Act, which has been used in the past to persecute devout members of a variety of religions. The Court's decision was deeply disappointing for us and our human rights colleagues in Indonesia and across the world, as it not only failed to repeal a problematic law but also legitimated, if not encouraged, future government incursions into matters of conscience.
The Blasphemy Act makes it unlawful "to, intentionally, in public, communicate,
counsel, or solicit public support for an interpretation of a religion ... that is similar to the interpretations or activities of an Indonesian religion but deviates from the tenets of that religion." One of the purposes of the Act is to help the government protect Indonesia's six recognized religions -- Islam, [Protestant] Christianity, Catholicism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Confucianism -- by punishing those who encourage conversion away from one of these religions or preach "deviant" interpretations of those religions. The six official religions each have government-funded religious bodies who decide what an acceptable belief for that religion is and what is not.
The Act establishes civil and criminal penalties, including up to five years imprisonment, for violators. In the past, it has been used to impose criminal penalties on groups like the Ahmadiyya, which most Muslims do not recognize because they believe it deviates from mainstream Islamic teachings. In 2008, the Indonesian Minister of Religious Affairs, the Attorney General, and the Minister of Interior issued the Joint Decree on the Ahmadiyya, which orders Ahmadiyya adherents "as long as they consider themselves to hold to Islam, to discontinue the promulgation of interpretations and activities that are deviant from the principal teachings of Islam."
These cases underscore the problematic nature of the Blasphemy Act. While private citizens and religious groups should be able to decide among themselves what does or does not constitute the essence of a religion, and while they should be able to exclude certain individuals from membership on the basis of such disagreements, the Act appoints the state, with all of its police power, as arbiter of what a particular group believes and what it should be allowed to propagate.
In some cases, the state will deem a group blasphemous even when the allegedly blasphemed group disagrees. For instance, in the Sion City case, the government charged the sect with blaspheming the Timor Evangelical Church, despite the Church's statements to the contrary. Instead of ceding autonomy to the Church and allowing it to determine religious questions, including blasphemy, for itself, the state stated, "We hope the church will not interfere in the case."
Religion, regulated as such, is defined by the state and is necessarily politicized by the state's involvement. The state-approved version of religion often tempers social justice components of faith, especially in the case of authoritarian regimes, which use religion to protect and legitimate their own power. Religious matters in this way become intertwined with questions of national security and public order.
Indeed, the public order argument played a big role in the Court's decision to uphold the Blasphemy Act. The idea is that blasphemy -- real or supposed, intentional or unintentional -- would anger adherents of a given religion, who will then cause destruction or otherwise act violently. This is different from regulating incitement to violence because it limits peaceful, not violent, speech. According to the Court, the state has to control potentially blasphemous statements, peacefully expressed, in order to increase societal harmony.
However, the court's reasoning in this regard is deeply flawed as it protects the wrong party and provides the wrong incentives. The Blasphemy Act appeases rather than controls violent extremists, giving them license to continue bullying religious minorities while the police look the other way. It creates a culture of impunity where increasingly egregious crimes are committed with little or no consequences for the criminals.
Instead of penalizing the speaker in order to prevent violence, the law should compel potentially violent actors to regulate their own behavior -- even, indeed especially, in the face of insults. Violence is far more effectively controlled if states enforce those laws which punish criminal behavior.
This sort of legal scheme makes sense not simply because it's more effective, but also because it protects the fundamental human right to free religious expression. Individuals have the right to not only hold particular beliefs but also to express them openly in public -- as long as they are peaceful and do not contravene the rights of others. This works in favor of the larger society rather than against it, as only in a free marketplace of ideas can those ideas with greater utility or persuasive power prevail.
In upholding the Blasphemy Act, the Court affirmed the power of the state to compel individuals to abide by certain beliefs against their own conscience -- all for the sake of keeping at bay a presumably uncontrollable public. The decision is both logically and morally flawed, and a major setback for human rights in Indonesia.]]>