We liberals must overcome the colonial guilt-generated, wholesale purchase of bad multiculturalism -- that is, the multiculturalism more aptly named multimoralism -- and turn it in for good multiculturalism, for a global pluralism that celebrates cultural diversity without ceding human rights as being culture-specific. Cross-cultural criticism is indeed legitimate, and to grant this one only need admit that between an oppressive theocratic model like that of the Taliban and our familiar liberal-democratic model there exists a true competition of ideas.
Whenever I hear, in reference to one or another barbaric and backward foreign practice, "But who are we to judge? After all, what can we say about a different tradition with different values?" I respond with the question: "But who are we not to speak? Who are we to remain silent?"
Justifying silence when those whose rights are being violated happen to be of a different ethnicity and culture is a species of racism, poorly disguised under the disintegrating mask of "respect."
Since the impulse to punish the "crime" of blasphemy seems to have been successfully resurrected after the long era of its enlightened death, and is metastasizing from the Middle-East into Europe and elsewhere, the left's duty to sacrifice its modern tendency toward "tolerance" of intolerance is now urgent. Defending the victims of thought-police, whether in the West Bank, Iran or Pakistan, is a liberal cause and, though briefly co-opted and then discarded by neoconservatives, it will always remain as one. We can no longer accept its banishment to the realm of cultural-imperialism.
The murder of Salmaan Taseer, the jailing of Waleed Hasayin and Aasiya Bibi, the cartoon-inspired rampages, the anti-blasphemy resolutions in Ireland, Pakistan and the U.N., and all similar attacks on the freedom of speech and expression require an opposition that is orders stronger than the one so far timidly mounted. Forcefully, because the argument that certain emotionally held ideas should be so respected as to be walled-off from criticism is, though specious, one that is catchy and superficially rational.
On the left in "dark times," Bernard-Henri Lévy in conversation with Arianna Huffington:
And a similar despair from Nick Cohen in The Observer:
When Ireland published a law that said it was a crime to "outrage a substantial number of the adherents of [a] religion", the Organisation of Islamic Countries took up Dublin's dangerously vague definition to help in the oppression of their own people's freedom of thought. And it is not only brave politicians and intellectuals such as Taseer and Rushdie who suffer.
A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of interviewing the marvellous Norwegian singer Deepika Thathaal (Deeyah). To Norway's shame, religious thugs harassed her and her family and drove her out of the country for the crimes of being glamorous and sexy and singing about freedom.She came to Britain, and to Britain's shame, our religious thugs called her a "whore" and threatened to kill her too. She fled to America and told me that if white racists had driven an Asian singer from two countries, her case would be a cause celebre. As it was, the bigots who persecuted her had brown rather than white skins, so Europeans looked away.
She has learned what many dissidents from the Muslim world already know: it has become an act of some courage in the 21st century to make the sensible point that there is no god and we should grow up.
After hearing of the Taseer assassination, Salman Rushdie eulogized a country's once possessed moderation with "RIP Pakistan." It is important to consistently remind ourselves that there is no guarantee that liberal-secular values will, of themselves, triumph in the long run. Thus, justifying a related laziness with naive optimism is a dangerous and unethical gambit.
As humanity is global, so are its rights. Anything less than full-throated and equitably applied advocacy of this fact should no longer be tolerated.
Follow Landon Ross on Twitter: www.twitter.com/landonross
Thousands rally in Pakistan for blasphemy laws - World news ...
Pakistan's dangerous blasphemy laws claim the governor of Punjab ...
Islamic countries push a global 'blasphemy' law - CSMonitor.com
Islamists Rally for Pakistan's Blasphemy Laws - WSJ.com
Belief groups unite to oppose UN blasphemy law | International ...
No to an international blasphemy law | L Bennett Graham | Comment ...
As humanity is global, so are its rights. Anything less than full-throated and equitably applied advocacy of this fact should no longer be tolerated.
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Several people have commented on Mr. Ross' closing comments and what they might mean for American foreign policy in the future. How should "no longer tolerated" translate to policy and action? How would full throated advocacy be realized by us as a nation?
What leverage, if any, do we have? Why has it not been used fully?
The other camp is very active, Saudi money is mushrooming mosques all over the west to make sure their believes and ways are spread and growing.
While we focus on terrorists and Afghans, Islamists prosecute an ideological war through immigration, creation of Islamist organizations, mosque building and staffing. The goal is the creation of a Sharia compliant Islamist colony in America that is resistant to assimilation into American culture.
This is the manner of expansion that has worked for the Islamic empire many times before where force of arms would not work.
But many American Muslims do not want to be members of the Islamic Umma as much as they want to escape the onerous burden of living under Sharia law and join the modern world of individual freedoms. Our job is to make that choice clear.
So I see it as a race, with two possible endings. The better one is that non-Islamist Muslims more actively oppose Islamists and the fight remains within Islam. The last resort, which we all should work to avoid, is a war between Muslims and the West which the violent Islamists are doing their best to start.
Either way, America will emerge from this encounter with its essential values unchanged--unlike Islam.
"Reason and observation slowly changed me. Cruelty to the weak is not an American monopoly; wars and brutal conquests are as old as history. The US cannot be forgiven for the Vietnam and Iraq wars, among others. But should India be forgiven for killing Kashmiris, West Pakistan for the East Pakistan massacres, Turkey for the Armenian genocide, or Japan for the Rape of Nanking?
Countless states have blood on their hands. But retribution would surely make the world an inferno.
If Pakistani-Americans wish to feel welcome in the country they have chosen to live in, then, they must judge the West and Pakistan using exactly the same criteria, and expose three popular falsehoods.
First, it is a lie that American Muslims are victims of extreme religious prejudice. Certainly, no country is free of religious discrimination. But, the secular West is infinitely less discriminatory than any Muslim country."
continues @ http://tribune.com.pk/story/98599/why-do-they-pick-on-us-pakistanis/
This may stem from a fear that comparative cultural analysis could eventually lead to a common world-view and maybe even a common world-language; therefore some multiculturalists spurn comparisons and blindly embrace everything.
You might call it monoculture-phobia; an irrational fear of losing imagination and creativity.
I think liberal fascination with Islam comes from the fact that the talibans look kind of like the hippies of the sixties except for the guns RPGs and qurans. It is the religion of peace after all.
As a white hair myself, and a life long atheist... I can assure you that blasphemy is a social crime that carries a heavy penalty. Openly declaring that you don't believe in invisible supernatural beings is a career ender in many professions.
Beware if conflation of two issues.
Western freedoms in the West are our business. Laws in West apply to all and should.
Outside of the West we cannot control events. We can condemn, that is all. We have in our countries many warmongers already happy to see the West embroiled in Iraq and Afghanistan, drones to Pakistan and looking to hit Iran. This is a very serious complicating factor.
At times you seem to conflate issues, as if we Westerners have aright to impose our morals upon others outside of the West. We do not. We can beseech. We can criticize. We cannot enforce. To call for enforcement is to declare a war of civilizations.
Be careful. You will find yourself the ally of those you despise.
And the West does have a method of enforcement, although it's nigh useless: The U.N.
''As humanity is global, so are its rights. Anything less than full-throated and equitably applied advocacy of this fact should no longer be tolerated.''
http://tribune.com.pk/story/104560/taseers-assassination-extremism-of-british-pakistanis-exposed/
LONDON: The assassination of Salmaan Taseer has exposed the extent of extremist thinking even amongst Pakistani expatriates in Britain.
Speaking to British Pakistanis living in an East London locality, The Express Tribune found many supporters of Taseer’s murderer while a few spoke up in favour of the rule of law.
A crowd gathers outside the mosque and all the men agree that Taseer’s murder was justified. “No-one has the right to change Shariah law,” says another namazi. “We consider it a crime to even talk about it.
Muslims of a liberal mindset are finding life increasingly difficult in these communities. “I’ve been living here for 14 years,” says Nusrat, mother of three. “I was amazed at the reaction I got last year during Ramazan when I was eating something while sitting in my car. What is going on?”
Outside the mosque one lone voice is raised above all those baying for blood. “Shame on all of you!” says a white haired man in a skull cap. “Where does it say in the Quran that you can just kill someone?”
The old man is actually wrong no wonder he was alone. It does say to k1ll in Quran + many many verses encouraging j1had. Of course more also in k1lling in hadith.
S. 9:29
"Fight those who believe not in God nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by God and His Apostle, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth , (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.”
Was it not true that Tim Waterson (book seller in the UK) decided NOT to sell Jeremy Pascals’ book, God the Ultimate Autobiography on the grounds that Christians might find it offensive.
The same Tim Waterson would not mind selling any book that obscenely insult Muslims.
Hence there are more than double standard that the defenders throwing blasphemy laws into the dustbin tend to operate.
It is an unwritten constitution of freedom in the West that has shied away from absolutist doctrines of liberty and assumed instead that with freedom there comes responsibilities: moral, prudential, conventional or a matter of good taste covering areas much wider than the law contains. This is because absolute freedom is dangerous.
Can anyone deny the fact that there can not be absolute and untrammelled freedom of speech without any restraints or restrictions whatsoever? If there is such an absolute freedom of speech why do we have libel laws, race relation laws, obscenity laws, laws on scandel and so on.
Tradition of free speech is an abstract principle, formulated principally for the benefit of a small elite of intellectuals and artists
The Western society tolerates many offences and attack on women, blacks, Jews, cultural minorities, Muslims, homosexuals and so on. These attacks are protected by liberal consensus and have the support of many influential politicians, the powerful media controlled by a vested group. But Muslims in the west enjoy no such protection, hence free game
There is a huge difference between criticising, attacking an alien culture out of ignorance or with good intentions, and deliberately causing offence, insult, mockery and obscenity. To Muslims defending this would be rather like the difference between manslaughter and murder.
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You really do not understand the culture you are criticizing. This statement shows it.
I understand how hard it must be for an Islamist like you to get your head around the reality of free speech as an everyday fact. You simply cannot imagine a society like America's where everything is up for criticism so your theoretical construct rings hollow to Americans who live in the free speech zone and sometimes take it for granted.
I had difficulty understanding how apostasy and treason could be conflated in your world, but I finally got it.
You continually suggest, as in this post, that America is deficient in ways that Sharia law can rectify. Most Americans have some beef with our present condition, including me. But what you suggest is so far off the mark--so far from the sorts of things Americans want to change--it makes me smile.
Now Europe, on the other hand, might listen to you.
But do carry on. Your (and your fellow Islamist Manhajsadiqeen's) peddling of recycled Qutb, Maududi and Hassan al Banna convinces American Muslims that Sharia law is inappropriate here. They are starting to realize that Islamism is the enemy of Islam, not the West.