Religion
Related: About this forumSouthern Poverty Law Center labels a Muslim reformer and ex-Muslim atheist as ‘extremists’
http://www.rawstory.com/2016/11/southern-poverty-law-center-labels-a-muslim-reformer-and-ex-muslim-atheist-as-extremists/At the heart of the controversy is a media blacklist under the title Field Guide to Anti-Muslim Extremists. The title itself is indisputably dehumanizing and indirectly threatening. Field guides typically describe plants and non-human animals, and the term is associated with hunting. An online search brings up 2016 Hunting and Trapping Field Guide and Field Guide for Buck Deer and Field Guide: Duck Hunting the Skagit County Coastline. The title may or may not constitute incitement, but it is at best surprising coming from an organization that has built its legacy by calling out dangerous innuendo.
But outcry against the listincluding a Change.org petition that garnered 8000 signatures in three dayscenters on the fact that the SPLC list of 15, which does include some deplorable racists also includes two well-known and widely respected (if controversial) critics of Islam, Aayan Hirsi Ali and Maajid Nawaz. Ali, is a former Dutch politician of Somali descent and a harsh critic of Islam whose foundation opposes honor killing, forced marriage and female genital cuttingwhich she faced in her own family and community. She recounts this history in her book, Infidel. Nawaz is a practicing Muslim reformer, founder of the Quilliam Foundation, a counter-extremism think tank in London.
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The ironythat two people of color, a former Muslim and practicing Muslim, are being accused of racism by white Western liberals under a dehumanizing titleseems to have gotten missed by the folks who compiled the SPLC Field Guide. So do the psychological implications of blacklisting people who live constantly under the shadow of death, whose friends and colleagues have been jailed and lashed or hacked or stabbed for the very same kind of social critique that they themselves engage. Putting the names of ex-Muslims and reformers in a blacklist is the psychological equivalent of doxing feminists or publishing the names and addresses of abortion providers. It is scary.
Go ahead, attack the source (good luck!), attack me, whatever you feel you need to do. "Enemies lists" and "field guides" and "blacklists" are shit the right wing does. NOT liberals.
Albertoo
(2,016 posts)So, by condemning him, the SPLC is in effect siding with the extremists whose propaganda Maajid Nawaz tries to counter with his anti-radicalization organization.
It would be funny if it wasn't so sad.
trotsky
(49,533 posts)Hacked to death in front of their families, even.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, no matter what you think about her, has a fatwa issued against her. Conservative extremist Muslims want her dead.
It's very upsetting.
Albertoo
(2,016 posts)And I am very well aware Critics of Islam have literally been murdered.
Speaking of which, the photo below is that of a very brave person:
trotsky
(49,533 posts)That pic is from a very brave person indeed.
struggle4progress
(118,282 posts)BY NATHAN LEAN
January 27, 2016
... Nawaz broke ranks with Hizb ut-Tahrir the same week that his Newham College classmate and ex-party member, Ed Husain, rose to quasi-stardom with the publication of his kiss-and-tell memoir, The Islamist, a stirring defection story of a Muslim extremist who had come clean ...
Nawaz has said that his approach is one of dialogue and seeking common ground. Thats music to the ears of many who are turned off by polarized debates about religion and politics. Yet for all the right notes that he hits (public conversations with controversial figures, and calls to reject racial profiling) Nawazs stated mission is at odds with many of his actions. Hes wheedled Western politicos who advocate draconian policies that target Muslims, and he indulges the worst offenders when it comes to anti-Muslim prejudice ...
Some of his most vocal supporters .. include New Atheists that seem to take great pleasure in lambasting Islam. Theres a strong current of affection that flows between Nawaz and Sam Harris, who calls the religion the mother lode of bad ideas and has advocated racial profiling and torture (Harris has donated $20,000 to Quilliam). HBOs Bill Maher, famously hostile toward Islam, wished that there were a thousand of Nawaz, while Richard Dawkins (to hell with their culture) lauded him as a truly moral & brave man, and urged his online flock to support Nawazs failed 2015 parliamentary bid. The ex-Islamist has even cozied up to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somali-born activist who once tagged the Muslim faith as a nihilistic cult of death that should be defeated by any means necessary, including militarily.
That Nawaz enjoys the company of such a galère isnt the problem. Hes not guilty by association. Hes guilty of giving life to their extreme ideas. In 2009, when his Quilliam associate Ed Husain advocated spying on British Muslims, Nawaz chalked the ensuing controversy up to the bellyaching of a pro-Islamist brigade. The next year, he sent the countrys security and terror chief a McCarthy-esque list of Muslim groups that the government should be wary of lest their non-violent views morph into violent ones. Nawazs organization, along with a software company, developed radicalization keywords used in a computer program that monitored the Internet searches of school kids and flagged would-be extremists for investigation. And Tommy Robinson, the former leader of the far-right, anti-Muslim English Defence League, alleged Quilliam paid him thousands of pounds to resign in a move that many saw as a bribe: Robinson stepped down, and Quilliam took credit for bringing about his departure. The money, Robinson said, went to pay my wifes rent and help with basic bills, <and> in return Tommy Robinson would be their poster boy ...
https://newrepublic.com/article/128436/maajid-nawaz-really-believe
Maybe he's nothing but an opportunist who's found a way to make a living by cuddling with bigots
Albertoo
(2,016 posts)Sincere: he did strongly defend Islam at a famous Intelligence Squared debate,
so there's a logic to his position. He's not a sell-out.
Well meaning: trying to find a way forward to help 1.7 bilion people reconcile their cultural heritage with freedom and tolerance is really admirable.
I think he's misguided because Islam, like the USSR was, is irredeemable and must fall.
But Nawaz is nevertheless someone trying to earnestly do good.
stone space
(6,498 posts)Will this be a continuing theme in your posts?
Fix The Stupid
(948 posts)No one is buying it anymore.
You simply cannot be this dense. Your reading comprehension cannot be this bad. Has to be done by design.
Trotsky was describing what the SPLC is doing - not himself/herself compiling lists of people here - do you really not get that?
And the people that used to compile lists on this forum left and never came back...something to think about???
Please stop being rude and interjecting into conversations with your endless charade of inane postings.
It wore thin a LONG time ago.
Thanks
stone space
(6,498 posts)No one is buying it anymore.
You simply cannot be this dense. Your reading comprehension cannot be this bad. Has to be done by design.
Trotsky was describing what the SPLC is doing - not himself/herself compiling lists of people here - do you really not get that?
And the people that used to compile lists on this forum left and never came back...something to think about???
Please stop being rude and interjecting into conversations with your endless charade of inane postings.
It wore thin a LONG time ago.
Thanks
Fix The Stupid
(948 posts)You routinely take posts out of context and post personal attacks, thinly veiled as questions or off topic comments and you never answer questions put directly to you.
Makes it very hard to take you seriously. Please just stop - it's not funny.
Only a person with the mental capacities of a 4 yr. old could twist what Trotsky said into what you claim he is saying. I don't want to converse or see posts from 4 yr. olds on a political website...I don't think I'm alone in that sentiment.
stone space
(6,498 posts)You routinely take posts out of context and post personal attacks, thinly veiled as questions or off topic comments and you never answer questions put directly to you.
Makes it very hard to take you seriously. Please just stop - it's not funny.
Only a person with the mental capacities of a 4 yr. old could twist what Trotsky said into what you claim he is saying. I don't want to converse or see posts from 4 yr. olds on a political website...I don't think I'm alone in that sentiment.
Is there a reason why you are barging in here and behaving like this?
Did I attack you, personally?
You just keep doubling down on your personal attacks, and I don't even know why.
What is it you are hoping to accomplish with this?
procon
(15,805 posts)What is now, 2-3 days in a row he's been trying to breathe life into his curious criticism of SPLC? There's more to the story here and something is definitely off kilter with his unilateral advocacy of this hustler.