Richard Dawkins, 'Islamophobia' and the atheist movement

[rug]

Whether or not 'Islamophobia' is a valid term, leading atheists like Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins have been confused, inconsistent and blundering in their attempts to talk about Muslims

Posted by Martin Robbins
Friday 3 May 2013 06.18 EDT (Martin Robbins is a Berkshire-based researcher and science writer. He writes about science, pseudoscience and evidence-based politics)

Sam Harris is about as consistent as Glenn Greenwald is concise, which made their exchange of multi-thousand word cowpats last month particularly grueling reading. That's a shame, because Harris dropped a retrospective clanger that very few people picked up on. It came in a recent volley against Greenwald, in which Harris attempted to deconstruct the idea of Islamophobia (my emphasis):

&quot Islamophobia) is, Greenwald tells us in his three points, an 'irrational' and 'disproportionate' and 'unjustified' focus on Muslims. But the only way that Muslims can reasonably be said to exist as a group is in terms of their adherence to the doctrine of Islam. There is no race of Muslims. They are not united by any physical traits or a diaspora. (…) The only thing that defines the class of All Muslims – and the only thing that could make this group the possible target of anyone's "irrational" fear, "disproportionate" focus, or "unjustified" criticism – is their adherence to a set of beliefs and the behaviors that these beliefs inspire."

"So 'Islamophobia' must be – it really can only be—an irrational, disproportionate, and unjustified fear of certain people, regardless of their ethnicity or any other accidental trait, because of what they believe and to the degree to which they believe it."

"They are not united by any physical traits or a diaspora," says Harris. Which is absolutely fine, except this is same Sam Harris who wrote In Defense of Profiling barely a year ago, an article in which he suggested: "We should profile Muslims, or anyone who looks like he or she could conceivably be Muslim, and we should be honest about it."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/the-lay-scientist/2013/may/03/atheism-dawkins

[longship]

1. I think both Dawkins and Harris are mistaken here.

But if they have a point it may be the treatment of women under Islam. There they may have a point.

Myself, I am very conflicted about this issue. I am very uncomfortable with many aspects of what happens when a country is ruled by an Islamic government. In that respect maybe one could call me an Islamophobe. On the other hand, solving these issues may certainly be much more difficult if one takes such an attitude.

I just don't know how best to approach anything close to a resolution or even whether a resolution is even possible. I am very skeptical of anybody who states otherwise.

However, I must admit that in the current international milieu Islam presents very serious issues which will eventually need to be addressed.

[struggle4progress]

2. I'm sorta hopin Greenwald and Harris will settle their differences with pistols at dawn

cuz I'm thinkin mebbe that might could be a win-win scenario

[dimbear]

3. I am now unsure exactly what level of fear and distrust would be well advised and correct.

Is there a commission of some sort?

[rug]

4. One devoid of racism would be a start.

[dimbear]

5. A committee devoid of racism in itself yet aware of the consequences of it,

as in Islamic toleration of slavery, would be an asset.

[rug]

6. It would, and one under which Harris would not pass muster.

[struggle4progress]

7. Slavery is nominally illegal everywhere, though it also seems to exist everywhere.

Last edited Fri May 3, 2013, 09:56 PM - Edit history (1)

There's nothing particularly Islamic about the modern profile. Current estimates from the ILO and the US DoS involve 20+ million in forced labor around the world, with nearly 12 million of them in Asia and the Pacific. About 20% of the estimate represents women forced to work as prostitutes around the world. The estimate also includes child soldiers and forced labor under governments

http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/192587.pdf
http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---ed_norm/---declaration/documents/publication/wcms_182004.pdf

[dimbear]

8. For instance, in Saudi Arabia slavery has officially not existed since 1960,

but in fact continues to flourish. It's hard to point to another developed country where that is true, of course subject to what we have in mind by 'developed' country.

[struggle4progress]

9. In that respect and many others, Saudi Arabia is a disgrace, of course,

as are many of the Middle Eastern oil states

But it is not clear to me that Islam is anything other than an accidental factor in Middle Eastern slavery

The Middle Eastern oil oligarchies have fabulously wealthy and largely unaccountable ruling classes, a sure recipe for a corrupt society filled with brats who feel entitled, superior, and untouchable

"I'm better than you, and nobody can stop me from doing what I want, so from now you're my slave" is perhaps the actual dynamic of enslavement in Saudi Arabia

[dimbear]

10. Hard to ignore that the Prophet Muhammad was quite an avid collector

of slaves. I think that left its mark.

[struggle4progress]

11. By sheer numbers, predominantly Hindu India might win the world slavery title

Slavery experts agree that, by comparison with other countries, India has the largest concentration of slavery in all its forms. Slavery in India, whether in sexual exploitation or other forms of labor, typically uses the mechanism of debt bondage, where slaves are psychologically chained to an illegal debt that they are forced to repay through their labor. If the psychological pressure fails, then slaveholders enforce debt bondage slavery through direct violence ...

https://www.freetheslaves.net/SSLPage.aspx?pid=679

Fighting Modern-Day Slavery in India
By Laura Sheahen

... For years, the area of Chhattisgarh in India was the perfect target for human traffickers. Its rural, remote villages had little contact with the outside world. If a 16-year-old girl left to work as a maid in Delhi, India's capital, her parents could only assume she was okay. In villages where there is little electricity, low literacy and no computers, there was no way to check ...

But what seemed like a glamorous move to the big city often became a nightmare of abuse for the young people. Girls were sold into unpaid prostitution; teenage boys were brought to factories where they worked long hours for no money at all, only food ...

Younger children often receive offers to work in bead or embroidery factories. "Traffickers go to the parents and convince them to send their children to Delhi, telling them they'll get an education and a job that pays well," says Sangita Bhatia, a program manager for Catholic Relief Services in India. "They'll give a few hundred rupees to the parents to convince them that more is coming soon." But after the children are put to work in sweatshops, they and their families rarely receive any payment.

For teenage girls, the situation is even worse. Father William Urray, a priest in Chhattisgarh whose organization works to fight the buying and selling of people, talked with one trafficker who urged many girls to travel to Delhi. Father Urray says the trafficker, or agent, took 12 girls in one day, including one who was deaf and mute. According to Father Urray, the trafficker was paid 2,000 rupees ($45) for each girl he convinced to board the train to Delhi. Once the girls arrive in the city, they are sold into brothels and then must "work off" the money paid for them ...

http://crs.org/india/trafficking-prevention/

Forced labour in India
Toil and trouble
Where slavery persists in all but name
Nov 3rd 2012 | DELHI |From the print edition

BONDAGE, says Harsh Mander, a prominent Indian social activist, “is endemic. It is an essential factor of labour relations across India” ... The desperately poor, especially indebted villagers, are often forced to toil for no wages and denied a chance to work elsewhere. They are slaves in all but name.

Depending how you define it—workers are usually snared after an employer gives or promises a small loan—victims number possibly in the millions. One activist describes how, last year, his group helped to free 512 bonded workers trapped in a single brick kiln in Tamil Nadu. All were migrants ferried in by a middleman from distant Odisha. They spoke no Tamil and had no notion of their legal rights or of a means of escape. In another case some of the 30 bonded workers found in a rice mill said that they had inherited debts from their parents.

Despite a 1975 law banning debt bondage, almost nobody is ever prosecuted. In any case the stipulated fine—2,000 rupees ($37)—is laughable, and hardly anyone is jailed. The campaigners in Delhi introduced Gurwail Singh in order to make their point. A Punjabi, Mr Singh says that five years ago he borrowed 5,000 rupees from a farmer and agreed to work on the fields to pay his debt. But after the employer slapped him with arbitrary “fines”, plus high rates of interest, he was told he owed over 100,000 rupees. He complained and was beaten so badly he ended up in hospital.

In some states, notably Punjab, officials routinely insist the feudal practice no longer exists. But when Mr Singh tried to prosecute his old boss, the case was rejected. Indeed, his then employer is countersuing ... A recent survey of 120 villages in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh unearthed 286 people considered bonded labourers. Other exploitation verges on bonded labour: unpaid workers and girls sent to work in a relative’s textile mill who earn no wages but a lump sum to be used as a dowry ...

http://www.economist.com/news/asia/21565685-where-slavery-persists-all-name-toil-and-trouble

04:28 PM ET
India's sex slaves face lifelong cycle of abuse
By Davinder Kumar, Special to CNN

... Andhra Pradesh accounts for nearly half of all sex trafficking cases in India, the majority involving adolescent girls. According to police estimates, a shocking 300,000 women and girls have been trafficked for exploitative sex work from Andhra Pradesh; of these just 3,000 have been rescued so far.

The state is relatively prosperous, ranking fourth in terms of per capita GDP in India, but it is also home to some of the poorest people in the country.

Organized sex trafficking is so entrenched that traffickers have penetrated the remotest villages, preying on vulnerable young girls from impoverished households and pushing them into sex work and slavery across the country. Promises of marriage, employment and even food are used to lure girls from their homes, only for them to find themselves forced into the sex trade.

Sunitha was befriended by her next-door neighbor, who promised her a better job in Hyderabad. She was sold to a handler who sold her to a brothel in the city. Sunitha says she was forced to have sex in return for coupons: Only after she had served 250 clients was she allowed to redeem her coupons for an adequate meal ...

http://thecnnfreedomproject.blogs.cnn.com/2012/10/10/indias-sex-slaves-face-lifelong-cycle-of-abuse/

India’s child maids face slavery, abuse and sometimes rape
By Simon Denyer,January 19, 2013

NEW DELHI — She was just 14 years old when she was picked up from her poor village in eastern India and promised good wages as a maid in New Delhi. Instead, she was forced to work for free as a virtual slave in a wealthy middle-class household.

When she plucked up the courage to complain to the “placement agent” who had found her the job, “he beat me and then he raped me,” the girl, now 17, said in an interview in this capital city. “He said if I ever tried to run away from home, he would kill off my family and burn down my house.”

Every year, hundreds of thousands of girls are trafficked from rural India to work as domestic servants in middle-class homes in India’s fast-growing urban areas. They are expected to work at least 15 hours a day for food, lodging and salaries well below the legal minimum monthly wage of about $125. Many end up cut off from their families, abused and treated like slaves. Some are sexually assaulted.

India erupted in outrage at the gang rape last month of a young woman on a moving bus in New Delhi. But in the same city, experts say, a vast network of child trafficking and abuse operates with society’s implicit sanction and official apathy. As India strives to become a modern and developed nation, the problem serves as a reminder of the exclusion of a vast swath of the population from the benefits of a rising economy and the broad indifference of many middle-class Indians to the rights of the poor ...

http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-01-19/world/36474454_1_placement-agencies-child-labor-bhuwan-ribhu

Child slavery in India - in pictures
Up to 200,000 children a year fall into the hands of slave traders in India, many sold by their poverty-stricken parents for as little as £11. Now a group of activists has set out to rescue them from a life in the sweatshops of Delhi


Avdesh Kumar, 16, in the village of Bhoopharo near the town of Sithamari in Bihar state. He was rescued from a workshop in Delhi after he was trafficked there at the age of 10
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/2012/aug/05/child-slavery-in-india-pictures?picture=394137074#/?picture=394137065&index=0

IJM Helps Rescue 36 Families From Slavery In India, Including 3-Year-Old Girl
Fri, 01/11/2013

CHENNAI, INDIA – Today, nearly 150 children, women and men are celebrating freedom, rescued from slavery this week outside Hyderabad, India. More than 100 women and men – plus seven children as young as 3 years old – received official release certificates emancipating them from slavery in a brick factory.

The men and women shared how they had been physically beaten and forced to work 18 to 22 hours a day – sleeping for an hour or two and then resuming their back-breaking work in the brick kiln. A pregnant woman told how she had pleaded for rest when she was pregnant; instead, she was kicked by her manager. One man had raw wounds so deep that the bone showed through.

Their grueling work schedule permitted them little time to eat; the workers were so malnourished that after they ate their first full meal in a long time, many of them vomited. They had been trapped in the factory for three to seven months.

The children who were strong enough to carry bricks were put to work. Mana,* a 3-year-old girl, worked beside her parents for eight hours a day, turning bricks in the hot sun to ensure that the moisture evaporated uniformly in the heat. At first, the government officials could not believe that a girl so small could have worked. But they were convinced when Mana demonstrated the careful turning motion she used, over and over, to turn brick after brick every day. Thirty-four other children were rescued, and none of them had been allowed to go to school. The youngest was only 4 months old. The adults and children were kept under strict watch, not even allowed to go the marketplace without a manager accompanying them ...

http://www.ijm.org/node/1904