I’ve hesitated to post this report. We in the UK are living in an atmosphere in which, increasingly, we cannot say certain things that we may believe to be true and in which we are constrained to say things we believe to be untrue. The ever growing amount of equality and diversity legislation can be seen as criminalizing certain speech acts, as do hate speech laws. For example, if a religious person says, as an expression of his or her beliefs, that homosexuality is immoral, this may be taken by the police as an expression of “homophobia” and, hence, as a form of offensive or hate speech.
This “mandated speech”, it has been argued, is a result of the tendency of “liberal” governments to wish to define the moral sphere in legislative terms. In the past, morality was very much the province of religion, but now the “liberal” tendency is to try to domesticate religion and coopt it to government purposes. The problem for the faith communities is to know how to respond to this tendency, which has been exacerbated in the UK because the government is now offering capacity building funds to faith communities and faith-based organizations and projects.
One of the areas in which “mandated speech” is problematic concerns what we may and may not say about Islam and Muslims. There is an increasing strain in the UK (as in other European countries and in North America) arising out of tension between the fact of terrorism committed by Muslims on religious grounds and the ever-rising demands by Muslims in the UK for exceptional treatment by the state (as, for example, in this story about a recent manifesto from the Muslim Council of Britain demanding that schools in the UK better accommodate Muslim students), on the one hand, and the desire to placate Muslim hostility to any kind of critical remark about Islam, on the other. The desire to appease has been reinforced by the insertion of the term “Islamophobia” into the public discourse about Islam. We’ve been seduced by this word. It is now all too easy to brand anyone who criticizes the behaviour of Muslims or, indeed, Islam itself as an “Islamophobe”. This has become a term of vilification (almost equivalent to “racist”) and is used by some to try to silence debate about Islam.
Most people don’t want to be labelled “Islamphobic”. But the matter goes far beyond labelling. The restraints on freedom of expression that arise out of “hate speech” legislation and the insidious blocking of debate by the use of the label have the effect of restraining freedom of religion and belief. Particularly they, and threatened and actual violence, make it increasingly difficult for people to convert from Islam to other religions.
On 20 February I attended a consultation in the House of Lords on the theme of “Religious freedom, conversions and international human rights”. Organized by the Maranatha Community, the consultation was jointly chaired by Baroness Christine Cox, a remarkable parliamentarian and a doughty defender of religious freedom (with a particular focus on defending Christians), and Lord Anderson. former chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee.
The underlying theme of the consultation was the erosion of genuine religious freedom, particularly the freedom to change one’s religion, as a result of the creeping Islamisation and the increasing political correctness of European societies. The Maranatha Community, which – according to its website – is “a free, open and loving Christian movement which is rapidly growing throughout the United Kingdom and abroad”, is deeply concerned about the way in which accusations of and penalties against apostasy are used by Muslim leaders to block Muslims from changing their religion.
As Baha’is in Iran know only too well, accusations of apostasy can carry the death penalty in Islamic states. However, Muslims in the UK who convert to other religions are also subjected to pressure and rejection by the mosque, their families, their friends, and in some cases have had death threats.
The speakers were:
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I can’t help but be skeptical of certain claims made in some of these presentations. The one that stands out the most is Mr. Soloman’s claim that Islam recognizes no statement of the Golden Rule. What about the following Hadith:
I don’t know about the British people, but with the Portuguese are tolerant only until a certain point. After hat we say “Enough!” and things get ugly.
I fear something like that may occur…
I really do take exception to this particular post of yours Barney. I had decided a while back not to come here and post anymore because of the anti-Muslim bias in your postings. But this one just takes the cake.
The MCB did not demand anything. They came up with a proposal to assist schools – many of which now have majorities or large minorities of Muslim students – in dealing sensitively with with the cultural and religious pluralism that Britain is now facing from a Muslim perspective.
The Daily Mail and the Murdoch press have lied, and you might benefit from reading this critique from a non-Muslim (and apologising afterwards).
I have known several converts from Islam, and even myself spent a year out of Islam (after I had converted) and tried to be a Baha’i again for a year (elected on LSA and everything) before I gave it up as a hopeless cause. The Muslim community never gave me a single moment of grief.
You really need to stop listening to right-wingers and Christian dominionists Barney, and take the enormous plank out of your own eye when you talk about prejudice and supposed equality.
Hi Barney,
I’m a Baha’i from Canada and just read your piece on ‘Religious Freedom and Conversions’. The same thing is happening in Canada where we are slowly loosing our religious freedom to speak freely or be labelled some kind of ‘phobe’ if we do speak about what our beliefs are. A form of Sharia law almost passed through the province of Ontario legislature last year!
Very interesting times!
If a Muslim criticizes another religion that is freedom of opinion and expression; but if a non-Muslim criticizes Islam that is Islamophobia.
A strange double standard.
As a Muslim I have no problems with criticisms of Islam and the Muslim community – after all, the Qur’an says that truth is everlasting and falsehood is bound to perish.
My problem is when the criticisms are based on lies, misinformation and are sourced from people who have a specific anti-Muslim, anti-immigration and anti-Arab or anti-Asian agenda.
For example, Barney quoted – without correction – the false allegation that there is no golden rule in Islam, nor is there a concept of human being in the Qur’an (or anything other than Muslim and infidel).
The reason why anti-Islamic sites make these false allegations (and if you do a google you will see, these are coming from people who have a very racist and prejudiced agenda) is that it makes Muslims appear to be immoral, unethical, following a religion that is so abhorrant it does not even contain the ‘one’ golden rule that is common to all humanity.
It’s not criticism, it’s propoganda.
On my website, I criticise all sorts of things I don’t like about patriarchal interpretations of Islam, or the actions of some Muslims – but I am very careful not to generalise these to *all* Muslims, and to do my research properly.
There are ignorant people in Iran who “criticise” the Baha’is as being a Zionist/Western Imperialist plot to destroy Iran. Just because someone says it, doesn’t make it true. And the result of someone spreading this lie, is that it can endanger the lives of ordinary Baha’is. That is a dangerous lie, as are the lies contained in the post above.
This is a very significant and also a very tense debate. But it is is a debate that must be had, openly and honestly.
I cannot reconcile Sam Solomon’s assertion of the absence of the “Golden Rule” from Islam in its entirety (over a billion people) with my own many experiences of interaction with Sufi Muslims. I have met and worked with Sufis on many occasions and they are living proof that Islam can co-exist with modernity. There is such a thing as Islamophobia and reading Mr Solomon’s comments I detect a whiff of it.
That said, I cannot agree with Umm Yasmin’s views on this blog implying that all or most criticisms of Islam are based on “lies and misinformation” or those with an anti-Muslim or anti-immigrant agenda.
In respect of the specific issue that this thread addresses, that of religious conversion, I have done legal work on a number of cases of individuals claiming asylum in my country having faced persecution for converting from Islam. There is a real, and growing problem here, and it is unacceptable to try and silence this with accusations of racism. Are the immigrants that flee Muslim countries, having become Christians, Bahis or heaven knows what, part of an “anti-immigrant agenda”? I doubt it.
Ironically, Umm Yasmin’s furious denunciations of Barney’s motivation for this posting confirms what he asserts in the opening section of his comments, that people are hesitant to speak the truth for fear of being denounced as an Islamophobe. QED, I fear.
We are moving perilously close to the position where certain core human rights, not least those contained in article 18, UDHR, may soon be decried as “racist.”
Hi Danny,
I have to confess I wrote passionately when I decried Barney’s original post. Of course there are human rights problems in parts of the Muslim majority world, and the Baha’i experience in Iran is weighty and tragic testimony to that fact. And I am not saying that refugees fleeing from persecution at the hands of ‘Muslims’ are somehow just anti-Muslim propoganda. Not at all!
I think what got me so riled up, was what appeared to be a willingness on Barney’s part to simply accept what a group of people with a very anti-Muslim agenda have to say (sorry Barney, if it was otherwise).
The problem, as I see it, is that groups like the BNP are trying to hide under the cover of protection of freedom of speech. It is not acceptable (thank goodness) to vilify Jews and deny the Holocaust under the cover of freedom of speech. Nor should it be acceptable to vilify Muslims or any other religious or racial group.
Hate-speech does have a very dangerous effect, as we can see in the rise of hate crimes committed against the Muslim community, which has been documented by the Isma’ report in Australia (not sure what UK publications do the same for your neck of the woods Barney).
Hi, Umm Yasmin, thanks for your reply to Danny’s very helpful comment. I’m sorry if I seemed to be uncritical about the output of those with a clearly anti-Muslim agenda. Sam Solomon’s talk at the seminar in the House of Lords was stridently anti-Muslim (ironically, he spoke in the domineering style of one those preachers of hate that one can find in various religions). Amongst other things, he was clearly wrong in saying that Islam has no version of the Golden Rule.
However, there is clearly a legitimate concern about separatist/supremacist Islamic groups (as, indeed, there would be about such groups in any religion) and such concerns should be freely raised and discussed.
At the same time, the raising and discussion of these concerns should not be allowed to drift into hate speech. The challenge is to be frank and objective in addressing legitimate concerns (such as the threat to religious freedom from those who would seek to prevent people changing their religion) without vilifying racial and religious groups.
I wholeheartedly agree about the dangers of hate speech and the danger arising from groups like the BNP who utter hate speech masquerading as ‘free speech’. But I think you have to admit that there are also some imams and Muslim preachers who utter hate speech against non-Muslims and even against other Muslims. I don’t at all claim that Muslims are the only religious people who are guilty of this, but they are the most prominent ones at the moment.
It seems to me that legislation against hate speech has considerable risks attached if it is not well drafted. The real and long-lasting solution, however, is surely in moral and spiritual education, in teaching children the virtues. Legislation may be necessary, but it can never be sufficient.
Umm Yasmin’s and Barney’s further comments are both very interesting.
We all recognise that there is a problem here. The language of rights can be usurped by hateful groups with baleful agendas. Fascist groups have long proclaimed that they stand for “rights for whites” and apartheid was defended by Henrik Verwoerd as a principle of “separate development”. In all candour, I must state that I have some reservations about the rights language that is used by some political Islamist groups, where the aim seems to be the erection of sharia law by stealth.
I accept Umm Yasmin’s point that there is a dangerous place where legitimate criticism of human rights concerns can be expropriated for xenopphobia. I was unsettled and unconvinced by Sam Solomon’s arguments, as reported here. But, as I observed earlier, I do worry about bona fide human rights concerns getting stifled by an almost McCarthyite trend in political correctness. This was the point that Barney’s blog piece opened with and I have to say I share that perspective.
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