A general rift
Eiynah at Nice Mangos tells the story of the targeted bullying she’s been subjected to lately. It’s a very full record so not something you can read in a couple of minutes, but it’s good to have details.
For those asking over the past few days, wtf happened to start these mob attacks on me: Well…I’m not entirely sure, because they sort of came out of the blue. There’s a general rift in left-leaning atheists and right-leaning atheists. And ‘right-leaning’ is seen as some sort of slur, when it’s just an observation based on the politics coming from some of these types. If you’re anti-left on everything, and rarely ever anti-right…it says something. Especially today. Oh – and there’s no gold star for seeing the most obvious flaws on the right, like Trump or Alt Right nationalists.
However, this split continues to become more pronounced in these times of the rising far right. While lefties are looking to focus some of their criticism there, others are trying to resist and silence that criticism.
That general rift between left-leaning and right-leaning atheists (and skeptics) has been widening since at least 2011. Six long sweaty often unpleasant years.
The latest explosion started with a disagreement over “Taqiya” and whether it’s a big deal or not. (Spoiler: it’s not.)
The Nitty Gritty
Gather round peeps, I’m gonna share a really absurd tale about supposed ex-muslim allies, supposed critics of sjw style ‘oppression olympics’ and sjw ideological purity tests…but who are now furious because an ex-muslim they disagree with ideologically/politically in their minds was not oppressed ENOUGH.A fellow ex-muslim, that I have personally promoted, jumped in happily to weigh-in on the drama and attempt to negate my lived experience by claiming I just *dabbled in oppression*, haven’t truly experienced it or anything… My life was like a 5 star resort apparently…and everyone else seems to be a good judge on what kind of life I had in sharia-land.
There’s this bizarre idea that growing up in a compound for foreigners, in which there is a lot of freedom, is growing up free of oppression. Wut? Another word for “compound” is “ghetto”…or “prison.”
Mostly, people on both ends have an issue with me because I refuse to pick a team. I think criticizing both Islamic far right and western far right is important. And I think in Trumpian times, It’s vital to focus *some* of my critique on the western right and its apologists. When that toxic stuff overlaps with criticism of Islam, it does nothing but muddy the waters, and hold back valid criticisms from resonating with the mainstream.
Let me emphasize that one bit: I think criticizing both Islamic far right and western far right is important.
Same here.
“Mostly, people on both ends have an issue with me because I refuse to pick a team. I think criticizing both Islamic far right and western far right is important.”
Indeed, the real struggle is between liberalism/secularism/universal human rights and theocracy/ultra-conservatism/conformity of thought. Frustratingly, the more popular narrative is purely tribal (“The West” vs. “Islam”) which so muddies that waters that conversations becomes so damn difficult to have without people’s defenses going up.
Shouldn’t there be an easy way to demonstrate this? Maybe a flow chart? I feel like Maajid Nawaz and similar voices need a series of animated youtube videos like the British Humanist Association has done in order to explain this framing better.
Tribalism rears its ugly head yet again. Not sure if the problem is attributable to failure of imagination, lack of empathy or deficiency in the appreciation of nuance. I notice that Ali Rizvi has been doing his best to stand with Eiynah. Rizvi’s recent book The Atheist Muslim has also faced attacks from some “purity atheists” who ‘splain that he is simply wrong to use that term for his book title, claiming that it is an inherent contradiction in terms. Initially I thought that responding with illustrations of similar examples like the atheist evangelical Christian preachers from Dennett & Lascola’s “Clergy Project” might help them to understand, but apparently that was not to be.
Theo, maybe you were just using the wrong comparisons. Instead of using other atheist/religion examples maybe you should compare the atheist muslim to a vegetarian butcher.
https://www.theherbivorousbutcher.com
@Acolyte, perhaps I am missing your point, but I think unless the vegetarian is only butchering because otherwise s/he risks violence, loss of access to loved ones, and/or homelessness, I don’t think the analogy works.
@Ben – that does look tasty.
Theo, one of us is missing the other’s point, and it could easily be me. I read your comment as meaning that the purity atheist bunch couldn’t grasp the notion of an atheist with a religious vocation, so suggested the vegetarian butcher as an example of somebody who held one set of beliefs whilst seeming to be actively working against them.
Acolyte: I don’t see it as an “atheist with a religious vocation”, but rather cases of atheists who hide their true beliefs while going through the religious motions because the consequences of “coming out” can range from social ostracization through loss of housing, employment, or even one’s life.
Theo, I understand how you see it, and my comment was in no way trying to minimalise or trivialise the problems atheists can have when trying to break from religion. My error was in reading your initial post to mean that the purity atheists couldn’t be made to understand how the inherent contradiction in ‘atheist muslim’ doesn’t actually rule out the possibility that atheist muslims do exist. In that vein, I was just suggesting making an analogy not involving religion as they may have given it more consideration when their blinkered view of religion and atheism was removed from the equation.