here’s a good response to hirsi ali, by jill, on her blog “feministe”:

12.8.2007
Where are all the moderate Muslims?
Posted by Jill @ 10:31 am

Ayaan Hirsi Ali has an op/ed up in the Times about “Islam’s silent moderates,” arguing that if Islam is really a religion of goodness then moderates should be pushing that vision, and simultaneously insisting that Islam can’t be a good religion and so there is no such thing as a moderate Muslim. I have a lot of respect for Hirsi Ali — she’s a smart, brave woman, and she certainly has valid personal reasons for disliking Islam. But what bothers me about this op/ed, and other op/eds like it, is that the argument is circular and unfair, and it holds Islam and Muslims to a standard that other mainstream religious groups are exempt from. For example, she starts the op/ed out with this passage from the Quran:

The woman and the man guilty of adultery or fornication, flog each of them with 100 stripes: Let no compassion move you in their case, in a matter prescribed by Allah, if you believe in Allah and the Last Day. (Koran 24:2)

and eventually uses it to make the point that:

If moderate Muslims believe there should be no compassion shown to the girl from Qatif, then what exactly makes them so moderate?

Selecting one section from a centuries-old religious text and then drawing the conclusion that most followers of that religion follow that text to the word is ridiculous. There are certainly a lot of religious people who do claim to follow the exact word of their religious text, but they’re usually either lying or ignorant. Religion may be the province of God, but how we live religion every day is entirely man-made. Men recorded the word of God onto paper. Even way back then, human beings selected which sections of religious law they wanted to live by; today, we still pick and choose. Notions of human rights and justice have evolved, and along with it, so has our religious understanding. To claim that every single passage in the Quran or the Bible is somehow “proof” of its moderate followers’ mindset is incredibly dishonest. You’d be better suited to see which passages the followers pick and choose themselves — that’s a whole lot more telling. And I guarantee that just as Pat Robertson and Mike Huckabee would pick very different Bible verses than I would to explain my faith, Muslim extremists would pick very different Quranic verses than your average, moderate Muslim person.

Hirsi Ali focuses on the horrendous rape punishment leveled at “the Qatif girl” in Saudi Arabia to make the point that moderate Muslims aren’t actually moderate. She writes:

It is often said that Islam has been “hijacked” by a small extremist group of radical fundamentalists. The vast majority of Muslims are said to be moderates.

But where are the moderates? Where are the Muslim voices raised over the terrible injustice of incidents like these? How many Muslims are willing to stand up and say, in the case of the girl from Qatif, that this manner of justice is appalling, brutal and bigoted — and that no matter who said it was the right thing to do, and how long ago it was said, this should no longer be done?

She comes to the conclusion that Muslims are silent about this. Which is kind of a funny conclusion — who does she think raised the issue in the first place? The New York Times?

The girl’s lawyer is a Saudi Muslim. She has been helped by human rights activists across the Middle East. Her story was promoted by Arab journalists. The case has outraged people around the world, including in Saudi Arabia. If moderate Muslims were actually silent, we would have never heard about this case to begin with.

I’m in the middle of finals and so I don’t have time to do an extensive research project on this either, but here’s what a quick google search turned up:

Ruling Jolts Even Saudis: 200 Lashes for Rape Victim
Arab View — Rape: Who Gets Punished And Who Does Not?
Saudi Jeans blog — The Qatif Girl, Again and Justice and Common Sense
Saudi Gazette - The Agony of Qatif Girl
Progressive Muslima News
Arab News: How Culture is Defined in a Global World
Hafeez Anwar’s Website: Lashing Out at the Media Over the Qatif Girl Case
Khaleej Times Online: Saudi Women Furious at Gang-Rape Ruling
Arab News: Violence Against Women is Still a Problem

That just took me all of 10 minutes. And there are dozens of articles and blog posts that I’ve read this week — including posts from very conservative Muslim writers who often make me want to throw something — that have all expressed disgust and outrage over this verdict. Further, the verdict has started a conversation about reforming the Saudi justice system — and the conversation is happening within Saudi Arabia.

There are a whole lot of problems with the way religion is exercised and carried out on all levels. But it’s the most dangerous when people in power use it to uphold their bigotries and to keep themselves at the top of the food chain. That’s what’s happening here — and moderate people of faith are speaking out against it, and against that power structure. This is not a phenomenon that’s inherent to Islam.

Finally, if we actually want moderate Muslims to feel safe speaking out, we have to can the “Islam is horrible” line. Because the more we say that things like female genital surgeries or punishing rape victims are Islam, the more that violent vision of Islam becomes emboldened and strengthened, and the more difficult it becomes for Muslim people to argue, “Wait a minute, that isn’t Islam as I’ve lived it.” And it’s really not the responsibility of Muslim people to be on the constant defensive in the first place — criticize the radicals, but don’t pin their actions on the millions of people who are horrified by them. And certainly don’t draw hasty conclusions about who is and isn’t speaking out when you haven’t even bothered to listen.

after i read hirsi ali’s article i looked her up on the web. it’s useful to see where a commentator is coming from. what i found is that she is not qualified to make an objective argument about islam and muslims because in her own words “islam is bad” - she is not looking for the truth but propagandizing her own views for the benefit of the ultra-conservative american right - let’s not forget that she lied on her citizenship application in the netherlands and was on the verge of being kicked out of that country when she was given refuge (and a lucrative paycheck) by the right-wing american enterprise institute. check out her views on islam and america:

hitler’s chief propagandist joseph goebbels was a firm believer in the “big lie”. he understood that if you repeat a lie often enough, people start to believe it. and so it goes with the relentless accusations levelled at moderate muslims. to tell you the truth, i’m sick of the label. by identifying ourselves as moderate muslims we fall into the trap of defining ourselves in language designed to reduce us to a stereotype. yet, here i am, a muslim in america, and therefore under constant pressure to explain myself. not only that but i am also accountable for the actions of more than a billion muslims in countries as diverse as saudi arabia, bangladesh and sudan.

a friend of mine sent me an article by ayan hirsi ali, imaginatively titled “islam’s silent moderates” in which she holds the moderates responsible for human rights abuses committed by the saudi, bangladeshi and sudanese governments.

here is what i think of all three cases.

as far as the saudi government, human rights abuses there have very little to do with islam and everything to do with the fact that the country is controlled by a single family, the sauds, who keep a tight lid on dissent by using religion to repress and restrain. i have very little tolerance for the saudi government and am more than happy to condemn the many human rights abuses that occur in that country. it is one country in the world where i would flatly refuse to live. even though saudi arabia is the birth place of islam, it is anything but islamic. there is no concept of hereditary rule in islam and saudi arabia (the “arabia of the sauds”) fails that basic test. however, my condemnation, and that of other muslims, cannot be as effective in dissuading the saudis from committing crimes against their own citizens as a few harsh words from the american government (the self-proclaimed policeman of the world). interestingly enough, saudi arabia remains america’s biggest muslim ally in the world - the saudi dictators being best friends with their american counterparts, the bushes. being a pakistani-american muslim, i think that the part of my identity that is most sickened by saudi arabia’s human rights trespasses is the reality that my country openly supports such an illegitimate and brutal government.

as far as the gillian gibbons case, hirsi ali jumped the gun. her op-ed piece was published on december 7, 2007, when gillian gibbons had already been free for 4 days. i won’t get into the ny times sloppy fact checking - that’s a whole other story! what makes hirsi ali’s damning of the moderates even more ironic is that gibbons’s release was secured by moderate muslims. lord ahmed and baroness warsi of the house of lords, successfully lobbied the sudanese government and obtained her early release. check out the story.

apparently british foreign secretary david miliband tried to halt the mission but lord ahmed and baroness warsi defied the foreign office and flew to sudan at their own expense to win gibbons’ release. the foreign office warned them they were doing so at their own risk and that the british government would not bail them out if things went awry.

but can we expect to see an oped piece in the ny times based on this turn of events - a story that turns hirsi ali’s argument on its head? somehow i’m not holding my breath.

hirsi ali’s final accusation against muslims involves taslima nasreen, whom i frankly don’t know much about. it seems that she is being threatened and her freedom of speech is being curbed. i am against any kind of intimidation, from any quarter, which means to control free thought and free speech. what i don’t understand is why should these human rights abuses be more important to me than what is happening in my own country (like the orwellian home-grown terrorism prevention act which makes it convenient to define any form of dissent as a means to incite violence and therefore punishable by law - i posted the details of the act on 12/2/07).

as luck would have it i was browsing through the amnesty international web site a day before i was sent hirsi ali’s article. i am an amnesty international partner of conscience and support their efforts to protect human rights all over the world. the first case hirsi ali talks about was a major story on amnesty’s web site. but there are other stories hirsi ali’s skipped over. many of them involve the u.s. government (destruction of cia interrogation tapes, salim hamdan before a military commission for a second time, guantanamo, lethal injection, illegal detention). in fact, of all the countries cited for human rights infringements on AI’s news/reports page, the united states is mentioned with the most regularity.

definition of propaganda from wikipedia: propaganda presents facts selectively to encourage a particular synthesis, or gives loaded messages in order to produce an emotional rather than rational response to the information presented.

i see myself as a human rights advocate and feel equally appalled by all human rights violations, everywhere in the world. for me personally, america and pakistan are the two countries i can most relate to and am most concerned with. you have to only read a few posts on my blog to realize that i am not shy about criticizing human rights abuses by either country. through amnesty international i try to be a force for good in the rest of the world. yet why do i have to defend myself - my integrity, my humanity? why can we not ask the same question of other americans for example? do they constantly condemn and apologize for the unprovoked barbarity in iraq? do they perpetually agitate to end guantanamo? do they raise their voices against torture and illegal detentions? do they regularly campaign for and support equal rights for alaskan and native american women? the list goes on. why do we hold the american people innocent of crimes committed by their government when they, unlike most other people in the world, have the privilege of electing their representatives? let’s remember that george w bush was re-elected after iraq! should we not be asking the question: where are the american moderates? six years after 9/11, why haven’t these well-known, well-documented injustices been stopped?

who decides what crimes, against what victims, perpetrated by which governments are more egregious than others?

munir a. malik, former president supreme court bar association of pakistan (scba), has been at the forefront of the the judiciary’s confrontation with the pakistani dictatorship. this is munir a. malik addressing the scba in islamabad, earlier this year:

this is munir a. malik now, after he was mistreated in jail (and possibly poisoned) and then quickly rushed to the hospital when he suffered renal failure:

many lawyers arrested under martial law are still in jail or missing, but now that musharraf has taken off his uniform the world has lost interest.

attention all dissenters, protesters, anti-war activists, animal rights advocates, environmentalists, and muslims: this bill has already passed the house with flying colors (400 to 6) and is sure to sail through the senate. i found out about it at a rochester against war meeting today. check it out: