I came across the tirade written by Glenn Greenwald on people who criticize Islam. The highlight of the article consists of how people like Sam Harris (atheists) are using intellectual arguments to cloak their anti-Muslim bigotry and that they are somehow to blame for the Chapel Hill killings.
Ideological fundamentalists such as the Islamic State (IS) [an organization of Muslim extremists consisting of multiple races and nationalities pushing for a global Islamic totalitarianism] are receiving necessary defiant criticism from all around the world. IS’s barbarism against the female population in the Middle East is specially heinous as they are subjugated to industrial scale sexual violence and literally sold as slaves in shackles. The Kurds and Yazidis are among the most terrorized – even before the birth of IS – Saddam Hussein indulged in their genocide and torture.
IS released many videos beheading journalists from the U.S. to U.K to Japan, etc. They glamourize the murders of all those they brand an infidel, as many have seen in the video where the Jordanian pilot, Muath al-Kaseasbeh, a sunni Mulsim, was burned alive as the IS anthem played in the background. Their disregard for human life as they butchered and raped women, children and men – their overall appetite for shedding human blood demands not just condemnation from the civilized realm, but also to point out what triggers such cruelty in this specific group of people so we can prevent others from joining their bastion of barbarity.
Greenwald’s quotations of Harris certainly creates concerns when you read them separately — but once you hear the entire context, and analyze the magnitude of human rights violations in the Islamic world—you can verify whether Harris was being malignant or simply honest. Greenwald’s contempt towards Harris resonates from the sentiment of pseudo liberalism where even the worst quality of collective human bigotry must be first appeased so we don’t offend people by describing reality.
If criticism of the ills of society is what’s actually responsible for the Chapel Hill shooting, then let’s start with Israel. Greenwald has criticized Israel to the degree where I can, by his own logic, hold him responsible for the Copenhagen and Paris attacks along with the rise of anti-Jewish rhetoric and violence around the world. The hypocrisy presented in Greenwald’s tirade is echoed by many other usual suspects as well.
The common denominator among pseudo liberals like Greenwald and company is that they all have a narrative of their western and white guilt superseding the atrocities committed by Islamists around the world. Maybe it’s time they check their privilege and how it conflicts with reality?
The east has been terrorized by Islamists for approximately fourteen centuries because of the lack of reform in the religion, but creating a discourse on that is being masked as anti-Muslim bigotry — which essentially perverts justice for those facing unimaginable horror under Sharia.
We easterners couldn’t have possibly had a life before the white men colonized and dehumanized us so let’s dehumanize us further by telling us what’s more important — first it was their superiority complex, and now, their white guilt — their inferiority complex.
Their obsession with making violence all about the west doesn’t end there — whenever Muslim extremists kill tens, hundreds or thousands of Muslims, their social media rants become suspiciously silent — no condemnations, no criticism. There’s a 9/11 occurring in Pakistan almost every week, and it’s all committed by Muslim extremists – so while #MuslimLivesMatter trended for the Chapel Hill killings, the Taliban attack on a Shia mosque three days later killed 20 Shia Muslims and the suicide attack in the Lahore police headquarters killed 6 more Muslims, and neither attacks triggered a western outrage. And what’s worse than appropriating a hashtag in solidarity with the African American community being persecuted by the police in the U.S. — constantly ignoring the deaths of black Muslims.
Greenwald and the rest of the herd (or flock?!) of unicorns are ultimately being apologists for violence against women and girls (VAWG) as well. The Islamic scriptures romanticized VAWG for over a thousand years as the divine law of god and these white men and their fellow apologists prance in and claim that criticizing it is anti-Muslim bigotry? I wonder, has any one of these white western liberals been doused with acid for refusing to wear a hijab, burqa or niqab? Have they ever been raped and asked to present four male witnesses to “confirm” being raped? Have they ever been married off at nine years old and molested and raped by their “husband” who has five other “wives”? Have they ever been told that their lives depended on their virginity – a piece of flesh between their legs?
Criticism is the lifeline that compels reform in any ideological or behavioural aspect — to describe that criticism as hate is a great disservice to human rights activism. I had previously supported some of Greenwald’s points on western imperialism and interventionism — but while knowing he belittles men like Maajid Nawaz all for being a friend to Sam Harris, it goes to invalidate his sincerity to the cause of human rights as he easily squandered his credibility.
In the link, you can see how quick Greenwald rejects Nawaz by labeling him an “Islam critic”. One simply cannot be in his good grace if they criticize Islam and deviate from obsessively blaming the west like Noam Chomsky. I’m sure he feels great being that white man who’s able to criticize his own western culture and people but when he starts using that objectivity as being triumphant over people like Nawaz and insinuate he is irrelevant [because he criticizes Islam] sums up Greenwald’s measure of understanding Islamism.
For those who do not know Maajid Nawaz – he’s a political activist and founder of Quilliam, an organization that aims to reform the religious world by bridging it to liberalism – oh, and he’s also a former member of the Islamist organization called Hizb ut-Tahrir and was a prisoner in Egypt for five years. If one wants to truly understand the heart of Islamism, there’s no other person to better help you navigate the conflict than Nawaz. He also published a book called ‘Radical’—an educational piece of writing on the subject – I suggest Greenwald start there before reducing him to an “Islam critic”. And if Greenwald had learned about Nawaz’s experiences and acknowledged what he does with his platform, and still chose to mock him, I can rightly describe him as yet another entitled white man troubled by the fact that there is a world beyond his experience and so deflects his ignorance by outshining it with arrogance.
Greenwald took issue with Sam Harris’s rejection of building a mosque on Ground Zero (9/11). Maybe he forgot that it was reminiscent of Muslims’ history of destroying the construction of non-Muslims and celebrate it by building a mosque over it? Greenwald righteously quoted Harris with a silent growl, “The erection of a mosque upon the ashes of this atrocity will also be viewed by many millions of Muslims as a victory — and as a sign that the liberal values of the West are synonymous with decadence and cowardice." How dare people outrage over the hijacking of liberalism like that—a mosque on rubbles drenched in the blood of infidels is so innocuous. Meanwhile — Muslim extremists storm a building full of cartoonists and kill them for drawing pictures and compel more “moderate Muslims” to protest against free speech.
Greenwald is setting a dangerous environment for reformists like Maajid Nawaz, Faisal Saeed Al Mutar and Ali A. Rizvi who are already receiving death threats from Muslim extremists around the world for merely pointing out why extremism is casually adopted. Who knew that reading verses out of the Quran was so anti-Muslim?
Greenwald is one of those preachers who want people to respect the ideological flaws that create fanaticism and violence because he has an indirect belief that brown people should not have a higher standard of equality and justice as experienced in the West. Sure, the West has its problems — but a woman can still file a complaint of rape without being stoned to death because she couldn’t produce four male witnesses, or a person can still be openly atheist and reject religion without being lynched to death by a thousand religiously crazed everyday-people – and most importantly, it is illegal to marry off little girls, as pedophilia is a crime.
I suppose the suffering of non-Muslims, apostates, atheists, women and girls in Islamic nations are all just noble suffering that must be respected at a whim, because of course—their suffering is just “cultural” and “traditional”. The Muslim world can treat religious and racial minorities and women and girls as non-humans and dare anybody condemn it for the reality it is – people like Greenwald become outraged over the outrage because white people aren’t being wrongfully condemned for something that they did not start.
Greenwald wrote “Just ponder that. To Harris, there are "tens of millions" of Muslims "far scarier" then the US political leader who aggressively invaded and destroyed a nation of 26 million people, constructed a worldwide regime of torture, oversaw a network of secret prisons beyond the reach of human rights groups, and generally imposed on the world his "Dark Side". That is the Harris worldview: obsessed with bad acts of foreign Muslims, almost entirely blind to - if not supportive of - the far worse acts of westerners like himself.” He accused Harris of hate-mongering for referring to Muslim extremism as being far worse as represented by the atrocities like flogging, stoning, legalizing murder in the name of “honour” and “blasphemy”, legalizing violence against women and girls [such as marital rape, child marriage and physical, financial and emotional violence to “correct” them], imprisoning the LGBT community, etc.—but apparently, all that is a lesser crime – as it’s all a daily event in the western world as it is in the Muslim world, right? Why leave such a precious place and flee to the west — god, I wonder!
Greenwald then claimed to be mystified about Harris’s rejection of the term “Islamophobia”—which is used to drown practically any and all criticism of Islam. Whether you mention the scriptures inciting hate and violence or the obvious volume of misogyny and homophobia — it doesn’t matter, you are labeled an “Islamophobe” and a “racist”, but a journalist is mystified – what a conundrum it must be that people reject that word so often?
“Islamophobia” represents an insidious idea that there’s something inherently vile about the criticism of Islam and Muslim extremism — therefore it’s irrational to even dare to push for its reform or denounce the violence the ideology invokes. If Muslim people in general were ever a concern for those who coined this term — they would have said “Muslimophobia” or something of human recognition, but instead, they cleverly used an ideological element to automatically invalidate any criticism of Islam. So bravo—Mr. Journalist, on condoning the usage of a term that stifles free speech while bemoaning the struggles of whistleblowers.
It is safe to state Harris’s claim of “The only future devout Muslims can envisage — as Muslims — is one in which all infidels have been converted to Islam, politically subjugated, or killed.”—is an honest statement of observation, as time and time again, Muslim conservatives, whether violent or vocal extremists, have refused to accept anything but Sharia as their law [while living in the West]. A great majority of Muslims in their native Islamic countries also greatly value Sharia law as a necessity as per this 2013 PEW study. Although majority believe Sharia should only apply to Muslims—Sharia itself extends to everyone as evident in Islamic nations.
In the real world, where violence is legalized in the name of religion and culture, society demands a certain tenacity of unapologetic criticism [and as stated earlier] that becomes the lifeline to societal reform—and it’s foolish to condemn it by whitewashing facts. The hope for peace and unity in the Islamic world grows fainter each day with western liberals blindly reiterating the dishonesty of Muslim conservatives who are very much like the GOP who preach about “Christian values” and what it takes to be a “true Christian” and deny women, girls and the LGBT human rights. The west is guilty of many things but they did not impose Sharia on the Muslim world, other Muslims did that. And they continue to favour Sharia and refuse to alter it in any way and demand a perpetual state of horror the west has long disposed of by embracing secularism.
While the west flourished in the activism for human rights and equality and continue to change its policies to this day — the east cited religion, culture and tradition to keep its people in the dark ages. And in the 21st century — very little has been accomplished in the east regarding rights and equality because the same people who prevent changes are receiving support under the guise of “religious” and “cultural” freedom. We must support reformists like Maajid Nawaz to educate the west so the international community can push for people to renounce their draconian cultural and religious values that restrict human rights.
Islam is at the epicenter of Muslim extremism – let’s admit that first. As my last Sunday’s blog had stated — people are rejoicing and having a hallelujah moment with the Chapel Hill massacre. How many more Muslims have been murdered by the Taliban since then? How many of it has Greenwald condemned? The selective outrage by such pseudo liberals is exactly why liberalism has been turned into a circus full of racketeering clowns with their main act being denialism and deflection that obscures rationality.
Greenwald leering at “Islam critics” is definitely a display of western entitlement. Who cares about victims of Islamic tyranny — as long as his indignation gets rewarded, he doesn’t give a second thought about the freethinkers of Islamic societies being raped, hung and confined for merely promoting liberalism and equality. Fourteen centuries of abuse in the eastern world has finally caught up into the mainstream politics of the western world and western liberals are rushing to glorify their civility by sugarcoating atrocities. It’s time he stopped cowering beneath the weight of appeasement and becomes honest with himself. He is a journalist after all.