Why Islam?

One theme comes out in comments by some Muslims on recent programmes about Islam, "Why pick on Islam?"

I'm not a fan of any faith, given that they all have dodgy interpretations. But Islam seems to be at the centre of many faith conflicts. I just happened to catch a few recent episodes of BBC Radio 4's Beyond Belief.

Try these episodes, while you can:
07 Feb 2011 - Sunni/Shia Tensions - Islam v Islam
24 Jan 2011 - Ayodhya - Hindu v Islam
17 Jan 2011 - Egypt - Christianity v Islam

In addition to the victim question, "Why pick on Islam?", there's also the other element, of minimising the extent to which Islam is often interpreted in a violent manner, such as the persecution of apostates, as described in the 17 Jan episode.

Maybe Muslims feel they are the centre of criticism. But maybe that's because there is plenty to criticise.

Anticipating Islamaphobia-phobia, Again

I think that sometimes those that criticise Islam are seen as Islamaphobes, as if they make stuff up about the extent to which homophobia exists in Islam; or about or how women are viewed; or about how kafirs are viewed; or about how kids are indoctrinated in faith schools; or about the political nature of Islam. As if there is no rational reason to be concerned about Islam, or the reluctance to criticise Islam.

I'll be interested to see what is shown in this programme, Dispatches: Lessons In Hate & Violence , beyond this clip.

Be prepared for the backlash of denials. It's happened before, here in 2007, where complainants managed to convince the police that Channel 4 had it wrong. It appears that if the religious make enough noise, if they can be offended enough, their voices will be heard. But, it didn't end there. There is, or was at that time in 2007, a distinct bias towards tolerating Islamic intolerance. As shown here.

It's not just police that are in denial. Every Islamist's favourite non-Muslim Brit, George Galloway, can be relied on to back them, no matter how vile they are. Here, from 2008, is his response to another dispatches programme that had similar evidence. The ridiculous GG doesn't get how biased he is here. GG seems to lose the plot entirely, and takes on the manner of a berating Islamist speaker. Does GG really think those investigated would say what was recorded under cover if it had been in the open? And GG has the nerve to lecture on interviewing, while making his own political speech. He's right of course, that there are extremist Zionists and Christians. Some of the crazies on the recent Louis Theroux story from the West Bank, and his reports on US Christians attests to that. But to use this to sidestep the points made in the programme on Islam is just bollocks.

I wonder if the new programme will help the government reconsider its position on faith schools. Sure, most faith schools won't be like this. But faith schools, indeed faith itself, facilitates this. Because faith, ultimately, relies on accepting stuff on authority. The ultimate authority may be claimed to be God, but in practice it's the authority of those that claim the authority to interpret the words of God.

And when a religion inherently advocates strong sanctions against those within the religion that criticise it, or against those that want to leave it, or against those that fail to meet its most stringent requirements, then that adds to the stranglehold it has on reason, criticism and scepticism. And when it uses the mechanism of taking offence to attempt to censor non-Muslim criticism of Islam, the results are fiery. I wonder what claims of Islamaphobia will emerge, and to what extent various non-Muslim organisations and individuals ignore the points made in the programme because of their phobia of Islamaphobia - heaven forbid that a post-modern liberal relativist give up their relativism for the sake of common sense and evidence.

So, I'll look forward to the responses to the Dispatches programme as much as the programme itself.

The ABC Of Putting Your Foot In It

Lot's of coverage of ate ABC's comments this week. I think Julian Baggini got it wrong on this one. Funny comment though, "People often say how intelligent Williams is, but I think they confuse intelligence with being thoughtful, well-intentioned and in possession of a fine beard." You can imagine Blackadder delivering such a cutting line, which is coincidental since Sky News attributed the ABC's comments to Rowan Atkinson (ht:The News Quiz).

Most of the other contributors on the Baggini blog topic made the case well enough.