Islamic Elitism

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- scamper_22
- Ex-Muslim
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Islamic Elitism
OP - July 16, 2012, 04:04 PM

As the Arab spring occurs, a thought has crept into my mind.

It seems to me that the Muslim elites or Westernized Muslims (including myself) have resolved their issues with Islam by simply leaving. Leaving their home countries. Leaving their communities. Segregating themselves off...

Which of course resolves their issue and sets them free... but it largely leaves the Muslim community itself unchanged... left to the whims of those left in the community.

Perhaps it is better for us to not flee to escape, but to fight for the changes and deal with the backwards people.
We see this rising in the Arab Spring. As elections bring people who had no voice to the forefront. They might be the Islamists or others... and they're electing people with their concerns. This is no worse than what we had before. It is just before these people were hidden. Just like in Turkey where the rural areas were once ignored. Perhaps it is better to bring them into the fold... under careful watch so to speak to make sure they don't go nuts... but small changes here and there might even be backwards... but still worth it in the long run.

Similarly, it might be easy for a liberal/Ex Muslim to just abandon their community and live a good life. But would it not be better for them to stay in their community and voice their opinion and give counter views to the best of their ability to others? They might not be able to say things 100%, but they could influence.
- moi
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Re: Islamic Elitism
Reply #1 - July 16, 2012, 04:31 PM

Interesting. As every action has an equal and opposite reaction are those left behind becoming more extreme because the thinkers have got out?

When you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and you Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it.

A.A. Milne,

"We cannot slaughter each other out of the human impasse"
- allat
- Euphoria
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Re: Islamic Elitism
Reply #2 - July 16, 2012, 05:08 PM

Everyone is in a different situation. Some people can afford to "stay behind" and others can't because the discrimination we would face is more than we can handle (including from family pressures, up to being killed). I do agree that the "brain drain" has been one of the reasons that certain communities/countries remain stagnant and unchanging. If anyone can be part of the communities they were born in, and make a positive change in the people there, I think it's a good idea. However, not all Ex-Muslims or liberal/secular Muslims are in the same position. Besides, the people who have tried to make changes are often, usually even, met with extreme resistance to change or social progressivism. There are many examples of people who do stay back: people like Nawal El Saadawi, Pervez Hoodbhoy and many others come to mind.

"Blessed are they who can laugh at themselves, for they shall never cease to be amused."
- Absurdist
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Re: Islamic Elitism
Reply #3 - July 16, 2012, 06:12 PM

I have my own life and struggles to deal with. That might sound selfish, but fuck it.

I love my country. It's the land where I grew up, my home, the place I go back to to relive childhood memories and rekindle old friendships. I hate to see it desecrated by Islamism and blind nationalism and general bigotry. But really there's not much I can do about it. Just being at home makes me feel powerless and alienated. I often joke that I'll only move back when the revolution starts. But people are so content swimming in oil money that they don't give a rat's ass about anything else. Any semblance of a progressive politics and social justice movement is so small it's irrelevant. Even the so-called "liberals" in parliament are corrupt bourgeois businessmen more interested in maintaining their wealth and political leverage than any sort of real democratic reform. Speaking about human rights and equality for foreign workers will get you scorned and laughed at. A couple of years ago, inspired by the Arab uprisings, the bidoon (stateless people) rose up to demand equal rights. The government cracked down on their protests, raided their homes, and continued its ongoing propaganda campaign against them. And nobody gave a damn. Those people are nobodies jealous of the wealth God gave us, so they hide their passports and claim they were born here to get in on the privilege. How dare they want to live with dignity, fucking criminals. This is the story you will here over and over again, echoed in all corners of the country.

Then there's the new law the Islamists passed calling for the death penalty for anyone who blasphemes Moe and/or Co. And of course we all know it's going to be used and abused whenever the Islamists deem fit, the same Islamists who are in a perpetual power struggle with the government, as if any of it has anything to do with anything else other than personal interests. They brought the prime minister and his cabinet down, got the support of the electorate by running on an anti-corruption platform, and have since been using their power as if they had a carte blanche mandate for anything and everything they want to push. They're going so far as to demand to amend the constitution and turn the country into a theocracy. And really, most people don't care. The government throws a few oil cheques to the nationals every time there's any call for justice, the temporary foreign workers have no sort of political leverage or even any vested interest to reform the country, and whoever speaks up is screaming into the vacuum that there isn't even a need to shut them up.

There was a time when I used to think Kuwait is ready for change and progress. I actually wanted to move back and help with the movement. How deluded I was. Kuwait is a desert where dreams go to die and get blown away like dry tumbleweed and covered with the storm of shit that is Islamism and corruption and blind nationalism.
- scamper_22
- Ex-Muslim
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Re: Islamic Elitism
Reply #4 - July 16, 2012, 06:53 PM

Quote from: moi on July 16, 2012, 04:31 PM
Interesting. As every action has an equal and opposite reaction are those left behind becoming more extreme because the thinkers have got out?

Yep. I've done the same thing though. I left both my country and my community.

I was born in Africa, so I didn't leave my country due to Islamism. But it's actually the same kind of issue. Due to political turmoil, most of the professional and educated class began fleeing. It wasn't war like and people didn't leave out of absolute destitution... but they left simply because it was better overseas. I don't blame anyone... and I certainly don't blame myself. It was the best thing my family could do. But then I look back as my old country continues to get worse and they almost beg the professionals to return... I wonder if it is just too easy to get out. I feel especially intellectually stunted by it when I think that us leaving was in reality the problem.

Even here, in Canada... I know of a few almost athiest Muslims who still stick it out in the family environment. They don't come out with their athiesm, but they make remarks at functions... maintain a very liberal household and the kids grow up quite liberal. I think to myself, it is better for a community to be like that than for people to leave it.

In truth, my community is not that bad. I could have probably stayed a part of it to change it for the better... but yes... it is now overrun by others because we left it. Even our mosque used to be quite liberal... The guy who used to administer it was quite secular... I used to work for him (actual work... not mosque work). He never prayed... but was almost cultural about it. Not a niqaabi in sight. Now it is headed by a imaam whose wife is a niqaabi. Every year it gets more conservative. There's not a liberal youth in our community who would be a part of the mosque like he did to make it more tolerable.

I don't know... just random thoughts. Do I have the right to be so critical about Islam when I don't have the time of day to push my views in my community?
- allat
- Euphoria
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Re: Islamic Elitism
Reply #5 - July 16, 2012, 07:07 PM

Maybe you're looking at it wrong, though. Maybe all the people leaving these communities will ultimately just deprive them of any renewable energy. I've seen the communities and the family I was part of growing up become more and more conservative - and the younger people LEAVE, either openly like I did, or more sneakily by just moving away or being a bit passive-aggressive about it (i.e. avoiding community gatherings, etc.) So it's really those communities that lose, the people who leave are fine, they are better off. Why should we all sacrifice our singular life to serve a community that hates us, that is full of bombastic jackasses, that doesn't WANT to change? Life is too short to be a martyr for some idealized cause. In my case, I've said Fuck 'em and that has worked out great for me. Sure sometimes I miss certain aspects of that life, that family and that community. But life is all about costs and benefits. The cost of staying within that community, to "pretend" to be one of them, just to benefit them on some idealized level, would have been much higher and intolerable for me, compared to the cost of giving them up and letting them go fuck themselves if they want. Those of them who reach out to me, I help. But as for the "community", fuck it to hell.

"Blessed are they who can laugh at themselves, for they shall never cease to be amused."
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