And those are specific cases which you've highlighted...the problem comes, as I stated, when you say all white men are like Fritzl or say that all Muslims are culturally backwards like Choudhary. This is why blanket remarks, whilst time efficient require nuance.
What I consider is the best way and this is my opinion...to encourage debate so long as you draw upon specific examples and locate islam in its 7th C setting but in your criticism of Islam you reconise that Islam is continually evolving as a way of life for various groups of people and that they have the human right to do so. So long as it accords with UDHR and does not undermine secularism then that's fine and so long as you provide people with resources of critical thinking and of empowerment both within and outside of their religious paradigm and give the choice to choose then that's as far as we can go. I've changed my views considerably regarding Islam and its place in the world. This isn't a defeatist attitude but rather something that reflects my increasing concern of a vicious intolerance on both sides of the argument resulting in a non-productive stalemate situation. We need to work together and on the things we disagree with, we need to be mature and walk away.
I have to agree with these 2 posts. Over the years, I have seen how exmuslim experiences and our often very valid critiques of Islam have been used by people who really are xenophobic, who don't like 'others' whether it's immigrants, brown or black people, people who dress differently, who have different habits or whatever. I am seeing how some among the atheist and exmuslim 'movements' (such as they are) are being co-opted by those who want to over-simplify geo-political issues, and want to blame everything on narratives of it (whatevever 'it' may be that bothers you) being the fault of "Muslims" or "immigrants" or poor people, or what-not.
It is a kind of appropriation of the exmuslim 'cause' in a way that I'm seeing happening in some cases out there - whereas early advocates for freedom of conscience were interested in helping promote critical thinking and supporting those who are
actually marginalized by religious dogmas (not about tearing down those who choose to follow religions even if we don't agree with them), it's gotten to a point where the "exmuslim" banner is really being used in too many corridors to justify racism, bigotry, xenophobia by certain opportunistic types of people, who seem to want to piggyback on
our backs to promote
their reactionary agenda. And some exmuslims, frustrated by the neutered stances of relativists on the other side, have lent their weight to those reactionaries.
The world is complex. Anyone, whether white or brown or black, whether atheist or Muslim, who tries to put everything into binary categories is oversimplifying things, which actually harms everyone in the long run. When you assist in polarizing the debate instead of
adding nuance to it, instead of
also looking at your own side critically, you help increase the tribalistic antagonism that riled you up to get into that debate... basically making the world a worse place. Too many people are more interested in stoking the fires of 'us vs them' than looking rationally at the ways that people are similar to 'us' and that even the differences we see may have more backstory to them than we understand so far.
Topic: Anti-Islam vs anti-Racism.... life in Australia