Although elaborate hate speech laws can make it extremely difficult, we have the right to freedom of expression in Britain. Generally speaking, musicians are free to express their opinions. Morrissey can voice his opposition to mass immigration and concerns about the erosion of English identity while Stormzy can take the stage at Glastonbury and get his audience of over 200,000 people to yell ‘fuck the government’, both with impunity. The ability of artists to hold those in positions of power accountable is a fundamental civil liberty that ensures the maintenance of political equilibrium in a liberal democracy.

While our system has many flaws—cough, Scotland—we have never executed a musician for speaking their mind, as far as I can recall. And yet the Iranian rapper Toomaj Salehi must face the horrifying reality of that exact situation. Salehi was given a death sentence in April this year after the Islamic Revolutionary Court of Isfahan accused him of ‘waging war against god’.

Salehi is a vocal opponent of the Islamic Republic. The right to free speech is guaranteed to well-known socially conscious rappers in the West, such as Talib Kweli and Immortal Technique, but Salehi was not accorded the same protection to express himself. In Iran, hip-hop is strictly forbidden. Artists typically use pseudonyms to get around the regime; Salehi, on the other hand, has always gone by his real name. 

The 33-year-old is at the forefront of socially conscious hip-hop in Iran and was a pioneer of the Rap-e Farsi (Persian-language rap) movement. His lyrics advocate for greater rights for women and workers while addressing injustice and inequality. In tracks like ‘Pomegranate’, he sings ‘Human (life) is cheap, the labourer is a pomegranate, Iran is a wealthy, fertile land,’ alluding to workers as nothing more than fruit to be squeezed. However, the majority of his vitriol is aimed at the Islamic Republic itself. In his most well-known song, ‘Soorakh Moosh’ (‘Rat Hole’), he condemns all those who support the corrupt regime and turn a blind eye to oppression and injustice. 

It was songs like this that initially drew the state’s attention to him. Iran’s security forces detained Salehi on September 13 2021 and accused him of ‘insulting the Supreme Leader’ and ‘propaganda against the regime’. He was granted a six-month suspended sentence and released from prison after serving more than a week. 

Salehi’s case serves as a microcosm of the fractures that exist in Iranian society more than 40 years after the revolution of 1979. Since the overthrow of the Shah, the country has been ruled as an Islamic republic, with women required to cover their hair in strict compliance with Islamic modesty laws. The ageing clerical elite—Ayatollah Khamenei is 85— is at variance with the majority of its citizens, who were born after the revolution. Many of them are concerned with personal freedoms and financial security—50% of Iranians are living in absolute poverty—rather than religious purity. Salehi speaks for a generation of disillusioned youth. 

His activism extends beyond words: he has supported a number of social causes, most notably the Woman, Life, Freedom movement and the September 2022 protests, which were sparked by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian woman who was detained by the police after she was accused of wearing an ‘improper’ hijab. Subsequent anti-hijab demonstrations, which saw thousands of people take to the streets calling for women’s rights and the dissolution of the Islamic Republic, with many of them burning hijabs, spread across the country and resulted in over 22,000 arrests and over 530 deaths.

To support the women-led uprising, Salehi released two songs. ‘Battlefield’, which was released in early October 2022, contains the lyrics, ‘Woman, life, freedom, we will fight to the death/ Shoulder to shoulder like a defensive wall/ I believe in solidarity like divine faith/…We are thirsty for freedom’. A few weeks later, he released a song containing the lines, ‘44 years of your government, it is the year of failure/… Someone’s crime was dancing with her hair in the wind / Someone’s crime was that he or she was brave and criticised [the government]’.

On October 30, 2022, Salehi was detained once more and charged with spreading ‘propagandistic activity against the government’. He received a prison sentence of six years and three months in July 2023. The Supreme Court granted him bail in November after he had been imprisoned for more than a year, including 252 days in solitary confinement. When he was free, he posted a video to his official YouTube account from outside the jail where he had been held, claiming he had been tortured—having his arms and legs broken and given shots of adrenaline to keep him awake. He was swiftly reimprisoned.

For the crime of talking, or, in the words of the Isfahan court, ‘spreading corruption on earth’, Salehi was sentenced to death on 24 April 2024. As of writing, the case is awaiting appeal.

This is not an isolated case. Saman Yasin is another musician who suffered a similar fate. The Supreme Court commuted the Kurdish rapper’s death sentence, which had been imposed after his arrest during the 2022 protests, to five years in prison. Yasin has allegedly been tortured and prohibited from interacting with others.

Under the iron fist of Khamenei, Iran crushes dissent. Amnesty International reports that 853 people were executed in Iran in 2023—the highest number since 2015 and a 48% increase from the year before. 74% of executions reported globally in 2023 occurred in the Islamic Republic. 

Women who violate the dress code have also been severely punished. Ironically, a few weeks prior to World Hijab Day this year, an Iranian woman and activist by the name of Roya Heshmati was detained for 11 days, fined $300, and whipped 74 times after she was caught on social media without a headscarf. Salehi is right to use his platform to expose the violent misogyny that permeates totalitarian Islamic societies like Iran. The hijab is, quite simply, a symbol of oppression, not liberation, whatever some in the West might think. 

Freedom of expression is essential for musicians. All artists must be free to question, challenge, and criticise authority. The tyrant’s empire is built on a foundation of censorship. Words mean little when no one can hear them. Salehi’s three million Instagram followers have contributed to the attention his case has received in the West. While we can all lament the loss of meaningful conversation on social media, we cannot deny its power to instantly connect millions of people. 

Music is a powerful medium for telling stories. And we can spread that message by using the internet. A new wave of youthful, politically engaged musicians is emerging thanks to social media, as shown by Salehi and many others. See also the rise of dissident rappers in Russia such as Oxxxymiron and FACE—the latter of whom Putin has designated as a foreign agent. 

Nobody should ever be sentenced to death or even arrested for speaking their mind. Those who foolishly believe they can use violence to counter the pen do so because they understand that most people will be intimidated into silence. His extraordinary bravery and conviction bear witness to the principles that Salehi has upheld throughout his life. As Nassim Nicholas Taleb writes, ‘Courage is the only virtue you cannot fake.’ 

While we in the West take the right to free speech for granted, we should praise courageous people like Saman Yasin and Toomaj Salehi—people who are prepared to risk their lives in order to challenge the hegemony of the Ayatollah and his despotic, theocratic regime. 

Related reading

The ‘Women’s Revolution’: from two activists in Iran, by Rastine Mortad and Sadaf Sepiddasht

The need for a new Enlightenment, by Christopher Hitchens

The hijab is the wrong symbol to represent women, by Khadija Khan

Image of the week: celebrating the death of Ebrahim Raisi, the Butcher of Tehran, by Daniel James Sharp

Secularism is a feminist issue, by Megan Manson

Faith Watch, November 2023, by Daniel James Sharp

When does a religious ideology become a political one? The case of Islam, by Niko Alm

‘The best way to combat bad speech is with good speech’ – interview with Maryam Namazie, by Emma Park

Religion and the Arab-Israeli conflict, by Kunwar Khuldune Shahid

‘Nature is super enough, thank you very much!’: interview with Frank Turner, by Daniel James Sharp

The rhythm of Tom Paine’s bones, by Eoin Carter

Consciousness, free will and meaning in a Darwinian universe: interview with Daniel C. Dennett, by Daniel James Sharp

Celebrating Eliza Flower: an unconventional woman, by Frances Lynch

The post Rap versus theocracy: Toomaj Salehi and the fight for a free Iran appeared first on The Freethinker.

Masih Alinejad, the sworn foe of Iranian tyranny who has survived several kidnapping and assassination attempts by the theocrats of Tehran, posted this video on Twitter/X featuring ordinary Iranians feasting and drinking and dancing in celebration of the death of Ebrahim Raisi, the Iranian president who died in a helicopter crash on 19 May.

Known as the Butcher of Tehran by many Iranians, Raisi was considered a prime candidate to replace the elderly and ailing Ayatollah Khameini as Supreme Leader. Among many other crimes, it was at his blood-drenched hands that the protests in the wake of Mahsa Amini’s death in 2022 were viciously suppressed. I doubt he will be missed by many.

Some relevant Freethinker articles

The ‘Women’s Revolution’: from two activists in Iran, by Rastine Mortad and Sadaf Sepiddasht

‘The best way to combat bad speech is with good speech’ – interview with Maryam Namazie, by Emma Park

Religion and the Arab-Israeli conflict, by Kunwar Khuldune Shahid

The Satanic Verses; free speech in the Freethinker, by Emma Park

When does a religious ideology become a political one? The case of Islam, by Niko Alm

‘Words are the only victors’ – Salman Rushdie’s ‘Victory City’, reviewed, by Daniel James Sharp

Rushdie’s victory, by Daniel James Sharp

The hijab is the wrong symbol to represent women, by Khadija Khan

Iran and the UN’s betrayal of human rights, by Khadija Khan

The need for a new Enlightenment, by Christopher Hitchens

The post Image of the week: celebrating the death of Ebrahim Raisi, the Butcher of Tehran appeared first on The Freethinker.

In January, the BBC reported that the Islamic Students Associations of Britain (ISA) has been promoting online events in which Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) commanders have given anti-Semitic and Islamist talks to students. One such speaker even later boasted about his role in training Hamas before the 7 October attacks. The ISA is different from mainstream student Muslim groups in that, as the BBC reported, it ‘was founded to promote the philosophy of the leader of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini.’ The IRGC is one of the arms of the Iranian state and it supports Islamist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah. The British security services say that they have dealt with more than a dozen kidnapping and assassination plots by the IRGC since 2020.

All of this reveals just how insidiously the Iranian regime is using Muslim organisations in the West to target and radicalise Muslim youth. Despite this, and despite the fact that the Iranian leadership has a long history of waging proxy conflicts in the Middle East to destabilise the region, Iran was appointed chair of the 2023 United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) Social Forum.

It is important to mention that the Social Forum took place amid Israel and Hamas’ ongoing conflict (though the initial appointment of Iran to the chair preceded the conflict). On 7 October, Hamas entered Israel with the sole goal of killing as many people as they could. They brutally massacred more than 1,000 people of all ages, including men, women, children, and entire families.

Given the links between Iran and terrorist groups like Hamas, 7 October raised the question of Iran’s involvement in the massacre of Israeli civilians. There have been conflicting reports about Iran’s direct involvement in the attack, but Iran has publicly praised the attack and voiced its strong support for Hamas. Nevertheless, the UN let Iran chair the Social Forum. Less than a month after 7 October, the UN General Assembly rejected a resolution to condemn Hamas for such a vicious attack on civilians.

This is not to mention that, while the UN’s response to 7 October and Hamas’s crimes has been severely lacking, Israel has been harshly criticised for its counter-attack. It is reprehensible that the United Nations, the very organisation that was established to resolve international conflicts and promote human rights, has been unable to consistently do so in this case.

Despite their theological differences, the Iranian regime and the extremists it supports share essentially the same ideology as the likes of al-Qaeda and Islamic State. They seek to subjugate people under Islamic law and to establish and spread Islamic states. People who think that the dream of establishing the caliphate died with the military destruction of Islamic State are wrong. Islamic State’s ideology lives on in the shape of Hamas and Hezbollah and the theocratic regime that supports them. Radicalisation and terrorism remain as dangerous as ever.

In the UK, the director general of MI5, Ken McCallum, has said that MI5 is ‘focused with particular intensity’ on the growing risk of attacks within the UK following recent events in the Middle East. He further said:

‘Sadly, over the course of my career, it has often been the case that events in the Middle East can then echo in Europe, in the UK, and so my teams are absolutely alert to the possibility that events in the Middle East cause some people in the United Kingdom to attempt some form of attack of whatever sort.’

By allowing Iran to chair the UNHRC Social Forum, the UN demonstrated extreme indifference to the plight of the people suffering at the hands of extremists. The Iranian people have been protesting in the streets since 2022, demanding an end to an oppressive, cruel, authoritarian dictatorship that sanctions state-sponsored terrorism. This appointment, announced shortly after Iran executed two men for blasphemy, was a disastrous choice that both subtly and explicitly validated Iran’s brutal treatment of its citizens.

The Islamic Republic of Iran has a history of overtly violating human rights, especially those of women and anti-regime dissidents. It is regrettable, to put it mildly, that the United Nations let Iran’s corrupt and theocratic government legitimise its brutal treatment of the Iranian people by giving them a platform at the UNHRC.

The Iranian protests since September 2022 were provoked by the death, in custody, of Mahsa Amini, 22. She likely died after being beaten by the morality police for wearing ‘improper’ hijab. Last year, 17-year-old Armita Geravand passed away after purportedly being beaten into a month-long coma by a member of the morality police. Her crime was the same as Amini’s.

This presents a bleak picture of the state-sponsored violence that is a reality for the Iranian people, especially for women and girls. It is a sad state of affairs that after Mahsa Amini was killed, very little was done by the international community to hold the Iranian authorities responsible for the use of lethal force against demonstrators.

The UN has a long history of pusillanimity when it comes to Iran. In 2022, Iran was chosen to serve on the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW). After Amini’s death, the United States proposed the successful resolution to remove Iran from the CSW. This was viewed as a positive step in holding the Iranian regime accountable for its long history of mistreatment of and discrimination against women and girls.

The irony is that the resolution was proposed and approved because the member states felt that Iran’s membership on the Commission had tarnished the UN’s reputation on human rights. But the very next year, as we have seen, the UN appointed Iran to chair the UNHRC Social Forum.

The Iranian people were left in the dark by this appointment. It showed once again that the UN’s commitment to human rights is, at best, shaky and inconsistent. The Iranian regime is an Islamist regime, whose aims include the dissemination of terror and extremism around the world and the theocratic oppression of its own people. The UN’s criminal negligence has had and will continue to have terrible ramifications for the Middle East and the entire world. Not least, it emboldens Iran in its continued support for the heinous act of terrorism that Hamas carried out on the Israeli people on 7 October. The UN is effectively giving the go-ahead to a murderous terror organisation to destroy everything that stands in the way of their theocratic dreams.

Further reading

The ‘Women’s Revolution’: from two activists in Iran, by Rastine Mortad and Sadaf Sepiddasht

The need for a new Enlightenment, by Christopher Hitchens

The hijab is the wrong symbol to represent women, by Khadija Khan

Religion and the Arab-Israeli conflict, by Kunwar Khuldune Shahid

Bloodshed in Gaza: Islamists, leftist ideologues, and the prospects of a two-state solution, by Kunwar Khuldune Shahid

An Islamic (mis)education about Israel, by Hina Husain

Is the Israel-Palestine conflict fundamentally a nationalist, not a religious, war? by Ralph Leonard

Young, radical and morally confused, by Gerfried Ambrosch

The post Iran and the UN’s betrayal of human rights appeared first on The Freethinker.

There is a pattern that usually occurs when a senior politician resigns or is chucked out of their job. First comes the emotion-laden speech, during which they will wax lyrical about the privilege of serving in public office. Second, the much-needed sabbatical, where they can spend time with the spouses and families they have barely seen since they were elected. And lastly, the lucrative deal with a publisher to write and publish the memoir of their time in office. 

The political memoir is the most sordid literary genre out there. Disgraced and failed politicians are given exorbitant advances by publishers to write, or have written for them, mediocre and self-serving memoirs that few within the public will read—or have even the faintest desire to read. The memoir is the ultimate payday for the disgraced politician who has to put themselves out there in the market again to secure their professional future. A memoir ought to be fascinating, insightful, even moving. It should give readers an insight into the character and personality of the person behind the public persona, as well as just telling the author’s side of the story. And, of course, political memoirs should reveal the inner workings of politics: the backroom deals, the sandbagging, and the scandals. Except, most of the time, such memoirs are public relations exercises in which insight is scarce and cheap score-settling is rife. Their authors usually care only about downplaying their failures and claiming they were misunderstood and undervalued all along.

‘This book is not a traditional political memoir,’ opens Liz Truss in her recently released contribution to the genre, Ten Years to Save the West. In one way, she is correct: this isn’t a typical political memoir, since Truss received a paltry £1,500 advance compared to the £500,000 and £1,000,000 advances that Boris Johnson and David Cameron received, respectively, for their memoirs. In other ways, it is all too typical. Truss’s retelling of her 49-day stint as Prime Minister is narcissistic, with the usual pointless score-settling, whether against Nick Clegg or Polly Toynbee. Moreover, there is virtually no self-reflection and she indulges in a nauseating amount of self-pity. 

‘Saving Western civilisation’ has been a sub-genre unto itself, especially on the right, for a long time, and Truss has ticked all the usual genre conventions. Truss argues that ‘the West has lost its way’ and long since become ‘decadent’ and ‘complacent’; the education system has been colonised by  ‘wokeism’, making us hate our own heritage; big business is enthralled by ‘“wokenomics,” where they are more focused on so-called environmental, social and governance objectives than making money’; and anti-capitalist leftists and environmentalists with their Net Zero obsession threaten future prospects of economic growth and progress. She doesn’t forget to name-drop Michel Foucault as supposedly being the godfather of identity politics, even though anyone who seriously knows anything about Foucault would understand that he saw identity politics as a form of ‘essentialism’—i.e. turning something that is a social and cultural construct into an ontology—and opposed it for that reason. 

If that wasn’t bad enough, Prime Minister Truss was going to stop the rot and save the West with a radical programme of supply-side economics but was undermined and overthrown by the ‘economic establishment’, the administrative state, and her rivals within the Tory party who didn’t accept her as leader. 

The subtitle of the book is ‘leading the revolution against globalism, socialism, and the liberal establishment’, which clearly shows that she is trying to pivot to a radical right audience. Yet this new animus towards globalism is a baffling triangulation. For most of her career, Truss has been advocating for what many would call a neoliberal form of capitalism. She was originally for the UK staying in the European Union. Even when she became a Brexiteer, it was so that Britain would become more ‘global’. She has always been a partisan of free trade. As Prime Minister, she even moved to liberalise immigration rules to grant more VISAs to newcomers. In her memoir, she defends her policy ideas, from education to the economy, by saying that she wanted to make Britain more ‘competitive’ in the global marketplace.  

On foreign policy, she is a thorough Atlanticist. She is firm in her support for arming Ukraine against Russian aggression, advocates a ‘restoration of British and American exceptionalism’, and wants to see a new  ‘coalition of the willing’ against rogue states such as China, Iran, and Russia. Isn’t this Atlanticism an example of the globalism that her desired allies on the radical right would detest? 

When Truss calls herself a ‘conservative’, she really means that she supports a conservative form of liberalism: low taxes, free trade, and the downsizing of the state against progressive liberalism, which is based on higher taxes and more state intervention in the economy. What she seeks to ‘conserve’ is the post-Cold War world order based on Anglo-American hegemony that has been in crisis for the past decade. This isn’t the radical, anti-establishment politics she portrays herself as representing. 

For someone who is supposed to be an avid defender of capitalism against anti-capitalist leftists, she doesn’t get how much of the big government and the administrative state that she lambasts is actually essential to the functioning and management of capital accumulation and the capitalist system as a whole. What she calls ‘socialism’—overbearing statism that intervenes invasively in people’s lives—is already served up to us by contemporary capitalism. Think, for example, of the ‘nanny state’, so detested by Truss. You don’t have to be a Marxist to understand this point. 

Truss’s chief complaint about her failed tenure as premier is that unelected officials and bureaucrats failed to respect her mandate. This only begs the question: what mandate? She wasn’t voted in democratically by the British public, nor was she even supported by most Conservative MPs in her bid to take over after the implosion of the Boris Johnson administration. Truss became Prime Minister because she was selected by the Tory membership in an internal, closed-off party contest. Then she banked on the markets instead of the British public to support her programme and the markets did her in. That’s the entire story of her premiership (admittedly, it wouldn’t make for a very long or a very interesting memoir). 

Ten Years to Save the West is the work of a failed politician whose historical legacy will be the unprecedented shortness of her premiership. She is now pivoting to the next stage of her career and trying her luck as an anti-establishment populist. Except she is repackaging very established ideas as ‘radical’ and ‘anti-establishment’. It is true that Western economies have been in a rut and that we desperately need a radical programme to generate more wealth and greatly improve people’s standards of living. But we didn’t need Liz Truss to tell us that. She was never the saviour of the West. Her policy ideas did not have democratic legitimacy and would not have worked. While Britain is still not in a good way politically and economically, it is no worse off than if Liz Truss was still in power—or had never existed at all.

Further reading

‘This rebarbative profession’ – Rory Stewart’s ‘Politics on the Edge’, reviewed, by Daniel James Sharp

The post Liz Truss, the nobody PM: review of ‘Ten Years to Save the West’ appeared first on The Freethinker.

Below is reproduced, with permission from the Estate of Christopher Hitchens (to whom I express my gratitude), the final chapter of Hitchens’s classic freethinking text god Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.*

Today, as much as when that book was published in 2007, there is a need for a new Enlightenment. Two of this chapter’s themes—the danger and instability of Iranian theocracy and the threat posed to free speech by Islamic fanatics—remain very obviously and very unfortunately relevant. But the real power of the below, I think, is to be found in these words: ‘[I]t is better and healthier for the mind to “choose” the path of skepticism and inquiry in any case, because only by continual exercise of these faculties can we hope to achieve anything.’ Yes, we remain stuck in prehistory, all right. But if anything can help us to transcend our primitivism, it is the work of Christopher Hitchens. And now from his company I shall delay you no longer.

~ Daniel James Sharp, Editor of the Freethinker

“The true value of a man is not determined by his possession, supposed or real, of Truth, but rather by his sincere exertion to get to the Truth. It is not possession of the Truth, but rather the pursuit of Truth by which he extends his powers and in which his ever-growing perfectibility is to be found. Possession makes one passive, indolent, and proud. If God were to hold all Truth concealed in his right hand, and in his left only the steady and diligent drive for Truth, albeit with the proviso that I would always and forever err in the process, and to offer me the choice, I would with all humility take the left hand.” – GOTTHOLD LESSING, ANTI-GOEZE (1778)

“The Messiah Is Not Coming—and He’s Not Even Going to Call!” – ISRAELI HIT TUNE IN 2001

The great Lessing put it very mildly in the course of his exchange of polemics with the fundamentalist preacher Goeze. And his becoming modesty made it seem as if he had, or could have, a choice in the matter. In point of fact, we do not have the option of “choosing” absolute truth, or faith. We only have the right to say, of those who do claim to know the truth of revelation, that they are deceiving themselves and attempting to deceive—or to intimidate—others. Of course, it is better and healthier for the mind to “choose” the path of skepticism and inquiry in any case, because only by continual exercise of these faculties can we hope to achieve anything. Whereas religions, wittily defined by Simon Blackburn in his study of Plato’s Republic, are merely “fossilized philosophies,” or philosophy with the questions left out. To “choose” dogma and faith over doubt and experiment is to throw out the ripening vintage and to reach greedily for the Kool-Aid.

Thomas Aquinas once wrote a document on the Trinity and, modestly regarding it as one of his more finely polished efforts, laid it on the altar at Notre Dame so that god himself could scrutinize the work and perhaps favor “the Angelic doctor” with an opinion. (Aquinas here committed the same mistake as those who made nuns in convents cover their baths with canvas during ablutions: it was felt that god’s gaze would be deflected from the undraped female forms by such a modest device, but forgotten that he could supposedly “see” anything, anywhere, at any time by virtue of his omniscience and omnipresence, and further forgotten that he could undoubtedly “see” through the walls and ceilings of the nunnery before being baffled by the canvas shield. One supposes that the nuns were actually being prevented from peering at their own bodies, or rather at one another’s.)

However that may be, Aquinas later found that god indeed had given his treatise a good review—he being the only author ever to have claimed this distinction—and was discovered by awed monks and novices to be blissfully levitating around the interior of the cathedral. Rest assured that we have eyewitnesses for this event.

On a certain day in the spring of 2006, President Ahmadinejad of Iran, accompanied by his cabinet, made a procession to the site of a well between the capital city of Tehran and the holy city of Qum. This is said to be the cistern where the Twelfth or “occulted” or “hidden” Imam took refuge in the year 873, at the age of five, never to be seen again until his long-awaited and beseeched reappearance will astonish and redeem the world. On arrival, Ahmadinejad took a scroll of paper and thrust it down the aperture, so as to update the occulted one on Iran’s progress in thermonuclear fission and the enrichment of uranium. One might have thought that the imam could keep abreast of these developments wherever he was, but it had in some way to be the well that acted as his dead-letter box. One might add that President Ahmadinejad had recently returned from the United Nations, where he had given a speech that was much covered on both radio and television as well as viewed by a large “live” audience. On his return to Iran, however, he told his supporters that he had been suffused with a clear green light—green being the preferred color of Islam—all throughout his remarks, and that the emanations of this divine light had kept everybody in the General Assembly quite silent and still. Private to him as this phenomenon was—it appears to have been felt by him alone—he took it as a further sign of the imminent return of the Twelfth Imam, not so say a further endorsement of his ambition to see the Islamic Republic of Iran, sunk as it was in beggary and repression and stagnation and corruption, as nonetheless a nuclear power. But like Aquinas, he did not trust the Twelfth or “hidden” Imam to be able to scan a document unless it was put, as it were, right in front of him.

Having often watched Shia ceremonies and processions, I was not surprised to learn that they are partly borrowed, in their form and liturgy, from Catholicism. Twelve imams, one of them now “in occultation” and awaiting reappearance or reawakening. A frenzied cult of martyrdom, especially over the agonizing death of Hussein, who was forsaken and betrayed on the arid and bitter plains of Karbala. Processions of flagellants and self-mortifiers, awash in grief and guilt at the way in which their sacrificed leader had been abandoned. The masochistic Shia holiday of Ashura bears the strongest resemblances to the sort of Semana Santa, or “Holy Week,” in which the cowls and crosses and hoods and torches are borne through the streets of Spain. Yet again it is demonstrated that monotheistic religion is a plagiarism of a plagiarism of a hearsay of a hearsay, of an illusion of an illusion, extending all the way back to a fabrication of a few nonevents.

Another way of putting this is to say that, as I write, a version of the Inquisition is about to lay hands on a nuclear weapon. Under the stultified rule of religion, the great and inventive and sophisticated civilization of Persia has been steadily losing its pulse. Its writers and artists and intellectuals are mainly in exile or stifled by censorship; its women are chattel and sexual prey; its young people are mostly half-educated and without employment. After a quarter century of theocracy, Iran still exports the very things it exported when the theocrats took over—pistachio nuts and rugs. Modernity and technology have passed it by, save for the one achievement of nuclearization.

This puts the confrontation between faith and civilization on a whole new footing. Until relatively recently, those who adopted the clerical path had to pay a heavy price for it. Their societies would decay, their economies would contract, their best minds would go to waste or take themselves elsewhere, and they would consistently be outdone by societies that had learned to tame and sequester the religious impulse. A country like Afghanistan would simply rot. Bad enough as this was, it became worse on September 11, 2001, when from Afghanistan the holy order was given to annex two famous achievements of modernism—the high-rise building and the jet aircraft—and use them for immolation and human sacrifice. The succeeding stage, very plainly announced in hysterical sermons, was to be the moment when apocalyptic nihilists coincided with Armageddon weaponry. Faith-based fanatics could not design anything as useful or beautiful as a skyscraper or a passenger aircraft. But, continuing their long history of plagiarism, they could borrow and steal these things and use them as a negation.

This book has been about the oldest argument in human history, but almost every week that I was engaged in writing it, I was forced to break off and take part in the argument as it was actually continuing. These arguments tended to take ugly forms: I was not so often leaving my desk to go and debate with some skillful old Jesuit at Georgetown, but rather hurrying out to show solidarity at the embassy of Denmark, a small democratic country in northern Europe whose other embassies were going up in smoke because of the appearance of a few caricatures in a newspaper in Copenhagen. This last confrontation was an especially depressing one. Islamic mobs were violating diplomatic immunity and issuing death threats against civilians, yet the response from His Holiness the Pope and the archbishop of Canterbury was to condemn—the cartoons! In my own profession, there was a rush to see who could capitulate the fastest, by reporting on the disputed images without actually showing them. And this at a time when the mass media has become almost exclusively picture-driven. Euphemistic noises were made about the need to show “respect,” but I know quite a number of the editors concerned and can say for a certainty that the chief motive for “restraint” was simple fear. In other words, a handful of religious bullies and bigmouths could, so to speak, outvote the tradition of free expression in its Western heartland. And in the year 2006, at that! To the ignoble motive of fear one must add the morally lazy practice of relativism: no group of nonreligious people threatening and practicing violence would have been granted such an easy victory, or had their excuses—not that they offered any of their own—made for them.

Then again, on another day, one might open the newspaper to read that the largest study of prayer ever undertaken had discovered yet again that there was no correlation of any kind between “intercessory” prayer and the recovery of patients. (Well, perhaps some correlation: patients who knew that prayers were being said for them had more post-operative complications than those who did not, though I would not argue that this proved anything.) Elsewhere, a group of dedicated and patient scientists had located, in a remote part of the Canadian Arctic, several skeletons of a large fish that, 375 million years ago, exhibited the precursor features of digits, proto-wrists, elbows, and shoulders. The Tiktaalik, named at the suggestion of the local Nunavut people, joins the Archaeopteryx, a transitional form between dinosaurs and birds, as one of the long-sought so-called missing links that are helping us to enlighten ourselves about our true nature. Meanwhile, the hoarse proponents of “intelligent design” would be laying siege to yet another school board, demanding that tripe be taught to children. In my mind, these contrasting events began to take on the characteristics of a race: a tiny step forward by scholarship and reason; a huge menacing lurch forward by the forces of barbarism—the people who know they are right and who wish to instate, as Robert Lowell once phrased it in another context, “a reign of piety and iron.”

Religion even boasts a special branch of itself, devoted to the study of the end. It calls itself “eschatology,” and broods incessantly on the passing away of all earthly things. This death cult refuses to abate, even though we have every reason to think that “earthly things” are all that we have, or are ever going to have. Yet in our hands and within our view is a whole universe of discovery and clarification, which is a pleasure to study in itself, gives the average person access to insights that not even Darwin or Einstein possessed, and offers the promise of near-miraculous advances in healing, in energy, and in peaceful exchange between different cultures. Yet millions of people in all societies still prefer the myths of the cave and the tribe and the blood sacrifice. The late Stephen Jay Gould generously wrote that science and religion belong to “non-overlapping magisteria.” They most certainly do not overlap, but this does not mean that they are not antagonistic.

Religion has run out of justifications. Thanks to the telescope and the microscope, it no longer offers an explanation of anything important. Where once it used to be able, by its total command of a world-view, to prevent the emergence of rivals, it can now only impede and retard—or try to turn back—the measurable advances that we have made. Sometimes, true, it will artfully concede them. But this is to offer itself the choice between irrelevance and obstruction, impotence or outright reaction, and, given this choice, it is programmed to select the worse of the two. Meanwhile, confronted with undreamed-of vistas inside our own evolving cortex, in the farthest reaches of the known universe, and in the proteins and acids which constitute our nature, religion offers either annihilation in the name of god, or else the false promise that if we take a knife to our foreskins, or pray in the right direction, or ingest pieces of wafer, we shall be “saved.” It is as if someone, offered a delicious and fragrant out-of-season fruit, matured in a painstakingly and lovingly designed hothouse, should throw away the flesh and the pulp and gnaw moodily on the pit.

Above all, we are in need of a renewed Enlightenment, which will base itself on the proposition that the proper study of mankind is man, and woman. This Enlightenment will not need to depend, like its predecessors, on the heroic breakthroughs of a few gifted and exceptionally courageous people. It is within the compass of the average person. The study of literature and poetry, both for its own sake and for the eternal ethical questions with which it deals, can now easily depose the scrutiny of sacred texts that have been found to be corrupt and confected. The pursuit of unfettered scientific inquiry, and the availability of new findings to masses of people by easy electronic means, will revolutionize our concepts of research and development. Very importantly, the divorce between the sexual life and fear, and the sexual life and disease, and the sexual life and tyranny, can now at last be attempted, on the sole condition that we banish all religions from the discourse. And all this and more is, for the first time in our history, within the reach if not the grasp of everyone.

However, only the most naive utopian can believe that this new humane civilization will develop, like some dream of “progress,” in a straight line. We have first to transcend our prehistory, and escape the gnarled hands which reach out to drag us back to the catacombs and the reeking altars and the guilty pleasures of subjection and abjection. “Know yourself,” said the Greeks, gently suggesting the consolations of philosophy. To clear the mind for this project, it has become necessary to know the enemy, and to prepare to fight it.

*Note that, when you use this link to purchase the book, we earn from qualifying purchases as an Amazon Associate.

Further reading

Christopher Hitchens and the long afterlife of Thomas Paine, by Daniel James Sharp

Christopher Hitchens and the value of heterodoxy, by Matt Johnson

What has Christianity to do with Western values? by Nick Cohen

Against the ‘New Theism’, by Daniel James Sharp

Atheism, secularism, humanism, by Anthony Grayling

The ‘Women’s Revolution’: from two activists in Iran, by Rastine Mortad and Sadaf Sepiddasht

‘Words are the only victors’ – Salman Rushdie’s ‘Victory City’, reviewed, by Daniel James Sharp

The Satanic Verses; free speech in the Freethinker, by Emma Park

The Enlightenment and the making of modernity, by Piers Benn

Secularism and the struggle for free speech, by Stephen Evans

Do we need God to defend civilisation? by Adam Wakeling

The rhythm of Tom Paine’s bones, by Eoin Carter

Books From Bob’s Library #1: Introduction and Thomas Paine’s ‘The Age of Reason’, by Bob Forder

New Atheism, New Theism, and a defence of cultural Christianity, by Jack Stacey

‘An animal is a description of ancient worlds’: interview with Richard Dawkins, by Emma Park

‘We are at a threshold right now’: Lawrence Krauss on science, atheism, religion, and the crisis of ‘wokeism’ in science, interview by Daniel James Sharp

Consciousness, free will and meaning in a Darwinian universe: interview with Daniel C. Dennett, by Daniel James Sharp

‘Nature is super enough, thank you very much!’: interview with Frank Turner, by Daniel James Sharp

How three media revolutions transformed the history of atheism, by Nathan Alexander

Quebec’s French-style secularism: history and enduring value, by Mathew Giagnorio

How laïcité can save secularism, by Kunwar Khuldune Shahid

The case of Richard Dawkins: cultural affiliation with a religious community does not contradict atheism, by Kunwar Khuldune Shahid

Religion and the Arab-Israeli conflict, by Kunwar Khuldune Shahid

The need to rekindle irreverence for Islam in Muslim thought, by Kunwar Khuldune Shahid

Britain’s blasphemy heritage, by David Nash

Secularism is a feminist issue, by Megan Manson

The hijab is the wrong symbol to represent women, by Khadija Khan

The post The need for a new Enlightenment appeared first on The Freethinker.

While Ramadan is a sacred month for Muslims, let us not forget that it is also an excuse for religious fanatics and theocratic Islamic governments to force individuals to adhere to their intolerable ideologies. While Ramadan is said to be a month of compassion, generosity, introspection, and tranquillity, it is also a month of persecution and pain during which those who refuse to comply with fasting rules are bullied and oppressed.

Many closeted apostates and liberal Muslims around the world face harsh punishment for defying fasting rules. They endure severe penalties, isolation, and exclusion in the name of religion. It is therefore important that, during Ramadan, we scrutinise such appalling attitudes, which are contrary to the spirit of human dignity and freedom.

In Pakistan, according to the Ehtram-e-Ramazan Ordinance, anyone eating in public places during fasting hours can be fined and/or jailed for three months. These draconian Ramadan laws have been used to harass and persecute minorities across the country. In 2016, a Hindu man in his eighties was beaten up for eating rice before Iftar (the fast-breaking evening meal during Ramadan). Such a horrific incident set a dangerous precedent in a society that is already plagued with ever-growing religious intolerance.

In 2014 in Iran, where fasting rules are also enforced by law, two men were publicly flogged for eating during fasting hours. In Nigeria this year, eleven Muslims were arrested for eating during Ramadan. In Oman, Muslims who break the fasting rules can be fined or arrested. In Egypt, where there is technically no legal enforcement of Ramadan, cafes have been stormed by police for not following Ramadan edicts.

Even in the West, this bullying is not uncommon. Allegedly, a non-Muslim man in England was recently bullied by his Muslim colleagues for eating during fasting hours in their presence. The full context of the video is unclear, but the man filming it can be heard using the slur ‘kuffar’ against the man who was eating.

It is absurd that those who are convinced that fasting is a spiritual necessity are obsessively concerned with whether others are participating in their rituals. There is a plethora of reasons why someone could not be fasting, including old age, illness, medicine, pregnancy, impending travel, not being a Muslim, or simply not feeling like it. Coercing people into not eating or drinking for your sake is not respecting someone’s religious sensibilities. It is a blatant instance of religious bullying. If someone’s faith is so shaky that they feel disturbed by the sight of another person eating, then perhaps they need to set their own house in order rather than inflicting pain on others.

To defy such rigid and draconian fasting rules, last month the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain (CEMB) staged fast-defying picnics in London outside the embassies of Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Morocco—countries that prosecute people for eating in public during the fasting hours of Ramadan. I was an attendee.

Fast-defying activists drinking a toast outside the embassies were approached by staff and security officers, who continuously questioned the activists’ motivation for eating and drinking in protest of compulsory Ramadan fasting. The security guards and the staff watched over the activists through windows. As CEMB put it, ‘they weren’t too pleased to see us there and shared some disgruntled looks, and kept an eye on us, peeking through the windows.’

Outside the Saudi embassy, two armed police officers approached the protestors and asked them pointed questions about eating and drinking outside the embassy. CEMB spokesperson Ali Malik explained to them that ‘We’re not Muslim. You’re free to be a Muslim the same way we are free to drink.’ The officers even called their colleagues and a police van showed up right away, but those officers soon left when they realised no crime was being committed. The two armed officers remained and could be seen looking up public drinking regulations, presumably looking for an excuse to take action. They failed, but this shows how willing even the British police are to intimidate and harass Ramadan dissidents.

Maryam Namazie, the spokesperson for CEMB, wrote to me:

‘People are expected not to eat out of respect for Muslims’ religious sensibilities. For us, defying fasting during Ramadan is very crucial because we remember all the pressure and intimidation, the flogging, and the arrests that have been inflicted on those who defy fasting edicts. Even in Britain, if you have a Muslim name or you look Muslim, they’ll say “why are you not fasting?”. The whole idea of identity politics is such that people feel entitled, as if they have a right to ask you that and put pressure on you.’ (Lightly edited for clarity.)

She further added, ‘The imposition of Ramadan rules by brute force is linked to the rise of Islamism. Therefore, these fast-defying picnics are an important form of dissent against intimidating Islamists who seek to subjugate people and in solidarity with those who are persecuted during this bleak month for merely drinking or eating to allay their thirst or hunger.’

Ramadan bullying is just one of the many ways in which extremist Muslims oppress the vulnerable. Inside some Muslim communities, women are treated as second-class citizens and human rights are completely disregarded. Closeted apostates and liberals in these communities are the greatest victims of this extremism, as they are forced to be silent and obey at the price of ostracization—or worse. Those who criticise such dogma and bullying, whether they are Muslim or not, are frequently accused of being an ‘Islamophobe’ or a bigot, but this only serves to validate and strengthen the Islamists, which, in the end, only leads to harm—of Muslims as well as non-Muslims.

Society must be free to scrutinise and criticise practices that are incompatible with human rights. The fringe elements who seek to dominate public discourse through fear and intimidation need to be called out unequivocally. Only then can we protect the most vulnerable of all: the dissident minorities within minorities.

Further reading on Islam, Ramadan, and dissent

Interview with Maryam Namazie: ‘The best way to combat bad speech is with good speech’

Religion and the decline of freethought in South Asia, by Kunwar Khuldune Shahid

The price of criticising Islam in northern Nigeria: imprisonment or death, by Emma Park

The need to rekindle irreverence for Islam in Muslim thought, by Kunwar Khuldune Shahid

Breaking the silence: Pakistani ex-Muslims find a voice on social media, by Tehreem Azeem

From religious orthodoxy to free thought, by Tehreem Azeem

Faith Watch, March 2024, by Daniel James Sharp

The post Mind Your Ramadan! appeared first on The Freethinker.

The blood-soaked holy land

The Israel-Palestine conflict today involves a tangled and tragic web of disputes, but it is ultimately rooted in competing religious ideologies. So long as fanatical Jews, Muslims, and Christians see Palestine as their personal holy land, it is hard to see how the conflict will ever be resolved.

In such a politically complex dispute, with so many historic grievances and so much suffering on both sides, it is hard to understand what is really happening on the ground, let alone get any sense of how the conflict could or should be ended. Some form of the old two-state solution, moribund as it seems now, is probably still the only viable path to peace. So long as bigotry and fanaticism reign on all sides, however, that outcome is unlikely to be realised.

Even if a compromise is reached, as Kunwar Khuldune Shahid argues in his essay on Hamas and Islamist-leftist extremism, ‘the solution is still set to be as arbitrarily imposed as the problem was.’ We hope to offer further reflections on the conflict from different perspectives in the coming weeks.

A heroine honoured

In other, somewhat brighter, news, the Iranian feminist Narges Mohammadi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on 6 October. Unfortunately, Mohammadi is currently languishing in a Tehran prison for her anti-regime activism, particularly her opposition to the hijab. The Iranian mullahs are the paymasters of Hamas and are almost certainly responsible for the attack in Israel – which was, coincidentally, launched the day after the Nobel was announced. But Mohammadi represents something very troubling for the mullahs: the growth in Iran of a mass movement for secular democracy and equality between the sexes. Let us hope this movement succeeds sooner rather than later.

An Islamic party pooped

An application to form a Party of Islam in the UK was rejected by the Electoral Commission last month. The application, sent just days after Hamas’s attack on Israel, seems to have been put together rather shoddily. As EU Today reported:

‘In its official application, the Party of Islam states “We are a party who has been created to help all of the minority in the land of Great Britain have a voice.”

The Party of Islam has also stated its intention to “help all of the minority in the land of Great Britain have a voice,” further stating: “We will make sure that all problems which lingure (sic) in the great country of Great Britain is defeated.”’

Everyone should be free to set up political organisations of whatever stripe they want, of course, but one does wonder what exactly the Party of Islam would stand for.

Would a PoI prime minister disestablish the Church of England? Would there be a Mosque of England in its place? Would blasphemy laws be reenacted? What stance would the party take on, say, the Batley Grammar School teacher who is still in hiding after displaying an image of Muhammad in his classroom in 2021? What would their social policies look like?

Given that another, now defunct, Islamic political party wanted to bring back the death penalty for homosexuality, is it too far-fetched to wonder whether such parties are really just Islamist outfits exploiting the language of inclusivity to further their theocratic agenda? Surely not! But who knows? Perhaps, just in case, it is time for Britain to adopt something like the First Amendment and become a properly secular country…

Christians against…sponges?

On 4 November, Freethinker contributor and National Secular Society historian Bob Forder gave a lecture at Conway Hall entitled ‘Condoms, Sponges and Syringes: The 19th century pioneers of family planning’. Curiously for a lecture unrelated to abortion, it drew the ire of an evangelical ‘pro-life’ group, who turned up to protest, parading some gruesome images.

A strange turn of events, to be sure, but the anti-spongers are entitled to their freedom of speech, and they caused no serious disruption. As Bob Forder told The Freethinker, ‘there were no interruptions apart from some raucous hymn singing when they left.’

Yet another gay orgy scandal for the Catholic Church

Finally, it is always amusing to have new additions to the ancient canon of stories about debauched and perfidious priests. Grzegorz Kaszak’s resignation from his post as bishop of the diocese of Sosnowiec, Poland, was accepted by Pope Francis late in October. No reason was given for the good bishop’s resignation, but it is curious to note that, under his reign, Sosnowiec has seen more gay sex scandals than the sweetly innocent might expect from a diocese of the Roman Catholic Church.

In 2010, the acting rector of a Sosnowiec seminary got into a fight in a gay club. This August, one of Kaszak’s priests was arrested for trying to prevent paramedics from entering his apartment after a man, having overdosed on erectile dysfunction pills during a gay orgy, collapsed. The priest later said, ‘I perceive this as an obvious attack on the church, including the clergy and the faithful, in order to humiliate its position, tasks and mission.’ Well, of course!

Sexual scandal is hardly new for the Catholic Church. Gay orgy scandals, in particular, seem to be as popular among priests as poppers are at…well, gay orgies. Or take another example, just for fun. In 2017, Luigi Capozzi, private secretary to Cardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio, was arrested by the Vatican police for snorting cocaine during another such orgy in the cardinal’s apartment (the cardinal, it should be noted, was not present).

The church continues to claim divine authority to pronounce on morality and condemn gay people while running an organised system of child sexual abuse—another thing that would be funny if it were not true.

As for the hypocrisy of its priests, who uphold anti-gay doctrine while bedding half the men in their dioceses—well, let them have their fun. They could, after all, be doing much worse things—like preaching. Though if you need a supply of erectile dysfunction pills for your orgy, you probably have no future in the business.

Enjoy this article? Subscribe to our free fortnightly newsletter for the latest updates on free thought. Or make a donation to support our work into the future.

Further reading:

The Israel-Palestine conflict

Bloodshed in Gaza: Islamists, leftist ideologues, and the prospects of a two-state solution, by Kunwar Khuldune Shahid

Religion and the Arab-Israeli conflict, by Kunwar Khuldune Shahid

Islamist ideology and anti-Semitism

The radicalisation of young Muslims in the UK: an ongoing problem?, by Khadija Khan

Iranian resistance to theocracy

The ‘Women’s Revolution’: from two activists in Iran, by Rastine Mortad and Sadaf Sepiddasht

Batley Grammar School case

Blasphemy in the classroom, by Emma Park (New Humanist)

Free speech in Britain: a losing battle? – Freethinker

Abuse in the Catholic Church

The Pope’s Apology, by Ray Argyle

The post Faith Watch, November 2023 appeared first on The Freethinker.

When news first broke out about Mahsa Amini’s murder by the so-called ‘morality police’, the intelligence and security apparatus of the Islamist regime in Iran could not have possibly foreseen the historical consequences that would follow. To them, it seemed like an insignificant event. Because in the Islamic Republic of Iran, a woman’s life is worth nothing.

Under the banner of Allah, violence against women has been systematised as one of the main functions of the state. Hence the term ‘gender apartheid’. And hence the declaration by Masih Alinejad, an Iranian journalist, dissident, and women’s rights activist, that under the Islamic Republic of Iran, the veil is akin to what the Berlin wall once represented to both Soviet officials and its oppressed subjects.

Ironically, the person who first drew this analogy was not Masih Alinejad, but Mohammad-Saleh Hashemi Golpayegani, the head of the government agency tasked with directing the morality police’s activities. When he drew this parallel, only a couple of days had passed since the nationwide ‘Anti-Hijab Day’ campaign, which expressly protested ‘against the Islamic Republic’s 12 July National Day of Hijab and Chastity’ and mandatory hijab. A mere three months later, and Golpayegani’s prediction seems to be coming to pass. Not least because of the ceaseless efforts of Masih Alinejad, who has been leading campaigns against the forced hijab for many years now.

Alinejad’s own story is symbolic of the Islamic regime’s utter fear of women, and is indicative of the violence it is willing to perpetrate in order to silence them. In 1979, the Islamic revolution placed the Iranian nation in the firm grip of a theological elite whose only guiding principles have been those of Islam. And the policies which have resulted in the squalid living conditions of 80 million Iranians today are grounded in the same line of reasoning that refuses to compromise on the chokehold it has over ‘the second sex’ in the form of the forced hijab.

Women’s struggle for emancipation in Iran is far older than the 1979 revolution. It was not long after the establishment of the Islamic Republic that Iranian women began fighting against the state’s encroachment on their bodies. But as steadfast and uncompromising as these movements were, they were repeatedly undermined by the rest of the body politic. In the early years of Islamic rule after 1979, women’s struggle was undermined by supporters of the Islamic regime, both men and women, who claimed that their demands were tangential to more pressing matters, such as ‘the struggle against imperialism’. However, the unfortunate truth is that in the four decades that followed, women’s struggle against gender discrimination was often undermined even by opponents of the Islamic regime.

It was only with Mahsa Amini’s death that the Iranian nation began to launch a concerted attack on the forced hijab as the principal revolutionary question. Mahsa’s murder changed everything, and now, after 43 years of self-denial, it seems that Iranian society is agreed on what women like Masih Alinejad have been saying for decades. Namely, that the elimination of the forced hijab, far from being a distraction from more pressing issues, is the fortress which, once conquered, will result in the total defeat of our enemies.

The voices of the millions of Iranian people in the streets today, both throughout Iran and across the globe, are a unanimous rejection of all the anti-woman ideals which the Islamic regime has toiled so hard to impose on us all. But not only is this the first revolution in history to hold the cause of women’s emancipation at the very forefront of its charge forward: it is perhaps the only revolution that has been unequivocally led by women too.

‘Woman, life, freedom’ is our slogan, and is being echoed throughout the farthest corners of the nation. But what is it about these three words that threatens the Islamic regime so much?

The answer is that the values and principles which ‘woman, life, freedom’ connote are quite simply irreconcilable with the Islamic regime’s ‘revolutionary ideals’. The state has known this since its inception. At last, the Iranian women and men, fighting together hand in hand, have accepted that there can be no compromise. The regime may consider the life of an innocent 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman to be insignificant, but we do not. And since the death of Mahsa, Iranians have demonstrated their willingness to die fighting to establish an Iran that is permanently cured of the cancer of Islamism. What we are fighting for is a democratic, secular Iran. Our revolution is a vindication of the rights of women, and by extension a vindication of all human rights.

However, this is not only a feminist revolution. It is no exaggeration that every Iranian, regardless of gender, age, income, religion or beliefs has a claim over this uprising. There is not a single group in Iranian society whose voice is not contributing to this uproar. We have all been victimised by the Islamic state.

Whether it be the teachers who have taken to the streets to demand the dignity withdrawn from themselves and their students; school girls in primary, middle and high schools following their teachers’ example; farmers in protest against state policies that have caused water shortages throughout the country; a middle class which has lost all hope of attaining dreams it had once felt within reach; or a working class that has been systematically exploited and undermined –– today, all Iranians are suffering, and they recognise the source of all their maladies in a common enemy, which has always been clear in its logic. An ill-begotten logic derived from a holy book which has not only justified the misery its agents have inflicted on us, but which has elevated this assault to the realm of holy duty. The lives and dignity of Iranians have been fodder for a frail idea whose only legacy has been abject destitution. And despite what Islamist apologists around the world still claim, what is happening in Iran today is as appropriate an example of what ‘true Islam’ constitutes as any other in history.

People in the streets today know exactly what it is they are fighting for. It is the negation of everything which the 1979 Islamic revolution represents. What is happening inside Iran is the historical expression of the clash of two irreconcilable and contradictory set of values, ideals and principles.

Iran is by no means a homogenous whole. It constitutes a multitude of different ethnic peoples, identities and social classes. The Islamic regime has exploited these differences to sow division among us for more than four decades, and with great success too. And yet, today, all these differences seem to have been swept aside.

Only hatred can unite a people so thoroughly. The object of our hatred is the enemy which has inflicted pain and suffering on us all. This uniting force may be most aptly described in the words of Ahmad Shamlu, who once wrote of the ‘common pain’ in one of his most memorable poems. In our case, this common pain finally found its voice in Mahsa Amini’s name. Mahsa, whose real Kurdish name was never legally recognised because of its un-Islamic origins, has become a symbol of all the injustices which we are subject to under the Muslim God’s iron rule. Her Kurdish name is Jina. And as the words on her tombstone so prophetically predict, her name, both in its Kurdish and Islamic forms, has become a code for freedom. The headstone reads: ‘Dear Jina, you shall never die. Your name shall become a cipher’.

The very phrase ‘woman, life, freedom’, finds its origin in Kurdish culture. It was the Kurdish women present at Mahsa’s burial in the Kurdish city of Saqqez in north-western Iran who first called out this old Kurdish phrase as they took their veils off and twirled them in the air. This was their answer to the rhetorical question being chanted by the Kurdish men: ‘Another murder for the veil … How much longer will we put up with this indignity?’ Soon the crowd at the cemetery were chanting, ‘Death to the dictator.’ And as this cry rose against a backdrop of state violence (a brutal assault began at the cemetery itself), the uprising spread to other major Kurdish cities and then on to the rest of the nation, as Azerbaijan declared its solidarity with the Kurdish people. Today, the entire nation is united. ‘Mahsa’ has become a synonym for the idea that the truth that had been suppressed until now has been liberated, and that we are no longer afraid to shout it out loud:

Down with the dictator!
Down with Islamic rulership!
Down with theocracy!
The Islamic Republic must be eradicated!
Down with this anti-woman regime!
Down with this anti-woman reaction!
The Islamic Republic must be eradicated!
Cannons, Tanks and Firecrackers, it don’t matter, Mullahs have to get lost! We can only reclaim our rights out on the streets!
Out on the streets until the revolution’s success!
Hey Iranian, yell, shout, claim your rights!
We will fight, we will die, we will reclaim Iran!
Neither Gaza, nor Lebanon, I will only die for Iran!
Islam and the Quran, both to be sacrificed to Iran!
So long as the dictator remains, the insurrection will go on!
This is our final message: we’re aiming for the entire Islamic regime!

These are the words being shouted in our cities today, against the sound of the regime’s gunshots. Our shouts grow louder, every time we are confronted by anti-riot vehicles filled with armed men, who either believe they are doing the work of their Lord, or who are perfectly aware that Allah whom they once served has died long ago, and who are only there for their own material gain.

It is important to note that people opposing the regime have not burned Qurans. We would be perfectly within our rights to do so. But unlike our enemies, book-burning does not align with the principles we uphold. Almost a century ago, Ahmad Kasravi, a figure who represents what Leo Strauss once termed the ‘sword of philosophical atheism’, organised a Quran-burning. He was eventually murdered at the hands of Navab Safavi at the behest of a young Ruhollah Khomeini.

Once we have got rid of the Islamist state, it will not be laws, nor the threat of Islamist violence, that will keep us from repeating Ahmad Kasravi’s gesture. Our own dignity will withhold us from following in the footsteps of the likes of Khomeini (whose fatwa against Salman Rushdie and The Satanic Verses resulted in the author being stabbed just two months ago), or the caliph Abu Yusuf Yaqub al-Mansur (1184-1199), who ordered the burning of the works of the great rationalist thinker Averroes. The burning of the works of Ibn Rushd (Averroes’ Arabic name), and those of his namesake Salman Rushdie (whose father changed his last name to Rushdie in honour of Ibn Rushd) almost a thousand years later, are not incidental to the Iranian uprising today; they are emblematic of everything we are fighting against.

Our revolution is a contemporary expression of a renaissance of Enlightenment ideas. One of the most central aspects of this concerns the principles of freethought, free expression, and freedom of the press. The Islamic revivalists of the 20th century, following the example of their prophet and remaining true to their faith, worked to extinguish the light of reason with the sword. In contrast, in our revolution, the pen will always be mightier than the sword. The weapons which are monopolised by our enemies today are nothing but evidence of the intellectual bankruptcy of their cause.

Many have been shot at and brutalised over the past three weeks, and at least 154 people, including children, have been killed. But they have not managed to silence us: ideas cannot be murdered.

Consider for example, the poem composed by Asma bint Marwan, a female Arab poet of the seventh century, in honour of the memory of the Jewish poet Abu ‘Afak, killed because of his criticisms of Muhammad:

Do you expect good from him [Muhammad] after the killing of your chiefs / Like a hungry man waiting for a cook’s broth?
Is there no man of pride who would attack him by surprise / And cut off the hopes of those who expect aught from him?

These words live on, and the revulsion which many felt at Muhammad’s message is plain for all to see. In this rebuttal of Muhammad’s claims, Asma bint Marwan seems to have fulfilled the ideal which Baal (one of the characters in Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses) sets for the poet, when he claims that a poet’s work is ‘to name the unnameable, to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world and stop it from going to sleep.’

The Muslim historian Ibn Ishaq relates that upon hearing these verses, Muhammad turned to his companions and asked: ‘Who will rid me of Marwan’s daughter?’ The prophet of Islam ordered an assault on a brave woman who happened to be a poet too.

No, the war on women and freethought is not external to ‘true Islam’, as liberal Muslims like to keep repeating, but fundamental to it. In Crescents on the cross: Islamic visions of Christianity, V. J. Ridgeon draws a compelling parallel between Khomeini’s fatwa against Rushdie and Muhammad’s order to assassinate Asma bint Marwan. The Islamic regime of Iran fears reason more than anything else. In the words of Rushdie, what scares it is the human mind’s ‘ability to conceive a thought, to speak it, and by doing so to make it true.’

What is happening in Iran today is the clash of two irreconcilable and contradictory set of values, ideals and principles. It is represented, on the one hand, by the people, and on the other, by an occupying Islamic elite. This is a clash between the values of the Enlightenment and the values of the Islamic Revolution. Only one can win.

The removal of the hijab is a performative act which contains within it a thousand and one stories waiting to be told. Stories of the reclamation of dignity, but perhaps more importantly, of a long-alienated identity. To remove the hijab is to strike a blow, not only against the state, but against a theocratic system which has worked very hard to rid people of their identities outside its own strict confines. As Le Figaro accurately observed, the significance of the revolution in Iran is embodied in the dance of the young girl who tossed her hijab into the flames.

There really is a reason why the Islamic regime cannot compromise on the issue of the hijab. There really is a reason why writers, thinkers and poets have been executed in droves under this regime, and why so many journalists and artists who covered the topic of Mahsa’s death have been imprisoned in the past two weeks. Freedom is something which the foot-soldiers of Allah simply cannot abide by. Our enemies are perfectly aware that in an equal playing field of ideas, their claims cannot possibly stand up to the scrutiny of common sense. And so they will never allow this scrutiny to occur. It is the bankruptcy of their thoughts which makes them so completely reliant on the sword. And yet, as is being witnessed in the streets of Iran today, even their weapons are impotent in the face of the words being spoken by unarmed civilians. The entire force of their Umma is nothing in face of the women who confront them shouting ‘woman, life, freedom’.

And yet, as footage of Iranian women burning their veils began gaining traction on social media and spreading like wildfire across the world, so-called ‘Islamic Feminists’ started to spread disinformation that was aimed at obfuscating the true character of this uprising. Nora Jaber, for example, claims that by paying attention to Iranian women unveiling themselves, ‘mainstream media narratives contribute to the victimisation and homogenisation of Iranian women.’

In fact, is it is narratives like the one spun out by Jaber that are the true perpetrators of the  ‘victimisation and homogenisation of Iranian women’. For four decades, the voice of women from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) telling Western audiences about the true condition of women in their countries were ignored or attacked. Women such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Masih Alinejad and Maryam Namazie have received a lot of criticism for their honest description of women’s lives under sharia. The fearful atmosphere of political correctness cultivated by Islamist apologists had made it such that any mention of the hijab was framed as a redline. ‘This is our/their culture’, they would say. ‘You can’t offend other people’s culture!’ Today we say that every single one of the politically correct apologists of Islamism that have forged public opinion in the West about proper attitudes to the hijab in Iran have been complicit in the crimes committed by the Islamic regime against humanity.

For a long time, anti-Islamophobia crusaders like Hoda Katebi have acted as apologists for the Islamic Republic’s systematised violence against Iranian women. And now, being acutely aware of the threat that the women’s revolution in Iran poses to all the falsehoods they have perpetuated, they aim to censor its true tenets and frame it as a movement in line with their own reactionary agenda.

Jaber, for instance, claims that Western coverage of the uprising in Iran ‘ignores the pluralistic nature of Islam and conceals various rich historical accounts of women in Iran and in other Muslim contexts grounding their demands for rights and justice within an Islamic framework, known to many as Islamic Feminism.’ Apparently, she really believes this revolution is not a negation of political Islam as such, but one which still reveres the Islamic ‘framework’, even though it aims to change certain aspects of it – for example, by eradicating the morality police. Or at least, she is trying to get others to believe this.

Jaber claims that media focus on the performative act of unveiling, and the innumerable recorded instances of women burning their headscarves, ‘builds on and perpetuates a reductive understanding of Islam (in this case, one that is brutally enforced by the regime and its institutions) as the root of Iranian women’s oppression, which in turn fuels Islamophobia and harms Muslim communities abroad.’

In other words, our uprising represents precisely what Jaber rejects. But today, the world is finally hearing the voice of the Iranian nation’s unequivocal disavowal of Islam as ‘our culture’. Our culture does not degrade women. Our culture is one which celebrates life, not death. Our culture is one that values freedom, and which, as has been proven in the past three weeks, is more than willing to pay the high price of attaining it.

The distinction between the rejection of the veil and women’s freedom of choice is a false one. No one is denying that what Iranian women are fighting for is the right of choice over their own bodies. No one is proposing a reversion back to Reza Shah’s state ban on the hijab. But were it the case, as Jaber proposes, that this fight for her ‘freedom to choose’ does not entail a rejection or critique of Islam, and that this struggle is being waged ‘within an Islamic framework, known to many as Islamic Feminism,’ it would have sufficed for women simply to have removed their veil. Instead, what we have seen again and again is women not just removing but ceremoniously burning their hijabs. This is not just a rejection of the veil, but a celebration of freedom: freedom from a faith that preaches submission.

The values that we are fighting for are irreconcilable with those which drive Islamist apologists. The threat which Islamists around the world feel as they watch events unfolding in Iran today is not an imaginary one. They are as justified in their fear of our cause, as we are of theirs. The term ‘Islamophobia’ has quite a literal meaning amongst Iranians these days. People are ‘afraid of Islam’ not because they are confused about ‘its true message’, but because they know exactly what it is.

The Iranian insurgency has already sent shockwaves throughout the so-called ‘Islamic world’. Female Turkish artists were among the first to express their solidarity with the Iranian women occupying the streets and setting fire to the hijab, that symbol of oppression, despite the threat to their lives. It is not a coincidence that women across the region have found inspiration in the Iranian revolution. Women in Afghanistan have gathered in front of the Islamic Republic’s embassy in Kabul to express their anger at the assaults being made on their sisters who are chanting ‘woman, life, freedom’. The ideas fuelling this movement are not foreign to any of the people in the Middle East. The support we have received demonstrates that the protesters in Afghanistan, Turkey and elsewhere are perfectly aware of the values they too would fight for, given the chance.

For the first time, women stand on the brink of total victory over an adversary that has wrought nothing but humiliation upon their lives for centuries. And even though the Iranian nation has not achieved its political aims just yet, the fact is that women have succeeded in breaking free of that captivity of mind which had been built up around them for so long. Today, hope has revitalised a catatonic society. Brave women and girls have broken the spell of the Islamic regime’s infallibility. We hope that our revolution against this regime will inspire our sisters and brothers across the region too.

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The post The ‘Women’s Revolution’: from two activists in Iran appeared first on The Freethinker.

Maryam’s uncompromising stance, such as in her topless protests, and her refusal to censor her views, have caused controversy in some quarters. For instance, in 2020, she spoke at Warwick University for a TedX event. Her title was ‘Creativity in Protesting Religious Fundamentalism’. TedX waited a year before publishing a video of her talk, but refused to publish her slides and accompanied the video with a trigger warning.

I met Maryam in the office of the CEMB, King’s Cross, on 23rd February 2022. She spoke to me about the CEMB and its work, the experience of not ‘belonging’ in the UK, and why the radical Left seems to have allied itself with the Islamist movement. Other topics included the Iranian tradition of political protest, the relationship between religious freedom and freedom of speech, and more. Below are extracts from our interview, edited for clarity and concision, with occasional glosses inserted in square brackets.
~ Emma Park

Let’s start with the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain. How large an operation is it?
It started quite small in the sense that very few people were willing to call themselves ex-Muslims or to come out publicly and do that. The idea behind the organisation was that having people come out publicly normalises it and breaks the taboo, and makes it accessible to all. When there’s all this discrimination and pressure and intimidation, coming out publicly is a way of resisting the status quo and trying to change things.
When we started it [in 2007], people were saying that we were being absurd, there are no ex-Muslims around, and we were trying to get attention. It was hard initially. For example, at our first conference at Conway Hall, there were very few ex-Muslims there, and those that were there were hiding on the balcony, up where they couldn’t be photographed or filmed. People were like, “You’re talking about ex-Muslims – where are they?” Now, fifteen years on, things have changed incredibly in favour of this visibility and presence, and there are many ex-Muslims.
So I would say, yes, we are a small, a relatively new movement. We are not as established as other freethought, atheist, humanist, secularist movements in Europe and Britain, partly because a lot of us are refugees, new migrants, and we don’t have access to the same resources. CEMB is largely a volunteer-run organisation. All our funding comes from individual donors primarily, but people have been hit hard by Covid, so it’s really gone down, to the point where we are not sure we’ll be able to carry on next year. But somehow people are helping every time we’re about to close down. Our costs are quite minimal. It’s the rent, the website, publicity, stipend, and volunteer support and assistance. I’m the only paid person, on £10,000 a year.

Where would you put yourself on the political spectrum?
I’m a communist – so basically as far left as it goes. But not a communist that supports the Soviet Union or China or all of these so-called communist groups out there. I’m on the left spectrum of pro-refugees, pro-open borders, pro freedom of expression. And also anti-racist and against bigotry against Muslims, or placing collective blame on all Muslims because of the religious right amongst them.

In your view, is bigotry against Muslims a form of racism, or is it analogous to racism?
I think it’s a form of racism. Of course there are all different races of Muslims. We all hear, whenever there is any criticism of ‘bigotry against Muslims’, they all say, well, Muslims are not a race, therefore we can’t be bigoted against Muslims, because there are also white Muslims, and so on. That’s the argument you often hear. But the reality is that it is seen as a brown religion, a black religion, a minority religion, and one that’s alien to Western societies.

What are the CEMB’s biggest achievements over the last fifteen years?
I think the greatest achievement has been to highlight the fact that there are non-believers in the so-called Muslim community. I think that’s an important thing to do, because very often, the Left that supports Islam and sees Islamism as a revolutionary or anti-imperialist force, also sees Muslims as homogenous, and therefore, if you criticise Islam, you’re seen to be attacking an entire community of people. And for the far Right, anyone who is a Muslim is bringing in a foreign ideology into the country, and they’re destroying Western civilisation and that sort of thing. So both Left and Right look at the Muslim community or Muslim society, so-called, as homogenous.

So they’re just generalising?
Yes, but what happens when you generalise about something is that you recognise those in power as its authentic representatives. Given the fact that we are living in a period of the rise of the [Islamist] religious Right, it’s they who are seen to be representatives and authentic Muslims, and therefore women who don’t wear the veil are viewed as westernised, or self-hating, and the veil is viewed as the authentic dress of those who come from a Muslim background. What the Left does is that it maintains the demands of the religious Right on the population. So the Left says you shouldn’t blaspheme, because it hurts sentiments, even if it’s people from Muslim backgrounds doing it.
So I think that achievement is something that’s quite valuable, and over the long run I think we will recognise it as such: the fact that we have shown that Muslim communities and societies are not homogenous. I think this is key in humanising people and in making them see that any given community or society is not reactionary, or progressive, all at the same time. There are differences of politics and opinions. People can see that in Britain, they can’t see it when it comes to the Muslim community.

How far have the radical Left got into bed with the Islamist religious Right?
This is something that I’ve had to deal with a lot: progressive student unions barring me from speaking, and saying I’m inflammatory and inciting hatred against Muslims. I think it comes from a good place, in general, because it’s the attitude that you want to not tolerate racism where you see it. I think that’s a good thing. But conflating criticism of the Islamic Right with an attack on Muslims in general is very problematic.
And not everything comes from a good place. There is also political self-interest for some of these groups: they are anti-imperialist, and they see Islamism as an anti-imperialist force, and therefore they side with it versus US or UK imperialism.

Is Islamism anti-imperialist?
It is an imperialist force in and of itself. It has eradicated cultures and art, music, dress – it’s destroyed so much in all of the countries that it has gained access to and power over. The Left that supports it doesn’t see that it’s a counter-revolutionary force. It has eradicated Left and working-class movements in those societies.

How did the Iranian revolution of 1979 affect you?
I was born in 1966. When the Islamic regime was established in 1980 after the revolution, we left the country. We didn’t all leave together, because we couldn’t. My mum brought me to India to go to school, because they shut the schools down in Iran, and then my dad told her not to come back, so we stayed, and then my dad joined us later. We came to the UK in 1982, but we weren’t allowed to stay here, so we went to the US in 1983. I came back to the UK in 2000. My family is still in the US.

What made you move to the UK?
To be closer to Iran and my political party, which used to be the Worker-Communist Party. I left it a few years ago. Basically, I just got fed up.

Are you affiliated to any political party now?
No.

What was it like growing up in Iran before the revolution?
The Shah’s regime was a dictatorship, and the revolution was against this. There was a period when there was a lot of freedom, before the Islamic regime took complete power, which it did by massacring lots of people. I went to a mixed school, I wasn’t veiled, my family’s quite secular. Religion wasn’t really an issue for me. We didn’t fast during Ramadan. Some people in our family did, some didn’t. My grandmother sometimes wore the veil, sometimes didn’t. The first time I came across in-your-face religion was when the Islamic regime took over.

Did you grow up as a believing Muslim?
I was born a Muslim, the way people are out of no choice of their own, because of where you’re born. My father had a very strict Muslim upbringing. He still doesn’t eat pork, drink or gamble, and my grandfather was a cleric. My last name, Namazie, means ‘prayer’. But my father never required us to pray, to wear the veil, so I never felt that I was less because I was a girl. It’s also my family’s background. My mum is from Nepal. She was Christian, and she converted to Islam to marry my dad. All of my aunts and uncles from Iran, they’ve married Indians, Iranians, different types of people, so we’ve got quite a mixed family. Some prayed, some didn’t. I think it was like that in quite a lot of countries in the Middle East at that time. It was much more relaxed, and now it’s much more forced. Before, you could eat in front of someone who was fasting. Now, out of respect, you’re not supposed to. What happens with the religious Right is that it changes the demarcation line, makes it stricter and more difficult for people to pick and choose as they want.

Would you be able to go back to Iran now?
No. I’ve had threats from the Iranian government, and also – it’s a long story. There is the possibility of being kidnapped. [Compare the alleged plot against the Iranian-born journalist Masih Alinejad.]

In terms of your identity, how do you see yourself?
I always believe that you are from where you live and that home is where you work and struggle. But the older I get, the more I miss Iran. It’s very strange, I can’t explain it – it’s very nostalgic and emotional.

How did you become an ex-Muslim?
I became an atheist many years ago, I don’t remember exactly when. It was gradual, for sure. By university I was an atheist. I never called myself ex-Muslim, I don’t even like the term. It’s just an idea that came up about being able to promote the idea that there is freethought and freethinkers amongst Muslims.

How many people would you estimate are ex-Muslims around the world?
We don’t really know the scale of it, but I do think that every family has an ex-Muslim. I think it’s much stronger where Islam is in power. You don’t see it as much because of the lack of freedom to express yourself. But if people said in the UK what they say in Iran about Islam, it would be considered very Islamophobic. One of the trending hashtags in Iran is #IShitOnIslam. Imagine having that here – it would be considered so inappropriate. That rage… You can see even from the response of government officials. The Egyptian government set up a partnership with the Ministry of Youth and Sports to combat atheism. Saudi Arabia considers atheism a form of terrorism. When Deeyah Khan did her documentary about us [Exposure: Islam’s Non-Believers, 2016], there were texts being sent to Muslims in Britain, warning them not to let their children see the film. Atheism is a real threat to these states.

How connected are the different Islamist movements in different countries around the world, including the UK?
They have their rivalries. There are some who are more supportive of Assad and the Islamic regime, or pro-Saudi, or the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. There are divisions, in the same way that you have far Right groups in the West that have differences of opinion and divisions. But they are one movement, because despite the differences, they fundamentally want very much the same thing.

What do they want?
They are nostalgic for some golden age of Islam. They want a Caliphate and sharia law, they want the ideal Islamic state as was the case when Mohammed was alive. What that means to them is the idea that doubt and freethought cannot be allowed. Women need to know their place in society. In Britain, they will say, we’re not for the execution of apostates, but they are for it in an ideal Islamic state. There’s a lot of doublespeak and propaganda to dupe people into thinking that they’re the nice version in Britain.

How strong is the Islamist movement in Britain today?
Britain is one of its strongholds. In a country where they’re not in state power, Britain is one of those countries where they are well-established. If we look at Islamists who have got access to positions of power in the UK, and if you look at the whole idea of sharia law, how we have so many sharia courts in this country, and despite various Parliamentary groups looking into this issue, there has never been a decision made on it. The government is always justifying it as people’s choice of religion, whereas it’s something very different and very sinister – it’s part of the political wing of the Islamist movement.

Roughly how many sharia courts are there in the UK at present?
There’s no set number, because they’re not registered. Not that I think they should be registered – it would be like registering FGM clinics. In some reports there have been up to a hundred. A lot of them are ad hoc, in mosques. It’s not like a registered court, where you would know the exact number. Sharia courts were only established in this country in the mid-80s. It goes back to our argument that it’s part of the religious Right movement. There were Muslims before in this country, none of them needed to go to sharia courts, they did not have to go.

Not being a Muslim in terms of your religious beliefs, how do you see your Iranian side?
For me, it’s the protest and the resistance. That makes me proudest to be Iranian. I think it’s a continuation of the original Iranian revolution, that was never allowed to achieve its goals. Look at the French revolution. It happened so long ago, but we still feel the effects of it today, when we talk about laïcité, or secularism in the proper sense, not in the wishy-washy British sense. So I think the revolution and its politicisation of society in Iran, to the extent that a majority of people were born under an Islamic regime, and are fighting it tooth and nail. I see that as a really proud history, and one that I am a part of.

Do you have any favourite Iranian authors?
I’m going to sound like a party hack, I’m not in the Worker Communist Party any more, but – the leader of that, Mansoor Hekmat, I became a communist because of him. I find his writing so human, and seeing the world in such a fundamental way. But there are also many great poets in Iran. There’s Ahmad Shamlou, who was very critical of the state, or a woman poet, Forough Farrokhzad, who was such a taboo-breaker.

Is there a long history in Iran of criticising the state?
Yes, definitely. And also a history of freethought. There is Sadegh Hedayat, he’s a well-known writer who is an atheist, very critical of religion. Also there’s a very funny character, it’s called Molla Nasreddin, which is famous in Iran, but also in Azerbaijan and other countries, and it’s a bumbling clergyman – all the cartoons are making fun of religion and religious rule. For example, he’s following a group of donkeys and they’re going to Mecca, that sort of anti-clericalism, like in Charlie Hebdo.

Talking of Charlie Hebdo and laïcité, you mentioned that British secularism seems ‘wishy-washy’ by comparison to the French version. Would you be in favour of a more French approach over here?
I think that’s the only approach. Not to say that I am completely supportive of the French government, I don’t think it is completely promoting laïcité, I think there’s a lot of politics as well involved. But the idea of the state being incompetent, where it has no position on religion, it’s separate completely, is hugely important. It’s not enough to be neutral.

The idea that the state should not have any influence on politics?
Any influence, but also on the educational system, in public policy. Faith schools, for example, are not good for children.

Why should religion not have any influence on education or public policy?
Faith and education seem to be antithetical to each other. Education should promote freethought, doubt, questioning. Faith is the opposite of that. Is it the role of an educational system, to teach people to be submissive, or to learn about dogma? I think not. Also religion shouldn’t have a place, for example, in a court of law or when making public policy. Why should there be faith-based health services? We all bleed the same. It’s just a way of helping to bring the religious right more into the public space, whereas it shouldn’t really have any space. That’s different from being neutral. A state should be playing an active role in combating religion. Yes, you have the right to your religion, but that’s very different from having a right to a religious school, or a right to faith-based services. Those are separate things.

So, in your view, religious freedom should have certain limits?
Yes, because religion is a private matter. That’s where there’s a problem, that for some reason, it’s as if religious freedom means you can shove your religion down everybody’s throat. You may have the freedom to believe in what you want, but when it comes to the public space, it’s not about a personal right any more, it’s about a right that imposes on society. If we recognise it as a private belief, it becomes a lot easier to manage it.

Talking about Charlie Hebdo: how important are laughter and satire in promoting free speech?
Charlie Hebdo is really important not just for French society but for all of us. I spoke at the third anniversary of the attacks on Charlie Hebdo. I was the only English speaker there, because you know how it’s been over here in supporting them: if there have been any media reports on the attacks, they don’t show the cartoons, they don’t show any of the images – that’s the whole point, isn’t it? They [Charlie Hebdo] have been left alone to a large extent, because it is that same idea that criticising Islam is detrimental to Muslims. The argument I made was that what Charlie Hebdo does is important for freethinkers from Muslim backgrounds, because it’s opening the space up for us as well. It means a lot to Islam’s non-believers, as well as its benefits for free speech in European countries.

What is the best way in Britain of countering Islamist fundamentalism, while at the same time not promoting anti-Muslim bigotry?
Islamism is part of UK foreign and domestic policy. How can you have relations with the Saudi government, or with the Pakistani or Iranian government, and then address Islamism in your own country? It’s impossible, because in order to justify your relationship with those countries, you’ve justified Islamism, so it makes it easier for it to grow roots here as well.
At the same time, the idea that we foreigners are never British citizens… The jihadi bride, Shamima Begum – the fact that her citizenship can be taken away says a lot about how this government views the ‘other’ and minorities. Even if you are born here, because your parents happen to be from Bangladesh you’re never part of this country. This idea is that you belong to the Muslim umma [the worldwide Muslim community] – the Muslim community, a Muslim country, you’re never really British. It gives people the feeling that they don’t belong, and also, the government itself is saying ‘You don’t belong’ with this policy.

Since being in the UK, have you experienced racism yourself?
Yes. The first time I experienced it was when we left India in 1982. We went to Bournemouth, because my dad knew someone there. We were walking down the street, and some lady was saying something, and my mum was waving to her, she thought she was just saying hello, and she was like, “You fucking foreigners, get out of this country!” So that was the first time. Since 2000, it’s, you know, the looks you get if you’re talking in another language – on the train, for example. It’s constantly being told, if you disagree with anything the UK government says, “Why don’t you just go home?” You never belong.
Since I’ve got a son now, my idea was always, “You’re British, you were born here, you’re not Iranian.” This was always my propaganda to him. Then he’s grown up, and he’s faced so much racism at school [in London]. I feel very sorry for him, because it affects him quite a lot. I guess you then feel like, who are you? You don’t belong anywhere. I can see why people feel so disillusioned, that they’re not part of British society.

Have you had women in stricter Muslim communities telling you of some of the problems they have had, or what it’s like being in that very repressive sort of environment in the UK?
In the work I do with One Law for All, we have been talking to lots of women, gathering testimonies. We did quite a bit of that for the Parliamentary Committee that was going to be looking into sharia courts, that never did. [See Parliamentary discussion in May 2019.] It was before lockdown. We gathered testimonies, and I provided evidence to the Committee, and we did written submissions. In those situations, there are women who talk about the awful things that have happened to them in the sharia courts. People say, “The sharia courts are not stoning anyone to death, they’re not amputating them, they’re just dealing with marriage and divorce and child custody.” But those are pillars of women’s oppression in the family. So it trivialises what happens to women.

Is it difficult for these women to integrate with other British people, non-Muslims, or into wider society?
It is difficult, partly because some of the problems include the fact that men may have only married women in a nikah (an Islamic marriage), and so when there’s violence or divorce, the women don’t have any rights, because it was never a proper marriage – they were led to believe that it was. Plus if you’re looking at relationships where there’s coercion and violence, women are also kept very isolated. They may not even be able to speak the language, or have many friends outside, who the husband has given them permission to have relationships with. We’re talking about some of the most vulnerable people in society. They’re not protected and they’ve been left at the mercy of these sort of kangaroo courts.

What’s the attitude of the Left?
I think they think it’s people’s right to religion. But again, the counter-argument is, religion is a private matter.

We’ve talked of the way that racism and criticism of religion may be associated in some people’s minds. Is one of the problems with the approach of the Left that they’re so worried about racism that they are not able to tackle these issues of abuse within Muslim communities?
It’s not all the Left. Practically everyone I work with is on the Left. A lot of ex-Muslim groups are also Left-leaning, though there are other groups too – and a lot of the women’s groups I work with are Left-leaning. A lot of the protest movements that we’re seeing in Iran or Afghanistan, they are Left-leaning as well. There is a very vibrant Left that is opposed to both fundamentalism and racism.
But there is that section of the Left that hides behind the idea of racism and bigotry, as a way of saying, we’re so concerned about racism, we’re going to support sharia courts and so on. But they’re not very concerned with the racism that ex-Muslims face, for example. If freethinkers are killed, suddenly they’re not so vocal about human rights. They see Islamism as a revolutionary and anti-imperialist force. It’s an uncomfortable ally, but one that they want.

Where does the CEMB fit in with other freethought movements in the UK?
With the National Secular Society we have very good relations. They are also seen to be a bit more upfront with this criticism of religion. Most of our relationships in the UK are with minority and women’s groups, such as Southall Black Sisters, or Centre for Secular Space, or Iranian and Kurdish women’s rights organisations. I can’t think of any freethought groups we work with. I think we are seen to be a bit much, in the sense of going too far. But I think you need to go too far, especially with what they’re doing [in Islamism] – for goodness’ sake, they’re decapitating people.

Topless protests: why?
Topless protest is the most difficult thing I have ever done. The first time I did it, I didn’t get my period for six months, that’s how stressed I felt. I still feel really embarrassed when my parents come and see pictures of it. The reason I did it is because Aliaa Magda Elmahdy in Egypt did it in 2012. She was under a lot of attacks and pressure, and I said, “Let’s do something in support of her, let’s do a topless calendar.” And of course, suggesting it, I had to do it myself. The idea is that a woman’s body is considered to be the source of chaos and fitna [‘Islam. Unrest or rebellion, esp. against a rightful ruler,’ S.O.E.D.], that’s why we have to be veiled. Therefore owning your body and using it as a tool for protest and liberation is really a great way of challenging this view that a woman’s body is obscene and shouldn’t be seen and heard.

Final question: what limits should be set to free speech in the law?
I don’t think there should be any limits. Hate speech is really subjective. A lot of what I say is considered hate speech. Even saying that the Holocaust didn’t happen, let people say that ridiculous, absurd thing, and let others be able to challenge it. The best way to combat bad speech is with good speech. You have to have the freedom to be able to listen to various views and to be able to challenge them. We’re living in an age where speech is considered akin to causing physical harm. We need to push for a period where you could say anything, you could have very challenging conversations with one another, and manage to still be friends, families, and move on with your life without getting your head chopped off.
Of course there’s a difference between hate speech and inciting violence. That’s where we should be drawing the line. But otherwise, I think we should let people talk. And it would be good for people to learn to listen as well. You don’t have to agree with everything you hear – that’s fine. This whole thing of safe spaces, of things being so harmful that you can’t say it anywhere, is problematic for society. It feeds into this idea that that’s why they have to cut your head off, because you’ve upset them so much. I’m upset by a lot of things I hear, but nobody would say I have a right to go and attack someone physically.

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The post ‘The best way to combat bad speech is with good speech’ – interview with Maryam Namazie appeared first on The Freethinker.