Speaking Out - Learning to Distinquish the Differences Between Islam and Islamism

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Book Description

Eye-opening accounts of heroic resistance to religious extremism.

In Lahore, Pakistan, Faizan Peerzada resisted being relegated to a “dark corner” by staging a performing arts festival despite bomb attacks. In Senegal, wheelchair-bound Aissatou Cissé produced a comic book to illustrate the injustices faced by disabled women and girls. In Algeria, publisher Omar Belhouchet and his journalists struggled to put out their paper, El Watan (The Nation), the same night that a 1996 jihadist bombing devastated their offices and killed eighteen of their colleagues. In Afghanistan, Young Women for Change took to the streets of Kabul to denounce sexual harassment, undeterred by threats. In Minneapolis, Minnesota, Abdirizak Bihi organized a Ramadan basketball tournament among Somali refugees to counter the influence of Al Shabaab. From Karachi to Tunis, Kabul to Tehran, across the Middle East, North Africa, South Asia, and beyond, these trailblazers often risked death to combat the rising tide of fundamentalism within their own countries.

But this global community of writers, artists, doctors, musicians, museum curators, lawyers, activists, and educators of Muslim heritage remains largely invisible, lost amid the heated coverage of Islamist terror attacks on one side and abuses perpetrated against suspected terrorists on the other.

A veteran of twenty years of human rights research and activism, Karima Bennoune draws on extensive fieldwork and interviews to illuminate the inspiring stories of those who represent one of the best hopes for ending fundamentalist oppression worldwide.

Why Bill Maher and Ben Affleck Are Both Wrong

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/karima-bennoune/bill-maher-ben-affleck-islam_b_5937838.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000051&ir=Religion

Karima Bennoune | UC Davis law professor, author of “Your Fatwa Does

Not Apply Here: Untold Stories from the Fight Against Muslim Fundamentalism”

Posted: 10/06/2014 10:18 am EDT Updated: 10/06/2014 10:59 am EDT

When I watched Bill Maher -- with whom I agree about many other issues -- talk about Islam on his show "Real Time" last Friday night, I felt as though my father's life story was being erased.

According to Maher, no one in Muslim majority countries openly denounces fundamentalism. "They are afraid to speak out." Such claims deny heroic battles waged by many people of Muslim heritage against extremism. For example, Mahfoud Bennoune, my dad, was an Algerian anthropologist who risked his life throughout the 1990s jihadist violence in his country. He taught evolution despite a classroom visit from the head of the so-called Islamic Salvation Front (dad threw the guy out!).

Though later forced to flee his apartment, Mahfoud Bennoune remained in his country despite death threats. He went on to repeatedly denounce terror and the extremist ideas that underlie it. For four years, every time he went out, he did not know whether he would come home again. But he never, ever shut up because of that.

My father believed the jihadists "trample Islam underfoot in the name of jihad." A free-thinker and secularist, he remained proud of the positive aspects of his religious heritage, such as Muslim historical contributions to science, even while being honest about the dangers both radical and conservative interpretations pose. Armed only with pen and voice, he fought back. He was just one of thousands of Algerian democrats to do so then, and today thousands of others from Afghanistan to Somalia continue the same fight.

As Michael Steele -- not someone I often agree with -- correctly noted on Maher's Friday show, people like these do not get significant Western media coverage. Have you heard much about the stalwart Iraqi human rights advocate Samira Saleh Al Naimi recently killed by ISIS in her hometown Mosul after publicly excoriating their brutality? Even when they pay with their lives, people like her are often forgotten by the world.

So, I want to challenge Bill Maher -- who is right about the need to ardently defend liberal principles -- to start supporting those who do, but whose stories are untold. Suggesting the fundamentalists somehow represent Islam, as Maher did, overlooks people like Al Naimi, but also acquiesces to the claims of the repulsive ISIS would-be "Caliph" Baghdadi who wants that to be true.

In fact, many liberals and progressives in Muslim majority contexts are fighting back. While writing my book, "Your Fatwa Does Not Apply Here: Untold Stories from the Fight Against Muslim Fundamentalism," I interviewed nearly 300 of them from 30 countries -- traveling from Pakistan to Mali -- to hear how they continue to resist.

I think of Raif Badawi who faces 1000 lashes in a Saudi jail for running the Saudi Arabian Liberals website. Or those I saw protesting on the streets of Lahore against blasphemy death sentences, despite being told suicide bombers would turn up. Or the Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq that runs a shelter for women fleeing ISIS, while simultaneously denouncing the group's misogynist atrocities (like its reported "concubine market" in Mosul).

These people deserve better than for Muslims to be painted as mainly being a bunch of fundamentalists or Islam seen as inherently extreme. For example, on Friday's show atheist writer Sam Harris opined shockingly that "Islam is the motherlode of bad ideas." How does one begin to respond to such an anti-humanist assertion?

On the same HBO program, Ben Affleck passionately defended Islam and accused both Harris and Maher of bigotry. "It's gross, it's racist... You are painting the whole religion with the same brush," he insisted. I am sincerely grateful to him for expressing the outrage many of us feel over such negative stereotypes.

However, Western liberals also make me nervous when they downplay the gravity and the scope of the challenge posed to people of Muslim heritage themselves by fundamentalism and jihadism, even as a rejoinder to discriminatory portrayals of the faith. I do agree with Maher that many Westerners in the liberal camp have been reticent to openly critique Muslim fundamentalism and have failed to grasp the desperate need to defeat it.

"ISIS couldn't fill a double-A ballpark in Charleston," Affleck suggested. Sadly, this is not true. Despite denunciations by countless laudable Muslim groups and individuals, ISIS could pack Madison Square Garden with a well-armed, and small but significant minority -- including young recruits from the West. The Pakistani Taliban have pledged allegiance to ISIS as have some jihadist groups across North Africa. Gulf governments -- that have long been supported by the U.S. -- have for years poured money into some of these same groups.

While Affleck was right to note that the U.S. has wrongfully waged wars against Muslim majority countries like Iraq, killing many more than the Westerners who have been killed by Muslim extremists, the real issue in the debate about Muslim fundamentalism is not the West vs. Islam. It is the huge number of people on the ground being slaughtered by the fundamentalists, from Afghanistan to Nigeria.

Liberals and progressives of Muslim heritage face a very grave crisis indeed, both in terms of violence and the ideology that promotes it. We need both Bill and Ben to rethink. We do not need either stereotypical generalizations, or minimizing responses to fundamentalism, however well-intentioned. What we need is a principled, anti-racist critique of Muslim fundamentalism that pulls no punches, but that also distinguishes between Islam (the diverse religious tradition) and Islamism (an extreme right wing political ideology.) We need support, understanding and to have our existence recognized.

One final notable feature of the Maher v. Affleck debate is that no women and no Muslims were on the show. New rule -- when debating what Muslims supposedly think about fundamentalism, you ought to have some people of Muslim heritage at the table.

past related articles -

Islam in itself is Neither Good or Bad

Islam in itself is Neither Good or Bad

Let's face it. American news reporting can be tedious at best. Take for instance the recent bashing of the Islamic nations by Bill Maher who made crass stereotypical statements about the Muslim religion without distinction. Admittedly yes, there is violence in the Muslim religion. But this is not the point. Why? Because there is also violence in every religion and not just Islam. Why is that?

Because religious violence stems from the heart of its religious advocates and not from the religion itself. Religion is neither good nor bad, it just is. But it becomes either good or bad in the hands of its beholder. Either loving or violent.

For instance, modern day Christianity abounds with pertinent historical examples both past and present. But so too will any religious faith when conscripted into the hands of zealots and unquestioning worshippers.

To compound the problem, the author of a highly disliked book about Jesus, Reza Aslan, spoke out against Bill Maher's perturbations claiming him to be naive if not ignorant. Of course, Reza sits on the downside of conservative American media because of his book claiming Jesus to be a mere mortal (and more zealot) and not the Son of God. Already one can sense the tightening of the political coil in reaction to Reza's comments about America's media hero, Bill Maher, known for his scything  late-night political humor.

But regardless of Reza's personal opinions about Jesus, the church, or the Christian faith, as an American-Islamic scholar, it is also important to give this author a fair hearing when he speaks out about his quizzical observations towards the American media when portraying the Muslim religion from only its violent aspects when held in the hands of Muslim madmen.

Reza's point is that each Muslim country has its own religious beliefs and practices pertaining to its own interpretation of humanizing behaviors as well as dehumanizing acts. Consequently, when speaking of Islam it is important to distinguish each Islamic nation from the other. To not think of each country as carrying its Islamic faith in equal weights and values as its Islamic neighbor.

Meaning that, what goes on in the African nation of Muslim Somalia does not necessarily carry through over into Muslim Pakistan. What occurs in Saudi Arabia may not be true in Syria or Jordan. Each nation has its own interpretation of Islamic laws and one may rightly surmise that each Islamic nation is in the throes of how to interpret those laws as respecting human rights and freedoms. Especially as Western and Asian civilizations are now violently colliding with Mid-Eastern and African (tribal) civilizations and culture.

For us here at Relevancy22 that must be the question: How can we help give to Muslim nations the time and political tolerance they will need to update their religion into the 21st Century's cry for human rights and more religious freedoms? Which same rights and freedoms America even now struggles to interpret for its own citizens in respect to its "illegals" (a nasty word I no longer recognize and heartily reject), genders, homophobias, and racial minorities quickly becoming majorities.

Certainly, the right to authoritarian control and oppression is abominable. Even more so is the committal of unspeakable acts of persecution and horror upon the personages of those Muslims and non-Muslims terrorized within their own Islamic states. We feel their pain caught in the violent, inhuman transition of social evolution struggling for basic human freedoms and respect.

All humanity - and especially religious humanity - must speak out against such cruel atrocities being committed knowingly and legally within any nation or religion refusing to stop abominable acts of bigotry, prejudice, and repression of personal freedoms.

And yet, it is not enough to broadly paint every Muslim nation as like its own neighbor. Each nation houses a unique Muslim culture and religion that is as distinguished from itself as it is like itself within its basal cores of belief.

As example, when coming to the Christian faith we cannot expect a Catholic to think or act like a Protestant in all areas. Nor a Lutheran with a Reformed person of faith. Nor a Regular Baptist to that of a Southern Baptist. Nor an Irish Christian to think like his/her's Asian counterpart. Each Christian faith differs from its brother and global sister even as its basal core is committed to worshipping God in Spirit and in Truth through acts of love, charity, mercy, forgiveness, and forbearance.

But of course the American press makes its money by selling fear and alarm (and in this case, bigotry) towards Muslimism. It knows which bells to ring for which audience it wishes to sell its news products to - making its viewers no less guilty than the news agencies themselves.

Alas, let us not be naive consumers of media digests. In fact, let us be less patient with any news agency purporting truth under the guise of fear and alarm and blatant bigotry. Let us become contrarian thinkers like Reza who hear the discrepancies all too clearly. Who wish to make an end to all such false reporting and stereotypical labeling of people groups. How? Simply by turning off the station, the cable program, or not receiving the media journal or paper regularly beating its way into our mail boxes, our emails, or our doorsteps. They are unwelcomed. And clearly so.

Whatever you may think of Reza as a Jesus-author, let us thank him for his sympathetic stand for those Muslim brothers and sisters who wish to pursue the humanitarian aspects of their religion against the violence by so many of Islam's false worshippers and miscreants.

Likewise may every worthy religion pursue this standard of humanitarianism for all - and not just for some privileged few who have cravenly elected themselves as judge-and-jury, god-and-ruler, of mankind.

And in this sublime truth may we sense a global brotherhood and sisterhood committed to acts of love and charity and not to acts of inhuman control and oppression. We live in a global world of tolerance and forbearance. Let us then act like good global citizens and behave accordingly with one another granting peace and goodwill to all.

R.E. Slater

October 2, 2014

past related articles -

Speaking Out - Learning to Distinquish the Differences Between Islam and Islamism

Reza Aslan Blasts Bill Maher, Media For 'Unsophisticated' Reporting On Islam

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/30/reza-aslan-bill-maher_n_5907612.html?utm_hp_ref=tw

The Huffington Post | By Antonia Blumberg

Posted: 09/30/2014 1:12 pm EDT Updated: 09/30/2014 3:59 pm EDT

Reza Aslan has a thing or two to say about media coverage of Islam.

Speaking with CNN on Monday Aslan criticized comedian Bill Maher for characterizing female genital mutilation as an "Islamic problem," in addition to making several other sweeping generalizations about the faith.

"When it comes to the topic of religion he's not very sophisticated in the way that he thinks," Aslan said.

On Friday the comedian went on a rampage against Americans who defend Islam but criticize Christian group's homophobia. “If we’re giving no quarter to intolerance,” Maher said, “shouldn’t we be starting with the mutilators and the honor killers?"

Aslan objected to Maher's blanket rejection of Islam, saying:

"The problem is that you’re talking about a religion of one and a half billion people, and certainly it becomes very easy to just simply paint them all with a single brush."

While he called for a more nuanced approach to reporting on Islam, Aslan agreed that practices like stoning and genital mutilation "must be condemned because they don't belong in the 21st century."

In addition to this important lesson for media outlets, Aslan had a message for the Islamic State, which he has condemned for promoting a distorted version of Islam:

Reza Aslan offers his reaction to Bill Maher's recent remarks regarding the link between violence and Islam:

Reza Aslan: Bill Maher Not Very Sophisticated

Reza Aslan Slams Bill Maher for Facile Arguments’ About Muslim Violence

Published on Sep 29, 2014

Religious scholar Reza Aslan took some serious issue on CNN Monday night with Bill Maher‘s commentary about Islamic violence and oppression. Maher ended his show last Friday by going after liberals for being silent about the violence and oppression that goes on in Muslim nations. Aslan said on CNN that Maher’s arguments are just very unsophisticated.

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Related News

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Ben Affleck in passionate defence of Islam on Bill Maher show

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/11141733/Ben-Affleck-in-passionate-defence-of-Islam-on-Bill-Maher-show.html

by Harriet Alexander

1:56PM BST 05 Oct 2014

Ben Affleck became embroiled in a furious debate about Islam on an American television

show, accusing the host of being racist and the guests of being ignorant

Ben Affleck, the Oscar-winning actor and director, has launched a ferocious defence of Islam, after becoming involved in a heated argument when he appeared on an American chat show.

Affleck, the star of Good Will Hunting and director of Argo, appeared on HBO’s television show Real Time with Bill Maher to promote his latest film, Gone Girl.

But instead of talking about the film, the 42-year-old found himself in a furious discussion with both Maher and Sam Harris, the author of a series of books on religion.

Maher, an outspoken atheist and critic of Islam, said last week in his show that “vast numbers of Muslims around the world believe that humans deserve to die for merely holding a different idea, or drawing a cartoon, or writing a book, or eloping with the wrong person.”

He said: “Not only does the Muslim world have something in common with ISIS, it has too much in common with ISIS.”

This week he returned to the theme, beginning a discussion on how Islam is viewed and analysed.

Mr Harris said: “When you want to talk about the treatment of women and homosexuals and free thinkers and public intellectuals in the Muslim world, I would argue liberals have failed us.

“The crucial point of confusion is we have been sold this meme of Islamaphobia – where every criticism of the doctrine of Islam is conflated with bigotry towards Muslims as people. Which is intellectually ridiculous.”

Affleck was angered by his comments, questioning Harris’ interpretation.

“You are saying that Islamaphobia is not a real thing?” he said. “It’s gross, it’s racist. It’s like saying ‘that shifty Jew’.”

Harris replied: “Ben, we have to be able to criticise bad ideas. And Islam at this moment is the motherload of bad ideas.”

Affleck looked shocked, muttering “Jesus Christ!” under his breath and sitting back in his chair. He then responded, telling Harris: “That’s an ugly thing to say.”

Maher backed up the author, telling Affleck that he was wrong to state that fundamentalist beliefs were only held by “a few bad apples”.

Affleck countered: “How about the more than a billion people who aren’t fanatical, who don’t punish women, who just want to go to school, have some sandwiches, and don’t do any of the things you say all Muslims do?”

When Michael Steele, a political analyst, attempted to support Affleck, arguing that many moderate Muslim voices were not given the same amount of coverage as extremist ones, he was shouted down by Maher.

“It’s the only religion that acts like the Mafia. That will ------- kill if you say the wrong thing, draw the wrong picture or write the wrong book,” said Maher.

Affleck replied to his host: “Your argument is, ‘You know, black people, they shoot each other.’” Maher replied: “No it’s not! It’s based on facts!”

After ten minutes of fierce argument, Maher moved on – accepting that the panel would never see eye to eye.

Bill Maher, Ben Affleck And Sam Harris In Heated Row

About Islamophobia And Radical Islam

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Muhammad Syed and Sarah Haider

Reza Aslan is Wrong About Islam and This is Why

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2014/10/05/reza-aslan-is-wrong-about-islam-and-this-is-why/

by Hemant Mehta

October 5, 2014

Comments

This is a guest post written by Muhammad Syed and Sarah Haider (below). They are co-founders of Ex-Muslims of North America, a community-building organization for ex-Muslims across the non-theist spectrum, and can be reached at @MoTheAtheist and @SarahTheHaider.

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This past week, a clip of Reza Aslan responding to comedian Bill Maher’s comments about Islamic violence and misogyny went viral.

Maher stated (among other things) that “if vast numbers of Muslims across the world believe, and they do, that humans deserve to die for merely holding a different idea or drawing a cartoon or writing a book or eloping with the wrong person, not only does the Muslim world have something in common with ISIS, it has too much in common with ISIS.” Maher implied a connection between FGM and violence against women with the Islamic faith, to which the charming Aslan seems to be providing a nuanced counterbalance, calling Maher “unsophisticated” and his arguments “facile.” His comments were lauded by many media outlets, including Salon and the Huffington Post.

Although we have become accustomed to the agenda-driven narrative from Aslan, we were blown away by how his undeniably appealing but patently misleading arguments were cheered on by many, with the Washington Post’s Erik Wemple going so far as to advise show producers not to put a show-host against Aslan “unless your people are schooled in religion, politics and geopolitics of the Muslim world.”

Only those who themselves aren’t very “schooled” in Islam and Muslim affairs would imply that Aslan does anything but misinform by cherry-picking and distorting facts.

Nearly everything Aslan stated during his segment was either wrong, or technically-correct-but-actually-wrong. We will explain by going through each of his statements in the hopes that Aslan was just misinformed (although it’s hard for us to imagine that a “scholar” such as Aslan wouldn’t be aware of all this).

Aslan contends that while some Muslim countries have problems with violence and women’s rights, in others like “Indonesia, women are absolutely 100 percent equal to men” and it is therefore incorrect to imply that such issues are a problem with Islam and “facile” to imply that women are “somehow mistreated in the Muslim world.”

Let us be clear here: No one in their right mind would claim that Indonesia, Malaysia, and Bangladesh are a “free and open society for women.” Happily, a few of them have enshrined laws that have done much to bring about some progress in equality between the sexes. But this progress is hindered or even eroded by the creeping strength of the notoriously anti-woman Sharia courts.

For example:

Indonesia has increasingly become more conservative. (Notoriously anti-women) Sharia courts that were “optional” have risen to equal status with regular courts in family matters. The conservative Aceh province even legislates criminal matters via Sharia courts, which has been said to violate fundamental human rights.

Malaysia has a dual-system of law which mandates sharia law for Muslims. These allow men to have multiple wives (polygyny) and discriminate against women in inheritance (as mandated by Islamic scripture). It also prohibits wives from disobeying the “lawful orders” of their husbands.

Bangladesh, which according to feminist Tahmima Anam made real advancements towards equality in its inception, also “created a barrier to women’s advancement.” This barrier? An article in the otherwise progressive constitution which states that “women shall have equal rights with men in all spheres of the state and of the public life” but in the realm of private affairs (marriage, divorce, inheritance, and child custody), “it acknowledges Islam as the state religion and effectively enshrines the application of Islamic law in family affairs. The Constitution thus does nothing to enforce equality in private life.”

And finally we come to Turkey, a country oft-cited by apologists due to its relative stability, liberalism, and gender equality. What they consistently choose to ignore is that historically, Turkey was militantly secular. We mean this literally: The country’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, created a secular state and pushed Islam out of the public sphere (outlawing polygamy, child marriages, and giving divorce rights to women) through (at times, military) force. He even banned the headscarf in various public sectors and is believed by some to have been an atheist.

Only apologists would ignore the circumstances that led to Turkey’s incredible progress and success relative to the Muslim world, and hold it up as an example of “Islamic” advancement of women’s rights. In fact, child marriages (which continue to be widespread in rural Turkey), are often hidden due to the practice of “religious” marriages (Nikah) being performed without informing secular authorities. Turkey was recently forced to pass a law banning religious marriages with penalties imposed on imams for violations.

Aslan’s claim that Muslim countries “have elected seven women as their heads of state” is an example of “technically true, actually false” — a tactic we have often noted among religious apologists.

It is true that there have been seven female heads of state in Muslim-majority countries, but a closer inspection would reveal this has little to do with female empowerment and often has much more to do with the political power of certain families in under-developed parts of the world.

It is well-known that Benazir Bhutto, a woman, was democratically elected in Pakistan. What is not as well-known is that her advancement had much to do with her family’s power in her party (Pakistan People’s Party) and little to do with female empowerment. Her father was once Prime Minister of Pakistan, and she was elected to the position fresh from her exile in the West with little political experience of her own. After her assassination, her nineteen year old son assumed leadership of her political party — as was expected by many familiar with the power their family continued to hold.

Similarly, Sheikh Hasina (the current Prime Minister of Bangladesh) is the daughter of the founding father of the country, Sheikh Mujibur-Rehman. Khaleda Zia, the predecessor of Sheikh Hasina, assumed power over her party after the assassination of her husband — the seventh President of Bangladesh.

In addition, Megawati Sukarnopotri, former President of Indonesia, was the daughter of Sukarno, the founding father of Indonesia.

To anyone familiar with women’s rights around the world, neither Pakistan, Bangladesh, nor Indonesia can be considered states with a stellar track record. It is likely that in these cases, the power of political dynasties was the key factor in their success.

Furthermore, female heads of state were elected democratically in Turkey, Kyrgyzstan, and Kosovo. But, as before, a closer inspection reveals a complicated reality. All three states are secular, where religion was forcibly uprooted from the government — due to Atatürk (in the case of Turkey) or Communism (in the cases of Kyrgyzstan and Kosovo).

Predictably, Aslan fails to mention any of this.

Finally, we get to Aslan’s claim that it is “actually, empirically, factually incorrect” that female genital mutilation (FGM) is a “Muslim-country problem.” Rather, he believes it is a “central African problem.” He continues to state that “nowhere else in the Muslim, Muslim-majority states is female genital mutilation an issue.”

This is an absolutely ridiculous claim.

The idea that FGM is concentrated solely in Africa is a huge misconception and bandied about by apologists with citations of an Africa-focused UNICEF report which showed high rates of FGM in African countries. Apologists have taken that to mean that it is *only* Africa that has an FGM problem — even though FGM rates have not been studied in most of the Middle East or South and East Asia. Is it an academically sound practice to take a lack of study as proof of the non-existence of the practice? Especially when there is record of FGM common in Asian countries like Indonesia (study) and Malaysia? It is also present in the Bohra Muslim community in India and Pakistan, as well as in the Kurdish community in Iraq — Are they to be discounted as “African problems” as well?

We do not yet have the large scale data to confirm the rates of FGM around the world, but we can safely assume that it is quite a bit more than just an “African problem.” It is very likely that FGM *did* originate in the Middle East or North Africa, but its extensive prevalence in Muslim-majority countries should give us pause. We are not attempting to paint FGM as only an Islamic problem but rather that Islam does bear some responsibility for its spread beyond the Middle East-North Africa region and for its modern prevalence.

So is there any credence to the claim that Islam supports FGM? In fact, there is. To name two, the major collections of the Hadith Sahih Muslim 3:684 and Abu Dawud 41:5251 support the practice. Of the four major schools of thought in Sunni Islam, two mandate FGM while two merely recommend it. Unsurprisingly, in the Muslim-majority countries dominated by the schools which mandate the practice, there is evidence of widespread female circumcision. Of particular note: None of the major schools condemn the practice.

This isn’t the first time Reza has stated half-truths in defense of his agenda. In his book No God But God, he misleads readers about many issues including the age of Muhammad’s child-bride Aisha. Scripture unanimously cites Aisha’s betrothal at age 6 or 7 and consummation at 9. Similarly, he quotes Mariya the Copt as being a wife of the prophet when overwhelming evidence points to her being Muhammad’s concubine.

We believe that Islam badly needs to be reformed, and it is only Muslims who can truly make it into a modern religion. But it is the likes of Reza Aslan who act as a deterrent to change by refusing to acknowledge real complications within the scripture and by actively promoting half-truths. Bigotry against Muslims is a real and pressing problem, but one can criticize the Islamic ideology without treating Muslims as themselves problematic or incapable of reform.

There are true Muslim reformists who are willing to call a spade a spade while working for the true betterment of their peoples — but their voices are drowned out by the noise of apologists who are all-too-often aided by the Western left. Those who accept distortions in order to hold on to a comforting dream-world where Islamic fundamentalism is merely an aberration are harming reform by encouraging apologists.

CNN - The 8 Worst Places in the World to be Religious

Rohingya Muslim children at a refugee camp in Burma, where authorities
have incited violence against them, according to the State Department.

The 8 worst places in the world to be religious

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2014/05/15/the-worst-countries-to-be-religious/?sr=fb051514worstreligiouscountry7pStoryLink

By Daniel Burke, CNN Belief Blog Editor

May 15, 2014

(CNN) - Since 1999, the U.S. State Department has tracked the world's worst abusers of religious rights.

As the most recent report notes, it has never lacked for material. Persecutions of people of faith are rising across the globe.

Among the most worrying trends, according to the State Department, are "authoritarian governments that restrict their citizens’ ability to practice their religion."

In typically bland bureaucratic language, the State Department calls these "countries of particular concern." But the designation can come with some teeth.

Sudan, for example, where a Christian woman was sentenced to death this week for leaving Islam, is ineligible for some types of foreign aid.

In addition to Sudan, here are the State Department's "countries of particular concern." You might call them "The Worst Places in the World to Be Religious."

Burma: The Burmese government puts a stranglehold on every religion except Theravada Buddhism, says the State Department.

Some government officials even enticed non-Buddhists to convert, and Muslims in the state of Rakhine, particularly Rohingya Muslims, are subject to discrimination and lethal violence, according to the State Department.

China: "The government harassed, detained, arrested, or sentenced to prison a number of religious adherents for activities reportedly related to their religious beliefs and practice," the State Department says.

That includes jailing Uyghur Muslims, one of whom was sentenced to 10 years in jail for "selling illegal religious material," and Catholic clergy who were arrested for not belonging to the state-run Catholic Patriotic Association.

That pales compared with the persecution of Tibetan Buddhists, according to the State Department, who suffered through "an intense official crackdowns at monasteries and nunneries resulting in the loss of life, arbitrary detentions, and torture."

Eritrea: Just four religious groups are officially allowed to openly practice their faith in this African nation; the rest are out of luck, subject to jailing or worse.

So if you're not an Eritrean Orthodox Christian, a Sunni Muslim, a Roman Catholic or an Evangelical Lutheran, life could be tough for you here. Harsh detentions for religious dissenters are the norm, according to the State Department.

Iran: This Muslim-majority country's respect for religious rights has actually declined in recent years, according to the State Department.

"There were increased reports that the government charged religious and ethnic minorities with moharebeh (enmity against God), 'anti-Islamic propaganda,' or vague national security crimes for their religious activities," says the department's report.

Specifically, the government has imprisoned numerous members of the Baha'i faith and Saeed Abedini, an Iranian-American pastor who has been physically and psychologically abused, according to the State Department.

Iran begins trial for U.S. pastor 

North Korea: Human rights groups provided numerous reports that members of underground churches were arrested, beaten, tortured or killed because of their religious beliefs, the State Department says.

The authoritarian nation has jailed as many as 200,000 political prisoners, according to the State Department, many on religious grounds. The country discourages any religious activity not sanctioned by officially recognized groups.

Kenneth Bae, a Korean-American reportedly accused of spreading Christianity in North Korea, has sentenced in 2013 to 15 years of hard labor.

Kenneth Bae worried about his health in North Korean camp

Saudi Arabia: The oil-rich monarchy doesn't even pretend to respect religious rights for any faith other than Islam.

Sunni Islam is the official religion, and the country's constitution is based on the Quran and the teachings of the Prophet Mohammed. The public practice of any other religion is prohibited, according to the State Department, and Arabian authorities beheaded a man in 2012 for engaging in "sorcery."

Sudan: This country has been on the State Department's naughty list since its inception in 1999.

Sudan penalizes blasphemy and conversion from Islam, sentencing a Christian woman to death this week. It has also arrested and deported Western Christians suspected of spreading their faith.

Christian woman in Sudan sentenced to death for her faith

The country's "morality police" require strict obedience to its interpretation of Islamic law, beating and stoning women accused of acting "indecently."

Uzbekistan: Technically, this country's laws respect religious rights.

But in practice, the Central Asian nation maintains strict control of its majority-Muslim population, according to the State Department.

"The government continued to imprison individuals based on charges of extremism; raid religious and social gatherings of unregistered and registered religious communities; confiscate and destroy religious literature, including holy books; and discourage minors from practicing their faith," the department said in its 2012 report.

People jailed on charges of "religious extremism" have been beaten, tortured and even killed, according to the State Department.

Daniel Burke - CNN Belief Blog Editor

* * * * * * * * *

Note: The following article below speaks specifically to Christian religious persecution. However, this author here feels it is equally reprehensible to persecuted ANY religious person based upon ANY religious faith held. Whether Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, Pagan, or whatever.

Religious freedom must mean that any individual may decide by his/her own conscience and heart what faith or belief to follow without the interference of a sect, cullt, religious body, or state organ of government. Even if it be one of agnosticism or atheism (no religion at all).

To be free is to choose. That is the perogative of every man, woman, and child. And to respect the faith of another - especially if that faith is different from your own. A respect that would cause one to defend and even fight for the respect of another different from ourselves. This is true freedom.

And if we disagree with another than let it be a disagreement bound-and-fraught with tolerance, respect, education, and irenic debate. Not physical or psychological abuse brought on by victum  or hatred, intolerance or disrespect, hatred or anger.

The idea of "tolerance" means love and respect for another - even for someone whom we might disagree with and do not wish to abide with. These are hard words. Words that Jesus most honored in the beatitudes pertaining to one's heart and conscience. And they are hard words percisely because they are the hardest to follow and to practice.

Peace,

R.E. Slater

May 16, 2014

* * * * * * * * *

The Most Widely Persecuted Religion

In The World

http://www.businessinsider.com/most-persecuted-religions-in-the-world-2012-9

by Joshua Berlinger

September 20, 2012

The Pew Forum released its 2012 report, Rising Tide of Restrictions on Religion, 

and ranked which religions were the most persecuted.

And despite the fact that Islamic protests have dominated the news, it's Christians that have been persecuted in the most countries between 2006 and 2010.

Pew Forum on Religion

Here's how many countries people were harassed in a specific year:

Pew Forum on Religion

Here's how the harassment breaks down in terms of government harassment and social harassment:

Pew Forum on Religion

Of course, the data doesn't take into account how severe the harrassment was, or how widespread it was within the countries recorded, but it's certainly surprising.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/most-persecuted-religions-in-the-world-2012-9#ixzz31sVj5xiv

Malcolm Gladwell - "David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants" in the Power of the Spirit

http://www.relevantmagazine.com/culture/books/how-i-rediscovered-faith

Relevant Magazine

January/February 2014

When I was writing my book David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants, I went to see a woman in Winnipeg by the name of Wilma Derksen.

Thirty years before, her teenage daughter, Candace, had disappeared on her way home from school. The city had launched the largest manhunt in its history, and after a week, Candace’s body was found in a hut a quarter of a mile from the Derksen’s house. Her hands and feet had been bound.

Wilma and her husband Cliff were called in to the local police station and told the news. Candace’s funeral was the next day, followed by a news conference. Virtually every news outlet in the province was there because Candace’s disappearance had gripped the city.

“How do you feel about whoever did this to Candace?” a reporter asked the Derksens.

“We would like to know who the person or persons are so we could share, hopefully, a love that seems to be missing in these people’s lives,” Cliff said.

Wilma went next. “Our main concern was to find Candace. We’ve found her.” She went on: “I can’t say at this point I forgive this person,” but the stress was on the phrase at this point. “We have all done something dreadful in our lives, or have felt the urge to.”

Vulnerability and Power

I wanted to know where the Derksens found the strength to say those things. A sexual predator had kidnapped and murdered their daughter, and Cliff Derksen could talk about sharing his love with the killer and Wilma could stand up and say, “We have all done something dreadful in our lives, or have felt the urge to.” Where do two people find the power to forgive in a moment like that?

That seemed like a relevant question to ask in a book called David and Goliath. The moral of the Biblical account of the duel between David and Goliath, after all, is that our preconceptions about where power and strength reside are false.

Goliath seemed formidable. But there are all kinds of hints in the biblical text that he was, in fact, not everything he seemed. Why did he need to be escorted to the valley floor by an attendant? Why did it take him so long to clue into the fact that David was clearly not intending to fight him with swords? There is even speculation among medical experts that Goliath may have been suffering from a condition called acromegaly—a disease that causes abnormal growth but also often has the side effect of restricted sight.

What if Goliath had to be led to the valley floor and took so long to respond to David because he could only see a few feet in front of him? What if the very thing that made him appear so large and formidable, in other words, was also the cause of his greatest vulnerability?

For the first year of my research, I collected examples of these kinds of paradoxes—where our intuitions about what an advantage or a disadvantage are turn out to be upside down. Why are so many successful entrepreneurs dyslexic? Why did so many American presidents and British prime ministers lose a parent in childhood? Is it possible that some of the things we hold dear in education—like small classes and prestigious schools—can do as much harm as good? I read studies and talked to social scientists and buried myself in the library and thought I knew the kind of book I wanted to write.

Then I met Wilma Derksen.

Weapons of the Spirit

The Derksens live in a small bungalow in a modest neighborhood not far from downtown Winnipeg. Wilma Derksen and I sat in her backyard. I think some part of me expected her to be saintly or heroic. She was neither. She spoke simply and quietly. She was a Mennonite, she explained. Her family, like many Mennonites, had come from Russia, where those of their faith had suffered terrible persecution before fleeing to Canada. And the Mennonite response to persecution was to take Jesus’ instructions on forgiveness seriously.

“The whole Mennonite philosophy is that we forgive and we move on,” she said. It had not always been easy. It took more than 20 years for the police in Winnipeg to track down Candace’s killer. In the beginning, Wilma’s husband, Cliff, had been considered by some in the police force as a suspect. The weight of that suspicion fell heavily on the Derksens. Wilma told me she had wrestled with her anger and desire for retribution. They weren’t heroes or saints. But something in their tradition and faith made it possible for the Derksens to do something heroic and saintly.

I never plan out my books in advance. I start in the middle and try and muddle my way from there. When I met Wilma Derksen, I finally understood what I was really getting at, in all the social science I had been reading and in the stories I was telling of dyslexia and entrepreneurs and education. I was interested—to borrow that marvelous phrase from Pierre Sauvage—in the “weapons of the spirit”—the peculiar and inexplicable power that comes from within.

When I told a friend of mine about my visit to the Derksens, he sent me a quotation from 1 Samuel 16:7. It so perfectly captured what I realized David and Goliath was about that it is now on the first page of the book: “But the Lord said to Samuel, ‘Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”

Le Chambon

The final chapter of David and Goliath is about what happened in the small town of Le Chambon during the Second World War. Final chapters are crucial: they frame the experience of reading the book. I put the Le Chambon story at the end because it deals with the great puzzle of the weapons of the spirit—which is why we find it so hard to see them.

I WAS INTERESTED IN THE “WEAPONS OF THE SPIRIT” - 

THE PECULIAR AND INEXPLICABLE POWER THAT COMES FROM WITHIN.

Le Chambon is in an area of France called the Vivarais Plateau—a remote and mountainous region near the Italian and Swiss borders. For many centuries, the area has been home to dissident Protestant groups, principally the Huguenots, and during the Nazi occupation of France, Le Chambon became a very open and central pocket of resistance.

The local Huguenot pastor was a man named André Trocmé. On the Sunday after France fell to the Germans, Trocmé preached a sermon in which he said that if the Germans made the townsfolk of Le Chambon do anything they considered contrary to the Gospel, the town wasn’t going to go along. So the schoolchildren of Le Chambon refused to give the fascist salute each morning, as the new government had decreed they must. The occupation rulers required teachers to sign an oath of loyalty to the state, but Trocmé ran the school in Le Chambon and instructed his staff not to do it.

Before long, Jewish refugees—on the run from the Nazis—heard of Le Chambon and began to show up looking for help. Trocmé and the townsfolk took them in, fed them, hid them and spirited them across borders—in open defiance of Nazi law. Once, when a high government official came to town, a group of students actually presented him with a letter that stated plainly and honestly the town’s opposition to the anti-Jewish policies of the occupation.

“We feel obliged to tell you that there are among us a certain number of Jews,” the letter stated. “But, we make no distinction between Jews and non-Jews. It is contrary to the Gospel teaching. If our comrades, whose only fault is to be born in another religion, received the order to let themselves be deported or even examined, they would disobey the order received, and we would try to hide them as best we could.”

“Nobody Thought of That”

Where did the people of Le Chambon find the strength to defy the Nazis? The same place the Derksens found the strength to forgive. They were armed with the weapons of the spirit. For over 100 years, in the 17th and 18th centuries, they had been ruthlessly persecuted by the state. Huguenot pastors had been hanged and tortured, their wives sent to prison and their children taken from them. They had learned how to hide in the forests and escape to Switzerland and conduct their services in secrecy. They had learned how to stick together.

They saw just about the worst kind of persecution that anyone can see. And what did they discover? That the strength granted to them by their faith in God gave them the power to stand up to the soldiers and guns and laws of the state. In one of the many books written about Le Chambon, there is an extraordinary line from André Trocmé’s wife, Magda. When the first refugee appeared at her door, in the bleakest part of the war during the long winter of 1941, Magda Trocmé said it never occurred to her to say no: “I did not know that it would be dangerous. Nobody thought of that.”

Nobody thought of that. It never occurred to her or anyone else in Le Chambon that they were at any disadvantage in a battle with the Nazi Army.

But here is the puzzle: The Huguenots of Le Chambon were not the only committed Christians in France in 1941. There were millions of committed believers in France in those years. They believed in God just as the people of Le Chambon did. So why did so few Christians follow the lead of the people in Le Chambon? The way that story is often told, the people of Le Chambon are made out to be heroic figures. But they were no more heroic than the Derksens. They were simply people whose experience had taught them where true power lies.

The other Christians of France were not so fortunate. They made the mistake that so many of us make. They estimated the dangers of action by looking on outward appearances—when they needed to look on the heart. If they had, how many other French Jews might have been saved from the Holocaust?

Seeing God’s Power

I was raised in a Christian home in Southwestern Ontario. My parents took time each morning to read the Bible and pray. Both my brothers are devout. My sister-in-law is a Mennonite pastor. I have had a different experience from the rest of my family. I was the only one to move away from Canada. And I have been the only one to move away from the Church.

I HAVE ALWAYS BELIEVED IN GOD.

I HAVE GRASPED THE LOGIC OF CHRISTIAN FAITH.

WHAT I HAVE HAD A HARD TIME SEEING IS GOD’S POWER.

I attended Washington Community Fellowship when I lived in Washington D.C. But once I moved to New York, I stopped attending any kind of religious fellowship. I have often wondered why it happened that way: Why had I wandered off the path taken by the rest of my family?

What I understand now is that I was one of those people who did not appreciate the weapons of the spirit. I have always been someone attracted to the quantifiable and the physical. I hate to admit it. But I don’t think I would have been able to do what the Huguenots did in Le Chambon. I would have counted up the number of soldiers and guns on each side and concluded it was too dangerous. I have always believed in God. I have grasped the logic of Christian faith. What I have had a hard time seeing is God’s power.

I put that sentence in the past tense because something happened to me when I sat in Wilma Derksen’s garden. It is one thing to read in a history book about people empowered by their faith. But it is quite another to meet an otherwise very ordinary person, in the backyard of a very ordinary house, who has managed to do something utterly extraordinary.

Their daughter was murdered. And the first thing the Derksens did was to stand up at the press conference and talk about the path to forgiveness. “We would like to know who the person or persons are so we could share, hopefully, a love that seems to be missing in these people’s lives.”

Maybe we have difficulty seeing the weapons of the spirit because we don’t know where to look, or because we are distracted by the louder claims of material advantage. But I’ve seen them now, and I will never be the same.

---

Wikipedia Bio
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malcolm_Gladwell

Malcolm T. Gladwell, CM (born September 3, 1963) is an English-Canadian journalist, bestselling author, and speaker.[1] He has been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1996. He has written five books, The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference (2000), Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking (2005), Outliers: The Story of Success (2008), What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures (2009), a collection of his journalism, and David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants (2013). All five books were on The New York Times Best Seller list.

Gladwell's books and articles often deal with the unexpected implications of research in the social sciences and make frequent and extended use of academic work, particularly in the areas of sociology,psychology, and social psychology. Gladwell was appointed to the Order of Canada on June 30, 2011.[2]