The Secular Islam Summit
Check out the Secular Islam summit blog. Check out the St Petersburg Declaration.
We are secular Muslims, and secular persons of Muslim societies. We are believers, doubters, and unbelievers, brought together by a great struggle, not between the West and Islam, but between the free and the unfree.
…We insist upon the separation of religion from state and the observance of universal human rights.
…We call on the governments of the world to
reject Sharia law, fatwa courts, clerical rule, and state-sanctioned religion in all their forms; oppose all penalties for blasphemy and apostacy, in accordance with Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human rights;
eliminate practices, such as female circumcision, honor killing, forced veiling, and forced marriage, that further the oppression of women
Read it all. Excellent stuff. Shoulders to the wheel, all; support these people; spread the word.
Nice idea, but I suspect that “secular islam” is impossible, since “submission” does not recognise the church-state split that christianity and judaism seem to.
And, of course, it is well-known that anyone calling for secular islam must, by definition be a tool of the evil Western Imperialists, and the rights of individual women (and men) are very important in the corrupt West, but nothing compared to the so-called prophet’s holy word.
You only have to look at the left-fascists (think Nazi-Soviet pact here) ranting on in the comments after Peter Tatchell’s piece in the Grauniad …
See here:
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/peter_tatchell/2007/03/tehrans_heroic_women.html
Cone on GT – what’s in a name? It’s a brave and forward looking manifesto and deserves all the support we can give it not your usual cheap shots at all religions.
I agree in one sense.
It IS a “brave and forward looking manifesto”.
Goiod luck to them.
But, it ain’t going to work, for the resons given above ( passim ad nauseam as “private Eye” would say )
I really don’t think a “secular” islam is possible.
Come on, even the so-called “moderate” christians have difficulty with the secularism concept, never mind followers of Mahommed the deluded.
GT,
“I really don’t think a “secular” islam is possible.”
As regards womens’ rights I often see an equivalence between the (Christian) Victorian era in Europe and dominant strains of current Islamic thought. Change was hard won by the efforts of the suffragette movement and others; don’t deny change is possible even if the struggle is unending.
Isn’t secular islam an oxymoron?
I think what they’re trying to say is that religion is so bound up with their culture that the two cannot be separated. They’re like conjoined twins who share a heart.
I support what they are doing though. Good luck to them all.
Well, secular Islam is currently an oxymoron, but that could change. It used to be an oxymoron with all religions, but things changed. Sure, it’s difficult, for many obvious reasons, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. Irshad Manji’s basic argument, for instance, is that Islam used to be open to interpretation and thought and reform, and could be again; that doesn’t seem inherently impossible.
Seperation between church and state has been tried in largely islamic countries – Turkey, Bosnia. They both have problems of their own, but I certainly wouldn’t say a secularized islam is a priori impossible. Also, secular-minded subbranches within islam exist (Alevites for instance), which often end up being persecuted by the more powerful less-secularized versions. I think the birth of a secularized islam is going to be a difficult one – but the manifesto deserves all the support it can get.
G Tingey –
For the record – you can’t call people ‘liars’ on the Letters page either. You can’t do that anywhere at all on B&W. Do you understand? Nowhere. Nowhere at all. Don’t do it. Stop doing it. Is that clear enough? Stop doing that. Cease. Desist. Refrain.
You really are bad.
Secular Islam may well currently be an oxymoron, but I have known many secular moslems. And (listen up, GT) they were also neither misogynistic nor homophobic.
Nor were they part of a monolithic bloc called ‘moslems’ who fit your rather un-nuanced perceptions. They are people who want to raise a family, make a living, support their team, have a barbie in the summer and just generally get on with life.
And not just in the UK; the first really nasty, bloody situation I experienced was in a small Sudanese town called Ed Dueim in ’82 when schoolkids, teachers, shopkeepers and just people demonstrated for three days against the introduction of sharia law. This was a 100% moslem town (excluding me, obviously) and and it took a lot of clubs, guns and CS to shut them down. Three kids I taught were never seen again. Didn’t make the UK papers.
Were they secularists? They wouldn’t have recognised the word. They were largely Suffi influenced but not theologians, mostly just people. They believed in their religion (how foolish of them, eh?)and practiced it with a gravity and dignity and courtesy which, as a callow youth, I could only respect. Their ‘submission’ was personal and spiritual and I didn’t feel it appropriate to get atheistically superior on them.
I’m not being Orientalist or sentimental here. Yes, it was patriarchal and FGM was practiced (although not unopposed, often by men) but if I ever again find myself hungry, benighted and far from home I think I would fare better in Ed Dueim or Kota Baru than in London or New York.
Do you know any moslems, GT? Actually, do you know any people?
I guess the problem I have with accusations of “left-fascism” and the like is that “the left” IS often right when criticizing colonialist attempts to meddle in other countries. Sure, we as individuals can criticize, proselytize, etc. But, when too often this opposition to Islamic culture as it is practiced comes at the barrel of a gun, I think the “left-fascists” have a point.
Plus, I think this is a bit of a straw man argument. How many people are REALLY arguing that stoning homosexuals is a-ok “over there”? I think the argument is more butt out, and by that I don’t mean say nothing, but that butting out means that one doesn’t send spy agencies over there to voerthrow governments. One doesn’t demand draconian economic policies-or else. And, certainly, one doesn’t ship 200,000 soldiers to the benighted countries to liberate them.
Don, don’t be stupid.
I have an almost-neighbout who is a sufi.
He says that a lot of the “public” muslims don’t regard him a a proper muslim – because he reagrds all the “jihad” bit as purely spiritual.
His condemnations of the MCB and other loonies, even further into islamofascim, are just as trenchant as mine. The only other time I’ve evet ben able to discuss this even half-rationally was with a pair of converts, one pink (i.e. “white caucasian) and the other quite a dark brown.
On the other hand, when I was ding my M.Sc. the University had a bad case of Hizb-ul-Tharir (before they were banned) who got up a lot of peoples’ noses. I’ve spoken to a few Ismail’is as well, over the years.
And, yes, I have read “the recital” – it made some sort of insane “sense” once I imagined it being declared from “the pulpit” in an Ian Paisley accent, if you see what I mean …..
Don we may wish for this moderate islam but I think G.T.s view is much more realistic,events in general seem to support his view rather than yours.
Richard,
We will probably have to agree to disagree, as interpretation of events in general is always going to be subject to personal experience.
As a fundamentalist atheist I think Islam is based on a false premise, as a humanist and secularist I think that it’s impact on the world has become increasingly negative, but I do not accept that it’s adherents are uniquely malign. My personal experience has been otherwise.
OK, GT didn’t quite suggest that and maybe I over-spoke, but there is that trope in the air. A malign form of Islam has developed but I am very concerned that the argument:
Islam is a patriarchal, authoritarian belief system which should be excluded from the public sphere, as should any such other. Where it is used to oppress people, it should be challenged, where it’s tenets are questionable, they should be questioned, where it claims privilege, it should be denied.
is being infected with;
The mooslims are coming to get us!
By events in general may I take it that you are referring to some terrorist atrocities by maniacs whose motivations are incomprehensible to most of their co-religionists , some demonstrations by mouthy radicals with a political agenda, and the genuinely concerning increase in reported abhorent cultural practices with a religious ‘justification’?
All of which we should address, but I don’t see that as representative, any more than the wilder reaches of christianity are representative of christians in general.
I know I’ve mentioned it before, but please read Jason Elliot’s ‘Mirrors of the Unseen’ for a rivetting account of the lives and views of ordinary Iranians – most of them Muslims but none of them “Muslims” if you get my drift.