Jezebel
Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Irshad Manji are two pals who were born Muslim and have spent the intervening few decades critiquing the religion's legacy of bad things. They've both written bestselling books and acquired British intellectual blowhard pundit advocates — Chris Hitchens backs Ali, Andrew Sullivan is more a Manji person — and today they're compared/contrasted in a New York Times piece that is sure to hit home for anyone who ever struggled with a baseless/stubborn/eroding belief in a Higher Power! See, Ali is an atheist; Manji is a Muslim. Like her boy Andrew Sullivan, Manji has clung to her faith even though she is gay and the institution deems that grounds for damnation; she roots her problems with Islam in "Arab tribal culture" and says the "Koran has the raw materials to be thoughtful and humane," while Hitchens "believes that it's a self-defeating exercise for a declared lesbian to try to bring about an Islamic Reformation."
Hirsi Ali, for her part, blames Islam — and not a lunatic fringe — for 9/11 and would like everyone to renounce this idea there is a fucking God already. Hirsi Ali, from our previous readings, would seem to be kind of high on her own awesome Powers of Intellect, and irritatingly self-promotional about it, but this strikes at the heart of the division between the two women's worldviews.
The writer Paul Berman suggests that the difference between them may be due to the fact that Ms. Manji was raised in the warm, liberal, welcoming precincts of British Columbia, where religion could be a comfort rather than a burden, where pluralism was an assumption, a fact of life. (Ms. Manji was kicked out of her Islamic religious school for asking too many questions, but before that she had been cared for at a Baptist church, and at age 8 even won its Most Promising Christian of the Year award.) Ms. Hirsi Ali's early years, by contrast, consisted of dictatorship, war, patriarchy, genital cutting, confinement and beatings so severe that she once ended up in a hospital with a fractured skull. Ms. Manji offers her own support for Mr. Berman's conjecture: "Had I grown up in a Muslim country, I'd probably be an atheist in my heart."Which may be true; the point is she is willing to admit she doesn't know. Whether that's lazy or just honest is, I guess, the real question.
Muslim Rebel Sisters: At Odds With Islam And Each Other [NY Times]
In Good Faith [NY Times]
Comments
Both are truly awesome, so I simply couldn't choose one over another. I'd want to treat both to a drink!
well i knew ayaan first and she's an atheist so i guess she gets the priority there.
Both! Can we arrange please?
if i want to hear someone spit out old bertrand russell quotes i'll just call up my grandma, thanks ms. ali. manji ftw. kind of.
Keep your faith and spirituality, drop the religion.
That's really the only solid opinion I've formed around this topic.
manji every time. hirsi ali is crackers.
oy but i just read it and irshad is awesome too so i'm with langtry! *grabs lager*
wow, moe is really on the ball with many posts today
(this is not a complaint)
@nodoubt9203 [Insert Jezememe Here]: same
Manji says she wants a reformation for Islam. Good on her, I think this is worthy. But team Aayan for me.
@Charlotte Corday, Miss Stabby Stabby 1793:
further to my statement: hirsi ali is also a bit cuckoo-banana-pants. her "religion" though she claims to be an atheist, is hatred of islam, so it's no surprise at all that she fit right in at AEI (american enterprise institute). skip to the end for the money quote, where she advocates (and i quote) crushing your enemy (muslims and islam as a whole).
can you imagine the uproar if somebody, anybody, in the west spoke about "defeating" judaism, for example? abe foxman would literally shit himself.
[www.reason.com]
Reason: Why the initial aversion?
Hirsi Ali: Because I thought they would be religious, and I had become an atheist. And I don't consider myself a conservative. I consider myself a classical liberal. Anyway, the Brookings Institution did not react. Johns Hopkins said they didn't have enough money. The RAND Corporation wants its people to spend their days and nights in libraries figuring out statistics, and I'm very bad at statistics. But at AEI they were enthusiastic. It turns out that I have complete freedom of thought, freedom of expression. No one here imposed their religion on me, and I don't impose my atheism on them.
Reason: Do you see eye to eye with high-profile AEI hawks such as former Bush speechwriter David Frum and former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton?
Hirsi Ali: Most of the time I do. For instance, I completely and utterly agree with John Bolton that talking to Iran is a sheer waste of time."
"Hirsi Ali: Only if Islam is defeated. Because right now, the political side of Islam, the power-hungry expansionist side of Islam, has become superior to the Sufis and the Ismailis and the peace-seeking Muslims.
Reason: Don't you mean defeating radical Islam?
Hirsi Ali: No. Islam, period. Once it's defeated, it can mutate into something peaceful. It's very difficult to even talk about peace now. They're not interested in peace.
Reason: We have to crush the world's 1.5 billion Muslims under our boot? In concrete terms, what does that mean, "defeat Islam"?
Hirsi Ali: I think that we are at war with Islam. And there's no middle ground in wars. Islam can be defeated in many ways. For starters, you stop the spread of the ideology itself; at present, there are native Westerners converting to Islam, and they're the most fanatical sometimes. There is infiltration of Islam in the schools and universities of the West. You stop that. You stop the symbol burning and the effigy burning, and you look them in the eye and flex your muscles and you say, "This is a warning. We won't accept this anymore." There comes a moment when you crush your enemy.
Reason: Militarily?
Hirsi Ali: In all forms, and if you don't do that, then you have to live with the consequence of being crushed."
Manji. I'm a muslim and my father is the leader of the local mosque, and I'm still in contact with my Saudi-born religiously devout Imam. I don't follow all the tenets of Islam (love that pre-marital sex!) but wouldn't dream of leaving it.
All I have to say, is that at first glance, I thought the lady on the left was Harry Potter- on the front page, that is.
And I was totally like, what does Daniel Radcliffe have to do with Muslim women?
@Archetype: Hear, hear!
@Sophie: P.S.
Brother Jamil gives the best advice on how to put sexist muslim men (and women) in their place.
@Charlotte Corday, Miss Stabby Stabby 1793: Hmm... I've always theorized that atheism is a type of religion...
I read an interview with Manji in Newsweek International a few years back, and I think her idea of "hey, maybe we should allow for different points of view within Islam" seems more tolerant - and more realistic - than the Ali crowd's "can't you accept there IS no God OMGWTFBBQ!" Also, I can't stand Hitchens, that bloviating, Iraq-war apologist, drunkard, and if I learned anything from this Jeremiah Wright bullshit "scandal," is that guilt by association is apparently a legit way to judge someone, so I guess Ali is a little suspect. Try to pick your supporters a bit better, mmmmmkay?
@ceejeemcbeegee: In the same way that not collecting stamps is a type of hobby?
@ceejeemcbeegee: I agree.
@Charlotte Corday, Miss Stabby Stabby 1793: thanks for that. the respect she gets in some seemingly progressive corners drives me bonkers.
@Charlotte Corday, Miss Stabby Stabby 1793: Yeah, she is ew ew ew.
@ceejeemcbeegee: how so? what sort of rules or rituals do atheists have?
@That_little_attention_whore: Religion is essentially a fundamental, sometimes institutionalized set of beliefs. I would say that Atheism falls into that definition.
@J.D.Regent: Really? I always thought she was a right-wing darling--there are actually progressives who support her? Wow.
@J.D.Regent: well, she is "a classical liberal".
@That_little_attention_whore: I concur with everything said. Especially Christopher Hitchens being a fat, gross, blowhard douchebag with more hot gas than a REMAX balloon.
There's something a little colonialisty and capitalisty about the two of them.
I briefly worked at the same tv station as Manji a few years ago so I guess I'd have to go with Ali, plus actually being an atheist kinda influences my choice.
@Charlotte Corday, Miss Stabby Stabby 1793: Is that what religion is?
I suppose it depends on how you frame religion.
@Charlotte Corday, Miss Stabby Stabby 1793: Thanks for posting that article.
With that information in light, call me crazy, but I think people are free to believe in any religion if that's what they want. I just don't think that religion should be used to validate particular actions like polygamy, child molestation, and war.
@Charlotte Corday, Miss Stabby Stabby 1793: That's a total RED FLAG: "I'm a 'classical liberal'" ... aka libertarian.
@TruculentandUnreliable: i think its just people talking past each other. some progressive people who don't know her whole schtick see her as like a "womens rights activist" or whatever, and a lot of atheists who are progressive like her. she's for DEF a right wing darling but it seems like not everyone gets that about her, despite her tenure with AEI. actually mainly i am going off of this site, most actual humans i know disagree with her.
@Charlotte Corday, Miss Stabby Stabby 1793: yeah, right? Liberal like Adam Smith was liberal. no thanks!
I have had a girl crush on Ali for way too long, thanks in part to Mr. Bill Maher.
@Archetype: I would say, from its definition, that atheism is merely a lack of beliefs. Atheists do not subscribe to any particular set of positive beliefs. We atheists do not think there is a supreme being. I also don't think there is a purple dragon in my garage. Would that also qualify as a religion. I don't mean to snark (well, not too much, anyway) but I think grouping atheism in as a religion is sort of misleading. It's an absence of belief. Saying atheism is a religion is like not collecting stamps is a hobby, or silence is a genre of music or something.
@dummyfakeroller: no worries, we have the human condition to blame that stuff on!
Irshad Manji!
@That_little_attention_whore: well most fierce atheists i know (but not all) subscribe strongly to "reason" (no offense hirsi) and scientific method, etc. wackjobs like me consider these to be systems of belief as well.
Definitely Manji. I'm Muslim and believe you me I don't follow any of the stricter tenets (I too love the pre marital "relations") but I still associate Islam with home and my family and grandparents and holidays. Am I wrong when I say that basically most of the christians and jews are the same way, not overtly religious, but comforted by the way they were brought up?
Lots of people think that to be Muslim (along with Ali, who should know better) you have to be a conservative nut, but really, 99% of Muslims, just like 99% of any other religion are basically middle of the road, go to the mosque on holidays types.
@Archetype: also, what are the set of beliefs that are fundamental to atheism. The whole point of atheism is that you do NOT subscribe to a set of fundamental beliefs - you just have chosen not to accept other people's fundamental beliefs. Religion involves beliefs that explain things, and a set of beliefs that followers of that religion accept. That isn't atheism.
I have to go with the atheist-Ali. We'd have way more in common.
@J.D.Regent: Well, I will say that there is definitely a condescending attitude from some people on the left about Islam and women who are Muslims. There's definitely the idea that Islam is inherently oppressive toward women, and it's something that we need to "liberate" them from. And, as you said, if they're not particularly aware of some of her stances, I could see them supporting her.
Still, I think it's weird.
@J.D.Regent: and what makes me crackers is that everyone assumes radical islam is all that's going on right now. some of the most liberal progressive muslim thought is going on in southeast asia, where there are 300+ million muslims.
@Charlotte Corday, Miss Stabby Stabby 1793: Ha, I have to laugh at her. She is such a tool (literally and figuratively). Stupid woman will see her own lapdog status be thoroughly drained and than she will be discarded (which kind of sucks for her considering her past).
@J.D.Regent: i would say there's a difference between believing in a certain faith and "believing" in the scientific method. Religions seek to explain things - why and how was the universe created, what is the meaning of life, etc. The scientific method, OTOH is a way to judge these explanations. Saying "I will not accept something as true unless it can be proven" is not the equivalent as saying "I believe god created the world in six days". The latter is an actual belief that people have, the former is a way by which people choose to look at information.
@J.D.Regent: I am not sure what you mean by "systems of belief" in this context. Or even more broadly, what do people mean at all when they say that?
I also find it odd for anyone to support a religion that in its very definition finds your lifestyle to be an abomination. Which is why I found it odd that my out gay male friend(but only to friends and coworkers) would go home to his extremely Orthodox home and celebrate his religion. This is a personal decision of my own not to subscribe to any organized religion that devalues its supporters.
@J.D.Regent: these are the atheists I'm referring to. But it was really an offhand comment and random thought. Carry on...
@That_little_attention_whore: Belief in faith is metaphysical. Belief in science is empirical. The two ways of using "belief" really are not the same.