I just spotted, in the Radio Times, this:
I seem to recall reading not that long ago about this TV show, at Mick Hartley’s blog. Yes, in this posting. The show goes out on ITV, this coming Thursday, at 10.40pm. I love my Gogglebox (see above right) and will be watching this show, and recording it. I may even, although I promise nothing, have more to say about the show here, after I have actually seen it.
Judging by the blurb about this programme that I just read here, it deals with a quite wide range of nastinesses that ex-Muslims get subjected to by Muslims, nastinesses both legal and illegal, from merely nasty to downright evil.
Although this show will describe and criticise the merely nasty things that ex-Muslims are subjected to (being ostracised by their families, for instance), I doubt if it will go as far as saying that nastiness of that sort should be illegal, any more than I would. On the other hand, the programme will also be noting that many Muslims favour doing things which in Britain are illegal and which elsewhere ought to be illegal if they now aren’t. I refer to things like murder, incitement to murder, assault and the forcible denial of the right of ex-Muslims to express ex-Muslim opinions in public. For that I applaud this programme, and its maker, Deeyah Khan.
I focus on the illegal and thoroughly wicked things that are done by Muslims to ex-Muslims because this particular issue strikes me as one that ought particularly to be focussed on, by all who dislike either the general influence of Islam (as I do – I believe in being nasty to Islam), or by those who merely wish Muslims to stop doing uncontroversially terrible and terror-inducing things to ex-Muslims, and to infidels generally. Me, I think that the content of Islamic doctrine leads pretty directly to Muslims doing terrible things, but that is a different argument, and one that divides those who merely want “Islamic extremism” to abate.
The matter of what is divisive, and for whom, is important. When engaged in an ideological war, it can help to focus particularly on issues which will unite the people on your side, while dividing your opponents. Whatever your opinions about the nastiness of Islam in general (I think it very nasty), you will surely agree with me (even as you perhaps denounce me for telling all Muslims that their religion is nasty and thereby uniting them all against all infidels) that murdering ex-Muslims merely for being ex-Muslims is wrong and should be cracked down on with the full force of the law. So, the illegally evil things that happen to ex-Muslims are an issue that should be focussed on with particular enthusiasm. Hence my particular enthusiasm about this televlsion show.
I recently heard about how a quite prominent British Muslim, of the sort who argues that Western Civilisation, and Islam in approximately its present large and very influential form (just somewhat nicer), are capable of getting along amicably, and even in a state of mutual creativity. I think something like this may one day happen also, but only after Islam has at least been put on the ideological defensive (hence my belief in criticising Islam in general), in other words not for a longish while.
So anyway, this “good Muslim” was asked whether he condemned the murdering of ex-Muslims. He equivocated. I say that people like this should be faced again and again with this question, and made to pick their team. Is he so terrified of offending the many Muslims who, although not themselves murderers, nevertheless side with those who do murder ex-Muslims, that he is instead willing to offend all of the rest of us, including those Muslims who vehemently oppose such murders? Make up your damn mind, mate. In the not inconceivable event that he reads this, he may recognise himself. Good.
And Muslims who do pick their team, by unequivocally and publicly supporting such murders, should be confronted even more severely, in ways that perhaps include them being prosecuted for incitement to murder:
The programme finds that a number of senior British Bangladeshi imams, mainstream figures in society, have called for the execution of atheist bloggers in Bangladesh, claiming they have insulted Islam, and making a number of anti-atheist statements.
Making “anti-atheist statements” is fine, from the strictly legal point of view, provided no incitement to murder or to violence is involved. Just calling atheists wicked and mistaken shouldn’t be illegal. But nor should “insulting Islam”. However, calling for the murder of ex-Muslims is utterly vile, and it is a very good idea to make such Imams either squirm and equivocate in front of television cameras, or else show their true and vile colours, whichever they choose to go with, and for the rest of us to sneer at them for the morally and intellectually vacuous individuals that they are.
More importantly, we should be supplying moral and practical support to all those ex-Muslims who speak out about their beliefs. We should all try to make this an easier path to follow than it is now. This most definitely includes making, and watching and blogging about, television shows about ex-Muslims, full of admiration for them and for their courage and their wisdom, and full of contempt and denunciation of those who want them to shut up.
But if they blaspheme Athor, the God of Atheism, they should be punished for denying the One God who doesn’t believe in Himself.
So what is the norm for ITV documentaries? Do they typically first-run at such a late hour? Are they typically re-run several times over a period of a few weeks? It will be interesting to compare the profile given this documentary to others, i.e., whether it is buried quietly or celebrated and promoted.
So how is it that this will not violate the various UK “hate crime” laws?
Five years ago I would have had sympathy for the ex-Muslims. Now…I care not a jot. I’ve had enough of Muslims, full stop. I only say this because I think a lot of (traditional) Western people are thinking and feeling just like I am. And my kind of attitude is only going to get more prevalent and hostile to (all) Muslims: does anyone really think the terrorism, the gang rapes, the crime, the social divisiveness resulting from importing unassimilable Muslims into the West is going to decrease over the coming years??!
At the risk of stating the bleedin’ obvious, an ex-Muslim is not a Muslim. If you think Muslims cause “terrorism, the gang rapes, the crime, the social divisiveness” then logically you should be celebrating people becoming ex-Muslims at the top of your voice and encouraging others to do likewise. To become an ex-Muslim means a person has consciously and overtly rejected Islam. If you still have a problem with such a person, well then you are the problem, not them.
QET, (October 11, 2016 at 4:49 pm) “So how is it that this will not violate the various UK “hate crime” laws?”
Because it’s done by insiders who are ‘allowed’ to voice opinions – and trusted to express them in the agreed manner, include ‘balancing’ comment, and so on. If some commoner in a public place said the same thing, they might face some risk of arrest. (For example, the guy who read out an excerpt from Sir Winston Churchill’s “The River War” a while back got arrested.) But the same people who might demand your arrest without much thought will think twice before erupting into a TV studio.
If we ignore IS and suchlike, and look instead at the less extreme muslim communities, the difference between how non-muslims are treated and how apostates (ex-muslims) are treated is marked. In the Soviet Union, there was a similar difference between being a non-party person and being an ex-party person. Once in the party, a communist tried hard not to “lose their faith in Socialism” – and even harder not to be expelled.
A distinction without a difference. And I couldn’t care that you think I have a problem. It patently obvious that libertarianism is incompatible with multiculturalism
I was more interested by the fact that “call in and lose” shows like Jackpot 247 are apparently still a thing on UK overnight TV.
Niall:
The laws I have seen do not contain an “insider” exception or an “agreed manner” exception. I have little doubt any prosecutor will be arresting the filmmaker for a “hate crime,” for the reasons you outline, but it is just appalling to me, infuriating is more like it, that hate speech/crime laws, which seem more onerous in the UK than in the US but we’re catching up, are essentially nothing other than weapons the Left may use in its discretion, ad hominem, to suppress its political enemies.
To say an ex-Muslim and a Muslim are a distinction without a difference is ludicrous. One is, and one is not, a Muslim. Is a Catholic and an ex-Catholic also a distinction without a difference? I am an atheist. I was once a Catholic. These two things lead to very different world views.
So it suggests to me your antipathy to people who adhere to Islam (a perfectly rational and arguable position) is actually an antipathy to something quite different, probably race if I was to guess, as you state you regard ex-Muslims as the same as Muslims regardless, so what not changed? Indeed it is very reminiscent of “oh I am not anti-Semitic, I am just anti-Zionist” ploy used by anti-Semites. You are not an anti-West Asian racist, you are just anti-Islam, right? Well no, as you are still antipathetic even if said west-Asian has explicitly rejected Islam.
Ex-Muslims face a lot of pressure to go back to Islam, and need all the celebration we can give them. Hopefully, they are the future of Western Arabic communities, and then the Middle East.
I wonder if the programme scheduler was making a point? Notice the show on immediately after “Exposure: Islam’s Non-Believers”…
“ . . . the difference between how non-muslims are treated and how apostates (ex-muslims) are treated is marked.”
Well, the non-muslim has not been exposed to Gawd-Revealed Truth, and so is, at worst, uneducated but not heretical, while the ex-muslim, in full knowledge of those GRT’s, has told Gawd to bugger off. Their offenses are completely different.
How do you change such behavior when the behavior has been directly ordered by the Gawd? If a good muslim refuses to attack an ex-muslim, in full knowledge that Gawd commands such an attack, isn’t that good muslim telling Gawd to bugger off?
What most people think of as simple moderation of attitudes is itself an abomination to Islam. I think opportunities for dialogue on this issue will be thin.
Yet another reason for western governments not eavesdropping on people and not forcing them to have crackable encryption and all that (if I’ve used the wrong terms supply me with the right ones) is that the world needs safe ways for people in Islamic countries to go online anonymously and talk about these things, both those who would leave Islam if they dared and those who would reform it.
“Equivocation” about killing Muslim apostates –
Of course any Muslim would equivocate about this. The penalty is written in their scripture.
To oppose or deny the penalty of death for apostasy is to become apostate oneself.
Some years ago I was told of a Muslim/Christian conference where the Christians suggested to the assembled Muslim clerics that they should announce that the death penalty for this offence was no longer a tenet of Islam. Of course they could not.
What this actually showed was that the Christian attenders, like almost all “liberal” Westerners just had not got a clue of what Islam was about.
They’ll make TV shows about anything! Anyone for ‘So you want to be a jihadi?’
This requires a multi-faceted approach effected in the interest of the UK.
1) Zero tolerance of incitement, removal of double standards whereby Muslims get away with direct incitement of murder whilst indigenous Brits get nailed for innocuous stuff on Twitter and such like.
2) Deport Muslim immigrants who hold dual citizenship who are convicted under the Zero tolerance regime.
3) Stop the vast bulk of Muslim immigration, including the settlement of ALL Muslim asylum seekers. Muslim asylum seekers should be resettled in Muslim countries.
If policies like these are not put in force horrible sectarian strife – far worse than what is kicking off already – is guaranteed.
ajf’s reaction is quite understandable, Perry. And quite widely shared. He’s reacting against the effects of the Muslim faith, not the faith itself. From that point of view the difference between Muslim’s & ex-Muslims is “A distinction without a difference”. Ex-Muslims bring with them the vindictive reactions to their apostasy from the religious. In embracing them one’s being asked to choose a dog in a fight with all the chances of being bitten in the ensuing scrap. Why would one wish to do this? Muslim or ex-Muslim, it’s a Muslim problem. To add to all the other problems Muslims cause.
Bigotry is easy to understand: simple world views are more comforting than complex reality.
And like most comforting bigotry, it is irrational and counter productive. Rather than applauding a trend that, if encouraged to spread, mitigates oh so many problems by undermining Islam and its baleful effects, it mutates hostility to a vile ideology into dumb hatred of brown people instead.
“ajf’s reaction is quite understandable, Perry. And quite widely shared.”
Yes, illogic is fairly widespread among human beings. However most people do manage to get the idea that if they want their side to win and the opposing side to lose it pays to encourage people to move from the other side to yours. Certainly the Muslims have grasped this idea. They don’t say, “I’ve had enough of kaffirs, full stop” or “the difference between kaffirs and reverts to Islam is a distinction without a difference”. Like any cause that wants to win, they welcome converts.
Some people here would have told Albert Einstein to “bugger off back to Germany where you belong”.
Ah! Bigot! That wonderful appellation used when the argument lacks a reasoned response.
“most people do manage to get the idea that if they want their side to win and the opposing side to lose it pays to encourage people to move from the other side to yours.”
Actually most people prefer to belong to neither side & get on with their individual lives in peace & quite. You demonstrate the common delusion that everyone shares your enthusiasms.
“Some people here would have told Albert Einstein to “bugger off back to Germany where you belong”.
If that reduced the likelihood of her house being bombed flat in ’41 & her son “failing to return” from over N.African ’42, yep, my grandmother would have said exactly that. Her priorities being somewhat different to yours.
Believe me, like your grandmother I’d prefer peace and quiet. Like most in our society I have little enthusiasm for struggle. That’s one reason why we so often lose to people who relish the struggle, or jihad as they call it. To quote Trotsky, “You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.”
If the Nazis had kept men like Leo Szilard and Albert Einstein on board do you really think the likelihood of your grandmother’s house being flattened by a bomb would have been lessened?
Of course, the Nazis couldn’t keep Szilard and Einstein on board because if they had been capable of including Jews in their polity they wouldn’t have been Nazis. Islam is wiser. They’ll take anyone.
The jihadists can hardly believe their luck when they see that some of us are so desperate to be eaten last that we won’t even enforce our own laws to protect those who share our values. They point that fact out to deter waverers.
On the contrary, I am just trying to avoid a category error and thus use the technically correct term, which is ‘bigot’. Fear of Islam and its practitioners is quite rational. Hostility to ex-Muslims is not just irrational bigotry, it is also very counter productive to boot.
There is an ex-muslim who shows courage in a place and time when that is not a safe thing to be known as. There is a 40-year-old man who has the shia effrontary to tell the Swedish immigration authorities he was 14 years old, and does not hesitate to put his taqqiya mark in the not-muslim box of a form if that gets him more benefits. There is an immigrant recently arrived from a land of high crime rates and unpleasant attitudes who does not go to the mosque but has much in common with those who do.
Reality, as a commenter above remarks, is complicated – or at least, not so simple as it would need to be for any “one size fits all” policy. Perhaps a couple of the commenters above have the second or third instance in their minds, not the first. If so, I would probably not simply call them bigots, because that terms is so abused by the PC it evokes an understandably contemptuous response. I’d tell them to put the time in to distinguish the first case from the second or third. It will repay them.
There’s a difference between non-religious muslims, who might share the shitty cultural assumptions of practising muslims, and someone who intentional rejects islam. The later is pretty much guaranteed not to share those cultural assumptions, as well as demonstrating courage and that they actually think about the world. Seems to me ex-muslims are likely to be exactly the sort of people we should be happy to have! The genie isn’t going back in the bottle and it is essential to support and legitimise people who want to reject islam.
This is very true. But there are quite a few Islamists that will then torture and kill the “anyone” for Not Doing Islam Right. I suspect it has not escaped your notice that more Muslims have been killed by IS, al-quaeda, et al than non-Muslims. Though of course the ones Who Weren’t Doing It Right were non-Muslims by the radical’s definitions.
This is the problem with following the Word of Gawd. Not all the listeners agree on the details of what Gawd said. This is an even worse offense than not listening at all.
To come back to the original question: ex-Muslims are no longer Muslims. But they were raised in a culture that believes killing people to shut them up or abolish the shame of their existence can be a good idea. Leaving Islam is not the same as leaving your upbringing.
Bigot ©Gordon Brown ?
Christians have done many terrible things – murdered vast numbers of people. However, none of things were suggested by Jesus or are commanded in the Christian scriptures.
On the other hand – Mohammed and the Islamic scriptures are clear. Those who leave Islam having once entered it – must be killed. And those who mock Mohammed (whether they are Muslims or not Muslims) – must be killed.
This is not a matter of “wicked Muslims” – there have been many wicked people who have been Christians (see my first point), this is a matter of Islamic LAW. Which Islam teaches comes from God and can not (can not) be changed.
So there it is. Is the West prepared to accept that anyone who leaves Islam must be killed? And is the West prepared to accept that anyone who mocks Mohammed (whether they are Muslim or not) must be killed?
If we are not prepared to accept these basic legal principles (and others) then hope of “peace” is an illusion.
The conflict between the West and Islam has gone on for almost 14 centuries – it is not an accident, or a misunderstanding. And it is not (Rothbardian idiots please note) a “conspiracy for the health of the state”. It is a matter of whether or not such doctrines as that anyone who leaves Islam must be killed and anyone who mocks Mohammed must be killed, are accepted or not.
The above was understood by Gladstone and Winston Churchill – even if our modern rulers remain in a pink fog of delusion about the “religion of peace” and just opposing “wicked people who distort Islam”.
It is nothing to do with wicked people, it is a matter of basic Islamic legal principles – laid down, so good (good) followers of Islam believe, by God.