Bloody Self-Righteousness Syndrome

This self-righteousness is the reason that others get offensive to you. This self-righteousness of yours is the reason that others attack your faith. Do you realize, how much hurting is it when somebody judges you due to your faith? You can realize this only when you are in the same situation. When somebody makes a movie or writes a book, how much is it hurtful to you? You never realize that same is true for others when you break their idols, call them inferior, kafir, don't reply to their salutations the same way. This is because your ego does not accept that you are inferior to somebody else.

Here the question is not that you do not consider your's superior. Everybody does. Do that. But keep it to yourself. Don’t make it impact the lives of others. Don’t make your own ego affect others. Don’t make your superiority kill anyone else. Keep it to yourself. It is your personal matter and it is the other person’s personal matter.

At least, you should realize that it is a bloody personal thing of other person and he/she is responsible for that, NOT you. You have no right to judge anyone else. You have no right to judge if someone is right or wrong.

The Battles of (Ir)Rationality

Last week I shared an article of Greenwald, which was in reply to Sam Harris and Dawkins "irrational Islamophobia" and alongwith it the emails exchange between Sam Harris and Greenwald on RSOP, when he retweeted Murtaza Hussain's (A toronto based columnist) article on Sam Harris and Dawkins attitude. This is Dawkins infamous quote which spurred a debate in liberal as well as atheist circles,

"Haven’t read Koran so couldn’t quote chapter & verse like I can for Bible. But often say Islam [is the] greatest force for evil today."

This one is in continuation to that. The question is, is new-atheism synonamous to Islamophobia? This is what Harris says about it,

"There is no such thing as “Islamophobia.” This is a term of propaganda designed to protect Islam from the forces of secularism by conflating all criticism of it with racism and xenophobia. And it is doing its job, because people like you have been taken in by it."

Here is a reply of Sam Harris to Greenwald (courtesy: Faraz Talat) and here is Greenwald's email exchange with Harris. This is Mortaza Hussain's article. Another similar article written by Nathan Lean is here.

Mortaza has this to say,

"Just as it is incumbent upon Muslims to marginalise their own violent extremists, mainstream atheists must work to disavow those such as Harris who would tarnish their movement by associating it with a virulently racist, violent and exploitative worldview"

In addition, here is Nathan Lean's concluding paragraph.

"How the New Atheists’ anti-Muslim hate advances their belief that God does not exist is not exactly clear. In this climate of increased anti-Muslim sentiment, it’s a convenient digression, though. They’ve shifted their base and instead of simply trying to convince people that God is a myth, they’ve embraced the monster narrative of the day. That’s not rational or enlightening or “free thinking” or even intelligent. That’s opportunism. If atheism writ large was a tough sell to skeptics, the “New Atheism,” Muslim-bashing atheism, must be like selling Bibles to believers. After all, those who are convinced that God exists, and would otherwise dismiss the Dawkins’ and Harris’s of the world as hell-bound kooks, are often some of the biggest Islamophobes. It’s symbiosis — and as a biologist, Dawkins should know a thing or two about that. Proving that a religion — any religion — is evil, though, is just as pointless and impossible an endeavor as trying to prove that God does or doesn’t exist. Neither has been accomplished yet. And neither will."

Relating to the Dawkins episode, this account is shared by Asad Masood with this comment "a few months ago Peter Higgs called Dawkins 'almost fundamentalist." This story by Alok Jha, published in The Guardian can be read here. Thanks to Asad, he provided another story by Nigel Farndale on the same.

However, in my opinion not only these new-atheists, especially Sam Harris are consciously or unconsciously beginning to develop Islamophobia but extremists, western salafists and modern Islamists like Anjem Ch. and Hizb-ut-Tehrir also hide behind "Islamophobia excuse" to justify their weird attitudes and self-righteous ideologies.

FEMEN Redefining Feminism: A Potential Threat to Patriarchy, Orthodoxy and Hollow Liberalism

There is this news: bare breasted women standing against women oppression. Amina Tyler and FEMEN sparked a new debate in the international community when this Tunisian girl Amina, being a FEMEN activist, posted her topless photos on her facebook page against misogyny. Starting from three girls 6 years ago, the girls have been joining them from all over the world, especially during last few months. After the uproar created by Aalia Al-Mahdy of Egypt, Amina has started a new episode of uproar and debate on the methods and forms of activism and protests. Golshifteh Frahani of Iran and Veena Malik of Pakistan spurred similar responses. Not to forget Manal Sharif from Saudi Arabia who was arrested just to dare taking a picture (of course covered) behind wheel in protest to the law against driving of women there.

Tunisia is a country where minister of women affairs defends the nursery where a 3 years old girl was repeatedly raped by the caretaker. The Minister Sihem Badi shifted the blame to the family of the toddler instead and hinted that the caretaker will not be punished, after his arrest few days ago.

Hypocricy Marathon of New-Atheists and Islamists

Just came by this news yesterday. Where, University of Leicester is investigating the enforcement of gender segregation in a public address by Hamza Tzortsis, an Islamic Speaker. University showed its concerns on the handwritten posters directing "brothers" and "sisters" to separate sections of hall. The spokesperson of Hamza Tzortzis has this to say in response to Daily Mail UK.

"Genders are sometimes informally segregated at events. But signs do not intend to ‘enforce’ separation - and that there are rarely any problems if non-Muslims chose to ignore the advice on where to sit. It is a little bit of a storm in a teacup. It is down to a bit of a misunderstanding about the way that Islam is perceived."

Our friend brother Abdullah Al-Andulasi and his Muslim Debate Initiative, does not understand the point and has something like this to say,