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[Chairman Yang]

This is an excellent article that I recommend you read.


Some excerpts:

As real as the potential for violence might be, it’s not what keeps many doubting British Muslims from leaving their religion. As Simon Cottee, author of a new book The Apostates: When Muslims Leave Islam, says: “In the western context, the biggest risk ex-Muslims face is not the baying mob, but the loneliness and isolation of ostracism from loved ones. It is stigma and rejection that causes so many ex-Muslims to conceal their apostasy.”

There has been a great deal of public debate in recent years about what drives young Muslims towards radicalisation. It’s an urgent subject of study in various disciplines of academia, has spawned a library of books, and is the focus of well-funded government programmes.

What is much less known about, and far less discussed, is the plight of young Muslims going in the opposite direction – those who not only turn away from radicalisation but from Islam itself.

Although it is fraught with human drama – existential crisis, philosophical doubt, family rupture, violent threats, communal expulsion, depression, and all manner of other problems – the apostate’s journey elicits remarkably little media interest or civic concern. According to Cottee, there is not “a single sociological study… on the issue of apostasy from Islam”.

In this sense the struggle of ex-Muslims is markedly different from that of early gay rights campaigners. Where gays and lesbians could draw support from other progressive movements, ex-Muslims are further marginalised by what Cottee calls “the contested status of Islam” in western societies.

To raise the subject of apostasy is to risk demonising an embattled minority. Some will see it, almost by definition, as Islamophobic or even racist. To be a “Muslim” in 21st-century Britain is no longer simply about religious affiliation; it also suggests membership of a cultural entity that receives far more than its fair share of scare stories and alarmist reporting. So it’s vital to be aware of the discrimination that many Muslims encounter. But what of the minority within the minority who have to deal with fear, guilt, shame and isolation? Must they remain invisible as a mark of religious respect?

However, Nasreen couldn’t bring herself to tell her parents. And nine years later, she still hasn’t informed them. Her compromise has been to let them know she doesn’t pray or wear a headscarf. That’s been problematic enough – her parents, like many Muslims, have become more religious over the past decade or so.

She blames the ghettoisation of multiculturalism and identity politics for this shift, the tendency to view individuals as members of separate cultural blocks. Or as Namazie puts it: “The problem with multiculturalism – not as a lived experience but as a social policy that divides and segregates communities – is that the “Muslim community” is seen to be homogenous. Therefore dissenters and freethinkers are deemed invisible because the ‘authentic’ Muslim is veiled, pro-sharia and pro-Islamist.”

One success of the Islamist movement in Britain has been to define the cultural identity primarily in terms of religion.

“We went from a Bengali to a Muslim community. It’s almost as if we’re suffering a second colonisation, the Arabisation of Asian cultures. Even my brother wears long Arab dresses.” As a consequence, she thinks Muslims have been encouraged to police other Muslims.

t certainly seems perverse that while there is no taboo on the discussion of Islamic radicalisation, the mention of Islamic apostates still occasions widespread discomfort. We can publicly accept that there are Muslims that are so estranged from western society that they prefer to live as fundamentalists, but have far more trouble recognising that there are Muslims who are so estranged from their religion that they prefer to live as freethinkers.

Nasreen, Vali and Shams all agreed that it will only be by bringing greater attention to Muslim apostates in British society that their predicament will improve. It would also help, they say, if they could rely on the progressive support that was once the right of freethinkers in this country.

“Attitudes need to change,” says Cottee. “There has to be a greater openness around the whole issue. And the demonisation of apostates as ‘sell outs’ and ‘native informants’, which can be heard among both liberal-leftists and reactionary Muslims, needs to stop. People leave Islam. They have reasons for this, good, bad or whatever. It is a human right to change your mind. Deal with it.”

 

[CyclopsRock]

Dawkins bangs this gong a bit, and specifically by pointing out that - for all its faults - Christianity (and specifically Anglicanism) is pretty benign when people choose to "leave the flock", as it were.

It's an interesting subject, but it's not all that surprising that it doesn't get much attention.

 

[Chairman Yang]

Dawkins bangs this gong a bit, and specifically by pointing out that - for all its faults - Christianity (and specifically Anglicanism) is pretty benign when people choose to "leave the flock", as it were.

Christianity seemed to have problems tolerating apostates in the past, but yeah, it seems to have loosened its grip a bit. Hopefully the more intolerant strains of Sunni Islam can follow a similar path, even if that doesn't seem to be the prevailing trend nowadays.

 

[M3d10n]

Dawkins bangs this gong a bit, and specifically by pointing out that - for all its faults - Christianity (and specifically Anglicanism) is pretty benign when people choose to "leave the flock", as it were.

It's an interesting subject, but it's not all that surprising that it doesn't get much attention.

That wasn't the case a few centuries ago. Heresy was serious business.

 

[CyclopsRock]

That wasn't the case a few centuries ago. Heresy was serious business.

Yeah but he's alive now.

 

[SolicitorPirate]

The plight if apostates is not just a British problem; in just about any Muslim community in the world, apostates suffer ostracization and potentially criminal prosecution, depending on their country.

 

[Chairman Yang]

The plight if apostates is not just a British problem; in just about any Muslim community in the world, apostates suffer ostracization and potentially criminal prosecution, depending on their country.

Definitely, but it's interesting to look at the British case specifically, because Britain is a relatively wealthy and liberal country with a well-educated population. You'd think apostasy wouldn't be such an issue--but it is, and formerly-casual Muslims from countries like Bangladesh can become radicalized in Britain.

 

[Ravensmash]

The plight if apostates is not just a British problem; in just about any Muslim community in the world, apostates suffer ostracization and potentially criminal prosecution, depending on their country.

Well the article makes reference to the difficulties faced in the UK, because of the perception of Islam being a homogeneous religion.

“One ex-Muslim I know went to get therapy from a white female therapist and in the end she referred him to a Muslim support network.”

Very interesting article though.

 

[Charles Brandon]

The plight if apostates is not just a British problem; in just about any Muslim community in the world, apostates suffer ostracization and potentially criminal prosecution, depending on their country.

And possibly death...

 

[Deleted member 231381]

Really sad. I can't imagine the triple burden of being in a society that fears you as an insider, with family and friends that you can't possibly tell your genuine feelings to, at a time when you're probably struggling to find a new meaning or drive to your existence. Makes you feel a little powerless just hearing about it.

 

[ElFly]

Something interesting touched only tangentially is

“We went from a Bengali to a Muslim community. It’s almost as if we’re suffering a second colonisation, the Arabisation of Asian cultures. Even my brother wears long Arab dresses.” As a consequence, she thinks Muslims have been encouraged to police other Muslims.