Response to:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mukto-mona/message/7718
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mukto-mona/message/7721
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mukto-mona/message/7728


Articles 7718, 7721 and 7728 in Mukto-Mona all seem to share point
to some common and recurrent themes that is also shared by many
sticklers for political correctness and liberalism. Some of those
points, although undoubtably well-intentioned, contains some inherent
flaws, specially a fallacy which might be called the fallacy of
"equating wrongs". Also the very title of the thread (Why we critique
"Only" Islam ) is misleading. It should not be why critique "only",
but why critique "more often", or why "sustained"?. Of course all
these issues are internal within those who claim to be freethinkers,
agnostics, secularists, moderate fideists (see my article in Mukto-Mona
"A GUIDE TO DEBATING RELIGIOUS ISSUES" at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mukto-mona/message/6557 , for
terminologies). For the religious apologists, the issue is not why
"only", or why "more often", but simply "Why". So my essay assumes
that scope of this issue. And my purpsose is to argue that it should
not be "only", but "more often/sustained" and try to give some
rationale behind that.

First let me make this affirmation, so no one can make the same hasty
generalization as they invariably do to others. ALL ACTS of terrorism/
extremism are wrong, evil and worthy of condemnation regardless of
the affliation of the perpetrators. If an extremist kills an innocent
child(or any human), for the sole reason they belonged to a particular
faith then it is equally helinous morally, wherther it is by a fanatic
of religion A, or religion B, or by ANYONE, period. But that does not
mean that the role of religious scripture in those respectve acts of
extremism are also equal. This important distinction is ignored or
missed by even some secular liberals.

Not taking on each individual post. let me try to addres in a general
way the points that all those posts share in general. The points can
be summarized below as (Stripping off all redundancies):

1. All extremisms are equally bad, so why critique only one particular
extremism?
2. Why focus on religious extremism, when there are are other serious
problems in the world, like hunger, poverty etc?
3. Why (a) criticize Islam and (b) Demonize All Muslims for the acts
of some of its followers?
4. Critiques of Islam are no different from the religious fanatics
themselves.
5. Why look at the negative sides only of religion, why not focus on
the good sides only? People with evil intentions will see only the
dark side, the good guys look only at the benign side.

Let me address each point in the same sequence as listed above
with rationalism as the sole guide:

1. Extremists exist in all religious scriptures and all extremisms are
equally bad, so why critique only one particular extremism?

It is not a secret that Old testament, some Hindu scriptures like
Manu (and even Vedas) do contain some unacceptable and intolerant
passages (If not towards other religious followers by name, to a
class of people with some distinct attribute). It will be hard to
find such passages in Buddhist scriptures, though. So it is not true
that ALL religions contain intolerant passages. The Old tetament, as
well as the Hindu scriptures have been critiqued many a times in past,
and no SUSTAINED violent counter movement resulted from those
critiques. Those passages have been acknowledged by mainstream as
being intolerant and unacceptable by the mainstream followers and are
not zealously defended by them anymore. Most importantly those
passages are not giving rise to a sustained extremist movement nor ar
the criticism of those passages giving riise to a sustained violent
backlash against the critiques, like it is in Islam. So therein lies
the primary rationale for why critique "more often" or why a sustained
critique. All acts of extremis are wrong. But the roots of all
extremism are not same in seriousness.

Let me deal with the nature and classification of extremism
in some more detail below:

Two different causes/classes of extremism (A & B) can be
identified :

A) extremism-A: This class occurs/occurred as one time or isolated
events, provoked by some act or event. It targets a very
specialized group of people. It is not part of a permanent
ideological plan or agenda for extremist acts, but is event driven.
Many of these extremist acts were initiated and inspired by a
unethical leader with evil ambition who succeeds in creating a
group of followers by misguiding them. In other cases it is a
result of extremists taking matters in their own hands,usually as
retaliation, often guided and abetted by politically motivated
quarters. One distinguishing feature of these acts are that the
innocent civilians are not the primary intended targets , but may
be affected as collateral damages. Intention is a distinguishing
factor. Many of the acts of extremism-A in past are now viewed as
shameful chapter of history, having lost its sustaining power
after the death of their inspiring leader, if any. These extremist
acts of the past do not pose a threat to contemporary human
society, only exists as a bitter memory. These acts are unanimously
discredited by all current societies and nations, although some of
these acts were (and still are by some) viewed as resulting from
series of events reflecting the then historical realities and some
were considered by them as justified then, but certainly not
justified anymnore, now that the historical reality is different,
and humanity has evolved out of the mindset existing then, with
increasing sense of humanism and democracy across nations. Many
such extremist acts do also happen now in many parts of the world,
specially in non-democratic and/or underdeveloped nations. The
ultimate motivation behind all these acts are territorial,
although religious differences may serve as a convenient grouping
factor for rival territorial interests. But an important
feature of this extremism is that it does not affect the lives of
ordinary civilians of other nations. The killings in Gujrat, in
Srebrenica, or US bombings of Afghan civilians, all of them, as
despicable an acts as they are, did not become a world wide
security concern for ordinary citizens. They are still viewed as a
one time or isolated, localized acts, and the condemnation for
such acts are mainly against those who did not prevent or deter
them or punish the culprits (The then government or political
party in power), in addition to condemning the extremists
themselves.

Most importantly, acts of extremism-A are not directly tracebale
to any written scriptures of any religious revelations, although
the A-extremists themsleves may belong to one certain religion and
terrorising followers of another. In absense of a clear scriptural
verse calling to fight and harm the followers of another religion
or disbelievers viewing them as perpetual enemies, the motivation
of a sustained attempt to enagage in such extremism is also absent.
Even if some extreme fanatical believers of these religions today
were to try to use some obscure scriptural verses to engage in
sustained extremism, their contemporay society or nation of their
religion would disown these extremists and their acts and thus
these extremists would not find any moral or financial support
from them or from any powerful nation and society of their
religion. These kind of extremism, although crimes, do not by
itself trigger a world wide fear and concern and conferences and
meetings to combat extremism. Instead emphasis is paid on stricter
enforcements and improvements of democratic rules and law
enforcements mechanisms, and urging the government in power at
the time of occurrences of such acts to act better.

B) extremism-B. This class of extremism is based on an inspiration,
an ideology, rooted in the written scriptures of a religious
revelation. These acts of extremism are not just one time acts or
events, but poses a sustained threat to humanity. Since these acts
are rooted in scriptures, the lingering threat of it happenning
will always be there, whether or not provoked by an incident or
historical event. Events or incidents trigger a spike in extremist
acts, but even without such provocative events, a lingering fear
of such acts happenning remain. Thats why this kind of extremism is
the reason for world wide conferences and meetings to combat
extremism. This kind of extremism, being rooted in scriptures, is
not easily disowned by the mainstream followers of the scriptures,
because their "distortion", "out of context" kind of criticism of
extremism can easily be dismissed by the extremists as itself being
"out of context". For example consider "kill X, if Y". So if a
mainstreamer says it is wrong to kill X since Y was not true, then
a extremist might say to the mainstreamer, "of course Y is true.
You are just judging the context wrongly." All the conditions "Y"
of scriptures are general enough to make either of them right. So
logically one side is no more defensible than another. And if the
overwhelming majority views the scripture as flawless and absolute,
that will inevitably prevent them from taking a decisive and firm
stand against the extremists. Thats why we don't see religious
edicts(fatwa) to kill these extremists for misusing the scriptures,
and no reward in heaven is assured for killing these extremists for
misusing scriptures. The problem is that while the mainstream
followers take a strong and impassioned stand in clarifying that
those religious passages have been misused by the extremists,
they never take the same impassioned stand to point out any
accounatbility for misusing the scriptures and enforce them.
All the problems of why critique "more often" would have
disappered, had the latter been the case. But alas, that is
not the case.

A distinguishing feature of extremism-B is that many of these
acts are intended to target innocent civilians, just because those
civilians happen to belong to a religion portrayed as hostile or
adversarial in the scriptural writings. The targets are not simply
collateral damages.

The only way to put an end to religion based extremism would have
been to physically overpower the extremists by the mainstream
followers, their society and nation. But that has never been the
case. Instead the extremists receive sympathetic attitude and
help from a good number of the mainstream followers, and are
morally and finacially backed by powerful and wealthy groups and
nations.

This inability to settle the issue of extremism-B may be viewed in a
metaphoric sense as a design flaw of the scriptures . A smart user
may be able to use a software containing bugs with no damage, but a
dumb user may mess things up using the same flawed program. We cannot
blame the dumb user, who has been provided the program, although may
subject him to a punitive action for causing harm to others, as a
deterrent against similar such misuse. Rather we will blame the
author of the program, or those who continue to promote and
distribute it, claiming it to be flawless. Such is the case of thse
scripture with potential for misuse by its vagueness and ambiguity.
A scripture ideally should not be in the business of calling for
retaliation, killing etc. This is a primitive instinct of nature that
is followed even in animal kingdom, where lions are seen to kill
hyenas for robbing them of their kills. Rather it is tolerance which
should be the recurring theme of scripture. But unfortunately most
religious scriptures do "unncessarily" talk about "necessary"
violence, opening the potential for its misuse, not its natural
(biological) use as is seen in nature.

So to summarize, the distinguishing feature of extremism-A and B are
that while acts of extremism-A can be religion based, but are only
event driven, since no permanent enemy status of followers of other
religions is mentioned in the scriptures of the extremists's religion,
although the mention of such is conditional, that conditional is
easily justified and misused with no provision for accounatbility for
that misuse, so is indefensible. Acts of extremism-B are are
certainly religion based, can be event driven, but not necesarily
since a permanent adversarial status is given to other religions in
their scriptures. This important basic distinction creates all other
higher level differences between the two classes extremism that
are observed.

The fact that some acts of extremism-B draws more vociferous
condemnation than extremism-A by some critics, do not mean that they
are condoning or endorsing the latter, but may just be to offset the
fact that the former are not condemned strongly (and even defended
by some in principle) by a substantial segment belonging to that
religion and the fact that the affected areas due to these acts are
not localized in time and space. Thus these critics feel that a
stronger condemnation is appropriate for these kinds of acts because
of this very distinguishing feature of extremism-B from extremism-A.
A sustained ectremsim drwas sustained crititism. One time, or event
driven extremism drwas one time or event driven critcism. Pure and
simple. In the case of extremism-A, the blame can be mostly placed
on the government in power at the time of its occurrence for failing
to prevent it. But in the case of extremism-B, its no use blaming it
on any specific government or its failure, because it is more rooted
in religious scripture itself and culture based on it, and to the
schizophrenic attitude and action shown by the followers of the
religion in condemning or combatting these acts of extremism. These
kind of acts need a world wide condemnation and awareness raising
activities. One of those posts opined that pointing out those
intolerant passages from Koran may turn an otherwise moderate
peaceful Muslim towards violence. I don't uderstand how rthat can
rationalize suppressing the intolerant passages. This really points
to a symptom. If that is indeed so, that points to a very deep
problem that lies in the religious culture itself that these verses
form as the basis of. As mentioned earlier, there are violent
passages in Old Testament, but I don't think that a peaceful Jew can
be made to turn to violence just by pointing out those passages to
them. It is this stability of other believers against such
perturbations versus the instability of Islamic believers that is an
important point to think over, and that also provides another
rationale for why critique "more often".

2. Why focus on religious extremism, when there are are other serious
problems in the world, like hunger, poverty etc?

Yes, there are other serious problems. But just because many
serious problems exist that should not bar one from focussing on
one problem nor obligate one to discuss ALL problems. One Person A
can focus on problem X, person B can focus on problem Y, or person
C can fopcus on problems A,B,C... if he/she chooses to (All the
power to him/her). It is important to realize that A's focussing on
problem "X" does not in any way prevent or discourage B from
focussing on problem Y. Implying so would be a fallacy similar to
the fallacy that many cynics commit saying "why send man on the
moon when there is homelessnes and hunger on earth?" The fallacy is
that the funds for moon landing were not diverted from a pre
allotted fund to help the homeless and the poor. The homelessness
and hunger are due to a complex web of soci-politico-geographical
factors. It is certainly possible to both send man on the moon, and
eliminate hunger and homelessness by properly addressing those
factors. anyway enough digression.

3. Why (a) criticize Islam and (b) Demonize All Muslims for the acts
of some of its followers?

These are very common accusations/questions asked. What is
notable is that most invariably think that (a) implies (b). But
it is a big fallacy. It like saying that criticizing a flawed
program means criticizing all the users. I haven't seen yet any
critic ever clearly stating implicitly or explicitly that ALL
followers of Islam are evil, demons. All such allegations are
personal subjective judgement calls, where they did not give the
benefit of the doubt, if any. It is an extreme and libelous
accusation/characterization to make and is itself against
political correctness that seems to be the motivation behind such
accusations in the first place. To say that "A" demonizes all the
followers of a religion is demonzing "A". Criticizing a religion
or for that matter any world view, divine or human is never to
incriminate ALL its believers. Many religious critics issue that
disclaimer. If even after that one insists on such
characterization, then one is just showing one's biased and
subjective interpretation of those critics of religion. Now
wouldn't the same folks laugh if someone insisted that the
critics of a scientific theory calls ALL scientists stupid? What'
s so different here? Does religious faith deserve a special
priviledged immunity to criticism? Only apologists can say that.
It is expected from them. But such demand for special priviledges
to religion from those who call,themselves agnostic, liberal etc
is not expected. The plausble reason for secualr liberals and PC
sticklers to advocate such immunity for religion may be the "
compassion/tolerance" factor fo the poor/weak. may be they view
the faithful as weak, and of course it is the poor who are more
religious for emotional security, so need a special protection
compassion from them. Maybe they view scientoists as strong, able
to handle any strong criticism of scienmtific theories. But this
is a misdoirected compassion. Believers in religion have stronger
(At least they claim) conviction in their belief than scientists
have in their theories. But again, I must emaphasize the critics
of religion as far as I know never intend or will demonize the
poor and peaceloving non political folowers of Islam or any
religion. I haven't seen any yet. It is very likll;ey that the
parents, sisters of these critics of islam are devout Muslims who
practice religion priavtely and non-intrusively, and these
critcis never demonize or think of them as demons!. No xcritic
of islam has ever said anything against any Sufi, who are Muslims
by all criteria, for example. By the way, in no other religion we
see this bitter and strong condemnation of critiics of religion
by fellow secularists as we see in Islam. No secular christian/
Hindu is seen to characterize even the severest critics of
christianty/Hinduism so harshly.

This kind of logic/question (Why criticize Muslim/Islam) for the
acts of few can easily lead to slippery slope where no
accountability can ever be attributed for any wrong at all, other
than the perpetrators, who may have long died. For example we
should have no reason to demand apology from Pakistan for the
atrocities of 1971. After all, it was Yahia Khan(dead), Tikka
Khan(dead), and of course the individual soldiers (They are
humans with free wills, not robots) and who comitted those
atrocities. But because yahia Khan was not treied and punished
for his atrocities we still blame and demand apology from
"Pakistan". If Muslim nations do not take apologize and punish or
at least try to deter the acts by Islamic terrrorists then
naturally, one will have to look at the roots in scriptures for
such acts and blame it on those scriptures. Some acts of wrongs
do need a root cause(blame) analysis, not just a condemnation of
those acts. Just like a gruel kitchen can provide temporary
relief in a famine, giving alms to a poor may provide a
temporary relief to the begger, but neither can solve
permanantly the problems of hunmger and poverty, similarly just
blaming or condemning the terrorists and their acts is not enough.
One has to go deeper and find a more fundamnetal cause and blame,
if you will.

4. Critiques of Islam are no different from the religious fanatics
themselves.

This is a very unfair fallacy of equating wrongs. religious fanatics
engage, in and/or actively support acts of extremism. No
critic of religion, no matter how radical ever advocated, supported
let alone engaged in any extremist acts that harmed anyone. The
only wrong in their approach may be lack of political correctness
A secular person obsessed with political correctness could have
equated a critic of religion with a critic of secularism (And there
are quite a handful of hate-mongering one among them). But such
uneven comparison between a religious fanatci and a critics of
religion is unconscionable. And we don;t see such equalization among
other religions, no christian critic is equated with an abortion clinic
murderer (or an inquisitionist) by any secular or moderate christian.

5. Why look at the negative sides only of religion, why not focus on
the good sides only? People with evil intentions will see only the
dark side, the good guys will focus only on the benign side.

This kind of argument shows some naivette. Of course there are
good sides, no matter how little, to anything. When critiquing the
bad sides, it is not relevant or necessary to cite the good sides,
becasue those good sides does not serve to prevent the bad
sides, nor does it help to exonerate it from the bad sides.
Citing the good sides is an optional thing. All religious scriptures
have many nice things to say. But if there are intolerant sides to
any doctrine that can serve as an inspiration for the extremists,
then it is imperative that it is critiqued, thrashed out and discussed.
There is no rule of ethics or rationality that for every critical
remark about a verse, one should cite a good verse as well. It
should not be the critics job to emphasize the good ones.
Parents, schools are supposed to do that. Finally in saying that
good people always focus on the good, if by "focusing" they
meant parcting the good sides, like being noice to neighbors,
helping the poor, etc then it is a very unfaoir insinuation
towards the critics. Just becasue one is critocal of Islam
or any religion, doesn't mean they do not practice those
good sides of religion. One simply cannot say anything about
one's personal lives.

I must emphasize that my writeup is not intended to criticize
(Let alone demonize) the authors of the above posts, but just
to draw attention to some inherent pitfalls in some of the
views expressed in those posts that are quite commonly
shared by many, liberals and conservatives alike.

- Aparthib