Southern Poverty Law Center labels a Muslim reformer and ex-Muslim atheist as ‘extremists’

[trotsky]

http://www.rawstory.com/2016/11/southern-poverty-law-center-labels-a-muslim-reformer-and-ex-muslim-atheist-as-extremists/

In a misguided attempt to protect Muslims from bigotry and harm, the venerable Southern Poverty Law Center has gone off the rails—so say former Muslims and moderate Muslims working for reform within their own communities. The SPLC has a long history of fighting racism and holding public figures accountable for inciting violence. In 1981, their legal team bankrupted the United Klans of America after Klan leaders incited the racist murder of a young black immigrant. But the group recently published a document that some say borders on their own version of racism and incitement.

At the heart of the controversy is a media blacklist under the title “Field Guide to Anti-Muslim Extremists.” The title itself is indisputably dehumanizing and indirectly threatening. “Field guides” typically describe plants and non-human animals, and the term is associated with hunting. An online search brings up “2016 Hunting and Trapping Field Guide” and “Field Guide for Buck Deer” and “Field Guide: Duck Hunting the Skagit County Coastline.” The title may or may not constitute incitement, but it is at best surprising coming from an organization that has built its legacy by calling out dangerous innuendo.

But outcry against the list—including a Change.org petition that garnered 8000 signatures in three days—centers on the fact that the SPLC list of 15, which does include some deplorable racists also includes two well-known and widely respected (if controversial) critics of Islam, Aayan Hirsi Ali and Maajid Nawaz. Ali, is a former Dutch politician of Somali descent and a harsh critic of Islam whose foundation opposes honor killing, forced marriage and female genital cutting—which she faced in her own family and community. She recounts this history in her book, Infidel. Nawaz is a practicing Muslim reformer, founder of the Quilliam Foundation, a counter-extremism think tank in London.

...

The irony—that two people of color, a former Muslim and practicing Muslim, are being accused of racism by white Western liberals under a dehumanizing title—seems to have gotten missed by the folks who compiled the SPLC Field Guide. So do the psychological implications of blacklisting people who live constantly under the shadow of death, whose friends and colleagues have been jailed and lashed or hacked or stabbed for the very same kind of social critique that they themselves engage. Putting the names of ex-Muslims and reformers in a blacklist is the psychological equivalent of doxing feminists or publishing the names and addresses of abortion providers. It is scary.

Go ahead, attack the source (good luck!), attack me, whatever you feel you need to do. "Enemies lists" and "field guides" and "blacklists" are shit the right wing does. NOT liberals.

[Albertoo]

1. To attack Maajid Nawaz is real madness, he's still a Muslim

So, by condemning him, the SPLC is in effect siding with the extremists whose propaganda Maajid Nawaz tries to counter with his anti-radicalization organization.

It would be funny if it wasn't so sad.

[trotsky]

3. Critics of Islam have literally been murdered.

Hacked to death in front of their families, even.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, no matter what you think about her, has a fatwa issued against her. Conservative extremist Muslims want her dead.

It's very upsetting.

[Albertoo]

8. Oh absolutely, Ayaan Hirsi Ali is brave, articulate and sensible.

And I am very well aware Critics of Islam have literally been murdered.

Speaking of which, the photo below is that of a very brave person:

[trotsky]

12. Oh yeah I figured you'd know, Albertoo. :)

That pic is from a very brave person indeed.

[struggle4progress]

4. What Does Maajid Nawaz Really Believe?

BY NATHAN LEAN
January 27, 2016

... Nawaz broke ranks with Hizb ut-Tahrir the same week that his Newham College classmate and ex-party member, Ed Husain, rose to quasi-stardom with the publication of his kiss-and-tell memoir, The Islamist, a stirring defection story of a Muslim extremist who had come clean ...

Nawaz has said that his approach is one of dialogue and seeking common ground. That’s music to the ears of many who are turned off by polarized debates about religion and politics. Yet for all the right notes that he hits (public “conversations” with controversial figures, and calls to reject racial profiling) Nawaz’s stated mission is at odds with many of his actions. He’s wheedled Western politicos who advocate draconian policies that target Muslims, and he indulges the worst offenders when it comes to anti-Muslim prejudice ...

Some of his most vocal supporters .. include New Atheists that seem to take great pleasure in lambasting Islam. There’s a strong current of affection that flows between Nawaz and Sam Harris, who calls the religion the “mother lode of bad ideas” and has advocated racial profiling and torture (Harris has donated $20,000 to Quilliam). HBO’s Bill Maher, famously hostile toward Islam, wished that there were “a thousand” of Nawaz, while Richard Dawkins (“to hell with their culture”) lauded him as a “truly moral & brave man,” and urged his online flock to support Nawaz’s failed 2015 parliamentary bid. The ex-Islamist has even cozied up to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somali-born activist who once tagged the Muslim faith as a “nihilistic cult of death” that should be “defeated” by any means necessary, including militarily.

That Nawaz enjoys the company of such a galère isn’t the problem. He’s not guilty by association. He’s guilty of giving life to their extreme ideas. In 2009, when his Quilliam associate Ed Husain advocated spying on British Muslims, Nawaz chalked the ensuing controversy up to the bellyaching of a “pro-Islamist brigade.” The next year, he sent the country’s security and terror chief a McCarthy-esque list of Muslim groups that the government should be wary of lest their non-violent views morph into violent ones. Nawaz’s organization, along with a software company, developed “radicalization keywords” used in a computer program that monitored the Internet searches of school kids and flagged would-be extremists for investigation. And Tommy Robinson, the former leader of the far-right, anti-Muslim English Defence League, alleged Quilliam paid him thousands of pounds to resign in a move that many saw as a bribe: Robinson stepped down, and Quilliam took credit for bringing about his departure. The money, Robinson said, went to pay “my wife’s rent and help with basic bills, <and> in return Tommy Robinson would be their poster boy” ...

https://newrepublic.com/article/128436/maajid-nawaz-really-believe

Maybe he's nothing but an opportunist who's found a way to make a living by cuddling with bigots

[Albertoo]

7. It is quite obvious Nawaz is a sincere and well meaning individual

Sincere: he did strongly defend Islam at a famous Intelligence Squared debate,
so there's a logic to his position. He's not a sell-out.

Well meaning: trying to find a way forward to help 1.7 bilion people reconcile their cultural heritage with freedom and tolerance is really admirable.

I think he's misguided because Islam, like the USSR was, is irredeemable and must fall.
But Nawaz is nevertheless someone trying to earnestly do good.

[stone space]

2. This is the third time I've seen you do your "enemies" shtick.

attack me, whatever you feel you need to do. "Enemies lists"

Will this be a continuing theme in your posts?

[Fix The Stupid]

5. Stop with the performance art. Seriously.

No one is buying it anymore.

You simply cannot be this dense. Your reading comprehension cannot be this bad. Has to be done by design.

Trotsky was describing what the SPLC is doing - not himself/herself compiling lists of people here - do you really not get that?

And the people that used to compile lists on this forum left and never came back...something to think about???

Please stop being rude and interjecting into conversations with your endless charade of inane postings.

It wore thin a LONG time ago.

Thanks

[stone space]

6. Is there a reason for the insults and personal attacks? Do you need a hug? Do I know you?

Stop with the performance art. Seriously.

No one is buying it anymore.

You simply cannot be this dense. Your reading comprehension cannot be this bad. Has to be done by design.

Trotsky was describing what the SPLC is doing - not himself/herself compiling lists of people here - do you really not get that?

And the people that used to compile lists on this forum left and never came back...something to think about???

Please stop being rude and interjecting into conversations with your endless charade of inane postings.

It wore thin a LONG time ago.

Thanks

[Fix The Stupid]

9. Yes.

You routinely take posts out of context and post personal attacks, thinly veiled as questions or off topic comments and you never answer questions put directly to you.

Makes it very hard to take you seriously. Please just stop - it's not funny.

Only a person with the mental capacities of a 4 yr. old could twist what Trotsky said into what you claim he is saying. I don't want to converse or see posts from 4 yr. olds on a political website...I don't think I'm alone in that sentiment.

[stone space]

11. More personal insults and attacks? Seriously? Is this what you came to the Religion forum to do?

Yes.

You routinely take posts out of context and post personal attacks, thinly veiled as questions or off topic comments and you never answer questions put directly to you.

Makes it very hard to take you seriously. Please just stop - it's not funny.

Only a person with the mental capacities of a 4 yr. old could twist what Trotsky said into what you claim he is saying. I don't want to converse or see posts from 4 yr. olds on a political website...I don't think I'm alone in that sentiment.

Is there a reason why you are barging in here and behaving like this?

Did I attack you, personally?

You just keep doubling down on your personal attacks, and I don't even know why.

What is it you are hoping to accomplish with this?

[procon]

10. I saw that too.

What is now, 2-3 days in a row he's been trying to breathe life into his curious criticism of SPLC? There's more to the story here and something is definitely off kilter with his unilateral advocacy of this hustler.