Long before the rise of the Taleban, I learnt not to romanticise Third World countries or to confuse their hideous tyrants with liberators. I also learnt that sexual and religious apartheid in Muslim countries is indigenous and not the result of Western crimes — and that such “colourful tribal customs” are absolutely, not relatively, evil. Long before al-Qaeda beheaded Daniel Pearl in Pakistan and Nicholas Berg in Iraq, I understood that it was dangerous for a Westerner, especially a woman, to live in a Muslim country. In retrospect, I believe my so-called Western feminism was forged in that most beautiful and treacherous of Eastern countries.Nevertheless, Western intellectual-ideologues, including feminists, have demonised me as a reactionary and racist “Islamophobe” for arguing that Islam, not Israel, is the largest practitioner of both sexual and religious apartheid in the world and that if Westerners do not stand up to this apartheid, morally, economically and militarily, we will not only have the blood of innocents on our hands; we will also be overrun by Sharia in the West. I have been heckled, menaced, never-invited, or disinvited for such heretical ideas — and for denouncing the epidemic of Muslim-on-Muslim violence for which tiny Israel is routinely, unbelievably scapegoated.
However, my views have found favour with the bravest and most enlightened people alive. Leading secular Muslim and ex-Muslim dissidents — from Egypt, Bangladesh, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Pakistan, Syria and exiles from Europe and North America — assembled for the landmark Islamic Summit Conference in Florida and invited me to chair the opening panel on Monday.
According to the chair of the meeting, Ibn Warraq: “What we need now is an age of enlightenment in the Islamic world. Without critical examination of Islam, it will remain dogmatic, fanatical and intolerant and will continue to stifle thought, human rights, individuality, originality and truth.” The conference issued a declaration calling for such a new “Enlightenment”. ...
Please read the rest here.
Related. Secular Islam Summit: The St. Petersburg Declaration.
Update. Phyllis Chesler unedited.
Indeed it is one of the wonders of our age that self-styled feminists and gay rights activists have found common cause with radical Islam.
Brave women such as Phyllis Chester, Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Irshad Manji are demonized instead of lionized.
In a normal world these feminists and gay rights activists(the leftie ones, you know what I mean) would be circling the street around the nearest USMC recruiting station, demanding an invasion of Saudi Arabia et all so as to free their oppressed sisters.
David Horowitz documented the virtual alliance between the far left and the Islmists in "Unholy Alliance" last year, and from the looks of it nothing has changed.
Amazing how the Islamists have managed to portray themselves as victims....
Posted by: Tom the Redhunter | 2007.03.10 at 08:34