Talboito.com

Irshad Manji is a liberal, Canadian muslim woman. She has set upon freedom,a travelling, reform Islam, world tour.

In a New York Times Op-Ed Mrs. Manji explains her reception in Europe.

Most Europeans she meet cannot parse the compound “liberal muslim”. They see an oxymoron where she finds herself. They cannot understand why she would cling to the what they see as the outmoded and patriarchal precepts of her faith.

This attitude leads Mrs. Manji to construct a certain equation:

Paradoxically, because many Western Europeans feel that they’re losing Enlightenment values amid the flood of “people of faith,” they wind up sympathizing with those in the Muslim world who resent imported values that challenge their own. Both groups are identity protectionists.

However, this is an equivalence of differences. Mrs. Manji falls for an easy intellectual trap. In both situations she cites, an orthodoxy is challenged by an alternative. So her equation is of the form:

1. B challenges A.
2. C challenges D.

Where:
A, C = “western liberalism”.
B, D = “Islamic fundamentalism”.

According to her, (1) and (2) are the same situation, and thus equivalent.

Her argument is wrong.

Mrs. Manju leaves out an inconvenient fact. We have a rooting interest.

We value our western liberalism. We value our fundamental liberal principles, liberty, equality and justice. That some express this attitude through a secular humanist disdain for religion is unfortunate and ugly. Presumably, though, this ugliness is cast into service protecting our fundamental liberal values.

Islamic traditionalists are defending a cultural system we value less. Moreso, we abhor many practices often rife in traditional Islamic culture. The subjugation of women or harsh punishment for religious unorthodoxy stand in direct opposition to those principles, liberty, equality and justice.

We ought not, then, equate sneers meant to guard our liberal values with sneers protecting despotic control and iniquity.

Tags: No Comments