In a world of visible hate, it’s critical that we stand together in solidarity and unite against hatred and division.
Recent events in Sweden for example have been very unsettling – not just in Sweden itself, but on a global scale.
In June, an Iraqi man (of Christian heritage) named Salman Momika burned the Qur’an (a Holy text for Muslims) outside a mosque in Stockholm.
On a second occasion, he stamped on the text outside of the Iraqi embassy (not setting it alight).
Many Muslims across the globe were outraged and diplomatic relations between Sweden and Iraq were strained.
Protesters in Iraq stormed the Swedish embassy in Baghdad (starting fires within the compound), with the Swedish embassy later evacuating staff from Iraq to Stockholm for security purposes.
The Iraqi government later expelled the Swedish ambassador in Baghdad and suspended business with Swedish companies.
Following the recent book burning in Sweden, further threats in “counter-protest” proposed burning the Torah and Christian Bible – but did not go ahead.
And these are not the only incidents – and disappointing responses – of its kind in recent years in Sweden. Other countries such as Denmark have also been affected.
However, book burning is just the tip of the iceberg.
In recent years, we’ve witnessed increasing levels of hate and division globally.
Rising levels of hate continue across the board, for example in the form of antisemitism, anti-Muslim hate, homophobia, anti-refugee rhetoric and abuse towards the Chinese community following the Covid-19 pandemic.
At the same time, increasing frustrations and fear around censorship, (self-made) blasphemy laws and (losing the right to) freedom of expression have surfaced.
Take France for example. In this fiercely secular nation of Christian heritage, with a large Muslim population, the Charlie Hebdo cartoons row has repeatedly ignited rows over freedom of expression and the targeting minority communities.
Discussions have often censored around Muslims beliefs and representations of Islamic traditions.
Likewise, across the Middle East and North African region and diaspora, ex-Muslims and activists fleeing religious theocracies (such as Iran), are feeling increasingly censored and targeted.
The #LetUsTalk campaign, for example, critically highlighted how Muslims and feminists in the diaspora (with very different lived experiences) are repeatedly attempting to silence Iranian women.
Targeting a range of women (ex-Muslims, liberal Muslims and secular activists), they’ve falsely been labelling their political activism as “Islamophobic”.
In Iran I was told if I don’t wear hijab, I get kicked out from school, I get jailed, lashes, beaten up, and kicked out from my country. In the West I’m told, sharing my story will cause Islamophobia.
— Masih Alinejad
I’m a woman from Middle East and I am scared of Islamic ideology. Let us talk. pic.twitter.com/SKQFh93M51(@AlinejadMasih) December 28, 2021
We’ve therefore seen growing tensions and discussions around religious and cultural coexistence and the right to assembly and free speech.
At the same time however, we’ve also seen examples of inter-communal solidarity.
For example, we’ve witnessed welcome gestures of solidarity amongst different communities – including Jewish-Muslim partnerships. I myself was delighted to recently attend another wonderful event led by Voice of Salam partner, the Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM).
Their Jewish-Muslim Solidarity Rally was held online to a global audience. And with speakers from the USA, UK, wider Europe, India and more – it was a great moment of solidarity, friendship and conversation.
Moving forward, what these incidents, debates and gatherings of solidarity now bring are an opportunity for reflection and united action, whatever our faith or cultural background.
Questions around censorship, freedom of expression and belief (both religious and secular) and social cohesion have all been brought to the forefront. And need to be addressed.
And it’s exactly in the name of freedom of expression and social cohesion, why I believe that the most sustainable necessary changes and solutions must be developed through inter-communal dialogue.
We need to be respectful but also inclusive of difference. We need to welcome diverse and opposing views, not censor or shut down them down.
We must not ban or censor acts of “(perceived) offense”, such as the burning of sacred texts. For the law exists to protect us from hate, not offence – and here lies a critical difference.
Yes, to freedom, no to censorship: respecting personal freedoms
As a Muslim woman, I know how publicly burning the Qur’an (in particular in a multifaith society where Muslims represent religious minority) is hurtful, heartbreaking and disrespectful to many.
I also know of – and fervently believe in – the fundamental importance of the right to freedom of expression is. One that has long been fought for – and still is in many societies.
On a personal level, I’m not outraged by the act of the Qur’an being burned in itself. I don’t welcome it, but I’m more worried about the reasons behind the act and the responses than the pages itself (of if people dislike my religion).
My faith is personal and doesn’t rely on the approval of others or mere paper.
I won’t respond negatively to hate, fear or ignorance. This serves no purpose and proposes to understand the actions of the perpetrator – which can be complex.
Instead, I’m keen to know the reasons behind the act – which can include trauma, social isolation and negative stereotyping. These actions worry me – and their effects before and after such personal protests.
What’s worrying about public burning of sacred texts is how they are potentially damaging to the social cohesion of our societies, inspiring hatred and exclusion.
This is what we should be outraged about – as well as the counter-protests by Muslims. Such behaviour feeds into negative stereotypes of Muslims and homogenises the beliefs and actions of a varied religious community.
Responding so violently and loudly also feeds fears of censorship and the loss of personal freedom of expression.
Of course, book burning should be discouraged and denounced for the harm it does to social cohesion. It’s an act of anger, distrust and/or trauma. It’s not positive.
Yet, as upsetting as it is for many, this unwelcome act – at least in the Muslim context –must not be outlawed.
We must instead stop future book burnings by tackling the root causes – for the sake of the book burner, the community behind the text and wider society. Because we’re all in this together.
Firstly, we must attempt to understand the motives and history behind this behaviour.
Voices of those with lived experience – including those of ex-Muslims and religious minorities both within and outside of Muslim countries, must not be silenced and censored. Even if they are “disliked”.
We need to nurture societies where respect across the board erases the intentions behind these book burnings (whether anger, fear, distrust or hate) – where harmony, freedom and diversity all thrive.
As a society, we need to also understand the views and experiences behind hate and the effects of trauma and conflict.
Secondly, we must discourage negative reactions.
Freedom of expression (whether religious or secular in context) and freedom of assembly are crucial human rights. Just like the freedom to practice ones’ religion, to believe in a faith or not, and to leave a religion too.
Freedom to “not be offended” is not a right.
It’s dishonest and disingenuous to confuse the right to be protected from hate (e.g. anti-Muslim hate) and the right to practice ones religion from the (non-existent) “right” to “not be offended”.
Conflating a group of people (Muslims) with a religious ideology (Islam – including Islamism) is also dangerous.
It shuts down free speech in the name of Orthodox standards of “blasphemy” and places religious beliefs above human rights and secular freedoms. And as liberal Muslims, we know all about this.
For myself and likeminded colleagues cling to the fight for freedom of expression and to stave off self-made blasphemy laws – including here in the UK.
We have often faced attempted censorship and exclusion – exactly because we stand up against hate: including homophobia, misogyny and antisemitism.
In the UK for example, after nationwide protests by members of the British Muslim community, screenings of the Shia film “Lady of Heaven” were cancelled last summer in various cinemas across the country (I saw the film but that’s another story!).
Then there was the Batley Grammar School affair in which a teacher was suspended, and forced into hiding by British Muslims, for wanting to show a cartoon of Prophet Muhammad to discuss the topic of blasphemy.
As Muslims, we continue to struggle again and again against censorship.
From within our community, we’re up against Islamists who repeatedly seek to censor “unpopular”/liberal views (e.g. regarding LGBT+ and women’s rights) in the name of “blasphemy” and “Islamophobia”.
Likewise, outside our community false/naïve “allyship” (including from the Far Left) helps booster Islamist views and attempts to shut down more liberal/secular voices of Muslim origin (yes, a non-Muslim himself called me an “Islamophobe”!).
Of course, we also face the problem of anti-Muslim hate from the Far Right – but for altogether different reasons and with different outcomes.
As Muslims, a crucial struggle that isn’t getting talked about enough is exactly this: how we’re critically striving for liberal Muslim and ex-Muslim views to be heard.
And that’s why its imperative that we remember that human rights must only be limited in cases of public safety and security – e.g. where hate speech or violence rears its ugly head.
Disliking a religion is not “hate speech”. Targeting its adherents is.
Whilst the law must denounce and criminalised hate speech and violence, as a society we need to study the social, political and cultural context behind such divisive acts.
This must form part of our shared mission to maintain a society based on understanding, dialogue and inclusion.
There must be no place for hatred. And there must be room for listening, dialogue and healing across the board.
Society must enable people to be free from fear and hate in every context. Not offence.
When we lose the right to freedom of expression – when we march towards censorship – we lose our freedoms in both secular and religious contexts.
We therefore need to respond with contextual understanding and solutions.
And that includes learning from other communities and responding through unity, solidarity and education across social, cultural and communal divides.
Recognising varying contexts: the dark history of book burning
As a society, we mustn’t tolerate the intolerant – from either political or religious extremes.
We must instead promote education, solidarity and understanding – of course recognising the role of the law to keep us safe.
We therefore need to build solidarity and much-needed dialogue and understanding across the board – including with other communities. This is especially important to understand different experiences, histories and contexts.
For example, when it comes to book burning in particular, the Jewish community will of course all recoil in horror at the burning of any holy text.
Book burning across the ages has been used by both secular and religious groups/governments to supress ideas deemed “heretical” or “of threat” to the ruling order.
In the Jewish world, book burning has a very dark history across the ages, with one particularly grotesque period in the last century.
Amid the horrors of Nazi Germany in the 1930s, the burning of Jewish texts marked one of history’s darkest periods.
As the United States Holocaust Museum aptly describes: “Book burning has a long and dark history. The burning of books under the Nazi regime on May 10, 1933, is perhaps the most famous book burning in history.”
This was an act of hatred, intolerance and censorship towards an ethno-religious minority in one of the darkest periods of history. Not an act of “political protest”.
We must never forget such events and never allow a re-occurrence of such events.
Hatred, intolerance and censorship must not be allowed to fester in any context, in any society – against any group or people or individuals. And that’s why we need to learn from different communities to understand their different histories.
As multifaith and multicultural societies, we to come up with a shared solution. To come together to build, strengthen and promote nuanced responses to incidents of hatred/offence.
Kneejerk reactions to increasing levels of hate and division, such as the recent response of a counter-protest threatening to burn the Torah and Christian Bible, do nothing to promote positive change.
We gain nothing from harming or threatening to harm others. Such “tit for tat” approaches are counterproductive, short-sighted, disrespectful and harmful.
A sustainable positive solution must instead aim to build a more inclusive society for us all – Jewish, Muslim, ex-Muslim, atheist – for people of all faiths and none.
This must be based on mutual understanding and shared values. And that’s where the role of intercultural and interfaith dialogue comes in.
Moving forward: the critical role of dialogue
So, how do we move forward and what changes need to be made?
Well, of course, we need to ensure that governments maintain strong contextualised anti-hate speech laws. We need to ensure that people are held accountable when they’re promoting hatred.
This helps prevent violence and hate speech and ensure that communities and individuals remain safe. This also critically includes those who face isolation and abuse from within/by their own or former communities, such as ex-Muslims.
The law exists to protects citizens from harm. It however must not be used as a form of “moral policing”.
So, we must not look to ban offensive acts, but instead look at changing attitudes to build socio-cultural cohesion. We therefore must develop effective solutions to nurture mutual sustainable coexistence.
This is only possible through inter-communal dialogue, where we share experiences, listen to each other and build mutual respect and understanding.
We therefore critically need to engage in dialogue that prioritises:
> Understanding the complexities of religious and cultural identities:
When we homogenise communities, we fail to understand the diversity and lived experiences of people within communities.
We must ensure that liberal and dissenting voices from within have freedom of speech and assembly – not just more conservative strands. We must not shut down and isolate the voices of those leaving said communities who also deserve freedom and safety.
> Developing mutual respect:
People across the board need to feel heard, included, welcomed and understood.
We need to foster societies where differences of opinion are respected, where negative stereotypes are dismantled, where lived experience is not silenced and the seeds of hatred and fear are quelled through unity and understanding
> Celebrating and embracing diversity:
We need to go beyond the mere idea of “tolerance”. We need to recognise the diversity both within and amongst different religious, cultural, ethnic and social groups – protecting the freedoms of everyone and remembering how diversity enriches our society.
Tolerance does not appreciate difference it merely promotes “allowing it to exist”. This is a critical difference as it does not foster empathy, respect and shared values
> Promoting the importance of human rights:
Through education and advocacy we need to highlight how human rights are universal.
This includes freedom of expression (free from religious oppression by groups and states) and freedom to practice one’s faith (free from community and state-based oppression).
Rights work both ways and are not limitless – but limits must only be in place to protect other human rights (e.g. for public safety and security)
> Standing in solidarity and friendship:
By coming together across communal divides, we learn from each other’s experiences to nurture a common sense of citizenship and belonging.
We grieve together, we celebrate together and we promote peace and unity. This critically sends a loud message that we will not tolerate hate and will not be divided!
Events over recent months and years really must stand as a turning point to foster respect for human rights and secular freedoms. And with that: mutual understanding to help build a fairer, safter society for everyone.
Trauma (including religious and cultural trauma) is very real. People deserve healing and compassion. Just as secular, cultural and religious groups deserve freedom and security.
Diversity must be our strength – not manipulated by hate-fuelled narratives as a point of division and conflict.
As always, the best response to fear, distrust and hatred is solidarity, compassion, understanding and dialogue.
We’re all in this together and as always: we mustn’t and we won’t let hate win.
Seek support:
If you’ve been affected by any of the issues in this blog, please visit:
- Tell MAMA (anti-Muslim hate)
- Community Security Trust (antisemitism)
- Galop (LGBT+ support)
- Refugee Council and Refugee Action (refugees and asylum seekers)
- Victim support
- Council of ex-Muslims and Free Hearts, Free Minds (support for ex-Muslims)
If you’d like to show solidarity with other communities, why not:
- Join your local interfaith group or visit a faith centre from another religious community
- Volunteer to support refugees/asylum seekers in your area
- Join a language exchange and learn about another culture!
This post was originally published on Voice of Salam.