RE: Double standards on freedom of speech
January 9, 2015 at 1:15 pm
(This post was last modified: January 9, 2015 at 1:18 pm by Regina.)
I think we have a term for protection of minority religions from free speech in Europe now - I hear "liberal multiculturalism" thrown around a lot. It's this idea that you are not allowed to intervene in Islamic affairs, because to do so is "a breach of community cohesion" or not respecting ethnic diversity.
To me that's not sustainable. You can't have a society that is both trying to get equality for women and gays, while simultaneaously defending a religion that actively pushes back against that. It doesn't work. If you're going to practice by-the-book conservative Islam in the western world, you have to be prepared to face criticism and satire. You can't have it both ways and claim offense when someone sees your lifestyle as austere and extreme by modern standards
To me that's not sustainable. You can't have a society that is both trying to get equality for women and gays, while simultaneaously defending a religion that actively pushes back against that. It doesn't work. If you're going to practice by-the-book conservative Islam in the western world, you have to be prepared to face criticism and satire. You can't have it both ways and claim offense when someone sees your lifestyle as austere and extreme by modern standards
"Adulthood is like looking both ways before you cross the road, and then getting hit by an airplane" - sarcasm_only
"Ironically like the nativist far-Right, which despises multiculturalism, but benefits from its ideas of difference to scapegoat the other and to promote its own white identity politics; these postmodernists, leftists, feminists and liberals also use multiculturalism, to side with the oppressor, by demanding respect and tolerance for oppression characterised as 'difference', no matter how intolerable." - Maryam Namazie
"Ironically like the nativist far-Right, which despises multiculturalism, but benefits from its ideas of difference to scapegoat the other and to promote its own white identity politics; these postmodernists, leftists, feminists and liberals also use multiculturalism, to side with the oppressor, by demanding respect and tolerance for oppression characterised as 'difference', no matter how intolerable." - Maryam Namazie
