Bahrainis debate freedom of expression in the context of Islam

The Middle East Media Research Institute reports on the debate about freedom of expression going on in Bahrain and spreading to other Gulf countries.

In reaction to Islamists protestations in response to "immoral acts" in a dance performance at the country's annual Spring Cultural Festival that contradicted the laws of Islam and Bahraini customs and morals, Bahrain's parliament voted to formally investigate the matter.

The Islamist position on the issue was summed up by MP Abd Al-Halim Murad. As he explained:

What happened at some of the activities of the Spring Cultural Festival was not part of [our] culture!... The MPs saw the scenes in which the male and female dancers were in perverted positions.... Our country is Bahrain, not France or America! Bahrain is a Muslim country, and its identity is Islamic and Arab; its principles are Islamic, and its character is Islamic...

But other Bahrainis were outraged that the Islamists would even try to ban such artistic expression. According to Memri, the editor-in-chief of the Bahraini daily Akhbar Al-Khaleej, Anwar Abd Al-Rahman, had this to say:

Since the 1930s, Bahraini society has been a model looked to by all the peoples of the region. [Bahrainis were known as] a respectable people that knows its path from the outset – a path of culture and respect for the other, a path of tolerance and love... Unfortunately, however, we are [currently] witnessing a dangerous turning point, [one that is] counter to the political openness and the era of freedoms of modern Bahrain.

[This is happening] because of... groups that are insisting on controlling others and on imposing their views on them. Furthermore, [these groups] are aspiring to abolish the views of the citizens [who think differently from them]. Unfortunately, these groups are choosing for all people what they [should] read or what they [should] watch, and even what they [should] eat and wear!

These groups have forgotten... that Bahrain heads the [Arab] countries in terms of literacy, and has the highest percentage of educated individuals, physicians, engineers, lawyers, computer experts, [university] lecturers, university graduates, and literate people in general – and the attempt to abolish the views of all these [people] is undoubtedly an ignominious crime...

As he concluded his editorial:

Only dictatorial countries tell their people what to read, what to watch, what to eat, and what to drink. It will be a disgrace to you if you permit our democracy to become a 'thought dictatorship,' and to brainwash [the citizens]...

In a Qatari daily, Bahrain Cultural Dialogue Center Chairman Dhiya Al-Mousawi wrote:

I do not know why every time I see a young Muslim man I feel sorrow, because I feel that they [i.e. young Muslim men] have a mistaken understanding of the religion. Islam is not a narrow alley, and it is not a dank, repugnant dungeon.

Islam is life, love, and respect for individual rights... Islam means love and beauty, humanity and openness to life. It does not mean rage and hatred of the world, misery, and presenting yourself as pitiable...

This young man must know that Allah created him so that he may live, rejoice, be energetic, and carry out activities of a beautiful life, without this being against Islam...

"I know that some of the Islamic groups in the Arab world forbid young people aged 20 to go to cafes, to the beach, or to sports stadiums, claiming that they fear that the young people will be exposed to negative influences... Our young people are trapped in the dungeons of political parties; they cannot express their views and they cannot even maintain [normal] personal relationships with relatives and friends, even from childhood, because they are not from the same party... They must not love, they must not make friends with anyone except with [those who are in] the same political party...

Unfortunately, Islam has wrongly explained to the Muslim that the life of this world is a prison for the believer and Paradise for the non-believer. That is, he must not laugh and amuse himself with friends. He must not wear fancy clothes or cologne, and he is trapped in the formalism [of Muslim religious law]... In fact, the Muslim does not know the value of life, to the extent that he [is incapable of] distinguishing between a kiss and a bomb, a flower and a bullet, the sea and a dungeon, a waterfall and an electric pole.

I say to our [extremist] groups and their preachers – Have mercy on these young people – after all, Allah spoke of the fires of Hell, but He also spoke of the fruits of Paradise...

Yes, please.

Islamist candidate fails in bid for Turkish presidency

From the Wall Street Journal:

Turkey's foreign minister [Abdullah Gul] withdrew his presidential candidacy Sunday because Parliament failed again to reach a quorum in voting that pitted the secular establishment against his religious-oriented party, the state-run Anatolia news agency reported.

...The presidential elections have exposed a deepening divide between secularists and supporters of Mr. Erdogan's party. Secularists oppose Mr. Gul's candidacy, fearing that Mr. Erdogan's party will expand its control and impose religion on society. Mr. Erdogan's ruling party, an advocate of European Union membership, rejects the label of Islamist and has done more than any other government to introduce Western reforms to the country.

Nevertheless, as the Journal goes on to report, it seems that many Turks don't share this benigh view of the Islamists:

On Saturday, more than 10,000 Turks gathered in the cities of Canakkale and Manisa, in western Turkey, to protest the Islamic-rooted government, calling for Turkey's secular system to be preserved. They followed pro-secular demonstrations in Ankara and Istanbul that were attended by more than a million people.

British Islamists "regret the founding of the U.S."

Excerpts from Jonah Goldberg's account of how his recent debate went at the Oxford Union where he stood against the proposition: “This House regrets the founding of The United States of America.” Jonah and his teammates faced off against, as he describes his opponents:

Two Islamist radicals and a bona fide Communist. But the Communist chickened out at the last minute, reportedly explaining that he didn’t want to debate because he feared his side would lose.

As Jonah goes on: "They replaced the Communist with a Canadian which, even I had to concede, was a very poor substitute for a Communist."

Here is his account of what happened:

The first [Islamist] to speak, was the head of the now moribund British Islamic Party, David Pidcock. He turned out to be something of a quintessential leftwing loon. He began by talking about how George W. Bush’s grandfather was a primary financial backer of Hitler’s rise to power. He also explained how great the U.S. Constitution is and how much he has advocated it as a model for the Muslim world. But then he explained that he was saddened by the fact that the U.S. Constitution had been suspended. I expected this to be a lead-in for his denunciations of Guantanamo and the Patriot Act. Instead, it was the prologue to a long explanation of how the plutocrats in America had conspired to create the Federal Reserve which has ruled America from behind the scenes ever since. Or at least I think that’s what he was saying. As I commented, I fully expected him to start ranting about how the Fed is sapping our precious bodily fluids.

Jamal Harwood, the other Islamist and head of Hizb ut-Tahrir (read about this “peaceful” group here and here) was a much more serious and philosophically consistent fellow but, also, not a particularly impressive speaker either. Going in, I had assumed that the Islamists would be at minimum good talkers because demagogues always are. Instead, both men were oratorical mediocrities. They were outclassed in every way by the students on their side.

Anyway, as Jonah goes on:

...the gist of Harwood’s indictment of America was that America represents modernity and individualism, and these things are bad. If you believe that modernity and individualism are bad, that’s a perfectly legitimate argument.

...For example, Harwood went on and on about how America is selfish and crime-ridden. When I rose on a point of information to ask if he was aware that Americans are in fact vastly more charitable than Europeans and that crime rates in America compare very favorably with those in much of Europe, he said he didn’t care because he was hardly there to defend Europe.

...Anyway, we won the day by a margin of 2-1. The Islamists brought some Muslim supporters with them, the source of pretty much the only applause they received.

Here are some excerpts from his prepared remarks, which he says he "tried to stay away from" so he could "speak off the cuff as much as possible":

When I learned that tonight’s proposition would have as its champions two passionate defenders of sharia law and the hijab plus one spokesman for the Communist party, it dawned on me: “Aha, this is all a joke.”

...I don’t know how it is in Britain, but in America, Communists are nearly extinct. A few aging relics do linger on — like Japanese soldiers refusing to surrender long after the war. They live in an archipelago of academic backwaters, their bunkers brimming with yellowing copies of The Daily Worker and the Guardian, saturated with the strong stink of despair mixed with the suggestion of old urine...I’m sorry, but my honorable opponent’s party stands — as a matter of principle! — in lockstep solidarity with the murderocracy of Kim Jong Il’s North Korea. He stands as the living exponent of the criminal tradition of Pol Pot, Joseph Stalin, and Mao Tse Tung, and he dares damn the United States of America from the safety of history’s dustbin.

...And then there are my other “honorable” opponents: The gentlemen representing the “moderate” face of political Islam. The Islamic Party of Britain holds that open homosexuals may receive the death sentence. Hizb ut-Tahrir openly desires a world — not merely a United Kingdom — where rejection of Islam by its adherents would bring a death sentence, and where Jews and Christians must live in official ghettos.

Both represent theocratic visions that make President Bush’s supposed “theo-conservatism” seem like a lapsed Unitarian’s weekend hobby. Indeed, despite some vein-popping hysteria here and in Europe, the fact is that America is no theocracy, and it mixes religion and government less [than] you folks in Britain and Europe do.

...The proposition is not that the Bush presidency, the war, slavery, or even disco should be regretted. It is that the United States of America should be....

Let me just note that if the ugly fantasy at the heart of the proposition were somehow made real and America had never been born, then a lot more than democracy and freedom would suffer. America is the engine of global prosperity — a job we inherited from Britain. From penicillin to the iPod, the artificial heart to rising crust pizza, jazz and the Simpsons to the Marshall Plan, America — through its ingenuity, openness, generosity, and adherence to the liberal principles it inherited from this great land — has championed the relief of man’s estate (in the words of Francis Bacon) and the liberty to let your freak flag fly (in the words of David Crosby).

Yes, anti-Americanism fashions itself a form of anti-globalization. But this is most often a ruse. Do keep in mind that my opponents represent a truly tyrannical form of globalization. Whether it’s “Workers of the World Unite” or the World Caliphate, the choice they are presenting is globalization for losers, while America, to the extent it
represents globalization at all, offers the globalization of liberty. The mere fact that you had to select three men from outside this heritage to defend the proposition, is proof enough that it is indefensible from within it.

But do read his whole account as I haven't done it justice here.