The 'Secular' State of Egypt

Via Little Green Footballs, here's a three-part video report on the plight of Coptic Christians in Egypt: Treatment of Christians in Egypt. Yes, that Egypt - the one that claims to be secular; the one that claims to uphold freedom of religion; the one to whom the US gives more than $2 million in foreign aid annually.

For more of what's really going on in Egypt, see these LGF posts:
'No Compulsion in Islam' | Egyptian Blogger Quits

Infidel: Conclusion II

To conclude the review of Ayaan Hirsi Ali's book Infidel, we've answered some of Hirsi Ali's objections to Islam. (See our initial conclusion here.) For her, some of these objections also apply to the Christian faith. This has led her to secular humanism, a religion in its own right. But it is also a dead-end street that threatens the Western world just like Islamism.

Our last thought on this comes courtesy of Mark Steyn, from his great book America Alone (see the link "On the Bookshelf" to the right):

In 2006, a dozen intellectuals published a manifesto against Islamism and in the defense of "secular values for all." The signatories included Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Dutch parliamentarian; Irshad Manji, the Canadian writer; and Salman Rushdie, the British novelist. All three are brave figures and important allies in the campaign against the Islamist tide. But they're making a mistake: secular humanism is an insufficient rallying cry. As another Canadian, Kathy Shaidle, wrote in response: It is secularism itself which is part of the problem, not the solution, since secularism is precisely what created the Euro spiritual/moral vacuum into which Islamism has rushed headlong."

Infidel: On Women

Hirsi Ali hates and fights against the oppression of women in Islam. Based on the Qur'an, a woman's life in Islamic society is owned and directed by her husband or, if she is unmarried, her father, brothers, or the next closest male relatives. Beatings have precedence in the Qur'an, so she may be subject to physical abuse. Contact with men from outside her family is not allowed. It is forbidden and dangerous to be in public without the escort of a male family member. Men and women are not considered to be equal in the eyes of Allah.

Ah, yes - equality. A word so twisted by people in order to shut down debate that it is misunderstood. The fact is that women and men are not equal, just like apples and oranges are not equal - they're different. That's not to say that there are no aspects of equality; Apples and oranges are equal with respect to their being fruit. The questions are: How different? Different In what ways? How equal? Equal in what ways?

With regard to creation and salvation, there is no difference between man and woman.

You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3:26-28)

With respect to almost everything else, man and woman are unequal. This is not a surprise to anyone. In many ways, they're aliens to each other, from different planets - as the saying goes, Men are from Mars, women from Venus. Man and woman are physiologically, psychologically, and socially very different. The Bible also says that they were created with different roles:

Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. (Ephesians 5:22-24)

So one is a leader, the other a responder. This does not make one superior and the other inferior. There is no room in the Bible for a male superiority complex. How is a man to relate to his wife? The very next verse says:

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her... In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. (Ephesians 5:25, 28)

The relationship is exemplified by Christ - "love your wives just as Christ loved the church" - and is characterized by sacrifice - "and gave himself up for her". Not domination, but sacrifice. A biblical burden is here placed on man - to follow the example of Christ, the leader of the church. And his relationship with the church is one of love, service, and sacrifice. There is no room for selfishness or abuse.

In addition, the Bible describes women as active in the home, the church, and in society. She is not hidden. Proverbs 31 describes "the wife of noble character". Among her many good attributes and actions is this:

She considers a field and buys it; out of her earnings she plants a vineyard. (Proverbs 31:16)

She is active in commerce as well. Of course, this is kept in balance with her other responsibilities:

She gets up while it is still dark; she provides food for her family and portions for her servant girls... She watches over the affairs of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness. (Proverbs 31:15, 27)

And this is the rub for Hirsi Ali and others who subscribe to the feminist philosophy. They don't want to accept the biblical roles. Yet, this is the way God created it, and he saw that it was very good (Genesis 1:31). As Proverbs 31 shows, this arrangement is to the praise of God, to the benefit of man, woman, and children, and to the benefit of society.

Infidel: On Submission

Islam means "submission", and Hirsi Ali's experience of Islam was one marked by submission in many aspects of life. In the first place, this submission refers to the relation of the individual Muslim to Allah.

In Islam, unlike in Christianity and Judaism, the relationship of the individual to God is one of total submission, slave to master. To Muslims, worship of God means total obedience to Allah's rules and total abstinence from the thoughts and deeds that He has declared forbidden in the Quran. (p. 313)

"Unlike in Christianity"? No way - the God of the Bible also requires no less than total submission and total obedience:

Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. (James 4:7)

Do not be stiff-necked, as your fathers were; submit to the LORD. Come to the sanctuary, which he has consecrated forever. Serve the LORD your God, so that his fierce anger will turn away from you. (2 Chronicles 30:8)

You must obey my laws and be careful to follow my decrees. I am the LORD your God. (Leviticus 18:4)

But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. (Romans 6:22)

The relationship between God and the individual is indeed one of master and slave. So what's the difference? It is at the same time a relationship of mutual love, even between a Father and His children.

Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. (Exodus 19:5)

Love the LORD your God and keep his requirements, his decrees, his laws and his commands always. (Deuteronomy 11:1)

The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing. (Zephaniah 3:17)

If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! (Matthew 7:11)

This, then, is how you should pray: 'Our Father in heaven...' (Matthew 6:9)

How is this possible? Jesus says:

I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. (John 8:34)

One is either a slave to sin, or a slave to God. God's slaves have to keep his entire law. But no mere man can:

There is no one righteous, not even one. (Romans 3:10)

Who could fully submit to and obey the laws of the almighty God in our place? And who could pay the penalty for our sins and earn his love for us? Jesus Christ, the Son of God born as man:

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin. (Hebrews 4:15)

For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. (John 6:38)

But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone. (Hebrews 2:9)

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

So there is no tension between an almighty, holy, demanding God, and a loving, forgiving, and merciful Father. And there is no tension between loving and serving Him.

Infidel: Conclusion

In the end, Hirsi Ali's legitimate questioning and objections with regard to her experience of Islam lead her too far to the other side. She hated the oppression of women in Islam, so she embraced feminist philosophies. She took her experience of Islam to be indicative of a problem with all organized religions, and thus embraced a supposed non-religious view a la Freud et al. And this overreaction brought her further from the truth.

But there are answers to her questions. There is truth; there are absolutes. They are from one Source, and one Source only. That Source is perfect, consistent and true. He is more powerful, more mighty, more holy than Allah in all the glory she previously attributed to him. And His Word allays all the fears and silences all the objections raised by Hirsi Ali with regard to Islam and organized religion in general. I hope to work this out in a series of blogs on what the Bible has to say about a few of these fears and objections.

Infidel: On Religion

Hirsi Ali's many nagging questions about the truth of Islam eventually led her to atheism. It's interesting that as she describes giving up on religion, she makes this statement:

From now on I could step firmly on the ground that was under my feet and navigate based on my own reason and self-respect. My moral compass was within myself, not in the pages of some sacred book. (p. 281)

Hirsi Ali, like everyone else, can not go into some sort of religious vacuum. We can't empty ourselves of religion. Humans come with a sense of morality, eternity, and the existence of God built in. God's Word says:

He has also set eternity in the hearts of men. (Ecclesiastes 3:11)

So Hirsi Ali is not really giving up on religion; in the place of one god, she sets up another. Where she once worshipped at the altar of Allah, she now worships at the altar of earthly reason and "self-respect". She closed the Qur'an - "some sacred book", only to open Spinoza, Locke, Kant, Mill, Voltaire, Russell, and Popper - the Qur'ans of humanism. She professes the ridiculously oxymoronic creed of relativism: "There are no absolutes." And so the religious vacuum is filled.

Infidel: Logical Disconnect

While working for a think tank of the Dutch Labor Party, Hirsi Ali delved into the patterns of immigration, integration and assimilation in Holland. She recognized a real problem with the way the Muslim immigrants were withdrawing themselves into closed communities and disproportionately taxing the welfare system and committing crime. And she noticed that this pattern of living was being propogated by independent Muslim schools. And so she suggested abolishing Article 23 of the Dutch Constitution, which permits faith-based schools (p. 280).

This is a clear example of Hirsi Ali throwing out the baby with the bath water. Were all faith-based schools guilty of the same things? This seems also to be a point of inconsistency in Hirsi Ali's logic. Much of her research indicated that there was a particular problem with Islam and Muslims. She acknowledged this fact. She passionately wanted to show that the Muslim situation was different than others. Yet, in the case of faith-based schools, she attributes the particular problems of Muslim schools to all other faith-based schools by seeking to abolish the provision under which they were established.

Infidel: On 9/11

All of Hirsi Ali's questions regarding Islam came to a head after 9/11. She read many articles, watched many TV commentaries, searched the Internet regarding the attacks. She writes of her surprise at the naivety of much of the commentary:

[Analyists' articles were] about Islam being a religion of peace and tolerance, not the slightest bit violent. These were fairy tales, nothing to do with the real world I knew. (p. 270)

Were the 9/11 attacks carried out because poverty was pushing people to terrorism?

But Africa is the poorest continent, I knew, and poverty doesn't cause terrorism; truly poor people can't look further than their next meal. (p. 270)

Had the attacks brought to light a wave of Islamophobia in Holland?

None of this pseudointellectualizing had anything to do with reality. (p. 270)

Were the attacks carried out because of America's "blind" support of Israel?

This was belief, I thought. Not frustration, not poverty, colonialism, or Israel: it was about religious belief, a one-way ticket to Heaven. (p. 270)

Hirsi Ali's conclusion:

...most people think that Islam is about peace. It is from these people, honest and kind, that the fallacy has arisen that Islam is peaceful and tolerant. But I could no longer avoid seeing the totalitarianism, the pure moral framework that is Islam. It regulates every detail of life and subjugates free will. True Islam, as a rigid belief system and a moral framework, leads to cruelty. The inhuman act of those nineteen hijackers was the logical outcome of this detailed system for regulating human behavior. (p. 272)

Leaving aside the question of free will, it is clear who this enemy of Western society is. President Bush knew America was at war after 9/11, but to this day it seems he doesn't really understand who this enemy is - he still refuses to believe that this is about Islam and Islamic society.

Infidel: On leadership

In one of her discussions about the structure of Dutch culture, in stark contrast to the cultures of the African cultures in which she grew up, Hirsi Ali describes the family life of some dear friends who took her in. Among the first things she noticed:

Johanna's husband, Maarten, was not the boss of the household. The two of them talked things over together; they asked each other's advice... And Maarten helped with the housework. (p. 219)

This is a typical error in today's society. Either you're the head of the household, or you work cooperatively and jointly in running a household. It bears noting that Hirsi Ali makes this observation in contrast to the family and culture in which she was raised. There, being a leader meant doing things the things you wanted the way you wanted. But we need not and should not make leadership and cooperation mutually exclusive. A boss who seeks advice from his employees is no less a leader. In the same way, one can be the head of a family and at the same time be cooperative and self-sacrificing.

It is true that many husbands and fathers have used their headship for evil. But we cannot discard headship for that reason. Christian men are called to be heads of their families and leaders in their church communities. This is both a privilege and a great responsibility. God's Word says:

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. (Eph. 5:25-27)

Christ's headship is not characterized by his power, authority, needs, wants, desires. It is characterized by giving up of oneself - it is first about service. That's the real way of headship and leadership. What a tremendous example we men have to live up to.

Infidel: On Structure

In the second half of her book Infidel, Hirsi Ali relates her experiences in Holland after having fled there to avoid an arranged marriage with a Somali Canadian. Her initial experience of Dutch culture was one of amazement and fascination. It was so unlike the cultures of the African countries in which she had lived.

One of the biggest differences she noticed was that Dutch culture was structured. If you put your garbage out on a particular morning, the government would come and pick it up (p. 189). Buildings and streets were clean. You could walk alone on the street and be safe. Traffic was controlled (p. 185). Policemen were not oppressors or demanders of bribes (p. 190). Buses were scheduled and punctual (p. 191). Men did not go crazy if women were not covered from head to toe (p. 195-196). Disadvantaged people were taken care of (p. 199). Family life was deliberately structured (p. 219).

All these things in Dutch culture are the outworkings not of Dutch culture per se, but of Christian culture. God is a God of order. The principles of cleanliness, order, service, self-control, and charity are all prescribed by God. These principles are written all over the laws God gave the Israelites through Moses. The laws of Western society are for the most part based on these same principles, and many constitutions still point back to the Word of God as their basis.

Ultimately, Hirsi Ali was not observing the difference between Somali or Kenyan or Saudi culture and Dutch or English or American culture, or even between Islamic culture and Christian culture, but between God's prescribed way and the self-serving way of fallen human nature.

Infidel: Wimpy Misogynism

The reason the new, pure Islam of the Muslim Brothehood requires absolute separation of men and women, and hiding women in the anonymous hijab? The men are scared of the women!

From Infidel:

As women, we were immensely powerful, Sister Aziza explained. The way Allah had created us, our hair, our nails, our heels, our neck, and ankles - every little curve in our body was arousing. If a woman aroused a man who was not her husband, she was sinning doubly in God's eyes, by leading the man into temptation and evil thoughts to match her own. Only the robe worn by the wives of the Prophet could prevent us from arousing men and leading society into fitna, uncontrollable confusion and social chaos.

The woman's form created to be arousing to a man? Check.
Deliberately leading men into temptation is sin? With you so far.
Wearing the hijab and social chaos are mutually exclusive? Whoa! Stop right there!

Women are so powerful that they must be covered up, and men are so weak that they can't be trusted to be responsible for their thoughts and actions. Going to this extreme is an easy way for men to avoid the nuisance of personal morality and responsibility. That said, I'm not sure the pendulum hasn't swung too far the other way in the Western world.

Infidel: African Political Systems in the 70s

I'm doing a second reading of Infidel, Hirsi Ali's memoir.

Largely due to her father's involvement in the resistance against the Somali leader Siad Barré, Hirsi Ali was moved from country to country. She was born in Somalia, lived in Mecca and Riyadh in Saudi Arabia, and then briefly in Ethiopia before moving to Kenya.

Right before she discusses the move to Kenya, she offers this gem of a reflection on the political systems she had lived under:

That is how, by the time I turned ten, I had lived through three different political systems, all of them failures. The police state in Mogadishu rationed people into hunger and bombed them into obedience. Islamic law in Saudi Arabia treated half its citizens like animals, with no rights or recourse, disposing of women without regard. And the old Somali rule of the clan, which saved you when you needed refuge, so easily broke down into suspicion, conspiracy, and revenge. (p.60)

No wonder she can not subscribe to the PC relativist notion that all civilizations and political systems are equal.

The Phobia Fallacy

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is outspoken against abuses in the Islamic world. The most obvious of these are abuse against women, adulterers, and of course, homosexuals. So she often comes to their defense. This is good. We cannot consent to the killing of homosexuals for being homosexual. But this should also not preclude vigorous debate about homosexuality.

In the interview discussed earlier, Hirsi Ali rejects the term Islamophobia because Islam is not an inherent trait, as race and sex are, for instance. Critiquing an idea or practice is not necessarily an act of phobia. (Even hatred of an idea or practice is not de facto phobia.) This is a sound argument. The term Islamophobia is very new, created and used deliberately to shut down critical debate about Islam by putting it on the same level as racism. Redefining the debate is a favourite tactic for those who don't have the facts on their side.

Those who created the term Islamophobia were merely copying those who created the term homophobia. This term, while older, is still a relatively young term, created for the very same reasons, with great success. It makes the assumption that homosexuality is an inherent trait, and therefore is off-limits for critical debate. Homosexual activists have been quick to label detractors racists. The problem is that they do so with impunity, even though it is absurd to equate inclinations or behaviour with race.

So we hear Hirsi Ali making the same error with regard to homophobia as she is refuting in regard to Islamophobia. To her credit, the error is not due to obviously faulty logic, but to a false premise. Her logic is sound; if homosexuality is an innate trait, determined by one's genes, then sexual orientation could legitimately be considered to be on the same plane as sex and race. It is her premise regarding sexual orientation - "It's something you can't do anything about" - that is fallacious. Homosexuals are not born that way. There is no gay gene. Thus homophobia joins Islamophobia in the dictionary of deceptive nonentities, and we should strive for vigorous debate about the health and effects of both Islamic society and homosexual behaviour.

The Qur'an

One of the main themes in Infidel is Hirsi Ali's struggle to distinguish between Islamic practice and what it actually says in the Qur'an (or Koran), the holy book of Islam. Her conclusion is that some of the worst abuses she witnessed and underwent had legitimate basis in the Qur'an.

I've been following a series on Hot Air called Blogging the Qur'an, by Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch. It details what is actually written in the Qur'an, as well as how certain passages are interpreted and practiced. Well worth the read.

Infidel

I'm currently reading Infidel, a book by Ayaan Hirsi Ali. In a nutshell, she was born a Somali Muslim, fled to the Netherlands, and became an MP in Dutch parliament. Currently, she is living under guard in the US due to death threats. All this because she dares to tackle the tough issues of Muslim assimilation (or lack thereof) and the plight of Muslim women.

I hope to interact with several parts of this book in the near future. As a primer, check out this video I first saw at Little Green Footballs, one of my favourite blogs.


The video gives an idea of Hirsi Ali's quiet, confident disposition. It's easier to be that way when you have the facts on your side. A lesson in contrast is Avi Lewis, who needs to be loud and obnoxious to get his point across. To be clear, Lewis is Canadian, as I am. This interview - if it can be called that - is from the CBC, the Canadian equivalent of the BBC. Lewis more directly states his views than most CBC journalists - and Canadian journalists, for that matter - but he says what most of them are thinking.

It's worth hearing twice, and it's too easy to demolish Lewis's objections, especially since Hirsi Ali does it first. But here's a good analysis from Dennis Prager: Part 1 | Part 2




As with Infidel, I take issue with some of things she says, and I'll tackle those later.