Sunday, October 5, 2014

Fact Checking Reza Haslan on Human Rights in Muslim Majority Countries (Other Than Iran and Saudi Arabia)

Reza Aslan, in a recent CNN interview, was at great pains to convince the world that there is something not only illogical and ridiculous about the idea that human rights violations are widespread in the Muslim world, but that anyone who says so is a bigot. According to Aslan, serious human rights violations are limited to Iran and Saudi Arabia, whereas in the rest of the Muslim world there is freedom and equality.

Go here to see what Aslan says in his own words (that link has both the original unedited video and the full transcript). Aslan was responding to what Bill Maher had said in an earlier interview, and that interview (again, the full undedited video along with full transcript) is here. The money-quote from Bill Maher is, "[Islam is] the only religion that acts like the Mafia that will fucking kill you if you say the wrong thing, draw the wrong picture, or write the wrong book."

Aslan claims that the "bigoted" negative view of Islam voiced by Bill Maher is dramatically disproven by the specific cases of Indonesia, Malaysia, Bangladesh and Turkey. One has to wonder what the fuck Aslan was smoking when he said this. Indonesia is a country where over 70% of the population is in favor of Sharia law, Malaysia is the country that kidnapped Hamza Kashgari and extradited him back to Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh has a sinister history of murderous violence against it's Hindu and Buddhist minorities, and Turkey, while once something of a paragon of genuine "moderate" Islam, is now home to one of the most popular and politically powerful fundamentalist mass movements in the contemporary Islamic world.

Indonesia:
Malaysia:
Bangladesh:
Turkey:

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2 comments:

  1. Apuleius PlatonicusOctober 7, 2014 at 11:20 PM

    Hi Aetius,

    Thanks for your comment. Unfortunately, the Left is well-trained in self-delusion. I say that as someone who still considers himself a leftist.

    Another major aspect of this current brouhaha is that know-nothing celebrities like Afflek and Maher are actually just as informed, or at least as informative, as "academics" like Aslan.

    And one side-effect of Aslan's rising star is that his old graduate school advisor, Mark Juergensmeyer, is now getting more attention - for example he was on NPR this afternoon more or less defending ISIS (or at least defending the phenomenon of widespread popular support among Sunnis for ISIS) as more or less just a "political" movement for protecting Sunni "rights" against Shia encroachments in Iraq and Syria. The guy is a real piece of work, and an excellent example of the worst case scenario of a Christian leftist "intellectual".

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousOctober 9, 2014 at 7:35 AM

    Yeah, give it a few decades. People like Juergensmeyer and their Anarchist, Antifa fellow-travellers will be cheerfully throwing our Pagan brothers and sisters under the Sharia bus in Europe. We'll be accused of racism and 'Islamophobia' for pointing it out when the time comes...faster than you can say, "Aloha Snackbar!"

    Cue the Jewish lesbian Marxists urging on the destruction of Israel. Yes, Israel, the only place in the Middle East where LGBT people [and Pagans] can walk the streets in relative safety.

    By the Gods, it's like turkeys voting for American Thanksgiving.

    Aetius

    ReplyDelete

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