What follows is a response to Ali A. Rizvi's article published in the Huffington Post May 3rd, 2013.
I’m an atheist, and while I don’t consider it an integral part of my identity, I do get a little irritated by the people that speak for us unaffiliated types. Ali A. Rizvi’s article regarding the “root causes” of Islamic extremism was well-received by noted veterans of the so-called “new atheist” movement. That’s to be expected, because he dutifully reproduced their most treasured errors.
Rizvi begins by linking the Barbary pirates and privateers of over two centuries ago to contemporary extremists in that the ultimate motivation of both peoples is their religious faith, Islam. Later in the article Rizvi is much more explicit: “To us [the new atheists], the "root causes" of jihadist terrorism are the same today as they were” in 1786. It’s a pretty stunning admission of ignorance. Such a monolithic approach to both Islam and sectarian violence can only be described as such.
Same as the old new atheists, Rizvi overemphasizes the religious heritage of his cast of characters rather than their broader circumstances. With the Barbary pirates, the motivations are clear for Rizvi: Islam did it.
The new atheists are always decrying the label of “Islamophobia,” but they’re conflated with Pamela Gellar and Daniel Pipes because they too view the actions of Muslims with a completely different standard than they view the actions of others. The Muslim-ness of an individual is the essential feature for understanding their actions.
When anyone speaks about the pirates that marauded around the Caribbean during that same time period there’s no discussion about their religious background because it’s absolutely irrelevant. It’s obvious that pirates are motivated by greed, but when the participants are Muslims they’re automatons of their faith, completely different from other life forms.
When people look back at the Spanish conquest of the “new world” it’s possible to blame the whole mess—the rapes, the pillage, the exterminations of numerous peoples and cultures—on Christianity. After all, the Spanish empire was incestuously linked to the Catholic Church. Christopher Columbus said of the enslaved Arawak people, “Let us in the name of the Holy Trinity go on sending all the slaves that can be sold.” So is the Holy Trinity the “root cause” here? Nonsense! Columbus and the conquistadors were motivated by gold, silver, and slaves. The presence of Christianity is purely coincidental.
Rizvi ridicules those who would probe past his simplistic answer seeking a “root cause.” It’s a bizarre question for Rizvi for whom the answer is so obvious, so uncomplicated. Of course Rizvi doesn’t immediately address why the majority of Muslims are not mujahideen or pirates. Though Rizvi makes the qualification that “most Muslims are good, peaceful people,” the conclusion is unavoidable: If Islam is the “root cause” of Islamic extremism, then it must follow that every Muslim has a shard of Osama bin-Laden within them, and that is simply a bridge too far.
So what are the root causes? They’re not the caricature of “American imperialism…, U.S. foreign policy, globalization, AIPAC [and] Islamophobia” that Rizvi suggests. Pakistan is a good example if we’re searching for root causes, but we must to go beyond religious identity: only 52% of the population completes grade five; 62% of the adult population is literate; 60% of the country is below the poverty line. The Pakistani state is a grossly illiberal, unfree state, not to mention a tumultuous conflict zone. The situation may seem unimaginable, but on top of all this we must add the daily terror experienced by people in North Waziristan and elsewhere who live under threat of American drone strikes. Naturally, most Pakistanis focus on survival, improving their own immediate conditions, and are perfectly rational, hospitable people, but it hardly needs pointing out that these are not conditions that produce a culture of progressive, liberal-minded progressives.
It’s a terrible mixture: abysmal education standards, widespread poverty, a scarcity of human freedom, and an obvious cord of fear to tie them all together. Now imagine that tomorrow Islam is completely removed from Pakistan. Does the state turn into an inclusionary, liberal democracy? Are economic hardships ameliorated, the people educated? To my fellow atheists: I’m sorry, but religion isn’t the problem and its eradication is no silver bullet.
Rizvi calls into question the religiosity of the “good, peaceful” Muslims by saying that they cherry-pick their religion. The question of cherry-picking is an important one, but again the new atheists enter the debate having already found their villain and thus avoid investigating further. From the majority of Muslims and Christians that lead peaceful lives to the Barbary pirates and Spanish conquistadors, all people compose their religious beliefs a la carte to suit their pre-existing aesthetics. Though these are formed by one’s environment and religion is a component, it’s not a “chicken or the egg” debate.
As atheists, we ought to be able to start out with the principle that religions were created by humans, and hence humans are responsible, but it has become a required characteristic of atheists that we also take up the mantle of “anti-theist.” It is not enough to simply remove oneself from religious practice. The orthodoxy propagated by atheism’s celebrities suggests that we must also be polemicists. Religion is made into Satan, the boogeyman, the root of all evil that we must condemn as the unmistakable source of misery and cruelty. Religion is seemingly the first cause of “patriarchy, misogyny, slavery, tribalism, xenophobia, totalitarianism and homophobia” in spite of the fact that most of these terrible things were a part of human society long before the invention of religion.
No religion today is the same as it was two-hundred years ago. Religion is practiced by people, and as people vary and change so does religious practice. I’m perfectly comfortable with criticizing religion and debunking superstition, but let’s be serious: religions don’t kill or enslave or maim people; people do. Human society is a deeply complex organism and it has many tangible problems far more malignant—and more assailable—than religion.
