Statement in support of CEMB sent to Pride Community Advisory Board.

I sent this in support of CEMB in light of the formal complaint made against them over their placards in this years Pride. 

Dear Community Advisory Board

I am an 2nd gen SE Asian immigrant, a cultural Muslim and LGBT ally. I marched with my company in Pride this year, are part of our Pride team and have been a long time proponent of LGBT rights for many decades. 

I am writing in support of the CEMB team who marched near us in this years Pride, as in an article in the Evening Standard of 14th July 2017, the clerics have stated they would be complaining about the CEMB presence and their placards and make accusations of Islamophobia.

LGBT are a persecuted minority within Islam and Ex-Muslims are a persecuted minority within Islam. Ex-Muslim LGBT are a subset who are persecuted in two ways, as apostates, and as LGBT. In the UK they are a persecuted minority within the Muslim community. In Muslim countries they fall within the classic defintion of an oppressed and persecuted minority. Muslims hold power, privilege and prejudice, they form the majority, in this context, they are the oppressors. Homophobia in Islamic society is systematic and institutionalised, LGBT are oppressed by the law, by the state, by the authorities, at community level and at a family level. Similar applies to apostates. Both face death, violence and punishment in Muslim countries under law or culture, in the West they face violence, shunning and exile from family and communities. 

I maintain an internet safety guide and advice for ex-Muslims and LGBT Muslims espousing levels of anonymity far beyond what anyone needs in the West because abroad we are being murdered for being who we are and the social media companies and ISPs work with the state and authorities to disclose our identities. Even in the UK we are not safe, and have to maintain anonymity and secrecy.

Ex-Muslim LGBT and Ex-Muslims cannot be Islamophobic. We hold no power, no privilege. The danger is real, not an "irrational phobia" implied by the Islamophobia label.  I fully agree that in any other context, one where the bearers held privilege over Muslims the signs would be offensive, but as the minority the CEMB LGBT have the right to shock, to cause outrage, to engage discussion and promote their experiences and oppression.

This is an attempt to erase our experiences and silence our voice. I strongly object to our oppressors claiming victimhood and continuing our oppression by attempting to exclude our voice from future Pride parades. 

Thank you for your time in listening.

<name>

https://www.reddit.com/r/ExMuslimSafety/
http://socjusculture.blogspot.co.uk

Reply to Pink News article on Ex-Muslims

This post is a reply to the Pink News article of 7th July, titled "‘Ex-Muslim’ group bats away Islamophobia claims ahead of Pride in London march which made some serious accusations that being an "ex-Muslim" is provocative and Islamophobic, and discussed some of the controversy caused by their attending Pride London 2017. The group also described the attacks they have been facing for marching.

LGBT are a persecuted minority under Islam and Ex-Muslims are a persecuted minority under Islam. Ex-Muslim LGBT are a subset who are persecuted in two ways, as apostates, and as LGBT.

Muslims hold power, privilege and prejudice, they form the majority, they are the oppressors. Homophobia is systematic and institutionalised, LGBT are oppressed by the law, by the state, by the authorities, at community level and at a family level. Similar applies to apostates. Both face death, violence and punishment in Muslim countries under law or culture, in the West they face violence, shunning and exile.

I maintain an internet safety guide and advice for ex-Muslims and LGBT Muslims espousing levels of anonymity far beyond what anyone needs in the West because we are being murdered for being who we are and the social media companies and ISPs work with the state and authorities to disclose our identities. I can only assume Mayer Nissim is able to write for Pink News openly under their own name.

Ex-Muslim LGBT cannot be Islamophobic. The danger is real, not an "irrational phobia". The article, its tone and its attitude skirts the line of adding to their oppression by delegitimatising our oppression, and erasing our experiences. Not a good show from PinkNews.

Minorities within Islam, identity politics and the false allure of white supremacy.

One of the things I'm seeing a lot since Orlando is the intersection of identity politics and Islam, be it directly via allyship in the social justice world, or with the reluctance of left media, social media and politicians to discuss Islam in a critical manner.

I was going to start by linking a bookmarked reddit post from a girl in the Middle East whose depression was diagnosed as jinn possession and was beaten to exorcise it but when I checked has since been deleted. I also had some other apostate and LGBT horror stories too but decided it was best to leave them as private as Ex-Muslims often delete their reddit histories. All sorts can be found on reddit though, go look for the advice/help tag. I know these stories are emulated in the West, Christianity breeds its monsters too, but not many places where the legal system and society is against the victim, and with a complete absence of a support network.

For many Ex-Muslims and LGBTs across the Middle East, North Africa, if outed the risk the following: their family will kill them, their teachers or co-workers will kill them, their neighbours will kill them, the police and authorities will kill them, and most importantly all may be in accordance with the law of the land. If it ever reached courts that is, as its mostly recorded as domestic, honour killings or just as missing. 

I can't really say that this top to bottom, institutional, cultural and societal sanctioned hate and murder is the oft argued "small percentage of extremists" either, can anyone else?

How many Christian-atheists have to use Tor and proxies just to talk to each other? Or Christian LGBTs? How many Western governments monitor and arrest relating to atheism or LGBT causes? I follow Frank Mugisha on Twitter, an out LGBT activist in one of the most anti-gay Christian countries on Earth, Uganda. Even though he is genuinely at risk of his life, other than perhaps in Turkey, Jordan, or Lebanon he does not have an analogue in the Middle East or North Africa. Surely this must underline how pervasive this is, and how intrinsic to religion and culture this is?

Politically I'm moderate and way to the left as far as some ex-Muslims go. I've pulled back from some ex-Muslim communities as some were allying not just with alt-right but with genuine white supremacists and nationalists. Some of this is driven by left support of Islamism. 

You can imagine what Somalis, Saudis, and others feel when they finally leave Sharia lands and are faced with unwavering left wing support and allyship with the Islamists who oppressed them and the mind-boggling insanity of white Westerners and other non-Muslims actually joining in with shunning and engaging in verbal attacks on apostasy. Or LGBT Muslims facing the LGBT societies allied with the Islamist organisations and whites playing dress-up in hijabs in solidarity with the "empowered" burka brigade. All this whilst being endlessly lectured on how the hell-hole they left is a product of "beautiful religion". How must it feel when all of a sudden they are lower on the progressive stack than the cleric invited into their communities to speak at an event on killing gays?

The non-Western ex-Muslims will ally with the far right as the supremacists are the only ones who are listening and "supporting" them. As they haven't lived in the West for long, they just don't realise the far right dont care about if they've given up god or not, they are just brown people and to be used for their advantage, and they are hated as much as Muslims. Even those born in the West are younger and have probably never experienced the open racism that was common in the 70s and 80s and just don't understand white supremacism. 

They hate you for the colour of your skin, or what food you eat, or what language you speak, or the spelling of your name, or for what you accent sounds like. It was never just about religion, and never will be.

I cannot stress this hard enough, the far right and white supremacists have never been or will never be an ally of ex-Muslims or any non-whites. They do not regard us as human, they plan to exterminate, deport or enslave us all. To enable and empower them is to doom our own future.

A short note on paternal racism in 2016

I've recently seen reference to paternal racism, where whites assume the role of white saviour or parent for non-whites. This was originally framed with the ugly concept of non-whites being child-like, or less intelligent and cultured and born in the days of colonialism.

In 2016 paternal racism has evolved, it is now part of the argument against cultural appropriation and other arguments at the intersection of race, but with the racist (or subconsciously racist) aspect of non-whites as children being joined by social media battles for personal karma and for control and dominance over their peers, or as amusingly noticed on social media, the lone white male acting as a gallant white knight for female affections.

The numbers appear to support this. The native appropriation website related to the Washington Redskins logo controversy critiques the results of a survey that showed that only 10% of those interviewed were offended by the term and logo. The outcry was based on an assumption that offense of the logo was universal, but it showed essentially that this was a white on white issue. The website, although a creation of Native Americans is phrased in the language of the educated white middle class, and the majority of the protagonists and antagonists are white. This does raise some interesting questions, what would be the personal motivations of those engaged in the cultural appropriation game? Are they doing it for themselves or for the greater good?

Corbyn: Judge him by the friends he keeps.

I've known the name Jeremy Corbyn for a long time, but as my interest in the politics has never been too strong, he remained little more a name and a vague understanding he was pretty much like one of those right on Labour teachers that prowled the corridors of my comprehensive in the eighties,  the type who owned a Citroen 2CV with a CND sticker on the back and always wore a red tie.

Dominating party political news at the moment is Jeremy Corbyns rising popularity in the leadership elections. His position is somewhat to the left of everyone else, even going so far as encouraging the more boisterous members of the social media's right wing punditry to joining Labour en masse to vote for him, as he's regarded as guaranteeing Tory victory.

My interest here lies in a faction of the far-left, those heavily tied up in pro-Palestine, anti-Israel, anti-racism, anti-Islamophobia causes. One of these, the "Stop The War Coalition" is a coalition of various groups at the heart of this. Founded on noble ideals and contributing to the anti-war protests around Iraq, Corbyn is a founder member and currently a board member. Stop The War grew from the anti Iraq war protests but is now focused on Palestine, Israel and other Muslim causes.  I watch these guys in the awareness that their opposition to Western interests has lead them to ally with various Islamist factions, including some quite extreme, and well I don't like those guys as they are somewhat enthusiastic about obeying some of the more extreme commands regarding apostasy. The type of command that puts me in an orange jumpsuit before being uploaded to Liveleak. So, some of these left factions apply identity politics to the point where they defend their underprivileged Muslim allies in all matters, including shunning of apostates and blasphemers. All sorts of loaded phrases are used, and one that I found of particular issue was the term "native informant"

I first came across the term native informants in relation to this. 

Native informants is a phrase used to describe ex-Muslims, but not as merely those who reject and campaign against their former religion, but as collaborators and traitors.  The image shown? That from a talk by Deepa Kumar (shown), Max Blumenthal (remember this name) and Lindsey German, Convenor of Stop the War Coalition. It insinuates that ex-Muslims are working with Zionists and White Supremacists to attack Islam and have even styled as "New McCarthyites, a loaded phrase, and somewhat ironic seeing how they to exist to cleanse society of what they regard to be wrong. CAGE were also prominent at that conference (Bath University - IPR - Understanding Conflict) and you may know CAGE from their vocal support of ISIS beheader, Jihadi John. The conference was also organised by one of the University of Bath lecuturers, David Miller.

Many ex-Muslims, Ayran Ali Hirsi, Maryam Namazie or even moderate anti-extremists like Maajid Nawaz are attacked by these factions due to speaking out against extremist Islam. These attacks often come from supporters or even directly from the organisations and are couched in the same language of the identity politics warriors around the world. Racist. Islamophobe. Bigot. Oppressor. This is somewhat ironic as it is highly notable that the principle authors of the attacks against the two non-white, feminist, ex-Muslim women I mentioned are often middle or upper class white and non-Muslim. This will become a theme in this blog.

Max Blumenthal came to my attention due to his rabid verbal assaults on Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who I admire. He isnt just any old Blumenthal, this is the son of Hilary Clintons advisor Sidney Blumenthal, and is Washington elite. He is known for a brand of anti-Israel, anti-Zionist writing that is near indistinguishable from anti-Semitic views held by his opposites on the right.

Max spoke at an anti-Israel event at Westminster sponsored by Corbyn, also present at that event was a chap called James Thring, who is linked to David Irving and Lady Michèle Renouf, allegedly the intellectual arm of Holocaust Denial.

Outside of Corbyn's welfare and economic policies (which as a socialist I dont have too much of an issue with) his involvement in other causes is much more troubling, and its those causes and their supporters I am very much opposed to.

An opposition leader who actively works with Shia propaganda vehicles, who stands alongside extremist Islamist factions, who would support foreign interests over our own, and who actively works with activists for whom anti-Semitism is a hairline gap from their anti-Zionism is one for who it's right to be concerned.