Nowadays statements are not evaluated on the basis of whether or not they’re true, but on the basis of who says them. What Obaid Omer says here is quite correct, and I’ve been saying it for years. But of course Newsweek wouldn’t be caught dead publishing someone who has been subject to the same process of libel, demonization, and cancellation that Omer alludes to here. It is a good thing they published Obaid Omer. Maybe this message will be heeded when it comes from him.
“I Left Islam for Liberal Values. Now Woke Liberals Are Embracing a New Religion | Opinion,” by Obaid Omer, Newsweek, April 23, 2021:
I was raised in a religious Muslim home and practiced the faith for a long time. Eventually, I realized I was not a religious man, after spending a long time educating myself, immersed in our texts. Certain things bothered me after I investigated them deeply. I felt the hijab was misogynistic, and I opposed the strain of violence that had emerged from our holy books. Then there were the blasphemy laws outlined in the Quran, which seemed like the opposite of the liberal values I believe in. As a secular man, I went about my life, working as a contractor for the Canadian military for over a decade in Kosovo, Sudan, Bosnia, Haiti, and then Afghanistan. I encountered other Muslims, and others like me, who were not longer Muslim. But when I came back to Canada in 2014, I returned to a different country than the one I had left.
I had left a country that was proud of being the opposite of what bothered me about Islam, that was proud of a tradition of free inquiry and free speech, open debate and civil discourse. The Canada I returned to resembled the religion of my youth more than it did its opposite.
I left a culture that was steeped in a sentiment that could be summed up as, “I may disagree with what you say, but I respect your right to say it.” I returned to a culture summarized by, “I disagree with what you say, so shut up.”
Now, Ex-Muslims like me who criticized the religion of our youth were called horrible slurs: “house Muslims,” “native informants,” “Uncle Toms,” or bounty bars, implying we were brown on the outside but white inside. Strangers called me a white supremacist for saying the hijab is misogynistic. In October of 2014, Sam Harris had his infamous exchange with Ben Affleck. Harris laid out a compelling case about Islam and spoke of its concentric circles of fundamentalism. Affleck called his argument “gross and racist.”
The dam broke. Once they started calling it racist to criticize Islam, it was easy to shut the conversation down completely. The accusation meant the accused was morally beyond the pale, and thus completely dismissible. Words like micro-aggressions, trigger warnings, and safe spaces became mainstream. An emphasis on pervasive racism grew exponentially. To even question the extent to which racism was everywhere resulted in accusations of being a racist. Like with religious blasphemy codes, you can only talk about certain topics in specific ways.
I couldn’t help but notice there was an almost fundamentalist, faith-like aspect to these claims. It was as if in the years since I’d been gone, our society had decided to adopt the blasphemy codes of my youth. When I heard people asked to check their privilege or introspect the ways they have been racist, it sounded like the inner jihad that Muslims are supposed to perform to make sure they are on the correct path.
How did this happen? How did the religious tenets I had abandoned come to take over the liberal culture I had abandoned them for?
To answer this question, I did what I had once done with the texts of Islam: I educated myself. I started reading about critical race theory and Intersectionality. I spent eighteen months reading critical social justice scholarship, and gender and queer theories. It was here I found the rejection of the Enlightenment values that made these theories closer to religion than to its opposite.
But there are many other similarities. In Islam, giving offense to the pious is considered a grave sin. Recall the 2015 murders at the French publication Charlie Hebdo; the artists had insulted the Prophet Muhammad and his followers, and thus deserved to die. But there’s a less extreme version of causing harm through giving offense that’s known as “fitna”—doing something that causes civil strife. A woman can cause fitna by dressing provocatively, as can someone who questions Islam publicly.
You can see this idea that giving offense causes harm everywhere in the new critical social justice culture. Anything that gives offense to marginalized people must be repressed for the good of society. And anyone criticizing people of color too strenuously or offending them must be deplaformed and canceled….
Infidel says
Obaid, congratulations on leaving that cult: you proved that you’re better than that!
mortimer says
Obaid Omer has confirmed everything that Robert Spencer has written in his 20 books about the authentic doctrines of Islamic supremacism and jihadic warfare against non-Muslim disbelievers.
Thank you, Mr. Omer.
gravenimage says
Hear, hear, Infidel and Mortimer!
Brando says
Very Very Strange that NEWSWEEK, usually so anti-reason, has actually published such an article,but refreshing.
A BOOK TO READ
“What Catholics Need to Know about Islam ” (2020)
by WILLIAM KILPATRICK ( 448 pages )
A VIDEO ABOUT IT
“The Islamic Threat and How to Defeat It” ( by William Kilpatrick and Carl Goldber )
(47 MIN )
https://youtu.be/NbL2j4oU2fE
gravenimage says
Yes–surprised but heartened to see this article from Newsweek.
Brando says
Me too
mortimer says
Obaid Omer confirms that the globalist Leftists handed the JIHADISTS a crafty weapon to BEAT the critics of Sharia supremacism. This prevents critics of Islam from getting a fair hearing for their valid critiques about Islamic violence and misogyny.
The Leftards developed the spurious idea that every criticism of Islam is ‘RACIST’, even though Islam is not a ‘race’ at all, but a POLITICAL IDEOLOGY. A political ideology is an intellectual concept.
If anything, Islam is an ARABIAN RACIST THEORY of Arabian SUPREMACISM and thus, AUTHENTIC ISLAM is RACIST TO THE VERY CORE … Arabian racism !
Islam clearly states that Arabs are DESIGNATED by ALLAH to RULE THE WORLD.
Islam is thus clearly THEOCRATIC, RACIST and FASCIST.
DavidR says
Nothing matters more than how you think other people see you. Part of this superficial image being defended includes all of your previously uttered words. Oh no. You showed a little ankle way back in 2003.
It’s kind of horrifying the way people will abuse each other just to demonstrate their imagined superior status. It approaches tyranny when one block of people acts as if their opinions are so much more right and critically important that they have the unquestionable right to undermine another person’s social existence without objection (and sometimes with a World Wide Web Parade of Vengeance).
History has already demonstrated all the ways this type of thinking can fail at even achieving it’s own goals and leave a wake of misery as it spreads. But history is racist so sit down, stop comprehending and let another random, equally baffled person tell you how much the fine is going to be for those old words.
mortimer says
Obaid Omer does NOT identify the REASON why Islamic supremacism made inroads to political influence and power in Canada. It was 100% because of the neo-Fascist, globalist Liberal Party of Canada which created a secret, unholy, political alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood. In exchange for them delivering the Muslim vote in Canada to the Liberals.
Since the 1960s, the Liberals of Canada have become increasingly soft-core Fascists. The alliance with totalitarian Islam is bad enough, but the Liberal Party has also moved successfully to subvert the free press of Canada and turn them into the government’s obedient trained seals. The IL-LIBERALs are now actively persecuting news groups that are critical of the Trudeau government. This is true fascism.
jewdog says
You see what happens when a person reads books and thinks? Intellectual repression cannot survive such activities. It’s no wonder that vampires hate sunlight.
gravenimage says
Ex-Muslim: ‘Once they started calling it racist to criticize Islam, it was easy to shut the conversation down’
………………..
Obaid Omer is grimly spot on.
tim gallagher says
I applaud anyone who packs up and leaves barbaric Islam behind, but I had a laugh at this passage from this man’s testimony: “I opposed the strain of violence that had emerged from our holy books”. What the fuck!! The murderous violence had somehow emerged from Islam’s very unholy books. The Koran is full of very direct calls for violence against the unbelievers. It is the very core of Islam. This man seems to be surprised that an unexpected “strain” of violence has emerged. It is a bit like those idiots who tell us that Islam is really and truly, basically peaceful (yeah, right) but somehow it has become distorted by some Muslims into a violent ideology. Islam is fundamentally violent and always has been and always will be. It is right there in the Koran. Anyway, all I can say is, good on you, mate, for leaving primitive, and very violent Islam. It is a great move for anyone to take.
James Lincoln says
You’re right, tim.
But Obaid Omer, most certainly, had to deal with severe cognitive dissonance during his personal journey of finding out the truth about islam.
Him mentioning of the “unexpected “strain” of violence”, perhaps, gave himself a little bit of cognitive cover – of which he likely was not even aware of.
Just my personal hypothesis…
tim gallagher says
I’m sure you’re right about that, James. It just struck me when I started reading the man’s testimony as being so strange that he seems surprised at the strain of violence in the holy books, because I remember when I tried to read the Koran (I gave up fairly quickly) the main impression I had was of the obsessive hatred for non-believers and all the calls for them to be killed. When he says that the strain of violence had “emerged” from the holy books, as though it is a puzzle how that could happen, i thought, hell, the violence is front and centre in the Koran, that very unholy book. Apart from that, I applaud this man and all others who leave Islam. I believe that it takes a lot of courage to do so.
Aussie Infidel says
Good to see someone from inside Islam trashing the woke views of useful idiots in the West. May Western politicians read and learn from Obaid Omer’s article – and do something about it.
Obaid, in the words of Mr Spock (from Star Trek), “May you live long and prosper”.
Andrew Blackadder says
Ive noticed that practicing muslims have no problem whatsoever in criticizing everybody else but cant take any criticism of their own nonsense.
So they can give it out in spades but cant take a teaspoonful back..
This guy should take a look at One Godless Woman on You Tube, she is a lovely lady, from Saudi and lives in Canada and often mentions how Canada is becoming more and more in favor of the Fascist Religious Cult she left behind her.
gravenimage says
Thanks for that reference–I’ll check her out.