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Challenging Secularities, Challenging Religion: 'Secularist Ex Journal of journal of religion in europe 11 (2018) 348-377 Religion in Europe brill.com/jre Challenging Secularities, Challenging Religion: ‘Secularist Ex-Muslim Voices’ in the British Debate on Islam and Freedom of Expression Maria Vliek Faculty of Philosophy, Theology & Religious Studies, Radboud University Nijmegen [email protected] Abstract This article uses the interpretative device of ‘multiple secularities’ to interrogate the presence of ‘secularist ex-Muslim voices’ in the British debate on Islam and freedom of expression. By contrasting Britain with the Netherlands, where these voices are currently relatively absent, it will examine ‘secularist ex-Muslim voices’ as expressed at the International Conference on Freedom of Conscience and Ex- pression in London, July 2017. It argues that these voices have surfaced here due to Britain’s particular history of secularity for the sake of accommodating diversity. They challenge institutionalized levels (state-church relations, multiculturalism, and communitarianism) and social and cultural forms (debate on freedom of ex- pression and Islamophobia). These voices are relatively absent in the Netherlands due to its dominant secularity for the sake of social/national integration. Due to the particular histories of secularity, reference problems that surface in Britain have less bearing on the Dutch situation. These voices have, therefore, been relatively absent. Keywords secularity – religion – ex-Muslim – Britain – Islam – freedom of expression – multiple secularities © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/18748929-01104004Downloaded from Brill.com09/25/2021 07:30:22PM via free access <UN> Challenging Secularities, Challenging Religion 349 1 Introduction We make no apologies. We will not live on our knees. We are the tsunami that is coming.1 These were the final words with which Maryam Namazie opened the Inter- national Conference on Freedom of Conscience and Expression in London, on 22 July 2017. Her words referred to the growing number of ex-Muslims and atheists from Islamic communities who speak out against Islam. The confer- ence marked the tenth anniversary of the Council of Ex-Muslims in Britain (cemb) and aimed to bring together secularists and freethinkers from all over the world.2 At the conference, panels consisted of people such as Deeyah Khan, film maker of the documentary Islam’s Non-believers (2016), scientist and atheist Richard Dawkins, spokesperson for the campaign One Law for All Gina Khan, co-founder of Ex-Muslims of North America Sarah Haider, lgbt ex-Muslim activist Jimmy Bangash, author and broadcaster Kenan Malik, di- rector of the Centre for Secular Space Gita Sahgal, and many more. Issues such as Islamophobia, apostasy and blasphemy, communalism and multicultural- ism, secularism, and identity politics were discussed. Although many opinions were shared, the general atmosphere and rhetoric is best described by Namaz- ie’s own agenda. Namazie is, among other things, the founder and chair of the Council of Ex- Muslims in Britain. She has criticized Islam and, in particular, what she refers to as ‘Islamism’—political appropriation of Islam. She has frequently referred to apostates and blasphemers in Muslim majority countries who are being persecuted for asserting their right to freedom of conscience. Consequently, she has castigated British left-wing parties and public figures for siding with Islamists by only recognizing values of liberty when it concerns themselves but not when it concerns Muslims.3 This so-called regressive left, according to Namazie, has imposed de facto blasphemy laws in the West by the accusation 1 Nano GoleSorkh, “Maryam Namazie: Celebrating Apostasy and Blasphemy,” 26 July 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3Hb38s9jAQ (accessed 13 June 2018). 2 In light of my PhD project focusing on people leaving Islam in Europe, I attended this event. My research project aims to shed light on the experiences of moving out of Islam in Europe, as well as complications of ‘speaking out’ and ‘being out.’ Fieldwork has been conducted over eighteen months, during which forty-four people have been interviewed, twenty-two in the Netherlands, and twenty-two in the uk, on their experiences of leaving faith behind. 3 Maryam Namazie, “Walking a Tightrope: Between the Pro-Islamist Left and the Far Right,” 7 May 2014. http://onelawforall.org.uk/walking-a-tightrope-between-the-pro-islamist-left- and-the-far-right/ (accessed 3 May 2018). journal of religion in europe 11 (2018) 348-377 Downloaded from Brill.com09/25/2021 07:30:22PM via free access <UN> 350 Vliek of Islamophobia when it concerns public criticism of Islamic doctrine. These controversial opinions have led to accusations from Muslims and non- Muslims alike of racism and siding with right-wing populists, which Namazie has refuted.4 During the conference, panelists and speakers stressed time and again the ‘incommensurable divide’ between Islam and secularism.5 They asserted their authority to do so by claiming to be ‘a voice from within’—a voice that as- sumes that since one has been ‘inside’ Islam has thereby the knowledge (often through victimhood) to now speak out against it.6 My larger research project focuses on people who could potentially take up such roles: they have Islamic backgrounds, they are from the Netherlands or Britain, and they no longer be- lieve in God nor have they converted to another religion. I attended the Con- ference mentioned above in the middle of my fieldwork, and I jotted down various occasions that ‘multiculturalism,’ state appropriation, and legal incor- poration of religious sensibilities seemed to be what participants of the Con- ference argued against. I also noted, that these were themes that at the time were not particularly present in the Dutch debate nor were ‘voices from within’ currently contesting such issues. A prominent ‘voice from within’—or what I will now refer to as ‘secular- ist ex-Muslim voices’—did, at one point, surface in the Netherlands, that is Ayaan Hirsi Ali who entered politics in 2002. The Somali-born was the first Dutch politician to confront issues of Islam in the West by stressing her inti- mate knowledge of the ‘darkness’ of her former religion. Islam was, according to her, threatening the ‘Enlightenment values’ of the Netherlands. Although she left the country in 2006, Dutch right-wing politics have since been domi- nated by like-minded politician Geert Wilders who pursues a nationalist, anti- Islam, anti-Europe agenda.7 In this light, my research interlocutors from the Netherlands who I interviewed with regards to their loss of faith often thought that what Namazie calls “the celebration of apostasy and blasphemy” was 4 Idem, “One Law for All Has No Links with Anne Marie Waters and Sharia Watch,” 7 May 2014. http://onelawforall.org.uk/anne-marie-waters-is-leaving-post-of-spokesperson/ (accessed 3 May 2018). 5 Saba Mahmood, “Religious Reason and Secular Affect: An Incommensurable Divide?,” Criti- cal Inquiry 35/4 (2009), 836–862. 6 Idem, “Feminism, Democracy, and Empire: Islam and the War on Terror,” in: Hanna Herzog & Ann Braude (eds.), Gendering Religion and Politics: Untangling Modernities (New York: Palgrave McMillan, 2009) 193–215. 7 See also Elizabeth Poole, “The Case of Geert Wilders: Multiculturalism, Islam, and Identity in the uk,” Journal of Religion in Europe 5/2 (2012), 162–191. journal of religion inDownloaded europe from 11 Brill.com09/25/2021 (2018) 348-377 07:30:22PM via free access <UN> Challenging Secularities, Challenging Religion 351 more harmful rather than helpful toward the plight of those that wish to leave Islam.8 Besides not necessarily feeling much resentment towards Islam or Muslims, many of my interlocutors in the Netherlands feared that if they were to speak out then their narratives could be utilized by Geert Wilders or other populist politicians, aiming to exclude Muslims. So why do these particular activist and political voices currently emerge and assemble in Britain, but not in the Netherlands? I argue that ‘secularist ex-Muslim voices’ have recently emerged in the public debate in Britain and not as much in the Netherlands because of these countries’ respective histories of secularity. The way the state treats its reli- gious minorities as well as the social and cultural meanings that define and contest religious and secular spaces have raised particular problems that ‘secu- larist ex-Muslim voices’ currently contest in Britain. I contend that because of the particular developments of secularities in the Netherlands and the refer- ence problems these produce, this voice has not surfaced there in recent years. Because Britain has been predominantly marked by a secularity that seeks to accommodate religious diversity, ‘secularist ex-Muslim voices’ criticize both policy as well as the cultural norms it produces, which allegedly accommodate Islamism. In order to shed light on why ‘secularist ex-Muslim voices’ currently surface in Britain but are relatively absent in the Netherlands, this article will first elab- orate on the theoretical concept of ‘multiple secularities.’9 Second, an analysis will be provided on the particulars of dominant British secularity and its con- testations on institutionalized levels and the policies it has produced. Third, in order to explore the social and cultural domains of secularity in Britain, the reception of the Danish cartoon affair in 2006 and the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo attacks in 2015 by the British press and commentators will be elabo- rated on. Last, in order to unpack the ‘secularist ex-Muslim discourse’ and its particular surfacing in Britain, a case study concerning the above-mentioned conference will be presented. Throughout this article, the Dutch situation will be utilized as a contrast against which the British situation becomes particu- larly salient. 8 GoleSorkh, “Maryam.” On injury and blasphemy, see also Christoph Baumgartner, “Blasphe- my as Violence: Trying to Understand the Kind of Injury that Can Be Inflicted by Acts and Artefacts that Are Construed as Blasphemy,” Journal of Religion in Europe 6/1 (2013), 35–63.
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