Did you know that when ex-Muslim women are threatened with death for speaking out against Islam, it’s partly their own fault for being “provocateurs”?
No, really. According to Nicholas D. Kristof at the New York Times, anyway.
And it’s striking me anew just how twisted religious apologists can get when they write about atheists. Twisted to the point where they’ll become condescending, trivializing, and patronizing about anyone writing harsh words for religion — no matter how valid that harshness is, no matter how solidly grounded it is in both hard evidence and personal experience. They’ll twist themselves into some truly ugly moral contortions… simply so they won’t have to look carefully at the harsh words about religion, and consider whether they might be valid.
Here’s the skinny. (Via Pharyngula, of course) In his New York Times review of Ayaan Hirsi-Ali’s new book, Nomad, Nicholas D. Kristof had the following to say:
Even now, she needs bodyguards.
That’s partly because she is by nature a provocateur, the type of person who rolls out verbal hand grenades by reflex.
And this:
After her father’s death, Hirsi Ali connects by telephone with her aging and long-estranged mother living in a dirt-floor hut in Somalia. Hirsi Ali asks forgiveness, but the conversation goes downhill when her mother pleads with her to return to Islam. Near tears, her mother asks: “Why are you so feeble in faith?… You are my child and I can’t bear the thought of you in hell.”
“I am feeble in faith because Allah is full of misogyny,” Hirsi Ali thinks to herself. “I am feeble in faith because faith in Allah has reduced you to a terrified old woman — because I don’t want to be like you.” What she says aloud is: “When I die I will rot.” (For my part, I couldn’t help thinking that perhaps Hirsi Ali’s family is dysfunctional simply because its members never learned to bite their tongues and just say to one another: “I love you.”) [emphasis mine]
And this:
Her memoir suggests that she never quite outgrew her rebellious teenager phase, but also that she would be a terrific conversationalist at a dinner party.
Okay. Deep breath. Calm blue ocean, calm blue ocean.
We all know who Ayaan Hirsi-Ali is, right? Author, politician, atheist activist? The woman whose Muslim family had a clitoridectomy performed on her when she was five years old? The woman whose Muslim family tried to force her into an arranged marriage with her cousin? The woman who, for several years now, has had to live under extraordinarily heightened security, due to serious threats on her life from Muslim extremists because of her outspoken criticism of Islam?
You’d think that if anyone on this planet had a right to speak out with passionate rage at religion, it’d be Ayaan Hirsi-Ali.
But apparently not. Apparently, Hirsi-Ali’s passionate rage at religion comes about because “she never quite outgrew her rebellious teenager phase.” Apparently, Hirsi-Ali’s problems with her family stem from the fact that she can’t bite her tongue and say “I love you” — and not from, oh, say, the fact that they cut off her clitoris when she was five, and then tried to force her into an arranged marriage.
And apparently — for the sweet love of Loki and all the gods in Valhalla, I am not making this up, it’s right there in black and white in the New York Times — the reason she needs bodyguards is that she’s “by nature a provocateur, the type of person who rolls out verbal hand grenades by reflex.”
Right. Her need for bodyguards couldn’t possibly have anything to do with the fact that she dares to speak out against religious extremists who have an extensive history of trying to silence criticism with violence, and who have openly threatened her with death. It’s her provocative nature that’s at least partly to blame. She really ought to control her tongue. Maybe she should say “I love you” more.
I’m not going to get into Kristof’s “it’s so unfair to focus on the violent misogyny so prevalent in Islam, when there are nice moderate Muslims who are hospitable to guests and do wonderful charity work” line. (Except to point out, as Stephen Fry did about the Catholic Church child rape scandal, that when someone’s been accused of torture and rape, it’s not generally considered a valid defense to say, “But you didn’t mention what nice birthday present I bought for my father!”)
That’s not where I want to go. And even if it was, I’m not sure I could go there.
Because Kristof’s patronization, his condescension, his trivialization of Hirsi-Ali’s experiences with religion and her entirely valid rage about them is making me so angry, I can barely see straight.
Can Kristof really not hear what he sounds like? Does he really not get what it sounds like to express greater concern about Hirsi-Ali’s “strident,” “overheated,” “over-the-top exaggerations” than he does about a religion that cuts off girls’ clitorises and then tries to kill them when they complain about it? Is he really that unwilling to consider the possibility that harsh criticism and passionate rage against religion might be valid… so unwilling that he’ll twist himself into a moral pretzel to avoid looking at it? Is he really so ethically tone-deaf?
But there I go again: just another angry atheist with my strident, overheated rhetoric. I guess I haven’t outgrown my rebellious teenager phase. I really should learn to shut up when I see outrages committed in the name of religion, and simply say “I love you” instead. I guess I’m just a provocateur by nature, reflexively rolling out those mean old verbal hand grenades.
Let’s hope that one of them hits Kristof squarely on the ass.
